…..and unfortunately it is the electorate of this country that permit said immorality. Writing in the Daily Telegraph, Philip Johnston, asks how is it ethical of a government to remove 40 per cent of an individual’s income with the purpose of engineering society the way it sees fit and is it not immoral that each year, billions of pounds are taken in tax for programmes that by no measure can be justified in the public good, while at the same time the individual’s right and duty to choose is restricted.
Next up we find Robert Colville, same newspaper, discussing what sort of political party could be precision-engineered to appeal to all voters as he maintains the Tories are seen as on the Right whilst Labour are seen on the left and that both need to move to the centre. While having suggested that parties need to move to the centre for voter appeal, he then asserts that his precision-engineered party would have to be tough on crime, immigration, human rights and welfare. Err, is not being tough where those subjects are concerned seen as policies of the right? If Colville can write that rubbish – and get it published – then one has to ask what planet he and his editor have been on for the last few years.
It is indeed a sad state of affairs that one of these journalists – and I use that word in the loosest possible sense – can see that our system of governance has become characterised by grotesque waste, unfulfilled promises, incompetent delivery and excessive red tape and cannot arrive at the next logical step that that system of governance needs changing, then heaven help us – and him! Cutting taxation whilst leaving the same set of clowns in office will achieve nothing – neither will praising the clown of clowns, Boris Johnson.
When one considers that the objective of any media should be the dissemination of – and reflection on – the prevailing currents of thought, influence and/or activity of politicians, then it must be obvious to even the most blind of the electorate that none of what the media should be doing, namely educating the electorate, happens. That there are of course exceptions to every rule can be witnessed by the likes of Booker (writing about the EU, energy and child abuse by the judiciary), Gilligan (postal voting fraud) and Delingpole (global warming and anything else that takes his fancy) – unfortunately they are but three voices among the many, the latter being too busy using their tongues on the lower orifice of the political class.
It has been said that given control of a country’s economy results in control of that country; no, given control of a country’s media results in control of that country – which is exactly what our political class have accomplished. It has also been proposed that due to the power of the internet information can be made more readily available, thus allowing the political class to be ‘constrained’ – yet it has to be pointed out that: (a) not everyone is connected to the internet; (b) a great number who are, sadly are not interested in events political; and (c) those that are and know that something is drastically wrong with our country, its democracy and politics in general form but a small percentage of the electorate.
How to break the stranglehold on information that politicians and their sycophantic media have – and thus educate the electorate – is but another area that one can but hope those attending Harrogate may, bearing in mind the constraints of time, consider.
