Surely we’re owed prudent politics? (From Stourbridge News)

Surely we’re owed prudent politics?

1:18pm Thursday 26th November 2009

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FOR over three decades now I have witnessed misguided politics on a grand scale and feel that so much time has been lost.

We seem to have become obsessed and preoccupied with the so-called ‘war on terror’ but in my opinion this very socially constructed concept has well and truly reinforced and exacerbated the problem instead of bringing a definitive cessation to hostilities.

When politics relies on war and invasion this itself represents a failing and this loss is magnified once fighting takes place.

The Afghanistan war is folly and both the tribal rebel factions and the terrorists they accommodate must be laughing their socks off as they stimulate Blair and now Brown into sending soldiers into their difficult terrain and ambush territory.

As Britain is seen as aggressors and poor strategists, as evidenced by the number of troops sent and the deaths of many soldiers, many wives and parents are experiencing pain and must wonder why such a huge sacrifice – the loss of a loved one.

This week it was Remembrance Day, a day of thought and deference for the fallen and survivors of the World Wars but I couldn’t help thinking that we had let them down badly by electing for more war and bloodshed namely the Falklands, Iraq and Afghanistan.

War is not a wise man’s pursuit in any context.

If we look at economic governance I do believe a great failing has not been to apply retrenchment to the public sector at a time when globalisation and fierce competition have brought much hardship and restriction to workers in the private sector whether they be middle class posts or traditional manual jobs.

Where I think it is difficult to hold the government culpable in the economic sphere is the bank debacle – the agents of finance recklessly bankrupting the banks and financiers overriding market forces trumping up house prices.

Economic governance I believe will always have to be decentralised with a plurality of market players participating and difficult to oversee and regulate.

We really have to trust these agents with a constant reminder to the superiors to self regulate.

Where we can show disgust is the practice of MPs morally and legally defrauding the taxpayer of his tax contributions and the way punishment is meted out.

If you are an MP dishonesty claiming your mere quarter of the quantum claimed but if you are a working class ordinary citizen your name appears in the press as a court defendant and you are ordered to repay the illegal gains in full.

This MP fiasco has totally undermined democracy and the legal system.

Recently, a former postman now government minister has overrided sound academic advice on the categorisation and harm properties of drugs thus another signifier of misguided politics.

Surely the British people are owed a politics of prudence, honesty and peace, and to be represented by selfless political agents. I cannot see this happening, can you?

Peter A Goring Stourbridge

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