Politicians, Look In The Mirror

As the hysterical finger-pointing drags on and on after the EU referendum vote, there was a tiny glimmer from Nicky Morgan on the Peston show yesterday morning. Here's what she said.

"I just think actually that it's time that we treated the British people more like grown ups"

And the truth will set you free!

Yes, someone up there in the Westminster bubble finally seems to be getting it.

In amongst the cries of how "stupid" the public were for making the 'wrong' choice; or the accusations that anyone who voted to leave was quite obviously racist; or that such decisions shouldn't be entrusted to the little people, instead it should be career-minded politicians only to decide such things, here - at last - was someone actually understanding the problem.

She'll sink without trace, I'm sure, because it's almost heresy to harbour such thoughts amongst the grinding atmosphere of self-enrichment and ladder-climbing enjoyed by her peers, but she's correct.

Just read that comment again. Isn't it quite astounding that she should even have to say it? Jaw-dropping that the attitude of politicians has sunk to such a level that they do actually treat us all like children.

We know this attitude very well on these pages. The tobacco display ban, for example, is such a ludicrous policy that it is openly laughed at by everyone you speak to at any supermarket tobacco kiosk. The public know very well that plain packaging is a waste of everyone's time, and the public also knew that the ban on smoking in cars was unenforceable as the police have now confirmed by saying it “hasn’t been thought through”. Well of course not, because it wasn't imagined to further the interests of the public, it was brought in to swell the pockets of bureaucrats and parasitic grant-seeking lobby groups.

Politicians haven't listened to the public for a very long time. 'Public' consultations ceased to be about consulting the public yonks ago, and political policy has shifted instead into ordering the public around at the behest of taxpayer-funded prohibitionists, self-installed moral guardians and repulsive snobs. They want you to pay more for your booze because you're not grown up enough to make a choice for yourself; they want to stop you smoking because, well, they just don't like it; and they sure as shit don't want you eating or drinking anything with sugar in it so they're going to slap a tax on things you freely choose to buy, mostly because you like them and the companies which sell them.

These are just examples in the policy areas we discuss here, but it's the same condescending and smug attitude in every department of government ... the people are too stupid to make their own decisions, therefore those decisions must be denied them. By overwhelming force if necessary and always with a threat of impoverishment and/or incarceration. The politician and his trusty tax-leeching bureaucracy must be satisfied, the public can go fuck itself.

Of course, if you complain about any of this you're instantly described as selfish and irrelevant. Who amongst vapers who read this place has been dismissed for their hatred of the EU because "vaping is a tiny issue, not worth throwing our whole EU membership away for"? I'd guess very many. Because, you see, it's only the sages, those with wisdom, that can see the bigger picture. Yet you can bet that every other irked group with a valid claim to have been marginalised and ignored by the EU and its strangling paper-pushing self-perpetuation will have heard the same daft argument.

When every grass roots group is hearing that their cause is irrelevant, it suggests that the bigger problem is the overarching arrogance of the state. It's not the small matters and those who advocate for them who are at fault, it is the "bigger picture" that has been painted by a blind political class!

When every area of policy strives to silence public dissent is it any wonder that the public strikes back? If the political elite didn't want that to happen, perhaps they should not have taken the piss out of us for so long. If the political establishment want to apportion blame for the Brexit vote, perhaps they should take a long hard look in the mirror.

Because democracy, believe it or not, should actually be about the people as Ronald Reagan explained when he was on his way out and had no reason to spin.

'We the People.' 'We the People' tell the government what to do; it doesn't tell us. 'We the People' are the driver; the government is the car. And we decide where it should go, and by what route, and how fast. 

When did our country, a proud early adopter of democracy, forget that?

So well done Nicky Morgan for beginning to work out that the public don't appreciate being treated like kids and that - despite all the fear-mongering and emotional rhetoric spouted recently - we are actually quite happy to have voted out one level of wasteful, self-serving, bureaucratic, public-hating, aloof, uncontrollable and unaccountable drains on society and free choice.

The next step might be to actually do something about it, so when is that going to begin. Exactly?