Taxi drivers have a place in British political life not unlike the Oracle of Delphi in the affairs of Classical Greece. And they are now, based on my admitted rather small sample, speaking with one voice. Following my mother’s death earlier this year, I was yesterday lugging possessions from home to home, so to speak, and had need of two such oracles. Both, without any encouragement from me, even as they were steering me from and to Egham station, also steered the conversation towards the expenses being run up by Labour MPs. Specifically Labour MPs, please note. “My grandad who was in the miner’s union – Labour all his life – know what I’m saying? – must be turning in his grave …” “If any of us did that kind of thing, we’d be up before the Old Bill.” Shouldn’t that be arrested (“nabbed”) by the Old Bill and up before the “Beaks?” No matter, he was in full flood and in no mood to be interrupted about side-issues.
I recall being a bit scornful here about how this issue seems now to dominate the thinking of so many voters. But, as commenters pointed out, there is a direct connection between the grand larcenies being committed by our government in its panic reactions to the banking crisis and the petty thievings of our MPs. MPs should have their minds on All That. Instead they have been contriving second homes for themselves, and fourth giant flat screen televisions, and are now most concerned not about the state of the nation’s finances, but about being caught out in their own little thievings. Recently I read somewhere – link anybody? – about a Labour MP saying something like: “I don’t care if Gordon Brown ruins the world economy; but he should keep his hands off my expenses.” The failure of MPs to exercise oversight over the big stuff was directly related to their over-concentration on their own little living arrangements, and I apologise for not seeing that more quickly. It’s a variant of that Parkinson’s Law (so many of these are now relevant) about how people who are fussing about their new headquarters building are going to do that actual job rather badly for the duration of the move.
Can it be an accident that (a) one of the most splendid new pieces of sports architecture in London in recent years has been the resplendent new curved stand at the Oval cricket ground, the home of Surrey CCC, but that (b) the mere Surrey cricket team has gone from heroes to zeroes during the period of this new stand’s construction and opening? I digress, although not that much, because another even more striking (if far less handsome) recent addition to the London architectural scene has been the brand spanking new office block that has recently been constructed across the road from Parliament, for … correct: Britain’s MPs.
Maybe unfairly, those oracular taxi drivers, as I say, and contrary to what I talked about in my earlier piece (where I suggested that it is now MPs of all parties who are in the firing line), homed in on Labour MPs. Labour MPs, they said, are supposed to be better than that. What’s happened to them? Conservatives look after themselves better, but at least they do this, at least partly, most of them, with their own money, which they have obtained either by inheriting it, or by doing more elevated versions of driving taxis.
But one bit of that earlier posting about the smallness of MP thieving compared to the bail-out thieving at least stands up very well, namely the bit that said that it is electorally very portentous when the voters decide who the biggest thieves are, and if it is true that the voters (as represented by their spokesmen the taxi drivers) have decided that it is actually Labour MPs, then that spells electoral doom for Labour. Sacking Gordon Brown won’t save any of the doomed, which is perhaps why they may not now bother to sack Gordon Brown, despite all my recent imprecations. No wonder they’re feeling suicidal. This government is not just topped by a spectacularly rotten Prime Minister; it is backed by a rotten party.
I realise that I owe Samizdata a separate piece about why I take the particular rottenness of Gordon Brown so much more seriously than, according to strictly libertarian notions, I am supposed to. Surely they are all just as bad. Briefly, my argument will be: no they aren’t. There are degrees of rottenness among politicians, and it is foolish to deny this. As for the other argument I hear here, that we need a spell of absolute darkness in order to educate The Masses and build a Movement truly capable of ushering in a genuine New Dawn, well, that kind of talk scares me. Briefly (this is a huge subject I know) what if we get the absolute darkness, but not the dawn? I say that the sooner this country switches from the deepening gloom of Labour to the relative if flickering and fitful illumination that might (although I agree: might not) be the Conservatives under David Cameron, the better. If that means (which actually I don’t think it does mean – see my future posting if it ever materialises) that it takes rather longer to find our way to the Promised Land, well so be it.
