It seems to me there’s been something of a seachange in British politics over the past generation or so. Its something I’d long suspected but now, with the latest scandal of MPs’ expenses and the listing in the Daily Telegraph of what various MPs have been claiming, its become totally confirmed.
Perhaps its just in my mind. Perhaps MPs have always been a bunch of self-serving money-grabbing toerags and its just never come to light.
Or perhaps its nothing to do with the MPs themselves but rather our perception of them and, more tellingly, our own expectations of them. In which case the seachange wouldn’t be so much in politics itself as in British society as a whole.
And, I have to say, I don’t like it very much. In fact, I’m bloody disgusted by it.
Its bad enough that our MPs (the people that have supposedly been elected to “represent us” in our supposedly “free and democratic” society) should raid the public coffers to finance their own clearly exorbitant lifestyles. Whether or not such depletion of public funds is within their “rules” is totally irrelevant; just because something’s allowable “within the rules” doesn’t mean its compulsory… there’s such a thing as ethical behaviour y’know. And anyway, who drew up those “rules” in the first place?
So its bad enough that they should be doing this. That they should continue to do so whilst the country suffers in an economic crisis the like of which hasn’t been seen in decades almost defies belief. Can they really be so completely out of touch? So oblivious to the financial hardship that huge swathes of the British population are currently experiencing?
That some of them may have, since being “outed”, mumbled a token apology and offered to pay back their ill-gotten gains is utterly irrelevant. Almost insulting in fact. For they shouldn’t have pocketed the bloody money in the first place!
And let me explain that word “exorbitant”…
I’m a real person. A real flesh and blood living human being (believe it or not). Living in this benighted country of ours. A pretty average sort of bloke. No excessively expensive habits. Struggling to earn a living. Struggling to maintain a home that, in fairness, probably wouldn’t even fetch 90 grand on the open market… and I don’t even own the damn place! Struggling to pay the bills and then, if there’s any money left over, occasionally treating myself to inconsequentials like food.
And I don’t think I’m exceptional. I think there’s probably a whole load of people out there like me. And even more loads in a far worse situation. For at least I can manage nice little extras like a telephone, internet and so on.
But this is a far cry from the sort of lifestyle to which those in Westminster appear to have become accustomed… at our bloody expense!
Now don’t get me wrong. I’m neither envious nor jealous of those folk that earn whacking great lumps of money for doing an honest day’s work. Best of luck to ‘em. Nowt to do with me. Many many years ago I decided I didn’t want to become the sort of person it takes to be an ultra-successful businessman and so I changed the then pattern of my life and, in the words of the cliche, got out of the “rat race”. So fair play to ‘em if that’s what they want. And are prepared to pay the price in terms of what it does to you as a person.
But we’re not talking here about relatively honest businessmen that do a relatively honest day’s work are we? We’re not even talking about some celebrity who through some twist of fate captures the public imagination and thereby can command huge sums for public appearances etc.
No. We’re talking about a bunch of incompetents who clearly lie, cheat, deceive and swindle just so they can retain their grip on political power and sustain lifestyles that most of us only dream about (if we’re so inclined).
Its often been said that these scum are out of touch with ordinary people; that they don’t live in the real world. Well, what more proof is needed than the recent revelations about expenses?
(Ok, there are notable exceptions in that list the Telegraph compiled, but they appear to be in the microscopic minority. So what does that say about the culture apparently endemic to our present parliamentary system?)
And on top of everything else we have this bunch of wan***s constantly introducing ever more repressive and restrictive legislation and seeking ever more ways to micromanage our lives for us. Bloody hell!
However, although I’ve ranted on at some length about the expenses scandal this isn’t actually the real cause of my concern. Its merely, if you like, the “last straw”.
For, and its been most noticeable throughout the years of this bloody “New Labour” government (not that I’m a fan of either the Conservatives or the LibDems, and I don’t know enough about any of the minority parties to comment), it seems to me that politicians nowadays can deviate as far as they wish from ethical behaviour, can spin, manipulate, and distort the truth in any manner they like yet carry on regardless, virtually unscathed.
