I posted a series of comments on Twitter this morning with a common theme, as seems to be my habit these days. On this occasion I think there were no changes between my drafts and those that actually went out, so I will share them as drafted. The lines are in the drafting: they break the thread into roughly 280 character segments, but each has to also to some degree stand in its own right.
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I have spent my life trying to create things. Things that I have hoped would be of value. Our government does not do that. It wants to win by destroying things of value until we're confused enough to give it what it wants, which is control despite the cost to us of doing so.
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Normal arguments don't work with this government. They know they're no good. And they know they can't deliver what's needed. But they don't care because they've got power, and that's all they need for what they want, which is enrichment for them and their friends.
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We are used to political incompetence in the UK. But what we're not used to is corrupt government. In the UK we believe government is about using power for the common good. In that case using the power of government for self-interest is corrupt. And that's what's happening.
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How do we deal with having a corrupt government in the UK? The first thing to do is name it. Don't say it is hopeless, or incompetent, or gaff-prone, because it is none of those things. It's corruptly using power to advance the self-interest of those running it. It is corrupt.
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I have spent many years working with those who address government corruption, mainly in developing countries. It's made me aware of the warning signs. And now we have them in the UK. Brexit and the pandemic have let this government grab the power that permits corruption in the UK.
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The idea that we have a corrupt government in the UK, seeking only to perpetuate its power to benefit a few of its friends, is shocking. Shocking enough that as yet the ideas required to oppose it hardly exist, but that's exactly what they're exploiting to consolidate their power.
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It's always our right to decide how we will look at things. So we have the right to decide whether we have a government that has failed the standards we expect, and so is corrupt. We can also decide that Opposition politicians should be saying this, and to demand that they do.
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As the UK descends into chaos this autumn, with unemployment and company failure becoming commonplace, remember this won't be by chance. This is the government's plan, from which they intend to profit. Say so. Call them out. Get angry. We have the right to make them accountable.
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In the face of corruption - of a government working for the self interest of those within it and their friends - we have to be accountable. We must respond to the havoc they desire by demanding order, accountability and ethical conduct. We must live by the standard we demand.
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Just for the record, I don't think tackling a corrupt government in the UK will be easy. But we have a choice. We tackle it, name it, and confront it. Or we give in to the consequences of giving a clique the power to govern us corruptly. It's not a choice really, is it?
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We’re the well-to-do family, historically respected in the community, but who won’t admit that Dad has an alcohol and gambling problem.
The alcohol and gambling problem will only get worse unless we call it out and suffer the initial public embarrassment.
Thanks for writing and tweeting this Richard – I am saying this in the committees / meetings I attend at my HEI, naming it as the elephant in the room.
I’d agree wholeheartedly. It is a deliberate and extended strategy dating back some years. Why? Well how about this from the horse’s mouth?
Boris Johnson has launched a bold bid to claim the mantle of Margaret Thatcher by declaring that inequality is essential to fostering “the spirit of envy” and hailed greed as a “valuable spur to economic activity”.
Johnson then told the Centre for Policy Studies think tank, which helped lay the basis for Thatcherism in the 1970s: “The harder you shake the pack the easier it will be for some cornflakes to get to the top.”
The Guardian 27 November 2013
I think it is a corrupt government. It feels corrupt because there is clear inclination to destroy public institutions, to mislead (blatantly lie) to the public, to funnel money to mates in their network of privilege. Is this corruption though? Is the prime motivation personal gain or is it ideology? Is this a far right revolution?
What I find more shocking than I would have imagined is the undermining of foundational aspects of nationhood. The threats to the rule of law and to UK democracy are not what I expected from the Tory Party, as these are the institutions that contribute significantly to their longevity. The undermining of public service is not so shocking and the use of public money to prop up the wealth accumulation of their networks seems like business as usual to me, however abhorrent.
Do you have any examples of this corruption you could share with us?
