Changing Perceptions.

We had a film crew pop into Watford branch this week asking for me to make a comment on the current political landscape for a news item they were shooting in Charter Place.
 
I’ve never been a particularly political animal at the best of times, but the events of the last 12 months have taken my disinterest to an all-time low. When the lawmakers of the land have seemingly been creating one rule for us and another for themselves, it’s difficult to then feel very motivated about listening to the next rallying speech, digesting opinion polls or watching the next TV debate.
 
It did occur to me that my apathy and general disdain for all things political was probably not dissimilar to the feeling many people have for my industry which got me onto thinking how it was possible to change the mindset of such a vast number of people. Doubtless there are many extremely hardworking ethical politicians motivated by wanting to make change rather than personal gain. The problem is our 24-hour media-hungry culture demands headlines constantly and it’s much easier to pick out the bad ones. Hence we probably get a somewhat skewed perception on reality that leans heavily towards the negative.
 
We should want the very best quality people running our country but that means we have to accept they will want to earn good money. If we don’t, they will go, as they do now, into the private sector. Sadly as I see it, the politicians didn’t believe the public would swallow the salaries they were worth and so found numerous loopholes by way of funding themselves.
 
I see the ‘every man for himself’ culture in my dealings with the public every day. And don’t get me wrong; I’m well aware some estate agents are hardly in a position to lecture either! It does mean we have a serious problem as a nation though. We become more and more sceptical with every new scandal and simultaneously ever more demanding that our public figures behave in a suitable fashion. Yet in many cases, we couldn’t claim to have our own houses in order when we make these demands.
 
Maybe Billy Connolly had it about right. He said that the desire to be a politician should automatically ban someone from becoming one. Though said in jest, the idea we could pluck people from industry and community to represent us would seem to have some appeal in my mind. Not that I have a logical way it would work to put forward. In the meantime I just don’t see how the public are going to recapture their trust in politicians any time soon. The dire reputation of estate agents was forged in the 80’s really and 20 years later I still don’t like to admit to strangers what I do for a living.
 
Anyway, I declined the invitation to comment for the cameras. As an estate agent I have to be diplomatic. I am used to seeing both sides of an argument, but adopting such middle ground seems to be frowned upon as a weakness in Westminster. Another reason why I’d make a rubbish politician!