The 5 unsung Labour heroes of the Amendment 7 vote

Much credit has been given to the 11 Tory MPs who joined forces with the opposition parties to defeat Theresa May's authoritarian scheming by bravely voting in favour of Amendment 7 to the European Union (Withdrawal) Bill, but there are five unsung heroes on the Labour benches too.

Of course the Tory "Mutineers" led by former Attorney General Dominic Grieve deserve credit for having put country above party for once. 

They'll obviously always be tainted by their numerous votes in favour of imposing ruinous Tory austerity dogma that has done so much damage to the British economy, public services, workers' wages, and productivity, as well as severely retarding the nation's future economic potential through the lowest levels of infrastructure investment in the developed world. However they definitely deserve credit for doing something right for a change, and standing up for the principle of parliamentary sovereignty, especially given the torrent of abuse they knew they'd suffer at the hands of the Daily Mail and the extreme-right for daring to do the right thing.

The five unsung heroes on the Labour benches are Dennis Skinner, Graeme Morris, Ronnie Campbell, John Mann and Roger Godsiff.

As you may already know, these are all pro-Brexit Labour MPs, but they all made the important distinction between backing Theresa May's objective of turning Brexit into an anti-democratic power grab, and conducting Brexit in a democratic manner.

Their ability to make this distinction between an authoritarian Tory Brexit and a Brexit conducted in a democratic manner led them to vote alongside the majority of their Labour colleagues, the SNP, Plaid Cymru, the Lib-Dems and Caroline Lucas of the Green Party to curtail Theresa May's anti-democratic authoritarian tendencies.

The vote was won 309-305 meaning that without the votes of these five pro-Brexit MPs the amendment to ensure a proper democratic vote on the final Brexit deal would have been defeated, which would have allowed Theresa May and a tiny cabal of hard-right Tories to conduct the Brexit negotiations purely for their own self-interest, with nobody to hold them to account.

These guys deserve a lot of credit for seeing beyond the outrageously polarised Brexiteer vs Remainer political tribalism and voting for what is actually right, rather than voting tribalistically with their fellow Brexiteers on the Tory benches. 

In fact two of the pro-Brexit Labour MPs (Kate Hoey and Frank Field) actually voted with the Tories and the DUP to back Theresa May's authoritarian and anti-democratic interpretation of the Brexit mandate, but thankfully they were outnumbered by the five pro-Brexit Labour MPs with enough sense and respect for democracy to support Amendment 7.

The sad thing is that if the Tory party wasn't so full of spineless Tory MPs who just did as they were told by the whips and traipsed through the lobby to support Theresa May's anti-democratic interpretation of the Brexit mandate, this vote wouldn't have even been even remotely close.

The reality of the situation is that nobody who respects democracy or the principle of parliamentary sovereignty can possibly justify voting against an amendment to ensure that whatever Brexit outcome Theresa May and David Davis cobble together is subject to a democratic vote.

So you may well disagree with the pro-Brexit stance of these five Labour MPs, but you've got to admit that at least they're principled about it. They want Britain to leave the EU, but unlike their Brexiter bretheren in the Tory party these five want it done in an open and democratically accountable manner.

The final Brexit deal will be subject to a vote in the European Parliament, and then ratification by the 27 national parliaments of the remaining EU states. It would have been beyond ridiculous if Britain was the only country involved in the Brexit negotiations to not have a democratic parliamentary vote on the final deal, but that's the situation Theresa May, the majority of the Tory party and the DUP bigots voted for.

As absurd as it is that the vote was as close as 309-305 in favour of defending democracy, it's clear that without the contributions of these pro-democracy Brexiter Labour MPs (and the "mutineer" Tory MPs who got the bulk of the publicity) Amendment 7 would have failed, and the wannabe-tyrant Theresa May would undoubtedly have taken its failure as a mandate to avoid having any kind of democratic vote on the final terms of the Brexit agreement whatever.

So if you're opposed to a secretive and anti-democratic Tory Brexit concocted by a tiny cabal of hard-right Tory politicians, take a moment to remember that five Labour Brexiteers played a massive role in preventing that horrifying scenario from coming true.

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OR

Theresa May's self-serving opportunism

On the same day that Theresa May announced the snap General Election that she repeatedly declared that she wouldn't be calling, the Crown Prosecution Service told Channel 4 News that they are considering cases against 30 Tories, including sitting Tory MPs and their electoral agents.

Electoral fraud

It's a shocking display of self-serving opportunism from Theresa May to put the entire country through the increased uncertainty of a General Election as an attempt to nullify the erosion of her parliamentary majority as numerous Tory MPs are taken to court over cheating their way to electoral victory in 2015.

