I read the papers this morning and flagged not a single article as providing the inspiration for a blog post. As regular readers will note, this is a rare occurrence. Most mornings four or five get flagged, although not all will make the cut.
What is the difference? I put it down to corruption fatigue. Maybe it is just me, but I am beginning to be numbed by story after story of corruption within, and facilitated by, this government.
I should, of course, be wary. Given that these people appear to be masters of their art they will be only too well aware that corruption fatigue plays into their hands in at least two ways.
First, it simply normalises their abuse until we think it no longer an issue. This is both grooming and gaslighting behaviour on their part. We are being conditioned and then told how silly we are to think that there is anything wrong with a politician feathering their nest because it's commonplace, when it has not been.
Second, the argument is being created that one politician is less corrupt than another, with roles being swapped to suit from day to day, so that in the end no one can be blamed for what they are doing because there are only relative measures of corrupt behaviour left, and there is always an argument that there is someone worse to take note of, so no one need be held to account.
Both arguments are insidious. They are corrupt in themselves.
Meanwhile the journalists who ask ‘does anyone really care about this corruption?' play the role of willing facilitators, for which reason I condemn their line of questioning.
And the result is, as I note, corruption fatigue.
We have to be wary of this. We need to remind ourselves of some fundamental truths.
Getting things done did not require that politician's friends got enormous contracts they had no idea how to fulfil.
Prioritising need did not necessitate the dropping of any standards.
Ignoring expertise, experience and ability was not a way to help anyone.
Rules usually exist for good reason, whether on procurement or to prevent the abuse of political funding.
Accountability matters. Its absence invariably spells, and smells of, trouble.
Once unleashed corruption is very hard to control.
Systemic breakdown of values in society end up with massive loss of wellbeing for all as everyone expects a backhander and public service fails.
We have a government indifferent to such risks. It is easy to be fatigued by yet another story of corruption by yet another Tory politician serving in the most corrupt government that this country has seen for centuries. But holding them to account matters.
Please stick with it. Or give up hope.
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Also, to lessen the damage to the tory party you will start hearing the phrase “they’re all at it”. They are not. There are a lot of good and honest politicians who want to help improving our society.
For these of us who remember the PR and Advertising created Thatcherism and loadsamoney cultural capture of political opinion, through a ever more controlled MSM forming into a choir in a echo chamber – this phase is exactly the same as John Majors Back to Basics hair shirt – designed to be a blowback that will allow the dumbed downtoned voters to accept the now back to fully controlled New Nu-LabourInc under the latest Great Knight Hope to perpetuate the mythical two party parliamentary pantomime to maintain the fairy tale that we have a democracy , because ‘hey look the party in government has changed into charlatans overnight’ Abracadabra!
Kinnock wasn’t supposed to loose. Major was playing at being a cartoon character with his soap box. The failure to have a musical chairs swap upset the two-party narrative.
Hence Back to Basics was invented and a series of Ministers were exposed to advertise the ensuing ‘hypocrisy’ that would finally pavlovianly retrain the voters to go vote for a shiny slick NuLabInc with full Murdochian backing.
Major as we all know was nowhere near the saint he claimed as he led with Back to Basics and ‘Bastards in the Cabinet’ charade, to finally enable a transition after18 years.
All aimed at continuing the singular neoliberal con under the guise of a ‘choice’ and change of Party ib government.
Btw Kinnock was duly rewarded it wasn’t his fault the public didn’t quite respond, his dynasty was delivered as has been to all these who staff the Charades – including John Smiths who suffered an early death.
Call me cynical. Call me a CT – but the above is what i have eye witnessed over the decades – and it clearly explains where and why we are where we are; still clutching to fairy tales and having to be led like donkeys by our noses to this great ‘downfall’ and ‘rebirth’ – again.
Boiling frog syndrome. Spoke to a long term Turkish friend two weeks ago who said that at last the UK was experiencing what it has been like to live under Erdogan, the slow systematic erosion of the norms of civilized society.
I have every expectation that the Great Leader will wriggle out of this one, but let’s see where the investigation by the Electoral Commission goes. https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-56915307
I suspect the Electoral Commission is rather more likely to find the facts and publish them on an impartial basis, than the cabinet secretary investigating his boss (that is, the person who appointed him last year).
Sir Kier Starmer was a prosecutor. Can he land a punch on the babbling blancmange today? As De Valera is said to have said to Lloyd George, rather than trying and failing to pick up mercury with a fork, perhaps he should use a spoon?
