The ‘X Factorisation’ of politics

[dropcap]I[/dropcap]n a year featuring an election landslide for the Tories, the biggest political surprise of 2015 was still the shock election of outsider Jeremy Corbyn as leader of the Labour Party.

Jeremy Corbyn. Photo: Flickr / Global Justice Now

When asked about the radical reorganisation of the left following Corbyn’s win, Nick Robinson put it down to the “X Factorisation of politics,” a “gladiatorial” premise where people seem to make sweeping decisions based on broad likes or dislikes – a set-up where you employ the minimal amount of thought as you base your decision on the most surface of reasons. Is this a fair judgement?

Clearly, the birth of television allowed the public an unheard-of level of access to politicians. Originally, this comprised of bland newsreaders behaving with respect levels so deferential they may as well have been the Pope, as they interviewed dour-faced politicians. Eventually, as time went by, TV became more obtrusive and newsreaders less passive. They grilled, they asked questions that made politicians uncomfortable and they pushed for answers like never before – an excellent example is a famous 1997 interview between Jeremy Paxman and Michael Howard. Now, it seems commonplace, but there was a time when the confrontational interview was new and exciting.

Of course, almost as a corollary, this evolution meant the politicians had to evolve too – they became more media-savvy, more focused on style and spin. They became more evasive, soundbite-obsessed inhumans trying to be just like ordinary people, and demonstrating it on the box.

I think Nick Robinson definitely has a point here.

The average person only interacts with politics through the television, and they don’t really care about it even then

As such, their political view is often fashioned by what they see on-screen, hence the need to make every policy easily digestible – anything too complex to absorb is, then, an active turn-off for a potential voter.

The parallels to The X Factor are fairly obvious – a bunch of identikit nobodies all flaunt how different they are in front of critics not technically qualified to pass judgement (what does Nick Grimshaw really know about anything?) and, on the basis of a couple of performances, votes are taken until you have a winner.

In what is perhaps a most distressing turn of events, this loathsome show attracts more interest than politics. Newspapers cover what the contestants are wearing or doing, devoting whole spreads to them, where politics winds up relegated, even though it is of much more importance.

In one episode of Pointless, a question, asking who the current Prime Minister was, was answered correctly by 34 people – by contrast, in the same episode, 73 knew who had won that year’s Britain’s Got Talent

Nick Robinson. Photo: Flickr / tompagenet

Robinson also draws attention to young voters’ lack of foresight – the idea of who would be running the country in five years didn’t matter, they voted instead for who they wanted at that moment in time. In a world of instant gratification – where you can click and choose whatever you want with ease – people do not take the time to consider and reflect, and this sets a dangerous precedent. This started with TV – vote now if you want it to count, and so on – but this real world crossover is really worrying.

He highlights one last point – a fundamental lack of jeopardy in politics. Whereas, say, in the 80s, public passion around Margaret Thatcher was high on both sides and people felt their lives being affected, the same is not true nowadays. There is a lack of attachment – TV placing a glass wall around events has numbed all of our brains. Don’t bother to worry about voting, but tune in tomorrow to see what happens next.

TV getting involved in politics has changed it for the worse, and Nick Robinson’s analysis is quite correct – the running of our country is just another on-screen competition, a reality soap that isn’t worth watching, and one that’s just a bit of a lark. We have been fashioned into zombies who can’t see past today, reliant on mother television to show us the way.

And that is really terrifying.