The Amazing Mrs Pritchard

I don’t watch an awful lot of TV here in Utrecht. The BBC offers a fair few of their programs for download and so I watch the news, Question Time, Newsnight, that kind of thing. But last night I made the long walk down to the kitchen and actually watched some telly. Why? Because of the Amazing Mrs Pritchard. I’d seen some trailer when I was back at home and thought that it was worth a watch. I actually really enjoyed it: the idea that one person can really make a difference, can really inspire other people to shake things up is inspirational. The acting was great (especially Jane Horrocks’); the cameos by various politicians and journalists was effective (though almost every drama nowadays seems to feature a spoof Newsnight feature) and it was easy-watching. It raises the question of whether this could actually happen in real life. Could the public be persuaded to support a brand new political party enough to vote it into government? Each political party has those loyal to it; there will be people who will vote Labour, for example, whoever the candidate is and whoever the leader of the party is. But people loyal to one party for their whole lives are a dying breed; 30-odd percent of the electorate don’t bother voting at general elections; and of those who do vote, a vast amount are floating voters. The majority of the county probably don’t identify with one particular political party enough to remain loyal to it for life. Mrs Pritchard was a woman who appealed to this majority; her desire to end the lies and spin of politicians struck a cord with the electorate and they voted for her in overwhelming numbers. But could this ever really happen in real life? I’m not so sure. It’s a fantastic idea that a person, plucked from obscurity could be taken to heart by the electorate, but I think it’s a fantasy. That’s not to say that independent candidates shouldn’t stand in elections: anyone who wants to represent their constituency in Parliament should be encouraged to do so but at the end of the day people vote at elections, by and large, on the policies of the candidates and their parties, and there’s no real policy on which the whole country is agreed upon. Only entirely uncontroversial things like opposition to slavery would be supported by the country as a whole. But on the issues which people vote on at election time: the economy, education, health, foreign affairs, and so forth, there’s just no agreement by the people as a whole. Some will want higher taxes, other lower; some will support privatisation of parts of the NHS, others will oppose and so forth. Ros Pritchard and her Purple Alliance seemed to offer no policies whatsoever except to make a stand against the current political system and to encourage politicians to take “real” people seriously. That’s not a manifesto. No party could ever get elected to power on such a weak platform. I guess that was the weakness of the show. As you watch the show, you think to yourself “this is amazing; a total shake up of the political system… could this really ever happen?” but you quickly realise that no, it couldn’t, and so the show loses something. Nevertheless, it was entertaining and I’m interested to see where the show goes.