It's More Than Expenses, You Fools

The political class, by and large, and the media continue to ignore the background to the public anger over expenses. I've already linked to John Redwood's point about it but it's worth doing so again.

The anger is a reaction to the increasing arrogance and bullying authoritarianism of politicians and the state. What becomes harder to bear each day is the nauseating spectacle of politicians with their self-appointed assumption of their entitlement to preach and govern (and get paid for it).

In this clip from Channel 4's discussion you'll note that the guy from Demos partly touches on this, but the point is not effectively understood. Matthew Taylor, as UK Libertarian Party says, defends 'hard working' MPs. But it's not enough:

I'm really tired of listening to all these political apologists who keep trying to defend MPs.

People like Matthew Taylor who on Channel 4 last night spouted a load of hot air about hard working politicians, pay cuts and system reform.

Excuses about hard work, etc don't cut mustard. But worst of all is blaming it on the 'system'. It is just plain nonsense.

It's a bit like Stalin blaming the famine on the ideology.

I can accept that many MPs do indeed work hard, but this plea about work is flawed.

Firstly, hard work is no guarantee of anything positive or useful. Plenty of people work hard, with nothing to show for it. The idea underlying this belief is a moral one - that hard work is of itself a virtue - something the idiot Brown keeps mouthing. It's not a virtue. Brown is an example. He works very hard indeed, but morally, he's a mephitic swamp.

Secondly, if we accept these MPs have been working very hard, then what we have we got to show for it? Well, among other things, a knackered economy and banking system, undemocratic government from the EU, a mess of an education system, chaotic health care, masses of form-filling, increasing prohibitions on this, that and the other, the transforming of the country into a huge state panopticon in which every detail of our lives is to be recorded, etc, etc.

It is only gradually dawning among some of the politicos that it is not the country that is 'broken' but the political class itself.