Right now,\u00a0the UK reminds me so much of that old clich\u00e9 of \u201cA dead man walking\u201d. The strangest thing about it is that there\u2019s no secret, we have many people recording the final stages, the\u00a0terminal decline but no-one who\u00a0can hear\u00a0the death rattles is paying the slightest bit of attention.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
I first started to really\u00a0consider that\u00a0its\u00a0end was nigh when I read \u201cHow Britain Ends\u201d by Gavin Esler with\u00a0its\u00a0descriptions of institutional decay throughout the British \u201cEstablishment\u201d. I was encouraged by his conclusion that of course Scotland would become Independent although he believes that the driving force will not be our movement so much as England\u2019s inability to give a damn about anything except themselves.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n
It\u2019s not so much that an Englishman\u2019s home is his castle as the hole in which his head is well and truly buried. Up to his oxters in complacency and self-satisfaction. Strangely enough this ties into the self-harm of Brexit. Built on the shifting sands of Question Time\u2019s obsession with Farage and amplifying the siren voices crying \u201cthe world needs us more than we need them\u201d..<\/p>\n\n\n\n
As the evidence piles up that Brexit was an exercise is self-harm the blame, as always, is placed at the door of Brussels or the US or anyone in fact except the people who peddled the snake oil and the numpties who swallowed it. Because in all of this the English cannot accept that they really were stupid enough to believe Farage, Gove, Johnston etc, they still buy and believe the Express, Mail, Telegraph and Sun. They still actually believe that the BBC is impartial! It is everyone\u2019s fault except ours!<\/p>\n\n\n\n
I was gifted at Christmas copies of Labour MP Chris Bryant\u2019s book \u201cCode of Conduct\u201d and Ian Dunt\u2019s \u201cHow Westminster Works and why it doesn\u2019t\u201d. Both are well worth a read and if you want to do so please get a copy from your local library if only to encourage Councils to keep them open. It also means that it is then available for others to read as well.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Dunt\u2019s book would be worth reading if only for the excellent Introduction which details\u00a0one of\u00a0the gross\u00a0incompetences\u00a0of Chris Grayling as a Minister and the subsequent failures of the Civil Service, media and Parliament to stop the disasters of ill-considered policy and the undoubted harm done to people because of their failures and incompetence.\u00a0They paint a graphic picture of a system with\u00a0in-built obsolescence.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n
These books are not intended to be comfort for those of us who see Westminster as the mother of all\u00a0madhouses\u00a0but\u00a0they are. Neither Bryant nor Dunt really consider the effects of Westminster on Scotland, Wales or N Ireland, (we barely rate mention at all), but they serve to highlight time and again that Westminster is failing, day in, day out,\u00a0and even\u00a0it\u2019s\u00a0supporters know that it\u2019s failing but no-one is listening and no-one wants to do anything about it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
They highlight the failings of each part of the structure from candidate selection, the Party disciplines, Ministers who rarely know anything about the Department they are supposed to Head and lead. And by the time they have begun to understand, they are moved, be it promoted, sacked or resign in disgrace. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
What actually is an MPs job? Are they glorified Social Workers who should be in their constituency most of their time and put their constituent\u2019 s interests first? Are they in Parliament to scrutinise legislation and hold Government to account? If they become Ministers, who\u2019s doing the first two jobs? All 3 are full-time jobs if done properly but all three cannot be done properly at the same time. And that\u2019s without adding in Party, campaigning work or family time.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
This is resulting in a widespread contempt of MPs, Parliament and Government. People complain that no-one is listening to them or attending to their needs, that MPs \u201care all the same\u201d,\u201d just in it for the money\u201d and people are in so many ways correct to do so. Cash for Questions and scandalous expenses anyone? Both Bryant and Dunt give numerous examples.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
And it\u2019s all built\u00a0on\u00a0the sand of a failing\u00a0and unrepresentative voting\u00a0system. Westminster has a voting system where once in place a semi competent MP should stay in office as long as they want.\u00a0In 2010 just 117 out of 650 seats changed hands, in 2015 only 111, in 2017 only 70 and in 2019 only 79.\u00a0An example is that the seat represented by Chris Grayling had\u00a0not changed hands\u00a0since\u00a01874<\/p>\n\n\n\n
To return to Gavin Esler, he says that the UK will end, not because of the demand for Independence but because of English indifference to the Union. Personally, I don\u2019t really care, just so long as it does it sooner rather than later.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Right now,\u00a0the UK reminds me so much of that old clich\u00e9 of \u201cA dead man walking\u201d. The strangest thing about it is that there\u2019s no secret, we have many people recording the final stages, the\u00a0terminal decline but no-one who\u00a0can hear\u00a0the death rattles is paying the slightest bit of attention. I first started to really\u00a0consider that\u00a0its\u00a0end was nigh when I read \u201cHow Britain Ends\u201d by Gavin Esler with\u00a0its\u00a0descriptions of institutional decay throughout the British \u201cEstablishment\u201d. I was encouraged by his conclusion that of course Scotland would become Independent although he believes that the driving force will not be our movement so much as England\u2019s inability toRead More →<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":8,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[132],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/scotsindependent.scot\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3598"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/scotsindependent.scot\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/scotsindependent.scot\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/scotsindependent.scot\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/8"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/scotsindependent.scot\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=3598"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/scotsindependent.scot\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3598\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3602,"href":"https:\/\/scotsindependent.scot\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3598\/revisions\/3602"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/scotsindependent.scot\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=3598"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/scotsindependent.scot\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=3598"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/scotsindependent.scot\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=3598"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}