‘Liz Truss and Rishi Sunak prove the people who want power the most should never get it’
The price we pay for power only ever increases, have you noticed?
There is a constant upward trajectory in your energy bills, and in what you must swallow from your government. Once, the country had to put up with being led by a man mocked for being indecisive about peas, but his financial meltdown and moral failures now seem like a joy by comparison to what have we experienced since.
Later, we decided it was better to have a Cheshire cat, all smile and no substance, and when offered a man with substance and no style, we dumped him as uninteresting. In came another smoothie who said the last lot had been too expensive, but he cost us more, and then there was a woman who we judged on her shoes and her failures.
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Talk TV)
Then came the big balloon, who puffed himself up then deflated faster than a whoopee cushion and with roughly the same kind of noise. And still the money leaks, with the same gushing joy as if the country’s political system was being run by Southern Water, and the government was watching it, scratching its head, and wondering who was in charge.
Now there are two people fighting to be top of the heap. One is an accountant by training and has been in government for a decade, yet says everything she was part of went wrong and that’s why she should now be in charge. The other is a millionaire hedge funder who has no working class friends, claims not to have seen his children for 2 years, and only uses a debit card for photoshoots.
Both say they can fix what’s wrong, but let’s be honest – what’s wrong is them. The best way we have come up with to choose a leader, after 1,000 years of warfare, kings, barons and rebellions, gives us a hedge fund boss or an accountant. Someone who got rich by piling up other people’s money and trying never to spend any of it, or someone who says they’ll cut your taxes but it’ll cost you.
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REUTERS)
Voting boils down to who you like. And in 3 decades of journalism, I’ve never met a politician I like who I’d happily give power to. I’ve met plenty whose goals I disagree with, but who are moral, intelligent, clever, and public-spirited. I’ve met those whose policies I like, but who as human beings are soulless abominations who lack the sense of duty displayed by a roof tile.
A third of MPs are devoted, selfless, hard-working public servants who’d do the best they could, whatever their party. A third are grifting charlatans in it for what they can get. And the remainder are dim, vain, happy to do as they’re told, and likely to end up in government.
Those who want power, by definition, are not the ones who should be given it. They want money, influence, control – they want to be a premier league footballer fawned over by fans, despite having the legs of Les Dawson and the ball control of Frank Spencer, coupled with the self-belief of a TOWIE wannabe.
It’s those who NEED power – those who need it to feed their families, warm their homes, fix a problem – who should get it. There is widespread public support for renationalising the energy industry, in the face of consumers being chiselled by suppliers and producers ratcheting profits ever higher. So why don’t we also nationalise power itself?
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Getty Images)
It can be argued that the water which falls out of the sky for free, and which we all need access to for life itself, should be owned by the state, for without it we’d cease to exist. And without power, there is no state at all.
Electing personalities – or shoes, or earrings, or smiles, or promises – with the ambition and financial backing to run for office has not improved our situation. An electorate of 0.2% of the population is deciding which Prime Minister will preside over a deadly, disastrous winter in which thousands will die unnecessarily of cold and hunger. It’s no different to medieval feudalism, we’ve just evolved a less smelly way of doing it.
Instead, power should be free. Free to those who need it to survive, and restricted for those who waste it.
Fleet Street Fox
It’s time for a Great Reform Act which makes the UK a truly democratic nation – with power distributed fairly throughout, using a system of jury-style selection to give every voter an equal chance, and public duty, to serve a term on their local council, health authority, or in government.
The hedge funders would have the same opportunities to fiddle the tax rates as a single mum. The disabled and ethnic minorities would be at the table, seen, and heard. No-one would be ignored because they were less likely to vote in the rain, or didn’t volunteer for focus groups.
Our newspapers and national debate would stop discussing the personalities or political ideology, and instead focus on whether this idea would work, is it helpful, how much will it cost and what will it do. Take the hot air and ego out of politics, and you’d get more practical thrust.
The House of Lords would no longer be filled by friends of the Prime Minister, but a committee who chose the best. And it could still provide a home and purpose for the thoughtful MPs, the great and good, the campaigners, the admirable souls and strivers we choose to elevate.
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Put people in government who don’t want billions to go to a party donor, because there’d be no more parties, or need for donors. Unions and corporations could still lobby, but the randomly-chosen Prime Minister could be compelled by law to have dinner once a month with 10 randomly-chosen citizens, not billionaires looking for a favour.
There’d still be wrong-uns, of course, but there’s fewer of them in the general population than Westminster. The prisons hold 0.88% of Brits – while the rate of criminality is twice that in government, where two ministers out of 120 people admitted guilt over lockdown parties. Throw in the fraudsters, aggressors, Covid-denialists, and alleged rapists, and it’s clear those attracted to power seem the most unsuitable to wield it – unless of course you want a disorganised, bungling, criminal cartel in charge.
Yes, we’d be relying on Brownian motion to govern, but it’s impossible to corrupt or cock up, so long as you don’t interfere. It’s that unqualified interference, whether it’s with the NHS, exam grades, energy caps or anything else, has been the source of all our current problems.
If we just fix the distribution of power, all other reforms we need flow from it. Accountability with a legislative duty of candour, the standards you’d observe at a family dining table rather than a particularly fetid farmyard trough, a genuine, community-building sense of public duty, and a country that supplies its people’s needs . Britain could be made fit for the future by new ideas, instead of mothballed in a rose-tinted past by people who have ever had to live there, and are at no risk of ever being forced to experience our lives.
And perhaps in return for minimum service standards during industrial action, we could get minimum service standards from the state. Enough water, heat, and food to live on, and we pay for anything extra.
Ah well, we can but vote. A Great Reform Act may be just a dream, but it keeps me warm at night.