Go and react he actions being brought by the Good Law Project
Just read the stories about PPE procurement
Are you really saying you have not noticed?
Don’t forget the ferry contract to a company who owned 0 ferries.
At time ridiculed as monumental incompetence and a bit of cronyism. Next to the backdrop of the past year, just one more indicator of corruption (as if we didn’t need any more…)
That was a great one
Which ministers are you accusing of corruption? And over what actions? If you are confident of your accusations you won’t be afraid to give details.
If it is just another eruption of hot air, you won’t give details.
Feel free to read the Good Law Project actions aga8inst the government
So you won’t name names.
As I thought. Just hot air.
I referred to to cases
That is what matters
If you don’t mind me pointing out, the corruption of Government started when too many ex-financiers decided to go into politics as Tory MPs in the 1970s.
All they wanted to do was get rid of rules that kept their personal profits and those of their hinterland to a reasonable level and they succeeded.
What we have now however is greed in plain sight. This time they do not care that we know. Now they are busy hoovering up what is left.
We are as you say, in a really bad situation.
In the 1970s we stepped down from a yacht that was perfectly sea worthy into a life raft. The yacht worked perfectly well and only needed a lick of paint; the life raft had few provisions and rationing was put in place to survive. The Tories are still in that life raft and we are about to hit the one enormous storm.
What concerns me is we appear, in my view, to to quite clearly have a mentally ill bloke as prime minister and no-one’s even mentioning it. I assume he’s been protected,being useful to some, and that’s why he wasn’t diagnosed and sidelined years ago. He needs to be now, absolutely. I wonder what the foreign press are making of his behaviours… we’re too insular here I think. We’d benefit from other perspectives.
I do not agree
You are letting him off the hook of responsibility
ou have nailed the problem, if people don’t wake up to the blatant corruption we are doomed to be what Chomsky would say isa “a tin pot dictatorship”.
Like
We used to smugly believe that our democracy was above the corruption that infected other less mature democracies but now we find ourselves trying to work put who’s following who’s bad example.
https://www.thearticle.com/covid-19-corruption-and-stealing-the-recovery
We have chosen the government we deserve. The polis had the choice, and were led like the rats of Hamlin by seductive music. The voters of the U.S. have the choice again in November and this will influence what happens here as it will affect the drive of the Neocon brigade into all areas of British society. After that the next choice for the British electorate will be in 2025. Electoral history suggests that it will be well nigh impossible to overturn an 80 seat majority. By 2030 the data state (pioneered by China, and obviously the wet dream of Dominic Cummings with his Star Trek control room in Westminster will be a fait accompli), fulfilling the vision of 1984. Solution? Live in Scotland (though probably another control state in the making) or keep one’s head down and a packed suitcase.
I’m not sure the uk government has ever NOT been corrupt – the biggest difference now is the scale and the indifference shown as to whether it’s obvious or not – and it is obvious, however much the BBC pretends it isn’t – and the on-going use of power to enable more corruption on an even bigger scale.
Their latest ‘review’ into how to reduce the public’s access to judicial review – one of the few ways left for us to hold government and public bodies to account – demonstrates they plan to have no one able to question anything they do or say as soon as they can. They might not be able to respond to the pandemic with the swiftness needed, but they are plenty speedy in changing laws to ensure they get away with whatever feathering of nests they want. It ain’t looking good, and are we complacent,,, probably yes, we could do more right enough – but which ‘wrong’ do you pick to be angry and complain about? There are so many of them.
