How many ex government ministers have gone on to lucrative employment with companies that they dealt with as ministers ? Officials at the Ministry of Defence leaving to joint defence contractors. One man's 'fee' is another man's 'bribe'. We are just more subtle about it than African dictators.
I know that pain ^ As for the Olympics... The company I work for decided not to touch it with a very, very long pole...!
The Olympics - the peak of sporting fitness and ability.........................................sponsored by: McDonalds, Coca Cola, Cadburys, Heineken, Trebor........laughable really!
Here's another example.......Lloyds Bank....50% owned by the UK Taxpayer, thats you and me.......today sold a load of branches AND capital of £1.5billion to the Co op Bank for .....£750million.......so will the UK taxpayer get that back, even though a private company has sold off assets half owned by the taxpayer ? I think not........How the f**k can a bank sell money at half price and GIVE away 150 odd properties ? Thats what it amounts to...who gave them permission to dispose of our assets in such a reckless way ?
Thats hit the nail on the head Mr C....and all the politicians dont want to upset them cos they all go to a highly lucrative job with the banks when we finally vote them out to grass......we NEED a revolution and some honesty.....
Revolution? Meet the new boss, same as the old boss. My favourite bit of corruption was a few years back in the UK, where the Chairman of a large goverrnment department out-sourced a vast amount of the estate he was responsible for - the work, the staff, the property - and then left public service (under a cloud, if I recall). I say "public service" but of course, at that level of in the heirarchy, it's actually "self service". He was OK though, never worry. He got a directorship in the company he had out-sourced to when he was Chairman. Makes me want to puke my guts out.
Anyone been watching that series re the history of our streets? Couple of weeks ago there were talking to people that live in Portabello London- IIRC. They were talking to this knob of a Banker who unashamedly stated that all the rescue money was going to pay for bankers houses and life styles and not being invested into small businesses/growth... I don't know whether to admire them or hate them....
British exporters trying to sell stuff in many parts of the world are now faced with a difficult dilemma because of this. They can comply strictly with the Act, which means they will never sell anything and all the business will go to other countries; or they can carry on doing what they have to do to get business, and just pray they won't end up in prison for it. Glad I'm not in that line of business, aren't you?
Agreed, Britain is at an even greater disadvantage than usual. We have to comply with local regs, and also refuse to deal with customers in the way they are accustomed to if the practices in question contravene British laws (laws which other countries don't have, or have in watered-down form). Fortunately, we no longer make anything in this country which we export. We just sell each other houses, life insurance, pensions and cappuccinos
:smile: Reminds me of a prog I watched a few weeks back about the assassination of Trotsky ... seems Stalin ordered him to be 'eliminated' because he was "preaching International Marxist values within the communist party" ... Naughty Trotsky! The big problem is that anyone with any moral integrity has no chance of getting anywhere in politics. They are identified and ushered quickly aside in favour of 'yes' puppets well before they get near a nomination.
The difficulty is that career is convoluted with principles in politics. If you don't care about getting on or ever being a minister, then you could have at least your 5 years voting with your conscience. But it's a career and as in all careers, you do what the boss wants if you want to keep your employment or get on. This is the attitude which leads to a betrayal of principles in all areas. I once worked for a large importer of canned goods and found myself having to import container-loads of stuff from apartheid South Africa at a a time when I wouldn't even buy an Outspan orange in a supermarket. After Chernobyl, it was the only source of supply. What are you going to do?
Limit time as MP to a maximum of two terms. Open primaries. Power of recall. Make representatives more accountable to the electorate than their party. It will never happen.
Is that a misprint for "limit time as PM to a maximum of two terms", which would make some sense? A two term limit for MPs would mean that all government ministers in every administration would have to be novices, inexperienced beginners. Hard to imagine anybody could think that would be an improvement.
Well, they'd get a theoretical 10 years at it so not exactly novices. Plus if they actually knew something about the real world instead of political hackery they might be pretty efficient quickly.
Far too much "old boy network" in politics (as there is in virtually every walk of life - oh well). Not enough new blood, and the new blood that we get is quickly watered down and re-trained on "it's how we do things here, old boy".
No misprint. We would have to elect people with substance not political hacks and student radicals who never grew up. We would also have to revert to a non politicised Civil Service and do away with the culture of entitlement. As I said, It'll never happen.
A career which could not last more than 10 years would attract no-one of any substance or competence whatever. You seem to imagine politics is easy, and could be carried out by a set of people with no experience, knowledge or training. This is bonkers. Politics is actually one of the most difficult and complex arts, so much so that very few people can cope. After 10 years in Parliament, an exceptionally clever chap is just beginning to understand how to get things done and is ready to start making a real contribution. That is just the point where your idea would throw them all out, and replace them with novices! As far as government ministers are concerned, if all of them were clueless beginners, that would hand all real power to the Civil Service. Was that what you wanted? Or have you not thought it through ...
That's the point though Pete. Do we want career politicians? The original idea was that we don't much. The Civil Service in any case deal with all the complicated stuff, do they not? As for novices, Nu Labour were all novices originally, as are the current government. Of course we might point out that none of them are especially competent, but the last government that impressed me (before my lifetime) was the postwar Labour gov't. Now they really had problems to fix and managed to invent the NHS along with dealing with everything else.
Pete, have you read Peter Oborne's book The Triumph of the Political Class ? It is very good. No one is suggesting that politics is easy. I suspect that after 10 years in Parliament the majority of MP's have gone native and been assimilated by the new Political elite. I believe in less government not more, as Ronald Reagan said the most feared words in the english language are 'I am from the government and I am here to help'. And I am, to some extent anyway, shooting from the hip :wink:
