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| Would you trust this shifty-looking man? |
MP MALCOLM RIFKIND is a perfect example of why the general public no longer have any faith in, or respect for, politicians. Caught on film boasting of being able to see any foreign ambassador in London and having "useful access" to every British ambassador in the world while trying to sell his services to a fictitious Hong Kong communications agency, he describes the 'allegations' against him as "contemptible" and insists that he's "done nothing wrong" and "broken no rules". That being the case, why has he now resigned as chair of the Intelligence and Security Committee and announced he'll not be seeking re-election as MP for Kensington in West London? Hardly the response of an innocent man, I'd venture.
Claiming to be "self-employed" despite being paid a salary of £67,000 per annum (not counting expenses and all the usual perks) by the British taxpayer, he also says he has an unbelievable amount of free time to read or go walking, which surely only means that he's paid a disproportionate recompense for what is essentially a part-time job. However, it is his arrogant sense of entitlement which is truly nauseating, believing he is worth more than the immense salary he already receives. (The very one that he seems to think no one pays him.)
He's typical of the self-important, out-of-touch politicians who seek to deny the poorest in our society the relatively meagre amounts they rely on to get by, while lining their own pockets with as much as they can stuff into them; who try to force the unemployed and the ill into jobs that either don't exist or are so poorly paid that it's not worth taking them. "Is it right that an unemployed person should get more money than someone who works?" they disingenuously enquire. Well, ignoring the fact that most unemployed people don't, the answer of course, is "No!" However, in the relatively few cases that do, it's not because benefits (in the main) are too high, it's because wages are too low. If they want to end the so-called 'benefits culture' then why don't they try coming up with some policies that create jobs which pay a decent living wage?
As disgraced Malcolm Rifkind has so ably demonstrated, they're far more concerned with creating over-paid jobs for themselves. Anyone else sick of the lot of them?
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And their latest 'wheeze' is to try and make people work 30 hours a week for their benefits, which is nothing other than slave-labour. If they expect folk to work for 30 hours, then they should pay them the going-rate for doing so.
I think we are singing off the same hymn sheet here Kid! Why are they allowed to have secondary jobs in the first place whilst at the same time telling us how hard they work for their constituents? One crumb of consolation is that at least generally they are not as blatantly corrupt/lazy/incompetent/ as some other MPs that abound in great numbers in some other European countries.
ReplyDeleteEven when they eventually get the boot from office their deceit/ego/money grabbing continues. Tony Blair is the uber example of this breed of politician intent on lining their pockets.
I still cringe when remembering millionaire Cameron telling us we were all in it together!
Ken.
Trouble is, Ken, most of them lead such privileged, pampered, cocooned lives that they have no comprehension of what it's like in the real world. If I had a job that paid £67,000 per year, I'd consider myself more than lucky.
ReplyDeleteDon't get me started on those fecking bastards! Have you heard about universal credit? This is their latest scam to fiddle 2 weeks worth of benefit out of all claimants ( to stuff in their own pockets! ) by making them wait a month for their first payment and then paying them" in arrears " !
ReplyDeleteSo what are people supposed to do whilst they are waiting for the first payment? The Job Centre are instructed to tell people to go to a church and ask for a food parcel!!
Whilst those C_ _TS lead a life of opulence for doing practically FECK ALL!!
A pox on the bastards! Damn them all to HELL!!
So, going by your vague, wishy-washy answer, I take it you're on the fence over the matter, eh, JP?
ReplyDeleteYeah, mark me down as "undecided".
Delete:-)
Yeah well, it's politics, I don't expect any different. We're supposed to be in the middle of an election campaign, there's a war brewing in The Ukraine, a jihad in the middle east that the British taxpayer helped to fund, that alone would be cause of enough to bring down the government but there's not a whisper about those issues in the campaigning. The only consequence those running the country suffered from such blunders, is that one of their number, William Hague, was quietly demoted. Was there a fanfair in the press to accompany this event, did the leader of the opposition crow in triumph? Nope, because there's nothing that separates them on the important issues.