What is more, when challenged by the veteran Labour MP Dennis Skinner over the Tory electoral fraud investigations, Theresa May openly declared that she'll fully support the Tory fraud suspects to stand in her snap election, even if they're being criminally prosecuted for cheating their way to victory in 2015!

The Brexit clock is ticking

What makes the opportunistic timing of Theresa May's snap General Election even more shocking is the fact that it's only three weeks since she triggered Article 50 and set the clock ticking on the most complex and risky set of diplomatic negotiations the UK has ever faced.

At this absolutely crucial juncture where the UK needs its government to focus 100% on getting the best deal possible from the remaining 27 EU states, Theresa May has decided to make sure her ministers spend the next two months totally focused on fighting a General Election instead!

Appalling timing

Theresa May dithered around and fobbed the electorate off with meaningless "Brexit means Brexit" platitudes for 9 tedious months before finally triggering Article 50. If she wanted a stronger majority in order to force her kind of fanatically right-wing Brexit onto the nation, why on earth didn't she call a General Election before triggering Article 50 and setting the clock ticking?

Theresa May's belligerent and diplomatically inept threat-based "negotiating strategy" has only succeeded in unifying the 27 remaining EU states against her demands, and they're clearly going to spend the next couple of months working hard on their Brexit strategy to make sure Brexit does as little damage to the EU economy as possible.

Britain stands alone against the combined political power of 27 other nations, but instead of focusing on the enormity of the task at hand.

Self-serving opportunism

By diverting everyone's attention away from the vital Brexit negotiations and onto the snap election that she repeatedly said that she would never call, Theresa May has clearly and undeniably decided to put the party political interests of the Tory party above the interests of the nation as a whole.

How could anyone possibly conclude that Theresa May is not a self-serving opportunist and an outright liar to boot?

 Another Angry Voice  is a "Pay As You Feel" website. You can have access to all of my work for free, or you can choose to make a small donation to help me keep writing. The choice is entirely yours.

OR

Hypocrisy and ridiculous consequences: The Tory plan to impose turnout thresholds on trade union ballots

David Cameron has stated that he is considering plans to plough ahead with Boris Johnson's ridiculously hypocritical idea of banning strikes unless 50% of trade union members participate in the strike ballot.

Boris Johnson's hypocrisy

It's not difficult to demonstrate exactly how hypocritical this kind of turnout requirement would be. We only need to look at the 38% turnout in the 2012 London mayoral election which saw Boris Johnson re-elected as mayor of London*, to see that Tories like Boris Johnson have absolutely no objection to sub-50% turnouts when the results suit them. The fact that Boris Johnson even accepted the job as mayor of London after such a poor turnout clearly demonstrates that he's only bothered turnout thresholds if he can cynically use them as a way of disempowering his political opponents.
 

More Tory hypocrisy

There are countless other political examples of low turnouts, in which Tory politicians have happily taken up their positions without a hint of concern over sub-50% turnouts.
PCC elections

The most shocking example of ridiculously low turnouts in UK politics has to be the farcical 2012 PCC election, which featured the lowest turnouts in British electoral history. Not a single region managed better than a 20% turnout, and several PCCs were elected with first preference backing from less than 5% of the eligible electorate. Four of the eight PCCs who accepted their jobs despite being backed by less than 5% of the electorate were Tories (Nick Alston, Essex 3.91%, Graham Bright, Cambridgeshire 3.96%, Matthew Grove, Humberside 4.21%, Richard Rhodes, Cumbria 4.54%).

It would be an absolute travesty for the Tories to impose an arbitrary 50% turnout threshold on trade union ballots, yet allow a load of their fellow Tories to sit in highly paid taxpayer funded jobs after fewer than 5% of people even bothered to vote for them.

Local elections

Since the 1980s the average turnout at local elections has rarely scraped above 45%, and in the last set of local elections in 2013 the turnout was just 31%. These appallingly low turnouts mean that if a 50% turnout threshold were applied to local elections, the vast majority of local councilors would find themselves out of their jobs, including several thousand Tory councilors.

If the Tories are happy to have thousands of Tory councilors across the country elected on less than 50% turnouts, it would be a display of grotesque hypocrisy were they to apply 50% turnout thresholds to trade union ballots.

European Elections

Turnouts at European elections have never risen above 40%. If the 50% rule was applied to European elections, every single MEP would be out of a job.

