Posts Tagged ‘expenses scandal’

Why on earth are we even talking about Lords reform?

26/04/2012, 07:45:35 AM

by Peter Watt

I have been building up to write this for days now.  Because I have been getting angrier and angrier the more I thought about it – House of Lords reform.

What is it that politicians don’t understand here?  Voters hardly hold their political masters in the highest regard.  Not to put too fine a point on it, they don’t like politicians and certainly do not value them.  It may or may not be unfair but they think that politicians are self-serving and live in their own rarefied world.

What voters certainly do not see is a political system that provides a solution to the problems that they experience in their day-to-day lives.  In fact many voters are angry and probably blame politicians for many of the world’s ills.  To be fair, from the voters point of view there is much to feel angry about.  The expenses scandal; an economic crisis that the political class seems immune from; tax cuts for their mates, tax rises for everyone else and ever increasing prices.

And the response of our politicians?  That we need even more politicians!

Apparently we need to expend huge amounts of political energy and effort passing legislation that will create 450 new professional politicians.  Presumably all of whom will need paying, will need staff, offices and expenses.  Who will need to be elected and who will all need to spend their time justifying their existence.

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