the brilliantly leaping gazelle

I must confess to not having the firmest of grasps regarding the events that caused such consternation in Parliament the other day, but what I do know is that it concerned the ongoing situation in Gaza. Apparently, a vote calling for something was so badly handled that the whole thing quickly descend into chaos. Lots of senior politicians then did what they do best,. Namely, blaming each other for it, calling on someone to resign and generally convincing themselves that the majority of the population felt so strongly about this as they did, so that they craved an endless diet of media analysis to tell them not only was it important, but why it was important

At no point in all of this, did any politicians stop to ask themselves that if, in the real world, the one outside the Westminster bubble, far removed from TV studios and headline writers, political pundits and wannabee has-beens does any of this actually matter? Will it have any effect whatsoever upon the issue upon which they were so preoccupied? Had the vote gone ahead, and if a motion calling for a ceasefire have passed, would have given rise to some sober reflection on the part of Netanyahu? Or would he would’ve thought, ‘The news that some people of no consequence have said something of no consequence, and have called for something that has no consequence, has no consequence for me.’

It is a seems to be a peculiarly British political class delusion, that no matter how much we are reminded that Britain no longer has an Empire, no matter how guilty modern Britain constantly finds itself to be over endless real and imagined wrongs committed by it, the antecedents of the class that oversaw it still feel emboldened enough to lecture other countries as to how to conduct themselves. And are possessed of a blinkered perception of their own self-importance to think it matters, one that they’d be first in the queue to condemn others for. They live in a fantasy world created in a belief of their own self-importance, a belief that when Britain speaks, the world listens, a belief that world whilst the world has changed, it essentially remains the same. A kind of Schrödinger’s politics.

An excellent article in spiked highlighted the grotesque disconnect between the concerns of the public and the concerns of politicians. It seems to me that our politicians are not so much interested concerns rooted in the everyday concerns of their constituents – the ones who put them on the soapbox in the first place and to whom they claim it is an honour to serve – as they are about being seen to doing anything that’ll garner approving tweets and which will enhance their chances of re-election.

Because to me that’s all it is, a fear of the digital mob turning on them and at the same time, a desire to say or tweet something that the digital mob can either turn into a viral entity or better yet, actual news. Being seen by some to say or do the right thing isn’t the same as actually doing or saying the right thing. Over Israel/Gaza, some of our politicians have failed to grasp that blindingly obvious truism.