Politicians Still Don’t Get It
Alan Duncan, treated like a "shit"
Alan Duncan, shadow leader of the Commons, has been forced to apologise following his recent indiscreet remarks about the expenses scandal.
Apparently he feels he’s been “treated like shit” by the public, been “forced to live on rations” since the trough has temporarily been hidden and concludes the “world has gone mad” in response to his gardening claims. The job of the politician has been “nationalised”, he suggests.
The political process owned by the people? It’s an outrage!
Now his remarks have been made public he’s quick to assure us he was only joking.
Oh go on then, I’ll believe him. He has enough problems by the sound of it and I don’t want to pile any more on top by treating him like a “shit”.
In fact I’m not really surprised or even interested by Duncan’s remarks. That most politicians have a general contempt for the public and are averse to accepting responsibility for their actions is the world’s worst kept secret.
I’m a lot more interested in David Cameron’s response after he supposedly gave his deputy a dressing down.
“I spoke to Alan Duncan yesterday and made it clear in no uncertain terms that when it comes to the mess of expenses, the words we use, just as the actions we take, have got to demonstrate completely that we share the public’s real fury at what went on in parliament. Alan made a bad mistake and he has acknowledged that, he has apologised and withdrawn the remarks.”
The expenses scandal is more than a mess. It’s establishment greed and fraud and the perpetrators have been caught red-handed.
What’s happening with the limited number of police investigations into the more excessive individual cases? I haven’t heard anything in the headlines recently.
And if politicians’ words and actions had genuinely reflected the public’s fury at the time they’d have be forced to proclaim themselves a bunch of “shits” and string themselves up from the rather tasteful lampposts along Abingdon Street. We aren’t in this together Dave, dream on.
This scandal has subsided under the tides of more recent news – the death of Michael Jackson, the Iraq Inquiry, escalation of the war in Afghanistan. Are we still okay to assume all the penitence and promises of probing inquiries are holding firm? The bankers were sorry too, if you recall. Who’s sorry now as the bonuses are breaking records again?
Is the expenses scandal dead too and was Dave only miffed because Duncan brought it up at all?
Mick Martin has moved on, but what other meaningful words and actions have transpired that Alan Duncan might refer to when expressing his solidarity with the British public the next time he has a comment to make about corruption in parliament?
He doesn’t have much to go on from what I can see. He’s already done the “sorry” thing. Steal money, get caught, say sorry, maybe give some of it back, walk away. Sorry about that.
Like all the MPs who were terribly confused about what they could or couldn’t claim for as they expertly flipped their expenses from property to property, he’s made a childishly transparent excuse. When in doubt, hold your hands up, lower your head and make an excuse. He says he was only joking, so another tick there.
Obviously he’s not resigning, just like 99% of the politicians who were happy to continue as guardians of the public trust following their liberal abuse of it.
I’m not sure what else he is expected to do. Perhaps Dave could explain more clearly by demonstrating the difference between Duncan’s behaviour and the behaviour of just about every other snout in parliament?
Or maybe he could leave Alan high and dry by actually saying then doing something meaningful to address a scandal that continues to fade into the noise of an ever developing news cycle.
Politicians still don’t get it. Words backed by swift and effective actions were urgently required at the time in order to stabilise the sharp decline in public trust. Giving the appearance of sympathising with the public whilst doing nothing at all just isn’t good enough. What’s more, Cameron knows it but he also knows he’s going to be the beneficiary of a public backlash against one of the most corrupt governments in British history. He’s busy doing nothing because that’s his route to power.
So as with his cowardly dance around the Lisbon Treaty he’s making all the right sounds but remains out of step with the will of the people. And if he’ll compromise his principles to win power you can be sure he’ll do the same to hold onto power.
He’s well qualified for the job of PM then.
