Advice to politicians trying to score points over a 'U-turn'
To crow or not to crow: Our advice to any politician tempted to indulge
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The Barrie Hudson Column
Barrie Hudson is a known quantity when it comes to writing words. Sometimes he even spells them correctly. In fact he has been writing words in the Swindon area for more than two decades. First of all for the Swindon Advertiser and then for Swindon Link and now for The Ink. Here are some of his words…
Is it better to change direction on a controversial policy or carry on regardless?
Are you a Parliamentarian belonging to a political party other than the one currently in charge of the country?
Have you taken note of the recent decision by the political party in charge of the country to reverse - or at least, partially reverse - its move last year to reduce the number of our senior citizens eligible for cold weather payments intended to ease the burden of paying obscenely-inflated energy bills?
Are you tempted to crow like some filthy, diseased cockerel atop a reeking, steaming, maggot-riddled dung heap about the political party in charge making a U-turn?
Well, the question of whether it was indeed a U-turn is a matter for debate.
Some wholeheartedly believe the party in charge of the country when it says the original decision to reduce the number of senior citizens eligible for cold weather payments was merely a temporary measure, made necessary by the prevailing economic climate of the time.
Some say that even if what has happened could be described as a U-turn, it is better - and indeed commendable - to make a U-turn when one is going the wrong way than to press on regardless while arrogantly insisting that one is going the right way.
Others say the party in charge of the country hastened to modify its policy for no other reason than political self-interest; that it was wholly unprepared for the enormous wave of public rage and disgust its original decision prompted. Some of the people who hold this opinion as to the motivation of the party in charge also suggest that it is desperate to ditch or camouflage unpopular policies because it is currently running thoroughly terrified of a certain other political party, a party which recently overturned a safe Parliamentary majority and cut quite the swathe through the local government elections.
Still others say the political party in charge should never have considered a policy risking harm or the fear of harm to blameless vulnerable people in the first place, and that there were and still are some genuinely terrible, greedy people far more deserving of being hit with an extra financial burden.
As I said, the issue is a matter for debate.
But let us return to you, a Parliamentarian belonging to a political party other than the one currently in charge of the country, who might be tempted to crow like that poorly cockerel I mentioned about the political party in charge of the country making a U-turn.
Should you go ahead and crow, or should you do something else such as shutting your yap?