The Conservative Party are demanding a personal and public apology from Prime Minister Gordon Brown after details of a proposed smear campaign led from No.10 were leaked into the media ultimately forcing one of the PM’s top aides to resign.
Damian McBride resigned after admitting sending “juvenile and inappropriate” emails from his Downing Street account to former spin doctor Derek Draper.
The emails suggested the setting up of an “attack blog” called Red Rag, with the express purpose of spreading unfounded gossip about Conservative Opponents. Suggested in the emails were possible stories such as spreading rumours about the shadow chancellor George Osborne’s wife, accusing another conservative MP of promoting his/her partners business interests in parliament and suggesting conservative leader David Cameron had suffered an “embarrassing illness”.
Shadow home secretary Chris Grayling branded the stories “blatant lies cooked up in Downing Street”, and asked who else had been aware that the talks were taking place.
“Mr Brown hasn’t even had the decency to apologise. His statement was unacceptable.”
Is this what politics in this country has come to? What happened to the age old concept of winning on merit? It seems now the aim is to win by default facilitated by simply making your opponent look worse than you do.
I am rapidly concluding that it is time there was a major political shake up in Westminster and i dont just mean a conservative government as i genuinely dont believe they would be much better these days.
The time has come in my humble opinion to make MP’s far more accountable for their actions and/or inactions. The ridiculous salaries and bonuses paid to these so called public representatives not to mention countless other perks that are these days a direct affront to society in these economic hard times.
When I look at the constant flow of corruption, greed and sleaze that has become almost a daily occurence in Westminster, I have to ask myself are these the kind of people i want representing me, Not just here in the UK but also on the world stage? The answer is a resounding NO.
I also ask myself if the salaries, bonuses and perks of MP’s were slashed to bring them into line with the average wage… How many of todays MP’s would be interested in doing the job then? Not many i suspect. I then wonder how many of todays MP’s campaigned on the grounds of being ‘passionate’ about representing the communities they were seeking votes from? i suspect many of them are actually more passionate about the stupidly high salaries they receive for being an MP than they are about actually representing the man on the street.
Slashing of salaries may seem extreme, But lets look at what the average MP really is. An MP is by default a representative of the people who voted for him or her. The average MP doesnt make decisions, They dont decide policy… and many very quickly forget the reasons people even voted for them in the first place, Politics to the vast majority of them is simply a gravey train. To have described Mr McBrides emails as “juvenile” is actually another indication that Government actually barely holds the public even in contempt. We all know if Labour thought they could have got away with doing it.. they would.. But spare a thought here for the innocent victims of this proposed campaign.. Mr Osbournes wife, The partner of the un-named MP. Their personal reputations and possibly their relationships could have all to easily been wrecked at the hands of a few power crazed and power hungry politicians and their chronies.
It would be easy to simply say it’s something they have to accept when involved with an MP.. But actually, should they really HAVE to accept their reputations being considered a legitimate target for a corrupt and sleazy opponent of their partners to snipe at?
The time has come to snap politicians and civil servants into line… and HARD!
