Does the Public Expect Too Much of UK Politicians?
| Author | Samuel Lopes |
| Published date | 01 December 2020 |
| Date | 01 December 2020 |
| DOI | 10.1177/2041905820978843 |
36 POLITICAL INSIGHT • DECEMBER 2020
An odd thing happened at
the last election. For the first
time in the BBC’s history,
the sitting prime minister
refused to engage in an agreed headline
interview (with the BBC’s Andrew Neil)
days before election night. This was the
most public example of Boris Johnson
cancelling an interview, but there were
others. By declining to be interviewed,
the Conservative leader reduced the risk
of the public perceiving him negatively.
He probably believed he could never
measure up to public expectations, so why
bother? The problem, however, lies not in
the public expecting too much, but in the
nature of those expectations themselves.
Naturally, politicians seek to shape
the public’s confidences, coaxing them
to align with the perspectives of their
party. The disappointment this can bring
can best be seen after elections; Ipsos
MORI found that while 41 per cent had
an unfavourable opinion of Johnson
immediately after polling day, this had
risen closer to half of Britons by March
(47 per cent). That’s a sizeable minority
of the public who had expectations of
Johnson that were not fulfilled in the
first three months after the election. The
arms race of infeasible promises made
during campaigns results in the public
having unrealistic perceptions of our
representatives and the change they can
create.
It’s our parliamentary system which
drives this political purgatory. The British
system rightly imposes constraints on
government policies, but politicians
have to reconcile these with pre-existing
public beliefs. ‘The Public’ isn’t a singular
conscience; it holds a multiplicity of
views on nearly all issues. Governments
will inevitably disappoint someone. This
leads to a vicious cycle of failed promises,
eroding the public’s trust in politicians;
according to Ben Seyd, a senior lecturer in
politics at the University of Kent, almost
three-quarters of British citizens express
some form of disappointment with our
political system. So, what should we
expect from our politicians?
Most people believe that since
politicians are funded out of the public
purse and act in their interests, they
should abide by a stricter moral code than
the population at large. When politicians
fail to do this, the public is easily outraged.
A poll after the 2009 expenses scandal
found that 63 per cent of the public
were ‘fairly or very dissatisfied’ with the
Westminster Parliament, up from 30 per
cent in 2001. Dissatisfaction leads to the
public seeking more immediately obvious
solutions to difficult problems, explaining
the rise of populist figures not just in
Britain, but across Western democracies.
However, a politician’s job is not to be
a saint, but to implement policy; scandals
are inevitable, and no programme of
reform will ever fully remove them from
politics. Politicians know they are only ever
one headline away from disrepute, and so
try to over-compensate with simple and
In the winning entry of this year’s PSA student essay competition,
Samuel Lopes argues that British public life would be improved if
voters had more realistic expectations of their politicians.
wide-ranging pledges. To break the cycle
of extravagant promises, politicians would
do better to highlight the compromises
and trade-offs necessary in their day-to-
day decision-making. By nature, politics
involves sacrificing one group’s demands in
order to fulfil another’s. Of course, this then
runs the risk of contradicting perceptions
created during elections.
Likewise, it is important to educate
the public about our political system.
Understanding how laws are formulated
and put into practice would also have the
positive side effect of holding politicians
accountable, removing the powers of
perception away from ‘spin-doctors’ and
into the hands of the many. This would
ensure that the real demands of voters
are heard and turn a vicious cycle of
broken promises into a virtuous one of
comprehension.
Ultimately, expectations drive politics.
Both politicians and the public have their
part to play in encouraging reasonable
expectations while holding our elected
representatives to account. If this is
achieved, British politics will be a paragon
of democracy for generations to come.
Samuel Lopes is a student at Altrincham
Grammar School and the winner of
the Political Studies Association’s 2020
Student Blog competition, held in
partnership with the Financial Times. The
prize is open to students in the UK aged
16-19. Details of next year’s competition
will be announced in the new year.”
Political Insight December 2020 BU.indd 36Political Insight December 2020 BU.indd 36 10/11/2020 15:4610/11/2020 15:46
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