Toby Litt: 'We live in a weepocracy'
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'Emotional politics is dangerous. I don't think you should have government by people who profess to have the deepest feelings, but by people who have the most rational policies.'
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Toby Litt, whose latest novel deadkidsongs is published in February 2001, thinks he will vote New Labour at the general election - but isn't '100 percent certain'.
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'I'm still trying to work out what New Labour really are, which makes me think they're more smoke and mirrors than anything real. It's difficult to pin them down, which is to do with the way they're often more emotional than political.
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'What worries me most is the offence that Blair takes when he perceives ingratitude for the things he's been giving us - as if he's doing all these wonderful things and we're not even thankful. That is Blair's main emotion now, taking offence at the ingratitude of the electorate, and it's starting to border on a persecution mania.
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'Some people say Blair acts like a father to the electorate, but I think he's got enough real fathering to do without worrying about metaphorical fathering. It's more like he's a king, with us as his subjects.
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'But I don't think the Blair government is alone in changing things away from a rational approach towards an emotional approach. There is a whole trend within the media and society generally. We live in a "weepocracy" - if you're in a TV debate, the more emotion you show the more likely you are to win. And politics is similar now.
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'Look at the paedophile demonstrations, where everyone gets emotionally heated and feel they are right and holy. In a way, the laws we have are New Testament laws and it's like society is now saying, "No, we're Old Testament, we want vengeance". Blair is trying to negotiate the two.
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'But I think deep down he's a New Testament kinda guy.'
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Lisa Appignanesi: 'People are more intelligent than politicians give them credit for'
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'New Labour has run four years in government as if they were constantly running an election campaign, being a little too populist and playing to the tabloid press.'
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Lisa Appignanesi, one-time deputy director of the Institute of Contemporary Arts and now prolific novelist, will definitely vote Labour at the general election - 'because the alternatives are worse'.
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'Who else could one vote for? But I do have some concerns about Labour. One concern is over Europe, which I know everyone thinks is really boring. But that's because Labour has failed to turn it into an interesting or important debate, which is what it should be.
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'I'm also concerned about the asylum policy. I think the distinction between "genuine" asylum seekers and "bogus" asylum seekers is a right-wing agenda, which has nothing to do with reality in any way. People who come to this country don't do so to skive of our supposedly glorious benefits. They want to come to a freeish country and earn a living, and they should be allowed to do so. Instead they're being treated very badly.
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'I think New Labour has been too interested in what the press is going to say, too worried about the media. But the people, I mean the real people as opposed to the populist "People", aren't actually that in love with, or indeed influenced by, the popular media - people know how to think, they're more intelligent than politicians give them credit for.
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'New Labour is fond of this phrase "the People", but I think all governments are. They see a People with a capital P as if they speak for us all, but the people are very diverse and there isn't one single identity that you can attach to us.
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'But I will vote Labour - some of what they have done has been promising, so far.'
Brendan O'Neill is coordinating the spiked-conference Panic attack: Interrogating our obsession with risk, on Friday 9 May 2003, at the Royal Institution in London.
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