Who said politics is the last refuge of a scoundrel

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Sometimes a sharp remark is all it takes to capture serious issues, or so it seems. Take this one. More so given the fact that 1, 36 per cent MPs and MLAs as against a total of 4, lawmakers in Parliament and assemblies are facing criminal trial in 3, cases.

Also, among the remaining parliamentarians and state assembly members, many are perceived to be self-serving and unscrupulous lawmakers. According to a noted political commentator, candidates facing criminal charges are three times more likely to win a seat than those with a clean record.

So, in socially fragmented societies, political parties flourish and survive through their constituencies influencing political arithmetic. And this decline is symptomatic of falling standards of political discourse and electoral decorum.

As quality political discourse has almost ceased to be an essential part of democracy, elections have been significantly reduced to exercising power of rhetoric by political parties and their leaders.

Thus, the art of political persuasion becomes the hallmark of electoral politics in India. Put differently, politicians care what it is they can convince people they desire, so they can better appeal to it.

Bernard J. Dear Quote Investigator: A politician whose popularity is dropping may attempt to recapture acceptance by disingenuously embracing jingoistic patriotism.

Here are three versions of a germane saying:. Would you please help me to identify an accurate version of this saying together with the identity of its creator? Quote Investigator: Lexicographer Samuel Johnson was a celebrated eighteenth-century man of letters. Boldface added to excerpts by QI: 1. I maintained, that certainly all patriots were not scoundrels. Being urged not by Johnson, to name one exception, I mentioned an eminent person, whom we all greatly admired.

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