That confusion is their aim
So just call out their corruption
Look at the big picture
Last night I was reading the chapter entitled “The Moral Grounds of Economic Relations” in David Graeber’s 2014 edition of “Debt: The First 5,000 Year” where he discusses the corrosive effect of our invention of money, markets and capitalism on our innate instinct for mutuality. In my view this corrosive effect also needs to be linked to poor parenting that fails to teach the importance of mutuality. Really bad parenting results in individuals like Hitler as the psycho-analyst Alice Miller pointed out:-
https://www.naturalchild.org/articles/alice_miller/adolf_hitler.html
To a lesser degree all these factors, money, markets, capitalism, poor parenting contribute to throwing up leaders like Johnson and Trump who stand-out in their lack of self-awareness. I found myself thinking about the Black Lives Matter movement and then the realisation what we’re highly unlikely to see is Donald Trump having a Damascene moment and coming up with the electoral slogan “Make all lives matter! – Dump Trump!” The same unlikely scenario would apply to Boris Johnson!
It certainly doesn’t help when the so called leader of the democratic free world constantly seeks to undermine his own country’s democratic and regulatory institutions as well attacking the ICC in this outrageous manner.
https://electronicintifada.net/blogs/maureen-clare-murphy/trump-goes-nuclear-against-icc
Trump has not been unique in his attitude as a president:-
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_and_the_International_Criminal_Court
Curiously the Americans as Allies were in favour of prosecuting the Nazis after the end of World War II. Then they became the world’s “policeman.” Ironically their own domestic policing is now coming under the microscope of the BLM movement which essentially argues “All of us matter” and in consequence the Rule of Law must always apply, No one is above the law or has the right to usurp the law. This is enshrined in the American Constitution yet a succession of right-wing American governments and Congresses have decided this part of the country’s constitution is not worthy of export! It’s a farce!
The U.S is the biggest rogue state of them all. It has been ever since it insisted on getting other nations to pay for its help as well as being obsessed and threatened by any thing that looks like socialism.
I think France gave the U.S. free help when they were fighting us Brits during their war of independence. The U.S. insisted on France however paying for the American assistance during WW1 against the German aggressor (Michael Hudson talks about this in his book ‘Super Imperialism’).
It is the North Americans who weaponised debt in my view – in the modern age at least – again Hudson talks about this in terms of ‘trade as warfare’ in other publications.
Basically – as we know – paying down debt costs money – diverts it from things like creating tradeable goods etc, and rebuilding infrastructure so leaving a country weaker ay getting back on its feet. When Germany surrendered, the U.S. stopped its war grants to England immediately without warning and wanted to become more dominant in the Middle East because it wanted cheap oil from former British overseas territory . It kept aid going into Germany only because it saw sense in West Germany being a bulwark against Communist expansion.
If you look at the IMF and World Bank, they have just been enablers of American economic expansionism – from lending loans in dollars to keep its value high, to mass privatisations that have increased the ability of US corporations to expand abroad beyond their own domestic markets.
Keynes argued that the US should waive its debt claims at the end of WW1
It refused to do so
The rest is history….
Helen Schofield wrote “In my view this corrosive effect also needs to be linked to poor parenting that fails to teach the importance of mutuality.” Part of poor parenting in the UK has to be the widespread practice, especially in England, of sending children to boarding schools at an early age when the child is emotionally vulnerable. Why bring a child into the world and then hand it over to total strangers to raise and instill THEIR values and opinions? I witnessed the damage when I worked in South America for an global company: the expats saw their children only for the 2 or so months of the summer holidays (that’s the British summer, so the kids, having endured a UK winter, then went to their parents for the South American winter – nae luck there, then!).
While the kids were with them, the attitude of the parents went from delight at the start to impatience to be rid of them by the end. Indeed, the day they left to fly back to UK, the parents held a huge party to celebrate their “freedom”. Tears at the airport then rush back for a huge knees-up! I thought that very revealing: an irresponsibility about crucial parental roles and a willingness to abandon their offspring to unknowable influences. I could understand to an extent the fathers’ predicament, trapped in a career subject to the employers’ whims, but it must have been much more conflicting for the mothers, who had to put up with the results of those whims.
In these circumstances emotional damage to the children is inevitable and many of the UK’s current government had that kind of childhood. This might explain much of the narcissism, palpable sense of entitlement, ignorance of and indifference to less privileged citizens (other than as useful voting fodder), destructive behaviour, corruption etc that now appear to be the new norm in UK Government.
