Now that the election campaign is in full swing we are treated to daily soundbites from the average man in the street about the usual tabloid issues that supposedly blight hardworking families.
TV Stations like the BBC only target marginal seats where they’re more likely to find knee jerk opinions rather than well thought out reasoning. This at least makes their predictably boring coverage slightly more interesting.
And predictably, the angry man in the street speaks to the camera about voting Conservative for whatever tabloid issue that made him switch to Labour in ’97.
The thing is, I get the feeling that a lot of average men in the street are going to vote Conservative because they don’t like their conservative party being called New Labour. In this sense it’s all about partisan perception rather than policies, if you’re going to vote conservative you may as well vote for a conservative party with conservative in its name.
There’s more to this truly fascinating angle and I’ll be returning to it during the course of this campaign.