Saturday 8 August 2009

Chloe Smith: Flatpack Politician


With election turnouts declining year on year, politicians of all parties have been scrambling over one another to insist that theirs is a party of change. That they have PPCs and MPs who work hard for their constituents. That they listen. That they care.

Yet the newest addition to the commons appears, it would seem, to be as robotic, if not more so, than any of the disingenuous rot-peddlers we are already landed with.

A comments discussion over at Taking Liberties seems to have illustrated quite perfectly what is wrong with our politicians.

A constituent of newly-elected Tory MP Chloe Smith wrote to her asking her views on the blanket smoking ban (the subject could be anything though). It is important to note that what was requested specifically, and highlighted as such, were her views.

To that end, I wonder whether you’d be kind enough to reveal YOUR thoughts (and possibly your intentions) with regard to the following questions.

To make this absolutely clear, the letter re-emphasized this request in summing up.

I trust that YOU at least will not insult my intelligence with the usual speak-your-weight (or timidly non-committal) response of today’s Machine Politician.

Here are a couple of extracts from her reply this week.

I have yet to be convinced that passive smoking is not harmful, when a considerable body of scientific evidence suggests a strong link between second-hand smoke and adverse health effects. There is also a clear indication that the ban has helped many people quit smoking.

Furthermore, Professor Robert West, Cancer Research UK's Director of Tobacco Studies, has recently presented findings that the smoking law will help prevent 40,000 deaths over the next ten years.

Her use of words rang a bell with another commenter, who had previously received a reply from Lara Moreno Perez, one of David Cameron's staff. This is what she wrote in December last year.

We have yet to be convinced that passive smoking is not harmful, when a considerable body of scientific evidence suggests a strong link between second-hand smoke and adverse health effects.

There is also a clear indication that the ban has helped many people quit smoking;

Furthermore, Professor Robert West, Cancer Research UK’s Director of tobacco studies, has recently presented findings showing that the smoking law will help prevent 40,000 deaths over the next ten years.

How uncanny that Chloe Smith's personal views are word for word the same as those of Conservative Central Office. No wonder David Cameron has commented thus about Chloe.

"Chloe is the sort of person I want to have as part of my team in parliament."

Of course he does. She doesn't just share views, she also shares exactly the same vocabulary and even the same use of tenses and punctuation. She could have been cloned from one of Cameron's toenails.

senior Tories were raving about her on the campaign trail in Norwich North this week. "She really is different from the sort of candidate we've had before," one said.

Different she definitely is. They've had MPs trot out the party line before - but never word for word, following a request for something a little more personal than that.

It matters not whether one agrees with what Chloe Smith has to say or not, it matters greatly that she believes this is the way an MP is supposed to interact with their constituents.

The electorate are sick of politicians, and contrary to the bleatings coming from all of the big three parties, the electorate are quite entitled to feel as such. There is no other way one can possibly react with regard to the arrogant, snotty, dismissive, lazy, contemptuous fucktards who are shovelled onto our ballot papers each time they come down from their fucking ivory towers to perpetuate the flimsy sham that passes for representative democracy in the UK.

What's more, this is the very best Chloe Smith can possibly be. In her own words, she was going to put in an immense effort during parliamentary recess.

"This is about getting down to it, being honest, and being held to that. If I can be a very very good constituency MP and a very very good local representative for people here, then I hope they'll continue to put their trust in me and I hope I can serve them well."

If merely cutting and pasting CCHQ memos is an example of Chloe's best effort, Lord help us all after the next election when we will have hundreds of new MPs ejaculated from the same mould as this air-headed berk.

This is off the peg, one size fits all, politics. The central party line flatpacked and shipped to every one of the 646 constituencies via a distribution force of unthinking, empty-eyed, artificial intelligence drones. The self-same process which has been roundly rejected by an increasingly apathetic electorate, but an approach which is enthusiastically pursued by the politicians themselves.

And when many throw our hands in the air and conclude that it's not worth bothering with the fucking arsewipes anymore, they wonder why.

It's why the ire over expenses was so fierce, it's why politicians are rated about as highly by the public as Jehovah's Witness doorsteppers, and why our country is screwed beyond redemption.

And if Chloe Smith is the future of British politics, strap yourself in tight as it can only possibly get worse.




22 comments:

handymanphil said...

I met Chloe in Norwich a couple of months ago and she never struck me a s a party political asswipe. I think it is very sad that the youngest member of parliament is already entrenched in "Alice Sheffield speak". Dear oh dear me!

Unknown said...

I saw Martin V's letter to Chloe and was not surprised at her response and was so incensed by it I reproduced it, word for word, over at the Freedom To Choose forum.

No matter what anyone says there is a common bond between the political parties, especially the so called 'top three' and it would appear that their language is so similar when responding to constituents concerns that is most worrying for democracy in this country.

I fret over the future as I think we are heading for a totalitarian state run by like minds, not the voter.

Worrying times indeed.

Dick Puddlecote said...

It's important to note that this isn't about whether she agrees with the smoking ban, is indifferent, or that she vehemently opposes it. That is irrelevant.

It's the smug dismissal of voters with party circulated prepared answers which bothers me. There is no honesty left.

I've no doubt she is capable of writing a letter in her own words, so why just regurgitate what emanates from central office?

Curmudgeon said...

And "open primaries" are likely to land us with more bland, identikit, middle-of-the-road politicians rather than those with genuine principles. Alan Clark and Denis Skinner would never have got through an open primary.

Joe Public said...

"..... it's why politicians are rated about as highly by the public as Jehovah's Witness doorsteppers"

Poor simile.

JW's cost the taxpayer nothing; troughing, tax-evading, home-switching, excess-expenses claiming politicians are poor value.