For those interested in further understanding the impact of poor parenting on a child’s mental development Darcia Narvaez’s book “Neurobiology and the Development of Human Morality: Evolution, Culture and Wisdom” dots most of the “i’s” and crosses most of the “t’s.”
Most of all it emphasises the important role a primary caregiver plays for an infant and a so called “developed” society that forces both primary caregivers (both parents) to make ends meet especially paying hyper-inflated UK house price mortgages can hardly be called a civilised society. Sadly most voters fail to understand what’s being done to them by a corrupt and venial elite that simply want to make them into the same disfunctional psychological mould. A veritable Catch-22 situation of seemingly endless regressive cycles.
Should you want a shortened version of the importance of primary caregivers buy Mary Trump’s book “Too Much and Never Enough.”
People write books on this;
1) Boarding School Syndrome: The psychological trauma of the ‘privileged’ child Paperback — Illustrated, 9 Jun. 2015 by Joy Schaverien (Author)
2) Trauma, Abandonment and Privilege: A Guide to Therapeutic Work with Boarding School Survivors Paperback — 19 April 2016
by Nick Duffell (Author), Thurstine Basset (Author)
3) Wounded Leaders: British Elitism and the Entitlement Illusion – A Psychohistory Paperback — 10 May 2014
by Nick Duffell (Author), Mark Duffell (Illustrator)
There are more, I had the details of these handy.
I suggest that there is a strong case for a ban on boarding schools, other than for children with disabilities or placed by Social Services
Shutting down the public school system which produces these monsters was an aim of both Attlee and Corbyn. It’s to our enduring discredit as a nation that neither managed.
Like a few people in the comments I was a little sceptical when I saw the government labelled as corrupt. Although you did give the examples like those raised by the Good Law Project, which do indeed seem to point to examples of corruption. Personally I would tend to think that the fact that the Government is being driven by dangerous idealogues (Cummings, Gove etc) who will seek to use the crisis (mostly of their own making) to reshape society with dangerously untested ideas, ideas antithetical to the proper functioning of the state and society as we know it and ideas borrowed from the US.
There is obviously an overlap between corruption and the extent to which the government is dangerously ideological. 1) It just so happens that the policies wanted by dangerous idealogues seem to benefit all their friends (dismantling the BBC, the NHS etc). 2) The certainty that these (almost wholly untested ideas – eg. Brexit, dismantling the BBC, NHS etc) cannot possibly be wrong, seems to go hand in hand with the certainty that one can by pass normal procedures and direct government contracts and posts to one’s friends.
I’m most probably particularly thinking about the role of ideology in all of this because yesterday I was looking at the wastepaper basket of trash which is https://www.1828.org.uk/ a think tank in which supposedly Dido Harding’s husband has a prominent role.
I suggest you read Cash not Care by Mo Stewart on the so-called ‘welfare reforms’ and then contemplate whether or not Britain has and is suffering from a procession of corrupt governments, made of from all political hues. You might investigate what’s been going on behind the scenes for decades with the now so-called ‘NHS’ too, for that matter.
Love the article on MMT in the link where the writer claims to be an economist and writes the following:-
“First, they rarely have any academic or professional background in economics.”
Here’s a history of MMT development that puts a lie to this lightweight Tory’s claim:-
http://www.levyinstitute.org/publications/the-kansas-city-approach-to-modern-money-theory
One of the usual tropes…
When you look at all the supporters of the 1828 website on the about page, it is clearly intended to allow it to be a platform to influence public policy.
A lot of the ideas as you both point out are just basically tropes ‘how do we defeat socialist ideas’, or incoherent or contradictory. And reading the website there is a strange inversion of reality – it is a libertarian website that is complaining about for instance the rise of Orban in Hungary, which makes you wonder what part of trying to dismantle for instance the EU that they don’t understand is likely to empower figures like Orban and disempower liberal democracy. And then there are a series of for instance proclamations in favour of individual rights eg LGBTQ rights and also a loud trumpeting of the benefits of immigration.
