How wrong can you get?
Monday 23 April 2012
One really has to wonder whether the man is being particularly cynical, or just overwhelmingly stupid. But here we have Cameron in all his glory, pontificating about democracy. This is the man who refused us a referendum on the Lisbon constitutional Treaty, and he now wants us to go out and vote in referendums for the half-baked idea of directly elected city mayors.
From our current breed of politicians, I really do not know which I find the most offensive, but being patronised has to rank very high up on the list. And that just about sums up the Cameron experience.
In the style of newspapers these days, which cannot wait until an event has occurred, we thus learn that The Boy will tell us today that "Britain stands on the brink of exciting democratic change". He enjoins us in that patronising style of his, to go out and vote: "This is it - one moment, one chance. One day when you can change the course of your city", he warbles.
The man, of course, shares the all-too-common misconception that elections necessarily confer democracy. He therefore believes that electing another tier of officials in an inherently corrupt and undemocratic system will "breathe life into local politics".
By coincidence (perhaps), yesterday we saw Andrew Gilligan – one of the few journalists of any substance amongst the girlie-boys – write on the very subject of elected mayors. The strap to his piece tells us that the elections "intended to boost local democracy can easily hand power to crooks and extremists". The content powerfully supports his thesis.
Anyone reading the Gilligan piece, and then the Cameron effluvia, cannot help but be taken by the contrast, and perhaps observe that Cameron has got it very wrong indeed – as he so often does.
Here is Bradford, the issue is particularly pertinent. We are one of the cities being enjoined to rush out on 3 May to vote for the principle of an elected Mayor. The idea, however, has not exactly set the city on fire, and all the established politicians are against it.
Nevertheless, in an episode which raises serious questions about the utility of direct democracy, we have a momentum building in support of the proposition from George Galloway. He is mobilising his supporters to turn out and vote for it.
It is thus rather extraordinary that Cameron and Galloway are singing from the same hymn-sheet. That really must tell you something.
The bottom line, though, is that a small sub-set of the people of Bradford will be voting for the idea of an elected mayor, for no other reasons than the demagogue Galloway tells them to and the establishment politicians are against it. In the current atmosphere, where the majority are entirely unenthused by the Cameronian fatuity, that may be enough to prevail.
For the benighted people of Bradford, the net result will be a transfer of some powers to the Galloway camp, shifting power from one set of political thugs to another. The only direct involvement of the people will be in their bearing the cost of this ridiculous exercise.
That, in itself, is bad enough, but having The Boy then assail us on the subject in his patronising manner is simply adding insult to injury.
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