The evil of politicians

I have been seriously taken aback to hear people defending politicians in this day and age. One person called many of them 'decent and honourable' and all sorts of hopelessly inappropriate names. May I state four facts:

1. A US survey some years ago, amongst a wide range of managers that included some politicians, showed that more than 80 per cent of them would make decisions in their business life that they would not approve of in their private life.

2. Many people have written of their own experiences to say that the worst of the active Nazis, including many of the SS, during the war were good family men who loved their wives and children.

3. No qualification whatever is needed to become a politician except the ability to talk well and impress the person selecting you and, later, your boss and, much later, TV viewers. It is also essential to personal progress that one does not speak critically of the people that fund the party, regardless of any negative effects they are having on the country and/or the people in it. Clearly real competence or a strong sense of integrity would be a severe handicap in that environment. The current government is a great example of the total failure of such a ludicrous selection process to produce people capable of running a highly-complex, multi-million-person organisation called a country.

4. Lots of leeches are only useful if you simply want less blood.

Dick Barton, Tinehely, Co Wicklow