The Sky Debate.

First has anyone got an answer to a sticky keyboard? I sprayed mine with WD40 yesterday and it’s even worse. Anyway nice to see the old adversarial politics returning. Three men saying ‘I have all the answers and this is how it is.’ It’s like three men seeing an object on a table and arguing over whether it’s a TV, a bucket of lard or a small stoat. Surely if they find so much divergence there must be still more questions that need to be asked, like ‘does it have a tail?’ or ‘what happens when you plug it into the mains?’ By being so positive they are only indicating their confusion, like three Y9’s arguing that 3, 7 and 9 are the correct answer to the same maths problem. One can only assume either their parents did their homework or they were absent for that topic. In contrast there are no acrimonious debates on Gardeners Question Time. The panel of experts are usually in agreement and only differ by their choice of extra morsels of information they feel like contributing. One only has to imagine taking one’s car into a garage and being faced with three mechanics arguing over whether it’s the carburettor, the gearbox or the steering wheel. “But I brought it in because the brakes weren’t working.” “Please shush, we’re the experts.” No, there are two sorts of people. Ones that know all the answers and ones that keeps asking questions till they know what they’re talking about. But under our system we’re unlikely to vote for a leader who just says, “I’m not sure, but I’ll try my best” or “your camellias would do better in a sunnier spot.” We would feel short changed by anything less than absolute certainty. But rather like the clock that’s only right twice a day, absolute certainty is tantamount to perpetual ignorance that is wrong most of the time. We are though creaking slowly towards consensus politics as the traditional left/right political ground becomes meaningless. Today the ground is micro versus macro, you and me versus Toyota and Tesco. Not forgetting Goldman Sachs and RBS et al.