By Daviemoo
Governmental corruption should be rooted out wherever it lies, however big or small it is- but British voters don’t seem to grasp that simple point, electing instead to overlook an acceptable level of dodgy behaviour if their team do it- and that’s why we’re in such a mess!
First of all, it wouldn’t shock me if the press ends up reporting that the Rayner scandal is nothing, a dead duck, a ridiculous diversion from more tory idiocy- it wouldn’t be the first time.
Lets not forget Harry Cole publicly moistening himself over the idea that Starmer would go if he was found to have broken the law during lockdown despite practically nuzzling up to Johnson, a man who broke the law repeatedly and flagrantly. So it wouldn’t even mildly surprise me if the Rayner stuff turns out to be arrant nonsense. But it’s bigger than that. The story you think it’s about? it’s not about that.
The tories are bad. I could sit here and rattle off a dozen reasons in less than a minute to explain why they don’t deserve to be in power- in fact, I often do. And I could make the same arguments that people I genuinely admire are making right now, about how if Angela Rayner did wriggle out of a bit of tax it’s not really comparable to the millions we’re accustomed to the tories dodging, between shooting PPE contracts down the throats of their donors- but it isn’t about the scale of tax ducking, it’s purely about the purity of governance we should- must, in fact, expect our leaders to abide by.
I was told yesterday that we ‘should expect this from politicians, they’re all corrupt’.
What a sad indictment of our politics that people in the UK believe this: that all our politicians are bad and we just have to hope they’re less bad when they’re in power. What’s the point in voting, in protesting, in fighting for better if all of our politicians truly are of a piece?
I happen to think it’s normal to aim for better politics, better politicians. better behaviour: is that wrong? Should we give up on fighting for better because the same is inevitable and worse is the only alternative? I fear that’s the way many brits think, happy to overlook lesser scandals because at least it’s not the greater kind. And there’s also the convenient overlooking of the element of self fulfilling prophecy this fits into… There reason we don’t get better is that we don’t ask and fight for better and we accept mediocre, so what incentive is there to offer better? I feel like collectively we just expect better politicians to manifest from nothing, not realising that we have to hold them to high standards before they’ll rise to them.
People are so keen to see the back of the conservatives they’re willing to accept these lesser scandals as a price… but how do we get to greater scandal? Did the tories lurch into power immediately committing horrendous page 1 scandal after page 1 scandal, or did it ratchet up over time, starting with smaller stories that people sighed and tutted over but then normalised? Did it grow, over and over, getting bigger, deeper every time, as the tories realised they wouldn’t- couldn’t be- held to account by the public because of their majority and their perceived patriotism as they drove the country into worse standards with every decision.
Corruption begins as rot- a small, practically unnoticeable dot.
When it is noticed, sometimes it’s just a patch and you need to address it aggressively and quickly to stop the spread and propagation of more- that makes sense, no? You wouldn’t just ignore rot in your house, right? But sometimes, that dot is the tip of the iceberg as it were- the rot you see is the waving arm of the torso stuck deep beneath, and it has seeped so deeply into the woodwork that the whole thing needs to go.
If we allow smaller transgression from an incumbent government and don’t mete out justice now, who is to say the problem won’t grow- or hasn’t already, little to our knowledge?
This isn’t about Labour, or red team or even individual politicians so much as the level of corruption we’re willing to accept.
If we are to accept that our politicians are corrupt and there’s a certain level that comes with the job, are we going to do anything to discourage its propagation? Will we fight for a permanent oversight committee who constantly scrutinises government members’ behaviour?
The answer is no. Brits are seemingly so desperate to get rid of the conservatives that not only are they willing to overlook or forgive the sort of corruption we’re sick of seeing from the tories, but actively won’t safeguard against it out of fear that the tories will somehow win.
I often speak of the legacy of fear the tories have left us with- our spirits so broken that many of us are willing to accept watery governance as a solution to 14 years of tory stupidity. I feel sorry for people that broken down, but it’s also irritating to watch white liberal people constantly whine about how they won’t survive another term of tories as if white liberal people are those who suffer most. You will survive. You’ll be miserable, it won’t be easy- but, survive? Stop being so polemic, of course you’ll survive. Others won’t, but they don’t get heard over you.
