Why don’t we care about politics?

There are few things as likely to bore the average student to death as a good and thorough chat about politics. In the months running up to the general election, the Guardian walked up and down Oxford road interviewing people about their feelings on the upcoming election. The average student response fell roughly into three brackets. The first was ‘What’s an election?’; the second one was ‘I hate Tories’, while the others thought the Guardian were trying to sell them the Socialist Worker, and moved swiftly on.

In such an environment, it’s utterly unsurprising that the subsequent election proved to be of little interest to students, who were often far too busy trying to clear Liberal Democrat leaflets off their doorstep to get to the polling stations. Nevertheless, thousands of students did turn out in the counter-intuitive hope that voting would somehow stop the barrage. And when the Students Union was packed full on election night, one might be excused for thinking that the tide had turned.

But alas, the yells of joyous yellow jubilation soon abated as soon as people realised that the Lib Dems, oh horror, were politicians too. The ‘Community Champions’ of election night had turned into blue-tinged terror spawns, proffering tuition fees and taxes on booze and fags. The hopes of thousands were dashed within twelve months, and the party previously cheered to the rafters now permanently plunged in the polls, not to rise back since.

Whom then would students turn to for political inspiration? The Labour party briefly reared its head in the media, but it was just some nerdy guy strutting around in front of the camera while having his hand shaken by overweight union bosses. The sun was shining, essays and lab reports were due, no-one cared, the world moved on. A couple of Lib Dems jumped off the fence and joined Ed’s army, however there was no genuine enthusiasm there.

So hang on, what’s the point here? It’s true; the concept of political apathy is nothing new. Neither is the limited nature of a student mindset, which emphasises (oddly enough) having a good time as being more important than knowing what Caroline Flint thinks about an integrated transport policy. But what in fact does more than anything else to deter people from a more active interest is the polished and squeaky clean characters that Westminster creates for itself.

Take David Cameron, take Nick Clegg, take any of the party leaders you don’t particularly like. Do you like them because of the person they are? Do you think they’re someone you’d go out of your way to kick if you met them on the street and they were just a normal person? Most people will say – probably not. Most successful politicians of the modern era are bland, in reasonably good shape, and avoid saying things that might get them trouble. The media spotlight, even if it doesn’t reflect popular interest, has effectively neutered any personality they might have ever had.

The reason why the Labour party decided to choose the two least interesting people in the world to contest their leadership positions is not down to some error in parenting by Mr and Mrs Miliband, but down to a perverse natural selection which promotes the inoffensive centre-ground and weeds out the Dennis Skinners and Ken Clarkes of our generation. The technology age (which somehow does not yet extend to America) means that the result of a British party leader ‘pulling a Romney’ would be disastrous for his party. No wonder we’re bored.

There are obviously benefits to this situation. Having an established centre ground is great, it means you can tackle the big issues in real detail and come up with the best policies without random nutters pushing for crazy things like scrapping the welfare state or executing bankers. It also makes things great for minorities because parties will eventually get around to actually wanting to appeal to the maximum number of voters in order to distinguish themselves. This means being nice to as many people as possible, which is probably a good maxim for government to live by.

On the flipside, it does sort of mean that everyone eventually comes round to trying to say the same stuff in a slightly different way. And it means you get lots of shiny faces on TV screens. It means more David Cameron, more Nick Clegg and more Ed Miliband. It means that politicians follow their voters rather than trying to lead them. And most importantly, it means that there is very little motivation to get involved in politics. When you can’t really change anything, why would you want to be in a position of power? Media constraints on the executive are good and well, but this generation hasn’t really had its own ‘great debate’ yet, and we’re a little bit bored. Why care about Cameron, when we could spend a Saturday night watching the X-factor and giving a toast to inequality?