If you are in politics and you watch this video, you will squirm. It demonstrates clearly the anger of the people over MP expenses. It's from the Andrew MacKay public meeting, but it could be repeated in many other areas. It's clearly heavily edited, but no matter. Anyone who underestimates the public anger does so at their peril.
Hattip:
ConservativeHome.
I rather like this eloquent summing up from a comment to a Guadian piece a week or so ago - forgot to take a note of the author.
ReplyDelete"The country hate you and want you gone, with all your bigotry, racism, corruption, sleaze and political correctness, with your stasi and spying, your ID cards and unique IDs, your authoritarian nonsense, your laws that don’t work except to persecute innocent people, your divide and rule, your incitement of racial tension, your profligacy, your hypocricy, your abuse of parliament, your abuse of power, your criminal waste of taxpayers money, your insufferable priggishness, pomposity and arrogance, your incompetence in office, your tribalism, your lying, your fascism. Are these the things New Labour stands for? They are the things it will be remembered for."
Audience with me all the way.But I managed to lose them at the station.The old ones are the best!
ReplyDeleteThere will probably be a mighty backlash of votes against the two main parties on 4th June, and quite rightly so. Why not take this opportunity to embrace Europe and not be frightened of it?
ReplyDeleteRather him than me.
ReplyDeleteShame sound quality is so poor - gave in after 5mins as couldn't hear the questions properly.
'Twas in truth an hour
ReplyDeleteOf universal ferment; mildest men
Were agitated, and commotions, strife
Of passion and opinion, filled the walls
Of peaceful houses with unquiet sounds.
The soil of common life was, at that time,
Too hot to tread upon.
(Wordsworth) (the poet)
Yes. The public is very angry. Still a topic of conversation with the public.
ReplyDeletePlus my update for Bank Holiday Monday. By the way... Where's Gordon??
Bank Holiday morning update: Gordon Brown's plea: "Get your tanks off my lawn!"
I’m thinking of pitching for the PR business of restoring trust in British politics, its MPs and its Parliament. Somebody’s got to do it. In the spirit of transparency, here’s my first draft of a pitch:
ReplyDeletehttp://paulseaman.eu/2009/05/restoring-trust-in-parliament-and-mps-pr-proposal/
I'm a bit confused as the attitude on the doorstep here is defo that it's time for the graph to wind it's neck in. if you open an audience up to labour and lib dem voters, they are bound to monster you aren't they? same if a labour mp had a meeting and let us cons in. has the chipmunk had a meeting?Can i go if she does?
ReplyDelete@RGBDC: yeah, let's go with even more unaccountable bodies which employ 18 phantom MEP's and their staff; accounts which haven't been signed off for God knows how long and transnational bullying of whistleblowers.
ReplyDeleteEuro-sleaze FTW!
If by embrace Cullen means shake it warmly by the throat i'm with him.
ReplyDeleteReading Glasses:
ReplyDeleteBecause it's a corrupt, incompetent and undemocratic superstate gradually turning into a "workers paradise".
Like others here, I'd be delighted to "embrace" the unaccountable fiasco in Brussels - or its corporate second home in Strasbourg - in the manner of a python embracing lunch. The antics there are even worse than the obscene troughing now claiming scalps in Westminster, but sadly the British public is currently less aware of it - or perhaps simply resigned to being unable to drain that swamp just yet. A UKIP landslide next week would be a big help in that respect, though, as will removing as many of the federalist sellout incumbents as possible.
ReplyDelete"if you open an audience up to labour and lib dem voters, they are bound to monster you aren't they? same if a labour mp had a meeting and let us cons in. has the chipmunk had a meeting?Can i go if she does"?
ReplyDeleteSpot on Anonymous, and the TV shots of (no doubt) Labour supporters signing a "petition" to get rid of Kirkbride ?
The Conservatives are rank amateurs in the dirty tricks department. Where is the petition on the streets of Normanton demanding the dismissal of Balls ?
Those looney conspiracy theorists who doubt that Labour would "allow" an election, may have been closer than we think.
