Rambling about politicians

[Andrew Robinson]

I don't really know why I'm sending this to the 'bar, it probably
doesn't really belong here, but I wrote it without really knowing what
I was going to do with it...

In my year as Pirate Party UK leader, I my path crossed that of quite
a few members of parliament, past, present and future. I spent a few
hours with some of them, and got to know them reasonably well. What
are these strange semi-public characatures like in real life?

Well, I can think of two who came across as just normal people, who's
political beliefs did not seem to be deeply held, but were likely to
just be a product of their upbringing, and who didn't display much
passion for the job. I got along fine with them, and found them
pleasant company.

Two more I found actively unpleasant, they seemed to be driven mostly
by hatred of the opposition party, they ducked every question that
they could, and would rather snipe and throw mud than discuss issues
rationally.

The last two I feel I know well enough to comment on, are people I
admire a lot, for their intelligence, honesty, and for their ability
to politely disagree, to discuss, and even to change their position
after rational debate. These last two I would be proud to call my
friends. You might be surprised that I put any MPs into that last
category, but I'm very glad to say that fully 1/3 of the MPs I have
spent time with, I consider to be really, really good people, who take
their job very seriously, do what they do out of strong moral
convictions that they are doing the right thing for their
constituents.

So, I would say of the MPs that I know reasonably well, there are 2
average people, 2 villans, and 2 heroes. Here's the surprising bit...
each of those pairings consists of exactly one Labour and one
Conservative politician.

- Andy_R