The most successful lies are those that hinge on the tiniest of truths.
Regrettably, our current political class knows and understands this only too well.
It has sold itself continually on virtues and commitments that basically don’t exist.
Such promises have become the political charlatan’s get out of jail free card at its absolute worst. And as we see and experience Boris Johnson pulling just about every white rabbit possible in order to survive as PM, the cynical use of sops to address what are growing and highly destructive societal problems are only being outshone by the reality that none of our politicians understand what is actually going on.
In fact, so out-of-touch with the realities we all face are those who preach their vision and abilities in ways that suggest they are the only ones capable of ‘getting things done’, that the so-called solutions that they release to the world with ever greater fanfare don’t even scratch the surface. That is where dealing with the realities of cause, rather than effects are concerned.
Sadly, too many of us are unaware that politics in the UK is now all about doing and being able to continue doing the politics itself.
Politics is the end, rather than the means. This is why we have so many big ideas and projects being thrown around in the media that usually come with a substantial financial cost. But then don’t ever seem to work out or deal with the issues the way they were supposed to.
This week will apparently see the push to protect and sure up Boris’ tenure move in the direction of ‘smaller government’. Such a policy is of course ridiculously ironic, given the massive theft of freedom that two years of Johnsonian Covid Measures have effectively imposed upon us all.
Just in sense of the step back from the way that government and the public sector has behaved and treated people since March 2020 could see the end of Covid Measures in the next few weeks qualify and therefore spun as the delivery of a smaller state.
In terms of the miniscule truths that these incompetent leaders need present within a story to gain public acceptance that what they are doing is ‘true’, it is sadly the case that this in itself would be enough to make the lie work.
Yet the idea of a smaller state, where government and public service provision simply isn’t as big or doesn’t have the reach that it does now, is in itself a very good one. That is, if it were to be the consequence of well-intended policy implementation, rather than the defined and intended result.
This is because as with most things that relate to the ideas that drive this Government and the political class and establishment that sits behind it, there is always a much bigger self-serving philosophy or way of thinking involved.
Now, at a time of national crisis where the Tories default setting is to prioritise the problems being experienced by Boris, the lack of understanding and competence that these wannabies have is making them reach ever further into contents of a rotten suggestions tin.
That battered, rusty and hole-ridden tin is of course the one called Neoliberalism. One that has market freedoms and catastrophic practices like FIAT money and money printing at its root.
Those behind this drive have used every part of government to sure up the messes they had already made when the arrival of the Covid Virus threatened to tear their playhouse down. Yet they now want to push even harder to put everything and everyone at the mercy of big money and market forces. All the time paying nothing but lip service to what those who understand government would see as a happy consequence of genuine public sector reform.
What we are likely to see, if ‘delivering smaller government’ should turn out to be any more than words, will be the slashing of budgets, the closure of departments and perhaps even entire organisations.
Any real responsibilities will be palmed off or redefined, so that the mechanics of any practical or operational changes that come as a result of this further meddling will just become someone else’s problem and part of someone else’s job.
The march towards the systemic collapse that years of political meddling and mismanagement have created is not a practice that is restricted to Conservative Governments alone.
Indeed the last Labour Government between 1997 and 2010 created a seedbed of policy and public sector problems that have been coming into full bloom for years now, that makes the hypocrisy of Labour front bench ‘solutions’ to the problems that the Johnson Tories are out of touch with, significantly worse.
None of the politicians we have sitting as MPs, representing the Political Parties in Westminster have the commitment, desire or wherewithal to deal with the real issues that we face across the public sector, or indeed any of the problems faced where services for the public good are concerned.
In fact, they live in a permanent state of fear over the realities demanded of any politician who is prepared to face up and do all that is necessary to deliver bottom to top reform.
Only by dealing with the systemic issues – which are about people and they way they think, and cannot be addressed with new rules, new jobs or new structures of any kind – will any government legitimately deliver a genuine and realistic ‘smaller government’ in a practical and meaningful form.
We really are damned for as long as this political class continues to have entry to Parliament barred to any politician who really cares about the people they represent and has the leadership skills to deal with the turmoil these idiots have created that now lies ominously in store.
Until the time arrives when we have and can enjoy the benefits from what will be a genuinely representative government, our future will continue to be defined, corrupted and destroyed by the use of clever words that are unaccompanied by real and the purposeful action. Action that will be necessary at every step of the way if we are ever to have a fully fair and balanced way of being for everyone across the UK.
Adam Tugwell 