In Britain, our new political leaders are all nice guys

Goodbye Gordon

There is nothing like winning – especially if you are a politician.

Here in Britain, David Cameron and Nick Clegg ended up the winners last night after an entertaining day of political sea-saws and list ticking.

Gordon Brown was the loser and then he was suddenly gone.

That is the way we do things in Britain. No one is above our contempt when it comes to political leaders so we don’t hang around with them once they are out of office unless that man is Tony Blair who just won’t go away.

I wish Gordon well, liked him more than the rest of you it seems and wonder if we won’t live to regret that the most capable financial brain in politics has left the stage when we are still in the middle of one of the most complex financial crises in modern times. Anyway, good luck Gordon. Have a good life.

Gordon? Who? Dunno…forgot.

On to David and Nick. Good luck to them too – I have to say that because they will need it and because none of us want a disastrous government.

The day was exciting for them and for anyone like me, an addict to the nuts and bolts of political life who cut his television teeth working on political programmes and risking contamination by brushing shoulders with a generation of politicians of all persuasions. I learnt to keep my inner politics under the control of a wise dose of cynicism learnt from the horses’ mouths.

It will all come out over time, of course, the truth…..the backroom discussions, the tricks, the deceit and the crazy idealism too. We just have to wait for the nice guys to settle down before the wacky, weird and wayward start spilling the beans and spreading the poison. This is politics after-all.

Nice is the word I think for our new regime…well the ones who were allowed out yesterday. Nick and David and William and George are all nice guys or so they seem. Clean-cut, young(ish) and pleasant to behold, they were obviously all getting on really well together as they sorted out their differences.

They looked like they were all members of the same gym in the City, had a few beers together and maybe the odd bar-b-q with the little women on Summer evenings. Most of them, comprehensive school educated William Hague apart, went to the same sort of schools, hung out in the same sort of clubs and speak the same language. Yah.

…..Nick….

…….with their common but nice Northern friend William.

For most of the day there wasn’t a big beard, a bare foot, a silly hat or even any wild eyes in sight….no, the Liberal Democrat activists were kept away from our screens as were those red-complexioned, bejowled Tory squires or their even more scary big-permed hang-em-or-flog-em women of a certain age.

We saw the core of the Liberal-Conservative coalition when the nice young men made their speeches yesterday but we will have to wait and see how their loony elements will like this shockingly adventurous marriage.

So, I really mean it, good luck David and Nick. You will need it.

It won’t be long before the Labour party, if it has any sense, will elect its own nice young man, David Milband, so we may really be in a new age for British politics. Nice is nice for sure but lets hope it will be effective too.

P.S. There were some women there of course…the Queen of course, shaking hands like only she can, Sam Cameron pregnant and wobbly in her silly high heels, Harriet Harman, the outgoing deputy PM, who becomes acting leader of the Labour party and Sarah Brown, tearful but proud and dutiful. It didn’t seem like a brave new world for women. It might not be a brave new world at all…..after-all can the Liberals really go fox hunting?