Should politics be left to the politicians?

I didn't intend to post anything else relating to the Glasgow North East by-election. It was just that after spending the best part of an hour with John Smeaton I was fascinated by last week's BBC Scotland documentary on him.

John did much worse than he expected. Perhaps when he first threw his hat in the ring with The Jury Team he had hopes of winning. By the time I spoke with him he was hopeful of coming third. In the end, more people, in one of the poorest parts of Britain, voted for the Tories rather than this "man of the people".

How come?

The documentary told me a lot more than my interview did about John. To be honest, the interview with John, as with all the other candidates, was pretty apolitical. On the stump, John's selling point to be an MP was the fact that was a "normal guy", as opposed to the other, "career" politicians.

My first concern about this approach is that I'm not sure that John any longer is a "normal" guy. "Normal guys" don't get showcased at the Labour Party conference, invited to Congress, gigs with the First Minister or get a column in The Sun. Underneath the celebrity status, John may well still be a normal guy, and he was great company when I met him, but he won't be "normal" again any time soon.

John's political stand, that he wouldn't put his views forward, but would support "the people's" views, was also a bit suspect.

How was John to work out what "the people" wanted on the many many decisions an MP has to make, day in day out? Who are these "people"? Are they Sun readers? Guys who turn up at his surgeries? Randoms who stop him in the street? Are their opinions any better or more representative or than anyone else's?

John had one popular policy; that he would get MPs' noses out of the public trough. But all the other parties committed themselves to doing that as well. And Labour (possibly the Tories soon) will actually be in a position to do this.

Other than that he is/was a normal guy, John struggled to come up with any other plausible reasons for voting for him. How he would bring in jobs was never really explained. I'd guess there's another 648 MPs committed to the same thing and it isn't really happening for them, so how John can do it needed to be spelled out.

Ultimately voters want a bit more from their politicians than just simply offering themselves to stand up for, er, whatever, you want me to. If people are going to elect an MP, that MP or his/her party, has to have credible policies on a wide range of issues. One of the inescapable laws of politics is that you can't please all of the people all of the time. Voters appreciate a bit of honesty about this.

Another political fact is that money and organisation goes a long way too. I really didn't know that John's team was pretty much him, his mate and his mum and dad. The Jury team appeared to chip in when they got annoyed with John, and perhaps the film did the Jury Team a disservice, but John seemed to be easily brushed aside by the big boys' machine.

The moment which really captured my attention though was the comment by one of the voters. Exhibiting that classic, awful, Scottish cringe, she commented "he's just a baggage handler, he's got carried away with himself".

Presumably she'd rather be represented by "Robo-MP", the kind of MP/MSP we see far too much these days. Guys and gals straight out of uni or party research who've never done any real job in the private sector or the sharp end of the public sector, but see politics as a career just like any other. They say what they're told, voter as they're told, dress as they're told and never depart from the script. I'm sure you can name loads of them.

My hope is that with the reform of MPs pay and expenses we do get more baggage handlers, nurses, police officers, fire fighters as well as teachers, doctors etc getting involved in politics.

John's experience proved that its very hard for a guy on his own (especially one allied to a fringe political party) to beat the party machine. Its to be hoped that those within the major parties who have selected the candidates of 2010 have selected people who are both representative of the public and are committed to the public.