Monday 15 February 2010

Gordon Brown and Piers Morgan - Politics at a New Low.

Last night we saw Piers Morgan interviewing Gordon Brown with the most personal details of his life dragged out onto the screen. Mr. Brown, a serving Prime Minister, was asked a series of completely non-political related questions (although this was clearly a pre - election stunt) including whether he had joined the Mile High Club, about his childhood and about his children.

It is my opinion it is so sad when politics is dragged into this sort of low, a low which is suitable for Z-list celebrities rather than the holder of the position of the Queen's First Minister.

What will we see next. How the Tories will choose their next leader by sending him through Big Brother? Or how about the Lib Dems going through "I'm a Celebrity get me Out of Here"?

If we continue to trivialise politics in such a way then it is simply going to lead to more and more of the electorate being turned off politics and with that fewer and fewer people voting.

5 comments:

  1. I agree, it was pretty disgraceful and it seems a desperate ploy by Gordon Brown to try and claw back votes and even get some people on his side and sympathising with him.

    It's too little too late though.

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  2. I agree - a ploy used by the Labour apparatchiks to score a sympathy vote.

    "Political theatre", is the correct term.

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  3. Haven't you considered that it could be a method to get people interested in politics? If you humanise leaders, the public will feel more associated with them and thus more likely to participate in the political process.

    You think that putting politicians in a high castle and censoring them from the new spheres of public debate is going to turn people ON to politics? rubbish.

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  4. @ Anonymous

    But that's like saying "surely more people will be interested in football if we talk about the footballers private lives?" Well yeah more people will know the names of the footballers - but it won't suddenly make a bunch of teenaged girls actually want to watch football and enjoy the game right? Making leaders "more human" by airing their dirty laundry and personal tragedies in public won't make people more interested in fundamental political issues like education or taxation: it'll just encourage plebs who don't care to vote for somebody regardless of whether they approve of their policies. How on earth is that a GOOD thing?

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  5. Now, as I agree with you that it was indeed a desperate ploy by Gordon Brown and his party to win votes, I must say I was quite intrigued.
    We all know the innermost details of celebrities' private lives yet with politics all we ever hear about are the policies, the mistakes, and the most detailed thing we ever hear about their private lives are how they "graduated from Oxbridge."
    Well I don't know about you but I would be quite interested to hear about the lives of the people running our country. (I use 'running' in an ironic sense) Of course there are those politicians who post Vlogs and/or Youtube videos to show how they are the 'family man' but this is so fake it makes me cringe.
    You say people will be turned off voting, but I believe the vast majority of people have already made up their mind in politics, and those who don't care...Well, no chat show is going to convince them anyway.
    Gordon Brown most likely did the interview because he was advised to, and to be honest: Who can blame him?
    Although I am no fan of Gorgon Brown, he is publically slated everyday and is often blamed for the all the ills of this country; people only concentrate on his politics. Despite the fact it was a publicity stunt, I believe he deserved the opportunity to talk about himself and his life for a change; let people see the human side to him. I'm assuming here that it would be nice to talk about his own life for a change, not his many, many failures.
    So I must say although I agree with you in that it was a shameless PR stunt, I say "can you blame him?"
    His party is likely going to lose the next election, they're getting desperate, and it's an opportunity to talk about his actual life for a change, a nice little shot of nostalgia. Also, just because the questions weren't about politics isn't a bad thing. As the old saying goes: "all work and no play makes Gordon a dull fat failure of a politician."

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