ReplyDeleteI've got a problem with the kind of baiting that ensnared Rifkind, it's like trying to catch burglars by leaving your door open and putting sign a up saying: cash inside, owner on holiday. You don't solve the intrinsic problem, you just hoodwink some hapless loon, the real burglers are still out there.
A 'snare' of that sort will certainly attract attention, DSE, and while a professional burglar may suspect a trap and do a body swerve, those who masquerade as honourable men (but aren't) surely deserve to be exposed. The reporters merely gave Rifkind and Straw an opportunity to demonstrate whether they would do the right thing or not. They chose not to.
ReplyDeleteI think they should all be rounded up, stood against a freshly whitewashed wall and shot. Although that may seem facetious, it's tragic to say that, that it genuinely wouldn't be too harsh for the worst offenders. Is Rifkind one of those offenders? I dunno, maybe, but I can ascribe one of the attributes of the scapegoat to his circumstance, in that he's a symbolic offering to atone for the sins of others, even he isn't that innocent himself.
ReplyDeleteI think that selling your services to 'big business' as a conduit to influential ambassadors is certainly against the spirit of the code of Parlamentary conduct, if not the letter, CJ. In fact, I'm sick of hearing their excuse of "It's not against the rules" whenever they're caught doing something clearly unethical when it's obvious that it SHOULD be.
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He's clearly being used to distract attention from the rest of them, DSE. We all know that they're all out for themselves, while posing as altruistic benefactors, self-sacrificingly doing their best for the man in the street.
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See? You can't fool me, JP.
Kid, it's not against the rules because THEY make the rules. The whole of Parliament needs reform from top to bottom.
ReplyDeleteOr DON'T make the rules that SHOULD be made. However, I think I seem to remember reading something that said MPs aren't allowed to charge money for lobbying (or seeking to influence policies) on behalf of big business. That's why Jack Straw was talking about doing it "under the radar".
ReplyDeleteDon't get me started. Too late, you already have.
ReplyDeleteIt's no better in the US. In principle, I have no objection to workfare, making welfare recipients (that is, people on the dole) work thirty hours a week, especially since a lot of taxpayers are working 70 hours a week to make ends meet. But of course the Republicans (i.e., conservatives) don't want the recipients to be paid a living wage. And a lot of them object to paying recipients to do "boondoggle make-work projects that don't need to be done." And they object to spending money on job training and job placement programs to help people get real jobs. And they don't want employers to have to pay a decent living wage.
They do not object, however, to an incompetent CEO getting paid millions to run a corporation into the ground. Or to that CEO getting paid a multimillion dollar severance package to quit his job. (Instead of simply getting sacked, he gets paid millions to resign. Meanwhile, employees who have been working hard get laid off and downsized.)
Meanwhile, the Democrats (liberals/Progressives) use public assistance programs to buy votes, instead of to help the needy. So they make no distinction between chiselers (i.e., "scroungers"), and people who are elderly and/or disabled. Social Security (pensions for old people, many of whom retired after working for 50-60 years) and veterans' benefits (including disability pensions for people who were severely wounded in combat) get cut, while some able-bodied young woman gets a check each month to support the five children that she's had by four different boyfriends.
Our Fearless Leader said that we all need to tighten our belts. He said that the week after he returned from his vacation in Hawaii, which was also the week before he went on vacation to Martha's Vineyard.
Hats and badges.
ReplyDeleteWar on Terra.
I am amazed at how a bunch of people establish cliques, announce all these rules and regulations and we the people actually give them attention and live our very short existence on this thing called a 'planet'
according to their club rules.
So it happens over in your neck of the woods as well, eh, TC? It seems to be a 'universal' trait of politicians that, despite their many fine words, they're really just in it for themselves at the end of the day.
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I don't really mind living to some rules, Baab. I just wish that politicians would 'play' by the same ones instead of thinking they're exempt. They make rules for us, so why not for themselves, the cheating 'bar stewards'?