Should we trust politicians who twitter and jump on populist bandwagons

I read today a record of an interview between Channel 4 and Grant Shapps conducted on Twitter. It was rather bizarre to see a senior politician responding to questions in what often appeared as ‘text speech’.

I suppose Mr. Shapps who carries odds of 40/1 to become the next leader of the Conservative Party, considers this to be a cool method of communicating that demonstrates his connection with modern lines of communication and which he hopes will make him more attractive to the younger generation.

The fact that his Welwyn Hatfield constituency is heavily populated with students may also have a bearing on his obsession with social networking tools of this type.

Unfortunately looking at his answers its seems Mr. Shapps was more interested in demonstrating his twitter shorthand than providing meaningful responses. In one response, which was of particular interest to me, he talked about making the stamp duty concession recently introduced by Government permanent, and about abolishing the HIP, surprisingly adding that by doing this it is his hope it will help to kick start the property market.

I can only imagine that Mr. Shapps has been so wrapped up in election campaigning, and no doubt practicing his twitter skills, that he has not seen any of the recent articles in which there have been reports from various independent sources on how market activity has returned to levels last seen before the introduction of the HIP.

Even the most ardent opponent of the HIP would find it difficult to argue otherwise; it’s a shame that a politician who could be our next housing minister is so out of touch.

Should I be surprised? Clearly not, particularly in a week when we see the LibDems jumping on the populist bandwagon by adding to its manifesto the statement of intent to abolish the HIP. Where did that come from? There was no discussion about this at their last party conference and I know for a fact that a large number of their own members were equally surprised.

No wonder there are so many of us who are, despite efforts to understand politics and a desire to place trust, left feeling deflated and very confused. So much so, it is easy to see why a large proportion of the electorate will simply not vote.

Politicians are driven by the desire for power and will do and say whatever they consider necessary to ensure they get their way. As demonstrated by Mr. Shapps obsession with Twitter, this election seems to be more about presentation and sound bites, and less about listening and responding to the concerns of the electorate. Perhaps the time has come for us to make a stand and to engineer through tactical voting a hung parliament. This may be the only means of getting the political parties to listen to what we have to say.