My first thought was how the pro-immigration stuff on their website is completely vacuous and completely shaped by a pro business immigration policy and was likely to be able to be completely dropable if there is for instance an anti-immigrant, culture-war fighting right wing government.
But then I realised that the contradiction is almost the point. To succeed, 1828 don’t need to get everything or even most things on their wishlist adopted. They succeed if any one thing gets adopted. They have a wishlist of how they want to reshape society and push back boundaries as we know them and any one thing in their manifesto achieves that.
Helen
I think we should look back even further to the genesis of UBI 100 years ago, i.e. Alfred Orage of the Guild Socialists and Clifford Douglas (Social Credit). Douglas, in particular, identified the Ways and Means Accounts as the vehicle for raising the money to finance World War One – not borrowing or taxation, as the context for a basic income.
The other feature of this time was the extent to which people studied economics and finance through such media as the W.E.A. and the University Settlements which provided the texts and forums for education and informed debate for workers. No-one in the ‘thirties would have been fooled by what is going on today.
John Carlisle; indeed, we seem to be inside a sort of informational silo, not educated as such but rather groomed. Increasingly I wonder what else we’ve been led astray from by the shrinking of curriculums.
John Carlisle. Wouldn’t it be highly useful if the Labour Party resurrected the concept of the Workers’ Education Association! Of course a name change would help but the concept is sound. So many voters in the UK are ill-informed and vote in a very shallow way. Of course in an electronic age and the current pandemic much learning would need to be on-line, debates too. On-line voting on issues could take place after issues had been carefully explored which could be used to feed back into party policy. Sadly though the current Labour Party appears moribund with its leadership content to incestuously concoct policy by staring at each others’ navels! Perhaps I exaggerate but not too much I think. I was somewhat shocked today, for example, to read that Philip Snowden, Labour’s first Chancellor of the Exchequer, supported government balanced budgets and the return to the Gold Standard! A New Democracy Movement is badly needed and the old two party alternating power convention tearing up!
I think that would be a massively useful idea
But it was delivered via Trade Union links. Would that work now?
‘Adam c’, thanks for the free entertainement, your link provided a rich harvest of witless guff; a paradigm intellectual turkey. One mock-serious analytical piece ‘How Covid-19 proves neoliberalism right’ beautifully illustrates the new style of Trumpian neoliberal propaganda to which the neophytes are turning in desperation; meet the central challenge head-on, state that it is defeated, but beyond the assertion of defeating it fail to address it all – just propagandise, deny the undeniable, and hastily move on.
This comic gem article of vacuous neoliberal propaganda actually uses the term “neoliberalism” three times; hilariously proposing that neoliberalism is “evidence based”, which is essential to “the decidedly unideological governing philosophy of neoliberalism”: demonstrating a profound ignorance of the significance of the use of the suffix ‘-ism’ on which neoliberalism depends, and which precisely defines the presence of an ideological governing philosophy: ah, well, the ignorance of the unutterably stupid can rarely be fathomed.
This incoherent muddle is actually worth following, because the writer is trying to make sense of the fact that the ‘game is up’; COVID-19 found out neoliberalism. Thus: “The best fallback is a greater focus by neoliberal thinkers on preparing for and responding to improbable yet consequential events, even during normal times where such discussion is considered unfashionable or alarmist. The intellectual challenge for neoliberals going forward is developing a framework for how best to apply principles which work well under normal circumstances, such as free markets, rule of law and property rights, to edge cases where certain market activities or personal liberties may need to be curtailed.” Notice that this says nothing beyond the fact that the neoliberals are definitely ‘spooked’.
