Want to join my party?

I THOUGHT I’d start a new party.

Political, that is. The rules would be simple. First, no politics. And candidates would have to swear a couple of simple oaths: never to hide anything and always to ignore the fact they belonged to the party.

At first I thought the most important oath should be honesty, but cheats can swear honesty. They do it all the time.

The thing about never hiding anything is that it becomes obvious very quickly when you do.

And if you ignore the fact that you belong to the party, you don’t have to vote on party lines. Don’t get me wrong… I can see that party-line voting gets things done. It’s the things it gets done that bother me.

And when you end up with party whips (very apt) whipping members into line, you end up with the party being more important than the individual – a philosophy that seems to suit ants but which I feel makes the human race look a bit like… well, ants.

My party will have only one campaign rule: never knock the opposition. It’s a very curious thing: in business there is a principle that is widely accepted when marketing a product – never knock the opposition.

Ask a washing machine salesman about the other guy’s product and he’ll say: “Well, it’s very good in its way, if that’s what you’re looking for, but our machine…” and he’ll be off and running about how many spin cycles his has got, how much water it saves and how much whiter it washes.

This is considered to be a golden rule of salesmanship, broken only by geniuses and fools.

Now: take note of the interminable whingeing we get from all political parties about all the other political parties…

I suppose it’s possible they’re all geniuses.

How come politicians haven’t learned what is primary school stuff for big business?

But I guess if they had they’d be in big business making heaps of money, instead of the pittance we pay politicians – which is more than most of the truly useful members of society.

Personally the candidate who can say to me: “Look, I’m not going to get into a slanging match with the opposition, but this is what I’ll do for you…” will get my vote, and I don’t get how many lovers they’ve got, so long as they don’t try to hide them.

Should you want to consider running as a candidate in my new party, you will be required to pass a simple test. You’ll have to stand for eight hours in a used car lot. If anyone tries to buy a car from you – you’re out.

I’m amazed none of the major parties have thought of this. How many seats have they lost, I wonder, because they fielded candidates who looked like used car salesmen?

The trouble is, of course, that the more you look at any candidate, the more like used car salesmen they begin to appear.