*All Things To All Men
So, the Labour Shadow Cabinet is full of policy wonks, people who have never held down a real job in their lives. And the Conservative Cabinet is much the same, albeit slightly more encouraging with a few Directorships. So, how is the party that will promise anything to anybody faring?
Nick Clegg, Deputy Prime Minister
Journalist
Aid co-ordinator
Lobbyist
European Commission
Policy adviser
MEP
Lobbyist
MP
Vince Cable, Business Secretary
Lecturer
Special adviser
Chief Economist for Shell
MP
Chris Huhne, Energy and Climate Change
City entrepreneur
Director of ratings agency
Journalist
MP
Danny Alexander, Treasury Secretary
Press Officer
Director of Communications, Britain In Europe
MP
Bit too much Europe there for my liking.
Time was, Parliament was full of ex-miners on one side and ex-businessmen on the other. Yes, I exaggerate. But you knew that Parliament was filled with men (and some women) with experience of life - struggling to feed a family, hard physical work, taking risks, balancing priorities, managing money. Looking back over these three posts, the most common occupation is 'policy adviser' or 'political researcher'. Overwhelmingly, politicians leave University, get a job at a low level in a political organisation, and rise to the top of that before being selected (for their loyalty to the cause more than anything else, one would imagine) as candidates for election. The only risk there people have taken was whether to support Brown of Blair on their way up.
It is no surprise that Parliament is spineless and weak (unless it is to bully and coerce its citizens into 'appropriate choices'). They have all lived in a world where what matters is who you butter up and who you spin against, a comfy office world where risks are theoretical and discomfort is a Nokia between the shoulderblades.
No-one there who has queued for the bus before dawn on a misty November morning to earn their daily crust. Pampered lapdogs, the lot of them. Even, or especially, Labour.
Showing posts with label MP. Show all posts
Showing posts with label MP. Show all posts
Tuesday, 8 November 2011
The Toffs' Party
As with the recent look at Labour's real-world experience, here's the same for some of the Conservative cabinet:
David Cameron, Prime Minister
Political researcher
Special adviser
Director of media company
MP
William Hague, Foreign Secretary
Management consultant
MP
George Osborne, Chancellor
Political researcher
MP
Kenneth Clarke, Justice Secretary
Barrister
QC
MP
Theresa May, Home Secretary
Bank of England
Financial consultant
MP
Phillip Hammond, Defence Secretary
Director of medical company
Various directorships and partnerships
Consultant to World Bank
MP
Iain Duncan Smith, Work and Pensions
Scots Guards
General Electric Company
MP
Andrew Lansley, Health Secretary
Civil servant
Political researcher
MP
Michael Gove, Education Secretary
Journalist
MP
Eric Pickles, Communities and Local Government
Local councillor
MP
Justine Greening, Transport Secretary
Accountant
MP
Better, but still nothing to give confidence that our Lords and Masters have lived much in the real world.
David Cameron, Prime Minister
Political researcher
Special adviser
Director of media company
MP
William Hague, Foreign Secretary
Management consultant
MP
George Osborne, Chancellor
Political researcher
MP
Kenneth Clarke, Justice Secretary
Barrister
QC
MP
Theresa May, Home Secretary
Bank of England
Financial consultant
MP
Phillip Hammond, Defence Secretary
Director of medical company
Various directorships and partnerships
Consultant to World Bank
MP
Iain Duncan Smith, Work and Pensions
Scots Guards
General Electric Company
MP
Andrew Lansley, Health Secretary
Civil servant
Political researcher
MP
Michael Gove, Education Secretary
Journalist
MP
Eric Pickles, Communities and Local Government
Local councillor
MP
Justine Greening, Transport Secretary
Accountant
MP
Better, but still nothing to give confidence that our Lords and Masters have lived much in the real world.
Thursday, 5 November 2009
Poem of the Day
I couldn't resist nicking this:
On Bonfire Night, On Bonfire Night
It’s time to set the land alight:
So load the faggots, pile the wood,
Stack the logs and stack them good!
Pile on effigies and guys
Of MPs who we all despise:
Put Mandelson and Brown up there,
With smarmy grin, put Tony Blair;
And heap the brushwood, build the pyre,
Strike the match and light that fire.
Upon each hilltop, fell, scarp, peak ‘n’
Tor we’ll light a cheery beacon
Where hated Parliamentarianism
Is met by stark incendiarism;
(Remember, Member, your offences -
We know you fiddled your expenses…)
And we’ll line up to light the torch,
To make the MPs singe and scorch,
Who’ll be first to strike the tinder
And burn each MP to a cinder?
