Dementors, Elections and Public Perceptions...

The tube journey can be urm, well… a claustrophobes worst nightmare, a place of awkward exchanges, shoving, a breeding ground for bacteria, contain an amalgamation of strange odours and the time we spend thinking of what it is we will be having for dinner that day. Our thoughts on the tube are not just confined to food. En route home we come into contact with thousands of other commuters, all of whom (bar your travel companion(s) if you have those) are strangers. We do not (in London anyway) make pleasant exchanges with our fellow commuters, or even crack a smile. Instead, based on posture, physical appearance, gestures and body language we make snapshot judgements on what we think a particular commuter is like. In a very short time frame we may have unconsciously decided whether or not we like this particular commuter.

Emily Pronin Professor of Psychology at Stanford University observes, because of the structure of the human visual system, people can devote far less visual attention to themselves and their actions (which they cannot easily see without a mirror) than to others and others’ actions. Unless you are Harry Potter en route Hogwarts being attacked by a dementor and as a result all life is sucked out of you, on the Tube you are prone to observe those around you. Yet, these observations and formulations are not made with a deep understanding of your fellow commuter’s life. Pronin goes further and notes for self-assessments, that information is largely introspective based on looking to internal thoughts and feelings. For others, it is largely extrospective based on looking to external behaviour. Of course, in the context of the tube this is fine. Our fellow commuters are generally forgotten once we finally get home to dinner. The controversy lies in adopting this judgement process in other areas such as our view of politicians, perhaps here we may be swayed by appearance and personality and miss the internal thoughts of any given politician which shape his/her policy and direction. Let’s take one of the many satirised images of leader of the opposition party Ed Miliband eating a bacon sandwich as an example, and also his most recent appearance at a Gurdwara during a tour of the Midlands. On both occasions he has faced criticism, with regards to the visit to the Gurdwara Ed banned journalists and spectators from taking pictures of his visit. Perhaps this ban could be evidence of well-founded critique since the Gurdwara like all places of worship is not a political battling ground, but a place for all. However, the bacon sandwich incident which Ed has become known for was criticism founded solely on his facial expression. It's judgements such as this, his slurred speech, unflattering mannerism and the comparisons to the animated character Wallace, which make it so easy to disregard him. Since as noted above we judge others based on what we see, but ourselves based on what we think and feel could we be giving the Labour leader a bit of a tough time? Making judgements in this way makes it easy to reaffirm misinformed consensus that Ed knows nothing, Ed is anti-business and Ed’s brother David should have been given the role. Does that mean the democratic election process is as much a personality therefore than that of policy? In short, yes. Yes it bloody well does and Ed is on minus points.

The Obama administration and the 2008 election campaign previously is a shining example of just how to consolidate power in the twenty-first century. Dr Pamela Rutledge explains Obama dominated the social media space because his team got how networks work. The real power of social media is not in the number of posts or Tweets but in user engagement measured by content spreadability. For example, Obama logged twice as many Facebook “Likes” and nearly 20 times as many re-tweets as Romney. With his existing social media base and spreadable content, Obama had a far superior reach. Taking geography into account the literal reach Miliband, Cameron and co need is not on quite the large scale of the never ending presidential election. Therefore, while social media is important as the Obama presidential election illustrates so too are other forms of media.

Psychologists Lagerfeld and Katz found, opinions are not formed through direct information from mass media but through individual interactions with opinions, leaders who were similar in demographics, interests, and socio-economic factors to those they influenced. If one is to look to the election of 1997 where Labour won by a landslide victory of 419 seats to the conservatives 165 many have credited Tony Blair for the win. At the time, as Pippa Norris notes Labour had also suffered from backbench rebellions, visible leadership rivalries, and policy divisions at the apex of government, which are often believed to damage party popularity. The picture resembles that of the conservatives today, with defecting party members joining UKIP and divisions over the EU and immigration policy. Despite these obstacles Labour were victorious, perhaps due to the overwhelming support Tony Blair was able to arouse.

