Samizdata

This afternoon, outside Waterloo Station, I photographed a couple of Members of Parliament. One was attending to his constituency paperwork, while the other was rolling a joint.

I wish. Whenever they introduce a new scheme the idea of which is to make things cheaper, they invariably end up making things more expensive. The only sure way to cut government spending is to shut things down. The idea that things can be made cheaper by being streamlined but perpetuated is folly.

The Evening Standard is jumping to all sorts of conclusions with its headline. Its actual story includes things like this:

Both Labour and Tory MPs could rebel over the plans, as many would stand to lose substantial sums currently used to pay their mortgages.

Plans. Nothing has changed yet.

However, some critics claimed that there would be big winners as well as big losers under the new scheme. Those who have paid off their mortgage on a London flat or man and wife couples could gain by claiming the maximum daily rate.

What’s the betting that there will be big winners, and little winners?

The present system means MPs have to produce receipts, which they hate. The new system that Gordon Brown is proposing sounds like it will simply do away with the receipts and, by the time the dust has settled in a few weeks or months time, double their salaries. They will get a salary on account of being an MP. And they will get another salary for turning up.

The idea that this will put a stop to muckraking by the likes of Guido Fawkes, by cleaning away all the muck, is very fanciful.

The account of Gordon Brown’s vile political career will not remotely surprise Samizdata regulars but this summary of the man who is now, hopefully, in the final phases of his career before reaching oblivion is a great read. Tom Bower’s article reads like a judge’s sentencing comments about a particularly nasty gangster.

Gordon Brown and his pack of malignant ZaNulabour jackals do not deserve all this negative sentiment and opprobrium. No, really they don’t. They deserve far worse.

I regard ZaNulabour as just about the worst thing to happen to this country since the Black Death and I share Brian’s manifest and meritorious glee at the now-very-likely prospect of Mr. Brown (together with his toadies and his cronies and his aunts) being given their marching orders and sent packing off to political obscurity. If we lived in a more civilised world then this story would end with each and every one of them staring up at the glinting, merciless blade of Madame Guillotine. But we don’t, so I will have to content myself with some sincere and noisy expressions of satisfaction at their demise together with a toast to Guido Fawkes, who did so much to bring it about.

But, what then? What follows next after Mr. Brown and his minions have been given the big, national elbow? Well, in due course (and perhaps even short course) Mr. Brown will be replaced by Mr. Not-Brown. And what lessons will Mr. Not-Brown have learned from the rise and ignoble fall of Mr. Brown? He will have learned that you can relentlessly plunder the wealth-producing sector of the economy in order to provide booty for your clients and be regarded as a visionary leader. He will have learned that you can establish a pettyfogging, pecksniffing, bullying surveillance state and be called a great statesman. He will have learned that you can hack at a once-prosperous economy with punitive taxes and onerous regulations until said economy collapses in an anaemic heap and be praised as an economic genius. And, crucially, he will have learned that you can get away with doing all of that, as long as you observe parliamentary protocols and refrain from seeking to smear your political classmates. That is unacceptable.

So Mr. Not-Brown has had his very simple manifesto handed to him on a plate, courtesy of his predecessor. All Mr. Not-Brown has to do is to pledge to ‘clean up’ politics and put a stop to all this lack of propriety and he is home and hosed. He doesn’t even have to keep his pledge because everyone will be so relieved that Mr. Not-Brown is not Mr. Brown that they will believe him. They will want to believe him and so he will get a free pass to do pretty much whatever takes his fancy. All Mr. Not-Brown has to do (for a couple of years at least) is to make sure that his toadies and his cronies and his aunts keep their cards closer to their chests while they get on with what everybody agrees to be the praiseworthy and important business of stamping on our faces.

In the fullness of time, Mr. Not-Brown will also be humbled by some scandal or other (brought to light, I am sure, by Guido) but by then he will have had his fun and he will shuffle away only to hand the baton of national-ruin over to Mr.Not-Not-Brown.

I am already celebrating the unfolding ZaNulabour train wreck and I cannot begin to tell anyone just how pleased I will be to finally see the back of them. But my joy is tempered with the melancholy realisation that a change of government on the basis of sleaze means no real change at all.

It occurs to me, reading this item about the decision by the authorities not to prosecute Damian Green, the Conservative MP, over his farcical arrest, that they decided that picking on this guy now that the UK government is in such a terrible mess might not be a runner. The police/Crown Prosecution Service might have been more confident of doing the government’s bidding when the government appeared all powerful. Now, I get the impression that in Whitehall, and across much of the government machine, arses are being covered, positions prepared. The police have probably woken up to the idea that soon, perhaps sooner than some imagine, their masters will be different, if only by political colouring.

This is how regimes die. Their toadies and functionaries start to turn on them.

Meanwhile, I wonder if we can persuade our American blogger friends to notice that the government of a G7 nation and NATO ally is, er, about to implode. I mean, I think that might even be of interest to The Community Organiser. Or maybe not.