Stupidity: the new politics.....

The sacking of the Head of the IRS in the US got some cursory coverage here, but it did get me thinking about probably the most consistent thing in politics – stupidity. What made the IRS, a major organ of State, think that it had a role in stitching-up right wing political groups and how did they imagine they could possibly get away with it?

 

In recent years we have had political stupidity in spades, and it has cost countless thousands of lives.

 

At the beginning of 2003 in Jamaica, one of the locals asked me if the West was really serious about going to war. I assured him that it was all a bluff because there was no clear and present danger to the US and Europe. Why would we be stupid enough to get mired in the desert in a war against the only non-Islamic country in the region, opening the way to an actively hostile nationalist regime and putting ourselves in the cross-hairs of terrorism?

 

The same with Afghanistan.

 

I expected the Americans to take about 3 weeks to bomb the hell out of Al Qaeda, and push off once they had scarpered to the Yemen, Somalia and other insanitary regions of nowhere. It was beyond comprehension that our leaders would then engage in an unwinnable war against the Taliban, who had done us no harm.

 

Had these imbeciles not studied the Russian experience? Had they no knowledge of the massacres suffered by the British whenever they indulged in a cross-border adventure during the Raj? Had they not read ‘The Great Game’?

 

(Of course, there is nothing new in this? How did the leaders of Europe in 1914 come to stumble almost by accident into WW1? And once in, how come they allowed it to continue for four more years, almost wiping out European civilization in the process when it was obvious by 1915 that this first ‘industrial’ war would slaughter millions? And why did they then set out to ruin Germany at Versailles? Winston Churchill said at the time that they had just started WW2).

 

At least until recently, the one saving grace is that almost all politicians had experience outside politics. I believe it was the Blair administration that was the first Commons not to have had a war-veteran in it. In fact being an MP was almost a part-time job until Blair came along and created the abysmal ‘professional’ politician that we now know and despise.

 

Let’s have a look at the CVs of our latest crop.

 

Cameron: Scottish aristocrat descended from William IV on the wrong side of the blanket; wealthy family; Eton, Oxford, Tory Party, Parliament. That’s it!

 

Osborne: Irish aristocracy; public school; Oxford; Tory Party; Parliament.  Not much difference there, then!

 

Miliband: wealthy North London Jewish-Marxist family; comprehensive school; 1 year as a researcher for C4 News; Labour Party; Parliament. Life experience – imperceptible.

 

Clegg: wealthy banking family; public school; Cambridge; 1 year working for lobbying firm that represented Gaddafi; 5 years Eurocrat, MEP, Parliament. Earned scarcely a penny except from the public purse.

 

It’s hardly surprising, then, that our masters waste expensive Parliamentary time debating the Royal succession, which hopefully will not kick-in for another 50 years or so; ‘gay’ marriage, an oxymoron if ever there was; and, when the books won’t balance, increasing the foreign aid budget by 30%, laying-off 10,000 trained soldiers,  and at the same time taking on 5000 raw recruits.

 

I rest my case.