Do Politicians Have a Conscience?

There are reports today of another Labour MP who has left the party. But he has not joined ‘The Independent Group’. He claims to want to see Brexit happen and does not want to ‘betray’ his constituents. He claims to have fought against racism all his life and has resigned because of the antisemitism in the party. I cannot find the actual report now and can’t be bothered anyway.

I dare say that politicians, at a personal level, have some sort of conscience, but they seem to abandon it when it comes to party solidarity. How come the rebels suddenly discovered antisemitism when Corbyn’s ‘talks’ with the Palestinians have been known about for years? I don’t blame Corbyn for ‘talking’. There is nothing wrong with trying to understand grievances. It may be true that the Israelis drove Arabs from their land at the point of a gun. If so, then the Israelis did wrong. But it was not as simple as that. They were given a territory to call ‘home’ by the UN (?), but they had to fight to retain it. But no need to go into the complexities. Enough to say that being anti-Israel is not the same as being anti-Jew.

It strikes me that the antisemitism is another case of ‘straw man’ – it is an excuse.

But what really annoys me is how the likes of Cameron behave. As PM, he promised to implement the result of the referendum but resigned as soon as the result was known. His action was thoroughly dishonourable. The fact that the Tories then elected another remainer as PM to implement Brexit was possibly even more dishonourable.

And what will happen? As soon as a botched Brexit is voted through, May will be off – just like Cameron. But what will happen to the people who engineered the botch? Nothing. No one even knows who they are.

What we need to know, after a General Election, is not only who the PM appoints be Ministers, but also who the Ministers appoint to be ‘Chief Executives’ of their departments. It is THEY who make the decisions. Ministers do what they are told and then walk away eventually.

It is a lousy political system. That has certainly been shown by the dominance of “Public Health”. It would certainly be better if the CEO of “Public Health, England” was the person who appeared on TV to explain how raising the living costs of slim people would force fatties to stop eating doughnuts.

Why should those people who make the decisions be protected?