Tuesday 29 May 2012

Politicians have an terrible record..

Almost ubiquitously with any commentary on politicians or politics is the suggestion that our political class are widely distrusted and held in contempt by those they govern. In the context of Westminster, this is often related back to the MPs expenses scandal under the last Labour government - not to mention honours for cash, former ministers posing as 'cabs for hire' or Lords offering to amend legislation to the highest bidder. Each of course took their toll, and certainly provided us with one of the worst parliament's & Speaker - now Baron Martin of Springburn - in our history.

 But it goes a lot deeper than that. It seems to me that our political class - with a few honourable exceptions - have been wrong on almost all of the major economic and social issues of the last decade. Moreover, in every case, and presumably because it would not have been given, they failed to either consult or gain the consent of the British people. Here are just five.

1. Multi-culturalism, the widely discredited notion that lead directly to the 7/7 bombings by domestically radicalised terrorists..

2. An open-door immigration policy - designed to 'rub the right's nose in it' - which has irrevocably changed British society whilst denying some of the most vulnerable of our citizens a working future..

3. Welfare dependency, whose numbingly anti-aspirational lifestyle-choice has destroyed the future of hundreds of thousands across vast swaths of British cities..

4. The 2007 banking crash, which no politician forecast, have yet to provide an apology for or indeed a solution to..

5. The disastrous euro which, despite claims to the contrary, Labour continued to support throughout its 13 years in government. The question was only when we would join, not if. Right up until May 2010, Labour continued to fund a specialist treasury department whose purpose was to prepare the country for entry. It was finally disbanded in George Osborne's first budget..

 Is it any wonder people do not trust politicians?