Hmmm. The results are in on the BBC's fantasy government survey. Mandela probably deserves to be "most popular politician in the world", but I think the overall team selected would be pretty lousy compared to my choice.
OK, so I'm a megalomaniac. But I think the BBC's poll shows what's wrong with popularity contests.
Mandela and Clinton? Both capable figureheads, but you don't need two. Chomsky (who I admire, but an anarchist in world government?) As the BBC rightly highlights ... no women!
And, apart from Chomsky, no thinkers either. Kofi Annan seems a strange choice to me, though interestingly his inclusion means there are three black Africans in the selection. No Asians though. The only economist is technocrat Alan Greenspan. And what exactly might we expect from both Bill Gates and Steve Jobs working together?
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In a way, does this just represent how well "branded" these people are, rather than how *good a job* people think they would actually do?
Voting for leaders requires education about their policies, their backgrounds, etc. Voting for "idols" is a very different playing field, based on emotions, press coverage and more tacit "judgement" amongst society of different people and their character.
The fact that we associate names with a gut instinct does say a lot about the direction in which modern politics is heading in, though. Expect the "celebrity-dom" of MPs (rather than their actual effectiveness) to get worse before it gets better...
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