I note from Mark Parton’s blog [1] that the Chief Turnip of the ACT, Jon Stanhope, nearly let out the F word yesterday, but stopped himself just before it came out.
Word is that the Chief Minister was addressing some business leaders yesterday. He was talking about potential budget blow outs in the upgrade of Civic….and he nearly said, “How the F….can it possibly cost that much”
He stopped himself on the F and went with ‘How in the world’ instead.
People seem to like politicians who comes across as honest and “one of the people”, and not “putting on a show”. I can’t think of a better way for a politician to gain popularity than to use the F word, in context, in a public setting, and enjoy the public rallying behind him or her when the media starts criticising them for it.
Sure, you’d get those who would be critical, but on the whole, I think the number of people who would be supportive would greatly outnumber the disapprovers.
Whilst it does have to be remembered that there is a time and place for everything, and that a business meeting is probably not the place for a political leader to shout expletives, it’s probably a better place for them to do it than some other places (the chamber, for one, would be a bad place). There isn’t really a “right place” in public for a politician to use expletives, but for an intended or unintended political stunt, yesterday’s meeting with business leaders would have been one of the better places.
I suppose I should be thankful that he didn’t use the F word though, because if he did, I might have been forced to defend him…and defending Jon Stanhope is one of the least comfortable things I could ever be forced to do.
Samuel