Loved the sketch about Tony Blair in this week’s Harry and Paul show (still available on BBC’s iPlayer). Not so much for what it said about Blair himself, which was nothing really, but for what it says about our perception of politicians.
Basically TB turned up at the big bank HQ for the one day a week work that got so much publicity and they didn’t know what to do with him so they treated him like a student placement, getting him to run down to Starbucks, do some copying, sort mail, etc.  Everything he tried he cocked up enormously.
I don’t think this was specifically aimed at Tony Blair, but what we all secretly believe would happen if politicians tried to do the sort of normal job that we all do every day. While this is exaggerated I reckon there is a kernel of truth in it. While some MPs have done a normal job, many of them have gone from school to university to working as a consultant or policy advisor before getting rewarded with a safe seat. After that they may get a seat on a board as a non-executive director but that is the nearest they get to being a normal employee.
What is unfair is that not all MPs take that route, but they all get tarred with that brush, and it extends to all other areas of life too. We are complicit in this as are the media to a greater extent, but I don’t think the MPs do themselves any favours: whenever they are on some photo opportunity fact-finding visit they always look like fish out of water, looking totally ill-at-ease doing something that comes naturally to anyone else. How many clips of politicians kicking a ball around, riding a bike, holding a hammer or sitting at a keyboard have we seen where they look like they are out of their depth?
The rest of the programme was, like the rest of the series so far, a bit patchy though. My personal favourite has to be Paul Whitehouse as the multi-lingual football manager giving the half-time team talk in every language spoken by the various players which this week included sign language and Latin.
Happens in other fields too. A friend told me about a local lecturer who worked for a week in their store (he lectured in Retailing at a local college). He couldn’t get his head around the concept that the reason their were fewer books on the shelf was because customers had been in and bought them….
I think this is often why local councillors have better relations with the people who voted for them. They are, generally, seen as more real. Although, thinking of some of our local councillors, not always.
Also, councillors usually still do a ‘proper’ job as well (or used to before they retired) since its not a full-time job – although it can be for unitary authorities.
Not to forget that councillors carry out their duties in their own area, while being an MP can cause someone to be absent from their home town for 4 or 5 days a week if they are up your way.
But let’s be honest – how many journalists (or comedians) have ever done a ‘proper’ job. I cringe at dramas and adverts that purport to take place in offices, with everyone talking in an urgent tone, which I have never seen in any office, even ones where work is demand-led and goes in peaks (and troughs)