The article goes on “some have argued that the experiences of past months have challenged the orthodox neoliberal position of unfettered free trade and suggest that the status quo view may warrant some stipulation. While trade remains a massive net positive and continues to lift living standards worldwide, trade policy must balance these benefits with ensuring that supply chains for essential goods like food and medicines are robust to severe disruptions such as pandemic or war.”
Notice there is no mechanism offered, this is just ’emoting’ a wish; a bleated call to arms. The writer then attempts to give this some substance: “In the post-pandemic discourse on the future of global trade, neoliberals must take seriously these valid concerns about unfettered trade without giving way to creeping protectionism. The neoliberal position should involve narrowly focused market-based policies, not arbitrary restrictions or politically-motivated protectionism, as a means to correct for these hidden costs of trade, much in the same way that we advocate a border-adjusted carbon tax to account for the hidden carbon cost of goods produced overseas. Other free-market policies, such as deregulation and full expensing of investments in plants and machinery, can serve the dual purpose of accelerating economic growth as well as robustifying essential supply lines by expanding domestic production.” In other words, back to plan-A, more of the same old bust theory, with a completely new idea: “robustifying essential supply lines” (is that investment in lorry-parks, perchance, or a new privatised ‘test and trace’ gee-whiz system with lots of fat government contracts handed out to who-knows-whom?). “Robustifying”: surely you must know the game is up when You are reduced to this sham terminology? Apparently not, for here is the peroration, in all itsa glory:
“The coronavirus pandemic has put neoliberal political thought to the test, and it has passed resoundingly. Nevertheless, it is worth reflecting on the challenges these unprecedented times pose to the prevailing wisdom and the ways in which neoliberal thought should face these challenges.
Even when the future courses of the virus, the economy and the political landscape are all uncertain, one thing is clear — neoliberal thinkers are needed now more than ever.”
The poor sods; if they really were looking for thinkers, everybody in the whole world can see they are looking in the wrong place, for the wrong people, for the wrong reasons. Neoliberalism came in with a Big Bank (1986) in the UK; but it is nor going our in a whimper: it is going out with a raspberry – the focus of common ridicule.
Spellcheck? Waht spellcheck? This is what I wrote: ” Neoliberalism came in with a Big Bang (1986) in the UK; but it is not going out in a whimper: it is going out with a raspberry — the focus of common ridicule.”
A big raspberry to Spellcheck, everywhere ….. could Spellcheck be a neoliberal conspiracy, perchance? Mea culpa etc., etc.
We knew what you meant
And it was quite a good wrong guess
John
It’s us who are the poor sods – those who have to endure the outcomes of the neo-lib bullshit. Not the neo-libs themselves who profit continuously from it. You’re being far too kind to one of the most destructive philosophies known I think to modern man.
Yes emphatically to what you say. I agree with the suggestion that corruption was always there. Brexit is a right wing movement and the British Right Wing was described by the GDR (Communists understand better than Capitalists how power works) as one of the most cunning in history. Brexit has been 200 years in coming. For Brexit to work, Johnson and i.a. Cummings know it has to penetrate every corner of British life. See the vanilla BBC or the Academies, not as conceived by Blair but as bootcamps espoused by Parliament – both sides of the House. BTW, What the fcuk is Labour doing? And as for the Liberals!! We can only hope/fear the State Till will destroy Brexit as it did for the Communist Block. I fear we are in for Czechoslovakia 1968
I think you ate wrong in one respect. This government is corrupt AND incompetent. Maggie was corrupt but competent.
Accepted – they have to be corrupt as it us the only way to perpetuate their incompetence
But the corruption is more important
“I think you ate wrong in one respect. This government is corrupt AND incompetent. Maggie was corrupt but competent.”
You’re having a larf surely?
https://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2012/07/philip-pilkington-the-new-monetarism-part-i-the-british-experience.html
After a small argument (in short protecting the council public image is a higher priority than providing what has proved over the last 6 months to be an essential service rather than a luxury in a rural area) over Broadband with the leader of the County Council back in 2016 was the final nail for me and I now believe that we need to get rid of politicians at ALL levels. The leader in question was left of centre, but power exists to perpetuate power, no matter where they are on the political spectrum. The leader in question is in my view just as corrupt as Boris et al.
