The recent lobbying scandal exposed by Channel 4’s Dispatches has seen former Labour ministers Stephen Byers, Geoff Hoon and Patricia Hewitt suspended, pending an inquiry. The three amigos were filmed ‘allegedly’ offering to sway Westminster decisions in exchange for thousands of pounds.[1] This sleazy episode is just the latest in a long line of misdemeanours and mismanagement by our political leaders. I don’t think they realise the full extent of popular disgust over their avarice. For example, witnessing Lord Mandelson kneeling in obsequiousness on a recent Newsnight ,as he complimented former Tory Chancellor Ken Clarke’s financial acumen, engendered disgust, alienation, and anomie in this particular viewer. If Mandy could have sweet talked the Lib Dem representative, we may have witnessed a ‘double dip’ more carnal than financial.
I’ve never felt further alienated from Westminster politics, and I’ve never trusted politicians less. It is depressing and frustrating spending hours on end searching for work and hearing the same old doublespeak sound-bites from politicians. Those in our society who contribute most- nurses, social workers, those working with vulnerable children and adults, and mental health workers, are downtrodden, undervalued and underpaid. Yet, despite the continuing financial crisis, which could as easily deepen as improve, bonuses are already being paid to bankers and politicians are still ‘on the take’; as the old Mafia saying goes ‘one hand washes the other’. We are told to trust the government and the banks: that they ‘know what they are doing’, that this is ‘just a dip, things will pick up again.’ I wonder how catastrophic things have to become before our leaders admit that it is not the performance of the financial machine which is pathetic, but that the machine itself is broken beyond all repair. Financial recovery this time around must also provide in-built safeguards and assurances for Third World and developing countries, because if we are struggling here in the West, be assured that conditions of poverty and deprivation in these areas are compounded beyond belief by this crisis. Financial recovery after WWII did not even take Third World or developing nations into consideration, and the seeds of the current crisis were sown in the form of the explosion of credit debt in the US from the 50s to 60s. We should look at a system which is fairer for all, and is not based on greed and exploitation, because it is patently obvious that the current system hurts us all and encourages inequality, injustice, division and hatred.
The Home Office recently wasted £10 000 of taxpayer’s money losing a battle to keep rapper Snoop Dogg out of the UK. Snoop Dogg may yet face further problems over performing in the country due to previous criminal convictions. However, he won his case on the basis of his right to freedom of expression.[2] Government officials had banned Snoop from entry to the UK in 2007 because they feared that the MC would incite gang violence in some of his fans who could already be involved in criminality and his visa was refused because he had previous convictions for drugs and firearms offences. It is amazing that our Government thinks that our sensibilities are so fragile. It is a pity that the Blair Government was not positively influenced by the acid house counterculture when it used an ecstasy anthem (‘things can only get better’ by D: ream) to herald its General Election victory in 1997. However, the only kind of trip Blair was on was a power trip, and, like Snoop, (although not convicted), Blair is suspected of complicity in serious firearms offences- up to 2008, according to the revised ORB survey, there had been an estimated 1,033,000 civilian deaths in Iraq since the invasion in 2003.[3]
We don’t need rappers like Snoop Dogg to influence us towards a path of gangsterism: we’ve got much more powerful crooks in Westminster. In the words of Public Enemy’s Chuck D – ‘The Government’s gangster so cut the crap, there’s a war goin on, so where y’all at?’
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