Parliament is not like NZ’s X-Factor; the marketing and bitchiness do not make up for an absence of talent.

Politics can seem like a light entertainment to insiders. Apart from the incredible expense, in these benign times, its a show that is relatively harmless.

Despite their skepticism, voters like the idea that politics is a serious field conducted for their benefit, and at their discretion.That’s why they get uppity when politicians are found rorting or cavorting.

So it’s a serious mistake for politicians to outwardly express their sense of the business being akin to a game.

Labour Leader David Shearer has made two such misjudgements recently.

Yesterday he said about an up coming by-election:

“Labour will campaign relentlessly to once again earn the trust of the people of Ikaroa-Rawhiti. We will organise, mobilise and terrorise our political opponents. …

“Let the games begin,” says David Shearer.

I forgive the first paragraph, although it makes the cardinal sin of seeing politicians as the instigators, rather than the listeners. I believe the sentiment is aimed at what will motivate its grass-roots support. 

But the notion that campaigning is “games” treats the voters, and the role of politics in our cultural life, with disdain.

Shearer did it again in the middle of the ridiculous furor over Aaron Gilmore.

He said Labour would bring “popcorn and coke” to Gilmore’s valedictory speech in Parliament.

The idea that the leaving speech of a harassed and bullied MP was light entertainment, is abhorrent.

There’s no doubt that politics has a great amount of theatre within it. But it’s theatre with a dramatic purpose; establishing society’s values, and its willingness to share and help.

Seeing just the stage lights and make-up seriously underestimates why the political script is written in the first place, and why people watch the drama.

When politicians are scared to say what they think, they lose.

Most of us watch what we say. We avoid saying things that are hurtful or might meet disapproval, because we want to be liked.

Politicians watch what they say for the same reasons. The task is harder for them because they are usually strongly tribal, adhering to a narrow set of expressed beliefs. Yet there’s also a wider set of constantly shifting social beliefs of the elite (‘political correctness’) which they must be conscious of.

If you’ve ever wondered why politicians seem to say so much of nothing, consider their challenge; watching them closely are opposition tribes, and media, waiting to beat them for expressions which conform too closely to their ideology, don’t conform to things they’ve said or done before, don’t conform to the reigning set of in-things to believe, or don’t conform to the opposition tribes’ ideology.

It’s most often a no-win situation. What-ever you say or do, someone won’t like it.

The most obvious way out of the dilemma is to say nothing meaningful - which is the preferred route of most politicians and public relations practitioners.

The only winning route out of the dilemma is to say what you think, and say it persuasively, but choose your moments wisely.

That’s easier said than done. Consider this radio interview with New Zealand’s social welfare Minister Paula Bennett, on a project that puts on breakfast for students in poor schools. She handles herself beautifully, but gets caught on her refusal to admit that the project exists because there is “poverty”.

She “knows” that if she admits there is poverty her opponents will claim she is admitting her Government has failed. She tries arguing that there is no “extreme poverty”. She tries arguing that there will always be parents who fail to look after their kids, for reasons other than income. But the interviewer hounds her, seeking an admission that there is poverty. Bennett isn’t suckered into admitting there is poverty, but the word game sounds silly and evasive. It’s particularly silly because she’s refusing to admit something that is the very reason she has launched the food project.

Bennett’s fear of admitting poverty is unnecessary. Politician opposition might try to use it against her, but they won’t get far. The public know the poverty is there. Some might hold her Government responsible, but others won’t. And most will be at least a little impressed with the school food project.

When politicians scare themselves into refusing to discuss things they, and we, can plainly see - they lose, because they look silly.

Another example in the public affairs space was the controversy stirred up on the same day by the retiring head of Fonterra, Henry van der Heyden, who admitted he had told a business conference not to trust the Chinese.

Hearing him dancing on the head of a semantic pin about what he said, what he meant, and his apology, was painful. He claimed he just meant that doing business with the Chinese was very different. I felt embarrassed for him. Interviewers asked him to be explicit about what was different. He said people needed to learn the lessons themselves from working with the Chinese.

Again, van der Heyden most probably meant what he said. It’s a common comment among exporters. Coming from New Zealand, one of the least corrupt societies in world, it’s a good rule of thumb to, initially at least, not trust anyone when doing business in one of the more corrupt societies in the world.

His fear of being on the wrong side of the “right thing to say” prevented him from speaking plainly. He could not even find words to describe what doing business with China is practically like.  Yet, even the Chinese Government has acknowledge the problem and is trying to deal with widespread corruption.

What happens in these situations is politicians or public figures let their fears of perceptions of others confuse expression of what they think.

The first task is to work out what you think, the second is to work out what others will think, and the third task is to work out how to express your thought so others that are important to you will agree (sooner or later).

That’s why public figures need the help of astute public relations consultants.

Politicians don’t get enough sleep. The result is poor decision-making.

