ELECTIONS

Let’s take a long cool look at our current political system and the sort of government it produces. We have established elsewhere that contrary to all of the publicity we do not live in a democracy, cradle of or otherwise, but in an oligarchy which, although I have defined it elsewhere I will redefine here for the sake of continuity and completeness. Put in its simplest form it is ‘government by a small group of people’. It is supremely irrelevant whether that small group is replaced from time to time, by whatever means, as it is in this country, or not, as in some others. What it isn’t, in any way shape or form is government by the people. In this country the small group – the Cabinet, by and large, does exactly as it damned well pleases and to hell with you and me, for as long as it can constitutionally get away with it. But how does that small group get to be where it is, exercising the power without responsibility that it does with no reference to you or me and little or no consideration of the wishes of the population in general. One of the very few democratic processes that we do actually have is the constitutional right to create a new oligarchy according to a set of predefined rules.

Every few years we trundle along to the polling station and participate in, what I have come to regard as, another act in a long running farce called, an election. It is a part of the ‘democratic process’, we are told, and I will return to that blatant lie later.  For the moment we will consider the election itself. It appears to me, but then I may be prejudiced, that in these affairs we go to an enormous amount of trouble to find the most accomplished liars, cheats, hypocrites, pansies, poofs, nosey parkers, interfering busybodies, arrogant ignorant pillocks, pusillanimous cowards and plain straight forward crooks that the country can produce and we then send a selection of them to the Palace of Westminster as MPs. The actual political affiliation of these people is really irrelevant. From where I am sitting they all appear to come out of the same mould; there are just marginal differences in the tripe that they preach and the garbage that they put into the statute book.

We currently operate a 2½ party system. The parties are self appointed, self organising entities that you can join if you wish and they will welcome you and your subscription with open arms. The similarity of these 'Parties', as they call themselves, to Working Mens Clubs is so striking that I have to marvel that no one seems to have picked it up before. I mean no disrespect to your average W.M.C. I have been a member of two, enjoyed both and, indeed, met members who could probably have run a government far better than the crap we currently elect but who, in present circumstances, woudn't be seen dead doing it.. However, even those, I suspect, would have to agree that such environments are not the most fertile ground on which to grow the sort of material needed for 21st. c. government.

These parties pick the majority of the candidates at local level, rarely using local members who are local people, but one is ever hopeful that the result will be a candidate who will represent the local view. Don’t be stupid – that isn’t the idea at all. All prospective candidates have to be vetted and approved by head office. The head offices of the 2½ parties all have very similar ideas on what they want from their candidates and this has nothing at all to do with what you, I or the electorate in general might want. Candidates who do not conform to the specification are rejected. The result, with relatively few exceptions, is that we have a bunch of clones standing for election who may be relied upon to do as they are told, when they are told and to hell with what their constituents might think – those that can be bothered to think that is. Their sole purpose is to propel one man (hopefully never another woman) into 10 Downing Street and keep him there for as long as possible. Here, that one man, though never elected as such, will, as a result of clever manipulation of the strings by successive occupants down the years, function as a President.

I seem to remember from somewhere that the whole of this operation has been likened to jam making, in which process the scum inevitably rises to the top – and I feel compelled to agree. Of course, it doesn’t stop there. It would also appear to me (and, again, I think that it has been said before) that in most fields of human endeavour where there is no absolute measure of talent and no absolute barrier to cheating that the biggest bastard invariably gets to the top. It occurs to me that this does not say a lot for the occupant, at any given time, of the office of Prime Minister (President). History, of course, has revealed that more than one such of these has been subsequently shown to have been as crooked as a dog’s hind leg – but that is yet another story.

The comedy starts when the further thought occurs to me that from this motley assortment of human detritus we actually expect good government !!  It becomes even funnier when I observe the quality of the crap which actually results - in the form of law – and for which, in the final analysis, they take, as far as I can see, absolutely no responsibility. They can do, and for the most part do do, more or less exactly as they please;  wreaking havoc as they go through their term of office with little, or no, fear of any retribution. The cowards in Cabinet, of course, have even invented the dictum – cum – cop out of ‘collective responsibility’ to give themselves even further protection from any form of responsibility or risk of retribution. How nice !

With surprisingly few restrictions virtually anyone can stand as a candidate of course. However there are problems. Due to our primitive tribal ancestry the almost irresistible urge to be part of, or at least associated with, a group is such that it predisposes electors towards a party candidate. We have been brainwashed into believing that only a party with a healthy majority can produce stable government even though we have relatively modern evidence, in the form of governments surviving with minimal majorities, that this is a load of tripe. A healthy majority usually results from a gross minority of the available vote and usually produces a load of legislation that the country just doesn’t want. We have the few, as usual, imposing their will on the many - which is a situation typical of an oligarchy. In addition we are far too lazy to want to be bothered to suss out the qualities, qualifications and character of independent individuals. Finally, of course, the parties come up with a long list of ‘give-aways’ with which to bribe us, many of which we will never see and for which, those that we do see, we shall have to pay - and probably through the nose at that. But we have such short memories; and any break with tradition would be such hard work that we continue to fall for it.

It is interesting to watch and /or listen to these clones perform. We have the identical gestures, we have the mandatory piece of sycophantic toadying to the party leader and the same classic phrases used to totally avoid answering the question. It is a joy to watch them. Then, of course, they eventually get to perform in the House. Never in the field of human endeavour was so much rubbish uttered by so many for so long and to so little effect. (Sorry Winstone !). It is small wonder that when I’ve been there the few members actually present had their feet up, their faces covered and were snoring gently as the idiot at the despatch box droned away for no one’s benefit except Hansard. The only word to describe it was pathetic.

It is small wonder that actually participating in elections is going out of fashion. The daunting prospect of actually having to go out and vote for most of this rubbish really makes me want to vomit.