This opening won't be popular but maybe we should show some sympathy for politicians in the UK? And just to be even more controversial, also those in the rest of the European Union.
I know they do every single thing possible to reinforce the view of the man on the street that these pols are only in it for themselves and don't care a fig for the common man nor for their own country but...............
The only reason I suggest some sympathy is that it is clear to me, that the real masters are the bureaucrats. Those usually faceless people who push policies upon their supposed political masters and certainly don't serve their own people or country's needs.
Consider the EU Carbon Emissions policies. These might have been signed-off by the politicians but the genesis came about because of bureaucrats who push a pseudo-science. Government funded scientists and those within leftist so called 'think tanks' who are assisted on their lie-generating mission by state-funded media, such as the BBC ( and don't bother suggesting that the BBC isn't state-funded, they get their money from a UK government law that imposes a tax on all UK television owners) have been pushing this anti-progress policy for years. Remember when it was called Global Warming? That name changed to Climate Change when even the scientists couldn't actually produce evidence of any meaningful 'warming' occurring. Pardon me for a moment but it is somewhat laughable when data is doctored (the so called hockey-stick fiasco) and even then that damned data still doesn't show any global warming! 'It just isn't fair', the pseudos say!
But I digress. These EU policies do next to nothing to address environmental pollution nor, if you still subscribe to the phoney green policies, to global warming. The European Union doesn't exist in some kind of hermetically sealed bubble. The EU can cut carbon emissions to zero but if China and India keep-up their dash for growth, the EU's efforts will count for naught! China alone burns more than one and a half times more coal, the biggest producer of so called green house gases, than the US and the EU combined. A study from earlier this year, showed that China was completing a 600Mw coal-fired power station every 10 days for the next 10 years! Think about that when the lights go out in Europe, particularly in the UK, because the EU bureaucrats have set ludicrous limits that impose shutdowns to productive power stations.
The fatuous nonsense surrounding these policies is nevertheless blindly pursued by these bureaucrats who force their political 'masters' to stick to them on the basis that the rest of Europe demands that we do. This same argument is used by all of these bureaucrats in the ministries around the European capitals and its circular nature goes unchallenged.
It is not just in the sphere of EU politics that we see the hand of faceless bureaucrats guiding policies. We see this also in other areas of public life. Local Government is run by bureaucrats. Councillors are elected but in most cases these people are are essentially working part-time and so the actual running of Town and County Halls is carried out by these unelected officials. These people push their ideas of 'what is good for us' and their own financial interests. How do you think that those gold-plated pensions came about? Those salaries that were bench-marked against private sector incomes, until the private sector started to turn down?
In Britain, we have a epithet we use for some of these petty officials. They are called 'jobsworths'. So called because when such a bureaucrat is faced with unarguable logic that illustrates the idiocy of their imposition of a certain policy, they simply state ' Can't do anything about it. I wish I could help but it's more than my jobs worth!'
These though are just the public faces. So many of these real masters operate in the background and 'advise' under the cloak of anonymity. Watch the TV news when elected politicians gather. Always lurking you will see advisers. Notionally, they are there to assist their political masters - the people that 'we the people' elected to implement policies for 'our betterment - but the reality is that these advisers are there to make sure that the minister stays on message - doesn't go all maverick and makes a deal that hasn't already been agreed between the bureaucrats from the different countries or ministries. For all of these EU, G7, G8 and G20 meetings or even just bi-lateral ones between countries, the communique is prepared before the meeting and is agreed by the bureaucrats and then the politicians just endorse the outcome and deliver it. Any politician that has the temerity to question something in such a document is told ' ah yes minister but if we change that, then the other side will want to change this paragraph or that paragraph and we really want those'. The same game will be played out on both sides so that by the time that the 'puppets' deliver the message, the bureaucrats can, off-camera, congratulate themselves on another successful summit and tick-off the particular goals on their own agenda that have been achieved.
I think that the disillusionment with Westminster-based politicians that is seen nowadays, is a symptom of a push-back against these bureaucrats. Politicians from established political parties increasingly find themselves unable to implement policies because they are thwarted by bureaucrats and people then see politicians as being either liars or incompetents. Given the 'expenses scandal' it doesn't take a great leap to put MPs into the first category when in reality, the truth is that it is the system, one that is self-perpetuating, that stops politicians doing what they said they would do.
So do you think that maybe we should consider cutting the politicians some slack and understand that the real 'blame' lies with the bureaucrats? Or should we maybe say that we elect politicians to run things and that includes managing the bureaucrats as well?
It will be interesting, if UKIP do make the breakthrough that they think they will make (I don't believe that they will), to see how they cope when they have more actual interaction with these bureaucrats.
OK, so enough sympathising with politicians! The expression 'grow a pair' comes to mind. Certainly Margaret Thatcher seems to have been influenced by this and was not as compliant as her bureaucrats thought she should be. Yes she was forced out and I have no doubt that bureaucrats played their part in her downfall but she pushed through policies that brought Britain back from the brink and set the country on the path to recovery - ok, so there have been slips since but directionally , the country has progressed. Council house sales were anathema to bureaucrats but Thatcher pushed them against such opposition and huge numbers of British people managed to become part of the property owning class because of her determination.
