Chloe Smith: Flatpack Politician

With election turnouts declining year on year, politicians of all parties have been scrambling over one another to insist that theirs is a party of change. That they have PPCs and MPs who work hard for their constituents. That they listen. That they care.

Yet the newest addition to the commons appears, it would seem, to be as robotic, if not more so, than any of the disingenuous rot-peddlers we are already landed with.

A comments discussion over at Taking Liberties seems to have illustrated quite perfectly what is wrong with our politicians.

A constituent of newly-elected Tory MP Chloe Smith wrote to her asking her views on the blanket smoking ban (the subject could be anything though). It is important to note that what was requested specifically, and highlighted as such, were her views.

To that end, I wonder whether you’d be kind enough to reveal YOUR thoughts (and possibly your intentions) with regard to the following questions.

To make this absolutely clear, the letter re-emphasized this request in summing up.

I trust that YOU at least will not insult my intelligence with the usual speak-your-weight (or timidly non-committal) response of today’s Machine Politician.

Here are a couple of extracts from her reply this week.

I have yet to be convinced that passive smoking is not harmful, when a considerable body of scientific evidence suggests a strong link between second-hand smoke and adverse health effects. There is also a clear indication that the ban has helped many people quit smoking.

Furthermore, Professor Robert West, Cancer Research UK's Director of Tobacco Studies, has recently presented findings that the smoking law will help prevent 40,000 deaths over the next ten years.

Her use of words rang a bell with another commenter, who had previously received a reply from Lara Moreno Perez, one of David Cameron's staff. This is what she wrote in December last year.

We have yet to be convinced that passive smoking is not harmful, when a considerable body of scientific evidence suggests a strong link between second-hand smoke and adverse health effects.

There is also a clear indication that the ban has helped many people quit smoking;

Furthermore, Professor Robert West, Cancer Research UK’s Director of tobacco studies, has recently presented findings showing that the smoking law will help prevent 40,000 deaths over the next ten years.

How uncanny that Chloe Smith's personal views are word for word the same as those of Conservative Central Office. No wonder David Cameron has commented thus about Chloe.

"Chloe is the sort of person I want to have as part of my team in parliament."

Of course he does. She doesn't just share views, she also shares exactly the same vocabulary and even the same use of tenses and punctuation. She could have been cloned from one of Cameron's toenails.

senior Tories were raving about her on the campaign trail in Norwich North this week. "She really is different from the sort of candidate we've had before," one said.

Different she definitely is. They've had MPs trot out the party line before - but never word for word, following a request for something a little more personal than that.

It matters not whether one agrees with what Chloe Smith has to say or not, it matters greatly that she believes this is the way an MP is supposed to interact with their constituents.

The electorate are sick of politicians, and contrary to the bleatings coming from all of the big three parties, the electorate are quite entitled to feel as such. There is no other way one can possibly react with regard to the arrogant, snotty, dismissive, lazy, contemptuous fucktards who are shovelled onto our ballot papers each time they come down from their fucking ivory towers to perpetuate the flimsy sham that passes for representative democracy in the UK.

What's more, this is the very best Chloe Smith can possibly be. In her own words, she was going to put in an immense effort during parliamentary recess.

"This is about getting down to it, being honest, and being held to that. If I can be a very very good constituency MP and a very very good local representative for people here, then I hope they'll continue to put their trust in me and I hope I can serve them well."

If merely cutting and pasting CCHQ memos is an example of Chloe's best effort, Lord help us all after the next election when we will have hundreds of new MPs ejaculated from the same mould as this air-headed berk.

This is off the peg, one size fits all, politics. The central party line flatpacked and shipped to every one of the 646 constituencies via a distribution force of unthinking, empty-eyed, artificial intelligence drones. The self-same process which has been roundly rejected by an increasingly apathetic electorate, but an approach which is enthusiastically pursued by the politicians themselves.

And when many throw our hands in the air and conclude that it's not worth bothering with the fucking arsewipes anymore, they wonder why.

It's why the ire over expenses was so fierce, it's why politicians are rated about as highly by the public as Jehovah's Witness doorsteppers, and why our country is screwed beyond redemption.

And if Chloe Smith is the future of British politics, strap yourself in tight as it can only possibly get worse.