I have sympathy- we’re all more miserable under the conservatives. But now is the time for us to harden our skins and fight for more, not accept less. We don’t need a government who comes in and “steadies the ship”- we need to sail out of the choppy water! We don’t need a government who is going to do a bit of dodgy tax stuff: we need a government who would never even contemplate it. But who is asking for that? Not the people on the internet enthusiastically talking about how we don’t need to focus on one instance of a labour MP possibly doing something bad- they’re saying they’re ok with that because the other side is worse, when the message our politicians should hear is none of you should do this shit. Are they? It doesn’t matter whether Rayner has or hasn’t done it – it matters that people are willing to accept that sort of behaviour as priced in to removing the tories, setting out an intangible level of government misbehaviour we’ll accept without laying out the terms to each other. Are we going to have a collective countrywide sit-down to discuss the cutoff levels for what corruption we’re ok with and what we aren’t ok with? No, because admitting you’re ok with some corruption is something the liberal voter base of the current Labour Party won’t do- they won’t admit it but they sure will do it, wink wink nudge nudge don’t mention the war, Basil.
The thing is, there’s unassailable logic in the argument: the tories are dreadful, evil, corrupt, bad at governance: There is no argument there. But again, the tories didn’t start out with the level of corruption they’re at now- it’s a cumulative effect, where more and more dodgy stuff is done and written off as the limits of what’s acceptable are tested. What is our limit? What’s the cutoff point where we say “actually no, that’s too far”- look at all the Tory scandal and corruption and incompetence we’ve rolled over for- are we really starting this merry go round over again, to see what limits of labour malfeasance the public will eagerly devour? If the tories got us this far labour has miles of road to walk where people might be disgruntled but they’ll overlook it, because at least it’s not those nasty tories– but it’s still bad.
People will accuse me of having double standards for focusing on Rayner in this article when I’m one of the few who doesn’t have double standards here- I don’t think anyone should be doing this- hell, id don’t even believe Rayner did and until there’s proof the jury is out- the key difference, though, is that I’m not going to overlook corruption because my team is doing it. (I’m also not on either of the teams in play here so…) What’s so frustrating is that this is absolutely not about being on labour or tory teams- this is about us, and what we deserve. You know the cheesy phrase “you accept the love you think you deserve”? It might not be as sexy sounding but “you accept the governance you think you deserve” should be daubed on every wall in the UK to remind us that we’re tacitly condoning painting over the rot in our walls instead of fishing it out.
The UK is in a dire state after fourteen years of the tories fattening their pockets at our expense. Houses are harder to buy, the NHS is practically nonfunctional, we’re all struggling massively to get by to varying degrees be it running our businesses, dealing with our new post covid realities.
We don’t need de-escalation and to start being thankful for smaller episodes of government dodginess- we need no government dodginess- a single minded drive to drag us out of where we are. And we aren’t fighting for it, clinging instead to the proverbial buoy in the water, glad to have found that to cling to but mysteriously not looking for the nearest bit of land to flee to.
In some ways I feel sorry for us, collectively. We’ve been so beaten down by 14 years of tory basement dwelling that we’re thanking the people who are loosening our chains and giving us a fresh bedpan- not realising we’re still being kept in the same conditions. We need, we must aim for, real change and a move forward away from the chaos we’ve been steeped in for years. That starts with holding everyone to account equally. Chuck the tories who dodge taxes worth millions out of their jobs, punish them legally- Sunak, Zahawi, hell even Lord Sugar and his meek whingeing about a billion pound tax bill he feels he shouldn’t have to settle because he had a title thrust upon him. But don’t overlook the lesser transgressions of your incumbents either: that’s that inconvenient rot starting again, beginning way down at the foundation and working its way up to the heart of our politics all over again from another direction.
We must demand better or all we’ll ever get is the shoddy workmanship of politicians who know they can get away with whatever they want, all added to the tab of “at least they’re not the tories”. We let the tories turn the country rotten: are we willing to begin all over again with the next government, or will we accept that same sweet scent of rot because at least this time we chose to overlook it’s beginnings? Because this time the bad guys lost, replaced with people doing the exact type of things they were doing before they turned into moustache twirling cartoon villains? It’s like watching history repeat as people queue up to cheer for change, and it’s driving me insane.
Politically Enraged 