About a million years ago, when I was “dating”, my girlfriends and I would set great store by whether a man was “good on paper”. This meant that he ticked certain boxes: good-looking, clever, successful, all his own teeth — that sort of thing. We’d meet to discuss the relative merits of our various beaux, and always the question would arise: did they fulfil the collective criteria of the group?

It took me several years and many romantic disappointments before I realised that Chablis-fuelled focus groups are no way to go about finding a husband. A man can draw as many gasps of approval from your friends as you like; that doesn’t mean he’s The One. The person you end up marrying and raising children with may not tick a single one of your metaphorical boxes; what he will have is that certain something that makes him stand out from all the rest.

In that respect, politicians are very similar to boyfriends. Take Menzies Campbell. No politician ever looked better on paper than the sainted Ming, former Olympic runner, man of stern moral fibre and all-round good egg. Once he became leader of the Liberal Democrats, however, it quickly became clear that he was just a lumpfish posing as caviar.

The moment everyone unanimously agrees that someone (or something) is marvellous is when it all turns to dust. It’s the curse of our focus-group culture, where decisions are not made based on passion, or inspiration or gut instinct, but on a muddled, often tenuous, consensus. Great ideas or ambitious visions are pared down and sanitised. Rough edges are smoothed over, difficult arguments simplified, mediocrity rewarded.

I say this knowing next to nothing about Parliament, but just a little bit about pop music. This, you see, is the Traveling Wilburys theory of politics. For those too young to remember (or who have simply wiped the whole episode from their minds), the Traveling Wilburys were a 1980s “supergroup” consisting of George Harrison, Jeff Lynne, Roy Orbison, Tom Petty and Bob Dylan. An illustrious line-up, you’ll agree. And everyone did. The world awaited their oeuvre with bated breath, convinced that it would be dazzling.

In the event the results were, to put it politely, something of a let-down. The albums sold, of course, the critics pontificated but, objectively, their music was at best dreary, at worst dreadful. It was accomplished, there can be no doubt about that; but it lacked bite. In the final analysis it was glorified dad rock. Individually they were all still geniuses; collectively, however, they were just five rich blokes indulging in a protracted boys’ night in.

Just as Band Aid (whisper it) stank from a musical point of view (although was obviously very admirable in every other respect, please don’t write in) as do those Christmas variety shows in which they get the one from Bananarama to sing a duet with Tom Jones before Kylie descends on a sequined platform. Any concept that is designed to cater for the common denominator is by definition going to be a disappointment.

Truly inspirational people, whether they be pop stars or politicians, are the ones who are not afraid to be Marmite, to alienate their audiences. Because to achieve anything worthwhile at all in life you’ve got to be ready to irritate the hell out of your rivals.

Why, for example, is David Lloyd George a hero? Because he fearlessly stuck it to the other side. One hundred years ago, when as Chancellor of the Exchequer he was doing his so-called “people’s budget”, and tearing into the House of Lords, he made no attempt to be reasonable or conciliatory. “A fully equipped Duke costs as much to keep up as two dreadnoughts, and Dukes are just as great a terror and they last longer,” he once said — a statement that would not have gained him many invitations into the stately homes of Edwardian Britain. Listen to the echo of that magnificent piece of class warfare, and you know that the man was truly top class.

It’s that kind of passion that’s needed when you want someone actually to do something useful, such as establish a welfare state, or win a war. That is why Lloyd George, and not Menzies Campbell, is the great Liberal hero: because he divided people, rather than uniting them in unanimous sycophancy. Or, as he himself put it: “A politician is a person with whose politics you don’t agree; if you agree with him, he’s a statesman.”

Let’s look at today’s statespersons. Everyone loves Ben Bradshaw; no one’s got a bad word to say about Tessa Jowell; even John Bercow has a certain impish charm. If I could have any of them as my neighbour I would be delighted, but I don’t want to choose my rulers on the basis of who might lend me a cup of sugar. I want people who are raw, moody, cantankerous — and effective.

Back, then, to the Traveling Wilburys. I don’t want Radio 2-style easy listening politicians, a so-called Cabinet of all the talents, with David Miliband as a political David Byrne, too small for his suit (and his brother as just another talking Ed). I don’t want Alan Johnson strutting about like Paul Weller or Liam Byrne as a vanilla version of Neil Tennant.

I want rock’n’roll (baby). So even when he’s in the wrong, I want Gordon Brown (I’m thinking he could be John Lennon, in that if Lennon had lived he’d have driven everyone mad, including himself) to whack down his papers on the dispatch box and roar his pain and anger; I want David “Danger” Davis to flash his SAS killer smile and take us all for a walk on the wild side à la Lou Reed.

On a more serious note, I want Nicolas Sarkozy to tell it like it is on the burka; and frankly, Barack Obama, why did it take you so long to tell the women of Iran that you were on their side? Was the focus group late in that morning?

Politicians (believe me, I know) spend an enormous amount of time worrying about policy detail. But what counts to the voters is the authentic whiff of political passion. Not a bunch of watered-down Traveling Wilburys, but a political Mick Jagger, someone who will strut out on stage, grab the mike and tell us that we can’t always get what we want — but he’s damn well going to give us what we need.

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