Labour: More interested in power than Government

The Body Politic has always been held in pretty low esteem. There's nothing new there. History is full of examples of politicians abusing their positions to further their own ends.

However the fact that these abuses make the News is because we expect so much more from our politicians. We expect them to act with a fair degree of honesty.

What we have seen in the last 13 years has seriously undermined this expectation. We used to have the "Mother of all Parliaments" and prided ourselves on having, although not perfect, the best form of democracy on the planet. Even if some of our politicians were self-serving (and in a handful of cases downright dishonest), we had faith that policy decisions were taken in the National interest, whoever was in charge.

What we have seen instead is a Government that, virtually from their first day in power, has been a Government of vested interests. It started with the Ecclestone Affair. Mr. Ecclestone was a high-profile donor to the Labour Pary at around the time that the ban on tobbaco advertising was going through Parliament. An uncharitable blogger might draw conclusions that there was some link between this donation and the exemption to the ban enjoyed by Formula 1. There are countless examples of this, including Cash for Honours, but I like to keep my blogs reasonably brief.

Practically every decision taken has the whiff of either dishonesty or opportunism about it. We can see an example of this right now as Gordon Brown talks about Electoral Reform. Just before an election.

Labour are far more interested in power than they are in Government. They will say & do anything to stay in power and their agenda is, as it always has been, driven by this desire rather than any deeply held principle.