If the Tories are happy to have a load of Tory MEPs elected to the European Parliament on sub-50% turnouts, they'd be a pack of stinking hypocrites to enforce a mandatory 50% turnout threshold on anyone else.
Westminster

Political apathy is an ever growing problem in the UK (mainly due to the hopelessly outdated and unrepresentative Westminster voting system) but overall turnouts at general elections have not yet fallen below the pathetic 61.4% turnout in 2005. This does not mean that all MPs would be safe under a 50% turnout threshold. It is a very long time since any by-election managed to attract a turnout above 50%, and even in the 2010 General election, several MPs were elected on a sub-50% turnout, including Anne Macintosh, the Tory MP for Thirsk and Malton, who was elected on a 49.9% turnout.

If the Tories are happy for Anne Macintosh to sit in parliament after she received the votes of just 26.4% of constituents on a sub-50% turnout, they'd be a pack of hypocrites to impose a 50% turnout threshold on the trade unions.

Parliamentary votes

Aside from the actual elections, another element of the political system that suffers from appallingly low turnouts is parliamentary votes. A quick look through the voting records in the House of Commons and the House of Lords reveals that a significant percentage of legislation is passed with sub 50% turnouts from MPs and Lords.

The laziness of MPs is so extreme that they have even devised a "pairing system" so that Tory and Labour MPs can pair up to both skip the parliamentary votes without affecting the outcome. One of the few MPs to refuse to play this ludicrous game is the Labour veteran Dennis Skinner who said that he wouldn't provide cover for Tories "to go swanning off to Ascot or to their boardrooms" instead of doing the actual job they were elected to do.

If the Tories are happy to see their own legislation pass through the houses of parliament without it being thrown on the scrap heap if the number of politicians actually voting on it falls below 50% at any stage of the process, they'd be a revolting bunch of hypocrites to apply a 50% turnout threshold on the trade unions.
  

Ridiculous consequences

I've clearly established that it would be grotesquely hypocritical for the Tories to apply a 50% turnout threshold on the trade unions, without applying similar measures to the political classes. The revulsion at the brazenness of this hypocrisy is so strong that it can prevent us from looking at the proposals in greater detail, and noting how desperately flawed they are.

The first thing to note is that it is transparently unfair to classify abstentions as "no" votes. If people don't vote, it means they don't mind either way, and that they are happy to go along with the outcome decided by those who do vote - not that they explicitly oppose the proposal. Applying an arbitrary turnout threshold turns all of these "I don't mind either way" responses into "no" responses. It is extremely illiberal to introduce legislation designed to apply a completely different meaning to people's decisions.

The most ridiculous consequence of applying an arbitrary turnout threshold to a binary yes/no vote is that it actually turns an abstention into a more powerful vote against the proposal than a "no" vote. In order to explain how this happens I'll use a couple of examples.

In both examples a hypothetical trade union with 100 members (a nice round number) is balloting on strike action.

If 26 members vote for strike action, and 24 members vote against it, the Tories arbitrary 50% threshold is met and the strike can go ahead on a 52% to 48% split.

If 49 members vote for strike action, but everyone who opposes the strike simply withholds their vote instead of explicitly voting against it, the Tories arbitrary 50% threshold will not be met, and the strike will not be allowed to go ahead despite the facts that 100% of people who voted in the ballot voted in favour, and almost double the number of union members actually voted in favour of a strike as in the first example.

In scenario one 26% of union members voted in favour of the strike, and under these Tory proposals the strike could go ahead, but in scenario two 49% of union members voted in favour of the strike, but by these ridiculous rules, the strike would not be allowed.

These examples clearly illustrate that the application of an arbitrary turnout threshold on simple yes/no votes warps the whole process in such a way that abstention becomes a stronger vote against the proposal than explicitly voting "no" to it!

The result of this Tory scheme would be that anyone who opposes the strike would be a fool to actually vote against it, because they'd have a much better chance of preventing the strike action by abstaining and hoping the turnout threshold isn't met!

If these Tory rules are imposed, and the ludicrous situation is created that an abstention becomes a stronger vote against a strike ballot than an explicit "no" vote, the result will be that those who oppose the strike (and have any sense at all) could simply abstain, meaning that the strike wouldn't just need a 50% turnout, it would need at least 50% of members to explicitly vote in favour of the strike for it to go ahead.

To put this into perspective a little, we can look at the Tory MP with the safest parliamentary seat of all, who is William Hague. In 2010 Hague was elected by the people of Richmond, North Yorkshire with 62.8% of the vote on a 67.2% turnout. This means that the Tory with the safest seat in the entire country was elected with approval from 42.2% of the electorate, yet the Tories want trade unions to achieve 50%+ approval in order to go on strike!

