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OUR MPS ACT AS IF UK IS A BANANA REPUBLIC

Gordon Brown has been accused of bullying

Sunday March 7,2010

By Julia Hartley-Brewer

Comment Speech Bubble Have your say(2)

THE phrase “fiddling while Rome burns” keeps coming into my head these days. After all, what have our esteemed politicians been talking about in recent weeks? Hmmm, let’s see, there’s been MPs’ expenses, Gordon Brown being a bully, the airbrushing of campaign photos, the tax status of various party donors and the leaders’ debates on TV.

It’s almost as if the only people who don’t know that Britain is mired in the worst economic and social crisis for generations are the ones we pay to run the country.

Why, most voters must be asking, are politicians busy wittering on about the tax affairs of Lord Ashcroft, a man whom, frankly, most of them have never heard of, when there are serious problems affecting millions of people in the real world outside Westminster that need to be tackled and tackled now.

Our economy is up a muddy brown creek without so much as a thimble to paddle back down with. We’re mired in bloody wars on two fronts, our schools are failing pupils in their droves, six million able-bodied adults are out of work, the NHS is haemorrhaging money, our roads and trains are a laughing stock, crime is rampant and the whole fabric of society is collapsing under the strain of family breakdown, mass immigration and widespread drink and drug abuse.

Meanwhile what are our politicians doing? They’re busy slinging mud at each other over who said what to whom or paid what into whose coffers while they carry on pocketing their parliamentary expenses and a £1,000 annual pay rise announced this week, thank you very much for asking.

We’re supposed to be a first-world country but our politicians are behaving as if we’re some fifth-rate banana republic.

If they want anyone to tune into the leaders’ debates on the television, let alone bother to vote on May 6, they’d better start talking about the real issues and sharpish.

Am I alone in thinking that it is reasonable to expect our Government to provide us with good schools, clean hospitals, punctual trains and a justice system which punishes people who commit serious crimes by sending them to prison? Or to want my hard-earned taxes to be spent on assisting people who really need the help, like the disabled, the sick and the elderly and not the millions of able-bodied adults who just can’t be bothered to get a job?

Are these things really impossible pipe dreams? Because from where I’m standing they look like the bare minimum rather than some distant utopian vision.

Forget the “big ideas”, the gimmicks and the “bold initiatives”, we just want the basics to be done and to be done right.

Is that really too much to ask of our democratically elected representatives? Judging by this lot apparently it is.

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THE END GAME

09.03.10, 1:08pm

Great article,many truths,,,,,the one fact that seems to be missing is that it was Edward heath that placed this country on the road to ruin by getting us into the EU and every goverment since has followed in his footsteps,Thatcher for all her tantrums was no different ,,Major was the same ,Blair and his mottley crew consigned us to more regulations and laws.. so we have now second rate politicians ,making themseves rich ,,obaying the EU and leading us to complete ruin.It seems like we are on the titanic and all the boats have gone.What tune should the band strike up??{ its all over now {rolling stones}.....

• Posted by: wigwam • Report Comment

EXCELLENT

07.03.10, 11:53pm

Excellent article. If you had mentioned the EU as well I'd have printed it and stuck it on my wall. Why do politicians argue about trivialities when the country is going to rack and ruin? Could it be because so many of the important issues are now decided across the channel?

• Posted by: kenomeat • Report Comment