Time to Change?

Before any of my 'not lefty' friends baulk at the title of this expecting it to be another attack on the Tories and why we should all vote Labour, you can put that notion to bed straight away. No ordinary Tory should be fearful of voting Labour at the moment unless you thought Ted Heath's Tories in the early 1970s radical loose cannons. Left wing political representation is almost non-existent in UK politics at the moment, so you can put that 'woke socialist takeover' on hold and concentrate on which party will privatise National Health first.

However, what I am going to talk about is trust in politicians and politics, because no one has trusted politics for about 15 years now and it doesn't matter what colour you wear, the average man in the street thinks you have yourself, your party and your party's friends interests at heart and the rest of us will have whatever's left of their time and inclination. The idea that a local MP has entered politics for altruistic reasons might have been the original narrative, but most MPs become so corrupted by what's on offer to them that principles often get thrown out with the rubbish and if you remain a man of principle then you're often the target of ludicrous smears and accusations.

Just remember kids, if you call your neighbour a cunt and then write it down on paper and post it through other neighbours letterboxes, at least two things you'll have is libel and slander; your neighbour can have you on those two things without hesitation. In politics, decent people can be called anything the press fancies and the victims have zero recourse unless they want their careers replaced with long-running libel/slander cases. The haters always win this scenario because if you want to stay true to your beliefs then you have to accept and ignore the shit that is thrown at you and if you decide to argue with these people you're therefore prevented from doing what you want to do, so your opponents always win.

Today's episode of 'What the fuck has my politician been up to today?' is about the Tory MP who thought he could put the cost of his own birthday card on his expenses. Remember something here, there are actual genuine cases of poverty and hardship out there that even gammons accept are not dole scroungers or liggers, but all Tory MPs for the last umpteen years have voted consistently to prevent the poorest people from getting more in benefits, yet he thinks he can put the cost of his own living as an MPs expense?

If it wasn't so horrendously stupid and ignorant it would be offensive. These people are on a minimum of £84,000 a year; they only have to breath and it can go on expenses. More than half of them have other jobs, whether actual physical jobs or acting as 'consultants' and some of these people get £3000 an hour for doing these extra jobs. They'd rather see a child starve than pay £2.50 for a birthday card (let alone try to claim someone else's expenses as your own).

What we need, whoever is in power, is a code of conduct for MPs that strips away all of the things that make being an MP a cushy job with no need to do much apart from say 'hear hear' or laugh at the opposition. No subsidies on second homes; no jobs for the wives and children if they're not actually working; no putting everything from cards to stables to coy carp ponds as MPs expenses. We need to stop normalising this kind of casual corruption, especially as these people would be the first to fire someone if they nicked so much as a Post-It note. 

MPs are elected by US to serve US and be responsible to and for US. That seems to have gone. It now seems to be we elect these charlatans to go and do whatever they want with no fear of recriminations. This is wrong and needs to stop. Then people might start to trust MPs again.