The Labour Vitriol Against The Liberal Democrats

Well, this is going to whip the Labourites into an even greater anti-Liberal Democrat fever:

"I totally understand that some of these people are not happy with what the Lib Dems are doing in coalition with the Conservatives. The Lib Dems never were and aren't a receptacle for left-wing dissatisfaction with the Labour Party. There is no future for that; there never was."

Well, the problem Clegg's got is that for some, the Lib Dems were a receptacle for left-wing dissatisfaction with the Labour party; it is just for him and his fellow Orange Bookers that its not. But I do think that the future for the Lib Dems isn't in joining with the Labour party again. And the main reason for that is the behaviour of many in the Labour party since the election.

Since the Lib Dems did the only thing they realistically could in May and joined in coalition with the Tories, the Labour party have acted like a bunch of mad stalkers that have been spurned by the object of their affections. The level of bile that the Labour party have heaped on the Lib Dems is entirely out of proportion with their "crime"; after all, the Lib Dems joined with the effective winners of the last election, but before they did that, they negotiated with Labour and certainly gave that party the chance to win them over. But no, the Labour party have acted with arrogance and bile towards the Lib Dems; the occasional lip service paid by some of the contenders for the Labour leadership to the idea of the future Lib-Lab pact doesn't make-up for the bitter vitriol thrown at the Lib Dems by the Labour party since May.

Labour are still in shock from their defeat in May and still labouring under the delusion that they are in some way entitled to power. It is the same arrogance that defined Nu Labour, and ultimately sank the Brown administration. The Labour party still expects to be in power, and if they can't achieve it by themselves, then they expect the Lib Dems to prop them up. The fact that Clegg and Co. chose not remains a point of bitter contention for the Labour party. And given the level of bile thrown at the Lib Dems, I really don't see whatever future they might have resting on an alliance with Labour.

Expenses Whining

Via Guido, some examples of the whining of some MPs about the new expenses system. My own personal favourite:

We just have to accept this because the public is not with us. It will take something really horrendous, such as a woman MP being stabbed on the streets of London because she is not entitled to take a taxi home late at night, before people wake up and realise how unfair this is.

Let's break this down, and try to count the number of ways in which this is wrong:

1. The public is against you, because some MPs took the system and used it as a means to shit all over the taxpayer, and then make sure the taxpayer's face was rubbed in it. Duck houses, second mortgages, moats, cleaners, flipping. The public is not just not with you, it is against you. And the best way to overcome that would be to quit bellyaching and get on with the job of running this country.
2. A female MP being stabbed would be pretty horrific, but no more so than anyone else being stabbed on the streets of London. And the fact that it happens to ordinary people should be a clue what MPs need to focus on - not the fact that they too have to walk home through potentially dangerous areas, but rather making those areas safer for everyone. And not just in London - how about in the country as a whole?
3. There is nothing to stop an MP taking a taxi home late at night - I know lots of people, both male and female, who do so regularly because it makes them feel safer. MPs will now have to do what everyone else has to do, and pay for those taxis themselves. That's hardly a big ask, now, is it? For MPs to live as they people they purport to represent do?
4. The system isn't unfair, any more than life itself is unfair. People aren't going to wake up and realise that this is unfair because, basically, it isn't unfair. It really isn't unfair for MPs to have to stop milking the expenses system - and therefore the British taxpayer - to fund a lifestyle beyond the means of the vast majority of people in this country.

So, four different ways in which a brief paragraph is wrong. But I'd like to add a final one. It is the misplaced arrogance in the statement - and the others in the article - that is perhaps the biggest problem that MPs have if they are serious about bettering the public perception of them. They need to realise that becoming an MP is not entering a position of privilege at the expense of others, but rather earning the privilege to serve those people who elected them.

MPs and their expenses

Imagine you have a kid. And you suspect that your kid is holding something that they shouldn’t be holding – perhaps a stolen toy, a bowie knife, some crack cocaine; whatever it is that kids play with these days. Your child says “no, don’t want to show you what is in my hands.” What do you, quite naturally, immediately expect? That the child is guilty of something; that the child has done something wrong.

Which is the position we have found ourselves in with our MPs. Their refusal to show the nation what they have been spending money on has led most of us, quite naturally, to assume that they have something to hide. There are some who – farcically – are defending our politicians’ outrageous behaviour. These arguments have been nicely dealt with here and here, so I don’t have a great deal to add to the debate. What I would like to stress, though, is this.

Actually, we are not asking for a great deal. We are simply asking them to publish their. Not reduce their expenditure (although this hopefully will follow), not limit them or their powers in anyway – just simply publish details of what they are spending our money on. Surely this is not too much to ask? Well, judging by the cross-party alliances, the vicious back-stabbing and the sudden government U-turn that we all witnessed yesterday, yes it is apparently too much to ask.

Politicians spend small fortunes on focus groups and surveys to find out why people don’t trust them. They spunk away further fortunes on campaigns and gimmicks to make people trust them. The reason why people don’t trust them is partly down to issues like this – they are like the child in my analogy; frantically trying to hide something. And the more they try to hide it, the more clear it becomes that they are feeling guilty about something.

Against the Euro

A new poll suggests that a majority of the British people would not vote for the Euro:

The survey of 1,000 adults revealed that just 23% would vote "yes" to joining the European single currency, while 6% said they were unsure.

Hardly surprising, really. For some people joining the Euro would be a disaster – further loss of our national political autonomy at a time when maximum room for political movement is crucial, and also when the zeitgeist is towards greater national and regional autonomy rather than increasing international homogenisation.

Yet for other people, the main reason why they don’t want to transfer to the Euro is because they don’t understand what it is for. I’d guess that the majority of those who oppose the Euro do so partly because of some (perhaps irrational) commitment to the pound, but also because no-one has bothered to explain to them why they might want to switch from the pound to the Euro.

Which is typical of the arrogance of the EU. They don’t seem to see the need to explain to the poor citizens of the member states exactly what they are getting from being part of the European Union. No, let me rephrase that – they don’t seem to deem the poor citizens of the member states worthy of an explanation of what the EU does and why they should be demanding more commitment from us. They appear to think that we should just sit back and not question; we should make the assumption that whatever the EU does is in our best interests. Rather than simply in the interests of their back pockets and the fabled and reviled EU gravy train.

Still, whatever the reasons for people rejecting the concept of the Euro, I’m happy enough that people in this country would go the way of the Irish in their referendum and reject the Euro if it was put to us in a referendum. But therein lies the danger:

Last month, European Commission president Jose Manuel Barroso said the UK was "closer than ever" to joining the euro and that the "people who matter" in British politics were contemplating giving up the pound.

For “people who matter” read Gordon Brown and his cadre of Europhile sycophants.

Because that is the danger. Given the arrogance of the Brown administration, the EU, and Brown’s seemingly deep fear of any sort of election, there may well not be a referendum for us. In fact, poll results like this one are likely to make a referendum on the EU even less likely.

Under the current government, there is a real danger that we will wake up one morning and find that our elected leaders have made is part of a European super-state without recourse to elections, referendums or even any kind of public debate. And regardless of whether you want to be at the heart of Europe or on the outside looking in, you should want to have that public debate.

This poll shows that the Europhiles have a lot of work to do if they want to make the case for the Euro and, in line with that, a case for further European integration. They should, if they truly believe what they want is the right course of action, make that case. Rather than ignoring the weight of public opinion and plowing on with further moves into the EU project.