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.

Being Sensible For a Moment...More Sex, Whores and Swearing

I am so old I remember this. It would be odd if they get in this time, with even more on the unemployment register than then. Mind you, Thatcher doubled the number within 18 months of gaining office and nobody gave a damn. This time, however, Labour really MUST NOT be allowed to get in.

Something I didn't know about the exploitation of our libraries by OCLC over at Liberal Conspiracy.

Caught a few minutes of the odiously stupid Mrs Smith yesterday maundering on about prostitutes and the white slave trade. What interested me was the prevarication about openly saying there would be a 'blame and shame' approach (the other word for that being 'witch-hunt') by the media. She said it would be 'easier' for the press to get the details of men caught consorting with prostitutes. Sounds like a load of arse trumpeting to me. Besides which, has she or any of her addlebrained advisers ever thought about the effects of posting the details of a client in the press - on family, children, relatives, friends, colleagues? People who are not involved? Does anyone in government have a brain that is in a further stage of evolution than that of an amoeba? No, of course not.

The BNP membership list - couldn't give a fuck. I had the unpleasant experience of coming across members of the BNP and the now defunct National Front 30 years ago in Leeds, when both were quite happy to flaunt their Naziness. Anyone who thinks they're now a party of reasonable principles is a fuckwit.

John Sergeant walking off Strictly Come Dancing? - couldn't give a fuck.

The Devil's Whore: first episode last night. What's going on there, then? I just want a good old historico-political dramatisation of the English Civil War(s) with plenty of Levellers, Diggers and Oliver and his New Model Army sticking it to the Royalists and demanding liberty. And all I get is some not very graphic rumpy-pumpy and the occasional appearance of a long-tongued devil bunged in with a bit of speeded-up history and a leery John Simm talking in incomprehensible mock 17th century English. I bet they don't give John Milton a walk-on part, either, despite all that pamphlet-waving.

Just realised there's a lot of reference to whores in this post. We know the real ones are to be found in Westminster.