A politician once fell asleep at their desk while listening to my client explain their position on an issue. I was grateful, rather than annoyed, because I was finally able to convince the client to speak more evocatively.

Politicians caught asleep in public are targets for barbs about slacking on the job, but there’s many things not funny about the regularity with which this happens.

Sleeping on the job shows that politics is about long hours and is at times boring enough to send you to sleep. It also shows that politicians are likely to be living with poor health and be working at a sub-optimum mental performance.   

According to the UK Sleep Council, politicians are among the most sleep-deprived. It found the average politician got a little over 5 hours of sleep each night. Only hospital doctors on call had less, averaging 4.5 hours.

A lovely tribute here upon the death of Hazel Hawke, wife of former Australian Prime Minister Bob Hawke.

The public response to spouses of leaders is intriguing. What-ever happens, the reaction is almost always driven by the public attitude to their partner, the nation’s leader.

Sometimes we feel sorry for them, because of the human frailties that national leadership exposes in their spouse. Sometimes we’re embarrassed or impressed by their performance alongside their spouse or representing them.

For example, people are impressed by the way in which Michelle Obama has risen to the first-lady role. In contrast, the public were embarrassed for Naomi, the ‘pink-cardigan’ wife of New Zealand Prime Minister David Lange. In further contrast, ex-model Carla Bruni, wife of French President Sarkozy, has an intriguing pre-politics life, but her fame is now closely tied to her marriage.

This was equally true of Hazel Hawke, who loyally stood in the shadow of her husband. Public sympathy and support followed her divorce from Bob when he fell for his biographer.

She subsequently, and almost consequently, usurped Bob’s fame, becoming a national public figure for her ‘good public works’.

Yet, this work wasn’t about her personal talents; it was about her post-marriage life. She didn’t try to stop it. Advertisements and public appearances often featured her family, with Bob Hawke conspicuous in his absence.

I can’t help thinking that even when she was a national figure in her own right, it was still very dependent on the public’s knowledge of who she had been; the spouse of a Prime Minister.

Out of the mouths of babes, and women, is a truth about politics: it’s too ugly to get involved.

The School of Public Affairs in Washington has run a survey (pdf) that finds why there’s so few women in politics: they don’t want to do it.

The study of over 2100 college students found that young women are less likely than young men ever to have considered running for office, to express interest in a candidacy at some point in the future, or to consider elective office a desirable profession.

Every political party in Parliament is responsible for the travesty of ignoring the Electoral Commission’s recommendations on MMP.

As National has revealed, each of them had an opinion on the major recommendations. The result was a patchwork of competing ideas.

The problem was not the differences, but that any of them thought they were entitled to views in the first place.

The views are in themselves a perfect illustration why politicians should have no role in electoral or constitutional matters. The mix of principle, ideological and self-survival is ugly. I feel sorry for the politicians - that they were even obliged to face such a conflict.

It’s ironic, because the political sector is obsessed with conflicts. David Shearer went to town on John Key’s conflicts over appointment of a head of GSCB.

Yet here they were, conflicted to all hell over whether to vote for changes to MMP that could affect their chance to govern, or even be in Parliament at all. Thus, Shearer could not commit to more than a “discussion” on the recommendations, because his Party was against, or at least ambivalent, toward some of the changes.

These are matters are for the people to decide. We decide who gets into Parliament to represent us on day to day national decisions, and we should be deciding how we do the voting.

We can’t let National off the hook by blaming the whole of Parliament for not accepting the Commission’s changes, or not putting the changes before us all to vote on in another referendum.

Judith Collins’ easy dismissal of the recommendations because it was too hard to get “consensus” (her newly invented requirement) makes a mockery of the apparent enthusiasm with which she had earlier urged the public to get involved with the review. John Key himself said the review was a chance for the public to “finally… kick the tyres on MMP”.

John Key’s ‘end of the matter’ attempt to shut down the recommendations was unedifying for a man previously so wedded to principled management to Government and treatment of public attitudes. 

We did have some clues that National was not going to like the electoral commission recommendations. For example, in 2011, John Key said he did not think it was necessary to eliminate the “one seat rule”.

I would imagine that Key, in particular, preferred the embarrassment of shutting down the whole thing, to the embarrassment of picking up some of the recommendations and not others.

It’s easier for a turkey to ban all holidays, than ban just Christmas. That’s why politicians shouldn’t be forced into the ignominy of voting on electoral stuff at all.

1) The opinions of high and low incomevoters are highly correlated; the legislator’s vote often reflects the desire of both.

2) What differences in representation by income exist, vary by legislator party. Republicans more often vote the will of their higher income over their lower income constituents; Democratic legislators do the reverse.

3) Differences in representation by income are largely explained by the correlation between constituent income and party affiliation

Fascinating… and yet I know that no politicians, particularly not those from the left, will drop the story that the poor think differently from the rich, and are not well represented in Parliament.

