Why haven’t I ranted for so long? Because I’m so bloody angry about everything that every time I sit down to write, I lose focus on the subject in hand and set off ranting about blokes in white vans, spin doctors, Tata minicars, toll roads and the price of eels. And don’t get me started on the preposterous growth in sales of tartan baseball caps to young men fearful of leaving the house without cranium coverage.
I’ve touched on my dislike for Government policy before. I’ve always had gripes with individual policies. We all like a good debate about whether to flog immigrants within an inch of their life or to give them a three bedroomed semi in Woking. A constructive argument with ones peers about the merits of sterilising young girls addicted to cheese and onion crisps is one of the joys of the democratic society that we live in.
So what’s gone wrong? Unfortunately democracy, like all good things is coming to an end. In its heyday democracy was about majority rule and the common people electing their peers to look after their interests.
Sadly, we are now in the age of the career politician. No longer do communities elect their local greengrocer to protect their interests in Westminster. We are now blessed with political spods trained at colleges and universities in the art of spin, lies and undermining the opposition.
The Houses of Parliament are now inhabited by a breed of politician more concerned about digging up some dirt on their opposite number than in putting forward compelling arguments for new policy. There is no good intent left in politics.
Government is more concerned with appearance now than fact. We have a whole machine within government now dedicated to massaging information. What a hideous and evil waste of my money that is.
For a brief moment a few years back I drew some comfort from the idea of the league tables and reports that were to be introduced to measure the effectiveness of government. After all if you’re going to manage something, you need to measure it.
What’s the reality been though? A strategy of lies and deceit and wasted time from the top of Government down to the lowest box tickers in council service, all targeted with the goal of massaging figures to produce nonsensical reports. We have waiting lists for our waiting lists in hospitals now – it’s a bloody farce.
And whilst we’re at it what’s going on with the tax system? More taxes under more guises and costing more to collect. Our tax system is now so complicated that hundreds of thousands of people now earn their livings from trying to administer it, avoid it, understand it or pay it. And all of them pay into it, perpetuating the over complexity of the madness. Simplify our tax system now!
So where do we go from here? That concerns me greatly. The more laws we create, the more complex government is becoming. It will take a person of steel resolve and impeccable character to ever unravel the damage done to our system of government. Unfortunately, our desire for instant everything, ‘reality’ coverage of life and the concept that to be rude is to be entertaining have done more damage than any of us will see undone in our lifetimes. Our current system of government is damaged beyond repair. Bring back real people who care.