Make Elections Boring

I've arrived at the conclusion that the Conservatives can improve their chances of victory at future elections by making them as boring as possible. My non-PC logic is as follows:

Nobody will disagree that we need more and better national infrastructure, education, healthcare, defence, law-enforcement, support for the arts etc etc. The question is, which party has the best chance of delivering it?

• The ones who prioritise how we can afford it 
• or the ones who prioritise doing it

Ask the average voter if they want more money and more public services, and the answer's bound to be 'yes please'. And turkeys never vote for Christmas (although if turkeys could think a little clearer, then the only reason they exist at all is for Christmas/Thanks Giving - so not voting for Christmas etc means extinction. But I digress). So it's really easy to make the majority believe you're nicer and on their side. The problem is, countries like ours need tough love. What's good for everyone in the long-term may not be appealing in the short term.

I'm not suggesting that voting rights should be restricted to people who stand a chance of understanding the difference between these priorities, and therefore might vote for better policies rather than hairdos. But I am suggesting that if we sell our politics with sound bites like "The cost of living crisis", and "They're the party for millionaires", or we resort to smear campaigns and highlighting party infighting (how disproportionate is the castigation of Lord Renard for a bit of harmless bottom patting!? Lighten up Britain), then we encourage people who don't get the arguments to only vote for socialist spending policies instead of ones which create net-tax-earning jobs (ie private sector). It's simply too easy to appeal to the majority (BTW lets hope the current tube strikes and other union inspired mischief continues to backfire on left-wing sympathies).

Now there may be value in a meritocratic system like China where your influence on state decisions depends entirely on your rank which is mathematically and rigourously defined by the sum total of your achievements to date - and largely defined by your attainment of qualifications. But Facebook, Microsoft, Google, Dyson, Branson, Tarantino and Shakespeare would never have emerged in modern China. Copies of them will nonetheless multiply there by the million. This TED talk is really illuminating about China (it's quite long - I watched it live, and found it really interesting - so please play it after you've read the rest of my bit).

But here in the UK, we're not likely to go through the agonies that China went through in order to arrive at their massively complex and unique system of meritocracy when we've got a democratic system that broadly sort of works - ie the losing minorities are prepared to wait another 5 years to have another go at electing their politicians to power rather than trying to do it faster through revolution and violence (Syria, Libya, Egypt, Thailand etc).

So my argument for a better result for everyone in Western style democracies (where we killed all potential insurrectionists long ago) is to assist the principle that "If you don't understand how state economics works, why vote for someone who doesn't either"? It's better not to vote than to hope that the person you believe might look after your best interests has any more of a clue how to do it than you. And the way to achieve this is to bore the part of the electorate who don't have a clue, into not voting. Make elections really, really boring!

Someone once described Harold Wilson's electioneering tactics as "Spreading apathy wherever he goes". Maybe the Tories can take a leaf out of his book. Edward Heath (the ultimate bore and 'unelectable' upper class toff) ended up winning that election for the Tories.