The state of the body politic

Posted by Guessedworker on Friday, 08 May 2009 23:54.

Today the Telegraph leaked some delicious details of MP’s expense scams, beginning with the PM himself and his senior cabinet members. They include Jack Straw, the Justice Secretary, Lord Mandelson, the Business Secretary, Hazel Blears, the Communities Secretary, David Miliband, the Foreign Secretary, Alistair Darling, the Chancellor, Geoff Hoon, the Transport Secretary, Andy Burnham, the Culture Secretary, Caroline Flint, the Minister for Europe, and Paul Murphy, the Welsh Secretary.

In high dudgeon the Telegraph leader proclaimed a scandal at the heart of our democracy:-

The systematic misappropriation by MPs of the allowance paid to defray the expense of keeping a second home is one of the great scandals of modern public life. It is a story that our readers, indeed the whole country, need to be told. Now, for the first time, it can be.

As The Daily Telegraph discloses today, it goes far beyond the now familiar tales of barbecue equipment, bath plugs or adult movies bought at the taxpayer’s expense. Many honourable members (of all parties, because this is, explicitly, not a party political matter) have been complicit in what amounts to an officially sanctioned and sustained abuse of public funds perpetrated against their own constituents over many years.

The extent of their rapacity is astonishing; and its scale can only be fully appreciated with the disclosure of the information being published by this newspaper. It will make uncomfortable reading for the MPs, for their families and for their voters. But it is right that the public should know what has been going on.

Not everyone is at this game. Some honour still obtains. But not much. Setting the tone, our beloved leader blames the system for dealing with MPs’ expenses. It made him do it, apparently.

Now, this is a very bad situation. But it isn’t exactly unique. The EU pays especially well. German members of the pointless European Parliament trouser a higher salary than the Chancellor, Angela Merkel, receives. And then, as at Westminster, there are the expenses.

Euro MPs’ expenses and pensions are so lavish that they can earn as much as £1m (1.13m euros) on top of their salaries over their five-year term in parliament, a British campaign group says.

… Every member could “easily” save more than £1m from their expenses and pension benefits over a five-year term at the European Parliament, according to the TPA.

This includes a subsistence allowance of 117,000 euros (£104,000), staff allowance of 489,840 euros, office expenses of 243,120 euros, travel expenses of 60,000 euros and an accrued pension of 394,000 euros.

Anyone who enjoys the sight of elitist, hypocritical EU trough-scoffers caught on camera will appreciate this video from German TV.

Now, nobody seems to be very interested in why this corrupt behaviour is so endemic among the political class. The assumption seems to be that Lord Acton was right and we don’t need to think about this anymore. I disagree. It isn’t power that is corrupting these people. It is the irrelevance of democratic politics and the cynicism which that breeds.

It all begins in the globalisation process. In Europe just now, real power – near enough imperial power - is shared between the Commission and the Council of Ministers. It is understood by everyone, of course, that these gilded stinkweeds are following their own plan of action for the European Project, and nothing else. The wishes of the peoples of Europe register with them only as a damned inconvenience ... a political problem to be disappeared, to be finessed out of existence. After last year’s Irish referendum, all pretention of action for the common good of Europe’s people has been set aside. They are no longer overly interested in trying to fool us. Our views don’t matter, after all. If we look at them and see ambitious men wielding power ambitiously, well, that’s not going to change a thing.

There are some good men in political Europe too, of course. Like Czech president Vaclav Klaus who vetoed the Czech senate’s approval of the Lisbon Treaty yesterday. Like Daniel Hannan, whose recent speech - lecture about Gordon Brown really - to the European Parliament went viral. And after June’s EU parliament election, no doubt, Declan Ganley who spearheaded the No campaign in Ireland last year, and who yesterday launched his Libertas Party campaign to give dissenters across the Union an alternative to the parties of the Establishment.

By and large, though, the political class has shown itself to be of almost Soviet Bloc uniformity in its enthusiasm for “Europe”, and has done so over a period of decades. Genuine internationalism accounted for only some of them, I think. Base political opportunism and the worship of the seeming inevitable accounted for most. They did it because they thought history left them with no alternative, and they weren’t going to be any more marginalised than they had to.

This marginalisation and irrelevance of national politics in Europe, and of the European Parliament, has consequences beyond the fetid little expense fiddles of our politicians. We know them well enough. The big issues of race, indigenous rights and national sovereignty are not discussed. Of the rest, the preponderant majority are legislated or, at least, regulated in Brussels. European dictat accounts for over 70% of British regulation. The figure is very likely higher in other countries and much higher in eastern Europe.

