General Election Now!

May 23, 2009 at 9:57 am (elections, politics, Uncategorized, voltairespriest)

The papers today are carrying stories stating that a clear majority of the public want an early general election. This is of course completely unsurprising in light of the avalanche of scandal that there has been over recent weeks, and the pathetic reaction of MPs to it. People want to exercise the one democratic control that they have over their politicians – the right to throw them out at the ballot box.

What has been surprising though, is the reaction of the liberal political classes to the call. Yasmin Alibhai-Brown’s performance on Thursday’s Question Time was a case in point. Not only did she oppose the use of the franchise, she did so on the grounds that such was people’s “anger”, they might “vote to spite”, and return BNP MPs to Westminster!

It is, of course, highly unlikely that the fascists could corral enough votes even in their strongest Westminster constituency to win an FPTP election. But in fact that isn’t the point. The point is that the most patronising thing possible for a political establishment, London “circuit” figure to say to a populace boiling with anger at the misuse of its own money by MPs feathering their own nests at a time when the country in general is facing house reposessions, redundancies and homelessness, is “oh no dearies, you can’t have an election because you’re all a little wound up, and being the stupid proles you are, you might vote the baddies in by mistake”. It made me angry to see her say it, and I’m presumably one of those politically-aware types whom Alibhai-Brown does believe can be trusted with a vote.

And now we have the Archbishop of Canterbury (regular man of the people, he) calling for an end to the “systematic humiliation of politicians” because it is destroying our “confidence in our democracy”. Nothing so sweet as seeing the establishment pull together when its grip is seriously threatened, is there. “No dears, you mustn’t keep being nasty about MPs spending your money on duck islands and second homes miles away from their constituencies, you see if you get too angry you might throw them out and who knows what that might lead to?”. The sight of the liberal middle class falling over itself to protect its privileges really does tug on the gag reflex.

The bottom line here is this. The current crop of Westminster MPs do not have the trust or confidence of the public. They do not deserve it. They are all culpable for that lack of trust, even those who did not fiddle their expenses – but allowed others to do so without whistleblowing to the public. The public have a right to use their democratic right to elect a new government, and they should be allowed to do so. The very worst thing that a corrupt and discredited political elite can do right now is to deny them that right. An election should be called, at the earliest reasonable date: then the people can elect whomsoever they wish. The political elite may not like the result, but they have no moral right to withold the choice.