My Dad always said the Tories always get caught with their pants round their ankles and Labour with their hands in the till.
This is “Party members getting special state sponsored dacha” sort of stuff. It tells you everything about the sorts of people they are and what their government has turned into.
NickM – Well the Labourites have come up in the world now, and are doing both.
I’m no big fan of the Tories but over recent decades, they have been, by and large, a lot less indecent than Labour MPs. Caroline Spelman even paid a token amount back, and at least that Conway bloke won’t be standing for the Conservatives next time round.
Would like to encourage you to actually get that future post finished. How much we should be willing to trade in terms of present comfort vs. future rectitude is a very important one, and I am eager to hear what all the commenters here really think about it. “That kind of talk” scares me too, and I think if we err too much on the side of trashing current institutions in the hope of replacing them with better ones down the road then we end up like … well, let’s just say that one of my friends who grew up in East Germany said that the way he could tell it was all bullshit even as a junior high student was the fact that the official party line was always that relative poverty today was necessary to build utopia, and my friend started to wonder why he should work so hard for a vision that even the Party admitted was 100 years off, i.e. well after his working lifetime. In Econgeek speak, they were asking for a tradeoff that was to the left of the indifference curve.
The “we must burn the village in order to save it” seems to appeal to a certain type who probably may not have much at stake to lose, or who does not have young relations, etc. I have two nieces, and I would rather that we got rid of this fucking government asap so at least the process can start of reducing the likely burden of tax that those young girls will eventually have to pay.
The ironies are everywhere. Remember how, back in the mid-90s, that Brown used to go on about “long-term” investment and how those evil capitalists were obsessed by the short run? It turns out that Brown is far, far worse: he has built up huge debts without thought for the morrow; his 50% income tax hit will deter long-termist entrepreneurship. A person may prefer to sit back and live for today rather than plan ahead with this. And in the US, Obama’s expropriation of bond-holders of GM sends out a terrible message to savers everywhere.
With any luck, Labour will be destroyed for a generation.
Nick M, I think that was all bound up with the hypocrisy thing. The straightlaced, uptight Tories were not supposed to be caught having it away with someone who wasn’t their wife, whereas the Socialists were all about the workers, so getting caught with their hand in the till was a big deal.
Bit like when that republican guy got caught playing footsie with vice squad copper in an airport restroom. That escapade turned into a national scandal, but Barney Frank’s boyfriend running a brothel from his DC apartment was no big deal and you were a homophobic hater for suggesting otherwise.
In fact, our ruling elite has more than it’s fair share of thieves and philanderers who are quite happy to screw their constituents both figuratively and literally.
As for burning the village in order to save it, I’m not sure we have the choice anymore.
The US economy is entering a prolonged recession and taking the world with it and I can’t see the current Administraion, Senate or House taking the steps neccesary to ameliorate it. Quite the reverse actually. And Britain is in no shape to profit in any way from America’s problems. We don’t have the will, and even if we did, the EU wouldn’t let us.
No, it is a firmly entrenched belief that laissez faire capitalism has led us to this pass, and the only option is for Socialist politicians to centrally plan the way out of it.
The village is smouldering quite nicely already and our rulers are calling in the napalm strikes as we speak.
Not an accident, just coincidence. Surrey will rise again, in the fullness of time, and they’ll have a spiffy new stadium to play in.
Might as well blame Surrey’s loss of form on the banking crisis or the high price of oil.
KduT
No, Surrey’s loss of form predates both the alternative explanations you offer. So, might as well not.
On the other hand, I love the new stand, and am perfectly happy at the price in Surrey results that has been paid and is now being paid for it.
“If any of us did that kind of thing, we’d be up before the Old Bill.” Shouldn’t that be arrested (“nabbed”) by the Old Bill and up before the “Beaks?”
You’re not familiar with the Old Bill’s brand of summary justice, then?
NuLab are typical socialists under it all: the left has never really understood wealth because they see it as something to be stopped. Why waste time trying to understand what you plan to crush?
