In the subject line above I am of course returning to my theme of the utter hypocrisy that has gripped the nation over the garbled half-truths and sometimes untruths put out by the Telegraph in pursuit of sordid profit. The newspaper’s actions are bad enough but the public’s reaction is utterly deplorable. They have tarred all MPs and politicians with the same brush, labelling them as corrupt when most of them have done nothing wrong at all. But the public haven’t bothered to distinguish between the crooks, the foolish and the totally innocent. And this is rich, coming from the most depraved generation in our nation’s recent history.
But here is an article I’ve just read by a Labour MP, whose views are irrelevant to what he has to say here. [In fact I often agree with him by by no means always] I think it should be read because it is the first time an MP has decided to speak out. I wish more had, for when you learn of the behaviour of the newspaper’s hacks you can only wince in horror. But the public don’t care - they are enjoying the blood lust of a witch-hunt.
Today I met someone who has been working on literacy courses for prisoners in a well-known gaol. I said I presume the immigrant prisoners have a lot of catching up to do. ”Oh, no!” was the answer. It is the British prisoners who are the worst and they just don’t care and are not interested. Another vignette of what has happened to the once proud British people.
Just consider the subject of Anne Main the MP for St Albans. She allowed her daughter to live in her constituency home. I should hope so too! That’s what families should do! But for that some of the constituency officers wanted her to deselect her. But her local party is made of sterner stuff and rejected the idea by 140 votes to 20. For this snub to the them the Telegraph went ballistic yesterday but could find no worse thing to say except that the party members were all on zimmer frames - - “nicknamed the zimmer frame brigade”. The fact that that is not remotely true is modern journalism for you!
Some have written to me blaming the EU, because they blame everything on the EU - that’s all they know. Others change the target to political parties. It is neither; it is a deterioration in the British character itself. The middle classes used to set society’s standards. No longer. They are defeatist and rudderless.
I’m ashamed of my nation.
Christina
[nb the article is only shortened in so far as Mr Mitchell starts to make party points. These omissions scarcely affect his main argument]
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THE OLDIE Summer 2009
Unclean ! Unclean!
Austin Mitchell MP (Grimsby, Lab) describes life as a leper
“They just don’t get it” is the slogan of the parliamentary witch-hunt. I do. In the neck. I now have a feel what it must be like to be a Roma in Belfast. The witch-hunt unleashed by The Telegraph’s putsch against Parliament has given 646 MPs, whether paragons of virtue or greedy guzzlers, a foretaste of paedophiles under Sarah’s Law. As for my staff, the buffer protecting me from the world, they’re on the point of mutiny because of the abuse over the phone and from friends and neighbours.
We should have expected it. Behind the gentle, diffident English facade lurk passionate hatreds, simmering jealousies, and all the accumulated antagonisms of living cheek by jowl on an overcrowded island brought to the boil by the middle-class paranoia whipped up by the Mail and the Telegraph. Usually it’s overlain by English inhibition. Now it can all burst forth. Talk radio, blogs and e-mail make everyone their own Gobbles.
While MPs have become hate objects, our leaders, who are responsible for the system of allowances, have sanctimoniously climbed out from under by condemning our greed and irresponsibility as if it afflicted all of us. They’ve competed to save their own skins and have failed to defend the majority of us who work hard out of a sense of duty.
There’s no gratitude or support from the people we have helped, though a lot of abuse from any we failed. Surveys tell us that half the population don’t know who their MP is - yet the other half seem to know the price of our homes and gardens, the decoration of our lavatories, and what we eat.
Most of the abuse flows in anonymously, but even were it’s signed the addresses are often false: my usual tactic of returning abusive letters with a little note saying “You should know that some deranged lunatic has been using your name and address to write libellous letters so I’m returning this letter for you to take any action you think appropriate” doesn’t work: my letters come back marked ‘Not known at this address”.
I’m constantly told I’m ‘geriatric, stupid, soft on immigration, crime, and Iraq, never in Grimsby, not much in Parliament, but still responsible for the mess that Grimsby has apparently become. According to one constituent, Grimsby is governed by cretins and liars, a town infested by human vermin. Murders are commonplace. as are arson, drug taking and theft. It has always had spirit and is full of fantastic people. They deserve much better from the idiots that govern it. Our representatives have taken our trust and spat in our face. If they had the tiniest shred of decency they would resign en masse.’
Substitute Britain for Grimsby and there you have it. Everything is going to the dogs and MPs are responsible.
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On Monday 22 June we all took refuge in the Westminster bunker to pray for a collective decontamination By electing a new Speaker . John Bercow’s election was exciting yet the remedies now being discussed, by him and us, look set to compound the disease.
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The only solution is to hunker down, get on with the work and hope that the storm passes. As it will by b2020. Until then we’ll just have to develop a thicker skin and a more dogged sense of duty.
The summer could bring a little happiness and a bit of oblivion. But will it? more people will holiday at home this year instead of lying on a foreign beach gloating about the increase in their house prices. So they’ll be reading British newspapers not Spanish or Italian ones, and studying out sins not Berlusconi’s birds [They could try thinking about their OWN sins of course -cs] It will probably rain all bloody summer, forcing everyone to sit miserably indoors while we MPs go out in it pathetically trying to meet constituents, only to find our presence stirs their anger by showing we’re still breathing.
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