So the message for politicians is rule on behalf of the people that elect you, don't be ruled by bureaucrats!
I know they do every single thing possible to reinforce the view of the man on the street that these pols are only in it for themselves and don't care a fig for the common man nor for their own country but...............
The only reason I suggest some sympathy is that it is clear to me, that the real masters are the bureaucrats. Those usually faceless people who push policies upon their supposed political masters and certainly don't serve their own people or country's needs.
Consider the EU Carbon Emissions policies. These might have been signed-off by the politicians but the genesis came about because of bureaucrats who push a pseudo-science. Government funded scientists and those within leftist so called 'think tanks' who are assisted on their lie-generating mission by state-funded media, such as the BBC ( and don't bother suggesting that the BBC isn't state-funded, they get their money from a UK government law that imposes a tax on all UK television owners) have been pushing this anti-progress policy for years. Remember when it was called Global Warming? That name changed to Climate Change when even the scientists couldn't actually produce evidence of any meaningful 'warming' occurring. Pardon me for a moment but it is somewhat laughable when data is doctored (the so called hockey-stick fiasco) and even then that damned data still doesn't show any global warming! 'It just isn't fair', the pseudos say!
But I digress. These EU policies do next to nothing to address environmental pollution nor, if you still subscribe to the phoney green policies, to global warming. The European Union doesn't exist in some kind of hermetically sealed bubble. The EU can cut carbon emissions to zero but if China and India keep-up their dash for growth, the EU's efforts will count for naught! China alone burns more than one and a half times more coal, the biggest producer of so called green house gases, than the US and the EU combined. A study from earlier this year, showed that China was completing a 600Mw coal-fired power station every 10 days for the next 10 years! Think about that when the lights go out in Europe, particularly in the UK, because the EU bureaucrats have set ludicrous limits that impose shutdowns to productive power stations.
The fatuous nonsense surrounding these policies is nevertheless blindly pursued by these bureaucrats who force their political 'masters' to stick to them on the basis that the rest of Europe demands that we do. This same argument is used by all of these bureaucrats in the ministries around the European capitals and its circular nature goes unchallenged.
It is not just in the sphere of EU politics that we see the hand of faceless bureaucrats guiding policies. We see this also in other areas of public life. Local Government is run by bureaucrats. Councillors are elected but in most cases these people are are essentially working part-time and so the actual running of Town and County Halls is carried out by these unelected officials. These people push their ideas of 'what is good for us' and their own financial interests. How do you think that those gold-plated pensions came about? Those salaries that were bench-marked against private sector incomes, until the private sector started to turn down?
In Britain, we have a epithet we use for some of these petty officials. They are called 'jobsworths'. So called because when such a bureaucrat is faced with unarguable logic that illustrates the idiocy of their imposition of a certain policy, they simply state ' Can't do anything about it. I wish I could help but it's more than my jobs worth!'
These though are just the public faces. So many of these real masters operate in the background and 'advise' under the cloak of anonymity. Watch the TV news when elected politicians gather. Always lurking you will see advisers. Notionally, they are there to assist their political masters - the people that 'we the people' elected to implement policies for 'our betterment - but the reality is that these advisers are there to make sure that the minister stays on message - doesn't go all maverick and makes a deal that hasn't already been agreed between the bureaucrats from the different countries or ministries. For all of these EU, G7, G8 and G20 meetings or even just bi-lateral ones between countries, the communique is prepared before the meeting and is agreed by the bureaucrats and then the politicians just endorse the outcome and deliver it. Any politician that has the temerity to question something in such a document is told ' ah yes minister but if we change that, then the other side will want to change this paragraph or that paragraph and we really want those'. The same game will be played out on both sides so that by the time that the 'puppets' deliver the message, the bureaucrats can, off-camera, congratulate themselves on another successful summit and tick-off the particular goals on their own agenda that have been achieved.
I think that the disillusionment with Westminster-based politicians that is seen nowadays, is a symptom of a push-back against these bureaucrats. Politicians from established political parties increasingly find themselves unable to implement policies because they are thwarted by bureaucrats and people then see politicians as being either liars or incompetents. Given the 'expenses scandal' it doesn't take a great leap to put MPs into the first category when in reality, the truth is that it is the system, one that is self-perpetuating, that stops politicians doing what they said they would do.
So do you think that maybe we should consider cutting the politicians some slack and understand that the real 'blame' lies with the bureaucrats? Or should we maybe say that we elect politicians to run things and that includes managing the bureaucrats as well?
It will be interesting, if UKIP do make the breakthrough that they think they will make (I don't believe that they will), to see how they cope when they have more actual interaction with these bureaucrats.
OK, so enough sympathising with politicians! The expression 'grow a pair' comes to mind. Certainly Margaret Thatcher seems to have been influenced by this and was not as compliant as her bureaucrats thought she should be. Yes she was forced out and I have no doubt that bureaucrats played their part in her downfall but she pushed through policies that brought Britain back from the brink and set the country on the path to recovery - ok, so there have been slips since but directionally , the country has progressed. Council house sales were anathema to bureaucrats but Thatcher pushed them against such opposition and huge numbers of British people managed to become part of the property owning class because of her determination.
So the message for politicians is rule on behalf of the people that elect you, don't be ruled by bureaucrats!
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