The public is not stupid and sees this. The inevitable result is malaise with politics generally … low poll turn-outs … falling party membership … tremendous cynicism towards politicians (to which these latest revelations in the Telegraph will add nicely). Swathes of the white working-class, in particular, feel that they are used as cannon fodder at election times, and left stranded thereafter, their true concerns never addressed.

Whether our friends in high places really want to understand this is debatable. But the Islington socialists are running around like headless chickens, agonising over ... the rise of the BNP.

Here in the Independent, here at the Mail, here in the Guardian, and here and here and here and here and here and, most notoriously, here, the word on everybody’s lips is, “How do we stop the BNP?” They’ve even been on BBC television saying it.

The panic is palpable. It’s as though they’ve lost sight of the linkage between their own actions for the last decade or two and the much-touted breakthrough status of the BNP now, one month before the elections to the European Parliament. They seem to view the BNP winning one to three seats as inevitable. They may be afraid of something worse, and even more afraid of their own powerlessness to prevent it. Certainly, the gestures in the direction of a campaign on the doorsteps, and a setting aside of the tactics of smear, sound very hollow.

There will be no repairing the situation for them. The trends towards anti-democracy and public cynicism are well-entrenched. The latest revelations of corruption are beautifully timed to help the small parties – mostly the BNP and the Greens. Where else can voters lodge their protest?

Roll on Friday 5th June when I will wake up early, go down to my PC and observe how all this has worked itself out. One seat in the European Parliament for the BNP would be progress. Any more will be a clear indication that the natives are restless, and are unlikely to be pacified anytime soon.

Tags: British Politics

Comments:

Posted by Fred Scrooby on Sat, 09 May 2009 01:09 | #

“Roll on Friday 5th June when I will wake up early, go down to my PC and observe how all this has worked itself out. One seat in the European Parliament for the BNP would be progress. Any more will be a clear indication that the natives are restless, and are unlikely to be pacified anytime soon.” (—from the log entry)

You hear that, all you Brits who call yourselves Brits? All you Englishmen who call yourselves Englishmen? June 5th! Mark you calendars! On June 5th GET OFF YOUR BUTTS AND GO VOTE FOR THE BNP! MAKE IT HAPPEN! RULE BRITANNIA, AND DID THOSE FEEEEEEEEEET IN ANCIENT TIIIIIIIIIMES, I VOW TO THEE MY COUNTRY, and all that, every bit — COME ON, WARM THE COCKLES OF OUR HEARTS YOU LIMEYS! GET OUT THERE AND DO YOUR DUTY ON JUNE FIFTH, MEN!!!! BRING THE NIGHTMARE TO AN END!!! YOU AND ONLY YOU CAN DO IT!!!!! THE WORLD IS WATCHING, IS HOPING, AND IS WITH YOU ON THIS!!!! DON’T LET THE WORLD DOWN!!!! WIN ONE FOR THE GIPPER ( ..... OR WHATEVER THE UK EQUIVALENT OF THAT IS)!!!! DAMN THE TORPEDOES!!! STRAIGHT AHEAD!!! I HAVE NOT YET BEGUN TO FIGHT!!! REMEMBER THE ALAMO!!! (OOOPS! FORGET THOSE LAST FEW, THOSE ARE OURS — BUT YOU GET THE POINT!)

But in all seriousness now, mates, please don’t let us down. And the world IS watching you. That’s a fact. This may be the most important election ever held in the British Isles. Do what’s right on June 5th and damn anyone else’s opinion.

Posted by guest on Sat, 09 May 2009 02:05 | #

June 4th is voting day fred.

Posted by Fred Scrooby on Sat, 09 May 2009 02:16 | #

OK, Guest, be sure to spread the word then: JUNE 4TH, EVERYBODY!

Posted by Bill on Sat, 09 May 2009 08:13 | #

The inevitability of it all is playing itself out, we ain’t seen nothing yet.

What even the awakened ones tend to forget is, our enemy has got at a 50 year head start on us, it is only in the blink of a recent eye that awareness of what is going on has started to register on the resistance scale, even then, it is only a growing minority from which this resistance is registering. In other words, the vast majority are more perplexed than aware, and this leads me to ask what is going to happen when that ‘overwhelming’ majority twig what is behind it all.

I’ve posted in the past on a couple of occasions, that this Battle for Britain, (which the BNP has successfully planted in the imagination of its supporters) is to be waged through the media, the tempo of which has become one of hesitancy and confusion, as GW says, they are preoccupied with how are they to counter the surge and surge of the BNP? We here know, whatever they do, words ain’t going to cut it.

It seems a massive campaign of leafleting and door knocking is being organised to smear and discredit the BNP, this has the potential to become ugly as violence is never far away when Brown’s Brown shirts are operating.