Bad result in June, Brown booted, Johnson (Mr Clean) takes over, sets up a referendum to approve PR and fixed terms. Public, "fed up with sleaze", votes for madness. Very plausible.
Many people do not have the time to connect with their families as much as they would like let alone politics and local issues. I know I am one of them. So, for the most part we have to trust a locally elected individual to do this for us.
ReplyDeleteToo many opt out from one election to another and then only if there is nothing good on the telly toddle down to the polling station to vote for somebody on a whim they don’t know who if elected is then expected to guess what they want.
That’s an awful lot of trust.
Seems to me once elected your MP has to be all things to all men/women often along party lines, and inevitably that frustrates and exasperates far too many people, which leads to disconnection and/or anger.
The MP’s expenses scandal is perhaps a result of that disconnection, but ultimately the only people that can put it right are those we have placed our trust in at the ballot box.
There are crooks in all walks of life and maybe we should not expect Westminster to be so very different. My main surprise is that there seemed to be quite so many, and on reflection I can’t help feeling that perhaps I too as an individual must share some of this blame for this mess.
Perhaps the voters must make the effort to connect more and in a positive way if we want to improve things for all, and perhaps Westminster should learn to trust the population, be more transparent and a little less controlling.
Otherwise I can’t see much of a way forward.
Reading glasses
ReplyDeleteEurope is something we should all be very afraid of..its run by an unelected bunch of socialist/communist loons in the manner of the old USSR..and its only going to get worse.Suggest you might want to get some glasses yerself and ave a good look at them....
You have to admire the way his toupée stays in place under pressure.
ReplyDeleteI wonder if he uses Poligrip.
"...but it could be repeated in many other areas."
ReplyDeleteI sincerely hope it is!
Where and when is Maude's?
ReplyDeleteCan anyone assist.
Love to attend that one!
Andrew K.
ReplyDeleteHow un gallant!
Actually it is NomoreNails!
I feel there is a very simple way to resolve the representation of the people issue and to restore democracy, accountability and the dignity and usefulness of Parliamnent.
ReplyDeleteDirect elections for the Office of PM and she or he then chooses a cabinet.
The executive are held to account by the legislature.
Our constituency MP is elected in a seperate vote and the party they represent is NOT on the ballot paper. I have worked at polling stations collecting exit data and I would estimate 70% of voters had no idea of the name of the person they had just voted for.
I'm highly suspicious of the calls from many MPs to accept the Kelly recommendations, whatever they might be. Do they know something about those recommendations that we don't? Does Kelly, perchance, recommend increasing MPs' salaries?
ReplyDeleteIf so, then MPs can expect a fresh round of kicking to start - because to do so, they'll be insulting our intelligence.
I wonder if there is any way I can personally thank the Daily Telegraph for getting hold of this disc full of information about MPs expenses? Had they not done so, MPs would have been able to continue exactly as before and none of us would have been any the wiser.
ReplyDeleteThe public are angry indeed. But the worst has still not come out, I'm pretty certain. Recently, I heard a Telegraph hack saying on GMTV that this would be a thousand times worse once the expenses in the House of Lords have been outed. So far, I see no reason to doubt that journo. This one is going to run for several months yet.
We cannot see real change in the political system until the worst offenders are prosecuted and jailed for their blatant theft and the others deselected and never allowed to stand for public office again. I see no sign of that happening so far.
You may be right I think you are, but any video if it is heavily edited is worthless. I do not think it does the cause of openness much good to uses something heavily edited to promote your call. Ergo I don't think its a good idea to promote this video.
ReplyDeleteHaving sat through this clip I'm astonished that his expenses claims weren't higher than reported. I saw the interview with him afterwards when he said 75% of the people at the meeting were for him - with a command of arithmetic of such high achievement he ought to have been claiming more !
ReplyDeleteRe : Summer 10:35 am.
ReplyDeleteI must have missed that - I would have clipped that out, photocopied it and sent it to my (humourless but otherwise straight) M.P. with a request that he posted it on a noticeboard above Annie's Bar ...... and I would have it in pride of place under a magnet on my "fridge" door !