The plan to impose an arbitrary turnout threshold on trade union ballots will warp the process so dramatically that to abstain will be a stronger vote against the proposal than to explicitly vote against it, and it will impose an approval threshold on trade unions that not even the Tory MP with the safest seat of all can achieve in his own constituency.
   

Idiocy or malice?

When we think about the reasoning behind the imposition of such a warped and blatantly unrepresentative voting system, we come up against that age old question. Are the Tories doing this out of idiocy, or out of malice?

It is perfectly possible that the intellectual lightweights behind this proposal (Boris Johnson, Priti Patel, David Cameron) are such lazy thinkers that they haven't even considered the fact that applying arbitrary turnout thresholds to simple yes/no votes results in the ludicrous situation that abstention becomes a more powerful vote against the proposal than an explicit "no" vote.

It seems more likely that they are planning to impose such a ludicrously warped, unrepresentative and unworkable system on trade union ballots simply in order to further reduce the power of the unions to stand up for workers rights.

Either the Tories are too thick to realise that converting abstentions into more powerful votes against the proposal than explicit "no" votes is a ridiculous thing to do, or they do realise how ridiculous it is, but it's actually part of their plan to shift the balance of power even more in the favour of employers over their employees.
   

Why should abstentions automatically count as a "no" vote?

An interesting thought experiment is to consider what the Tory reaction would be if it were proposed that instead of arbitrarily counting abstentions as super-no votes, we count them as super-yes votes, and unless 50% of the trade union explicitly votes against strike action, the strike would go ahead.

The Tory reaction to such a plan would be apoplectic, they'd whine endlessly that abstentions are abstentions, not explicit votes in favour - yet it is absolutely clear that arbitrarily redefining an abstention as an explicit "yes" vote is precisely the same kind of abuse of process as this Tory plan to arbitrarily define an abstention as an explicit "no" vote.

What is David Cameron's idea of a serious investigation?

David Cameron has stated that he is going to seriously consider the proposal, but any serious consideration would uncover the fact that setting an arbitrary turnout threshold on a simple yes/no vote results in the ludicrous situation that abstentions are redefined as more powerful votes against the proposal than explicit "no" votes. If Cameron goes ahead and puts this plan in the 2015 Tory manifesto, it will be an absolutely clear demonstration that David Cameron's idea of a "serious investigation" is to do whatever the hell he wants, no matter how ridiculous the consequences.

Conclusion

It shouldn't matter whether you approve of trade unions or not, if you've got the faintest respect for the way democratic processes should work, you've got to be appalled at a plan designed to turn abstentions into more powerful votes against a proposal than explicit "no" votes.

Even if we ignore the absurd consequences of imposing arbitrary turnout thresholds on simple yes/no votes, it is absolutely clear that if Boris Johnson and the Tories are insistent on imposing turnout thresholds upon the ordinary working people who make up trade unions, but they're unwilling impose the same rules on the political classes, they're a bunch of disgustingly self-serving hypocrites.

If the Tories include turnout thresholds for trade unions in their 2015 manifesto, but refuse to apply similar requirements on the political classes (Westminster politicians, local councilors, PCCs, MEPs, mayors of London and participation in parliamentary votes), it will be absolutely clear that this is just another campaign in the ongoing Tory war against the working people of the UK, making their current propaganda campaign to rebrand themselves as "the workers' party" seem all the more ludicrous.
 
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* it is important to note that the 38% turnout in the 2012 London Mayoral election does not equate to a 38% approval rating for Boris Johnson. Only 44% of the 38% who actually voted cast their vote in favour of Boris Johnson, meaning that his approval rating was just 16.7% of the eligible electorate.

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A second purely hypothetical conversation

The scene: A party leader is seated behind a large desk, to his right is a strategic adviser. A third man, enters the room, he is a longstanding party representative who was first elected when the other two were literally still in nappies.

Strategic adviser:  [using an unnecessarily curt and patronising tone] Good afternoon, please take a seat ... I hope you appreciate that we have taken valuable time out of our very busy schedules to see you.

Old school politician: Yes lad, I am aware that you boys are busy, however I had rather been hoping that this would be a confidential discussion.

Strategic adviser:  Oh, I'm afraid that would be totally out of the question.

Old school politician:  How come?

Strategic adviser: Well as his strategic adviser it is important that I am party to any discussions that take place, but my presence will also be of benefit to you, as I will be quickly able to address your concerns in regards to official party policy.

Old school politician: [addressing party leader] Is this what our once great party has been reduced to?
   
Strategic adviser:  Perhaps things were different in your day, but without my input there wouldn't be a chance of us returning to power.

Old school politician:  What do you mean by your "input"? ... What exactly is it that you do for the party?
   
