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Sometimes it is a good idea to stand back and take another look
at familiar issues. For example we could ask ourselves why the UK electorate
has a tendency to vote for lying poseurs as their MPs. People who were recently discovered to have fiddled their
expenses, lied about their main residence, employed family members on their official staff and tried to hide the
whole sorry mess when it all came out.
Thinking laterally, maybe that’s the real point of electing
them. After all, their expenses scams were somewhat petty in the grand scheme
of things. Perhaps the electorate has been electing useless lying poseurs as a cunning plan.
Hmm - so what cunning plan would that be Baldrick?
How about this.
The general idea is to pass the job of government to professionals
– the permanent officials whose job it is to make sure government actually
works. Thus taking it away from the sticky fingers of party hacks, loons,
thieves, trouser-droppers, insane harridans and all those who only see the job
as a route to better things.
So we prefer bloody useless bureaucrats to bloody useless
politicians do we Baldrick?
It’s a tough choice, but given the paucity of options maybe we
do prefer bloody useless bureaucrats. Why not? The growth in international
standards covering everything from road signage to food standards to reptile
imports has led to a marked decline in the work available to politicians. Much
of it is beyond their ken anyway because of its complexity and technical
detail.
This sounds the death knell for democracy, but at least the
professionals, whatever their numerous shortcomings and inefficiencies, at
least they have to keep the show on the road if only to retain a firm grip on
their salaries and pensions.
It is far from being a satisfactory trend and things are
likely to go very sour indeed, but perhaps it is better than relying on all
those ghastly, know-nothing freaks propping up the House of Commons bar. They have
no intention of doing anything useful under any circumstances and maybe voters
have wised up to that...
Or maybe they haven’t wised up to anything Baldrick. They simply plod off to the polling station, scrawl their cross based on the party they hate most and that’s the real attraction of
UKIP. Three birds with one stone.
8 comments:
A chum once floored everyone present, when he said that 'We should just put all Government out to tender'!
I still cannot find a reason to disagree - yet...
Politics has always been about grabbing power and very little to do with the people, only at election time are the people of the slightest interest. Check out Joseph Goebbels - Propaganda Principles - you can be sure each party has a copy and will aim it at us.
May I suggest the tactic of making more constituencies marginal ones. A temporary improvement until they all snuggle up to each other and status-quo resumes.
Michael - it's an attractive idea but managing contracts is an issue with the public sector.
Roger - from Goebbels' Propaganda Principles:-
"Credibility alone must determine whether propaganda output should be true or false."
I think it was von Moltke who said that the worst kind of staff officer was an enthusiastic fool. It seems that our present media and management systems tend to deliver precisely this kind of person into positions of power and government.
So we prefer bloody useless bureaucrats to bloody useless politicians do we Baldrick?
Rock and a hard place, AKH.
Demetrius - one problem with enthusiastic fools is that they are often pleasant people.
James - it is and I'm not convinced we'll resolve it.
"The general idea is to pass the job of government to professionals – the permanent officials whose job it is to make sure government actually works. Thus taking it away from the sticky fingers of party hacks, loons, thieves, trouser-droppers, insane harridans and all those who only see the job as a route to better things."
That is the aim of The Harrogate Agenda - to make politicians but expert bureaucrats whose sole function would be there to do the will of the people for the best advantage of the people. Is not that which democracy should do?
Witterings - it is what democracy should do but I don't see much interest in making it happen. People are just too swamped by daily life and on the whole too comfortable.
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