Thieving Politicians

The heaviest penalty for declining to rule is to be ruled by someone inferior to yourself.

Having a debate over a beer, as one does, my friend (who works in politics) firmly believes that people enter politics with a desire to do good in the world.  I, well, don't.

Their argument was that most MPs try their best to do good, it is just that there are different ideologies about what is good and what should be done to achieve it.  They argued that the disgust at the MPs' expenses scandal may well do more harm than good, as only the rich and powerful will be able to afford to be MPs. Not so much the housing expenses, I should add, but the office and staffing expenses which seem to get lumped in with the duckhouse nonsense.  I can very much empathise with the argument, I just think it is wrong.

My view has always been that those who have a desire to go into politics should be prevented from doing so.  Really, when all is said and done, politics is just showbusiness for ugly people.  And just like Liza Minelli or Elizabeth Taylor seem to have a diva-desire to own all the shiny-shiny for themselves, the same seems to be true for the fine upstanding people in the House of Commons.

The typical way into the Houses of Parliament now seems to be:

1. Go to public school
2. Go read PPE at Oxbridge or LSE
3. Go work as a researcher at a "think tank" favourable to the party you wish to join.
4. Become an MP.

Political parties have centralised candidate lists, and if you don't get on those lists you don't even get to stand as a candidate.  You don't get onto those lists if you're not already in the political circle, and you don't get into the political circle if you don't network like hell at university.  So you get the kids straight from university going to some think tank like Policy Exchange, lecturing us all on why we're wrong WRONG I TELL YOU, then coming into Government with exactly the same attitude.

 I know things have always been like this, but I'm not so sure politics ever used to be seen as a career aim in itself.  Politics was something you did when you'd achieved something in your life, it wasn't something you did when you'd just left school.  And I think this is what is causing the rest of us to disengage from politics, to dismiss them all as just thieving liars out for themselves.

These people now, supposedly the brightest brains in Britain, enter politics for their own self-aggrandizement.  It's not a way of giving something back to the country, it's not a matter of civic pride, it is a career like any other.  It's a matter of doing as well as you can for yourself and your employer and not a great deal else. And like most graduate trainees, to say they have seen nothing of the real world is something of an understatement.  

I think it is this which is causing the corruption and incompetence in Parliament to escalate beyond all control.  The Houses are full of people who've done and known nothing else, and want everything to be about them.  This means you get the myriad MPs claiming expense after expense without thinking it is wrong; this means that you get them demanding an extra £20k a year because they are "underpaid".  Perhaps if more of the bastards had spent five years living in London on the minimum wage they'd actually understand what underpaid really meant.  This means you get the likes of Iain Duncan-Smith, who reckons he shouldn't have to pay for his own £39 breakfast, claiming that he could live on £50 a week "if he had to".  If we didn't have the political structure that excludes everyone who didn't do PPE at Oxbridge and didn't get a job at the Adam Smith Institute through nepotism, perhaps he would actually understand just how hard it is to live on so little.  He lectures on rewarding failure without having enough self-awareness to understand that he was the one who was the most resounding failure when he attempted to lead the Conservatives.

I really don't have a coherent idea about how to resolve this problem given that nepotism and self-protection is so prevalent in the UK now.  It isn't just Parliament; look how many MPs are dating journalists.  Look how many BBC directors play at the same golf clubs as the senior Party officials.  And then wonder why the BBC never quite get around to outing the Government (of whichever hue) as the thieving stealing scum that they are.  Essentially the political class are now all as one, with no scrutiny and no way of making them accountable.  It is precious little wonder that most people no longer want anything to do with politics or politicians, that they are all dismissed as liars and thieves and cheats.  It is precious little wonder that all MPs are despised, that they constantly get verbally abused by people in the street.  They have created this climate so they can deal with it.


Plato's quote at the start of the blogpost says it all, really.  We are all governed by people who are inferior; not inferior intellectually, but certainly inferior morally.  The solution is to take back control for ourselves, rather than disengage from the process entirely.  But that's a difficult thing to achieve.  I've always been interested in politics and even I can really no longer even be bothered to get angry about the corrupt cabal of scum that are in Parliament these days.  If the choice is between Gideon Osborne and Ed Balls, I'd rather go to the pub and drown my sorrows in gin.

On welfare benefits

I don't specifically work within welfare benefits law anymore, and haven't done for a few years, but I know enough to understand how it all works.  And I have to say I'm getting rather frustrated with the way the debate on welfare reform is going.  It pains me to say it, given that I think Iain Duncan-Smith has absolutely no moral compass whatsoever, but many of the reforms actually make quite a bit of sense.

My view is that the welfare state should be a safety net, and what that safety net should provide you with depends on your circumstances.  Those too ill to work should get enough to support themselves comfortably.  Those who have usually worked damn hard, but have fallen on a brief spell of unemployment, should be supported in a similar fashion, maybe for about eighteen months or so.  Those who've never worked meaningfully should get enough to stop them starving, and that's about it.