Strategic adviser:  I help to develop the party line on the issues of the day. My team do extensive research and determine which will be the most popular policies on any given issue. Once the core policy lines are determined I help the party to define central narratives in order to convey our message to the voter.

Old school politician: [addressing party leader] Hark at that gibberish, have you nowt to say to me young lad?

Party leader: To be honest, I'd be lost without policy advice. Politics has changed a lot since your day. 

Old school politician:  [Irked tone of voice] What do you mean since my day? I am still an active elected representative for this party am I not?
  
Strategic adviser:  [insincerity obvious in tone of voice] Sorry old man, no offence intended. Perhaps we should say, politics has changed a lot since you were first elected?

Old school politician:  Well, in some ways things have changed a lot since 1970, but other things remain the same. Empty populism is still empty populism.
   
Strategic adviser:  [Agitated] I'm not sure what you're getting at ...

Old school politician:  Well to spell it out for you young lad, what this party needs is ideology, integrity and a strong message on social justice. It doesn't matter how you package up all of the strategies that your polls tell you the public won't hate, your "narrative" is never going to work because it's not coherent. In order to have a coherent narrative there needs to be a moral foundation to the story. Your story has no moral because it's built on a foundation of opinion polls and bloody management speak.

Party leader: [trying to calm the situation] Well, since we don't have a lot of time, perhaps we should move onto this list of issues you would like to raise? [holding sheet of paper]
   
Strategic adviser:  [consults his copy of the list as if inspecting something utterly distasteful - like a used condom perhaps] Well, item one on your list is trade unions, perhaps it would be logical to start there?

Old school politician: [impassioned] Surely it is insanity to break the historic link with the trade unions, not only was this party founded to represent the interests of the workers, the unions still provide 80% of our funding!
   
Strategic adviser:  Well that may be true, but the right-wing press are eating us alive. They hate the unions and they're using our links to the unions as a stick to beat us with.

Old school politician:  But the unions aren't all that bad, the tabloids journalists criticise the unions because they are the paid mouthpieces of the corporate establishment. Every time the right-wing hark on about trade unions, we should compare our funding with that of the government. Surely a message that we are funded by millions of working people, whilst the government are funded by a few dozen multi-millionaires isn't that hard to fit into your "narrative"? [contempt in voice obvious as the word "narrative" is spat out]
   
Strategic adviser: Look, we're moving on from the unions, and there's nothing old school dinosaurs like you can do to stop it. We simply can't create the kinds of polices that will be popular with the press if the unions are allowed to interfere.

Old school politician:  [seethingly angry but attempting to remain calm] So let me ask you this ... Where are you going to make up the 80% of our funding you're going to lose by doing this? 
   
Strategic adviser:  Well we're hoping that we'll get state funding of political parties onto the agenda...

Old school politician: So you're trashing our main source of revenue and all you've got to offer is some vague hopes? What are you going to do if the other parties refuse to go along with central funding?
   
Strategic adviser: Well, we'd have to look at direct funding from business and major donors.

Old school politician:  [raised voice, turning to shouting] What? You mean we'd have to adopt the same crony capitalist funding arrangements as the government? Are you crazy? Don't you think that these businesses and wealthy donors might want to influence policy too? Don't you see the insanity of throwing away donations from the unions because of their influence over party policy and replacing their donations with capitalist donations, and giving the bloody capitalists even more influence over party policy?

Party leader:  [interrupts because things are getting too confrontational again] Well, lets say that we agree to disagree on that one. What's next?
   
Strategic adviser: [sarcastic tone] It seems our policy on the health service isn't to your satisfaction.

Old school politician: If we actually had a policy on the health service, then perhaps I might be able to form an opinion on whether it is satisfactory or not!
   
Strategic adviser: [clearly irritated] What do you mean by that?

Old school politician: I meant what I said young lad, something you young pretenders should learn a thing or two about.

Party leader: But we do have a policy on the health service, though don't we? [worryingly this seems to be asked as a genuine question, as if he himself is in doubt about the existence of party policy on the health service]
 
Old school politician: [Angry reaction again]  It doesn't matter. As far as the public are concerned, you don't have a clear policy on the health service and you're not doing enough to combat the ongoing privatisation. I mean even the Early Day Motion against the keystone privatisation amendment was first proposed by that Green MP wasn't it? ... Then what? You just let the government rewrite it in slightly different words so that all services would still have to be tendered to the private sector and the lowest bids would still have to be accepted, irrespective of patient safety or quality of service ... You just let them sell it off in front of your noses!

Party leader: [conciliatory tone] Well you're clearly upset about this ...
   