Their tricks sent each and every peasant
Into rages incandescent;
Let’s stuff those dummies! Pile ‘em high,
Then launch them up into the sky
And laugh as all their stupid masks
Explode among the firework-sparks;
But can such jolly conflagration
Appease our bitter consternation
As we stand shoulder next to shoulder,
To watch those ‘Honorable’ Members smoulder?
The voters’ mood is clearly fervent
And keen to torch a ‘Public Servant’!
Once lit, among the fiery lumber,
Will MP Dumb and MP Dumber
Seem slightly less detestible
When proved to be combustible?
We loathe them all, across the board;
Each Member, unelected Lord,
And Baroness, all need a rocket
For stealing from the public pocket.
Shall we look on with gleeful gaze
As Ministers are set ablaze
And the tiny guy of Hazel Blears
Explodes to rounds of raucous cheers?
Shall Jacquie’s guy, stuffed all with porn,
Be left to smoulder on the lawn?
Shall Harman’s, wearing dungarees,
Stay smoking gently in the breeze?
And Jack’s, for it is stuffed with Straw,
Remain a-blazing upon the floor?
Or shall someone run to douse the flames
And shout a list of Members’ names
Who haven’t picked the public purse?
(Or anything remotely worse
Than scoffing freebie food all day
To supplement their meagre pay)
Would this list water down the spite
T’wards those who have been set alight?
Would Prescott seem less of a bag
If he had just the single Jag?
Take that clown Brown, who couldn’t risk it
And dared not name his favourite biscuit,
Is he OK because he paid
Back money used to hire a maid?
Shall we forgive those flipping gnomes
Who swapped their first and second homes?
Shall we say “Yes, we’ll pay for you
And pay much higher taxes too
As long as you can keep your moat
Weed-free so that your ducks still float.”?
Perhaps we’d better light that fire
And blue touch-paper, then retire
To somewhere safe to watch the glows
Build up until the whole thing blows
Those sorry bonfire-guys sky high
And if the real guys wonder why
We cheered as our guys blew away,
Remember, Member, Guy Fawkes’ Day,
When we commemorate a plot
To get rid of you shameful lot.
On Bonfire Night, On Bonfire Night
It’s time to set the land alight:
So load the faggots, pile the wood,
Stack the logs and stack them good!
Pile on effigies and guys
Of MPs who we all despise:
Put Mandelson and Brown up there,
With smarmy grin, put Tony Blair;
And heap the brushwood, build the pyre,
Strike the match and light that fire!
H/t to Gloria Smudd at Anna Raccoon.
Monday, 29 June 2009
That expenses stuff again ...
Now that the dust has started to settle, I am revising my view of the MPs' expenses affair. I was as angry as anyone else when the Telegraph first started its publication of the unredacted details. But with the benefit of a bit of reflection, I have calmed down a bit.
Clarity on one thing: MPs who live some distance from London need a base in the capital in order to do their jobs. I have no problem with the taxpayer funding all reasonable excess living expenses incurred by this. Any half-decent company would do the same. A house or flat, a few sticks of furniture, a TV, all to a reasonable standard, no problem. So the question of allowances is not the issue, to me at any rate. How the allowances are administered is a whole new kettle of worms.
The first question is: what do want from our MPs? I want them to be honest, most certainly, and I am aware that, like pregnancy, there are no degrees of honesty - you are either honest or dishonest. But I also want them to be human beings rather than squeaky-clean cardboard cut-outs fresh from a Politics degree and a few months working as a politician's gopher. I regard myself as honest, but I'm not sure if I could measure up to the high standards that are being demanded (with 20/20 hindsight) by some commentators.
If we go back to 1997, there was a massive intake of new MPs. Fresh from a different and unrelated job in most cases, they arrive at Westminster for the first time. The Mother of Parliaments! All that oak panelling! All those arcane traditions! Putting myself in that position, I think I would have been pretty much overawed by the experience. And if someone greatly senior to me later said to me, "you can claim for this, and that, and the other thing as well," and then went on, "we all do it, we've always done it, and it is approved by the Fees Office," I'm sure I would have gone along with it. For the reasonable stuff, anyway - a bit of redecoration, a TV, an allowance for the odd burger after a late-night sitting. It would have taken a very strong will to resist that kind of blandishment, especially as the MPs were told - and it was true - that the Parliamentary authorities had approved it. Some MPs, and these are the ones I feel sorry for, actually sought the approval of the Fees Office and received it in writing before claiming items under their allowances. I can't fault that - it's exactly what I would have done. So I suppose I must allow a new category of honesty to add to the binary distinction I referred to earlier: "basically honest, but willing to go along with the majority view which appears completely acceptable to everyone else here". I would probably fall into that category, and so I bet would most other people when they are not on their high horses prancing on their newly-discovered moral high ground.
