Those gullible enough to believe political slogans such as, 'Good for the economy', 'Good for business' and 'Good for Britain' when uttered by politicians are susceptible to all political rhetoric.
Moreover, those believing stuff like 'Everyone benefits from the ''trickle-down" effect' will accept any statistics promulgated by politicians without question and that is why poor people remain poor and the rich just get richer and richer.
Not understanding political speak is tantamount to criminal negligence on the part of individuals who then feel obliged to exercise their right to vote after absorbing blatant lies delivered by someone in a business suit. It's not exactly difficult to learn what politicians mean - take, for example, the oft-used expression, 'The fact of the matter is.....'. That is a trigger and should alert even the thickest of simpletons that a huge lie is about to be delivered.
Generally, the huge lie is accompanied by some obscure facts or statistics no-one is able to contend at the moment of delivery because they are not readily available and the politician gets away with it.
Months later, when the same politician is challenged over what he/she said previously, the reply is always a claim that they were misquoted. 'Those were not the words I used' or, even more commonly, 'My remark was taken out of context!' By then, of course, the political game has moved on and a new topic is under discussion which everyone wants to talk about rather than re-hash a politician's lies from a matter no longer headlining in the media.
The term, 'Lies, damned lies and statistics', itself frequently wrongly attributed, is undoubtedly all about the world of politics and whether it was Mark Twain, Disraeli or any one of a number of other candidates who first uttered the words, they certainly showed an insight absent from large swathes of the electorate today on both sides of the Atlantic.
Returning to my opening sentence, next time you hear any of those expressions uttered by a politician, a business mogul or the chairperson of the CBI, a little lateral thinking might persuade you that the beneficiary of such a plan is likely to be only one of those three and most certainly never all three!
Tom