So the war of words is building, the establishment and its supporters will leave no stone unturned, no effort spared - to put the boot into the BNP.

The end of the beginning has begun, it is 1940, the Battle of Britain is about to commence, the might of the enemy is about to strike. Bandits one O’clock Red leader we’re going in.

Interesting times.

Posted by Bill on Sat, 09 May 2009 10:08 | #

I got sorta side tracked above, but something is puzzling me here.

Not long back, we were invited by the television people to an extravaganza Nazi show trial, where politicians were seen grilling grovelling abject bankers who being were being screwed into even more grovelling apologies for their bringing into disrepute their calling - by bankrupting the British financial system.

Ok then, I know, (or think I do) that the politicians wanted to demonstrate to the great British public that they, (politicians) were innocent of any complicit wrongdoing in the affairs of busting the system and were hell bent on pinning the blame solely at the door of the Bankers.

So far so good, but why would the politicians and the bankers wish to sew discord among themselves, after all they’re all part of the plot - Unless it was all a contrived tag match of course?

It’s the same with the Telegraph’s (and the rest of the tabloids) mega offensive pointing the finger of disgust at the politicians swindling their expenses. Again, I ask, why would the press, who are fellow travellers of the politicians (and bankers) deliberately sew more discord among the alliance by attacking the politicians?

It’s all ammunition for the BNP.

I don’t get it, what am I missing?

Posted by Bill on Sat, 09 May 2009 10:13 | #

above sew = sow

Posted by Michael on Sat, 09 May 2009 10:55 | #

If the British voters do not elect at least two BNP members on June 4th, then I never want to read of any Telegraph polls showing the “majority” of people are “worried” about mass immigration, “political correctness”, “EU control” or whatever, again. Never. If the British people fail to take this very basic step of electing at least 2 BNP members, then they have no right to voice their “concern” about Brussels, immigration levels, or any other issue that they claim to be disturbed about. Any group of people who complain to a pollster about something, and then fail to take the logical action in a SECRET ballot where they have a clear choice, should by all rights be prevented from having an opinion on anything. I would even go so far to say that I would welcome the implementation of strict anti-speech laws mandating the execution of anyone who opposes mass immigration, as a fair punishment if the British electorate succumbs to voting booth cowardice - I really do hope that Gordon Brown will unleash the most malign campaign of national destruction ever should the Brits fall at this very low hurdle, to show them that their actions have consequences. So don’t f*** this up, Limeys.

I suspect that the British electorate probably WILL f*** this up and elect no BNP members. Because Euros are such stupid, thick-skulled bovines who can be fooled by the most basic expedients. The Sun will probably publish a crude cut-and-paste picture of Nick Griffin eating a black baby on June 3rd, and 95% of Brits will believe it. Or there will be a sex “scandal” where Simon Darby is accused of sleeping around, which of course no Labour or Conservatives ever do. And again, British voters will pretend that this is a good reason not to vote for the BNP. Don’t like me talking down your intelligence, Limeys? Then prove me wrong.

Posted by DRS on Sat, 09 May 2009 14:45 | #

Guessedworker. You won’t see any results from the EU 09 elections on the 5th. The voting boxes will be put in, ahem, storage until Sunday the 7th. Different countries within Europe have different election dates.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/European_Parliament_election,_2009

Bear in mind that the GLA elections (in which Richard Barnbrook was elected) they used cardboard boxes and allegations of broken seals were made.

http://bnp.org.uk/2008/05/bnp-lodges-complaint-over-broken-seals-on-gla-ballot-boxes/

Posted by ROBERT CROSS on Sat, 09 May 2009 14:48 | #

Well said Michael,as an Englishman i whole-heartedly agree with you,the only thing i would take issue over is this secret ballot idea,have you seen a polling card?there are more numbers on it than on my credit card,and since ballot rigging has become established practice since we have been “enriched"i am sure that the marxist party are fully able to track my vote and every-one elses,i am sure that a few ballot boxes will mysteriously vanish should the sheeple cast the wrong vote.What concerns me more is that my future hangs upon the opinion of a brain-washed apathetic moron,only interested in watching foreign negroes play his national game,still i am hoping for a cosmic event and as long as the BNP grass roots continue to express thier enthusiasm and remain positive the people of England will triumph.I seem to recall that the count was being held over untill the following week to coincide with jonny foreigner across the channel,ample time for tipex and pakis in warehouses to do thier thing.

