I told you long ago not to talk or listen to politicians, bankers, economists or policy wonks. Instead, you should have been donating, very generously, directly to the money-men of the Conservative Party. It might have been an expensive "kitchen supper' as snacks go but by now you might have zero corporation tax, zero capital gains tax and a top personal income-tax bracket of 15p. All for a backhander of around 750k to the Tory Party. They might even privatise the police forces and toss in a knighthood for the round million. Follow the example of property developers that have bunged enough money at the Tory Party to get the whole of Britain turned into a free-for-all building site. Expect to see several property developers in the next Queen's Birthday Honours List.
To those of us with exposure to the American way of doing politics this comes as no great surprise - nor should it come as much of a shock to the citizens of the UK. Politics is about vested interests and the most vested of these is money and it's derivatives - wealth and power. The man seen on hidden-camera offering to subvert democracy for large quantities of wedge got there because he threw enough folding money - (in his vernacular; a 'bar" and a couple of "plums") - at the Tory Party to get the job as it's Treasurer. He made his money in Thatcher's Big-Bang City and he brought it's morality with him. That the Labour party did something very similar is no defence. Selling peerages and getting a "Bernie" from Bernie Ecclestone for political favours is part and parcel of what now passes for democratic politics in the age of unregulated capitalism. Didn't Marx and Engels say something about this? Instead of concentrating all power in the State all power is concentrated in private corporations. Either way democracy isn't involved.
The Irish have just added more proof, if any were needed, to the assertion that all power, in some manner or other, corrupts. Especially in an environment where the Treasurer of the Tory party refers to a billion quid as a "yard". Former Irish Prime-minister Ahern, where he to dwell in London instead of Dublin, could well have added the "Bertie" to the lexicon of money slang.
The recent litany of embarrassment for the UK government might be described as the Conservative Party Conundrum. The "New Labour" emulating "New Tory" modernisers of the Conservative Party are actually the former 19th century model (previously declared extinct) of wealth, class and privilege (requires a minimum of 300 years of inbreeding) now occupying the Parliamentary front benches while the Conservative Party and it's HQ remain firmly in the grip of the (mongrel) Thatcherites. Ne'er the twain shall meet. Cameron rose to power only because the Thatcherites went into hiding after egregious sleaze gave Thatcherism and it's adherents a bad name and made the Tories unelectable - New Labour then stole most of Thatcher's policies anyway. Cameron went out of his way not to speak to Thatcherites, to avoid contagion, in the hope of getting himself elected and he half succeeded. Thatcherites wouldn't have given him any good advice even if he asked for it. Now they're all regretting it.
This has resulted in a face-off between the resurgant Old Tory Entitlement and the Thatcher Meritocracy and they are both losing. The reappearance of Tory Class-Politics is exactly what Thatcherism was meant to prevent - unfortunately it was also meant to prevent exactly the present economic disaster from ever happening. So Thatcherites don't really have much of a clue as to how to solve it without admitting that it was their supporters that brought this disaster about or looking, god forbid, like the Labour party. The Tory Entitlement, represented by Cameron, Osborne and Maude, is doing what comes naturally to them - concluding that what's good for them is, by definition, good for the country. By extension this means, in their minds at least, that the working classes are undeserving of the privileges dispensed by Public School and Oxbridge upbringings - and need to be treated as mindless idiots. The Lower Orders don't know what's good for them and, in any event, they don't matter. Meanwhile the system is tuned to provide the already privaleged with yet more privileges.
Unfortunately for the chinless upper-class Tory twits this sense of entitlement overlooks how they got put in power in the first place - by mindless idiots. No wonder they fought for so long to prevent universal suffrage. Not only has their socially-elevated personal view of what's right and proper upset the Sun newspaper reading Conservative working-class faithful but the Daily Telegraph, Times and Sunday Times reading middle-class Tory faithful to boot. They've managed to do this by surrounding themselves with doppelgangers - those whose senses of entitlement and self-worth greatly outweigh their abilities - but fit nicely into the Realm of Privilege they foolishly believe the country should revert to. They are so convicted of this notion that nothing - nothing other than electoral annihilation - will convince them that the return to a pre first world war Establishment isn't a good thing. This is benignly described as "being out of touch".
If they were simply "out of touch" it would be a good thing. They are also vastly and unknowingly incompetent. So that makes them oblivious to how vastly incompetently out of touch they actually are - as demonstrated by David Cameron showing his common-man, Cornish Pasty-munching, fuel-hoarding, pay-to-meet, credentials with a photo-op playing BADMINTON in the back garden of No.10! He probably did this on the advice of George Osborne - a man who probably thinks that Badminton is more popular than Soccer and is certainly more popular than Cornish Pasties - at least among the people he knows.
