Day 2983: …then Get Off your Fluffy Bottom and DO something, Mr Brooker!

Monday:


It seems that the Grauniad's resident misanthropic television critic has reached the limits of human endurance with the Hard Labour Government, resulting in THIS warmly-received splenetic diatribe against the politicos of the ruling classes. Or rather against ALL politicians of every stripe.

But here's my problem: if you're fed up with the way things are, you've got two choices. Either, one: play by the rules, join a political party that WILL make a difference and change the system; or, two: organise a revolution.

Anything else is just "shootin the breeze" as the ELEPHANTS of EVIL in America would put it.

Do not get me wrong, we love Mr Charlie. And it is a GREAT rant. And, frankly, who amongst us could read Mr Jack Man O'Straw, the Sinister Minister, claiming that BLACK IS WHITE without wanting to run him down on the next ZEBRA CROSSING.

But if you don't follow through with action, it doesn't achieve a single darn thing.


Let's diagnose the problem.

Symptom: politicians don't need to pay any attention to what the general public want.

Cause: we have a political system that hands 100% absolute power to the winner of a very small number of marginal seats, meaning that the parties are forced to converge on very narrow policies to satisfy the voters in those marginals and so long as they do that can do any other darn thing they like.

Solution: change the system. Change it so that more or at least most of the seats have a meaningful contest. Make it so that MPs have to DO SOMETHING to justify the vote of their electors.

Snag: but that's so BOOOOOOORING, much easier to wail and yell and throw our dummies out of the pram about how corrupt and venal and just so HUMAN our representatives are.

If you say all politicians are the same, that ANYONE who goes into politics is therefore the same… then no one is going to go into politics to CHANGE things. And that only helps the BAD ones.

Let's just take a moment to compare the reception in Chatter-ista-land of two articles about British Freedom: Mr Huhney-Monster's FREEDOM BILL, and the Sinister Minister's DOUBLETHINK. Clearly, not ALL politicians are the same.

Look, if the Liberal Democrats actually WON an election, I really cannot GUARANTEE that we would be better than Hard Labour or the Conservatories. I know that we wouldn't be corrupt or venal in the same way… but I'm sure we could find new and exciting ways of our own to be corrupt and venal. That's the problem with absolute power, after all.

But we WOULD put a system in place that would change the balance of power between people and politics. We WOULD be the answer Mr Charlie's problem.


Here is the problem for the Liberal Democrats. We WANT to be different. We WANT to be iconoclastic, to change the system, break apart the old cosy consensus where a pathetic "opposition" permits Hard Labour ministers to block legitimate inquiries into disastrous and unjust policies that resulted in literally murderous repercussions with a casual "well we're not telling, so ner".

On the other fluffy foot, we ALSO want to be ELECTED. It's kind of NECESSARY if you want to stick within the rules of our democracy, even if your aim is to win the power to CHANGE those rules.

But playing by the rules means being part of the system. And that means that we're going to get slandered with the "oh, you're just like all the other politicians" label. Because otherwise, we get slandered with the "gaffe" label.

If you step outside the conventional – even SLIGHTLY, by maybe suggesting it's okay to not believe in Mr God, or that aspiring to virginity until marriage is a tiny touch out of date, or that maybe asteroids are worth thinking about – then you are "gaffe prone" or "a figure of fun". (And goodness knows how the meeja would cope with someone who had a REALLY alternative lifestyle – polyamory, anyone? Transvestism? Nudism? Train-spotting?)

In fact it's true of the WHOLE PARTY. We're a bit UNCONVENTIONAL – so we're told we lack CREDIBILITY.

The MEEJA is the key to this – and, I'm sorry to say, Mr Charlie works in the media.

I do so WANT to think: "well, Mr Charlie is great and it's his JOB to write articles, so this is his way of doing his bit. And the problem is the droning mass of the do-nothing brigade, all those fawning midges on Comment-is-Free-ish-subject-to-moderation, you might call them the INSECT-IGENSIA."

But the Grauniad SUPPORTS this Government. They urged people to VOTE for it at the last election, even AFTER we all knew that Iraq was a LIE. They will probably urge people to vote for it again.

(It has been suggested that they might switch their support to Mr Balloon's Conservatories. Which is even WORSE. Because it is just another run around the game of BUGGINS' TURN, that keeps the Tweedle-Tories, Dum-and-Dumber, in power.)

The Grauniad runs SPIN for this Government, the Grauniad undermines alternatives and lives in DENIAL about the true depths of Hard Labour's crimes.

They are like all those increasingly-desperate Labour backbenchers who pretty much campaign on the slogan: isn't this government dreadful – vote Labour; it's the only way to stop these bad-words!

So how CAN you be against the LYING LIARS when you are a PART of the very system that keeps them there?

If you mean it, Mr Charlie, if you really, really mean it, then you're going to have to say to the QUISLING bosses of the Grauniad, I'm sorry it's Labour or me. Tell them that either they unequivocally denounce the Government, the Labour party, Ms Pollyanna Toytown, Ms Jacuie Hashley and all the rest. Or quit.

Otherwise… you're just another politician.

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