David Kirkby, who is a Researcher at Bright Blue, has an article in the Independent in which he echos David Cameron’s comments about our politicians being a ‘pretty decent bunch’; in the process making his own point that he considers MPs more responsive to – and reflective of – their constituent’s views, ending with the statement that the prevailing extreme negativity about Westminster is not justified.

Bright Blue is an independent think tank and pressure group for liberal conservatism, one of whose principles is ‘evidence not ideology’. Unfortunately it sees that young Kirkby, in writing his article, has forgotten the evidence bit and based his argument on the ideology bit.

This blog is by no means ‘belittling’ the efforts or wishes of anyone in the early years of their life from taking an interest in the political scene, but surely someone considered vetting this piece of propaganda – for that is what it is – to counter any attempt to ‘pull it to pieces’?

Considerbut three immediate points:

Politicians may well be more responsive and reflective of their constituents wishes, but that does not stop them going through the voting lobbies on the instructions of their party whips;

Is it any wonder that constituency casework takes up the greatest share of MPs’ time, followed by constituency meetings and events when there is little for them to do where the governance of this country is concerned;

To write about ‘democratic governance’ first it is necessary to understand what that is because we sure as hell don’t have it – and Kirkby obviously does not understand that.

If Kirkby is an example of the 17-22 age group, is it any wonder that 62% of those surveyed in that group believe that membership of the EU is a good thing? Neither is it odd that a majority will tend to vote for left-of-centre parties – you work it out.

In the promised forthcoming referendum on EU membership the young, who seemingly know nothing about UK politics, let alone democracy and sovereignty – which are priceless – begs the question of just how will they even begin to understand any debate on the cost/benefit of EU membership?

I foresee a bright future for David Kirkby as a politician as he is already exhibiting that one characteristic of same – knowing squat diddly on that which he pontificates.