Straw And Rifkind Defend The Indefensible

Jack Straw and Malcolm Rifkind have been defending their corruption and money-grubbing today, both telling us that they've done nothing "improper". While Jack Straw was recorded in an undercover press sting informing us that he "works under the radar" to influence policy decisions that favour the rich, greedy and immoral, Malcolm Rifkind was telling us that his working day in Parliament is only 75% of what we pay him for. "You'd be surprised how much spare time I have," he told the reporters. "I spend much of my time reading books and walking." Both men admit that they can earn between five to eight thousand pounds per half-day for selling their "influence" and seem amazed that taxpayers might object to paying these clowns 100% wages for 75% effort. We shouldn't be surprised though. Corruption is so widespread in Westminster that a reporter cannot throw a rock without hitting a crook. We have had years of "accidental" expense scams, tax-dodging, bribe-taking, law-breaking and scrounging off state funds from MP's and so-called Peers of the Realm. This is how the British political system works. A bunch of spivs, confidence tricksters and petty criminals tell us lies about their sense of "public duty", we vote them in hoping against hope that maybe they mean it and they then plunder the public purse while bleating about how they don't get the respect they deserve. Respect? They are thieves, pure and simple, scroungers, albeit very talented ones, two-faced crooks with all the moral fibre of a dead whelk. Yet no sense of shame, no inkling that what they are doing is wrong can be discerned as they strive manfully to defend their nasty little scams. Commentators often ask why the electorate seem so apathetic. How can they be expected to be enthusiastic about this continuing tale of corruption or about the unedifying spectacle of MP's fighting to get their greedy snouts in the trough? What is the point of voting when the choice is between one petty criminal or another?