We don’t have a democracy any more. Money buys votes byes power.
I believe that
https://www.ted.com/talks/brett_hennig_what_if_we_replaced_politicians_with_randomly_selected_people
is the only real way forward by removing money from the equation.
While not problem-free, it would fix many of the corruption issues we have now. However, it has one fatal flaw. The powerful and the politicians will never let it happen.
If you have democracy you have politics
So you Have politicians
Your can’t want democracy and no politicians
And no, I am lot persuaded by People’s Assembles
They can advise
They cannot decide
Part of the solution is a proper (codified and entrenched) constitution. This would include not only the points raised by Charter 88 but also the criminalisation of political lying – something that Peter Oborne has argued for. If things are as bad in Jan 2021 as I expect people just might see the point of this. Achieving this would probably require the armed forces to mutiny.
Nothing much then….
But I am not sure they will be willing to go onto the streets for Brexit
Although headline corruption is blatant, corruption is also very subtle and nuanced.
You will never hear ‘historian’ Lord (sic) Peter Hennessey who has made a career, out of lauding the UK ‘good chaps’ system of government raising this issue, except in the mildest of terms.
He, along with many academics, depends on the patronage of the system. His career has been dependent on maintaining priviledged access to senior ex civil servants, and politicians.
Small recent examples in Covid coverage on the BBC, ‘pet’ experts such as Chris Smith Cambridge, David Spiegelhalter Cambridge , never push awkward questions on the direction – or lack of – in the Government’s Covid strategy. ‘Independent Sage’ experts under David King, who argue for a ‘zero covid’ strategy rarely get a look in, and the BBC -itself on the defensive-, seems never to have put this directly to government ministers.
Many in the City are no doubt ‘good chaps’ , but the City is awash with corrupt money from around the world- money which has been used to buy policies.
‘Good chaps’ are part of the pyramid of corruption.
Deflections, bread and circuses, the Russians done it, China is behind it all, that’s common head turning in American politics, that’s seeped into British politics, or is it vice versa. Anyway just how do you deal with a corrupt government. If by chance you’re lucky enough to expose its machinations for all to see, and there’s plenty of exposure on the web over say Iraq, Afghanistan, and Yemen, not to mention the countless unscrutinsed contracts awarded to companies during this pandemic, and the ennobling of mediocre staff and donors buddies to HoL, in a you scratch my back and I’ll scratch yours.
Anyway, there needs to be a clear will to hold this UK government to account within the parliament itself, sadly in my opinion that’s not the case, bar a few souls who’d relish the chance.
This is clearly a government of sociopaths who’ll welch on anything they agree with you.
https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2020/sep/06/five-weeks-clinch-brexit-deal-uk-move-boris-johnson-to-say
It reminds me of the non-aggression pact Stalin signed with Hitler! The EU needs to get tough and start hauling these English politician fools into line for all our sakes!
Key phrase: “But they don’t care because they’ve got power”
They got power through an unfair First Past The Post voting system that saw them gain a ‘stonking’ 80 seat majority on 43.6% of the vote.
That system is supported by ONE opposition party and ONE opposition party only – LABOUR.
The Tories are true to their (corrupt) values of inequality & privilage by supporting FPTP & rejecting PR and therefore should NOT be condemned for doing so. Labour meanwhile betray ALL every core value as the ‘party of the people’ by supporting FPTP & rejecting PR. Labour’s right and left are united in this cynical belief and completely deserve to be shamed for their treachery. All the more so as FPTP delivers TWICE as many Tory governments as it does Labour ones.
Corrupt Tories in power? Who coulda guessed?
But don’t get angry at them, get angry at the system that put them there.
But most of all get angry at the Labour Party who – alone amongst progressives – support the system that put them there.