40 Bicycles

Not surprising really...

When the Labour government came to power, I looked up in Who’s Who the interests of members of the new Cabinet. (Of Tory philistinism I shall not speak.) Not a single one avowed anything that might loosely be described as a higher cultural interest; about three quarters of the new Cabinet claimed to be interested in football.

Leaders who bow to all forms of pop culture as they were all worthy of acknowledgment really disappoint me. I expect politicians to display more elevated cultural aspirations than these. Not all cultures are equally deserving of respect. I would rather have politicians who are blissfully unaware of the latest girl or boy band than late middle age MPs who pretend to like them. I prefer politicians (as a necessary evil!) to be grown up and refined in their tastes. The obsession that my nation has with football (real football, i.e. soccer ;>) !) never ceases to irritate me. I like playing the game (I will be enjoying a game for an hour or so this afternoon) and I enjoy watching the game, but the degree to which some people's lives revolve around the game bewilders me. They seem unable to detach themselves from it. Fifty-something politicians should have long outgrown this stage. Seemingly some haven't. I guess that this is all part of the scourge of the media coupled with democracy. The lowest common cultural denominator will prevail. Thanks to these forces we now have politicians who know the name of the latest signings for Chelsea and the names of the members of the nation's current favourite girlband and yet have little knowledge of fine art, good literature, refined music and, far more troubling, their nation's history.