A Political Sham

It’s all gone a bit quiet on the MPs’ expenses front at the moment with the majority of the media and political class still predictably continuing to occupy themselves with what has now rather amusingly been dubbed by the newspapers as ‘smeargate’.

While both scandals undoubtedly serve to remind us and the electorate of how out of touch the political class are with the rest of the country – both morally and politically – this cannot, I think, necessarily be seen as entirely desirable.

In the few years leading up to the 1997 General Election, the Conservative Government of John Major was engulfed in scandal after scandal involving the sleazy activities of Tory backbenchers and Ministers. The bedroom antics and financial misdoings of MPs whom nobody had heard of previously were suddenly splashed all over the front pages of the daily newspapers.

It would be fair to say that all Governments who have been in office for any considerable length of time are susceptible to these scandals. This does not, of course, make it right that they should have been carried out by the individuals in question, but simply to say that such human and political failings will almost certainly happen under any Government of any party given enough time.

As it happens, the supposedly ‘whiter than white’ Labour party that followed the Conservative implosion and electoral landslide of 1997 was swiftly involved in its own set of financial and sexual scandals, with Robin Cook choosing to sack his wife at the airport after a phone call with Blair and later marrying his mistress, while Peter Mandelson was caught up in the Hinduja passport row.

Yet, with a change of Government, very little by comparison was made of these similar scandals in the mainstream media, and sleaze suddenly became politically unimportant again (to most journalists at least). This therefore suggests that sleaze only seems to matter when a Government is perceived to be doing a bad job. This was the case in the mid-nineties under John Major and is equally so now under the tenure of Gordon Brown.

However, more importantly, the cry of sleaze levelled at individual MPs and Governments can be used by the media as a means by which to allow the political opposition into office without ever having subjected them to reasoned or thorough scrutiny of policy.

In short it is an unreasoned, mindless frenzy. It happened in 1997 with very little public scrutiny of Labour’s policies under the leadership of Tony Blair, and it appears that something similar is happening again with the Labour Government and our Tory opposition under David Cameron. The effect will be that ‘real’ political issues will not be discussed (or often even aired) and that as a consequence no honest political choice will be given to the electorate – they will simply be voting on personalities.

Nobody Cares

A Labour official attempts to smear leading Tories. Conservatives angrily deny remarks and bitterly complain. Damian McBride resigns and leaves his job. Cameron calls for a public apology.

Labour backbencher, John McDonnell, and Shadow Foreign Secretary, William Hague, call for a swift inquiry into the email leaks and those responsible for the digital comments. The end of the world as we know it beckons.

Who actually cares? Certainly not me, though it seems that the usual suspects in the media and in the blogosphere have worked themselves up into a mad feeding frenzy over what amounts to be nothing more than a complete non-issue.

Nobody living outside the Westminster bubble actually cares at all either. Real people with real jobs and families are either too busy dealing with their own financial problems, as our economy falls into the worst recession for decades, or worrying about more important issues from health to immigration. Perhaps this is why the British National party are rapidly gaining traction in local elections at the expense of all the main parties?

In fact, this whole rather sad episode played out in Westminster just goes to further highlight how completely out of touch our political class have become. They’ve made more fuss over a few pathetic emails than they have over many, many other issues which are actually important to the electorate. This will only serve to drive yet more voters into the arms of the racist BNP.

Given No Choice

While the Liberal Democrats are highly unlikely to win the next General Election or win more seats than either Labour or the Conservatives, if there is a hung Parliament then they will most likely play a role in helping to form a coalition Government.

The BBC is reporting that the Liberal Democrats are going to drop their pledge to cut the overall level of tax at the next election. This, I think, is significant because it now means that none of three major political parties in Britain will be promising to reduce the increasingly crushing burden of taxation placed upon the British electorate at the election next year.

Our political class from all parties have conspired to remove any semblance of electoral choice over this highly important issue. If you believe that the tax burden should be cut, as millions of British voters do, then you are now left completely unrepresented by any political party that has a chance of forming a Government.

Furthermore, the usual excuses that party spokesman predictably parrot about how cuts in taxation are somehow ‘implausible’ or ‘irrational’ during the current economic climate are left completely uncontested. They never explain why such high levels of taxation are ‘rational’ or why it is right that the Government and state should waste so much of our income on frivolous pursuits and egotistical political projects.

The real reason why none of our political class will advocate any other alternative to what already appears to be the status quo is that they either genuinely support ever higher levels of stifling taxation, or that they have become so intellectually lazy that they have chosen not to make the case for a less expensive state.

When politics has been reduced by the political and media class to being about personalities rather than policies, should we really expect any different? Once again we have been given no choice.

Treated With Contempt

Particularly galling is the way in which Yousaf Bashir, who was part of a gang that hurled abuse at members of the Royal Anglian Regiment as they marched through Luton last Tuesday, has been given twenty-four hour police protection.

It is, of course, wrong that someone should have attacked Yousaf Bashir’s house on Friday, breaking his ground floor windows and smashing in the front door. If caught, those that committed these crimes should be tried and punished.

However, why should the police give Yousaf Bashir and his family preferential treatment? Millions of British people have had to suffer far worse criminality than Yousaf Bashir, without receiving any semblance of police protection.

But, what else should we really expect by now? As Peter Hitchens observed in his Mail on Sunday column, we should aim our anger not at these misguided individuals but at the liberal Left which has brought us to this point – for it is they rather than Islamic protesters that are the sources of these problems. He observed:

We teach our children to be ashamed of our past. We tell them our sailors at Trafalgar had weevils in their biscuits but not that by astonishing courage and endurance they saved Europe from endless tyranny.

We act ashamed of the Christian religion that formed our laws and institutions. We encourage new arrivals to speak their own languages, to stay in isolated communities.

We never say that there are two sides to hospitality – a concept our Muslim citizens understand very well – and that those who are welcomed are expected to be loyal members of the society they have voluntarily joined. What do we expect these people and their children to think if we treat our own nation with contempt?

Britain is not actually very much like Britain anymore. Culturally, morally and in so many other ways it has changed beyond compare. Like Peter Hitchens I still cling to the idea that it is not too late to stop the disintegration of our society, but, if so, then time is very short indeed.