The Morality of Political Opportunism

When something appalling happens there is often a rush to find an explanation, something nice and easy that will return life to normal.  Thus the murderers of Jamie Bulger were driven to it by watching violent horror films, as was Michael Ryan who committed the Hungerford massacre.  Rapes are caused by the victim wearing short skirts and tight tops and entering dangerous situations.  Muggings by being in that part of town at that time of night.  

And a father kills his children because of the welfare state.

I have never been so pleased that I have never voted conservative or bought a copy of The Daily Mail or so ashamed of being English as I have been this week what with first the Mail, then closely after the Chancellor and the Prime Minister, stating and hinting that the reason Mick Philpott killed six of his children is because of the welfare state.  Let us be clear about this.  This is what they have said.  They have maintained that those children are dead and died horrifically because of child benefit.  They are, of course, wrong.  Those children are dead because an evil man set fire to their home as part of a custody dispute.  To use this as an argument against the welfare state is like using the Fred West murders as an argument against cowboy builders*.

*And if you find that essay into black humour inappropriate, then kindly consider the inappropriateness of using dead children as political ammunition

I note that some commentators are trying to distance themselves from this.  They are trying to claim that these killings highlight, in some way, issues about welfare payments.  But that is not what was said.  The Daily Mail stated and Osborne and Cameron hinted that there is a causal link between these deaths and the benefits system.  Do you get child benefit?  Then you’re a danger to your children.  What they have said is as simple as that.  Do they believe it?  Apparently not.  But they said it and therefore they can only have done so to shore up a political argument.

Think about it.  Consider it.  Be appalled at what has happened to us.  This dreadful tragedy occurs and the reaction is to use it as a way to popularise a controversial political policy.  Then wonder at the moral corruption that allows it.  It is truly despicable.  Those who looked to use the bombing of the Twin Towers as an opportunity to criticise the foreign policy of the USA were rightly excoriated.  So must those who do the same with this case.

It is sad that the right wing of this country has fallen into such moral depravity as to use the killing of children to make cheap political points but it is the case and anyone right of centre has the burden upon them to reverse this.  If you buy The Daily Mail you are complicit.  If you intend to vote Tory and have not contacted your MP/local party to complain about this behaviour you are complicit.

And may God forgive you.

An Obligatory Blog

In this time of fear and uncertainty it is beholden on the blogging community to make some judgmental and ill-informed contributions. Never let it be said that I shirk my duty.

No, I am not going to share my pet, and indeed pat, theories, save only to note that riots happen for a reason or reasons and to attempt to discover those reasons is not to condone the rioters’ behavior as some commentators would have it.

But thankfully we have incisive political leadership at this hour. David Cameron returned with the illuminating announcement that the rioters were criminals which was helpful as I was under the misapprehension that they were mormons. And as today’s Guardian reminds us, certain prominent tories know of where they speak when it comes to the wanton destruction of small businesses:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2011/aug/10/uk-riots-boris-johnson

It is a sobering thought that if Angus Deayton had tied a knot in it, London wouldn’t have that clown as mayor.

At time of writing, the north east remains calm. I was in the city centre on Tuesday night and passed a group of about fifty young people, mainly in hoods on a warm sunny evening, and there was a mood of nervous anticipation but nothing seems to have come of it. There were not enough and the mood had not hit that twitchy tipping moment when a group become a mob. Why not? No idea. There were a couple of police officers but no more than that. The council was doing an open air showing of The King’s Speech just up the road and maybe Geordies don’t riot when superior and slightly smug British cinema is playing in the vicinity. Thank God it wasn’t Sex Lives of the Potato Men. The consequences could have been awful.

A Vote for Me is a Vote for Something Else

Another by-election, another small turn out and doubtless soon to follow we will have the usual laments about voter apathy which always seem to have the sinister undercurrent that the whole system should be abolished and we should resign ourselves to autocratic rule by those who know best. There may well be laments about how more people vote in X Factor or whatever than vote in elections. But as Mark Steel has pointed out more than once, people don’t bother to vote because they can’t be bothered with democracy, they don’t vote because they can’t see the point. Their votes have no concrete effect. He may be right. On a local level, Tesco recently failed to get permission to build a new shop near where my mother lives, said permission turned down by the democratically voted local council. Tesco then trotted off to London to get that decision over-ruled by a government made up of two parties who failed to win the last election. David Cameron wants to privatise just about the entire state which I don’t remember being mentioned in the TV debates and Nick Clegg justifies breaking his university fees pledge on the grounds that not enough people voted for him which is not so much realpolitik as petulance. ‘Manifestos are poetry, policies are prose’ says a character in The West Wing. Maybe, but I reserve the right to get annoyed if I am sold a book which is advertised as being by Oscar Wilde but is in fact written by Jeffrey Archer.