How the nasties could start coming out of the woodwork
The Donald Trump balloon won’t be the only hot air- filled ego hovering over Westminster this week. Far from it. it’s going to be pretty crowded up there.
mud- slinging, bad- mouthing, plotting, squabbling — what a thoroughly bewildering spectacle our politics has presented to voters over the past four days.
it’s yet more apparent proof that too many of those who are supposed to represent the people, in truth, care little for anything save their own political skins. Another nail in the coffin of democracy.
Because while the events of this week have spellbound those in the Westminster bubble, in the minds of the ordinary voters all it will have done is reinforce the notion that most politicians are narcissists and they might as well just elect anyone because, ultimately, they are all as bad as each other.
This is, i passionately believe, by no means true. But it’s a refrain we’re going to be hearing more and more.
And if we want to know what the outcome of that perception looks like, he’s sitting opposite the Prime minister in the house of Commons, fingering his red nylon tie in anticipation and sizing up the curtains to no 10 (although curtains are probably too bourgeois; shutters, maybe).
it’s not terrorism or Vladimir Putin or fake news that poses the greatest threat to democracy in our time: it’s the devaluing of democracy itself — and the people who are causing it.
inaction, infighting and a terrible sense of entitlement in Washington are what led to Trump winning in America. And, if we’re not damn careful, the same will lead to Jeremy Corbyn and his band of marxist lunatics seizing control of this country.
The battle for Brexit and the seeming inability of both sides to set aside their differences for long enough to honour the result of the referendum has brought all this into terrifying focus.
For most voters, the issue doesn’t seem that complicated. They did their job in the referendum — listened to the arguments, turned up at the booths, put their mark in the box.
not unreasonably, they expected the politicians and civil servants they pay to implement their wishes. But, as we now know, that simply has not happened. The referendum result has been sabotaged at every possible step of the way.
The prospect of a patronising second ‘People’s Referendum’ (how in god’s name was the first one not that?) — seen by the Remain camp as a chance for the voters to redeem themselves and choose the ‘right’ outcome this time — has been endlessly promoted.
The house of Lords has abused its position to the point where its very existence is now in question.
everywhere you look, politicians seem to be engaged in gigantic acts of dishonesty, disloyalty and deception.
meanwhile, two years on, we still don’t have a deal. The very flaws in the Brussels system that drove 52 per cent of the country to vote Leave have infected the British Parliament: fudge, self-interest, prevarication and a total disregard for the voters.
SuReLy, if the government were a business that had behaved in such a reckless and incompetent way, every senior executive would have been fired ten times over.
From the moment the Prime minister triggered Article 50, to the second Boris Johnson was photographed signing his resignation letter, we’ve had enough hot air to fill 10,000 Donald Trump balloons.
yet, for all this showboating at Chequers, all the threatened and real resignations, all the hysteria and dramas, let me tell you a little secret: no one Cares.
The great British public are simply not that interested in such playground politics. They would rather be watching gareth Southgate steer his team of joyously talented youngsters to World Cup victory. All they care about, really, are outcomes. And right now, the outcome of that referendum is looking decidedly worrying.
of course politics is fraught, of course it’s brutal and ugly and cutthroat. When it delivers, people will overlook all that. But when it ceases to do the one basic thing for which it exists — to respect and implement the democratic wishes of the people — then the whole exercise seems utterly pointless.
And that, as we have seen in other parts of europe, is when the nasties come out of the woodwork and things start to get very, very frightening.