I want to know how it is that all politicians are iffy and I will not be vague. Why is it that all politicians are vainglorious, self-promoters. They are not and never will be as their blurb insists, seekers after fairness, honesty and good for all. Interested in the well being of others to ensure decent lives for all the people of the land. No, number 1 is first and last for them and two fingers to the silly electorate who put them into Parliament and the Dail. The electorate who was mesmerised by their silver tongues and snake oil salesmanship.
I do not think it matters what country you pick, the position attracts the same type of people, the same charmless predators, intent on filling their pockets with money and their minds with thoughts of power and glory. Let us take the two countries I know best and look at a few of these horrible people who have come to the forefront recently.
Britain
There is that awful gay MP, Chris Bryant, one time Church of England curate, Tory party activist but now a Labour shadow minister of Justice, who made fame by advertising himself in his underpants in the gay media. He is against everything but building up his MP’s expense account and having it annually knocked back by the powers but never being arrested. There is that lump of a woman, Nadine Dorries who has been plastering her ample bikini all over your television sets recently. Instead of looking after our interests in Westminster, she was making love to witchetty grubs in the outback. People have been researching her for months now and they cannot find any record of her being married, divorced or born even. So much for the audit trail on these folk. My theory is that she was put on this earth fully formed by an alien species if to do nothing else than scare the living daylights out of us.
It starts at the top with that face full of lard Cameron, down to the ones like Mensche, who got out before the heat built up and the public found out how many men she had laid before climbing into the team representing the House of Commons Culture, Media and Sports Select Committee to bully father and son Murdoch. They have all got a cupboard full of skeletons which they do not seem to mind sharing with us as long as you do not expect them to involve us in their daily expense grabbing.
Ireland
In Ireland we have a very similar only more crooky form of politician. Take Michael Lowry from down the country, North Tipperary to be precise, ex-Fine Gael cabinet member, now an Independent TD, who has been involved in more scandals than you could shake a stick at. Even now he is involved in several court cases involving corruption and monetary skullduggery, yet the people of that venerable constituency time after time vote him in with increased majorities whilst he continues in nearly every financial year to withhold monies from the Revenue. There are shysters all over the Dail only interested in their own back yard and fuck the people of Ireland. They are down in Kerry, up round the border, all along the west coast and they teem around Dublin but what they are all good at, what they all finesse is the art of expense building and the best of it is they never ever or very seldom go to jail.
There is one particular bully and when I have finished with him you will like him less than me. He has won my prize has being the worst man of 2012 and he is on his way to retaining his crown for 2013. Yes, it is that lovely lad from Carlow, the Minister of the Environment, Philip Hogan, the best back tracker in the business. The architect of the Household Charge, the person responsible for the complete muddle that has split the country in half, those that have too much and without demur paid this dreadful tax and those that have a lot less and haven’t.
Let me explain, the Household Charge brought in this year by Phil’s department as a forerunner to the Property Tax which comes into force next year, tried to be a nice little earner for Fine Gael in their struggles to understand what government was all about. It seems, because I have only now just found out about it, that it was advertised on television and in the press and rushed through the Dail in a form of legislation. Fortunately for me and not for Phil, I do not have a television nor do I read the appalling shite in the newspapers, so I missed these gems trickling from Phil’s lips and was surprised to find a letter from the Council demanding that I pay for something that I knew nothing about. Why did they not send an invoice and a letter explaining the charge like some right organisation would do. It seems that they expected me to travel 35 miles into Roscommon town and register my liability for the charge and then pay the said charge of 100 euros which I knew nothing about. They must think I am fucking daft running up and down the country with fistfuls of fivers throwing them at everybody who does not ask for a dig out.
Anyway since the letter I have done some research and it seems that nobody has to pay a cent, so I hope Phil has got his cheque book handy to give close to a million people their money back. As it happened Phil was away all last week in sunny Doha supposedly at a conference while his fellow cabinet was sweating trying to get an important budget through the Dail. The only conference it seemed Phil was at was one of close union with a sprightly 30 something with black hair and curves in all the right places. The Irish Mail gave us all the details in splendid technicolour last week. What a sprightly 30 year old brunette with curves in all the right places was doing snuggling up to the ancient Phil I can only guess. She must have been offered half of what Phil can pull in, in the next while. Personally I would not touch her with your bargepole never mind mine.
Coming back through Dublin airport on Saturday, hand in glove with all the curves he could handle, Phil was served with a writ; his household charge is deemed unconstitutional by some experts in the field and the demand for a hundred smackeroonies deemed unsafe. It is being tested in the High Court in the new year so let everybody who was thinking of handing over a late payment with interest, hang fire. A sad end to a week of smoozing with the one you fancy. Whatever about the charge, Hogan, who does not live with his wife and son, I bet she is glad, should not be sharing his expensive government time hobnobbing with a girl young enough to be his daughter. Or should he? After all he is a politician and is therefore entitled to do whatever he wishes, it does however put a little stain in more ways than one on the character of the young lady. Obviously she is somebody’s daughter.
One particular incident last year shows Hogan up for the man he undoubtedly is and I now understand why his wife does no longer live with him. When the household charge was in its early days last year, he was approached at a golf club outing by a 70 year old lady who owned several properties that she was trying to sell. She said to Phil that she hoped he would not screw property owners who could not sell their properties because of the downturn, to which Hogan replied “No but I would have no problem screwing you”. Nice chap!
A pox on all politicians and certainly Hogan is going the right way about it.