uk politics for a change...

[Deckard]

plus Labour have now been in power for over a decade. Events that might not have harmed them much in the late 90s are now being viewed through the prism of "this washed out government".

Matthew Parris writing in the Times today makes this point well...

To a much greater extent than is generally acknowledged we use events to justify conclusions that we were already minded to reach. When [opposition leader] David Cameron's bicycle was stolen in Notting Hill this week, the media represented him sympathetically as an ordinary guy doing the shopping, and sharing - albeit involuntarily - the grief that crime causes his fellow citizens.

If Gordon Brown's bike had been nicked in identical circumstances we would have dubbed him a prat for chaining it to a stub from which it could be easily lifted, and described the incident as yet another stumble for a hapless politician who seems incapable even of taking his bike down to the shops. Apparently objective facts can be arranged to point in quite various directions.