« A day in the city | Main | Kentucky Campus »

May 02, 2005

Election fatigue

The Monk is suffering from election fatigue! If he has to listen to one more mealie-mouthed politician banging on about how much better they will make the country when everyone knows that, as soon as we elect them, they will simply do as they please, he will be ready to retreat to a desert isle somewhere! Lest he be provoked into committing mass extermination of politicians!

The real problem here is that everyone now realises that we no longer live in a democracy. It is an oligarchy ruled by a political elite and the aparatchiks of the Civil Service entirely for their own benefit. There is no way that Blair can be voted out - short of every Labour supporter failing to vote - thanks almost entirely to the tribal voting in Wales, Scotland, and parts of Northern England. It is a disgrace that Labour actually hold a built in majority thanks entirely to the fact that both Wales and Scotland have a disproportionate number of seats at Westminster despite having their own Assembly (Wales) and their own Parliament (Scotland).

A recent letter to the Telegraph from a Civil Servant attempting to defend the Civil Service as "productive" and "useful" and "impartial" has to be treated with the derision it deserves. For one thing, the author has failed to understand that the prime difference between any post in commerce or industry which is "unproductive" and a similar post in the Civil Service (the vast majority!) is that the postholder in Commerce or Industry can be rendered redundant while the Civil Service postholders have "jobs for llife" no matter how incompetent or unproductive. That is what must change if the Civil Service is to regain any sort of credibility with the public. With 5.8 million Civil Servants - and rising as they add more and more completely unproductive and totally worthless posts for things like "Diversity Monitoring", among others - the Civil Service has become a political power in its own right. That is unhealthy and completely contrary to the concept of an impartial and unbiased administrative executive. Coupled with the fact that an enormous number of them seem to be Labour sympathisers or Labour Party members, one soon realises that this is yet another organisation whose allegiance needs to be questioned. It is, afetr all, these jobsworths who write the laws and the regulations which have deprived so many of their rights to justice, empowered criminals, and excluded the British culture from its own nation. It is these faceless wonders who have proposed that all of our traditional badges and symbols be banned - because they cause offence to ethnic minorities!

The Monk will be casting his vote in the election, but he is yet to decide how best to use it so that it will actually count! The "first past the post" system in force here effectively means that any vote cast for a loser in the election is a vote wasted. The system of Party Whips further ensures that your candidate seldom votes for your interests, but always for the Party line. This is not democracy in action, and it is time it was changed.

In the meantime, I will continue to evade "Party Election Broadcasts", bin leaflets, and be rude to Party workers! Sadly, the sight of that smarmy and grossly insincere grinning mask that they call a Prime Minister celebrating his "victory" on May 6th is likely to make me want to leave these shores for good. I suppose I had better start packing.

Posted by The Gray Monk at May 2, 2005 06:55 AM

Comments

Just a wee bit bitter, are we? About like we felt here in the States early last November.

Posted by: MommaBear at May 2, 2005 10:43 AM