Johnson’s bluster today was that of a man shooting ‘look away, nothing to see here’ when he knows there is
He does indeed, Richard. And he knows he can’t escape the Electoral Commission investigation, particularly as he was unwilling to answer Starmer on four occasions at PMQ today as to who made the ‘initial payment’ for the No.11 flat overhaul, and that’s exactly the question anyone with half a brain working for the EC will ask.
That said, you’re absolutely correct in your analysis. Not for nothing is it easy to compare Johnson to Trump, hence it’s no surprise that this is straight from the playbook that Trump adopted in the US where standards, ethics, norms, rules, conventions, openness and transparency were all junked (interestingly, often in the name of ‘draining the swamp’) and secrecy, corruption and cronyism became central features – in fact, the defining features – of the Presidency and federal government, and where an anti-democratic, autocratic bent has now become a blatantly visible (as opposed to denied and partially hidden) component of the Republican party and its politics.
Were you not at all tempted by this from the Guardian?
Green economy: MPs warn over lack of plan to manage fossil fuel tax loss.
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2021/apr/28/green-economy-mps-warn-over-lack-of-plan-to-manage-fossil-fuel-tax-loss
I admit I must have missed that one….
That grauni article accidentally makes the case for the reintroduction of progressive personal taxation instead of all the indirect taxes they seem so heavily dependent on.
I must admit, I’ve been feeling pretty much all sleazed out, then I spotted the latest Jonathan Pie, “Cash for cushions”
https://youtu.be/rp1FIbBEoWw
Very good
Now on the blog
I think part of the problem of corruption is that there is too much focus on corruption as a moral problem, as bad behaviour by individuals. It would be important to strengthen the system in a way that makes corruption, if not impossible, at least more difficult, more exceptional. I do not see much debate about how this could be achieved.
Working in the public sector, since we have been encouraged to work more like the private sector since I can remember, I’ve seen the same problems emerge in leadership in this sector.
As a result, too much leadership is about PR and personal agendas – just as much as politics is these days. Too often middle management are left to clear up the mess whilst the more highly paid keep earning and messing up their next big idea.
The public never really know how badly these idiots (employed because of people/persuasion skills, but not because of domain knowledge or basic intelligence) mess up. The cover ups have been colossal and what rankles with me is the lack of accountability which to me is a sign of a sort or moral corruption. Leadership in this country is about pursuing your career – not the aims and objectives of the organisation that employs you. If these people put half of the effort they put into themselves into their job, things would be much better for their staff and clients. They want the money – but not the accountability and I’ve seen it in men and women alike.
In terms of career, what these leaders look for from others is loyalty not ability. Dissent is not allowed, true innovation is killed. Sound familiar? Look at the Government itself.
And BTW – these people who behave like this are not donkeys for donkeys are useful and much abused. They’re products of a Neo-liberal system of hyper-individualisation – the next step up from Thatcher’s barrow boys.
I for one am attuned to smelling and seeing it very well. But I still cannot get over my disappointment that we couldn’t be better than this.
This trait is also in the NGO sector
PR counts for all now
“Lack of accountability”. I think this is important point. The lack of accountability is at least as much a systemic problem as it is a moral one. We need to create more accountability. How can this be done?
[…] suspicion is that, corruption fatigue or not, this one will drip feed into the consciousness of the UK. There will always be 30% of England that […]
Increasingly the papers are a diversion
good things are happening however.
see https://youtu.be/UhZWeftZqYU -to be posted later today.
as a recording of a very good discussion about the pharmaceutical industry. Figures are quoted of the historic investment of $270m in one company now worth $11bn, which would be the amount claimed if their interests were threatened.
From the UCL Institute for Public Purpose and Innovation.
There is work here for accountants like you and me.
I will look later
This is not a reply to this blog but a request, possibly for another blog or when you have a chance to explain.
I think all income – earned or so-called “unearned” should be taxed at the same rate/s. I just wonder how this can be done. Won’t people have different earning to other investments and savings ratio? I would like this “leveling across” us all but don’t know enough to see how it would work in practice?
I know you will be busy but thank you for reading this.
You may get a video….
Iirc, back in the 70s, preThatcher and neoliberalism, unearned income was taxed at a higher rate than earned income. Quite legitimately in my opinion. So we *know* it can work! (I was only a teen until the end of that decade tho, so someone else may correct me.)
15% excess
I was around, and accounted for it