Jonathan Spencer's Tales of Ordinary Wisdom

Lenin

Norman Baker started it and perhaps he’ll finish it as it is revealeded he charged the tax payer £20,000 for  an office in his own home.

The lack of integrity is incredible amongst UK MPs, they all cry the letter of the law and ignore the spirit of the law, as someone who is interested in politics, I am disheartened.

So the blame game continues, and new puritanism gains some firmer ground in the economic downturn.  It had to get to this as our own purse strings get tighter and we struggle for the pennies we feel soneone ought to be to blame and it isn’t us.

Its always individuals or small groups who are to blame, no one ever takes the blame collectively, the fault is always at least at arms length and preferably right over there. First its the greedy bankers, now the greedy MPs and the new Puritans at the BBc and elsewhere want to persuade the gernal public its also the greedy ‘us’.

In the past my mother who is 82, says MPs expenses were always laughed at  as everyone knew they were used in a corrupt way but there was a tacit agreement between MPs and the press and subsequently the public that nothing would be said.  The Basic MPs wage is high but not really that high compared to what Doctors get, or many Barristers  or high court judges.  Yet we expect them to do the most difficult job in the country…run it.

The downturn has shocked everyone, it has brought pain to many and will bring, if it hasn’t already, poverty to many more.  So it has to be someones fault.   I beleive there is a collective fault, its really the Capitalist system, which Marx said will deteriorate and fall like all empires and it truly is a global empire.  Our problem is that as far as isms go we are stumped, stopped in our tracks, political philosophy is moribund.  The socilaist experiment in Europe and the Russian empire has not done a good job, its revival in South America may possibly just be a last gasp, and what fills its place ….a sort of cut down the may poles, recycle everything, woe is me, we are all doomed to hell unless you do as we say kind of eco puritanism.

This new puritanism is leaking into every aspect of life and the spotlight ( an eco bulb of course) is turned on different individuals and groups from time to time.  They tried to turn it on the bankers, but these guys have been around the block a bit and just retreat to their private gated estates and mansions, they have turned it on the tellystocracy and the new media celebs, footballers and WAGS and now its the turn of the politicians.

All of the above groups mentioned except perhaps politicians are high earners, who gain obscene amounts of money for something that does not amount to much, MPs expense claims at their worst, amount to about a weeks wages for some top footballers and many top celebs.  For many bankers in the past the MPs claims are what they got for lunch allowance.

But the MPs are easy targets, and the bankers, footballers and celebrities that we pay for in our  bank charges, our credit card charges, our bank deposits , mortgages, TV licence and sky sub, our football ticket, shirt purchase, they get away with brning Rome while the MPs are to coin a phrase fiddling while Rome Burns.

Oh yes and back to collective responsibility, I know many of you out there are as honest and people of integrity, but would ask, when did you last break the speed limit, take something from the staitonary cupboard, surf the net at work when you should have been working…you know the kind of list, things you can get away with but are wrong, the MPs actually stuck to the letter of the law even though they probably knew in their hearts it lacked integrity, when you take something from work it sboth wrong and lacks integrity….know ask yourself compared to this what the bankers are and have been up to, is it wrong, outside the law, does it lack integrity and the wages of footballers, or the wages of drunk, shagging celebs who are famous for being famous….you know i could go on.  Oh yes and the journalists spilling the beans on all this….how much do you trust a journalist?

What we need right now is integrity, I beleive gordon brown for all his faults has that, I am not sure about ALL his cabinet. I remember Cameron in his Boden shorts on the english beach for a photo shoot who immediately after went for his real holiday on a millionaires yacht. I have my doubts about him, he’s too slick  and in the mould of Tony Blair, a politics thats been and gone, a yesterdays politician.

We need a new political philosophy that moves away from a puritan ethic, we need politicians that are transparent and open to scrutiny but above all can be seen to be ethical and have integrity.  Its time to move forward to collective responsibility and have modern social programmes that help eradicate poverty, whether thats poverty of  finance, culture, aspirations, equitable access, housing or any other kind of poverty…there is quite obviously enough for all and plenty more besides for those that play football or manage banks, it doesn’t just need sharing out, it needs to come with civic understanding, education and a health warning

We need to pay MPs properly ( on a par with a top barrister or doctor) and they need to be means tested with regard to expenses, if they are already incredibly wealthy they should get nothing.

Its not enough just to want to know under The Freedom of Information act, we need to know what we want to do with the information once we have it, not just be shocked of Tunbridge Wells.  We need to Agitate, Educate and Organise as they used to say.

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