It's only recently that the letters editor on our local
<expletive deleted> rag ran an epistle from one of
the local councillors detailing a local MP's voting
record in the house.

Fair enough, one might think, if one lived in the
vacuous world of Lily "braindead" Allen (yes, I've
seen her in interview--not an advertisement for
recreational drug use if they've left her like that)
and Moylesey's fatuous rantings on Radio 1.

But for those of who've heard commentator after
critic, read columnist after leader piece, bewailing
the pitiful levels of engagement in politics amongst
the young and asking "and what can we as media
professionals/politicians/panellists do about this?"
it seems that compiling statistics of how local
representatives have voted in the preceding term
during silly season might be reasonable way to
start.

I mean, look at the resources available to the
average News and Information Service these days.
Hansard is on-line, albeit there is a bit of a delay,
just like there is with court proceedings--which
are always roughly from a month ago.

OK, the local VIth formers are encouraged to get
to the local academic libraries which, if they
offer courses in politics, will usually have paper
Hansard available. But what about engaging with
the newly taxed vocational workers? How better
to do that than for the local paper to list how its
representatives represented them?

Ours, obviously, are far too busy lining up coke
deals, abusing their investigative privileges to
orchestrate hits on people, trading in malicious
gossip and slander and, occasionally, bringing
a criminial to book--though they can't be seen
to be doing this too often as people might just
go and expect it all the time, and fighting the
corner of poor children born to parents who
live in a social vacuum and as a result have to
go to school a terribly long way away because
they never got registered for the local one, all
the while making no comment on the sheer
impossibility of single parents (who are poor,
and therefore not worth currying favour with)
actually being able to study or work part-time
under the current nursery voucher system due
to the discrepancy between hours provided and
hours required once travelling to work or college
after dropping the kids off has been taken into
account.

In these days, surely, when traditional journo's
bemoan the fact that, these days, it's all about
googling people and very little to do with meeting
them, you'd've thought they could compile a
digest of who voted for what in the house.

But they don't. Maybe now there's a few abuses
of privilege they're not allowed to perpetrate any
more they'll find they have enough time on their
hands to find practical solutions to the issues
their counterparts in the national media raise?

G DAEB

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