Scepticism can be Justified

Does anyone trust politicians? Of course not! But is our distrust being directed at the wrong people? Possibly. Not only do I distrust politicians, I now distrust the political process.

My reasons have nothing to do with duck islands in clean moats or about ‘flipping’ a second home or two. It’s something more basic: something to do with the fact that politicians are responsible for the business of good government, a ‘something’ that they increasingly forget.
But before I go any further I want you bear in mind that the Dutch have just made Geert Wilders an important man in Dutch politics, and sometimes it’s all about who gets elected.

Do you remember why ‘we’ were sent to make war on the Iraqis? Well, Bush ‘The Idiot’, Dick ‘The Cheney’ and Blair ‘The Christian’ wrongly believed, but couldn’t prove, that Sadam ‘The Retard’ had weapons of mass destruction (WMD). Neither could they prove that he had any links to Osama ‘Slayer of Infidels’ Bin Laden, and anyone else who happened to be in the way.

Let loose in Afghanistan to avenge the horror and ignominy of 9/11, the Americans captured an important freedom fighter called Abu Zubaydah. ‘Abu’ they asked. ‘Can you help us with the truth of the situation as we see it?’ and proceeded to interrogate him about the whereabouts of Sadam’s WMD, and about his links with Bin Laden. He shook his head twice. Those two shakes meant ‘No, he hasn’t got any WMDs’ and ‘No. He does not have links to Bin Laden, God forbid’, which truthfully answered both questions.

But then he made a mistake. An unnecessary third shake of his head – brought on by incredulity at the ignorance of his interrogators, probably - suggested he wasn’t cooperating fully. So they water-boarded him 83 times. Guess what? As he came up for air for the 82rd time he spluttered ‘yes, yes’, or something similar, which confirmed everything they didn’t need to know, and then they did it one more time, for luck.

Well-pleased with the result for completely the wrong reasons, Bush and Cheney legalised the use of torture by secretly suspending the Geneva conventions for the treatment of prisoners, as it affected America, and we set about invading Iraq with clear consciences.

In spite of all this being known and provable, neither Bush, Cheney or Tony Blair, is in gaol. Nor is there any sign that they will ever go to gaol. Having abandoned the business of good government, Bush and Cheney followed an ego-driven path by trying to make history-on-the-hoof, which is a rather Satanic way of making it. America’s reputation went into free-fall, closely followed by the economy.

Plus, less we forget, in spite of their lamentable records and failures, Bush and Blair were both re-elected. In the end, Blair, still unable to admit that the invasion of Iraq was a dreadful error, had to be prised out of Britain’s parliament by his colleagues carrying crowbars. Meanwhile Britain’s reputation for being mere pawns of the Americans had gone global. Interestingly, in a fit of pique or contrition, Blair changed his religion to the one that allows you to apologise officially to God. Who knows, he might become the next pope!

And my distrust of politicians has got nothing to do with the husband of a British minister putting two rented porn videos on her expenses sheet. When you get older it’s nice to spice up your love life and silly to row about who’s going to pay for the necessary stimuli. But speaking of politicians and stimuli, and especially about electorates re-electing unprincipled and untrustworthy politicians, let’s now focus on Italy’s Silvio Berlusconi.

What on earth drives this man and why isn’t he in gaol? I don’t believe that the concept of good government ever crossed Berlusconi’s mind. This three-time Prime Minister of Italy, less we forget, has been convicted three times for corruption and has been sentenced to two years in the slammer. He’s been found guilty of making illegal payments to Italy’s Socialist Party, including giving $12 million to Bettino Craxi to pay his expenses. Craxi was found guilty of receiving and in spite of having fled to Tunisia, was sentenced to four years in absentia.

Silvio’s two-year sentence was his third prison sentence in seven months, none of which are likely to be served. Tax fraud was one offence; bribing tax inspectors the other. Since he came back to power – one assumes the Italians keep re-electing him in the fond hope that, like Mussolini, he’s going to make the trains run on time - he’s steered laws through the Italian parliament that make the four most senior office holders in Italy immune from prosecution, which includes the office of Prime Minister, obviously.

This is helpful because a judge has recently had the temerity to suggest that Prime Minister Berlusconi’s lawyer had lied in court to protect him. This isn’t about silly porn film flimflam. There’s real meat to this story, and once again it involves the husband of Tessa Jowell, a former, fully-fledged British minister. (Where do these high-powered women find these guys? I must be using the wrong wine bars.) David Mills, he’s a, er, tax lawyer and now the former minister’s estranged husband, has been found guilty of taking a £400.000 bribe from Berlusconi, who denies having paid it.

Personally, I don’t understand why he’s bothering to deny it. He’s immune from prosecution. He’s an old man, and a spell in prison ought to be a nice break from the hassle of trying to make sense out of running Italy. Meanwhile, his wife has gone ape-shit. She seems to think that her ability to stimulate him has been out-sourced to an eighteen-year old blond. None of this seems to concern the majority of the Italian electorate. In the meantime, Italy’s reputation…Let’s not even go there.

The question I would like to pose is, do the majority of Italians even want their politicians to be interested in the business of good government?’ Did the Americans when they re-elected Bush? Did the British when they re-elected Blair? If the answer is no, no and no, then there’s something wrong with the political process.

I know it’s heresy but not only do I distrust politicians, I am sceptical about electorates and the choices they make. Geert Wilders? The British National Party? Who or whatever is next?