[Also, if you close the door on a JW, he/she goes away; you're stuck with politicians 'til the next election.]

Witterings from Witney said...

DP,

Back in 2005 I wrote to Cameron, Hague, Heald and Richard Benyon about the Legislative & Regulatory Reform Bill - and the odious content therein - and received identical letters back!

"There is no honesty left" really DP, you expect honesty from todays politicians? (With one or two exceptions, naturally)

Witterings from Witney said...

Correction to my last - twas in 2006!

Dick Puddlecote said...

"There is no honesty left" really DP, you expect honesty from todays politicians?

Good point WFW. I suppose Chloe Smith's identikit response isn't entirely unexpected, but for a party which wishes itself to be seen as departing from the disregard of the electorate that has gone before (as all the main three try to tell us), it is a particularly egregious example.

Anonymous said...

Lets not waste any time scraping
the sky blue poop of this Chloe
Schmidt ,Pharmas tartlette.
She's just another middler fiddling the same tune ,conducted
by the same magicians. Can some
Anglian hero give the silly heffer
a few frets.


Gordian Knot Slicer

Unknown said...

Dick, I have to confess that I was the recipient of the reply from Lara Moreno Perez to my e-mail about the smoking ban. When I saw the post on Taking Liberties about the new MP Chloe Smith, I was astonished at the similarities in both documents. So I posted under the name Benedict highlighting their hypocrisy. Why Benedict…because Simon Clark thinks I’m too rude and vulgar – OK?

My point is this. These supposedly intelligent people who run our lives, are completely bereft of any common sense whatsoever.

Does it not occur to them, that in this age of communication sooner or later this rubber stamp politics will surface somewhere in the blogosphere and be seen for what it is?

I don’t know whether to blame Chloe Smith or Central Office, or perhaps both. What would be wrong with her own PERSONAL VIEW about the smoking ban? This isn’t democracy it’s – hypocrisy!

Now, another lemsip and back to bed…I’ve had a stinking cold for two weeks now.

Brrr..brr..brr…hold on a minute…Oh, hello mum, yes that’s right I did leave a message…I’m asking you what you think about the smoking ban…what’s that, "I have yet to be convinced that passive smoking is not harmful,”…Ok mum that’s enough…please shut up! "Furthermore, Professor Robert West, Cancer Research UK's..."

Click!

Good post Dick, thanks.

Pavlov's Cat said...

She is a golem , nothing more nothing less and she won't be the last.

My take on it here Empty Space wins By-Election

(apols once again Dick for using your blog for shameless self promotion)

Anonymous said...

Hang on, Chris, are you saying that Simon blocks you? Interesting, given that I had all my comments wiped from a thread on 'The Free Society' site and whenever I tried to comment, found that I'd been banned (the irony..). This was before the apparent, subsequent policy not to have comments.

I have reason to believe that Simon, for all his so-called libertarianism, does heaveily moderate comments. BTW I post as Joyce on 'Taking Liberties' but Jay, elsewhere.

Dick Puddlecote said...

Pavlov: Self-promote as much as you like here, you'll never get me complaining.

Especially as your piece was superb. I'm just gutted that I didn't see it earlier.

Antipholus Papps said...

All this demonstrates is that Chloe's view on the dangers of passive smoking are so inherently sensible that all right-thinking people, such as the clearly intelligent Ms. Moreno Perez, will arrive at the same conclusion, sometimes even word for word.

Mark Wadsworth said...

There was a fine article in the FT recently, pointing out that Chloe Smith is a photofit cloned drone party apparatschick.

Worth a read.

BTS said...

On the bright side, we now have an mp who knows how to cut and paste.

Sorry, I meant another mp..

vincent1 said...

They just love the 40,000 number don't they, what a bunch of parrots, thanks for showing where the new parrot fits in Dick.

California Reduces Prisoners
Overcrowding in California's prisons cause at least one unnecessary death per week, according to a three-judge panel that released a report this week calling on the Golden State to drastically cut its prison population over the next two years. Under their guidelines, Criminal Justice blogger Matt Kelley writes, California would be expected to reduce the size of its prison population by 40,000 inmates, or 27 percent. Could this plan mean that California will reduce the number of nonviolent offenders it's currently throwing in jail?

Some-one dies unnecessary every week in Jail, I thought it was only smokers, drinkers and fat people that died!

Anonymous said...

Bla Bla

Junican said...

I have just left a comment 'bla bla'. This is because I have tried before to make a comment on this site and been flumoxed by the apparent need to have a Google Account.
I a a novice.
I see 'Choose an identity'. I see 'No Google Account - sign up here'. I do not know what 'Open ID' means. I do not know what 'Name/URL' means. I know what the word 'Anonymous' means in normal circumstances, but I am not sure what it means in internet language.
It would be wonderful for us novices (nb. not stupids), if you could amend your comments section to read just a little differently.

For example, you could say 'CHOOSE AN IDENTITY', and follow it with, "If you have a Google or Blogger aAccount, you can....". Or, you can use 'OPenID, which means..." etc.
It would greatly assist us novices to know what to do.

Mark Wadsworth said...

Oops!

Wrong link. Try this:

http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/bb67a988-7b0e-11de-8c34-00144feabdc0.html?nclick_check=1

Sorry.

David Davis said...

Chloe Smith wries what she does because it takes less time than thinking.

Also, she has a dinner date to go to, and she needs to put o her face and clothes to appear nice, and all this replying to constituents and others is an effing pain and gets in the way of real life for her....

She's aged 7, what did you expect?

Mr Crowley said...

I have a Tory pal who did some volunteering for the by-election. They told me that CCHQ used standardized templates for the main issue areas, so whenever a potential voter wrote in all they did is stick the address on it and send it out, Chloe didn't touch them!