The system as Labour left it was extremely wasteful.  Tax credits were paid out based solely on income.  Have a low income, e.g. through self-employment, but have massive savings and you still got the support.  Get off your arse and earn a bit more, even if you're living hand-to-mouth every week with nothing to spare, and you got nothing.  Income support was paid to single parents until the youngest child was 16, even though parents would have precious little to do during school hours.  Housing benefit for local authority tenants was pegged to the rent you paid; live in a four-bed council house by yourself and it's paid for in full.  Housing benefit for private tenants was far more restrictive, effectively meaning that council tax payers in private houses were subsidising those in council houses.  Nobody can put their hand on their heart and say that is fair.  And if you were lucky enough to get a job you'd have 4-6 weeks with no money until your first wage cheque came through, even though you'd have no money to start as all benefits were paid weekly.

Universal Credit is supposed to change some of this.  Savings will be treated as income, which is entirely fair- people save for a rainy day, and being unemployed is such a day.  It'll be paid in the same way you'd get wages, so you won't have the gaps in income if you find work.  Housing benefit will be capped, the so called "bedroom tax", where people in massive council houses will have to pay for the privilege or move.  All this is entirely fair and proper and reasonable.

 In my time at various advice centres I saw my fill of people gaming the system, of people who have never worked and have no intention of doing so.  Earning their own crust seemed too much like hard work, affecting their ability to go to the bookies or the pub, so they didn't.  It pissed me off then, and it pisses me off now.  I loved helping people who'd been screwed over- usually the honest ones who didn't want to grumble about their illnesses and poverty- and hated helping the ones with the massive sense of entitlement.  I especially hated anyone who called their benefit payments "pay day" or "their wages", as though they'd somehow earned it and deserved it.

But even with all that, I have grave misgivings about the way so much is being implemented.  We can all name a scrounger or ten, but we can also all name ten people who have been shafted.  I hate the way that anyone who needs to be supported is labelled as a scrounger.  I hate the way they're trying to muddy the water between the can't works and the won't works.  I hate the way they're putting the most honest people through hell.  Above all, I hate the way they're encouraging people to lie.  If you're someone who gets on with life and says "mustn't grumble" a lot, even when faced with severe disability, then you get nothing.  Whinge and whine like Jim bleedin' Royale and you'll get your benefits still.

I can't decide whether the people doing these changes understand this or not, and I can't decide whether malice or incompetence is worse.  I'm generally siding with the view that it probably is malicious; if you don't have poor people you can't have rich people.  The gap between rich and poor is shocking.  Working no longer pays because it isn't in their interests for it to pay.  But they need people to work to continue to fund the corporate junkyism; if nobody works, there's no tax income to spend on filth like Serco, Atos and Crapita.

I know I am angry about the fact that I am on a very good wage yet I can only afford a flatshare in London.  I am angry about the fact that nearly 50% of my wages goes on various taxes every month, and I am angry about the fact that I get piss all back for it.  I am angry that there are people being paid to live in houses far bigger than what they need, when I have to share a small flat.  I am angry at freeloaders.

But I'm also angry at the way the Government are only trying to present one group of people as freeloaders.  MPs are apparently not freeloaders, despite the fact they've all made £50k profit from the housing bubble by getting me to pay their mortgages for them.  Private landlords are apparently not freeloaders, despite the fact they get someone else to pay their mortgages for them and then use the profits to inflate the property bubble, making sure more people are forced to pay their mortgages for them.  The big corporate conglomerates are apparently not freeloaders, despite not paying tax and demanding massive incentives to build new factories.  The CEOs of these conglomerates are apparently not freeloaders, despite awarding themselves 30% pay rises after sacking 30% of their workforce.

The baby boomer pensioners are protected through all of this too.  Welfare cuts don't apply to them, tax increases don't apply to them, above-inflation bus fare increases don't apply to them.  Throughout their entire lives they've had everything for free- free NHS, free University education, free care homes, free bus passes- yet we're supposed to believe that they somehow deserve it all as they "worked all their life".  Newsflash: so have I.  And I'll have piss all to show for it, mostly because my Travelcard is so expensive to pay for your bloody Freedom Pass, a card most of you can afford to pay for more than I can.

I don't like the way the welfare system currently operates as there's not enough incentive to work, and there's not a suitable way of punishing the lazy without making the vulnerable and disabled destitute.  I really don't like the way the Government try to use this to distract from the real truth though: that the baby boomer CEOs and MPs have stolen everything from us and that is why we're destitute.  The current political system has been described as a "kleptocracy", and that hits the nail on the head.  Everything about this country is essentially stealing from the defenceless to pay for the fat cats to pamper themselves.

And yes, that beeping you can hear is my high blood pressure alarm.