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The Nature of ‘Politics’

In an interview with Mark Kermode last year, Alastair Campbell argued strongly against Kermode’s suggestion that politics is “venal and crass”:

Politics has delivered most of the great things in the world and its history

In fairness, I should probably start by saying that I’ve always been a great fan of Mark Kermode’s film reviews. Nevertheless, I couldn’t help but think Alastair Campbell was deliberately misunderstanding the accusation.

Politics hasn’t given us great things. It hasn’t given us the NHS, or rights, or fundamental changes in the law. Governments, Parliament, politicians, campaigners and democracy have given us these things, whilst politics appears to have taken on a completely different meaning.

The term ‘politics’ now appears to refer to hostile briefing, infighting and bickering in the Westminster bubble – the easily televised and publicised elements that satisfy what (of all people) Russell Brand refers to as a public desire for a narrative. Just think of the phrase ‘office politics’.

That’s not to say all politicians are evil, or that all great ideas have evaporated from the system. Far from it. Yet politics seems to have been reduced to a pettiness and point-scoring with the dreaded capability of making or breaking a career.

Why else would the accusation that a party is “playing politics” be an acceptable (and often damning) response to criticism?

There is an element of hypocrisy in my definition – you’ll note the category this and many other posts are published under – and perhaps my interpretation of the term ‘politics’ is that of a cynic, but I’d like to think otherwise. The political system can give and has given us some great things, but, in my opinion, it’s not quite politics.

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