Friday 26 August 2011

A puzzling question

Martin Kettle, Guardian Cif, writes on the continuing depreciation of our politics and the way it is mocked; that today's satire is deeply cynical, depicting British politics as a nest of fools and that whilst it may make us laugh, its impact is not funny. Helen Lederer is quoted in the article making the point that our politicians do not have to behave in the way they do.

Without doubt what must be the most depressing aspect of this is that our political elite appear to be making no attempt to polish their image. They continue to lie to us; they continue to act in a dictatorial manner; they appear to have forgotten about honour and principle, although they talk about both quite a bit; all of which results in a debasing of the position to which they have been elected and also of those that elected them.

There is of course another aspect; and one which is quite puzzling in its way. That is if 62% of Britons believe that "the giving and taking of bribes, and the abuse of positions of power for personal gain" is "widespread" among MPs, why do they continue to vote for them? When will they get off their butts and do something about it, before finding that they can't?

Just asking.....................

7 comments:

Oldrightie said...

"When will they get off their butts and do something about it, before finding that they can't?"

Probably have to wait for another Dunkirque moment.

TheBoilingFrog said...

As opposed to 18th and 19th Century political satire which was not at all deeply cynical?

Presumably Martin Kettle has not heard of Punch and Hogarth to name but two?

cosmic said...

A large part of the malaise we see in politics is down to Westminster being willingly reduced to an empty front by the EU. There's very little difference between the parties and they all accept that serious decisions come from above. It leaves Westminster to play at being the government and the major parties to play at standing for different things.

For instance, the guff that Cameron's produced on immigration and Human Rights. He knows he's not going to do anything about it, we know he's not going to do anything about it. Nonetheless, it encourages the faithful to vote Conservative.

James Higham said...

Without doubt what must be the most depressing aspect of this is that our political elite appear to be making no attempt to polish their image.

They don't need to any more. They know what's coming.

TomTom said...

The trouble with Martin Kettle is that his father was a senior official of the CPGB for whom politics was everything. The fact that the 1960s Generation of Politicos has shown what self-serving crooks they are has turned other generations off politics altogether.

It is the "God That Failed" and has betrayed voters serially. We have lived for decades on the back of a constantly-debased currency and inflation to spread jam more widely than our bread merited.

It has been decades of delusion built on cheap oil which ended in 1973 to be replaced with decades of delusion on easy credit. Now the game is over and the voters are stuffed with the bill as the elites take the bonuses

PeterCharles said...

It's simple really, almost without exception they see themselves as an elite and their priorities are personal standing within that elite and personal enrichment. They suffer from all the syndromes that go with that attitude; the need to surround themselves with sycophants, arrogance, an unbelievable sense of entitlement, the inability to accept they can ever be wrong, indeed the inability to even recognise they are wrong even long after history has proven it, listen to Blair, Lawson, Major, Brown or any of them. They have no sense of duty to the country, nor to the electorate or public opinion if it differs from their own view, they see their duty as being only to themselves and this is what makes them so completely inadequate.

Making matters worse these attitudes are growing like a cancer throughout quango-land and local government. It is little wonder the whole lot of them are despised.

WitteringsfromWitney said...

OR: You may well be correct......

TBF: Point taken, but in the days of Punch and Hogarth, that audience was not so great.

c: And who is to blame for the situation arising in the first place? We are!

KH: I don't think they do, if you are referring to their demise.......

TT: Totally agree and you are so right....

PC: And it is for those reasons, all in which you are perfectly correct, that the system has to be broken/changed.