Strategic adviser: [Interrupts] Look, there's nothing we can do about it anyway. The health service must be privatised because of the US-EU free trade agreement. There's nothing a few old school lefties like you can do about it.

Old school politician: So you're telling me that national health policy has been completely outsourced, and now it is now decided between a bunch of unelected neoliberal technocrats in Brussels and the bloody Americans?

Party leader: Well I wouldn't put it like that...
 
Old school politician:  How would you put it then?

Party leader: Well, it's just out of out hands now isn't it?
   
Strategic adviser: [interjects before the old school politician can start shouting again] OK, so we've established that there's nothing we can do to accommodate your concerns about the health service, what's next ... Zero Hours Contracts?

Old school politician:  Well we should oppose them.
   
Strategic adviser:  We can't.

Old school politician:  Why on earth not?
   
Strategic adviser:  Because we didn't oppose them when we were in power, in fact we let them spread like wildfire.

Old school politician: What has that got to do with opposing them now?
   
Strategic adviser:  [adopts intensely patronising tone] Well, if we begin opposing them now, when we didn't oppose them before, that makes us look inconsistent. If the polls tell us just one thing, it's that the voters hate inconsistency.

Old school politician:  What a load of cobblers.
   
Strategic adviser:  Look we can't oppose Zero Hour Contracts because the government and the right-wing press would just accuse us of opportunism, and that's that.

Party leader:  [adopts cheerful tone, because he seems rather pleased that the old school politician is merely bubbling with unspoken rage rather than shouting] So what's next?
   
Strategic adviser: Legal loan sharks? What do you even mean by that?

Old school politician: You know, those parasitical companies that make usurious five thousand percent loans to the mentally ill, the financially illiterate, the absolutely bloody desperate... What do you call them again?

Party leader: Payday loan companies. [sense of smugness at knowing the answer] 

Old school politician:  Yes, that's them. They suck money out of the poorest communities, they donate money to the bloody government and they are so immoral they're even regulated in the United States! We should oppose them and promise to ban them.
   
Strategic adviser:  No can do!

Old school politician:  What?
   
Strategic adviser:  [adopts excruciatingly patronising tone again] We can't oppose them now because we didn't oppose them when we were in power. If we change our position now, we'll look inconsistent, we'll look like opportunists.

Old school politician:  [addressing party leader] Hark at this gibberish again. Is it not better to admit we made a mistake and do something that is morally right?

Party leader: [intake of breath, about to speak]

Strategic adviser:  [interrupts] Certainly not.

Party leader: [intejects quickly to avoid more argument on the subject] What's next on the agenda?
 
Strategic adviser: [distainfully reads out list] Workfare ... Atos ... retroactive law ... Royal Mail privatisation ... PFI ... Look here. These are all things we introduced last time we were in power! I'm getting tired of repeating myself, we can't change course now. We mustn't appear inconsistent so it's just better to keep our heads down and wait until we get back into power.

Old school politician: And then what? We'll address them when we're back in government?

Party leader: Perhaps.

Strategic adviser: [fires scornful look at party leader, in the manner of a teacher scolding a child that has stepped out of line] We can't be seen to make any such promises.

Old school politician:  So given you're refusing to actually oppose anything that the current government are doing, why should anyone vote for us?

Strategic adviser: Well, you know as well as I do that some 20% people always vote for us because they're political tribalists, enough of the rest will be impressed at the consistency of our narratives.

Old school politician:  Consistently shite they are!

Strategic adviser: [taking moral high ground] Well, you'll convince nobody with foul language.

Old school politician: Well I certainly wasn't getting through with reason was I?

Party leader: [scanning list] Well there are just a couple more items on your list, what's this about fracking? 

Old school politician: Well there the environmental case against fracking, but you should really be attacking them on their blatant conflicts of interest.
 
Party leader: well... 

Strategic adviser: [interrupts] Look the environmental case is a no go. The press would paint us as environmentalist hippies, so we can't go there, and the conflicts of interest angle is also unworkable ...

Old school politician:  Why? There's at least half a dozen of them with major interests in the fracking business they've just given a huge tax break to.

Strategic adviser: Well if we attack their conflicts of interest, then they'll attack ours.

Old school politician:  We shouldn't damn well have conflicts of interest. I don't have conflicts of interest. I don't accept corporate donations. I don't accept corporate freebies and junkets.

Strategic adviser: Well, most of your colleagues do. Nobody but you is going to vote in favour of stopping corporate donations to politicians. Turkeys don't vote for Christmas you know!

Party leader: What's this last one? Internet Censorship...

Strategic adviser: Well we can't oppose that can we?

Old school politician: [exasperated] Why not?

