Power corrupts - u-turns, fines, referenda and more
- Ashmead Green
- Mar 16, 2017
- 2 min read
How could yesterday's peach of a day be followed by something quite so different today? I blame America (her weather patterns at least!)
The government probably asking exactly the same question. after they were forced to make an embarrassing U-turn on one of the largest platforms of the recent budget - an increase in NIC contributions for the self-employed. Oddly a good deal of commentators and politicians seem to have agreed with the premise for the increase yet it was scuppered.
Not as a result of pressure from the opposition as one would expect but, interestingly, from a relatively small number of its own MP's who perceived the 'breaking' of a manifesto promise as threatening to their future tenures as sitting members it seems . Increasingly backbenchers appear to be the ones holding the government to account in the absence of an effective opposition.
Then today the Electoral Commission announced that it was fining the Conservative Party £70,000 for breaking electoral expense rules. Guilty it seems of inept accounting at best, downright dishonesty at worst and all in an attempt to secure votes at the expense of their opposition in some of the most marginal seats
Nicola Sturgeon made her running for a 2nd referendum on Scottish independence yesterday - a move on which PM May today opined 'not now'. It seems to me that The First Minister is adroitly using Brexit as her opportunity to force a 2nd referendum in a vainglorious attempt to secure her place in the history books by achieving what her predecessor failed to.
And then if the tumult of this week were not enough there is the small matter of Brexit and Article 50 to contemplate in the coming weeks. Each side jockeying to achieve the best result depending on whether you a leaver or remainer be.
Not a time for the faint-hearted in power.
What concerns me is the the level of selfishness that seems to pervade so many of the decisions our politicians make all the while couching them in the guise of being in the best interests of their constituents and the country.
As Lord Acton quoted '“Power tends to corrupt and absolute power corrupts absolutely. Great men are almost always bad men, even when they exercise influence and not authority; still more when you superadd the tendency of the certainty of corruption by authority.”
The fact that we do not have a viable opposition to threaten the government inevitably leads to power which tends to despotism and to use another of Lord Acton's incisive quotes “Despotic power is always accompanied by corruption of morality.”
It is for the people to ensure that our best interests, and not the politicians', are catered for given the current state of political affairs.
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