Like all lefties they do like the idea of money all for themselves, but our present batch of socialists have gone a little further. They are so utterly dazzled by the prospects of personally getting rich that they have even stopped pretending they care about the “workers” any more.
Indeed. People who think it is worth it in the long run to watch freedoms completely disappear to establish a new appreciation for freedom among the citizens are misguided.
There is no guarantee there will be a dawn.
There is no guarantee a majority of the citizens will chalk up the disastrous economy, etc. to a lack of liberty instead of to something else – ripe time for a dictator/tyranny to arise.
There is no guarantee that the dawn will last long even if it comes.
I’m afraid the only worthwhile course of action is to continue to fight in every way we can for our beliefs, while abiding to our moral principles, even though it is likely a losing cause in the short, medium, and long runs.
There will eventually be a dawn; nothing lasts forever in the affairs of men. However, that doesn’t mean that the dawn will break anytime soon, which is my fear. If the spell of Absolute Darkness lasts for centuries (a distinct possibility) that is way too far “to the left of the indifference curve” (as Joshua put it) for my taste. I could put up with it, but I want something better for my son and his (future) children.
Freedom seems to be an aberration; judging from history (Paul M. can weigh in here) the natural condition of humanity seems to be some form of dictatorship. We’re just lucky to be living during one of those rare periods of relative (albeit declining) freedom. Better to put a few more fingers in the dike than to embrace the flood.
There will always be a weed in the organised garden. Freedom, is the weed in a garden. INFORMATION is the seed of individual freedom. It is my view that Politicians and all statist inclined Fascistic people, are Gardners of people.
About the absolute darkness that falls upon us (“lights going out all across Europe; we shall not see them lit again in our lifetimes” — or something like that).
It is more likely that the west is going to become the mirror image of China in the 1400s. Make some internal decisions which turn us from the world leaders into a poverty-stricken backwater for 500 years.
But China rose again. Change is the only constant. I am just glad that our pseudo-nomenklatura will have ring side seats at our coming decline.
For the rest of us — how do we set up the equivalent of the monasteries which kept knowledge alive through the European Dark Ages?
The lesser corruption accepts and empowers the greater.
The greater protects and nurtures the lesser.
Same as it ever was.
It’s all very well to talk about human events from a 100,000-foot perspective (e.g. “change is a constant”), but it’s cold comfort to the people who will be living in the new Dark Ages for a generation or two (or three, or four).
Screw that. I’d rather follow the Dylan Thomas exhortation and go down fighting.
If there is going to be any light, flickering or otherwise, it seems to me that it would be coming from a Hannan led Tory party not a Cameron led one. Cameron reminds me too much of the John McCain, Olympia Snowe, Susan Collins wing of the Republican party.
Alice,
Monasteries were sustained by taxation, ideological indoctrination, and power politics. The Catholic Church was the most powerful single actor in all of Europe, all throughout the Dark Ages.
We, who are losing power, will need a different approach.
Not all monestaries were maintained by taxation (and I am not just talking about the Irish ones – the Irish Church being only nominally under Rome till at least 1170).
As for power politics – power politics is unavoidable (for those who wish to survive). As for ideological indoctrination – if you do not get your view of the world to the next generation, your enemies will. “I will not indoctinate childen I will leave them free to make up their own minds” is the same as saying “I will allow my worst enemies to teach my children to hate everything I stand for”.
Of course if one can not make a reasoned case for ones beliefs then one will just disgust one’s children and lead them to rebel – but if one makes no case at all one has signed the death warrent of one’s way of looking at the world.
I agree that we are losing power – that is a story that is more than century old, it is just that we are getting close to the bitter end now.
However, this will not be like China – not some long stagnation.
The Welfare State and the credit bubble financial system are far more destructive than that.
If not rolled back (and it does not look like they will be) they will bring things crashing down.
In such a situation libertarians and real conservatives have a chance to survive.
If they have courage – and the tools and training.
Remember voluntarism is not “individualism” (that is the propaganda) of the left.
Voluntary cooperation, civil society is what the antileft is about.
Including voluntary cooperation in the defence of the boides and possessions of people against attack.