Posted by Fred Scrooby on Sat, 09 May 2009 15:28 | #

Michael and Robert Cross, I agree with the spirit of your comments and well said, but don’t be too harsh on the British people if they don’t all get it quite yet: we’re online, they aren’t. They’re still absorbing all their news and interpretations and views from the overlords. They know something’s wrong but the truth can’t quite gel in their brains as it has, thanks to the internet, in ours. I for one would be strictly nowhere in all this had I not gotten online in October, 2000, never dreaming it would completely change my thinking, and I dare say something similar is true of many of us. I’d still be mentally in a fog, mindlessly parroting the lies the overlords have fed us all along, vaguely suspecting all was not right but putting it out of my mind each time with the less-and-less convincing thought that “the ones in charge know what they’re doing.” (They don’t know what they’re doing of course, with the exception of an inner layer who do know and are doing precisely evil because they want an evil result to come about.) There is no way I could ever for the rest of my life forget the astonishment I experienced on first discovering Steve Sailer at Vdare.com in October, 2000. My life was changed by him forever. These average people haven’t had the benefit of that. It’s heartbreaking when they vote time after time for those who hate them and want harm to come to them — look how the French rejected Le Pen in favor of the malignant Sarkozy: just broke your heart to see it. But don’t condemn them too harshly — it’s not entirely their fault. As for the ones whose fault it is, well, if our side comes out of this struggle in charge the way things used to be, there will very much need to be arrests, prosecutions, trials. And for the guilty, punishments, as severe as fairly and justly applied law can make them, to fit the heinousness of their crimes and the heinousness of themselves. I mean, look what they’ve done: can anything worse be imagined?

Posted by Fred Scrooby on Sat, 09 May 2009 15:49 | #

Bumper sticker idea:

Had enough? Tell them we’re the British Isles, NOT the Isles of Dr. Moreau: VOTE BNP JUNE 4TH!

Posted by Fred Scrooby on Sat, 09 May 2009 16:14 | #

Sheppard & Whittle are going to be extradited from California: if they arrive back in Britain on the eve of the election it will be very surprising if the other side’s media don’t turn that into an orgy of anti-BNP propaganda.

Posted by Jupiter on Sat, 09 May 2009 18:24 | #

If the BNP does not do very well at the polls on June 4 it would mean that the situation in England is not painfull enough for the native English population. This is not to say that the pain level isn’t high at the present. Possibly people feel they are in a safe-confort zone. Not a large one,more like the safety-confort zone in car after a car wreck. In a car wreck there is usually a small crash -safe zone if you wear your seat belts.

So the fear of losing this crash-safe zone could keep the native English in line for a few more years. But England-Wales and Scotland are not large geographic areas. There will come a complete pulverizing time. The State “safety belt” won’t be able to prevent complete implosion into the crash-safe zone. Some people say Demographics is destiny. However, there may be a deeper underlying “physics” principle at work:The Pain Level determines destiny. Think about it folks.

Posted by Guessedworker on Sun, 10 May 2009 09:13 | #

Thanks for putting me straight, DRS. I did wonder about that after I posted the piece, but I couldn’t see any logical reason why results in one country should affect results in another. Of course, the EU considers itself one country.

There will be the 500 local authority election results to hear about on the Friday morning. Here, it’s not about breaking through with one or two seats but about maintaining the momentum of past performances. The BNP’s vote over the last score or so local by-elections has average just under 20%, I believe. But that includes results like Swanley St Mary’s where they won 41.8% of the vote. I think that will be difficult to maintain the current improvement over a much larger electoral sample, especially one where the vote is done at the same time as the European vote in which the principal beneficiiary will be David Cameron’s Conservatives.

What would satisfy Griffin, Wingfield and Darby? 10% average of the local turnout?

Posted by Fred Scrooby on Mon, 11 May 2009 06:30 | #

Steve Sailer uncharacteristically issues a warning:

The real problem coming down the track toward us is the combination of disparate impact law and massive immigration by (on average) low-achieving individuals who benefit from racial and ethnic preferences under “disparate impact” law. The interaction of government-sponsored non-traditional immigration and “disparate impact” affirmative action constitutes a doomsday machine that will rapidly dispossess, and probably seriously radicalize, white America. It’s a recipe for revolution.

( http://www.vdare.com/sailer/090510_saletan.htm )

The individuals running immigration today are like the French nobility of the Ancien Régime: they just cannot grasp that the people are angry at what they’re doing and getting angrier. An explosion is not out of the question. After 1789 they finally grasped it but having your head chopped off is kind of the hard way to go about that, no? At least you’d think so, you really would, but — maybe we’re looking at a difference of opinion on that ….

Posted by Armor on Wed, 19 Aug 2009 11:04 | #

The individuals running immigration today are like the French nobility of the Ancien Régime: they just cannot grasp that the people are angry at what they’re doing and getting angrier. (—Fred Scrooby - May 11)

I think what caused the French revolution was not popular anger but the political activism of the leisurely classes, at a time when the political regime was becoming more friendly and democratic.