They won’t drop it because the story is essential to explaining the differences between the way of thinking of the political parties, and thus, they think, critical to them being elected.

Politicians aren’t psychopaths, but their staff are.

In his book in the book The Wisdom of Psychopaths Kevin Dutton lists the professions attracting the most psychopaths.

Politicians don’t feature - but civil servants do, at 10th on the list.

A psychopath displays amoral or antisocial behaviour, and egocentricity. They lack empathy and cannot establish meaningful personal relationships.

It appears from the list that ‘psychopathic professions’ tend to reward egocentric behaviour. They’re mainly about the person in the job, or about positions of power and decision-making.

In contrast, the least psychopathic professions are those focused on helping other people, like nursing. They also appear to include jobs involving concentrated skills, like arts and crafts, where contact with others is not a prerequisite.

The difference is intriguingly ironic; to carry out their self-obsession psychopaths need other people. My view is that psychopathic tendencies are easily discovered, so they are only tolerated in professions where skills more than compensate for the self-obsession; such as with chefs and lawyers.

So why don’t politicians appear in the most psychopathic professions? Our own research shows that politicians are more extroverted than average. But extroversion is effectively an enjoyment of people - not an approach that is inherently self-obsessed. In fact, politicians appear to have more close fiends that most people - so they might have less trouble forming meaningful relationships than most of us.

Why do bureaucrats feature as a psychopathic profession? I suggest that it’s because the sense of decision-making over the lives of others generates an illusion of high self-importance. My experience is that there are more willful individuals in bureaucracy than in everyday life. It may be that the environment created there by genuine psychopaths draws out the worst of strident individualistic expression in many of us.

The top 10 most psychopathic professions:

1. CEO
2. Lawyer
3. Media (TV/radio)
4. Salesperson
5. Surgeon
6. Journalist
7. Police officer
8. Clergyperson
9. Chef
10. Civil servant

The top 10 least psychopathic professions:

1. Care aide
2. Nurse
3. Therapist
4. Craftsperson
5. Beautician/stylist
6. Charity worker
7. Teacher
8. Creative artist
9. Doctor
10. Accountant

A Washington Post analysis has shown why Governments find it so hard to cut budgets: they don’t really want to.

The Post examined the detail of spending cuts claimed by the US Government in April 2011 and concluded that the cuts were “an epic kind of Washington illusion”.

It found that about $17.4 billion in cuts were made by stopping activity that had already been canceled.

In the real world, in fact, many of their “cuts” cut nothing at all. The Transportation Department got credit for “cutting” a $280 million tunnel that had been canceled six months earlier. It also “cut” a $375,000 road project that had been created by a legislative typo, on a road that did not exist.

At the Census Bureau, officials got credit for a whopping $6 billion cut, simply for obeying the calendar. They promised not to hold the expensive 2010 census again in 2011.

Today, an examination of 12 of the largest cuts shows that, thanks in part to these gimmicks, federal agencies absorbed $23 billion in reductions without losing a single employee.

“Many of the cuts we put in were smoke and mirrors,” said Rep. Mick Mulvaney (R-S.C.), a hard-line conservative now in his second term. “That’s the lesson from April 2011: that when Washington says it cuts spending, it doesn’t mean the same thing that normal people mean.”

From my experience, there’s two different forces driving this outcome:

1) Governments want to appear to the public bold and decisive, so are prepared to include in their calculations things that aren’t real cuts.

2) Officials want to help the Government reach the target, so look for the easiest things to cut  They don’t really want to go through real baseline reviews because they are hard work, cause pain, and hurt stuff that staff, peers and stakeholders don’t like.

These two forces effectively collude to ensure Government attempts to cut spending usually only suspend or temporarily lower, the year on year increase in the cost of government.

Ex-Labour MP Paul Flynn wrote a lively, gossipy and engaging book on life inside the UK Parliament.

His Daily Mail feature gives an insight into the unique, and somewhat incestuous environment of that institution - and from my experience, of the New Zealand Parliament as well.

Flynn obviously regards the strangeness fondly - and so do I.

His only real beef appears to be with Select Committees; whose job is to interrogate matters, especially legislation, with vigor and intelligence. But with alarming regularity, they don’t.

Being a Daily Mail story, it features a photo of a well endowed Wonderbra model being embraced by Lembit Opik, an ex-MP.  It’s a gorgeous expression of the saying that politics is Hollywood for ugly people. With all due respect to Lembit, the closest he was ever going to get to that model was by going into politics…

Flynn’s insights reveal the endearing ordinariness and passions of the  institution that runs UK. 

Righteous pundits who rail against the trivia and weaknesses of Parliaments, and want thing “better”, really just have a problem with the untidiness of people. It’s an understandable ideal, but the reality of people and politics is largely unchangeable.