It seems to me that scandals that in earlier years (indeed, even in my recall) would have toppled governments and conceivably even precipitated constitutional crises are nowadays regarded as little more than peccadillos; minor breaches of etiquette that all too soon are forgiven and forgotten by their peers and, more importantly, by us.
So are we becoming more tolerant? Then if so I believe its a tolerance that goes just a step too far. Its a tolerance that threatens to undermine the very fabric of our society, and destroy everything that I thought we as a nation were supposed to be about.
Tolerance is fine if exercised with discrimination. The need to discriminate between that which justifies being tolerated… and that which demands rebuke or more. And deliberate, knowing, and cynical abuses of office certainly do not, in my opinion, merit tolerance.
Or have we just become blasé? Complacent? Immune to the declining standards in public life, no longer noticing them or considering them worthy of action, of outcry?
Is such immunity a product of the desensitisation that may have occurred with the consumption of an increasingly sensationalist press (competing for their market share), broadcast media, and of course easier access to the Internet?
Or apathetic even? Acknowledging the unpalatable truth that no matter what we say or do we, the “common people”, the “little people”, are just ignored, patronised, our only value being the tick we may put in a box every five years or so that those scumbags can then pretend they have some sort of meaningful mandate.
Oh… and the hard-earned pounds we pour into those public coffers year after year until we’re no longer able to earn sufficient to hold body and soul together. Remember? Those public coffers that are so eagerly raided by our conscienceless politicians.
Or is it the media? Are they nowadays so much in the pockets of the politicians that they no longer provide a sufficiently loud voice for the concerns of the general public, who are, let’s face it, the ones that keep them afloat?
For surely it is the media’s task, as much as ours, to remorselessly hound these ne’er-do-wells out of public office. The media are, after all, as much an integral part of society as we.
What then have we become as a society?
Call me old-fashioned if you like but I still believe that those elected to serve in public office should, in reality as well as appearance, be a little bit above the average. Should be exemplars of such notions as honour, integrity, and honesty.
They are elected to represent us, to conduct the affairs of the country for the common good (not for their personal good be it noted). They are given a virtually free hand to implement measures that impact all of us in our daily lives.
Specific measures, moreover, that are rarely offered to the electorate for opinion. Oh no. It just doesn’t work that way does it? By casting our vote for someone on the basis of what they may say in the run-up to elections effectively we’re giving them carte blanche to do what the hell they like once they are elected.
To give someone that degree of control over our lives requires, indeed demands, that we should be able to trust them implicitly. Yet offhand I can think of no single politician worthy of that degree of trust. Indeed, I doubt if I would extend that level of trust to many of my acquaintances with whom I’m far more familiar.
In fact, I wouldn’t trust a single one of these damn politicians to even do my shopping for me and not rip me off for the change. How then can I trust them with so much more than loose change?
To call those people who sit in Parliament (when they can be bothered to attend) “Honourable” and “Right Honourable” is a joke. Worse than a joke, its a bastardisation of the English language, stripping those words of the meanings they should truly possess. And it insults the very very few that may be genuinely honourable.
Honourable only insofar as they’re not also dipping their fingers into the till of course… though still not raising a hue and cry (on behalf of those that elected them) about the behaviour of their brethren. And I wonder what reason there could be for that particular silence?
Moreover this far less than honourable behaviour on the part of what appears to be the majority not only brings into disrepute the (what should be) worthy institution of Parliament, but also the country itself… showing a face to the world akin to that of some tinpot dictatorship where every petty official is “up for grabs”.
Far as I’m concerned its about time we got rid of the whole bloody bunch of them and started over. Way after time in fact.
Elections are a farce, structured in such a way that those who “win” only ever represent a minority of the population leaving the rest of us, to all intents and purposes, practically disenfranchised. So that too needs a complete overhaul.
I begin to think we’d all be better off with being ruled by a real Monarch than this present pretence of a “democracy”.
Or even another “Lord Protector”!
Oliver Cromwell where art thou?
Update 13.06.09 20:38- Here’s an interesting insight on how the Telegraph acquired their info on the MPs expenses…
How Daily Telegraph ‘bunker’ tackled MP expenses
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fotdmike