Strategic adviser: Because their strategists have played a blinder on that one by tying it up with rape porn and child abuse. If we oppose the introduction of internet censorship, the average Joe will think we're opposing it because we approve of porn and child abuse. Nope, it just won't wash.

Party leader: Okay, that's about it then isn't it. Thank you for raising these concerns.

Old school politician leaves the room muttering about historic party figures spinning in their graves.

Strategic adviser: I don't see why you waste your time with these dinosaurs. Can't you just deselect them and replace then with reliable people that know how to stay "on message"?

Party leader: No, not really. We can't force them out, but they're a dying breed anyway. Most of them have gone in the last 19 years, and the few that remain are getting old. Anyhow, they do still have some popular appeal with left-wing voters don't they?

Strategic adviser: How many times have I told you to forget about left-wing voters. They don't matter. They'll vote for us because they have no other alternative. They're hardly going to vote for the other two parties are they?

Party leader: I suppose not.

Strategic adviser: [laughing] I mean does he really think that people would vote for militants like him? Nobody wants their politicians banging on about ethics and integrity and social justice do they?

Party leader:  [laughing in the manner of someone that clearly doesn't understand what's funny] I suppose not.

Strategic adviser: Right, who have we got next? Oh, it's the guys from Policy Exchange. They've got some great ideas we should look at...

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How can we stop our politicians lying to us?

When it comes to political dishonesty, a great many people fall back on the old adage "How do you know if a politician is lying? - Because his lips are moving". This statement is amusing if judged as a witticism, however the folk wisdom that the joke relies on is actually rather concerning; the assumption that all politicians are uniform in their absolute dishonesty.

If intellectual laziness allows us to tar all politicians as equally and totally dishonest, it is no wonder that the public is rapidly losing faith in the political system, and apathy is setting in.

Perhaps this undermining of public faith in politics is deliberate? I mean, there is surely no easier bunch to rule than a population of desperately jaded and apathetic voters that are unwilling or unable to distinguish the differences between the main political parties. Political participation has been in decline for decades, and it would be naive to assume that this lack of participation has nothing to do with the fact that swathes of the general public feel that politicians are a bunch of self-serving liars with absolutely no interest in serving the public interest. Political participation has hit pitiful new lows in the last decade. The last two elections resulted in a men becoming Prime Minister despite mandates from significantly fewer than one in four of the electorate (Tony Blair 2005: 21.5%, David Cameron 2010: 23.5%), sandwiched between them was a man who never even won an election (Gordon Brown).

The intellectually lazy idea that all politicians are equally contemptible is easily undermined. Surely even the most rabid Tory would be more likely to take an Old Labour stalwart like Dennis Skinner at his word than a proven liar like David Cameron. And surely even the most fanatical Labour supporter must accept that a Tory like David Davis has more integrity than men like Tony Blair and Jack Straw that lied repeatedly in order to drag the country into supporting the illegal invasion and occupation of Iraq.

Some politicians are reasonably honest and straight up guys, others are rotten-to-the-core liars. It is sad that decent, hard-working politicians seem to be in such a minority these days, whilst the the majority seem to be slimy, self-serving career politicians, that would probably lie repeatedly to your face in order to justify the privatisation and lease-back of their own grandmother.

It would be great if all the dishonest, self-serving career-politician slime bags could be removed in one go, however, from a pragmatic perspective, this is phenomenally unlikely ever to happen. Even though we can't magically fix the whole political system in one bold swoop, there must be something that we can do to prevent this alarming decline in political integrity and the consequential rise in political apathy and abstentionism.

In my view we must single out the very worst offenders, and make sure that their dishonest words and actions become so well known that their name becomes usable as a synonym for dishonesty and lack of integrity. In the current government one man swims far deeper in the sewer of dishonesty than any other, the odious Iain Duncan Smith.

Iain Duncan Smith is a proven liar with a flair for hypocritical moralisation and empty bragging. Who could forget that he brazenly lied about his educational qualifications to the Tory party? Somehow, he got away with that one and was allowed to remain a Tory MP (most people get sacked when it is shown that they lied about their qualifications to their employer).

How about the fact that IDS "employed" his wife as his diary secretary on a £30,000 a year taxpayer funded salary, even though several people have claimed that she almost never made an appearance at his constituency office. For a man who has spent virtually his entire career suckling the teat of public sector finance, he's got some gall to launch an moralistic crusade against benefits claimants.

