I do not accept the idea that we should expect politics to be dirty. The terrible danger of dirty campaigning is that it can induce a kind of relativistic 'Gresham's Law' of politics: dirty campaigning drives out clean, if we reach the pretty pass where members of the public (and of the press) simply say 'You are all as bad as each other' and fail to make distinctions between those of us who use accurate graphs etc etc and those of us who don't.
If dirty campaigning triumphs, if we reach the point where there is no point in even trying to give the electorate accurate information, because they won't trust any of us and so one might just as well mislead them for short-term advantage, endlessly, then we might as well all give up and go home, and the 'clean up politics' agenda that rightly seems so vital now in the wake of the expenses scandal will just die.
There is a better way: Let's raise the standard of political campaigning, and vigilantly challenge practices in our own Parties and in others that fall short.
If dirty campaigning triumphs, if we reach the point where there is no point in even trying to give the electorate accurate information, because they won't trust any of us and so one might just as well mislead them for short-term advantage, endlessly, then we might as well all give up and go home, and the 'clean up politics' agenda that rightly seems so vital now in the wake of the expenses scandal will just die.
There is a better way: Let's raise the standard of political campaigning, and vigilantly challenge practices in our own Parties and in others that fall short.
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