The trouble with politics

At the Majority Party, we like getting straight to the heart of matters.

A politician, when you cut through all the crap, is someone who believes that they can spend your money more wisely than you can. So it's not surprising that the main problem with politics the world over is the politicians, because how many of you - deep down - honestly believe that there is anyone better equipped to spend your hard earned cash than you are?

There is no end of folk (quite apart from politicians) that believe they can spend your hard earned money more wisely than you can - they're called children, wives and husbands; but most of us human cash points have slightly more influence over those making the withdrawals than once every 5 years. Moreover, we don't get locked away for refusing to buy a 12 inch flick knife or an Ingram sub machine gun for our kids, whereas we will certainly be in deep trouble if we want to pursue the same pacifist tactic and decline to pay the taxes that Blair and Brown then dutifully piss away into the sands of the desert. Politicians can happily spend our cash on a vast selection of nasty whizz-bangs from a glittering array of questionable armament businesses, most of whom make enough money from their trade to buy politicians and influence in just about country they operate.

Part of the problem is that politicians have evolved a very neat conspiracy amongst their kind to see to it that people who do real work and have real lives simply don't have time to participate in the sort of incestuous media-fuelled nonsense that is now the hallmark of politics in just about every "advanced" nation in the 21st century. For however unsound the notion has been spun to become, the fact remains that many nations, including Britain, grew great on ideas such as noblesse oblige and a ruling class that worked its apprenticeship in the realities of how the world rubs along, before being handed the reins of power.

The starkest of all realities learned in such an apprenticeship is that the world is an unfair place, full of unfair people, doing unfair things. This means that the most effective contribution to maintaining a viable society is to encourage everyone to fend for themselves, because when push comes to shove, no one else will.

Talking of spending money and “unfair”, the costliest, most unfair and yet still holiest of cows is the NHS. But if you live in an area that doesn't support the Labour Party, there is now a greater chance that your nurses will sacked, and your hospitals will be closed. And if you live in Scotland, the Labour government will spend >£1000 a head a year more on you than if you live in England. Remind us, how many Tory MPs are elected by the Scottish people?

Politicians are a self-absorbed community who try and pretend that they exist to promote "fair and democratic" concepts and principles. Voting for them is indeed "fair and democratic" - but doing anything else is take a step closer to some imagined abyss that gets wider and deeper, and inhabited by all sorts of bogeymen and the dark forces or terrorism - in fact, anything that otherwise disagrees with them.

For many years the UK parliamentary system has been excused as being the best of the various alternatives, since it produces an unencumbered long-term majority government that can make unfettered decisions. And to be honest, the shambolic periods in our history when the government was too weak to act decisively, supports this notion. However, that's mostly because of politicians' bad behaviour, since at times of herd weakness, the opportunity to trample your way to the top is never better.

But there is now a better way, it's called the will of the people and modern technology means that it is entirely possible to invite the people to participate in all decisions on how their money is spent.

So just text "no" to 8888 if you don't want another £1bn spent on propping up civil service pensions; and "yes" if you want the budget for speed cameras to be spent on more police in patrol cars.

If it's good enough for The X Factor, it's good enough for The Majority Party.