So I am prepared to forgive the odd bath-plug and TV subscription [1], the mistakenly-included tampons and the leaky water-pipes. Even a change of second-home designation where it can be justified is not a problem. Where I get angry, really really incendiary, nuclear angry, is where I see evidence of manipulation of the system, an awareness of the potential for profit. Claiming for a mortgage that has been paid off is fraud, pure and simple, and the claimant should go to prison. The day that the Inland Revenue allow the rest of us to say that things were just an oversight in the midst of a very busy schedule is the day that I will forgive that kind of grasping mendacity. No normal person (even if they hadn't kept track of the final date of mortgage repayments) would fail to notice an extra £800 in their bank account every month, unless they were so wealthy that these kind of sums were pocket money and not worth accounting [2]. Regularly flipping the designated second home to maximise the allowances for repair and refurbishment is evidence of malicious intent. If a similar thing occurred under a private employer, there would be instant dismissal for gross misconduct and a demand for full repayment, at the very least. Claiming allowances on a 'second home' 100 miles from your constituency and the same distance from London is another clear abuse of a loosely-worded system. Claiming an empty flat as your main residence in order to get the taxpayer to fund your massive 'second home' where you really live is even worse: lying to gain financial advantage or, in the language most of us understand, fraud. Building a property portfolio on the taxpayer to provide you with a nice little nest-egg when you retire is criminal - and doubly criminal when it's Labour politicians - those scourges of greedy capitalism - doing it. Somehow, with the Tories, you can forgive it, because you expect them to be on the lookout for an investment opportunity. How the Labour offenders square making a few million on the property market with loyalty to their trades union roots and their minimum-wage constituents is beyond me.
But all these are understandable, if reprehensible, human failings. What brought me to boiling point was the way in which MPs tried to first of all hide it, then cover it up, and finally make a partial disclosure in the hope that public interest would die away. Hah. It didn't. When it became obvious that these things were of public interest, they tried blocking it. Then they tried to amend the FoI bill so that MPs would be exempt (how the hell did they think we would swallow that one?). Then they made a big play of publishing all the redacted receipts in the hope that we would be grateful for their magnanimity and forget about the whole thing. Of course, the information that they blacked out is the very information that led to the discovery of flipping and deliveries of expensive goods to the 'wrong' house, and so on. Michael Martin was the driver of this venal process, and that was why he had to go. And every MP who voted for it should hang his or her head in shame.
We've caught you out now, and it will never be the same again.
Rant over.
[1] Yes, even the porn films. Realistically, they were just a couple of items half-way down a long list of things that were just chucked in with the rest, without any particularly dishonest intent (except the one that says "Another bill? Give it to the taxpayer"). It should have been checked, certainly, but this isn't a hanging offence. I was pleased it happened to Jackboot Smith, however - a richly-deserved comeuppance, if that's not too graphic a phrase.
[2] And how the fucking fuck does anyone think that being able to write a cheque for several tens of thousands of pounds somehow makes them less culpable? I couldn't write a cheque for that sum at all, ever, and even one for £500 would make me think for a long time about where it was coming from. Show me someone who can pull out a cheque for 20 grand on live TV, and I'll show you someone who has more money than they know what to do with. My money, and yours.
Clarity on one thing: MPs who live some distance from London need a base in the capital in order to do their jobs. I have no problem with the taxpayer funding all reasonable excess living expenses incurred by this. Any half-decent company would do the same. A house or flat, a few sticks of furniture, a TV, all to a reasonable standard, no problem. So the question of allowances is not the issue, to me at any rate. How the allowances are administered is a whole new kettle of worms.
The first question is: what do want from our MPs? I want them to be honest, most certainly, and I am aware that, like pregnancy, there are no degrees of honesty - you are either honest or dishonest. But I also want them to be human beings rather than squeaky-clean cardboard cut-outs fresh from a Politics degree and a few months working as a politician's gopher. I regard myself as honest, but I'm not sure if I could measure up to the high standards that are being demanded (with 20/20 hindsight) by some commentators.