All of this brings us to the disconnect between Entitlement Politicians and the realities of power, money and the electorate. To the Entitlement money is vulgar and it is best to leave such unsavoury things to unsavoury people. By already having all the things others covet they believe they're much better than the people that elected them and so should, naturally, be looked-up to for leadership and guidance. We're better than you and have the plummy accent to prove it. Which begs the question - who are the real mindless idiots?
To those of us with exposure to the American way of doing politics this comes as no great surprise - nor should it come as much of a shock to the citizens of the UK. Politics is about vested interests and the most vested of these is money and it's derivatives - wealth and power. The man seen on hidden-camera offering to subvert democracy for large quantities of wedge got there because he threw enough folding money - (in his vernacular; a 'bar" and a couple of "plums") - at the Tory Party to get the job as it's Treasurer. He made his money in Thatcher's Big-Bang City and he brought it's morality with him. That the Labour party did something very similar is no defence. Selling peerages and getting a "Bernie" from Bernie Ecclestone for political favours is part and parcel of what now passes for democratic politics in the age of unregulated capitalism. Didn't Marx and Engels say something about this? Instead of concentrating all power in the State all power is concentrated in private corporations. Either way democracy isn't involved.
The Irish have just added more proof, if any were needed, to the assertion that all power, in some manner or other, corrupts. Especially in an environment where the Treasurer of the Tory party refers to a billion quid as a "yard". Former Irish Prime-minister Ahern, where he to dwell in London instead of Dublin, could well have added the "Bertie" to the lexicon of money slang.
The recent litany of embarrassment for the UK government might be described as the Conservative Party Conundrum. The "New Labour" emulating "New Tory" modernisers of the Conservative Party are actually the former 19th century model (previously declared extinct) of wealth, class and privilege (requires a minimum of 300 years of inbreeding) now occupying the Parliamentary front benches while the Conservative Party and it's HQ remain firmly in the grip of the (mongrel) Thatcherites. Ne'er the twain shall meet. Cameron rose to power only because the Thatcherites went into hiding after egregious sleaze gave Thatcherism and it's adherents a bad name and made the Tories unelectable - New Labour then stole most of Thatcher's policies anyway. Cameron went out of his way not to speak to Thatcherites, to avoid contagion, in the hope of getting himself elected and he half succeeded. Thatcherites wouldn't have given him any good advice even if he asked for it. Now they're all regretting it.
This has resulted in a face-off between the resurgant Old Tory Entitlement and the Thatcher Meritocracy and they are both losing. The reappearance of Tory Class-Politics is exactly what Thatcherism was meant to prevent - unfortunately it was also meant to prevent exactly the present economic disaster from ever happening. So Thatcherites don't really have much of a clue as to how to solve it without admitting that it was their supporters that brought this disaster about or looking, god forbid, like the Labour party. The Tory Entitlement, represented by Cameron, Osborne and Maude, is doing what comes naturally to them - concluding that what's good for them is, by definition, good for the country. By extension this means, in their minds at least, that the working classes are undeserving of the privileges dispensed by Public School and Oxbridge upbringings - and need to be treated as mindless idiots. The Lower Orders don't know what's good for them and, in any event, they don't matter. Meanwhile the system is tuned to provide the already privaleged with yet more privileges.
Unfortunately for the chinless upper-class Tory twits this sense of entitlement overlooks how they got put in power in the first place - by mindless idiots. No wonder they fought for so long to prevent universal suffrage. Not only has their socially-elevated personal view of what's right and proper upset the Sun newspaper reading Conservative working-class faithful but the Daily Telegraph, Times and Sunday Times reading middle-class Tory faithful to boot. They've managed to do this by surrounding themselves with doppelgangers - those whose senses of entitlement and self-worth greatly outweigh their abilities - but fit nicely into the Realm of Privilege they foolishly believe the country should revert to. They are so convicted of this notion that nothing - nothing other than electoral annihilation - will convince them that the return to a pre first world war Establishment isn't a good thing. This is benignly described as "being out of touch".
If they were simply "out of touch" it would be a good thing. They are also vastly and unknowingly incompetent. So that makes them oblivious to how vastly incompetently out of touch they actually are - as demonstrated by David Cameron showing his common-man, Cornish Pasty-munching, fuel-hoarding, pay-to-meet, credentials with a photo-op playing BADMINTON in the back garden of No.10! He probably did this on the advice of George Osborne - a man who probably thinks that Badminton is more popular than Soccer and is certainly more popular than Cornish Pasties - at least among the people he knows.
All of this brings us to the disconnect between Entitlement Politicians and the realities of power, money and the electorate. To the Entitlement money is vulgar and it is best to leave such unsavoury things to unsavoury people. By already having all the things others covet they believe they're much better than the people that elected them and so should, naturally, be looked-up to for leadership and guidance. We're better than you and have the plummy accent to prove it. Which begs the question - who are the real mindless idiots?
