Ledbury Portal Community Forum

Politics, like law, is a subject with little or no basis in science.
If science were to involve itself in politics exactly what would it measure? Lies, sleeze, folly, corruption, ambition, greed, hierarchy? Would it use empirical data or would it be a cultural anthropology - why is this particular human ape better able to deceive and manipulate others than this other human ape?
From the bread and circus bait of Roman politics to the modern Machiavellian deceit, politics continues to be art rather than science. The politician is artist, her gift is speaking and her art is deception.
They're not dealing in facts, they're dealing in the manipulation of information to suit particular agendas. Whether this be the agenda of the alcohol industry, supermarkets, blood-wine pushing Christians or the populist culture of binge drinking that pervades Britain, I don't know - perhaps cultural scientists can answer that.
Whether politicians are ignoring the sciencific data on climate change, drug use or primary education it amounts to the same thing - politicians are looking increasingly stupid. Looking stupid after (MPs expenses) looking corrupt while looking at the same time ineffective (climate change, banking collapse and credit crunch, rising unemployment, anti-social behaviour, no referendum on Europe...) is approaching a recipe that demands change.
The question is - do we have a politician out there or a political movement that can lead us out of this current/future political mess and address our future needs sensibly?
And the answer is, no, there isn't. While politicians can't see further than the five years they are in office, we are stuffed. The government will continue with short term, populist, reactionary politics that couldn't pick a successful national football let alone save us from climate change and provide us with affordable clean energy.
One just hopes that people/voters don't turn to an even bigger idiot - a political hoodlum/thug, someone who can bang two heads together - you know the one I mean, that bloke who can hardly put two words together that the BBC questionably raised onto one of their pedestals recently.
C21st and the politics of the stupid is well and truly here.