Could the landslide therefore be credited solely to public perception of Tony Blair who was said to have embraced Constitutional reform from the Liberal Democrats, pro-business policies from the Conservatives, and devolution from the nationalists? Whilst a wholehearted yes may be an exaggeration it is clear that personality and public perception count for a lot more than we consciously believe. In making your decision for whom to vote for this election perhaps that is something to take into account. Don’t be swayed by bias, common consensus and mainstream media. Look more to how and why a leader may be advocating such policies.

Parallel Universe of Politicians

It is a well-known observation that an elephant simply cannot understand the daily struggles of an ant. The difference in size will never allow an elephant to empathise with the ant. The ant is required daily to move swiftly from wall to wall in order to avoid feeling the wrath of a newspaper adapted by its reader to squish the life out of it to ensure its destruction. The elephant faces no such threat. In a similar manner, the ant will never be able to understand fully the struggles of an Asian elephant tamed in captivity and used for wholly unnatural purposes. The example of which appears to me analogous to the state of politics at present.

Put simply according to the definition given by the fountain of all knowledge in the 21 century, ‘Google,’ democracy is ‘a system of government by the whole population or all the eligible members of a state, typically through elected representatives.’ If you’re a Google sceptic then the definition given by Aristotle in 1995 is also sound. Aristotle notes in a democratic society, ‘the people [demos] are sovereign. . . .(it is) when the masses govern the city with a view to the common interest.’  What we must draw on here is that, in both definitions the people are sovereign.  Either through the medium of direct democracy whereby the whole population governs or indirectly through ‘elected representatives.’ Focusing on the latter in the case of the UK, democracy works by the people electing representatives who share the common interests of the people. However, it is becoming increasingly apparent that the elected representatives and the people seem to be much like the elephant and the ant. Neither seems to share an understanding of the other’s lives and those that believe they do, seem to be grossly misinformed.  

There has been a surge in the popularity of UKIP which could be a consequence of the party’s anti-immigration rhetoric and the failure of Prime Minister David Cameron’s election promise to cut immigration down to ‘tens of thousands.’ According to YouGov poll the electorate’s main priorities are immigration and the economy with 52 per cent of respondents listing it as a priority. However, many of UKIPs most recent supporters should understand that UKIPS members are, like all the party members, POLITICIANS. They are politicians who appear no different to their Conservative and Labour counter-parts who are much like ants unable to understand the grievance of the elephants.

Recently, I attended a talk by former Conservative MP turned UKIPPER Douglas Carswell, at the Oxford and Cambridge Club in Pall Mall. The event took place at the clubs opulent Princess Marie Louise Room with other UKIP members, politicians, journalists and the odd student in attendance. Once I had eventually snapped out of being bewitched by the enormous chandelier hanging above and the aloof feeling of being in a scene from one of Charlotte Bronte’s novels had left me. It dawned on me how grossly out of touch the speaker and indeed some of the guests were with the rest of society. The grandeur of this elite club and the discussion was a complete parallel to that of the realities of life in Britain today.

Rather ironically, Douglas Carswell spoke of how unrepresentative Parliament was today and advocated re-calling MPs which would allow the people to vote in a by-election whenever an issue such as ‘Cash for Access’ arose and MPs where found to be acting contrary to their code of practice. Whilst this sounds great it is the same spiel Conservative MP Zac Goldsmith has been advocating since 2010, the result of which was an idea MPs rejected by 340 to 166 following a free vote in the Commons. When Carswell was questioned by journalist about his party leader blaming immigrants for causing traffic on the M4, his cheeks flushed red and the embarrassment on his face said more than his response, which was like all good politicians, simply avoiding the direct the question and move swiftly on to a topic more suited to his own agenda.

Thus far, it is no wonder Russell Brand is calling for society to abstain from voting in the 2015 general election altogether, politicians are seriously out of touch with the people. Labour rather patronisingly feel as though pink buses are what female voters want.  While, David Cameron and his cronies have decided to dangle an election carrot in the form of pledging to build 200,000 cut price homes in order to help first time buyers under 40 who are plagued with masses of student debt, extortionate travel fares and increased living expenses. The proposals of which critics argue are incredibly ambitious. -A euphemism for a load of sh*t.