IDS and the Department of Work and Pensions he heads have been rebuked repeatedly by the UK Statistics Authority for repeated misuse of official statistics in order to spin utterly misleading narratives about the consequences of his welfare reforms. IDS has repeatedly misrepresented (or seemingly just invented) statistics to justify his moralistic crusade against the most needy people in society. To get an idea of how much of a dishonest intellectual pygmy the man is, please take a few minutes to read this demolition of the kind of intellectually lazy propaganda IDS is always spouting in defence of his harebrained schemes. In July 2013 he made the absurd defence of his repeated statistical lies with the claim that "I have a belief I am right". His stance is that stuff like facts and evidence are rendered irrelevant by the fervour of his belief; that his ignorance trumps our facts and analysis.

Another one of Iain's ludicrous justifications for his statistical lies is that they don't matter because his policies are popular. It doesn't even factor into Iain's consideration that his policies are popular because people's conceptions are based on lies. Take the Daily Mail's belated admission that they had endlessly repeated a lie concocted by Iain Duncan Smith and Grant Shapps. Take the fact that due to this misleading anti-welfare propaganda barrage, the average Brit is now so badly misinformed about welfare that they believe £24 out of every £100 spent on welfare is claimed fraudulently, when the real figure is actually only 70p. Take the fact that the more misinformed people are about welfare spending, the more likely they are to support harsh welfare reforms. Taken all together it is absolutely clear why Iain Duncan Smith continues to lie about welfare; the more lies he tells, the more public support he generates for his policies.

Iain Duncan Smith certainly seems to fit Asimov's definition
of an anti-intellectualist.

Iain Duncan Smith is also famous for his habit of empty bragging (a different form of lie to deliberate statistical misrepresentation). In April 2013 he boasted that he could easily live on £53 per week. When 478,000 people signed a petition for him to prove his claim by doing so for a year he dismissed it as a "complete stunt". Many of the people that signed the petition that he ignored probably use a rhyming expression to refer to him.

IDS isn't just dishonest, he also has other character traits that bring politics into disrepute. In November 2012 he demonstrated his contempt for the dead by shouting down a tribute to two dead disabled people with an angry and self-righteous political tirade. To anyone that recognises IDS as the callous monster that he is, perhaps the most shocking thing about it was the fact that he got a round of applause from the reactionaries in the audience. One wonders whether the audience would have politely applauded someone who had similarly interrupted a tribute to dead British soldiers with an angry political rant.

Politicians like Iain Duncan Smith must not be allowed to get away with lying to the public, and then inventing absurd justifications for their lies when they are caught out, instead of actually apologising for their dishonesty.

What we can do ...

Firstly there needs to be a lot of public pressure on the political classes to introduce a new code of conduct, where MPs that have lied to parliament (or whilst serving their official functions as government ministers) must face serious consequences. Lying politicians should be made to publicly acknowledge the fact that they lied and apologise for misleading the public and undermining public faith in politics. Then they should be made to suffer real consequences for their dishonesty, perhaps the loss of parliamentary salary and allowances for a week for first offences or minor transgressions, but with the threat of long-term or even permanent exclusion from parliament for those that repeatedly lie.

Such a code of conduct would have two important effects. Public faith in politics would be somewhat restored by the imposition of a system of punishment for politicians that lie, and politicians themselves would be incentivised to behave with more integrity, probably not because they actually believe that integrity is important, but out of the desire to preserve their self-interest (their full-salary, their public standing, their job, their political power).

Just a tiny selection of Iain Duncan Smith's lies.

Aside from calling for a new code of conduct for MPs, we must also try to single out the worst offenders. Dishonest, malicious and intellectually lazy politicians like Iain Duncan Smith must be singled out and shamed. Of course Iain's reactionary supporters will point to Tony Blair's dishonesty as an excuse for Iain Duncan Smith's, an argument that relies on two bits of shamefully lazy reasoning: Anyone criticising a Tory must by definition be a Tony Blair loving Labour supporter and that one wrong somehow excuses another.

This kind of weak-minded "whataboutery" can easily be countered with the assertion that we dislike Iain Duncan Smith, not because we are Tony Blair fanatics, but because his appalling lack of integrity is destroying public faith in politics.

Without a concerted effort to make politicians accountable for their lies, the downward spiral of dishonesty and apathy is certain to continue. We can either sit back and accept that this decline in standards is inevitable, or we can attempt to fight back by singling out the worst offenders and calling for a new code of conduct in order to enforce higher standards of integrity on our political representatives.

 Another Angry Voice  is a not-for-profit page which generates absolutely no revenue from advertising and accepts no money from corporate or political interests. The only source of revenue for  Another Angry Voice  is the  PayPal  donations box (which can be found in the right hand column, fairly near the top of the page). If you could afford to make a donation to help keep this site going, it would be massively appreciated.

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