If we go back to 1997, there was a massive intake of new MPs. Fresh from a different and unrelated job in most cases, they arrive at Westminster for the first time. The Mother of Parliaments! All that oak panelling! All those arcane traditions! Putting myself in that position, I think I would have been pretty much overawed by the experience. And if someone greatly senior to me later said to me, "you can claim for this, and that, and the other thing as well," and then went on, "we all do it, we've always done it, and it is approved by the Fees Office," I'm sure I would have gone along with it. For the reasonable stuff, anyway - a bit of redecoration, a TV, an allowance for the odd burger after a late-night sitting. It would have taken a very strong will to resist that kind of blandishment, especially as the MPs were told - and it was true - that the Parliamentary authorities had approved it. Some MPs, and these are the ones I feel sorry for, actually sought the approval of the Fees Office and received it in writing before claiming items under their allowances. I can't fault that - it's exactly what I would have done. So I suppose I must allow a new category of honesty to add to the binary distinction I referred to earlier: "basically honest, but willing to go along with the majority view which appears completely acceptable to everyone else here". I would probably fall into that category, and so I bet would most other people when they are not on their high horses prancing on their newly-discovered moral high ground.
So I am prepared to forgive the odd bath-plug and TV subscription [1], the mistakenly-included tampons and the leaky water-pipes. Even a change of second-home designation where it can be justified is not a problem. Where I get angry, really really incendiary, nuclear angry, is where I see evidence of manipulation of the system, an awareness of the potential for profit. Claiming for a mortgage that has been paid off is fraud, pure and simple, and the claimant should go to prison. The day that the Inland Revenue allow the rest of us to say that things were just an oversight in the midst of a very busy schedule is the day that I will forgive that kind of grasping mendacity. No normal person (even if they hadn't kept track of the final date of mortgage repayments) would fail to notice an extra £800 in their bank account every month, unless they were so wealthy that these kind of sums were pocket money and not worth accounting [2]. Regularly flipping the designated second home to maximise the allowances for repair and refurbishment is evidence of malicious intent. If a similar thing occurred under a private employer, there would be instant dismissal for gross misconduct and a demand for full repayment, at the very least. Claiming allowances on a 'second home' 100 miles from your constituency and the same distance from London is another clear abuse of a loosely-worded system. Claiming an empty flat as your main residence in order to get the taxpayer to fund your massive 'second home' where you really live is even worse: lying to gain financial advantage or, in the language most of us understand, fraud. Building a property portfolio on the taxpayer to provide you with a nice little nest-egg when you retire is criminal - and doubly criminal when it's Labour politicians - those scourges of greedy capitalism - doing it. Somehow, with the Tories, you can forgive it, because you expect them to be on the lookout for an investment opportunity. How the Labour offenders square making a few million on the property market with loyalty to their trades union roots and their minimum-wage constituents is beyond me.
But all these are understandable, if reprehensible, human failings. What brought me to boiling point was the way in which MPs tried to first of all hide it, then cover it up, and finally make a partial disclosure in the hope that public interest would die away. Hah. It didn't. When it became obvious that these things were of public interest, they tried blocking it. Then they tried to amend the FoI bill so that MPs would be exempt (how the hell did they think we would swallow that one?). Then they made a big play of publishing all the redacted receipts in the hope that we would be grateful for their magnanimity and forget about the whole thing. Of course, the information that they blacked out is the very information that led to the discovery of flipping and deliveries of expensive goods to the 'wrong' house, and so on. Michael Martin was the driver of this venal process, and that was why he had to go. And every MP who voted for it should hang his or her head in shame.
We've caught you out now, and it will never be the same again.
Rant over.
[1] Yes, even the porn films. Realistically, they were just a couple of items half-way down a long list of things that were just chucked in with the rest, without any particularly dishonest intent (except the one that says "Another bill? Give it to the taxpayer"). It should have been checked, certainly, but this isn't a hanging offence. I was pleased it happened to Jackboot Smith, however - a richly-deserved comeuppance, if that's not too graphic a phrase.
[2] And how the fucking fuck does anyone think that being able to write a cheque for several tens of thousands of pounds somehow makes them less culpable? I couldn't write a cheque for that sum at all, ever, and even one for £500 would make me think for a long time about where it was coming from. Show me someone who can pull out a cheque for 20 grand on live TV, and I'll show you someone who has more money than they know what to do with. My money, and yours.
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