“Falling asleep in front of Question Time the week before last I was jolted awake by a question I’d given up writing in my notebook. “Why,” a woman in the audience asked the panel of politicians and commentators, “do you lie all the time? Wouldn’t it be better if you just told us the truth?”
Reporting from Lancashire, Yorkshire and Teesside earlier in the campaign, I’d come across this plea and its close cousins many times over. “You can’t trust any of them.” “They’re all the same.” “They’re all in it for themselves.” “It doesn’t matter who you vote for, or if you vote at all, it doesn’t make any difference.” “I don’t believe a word they say.”
And so forth. On the road, vox-popping the electorate, you soon learn that to secure any quotable opinions that express a preference for one party or another you first have to wade through and discard all of the above remarks. This doesn’t only apply in the north. My colleagues Patrick Kidd (southwest), Hugo Rifkind (Scotland) and Damian Whitworth (Midlands) tell a similar story.
And that’s not counting the voters — or non-voters — who say they are too busy or cold or “bored of the whole thing” to stop and talk. Or the guy in Batley who politely explained that he didn’t vote “because I’m a member of the occult”. Or the well-spoken woman in Oldham who offered the excuse: “I’m sorry, sweet, I just know f*** all about any of it.” Or the 79-year-old chap in Accrington who didn’t have much to say about matters political but was keen to show me his tobacco tin with “I Love Pussy” emblazoned on the lid. He also had “Pure Evil” tattooed across his knuckles. A 79-year-old! It truly is a funny old place, Britain.”
Source: Times (pay wall)
East Devon Watch 