Stirring Up Exasperation

It’s a strange business this campaigning lark, isn’t it? William Hague was in these parts this morning. I learnt this from his Twitter* feed. He can’t have spent much time in Hawick**, mind you, since he was soon in Edinburgh as part of a day-long tour of nine Scottish constituencies. Tour, of course, vastly overstates matters. Hague is dropping in on constituencies for a few handshakes, a pep talk to local party workers and, if the candidate is lucky, a few photographs for the local papers.

A lot of frenetic activity, then, but it’s hard to see how any of it can reasonably be expected to influence voters. William Hague’s presence on Hawick High Street can’t possibly, one must imagine, change anyone’s mind or recruit any more punters to the Tory colours. It is then a purely cosmetic exercise: doing stuff so you can be seen to be doing stuff. A vast, expensive, exhausting enterprise that achieves almost nothing as far as the ordinary voter is concerned.