MAIL COMMENT: This widening chasm between us and them

13 April 2012

They still don't get it, do they?

Gaffe: Junior Transport Minister Tom Harris said Britons should stop being 'so bloody miserable'

Gaffe: Junior Transport Minister Tom Harris said Britons should stop being 'so bloody miserable'

Even when their reputation is at rock-bottom, even when they are so distrusted, our politicians go on showing how arrogant, out of touch and complacent they are.

Take this week's bizarre outburst from junior Transport Minister Tom Harris, who in the midst of the worst economic outlook in decades told millions of hard-pressed families that they should stop being 'so bloody miserable'.

No matter that prices are up, taxes are up, inflation is up and unemployment is up. No matter that the house they saved so hard to afford is down in value. Even tougher times are ahead, with the cost of food, gas, and electricity going through the roof.

Mr Harris brushed all that aside and insisted we've never had it so good.

Outrageously insensitive? You bet. But then, unlike most of his constituents, he can afford to take the sunny view.

Though only a pipsqueak junior minister, he enjoys a salary of £92,100. On top of that, he claimed £153,862 in expenses last year. So he is comfortably insulated from the problems that beset most voters.

And there's the rub. Mr Harris may have apologised, but wasn't his clodhopping intervention another example of the chasm between rulers and the ruled?

Consider the way MPs seek to duck the restraints that apply elsewhere in the public sector. With Britain mired in such economic uncertainty, the Government is desperate to keep wages under control. Some low-paid workers have agreed pay deals of not much more than 2 per cent.

But Parliamentarians? Senior MPs in all parties are pressing for a whacking 21 per cent pay increase  -  this on top of their bloated expenses and the gold-plated pensions (subsidised by the taxpayer, naturally) they have awarded themselves.

And such snout-in-the-trough greed doesn't end there. This week, the Commons Standards and Privileges Committee censured Tory MPs Sir Nicholas Winterton and his wife Anne for 'inappropriately' claiming £66,000 in housing expenses. But astonishingly, they won't have to repay a penny.

In any commercial firm, an employee sailing so close to the wind would face the sack. But the ordinary rules don't seem to apply to politicians, either at Westminster or in the even sleazier European parliament.

The crude innuendoes should stop now

And what about the shameful dishonesty of MPs on policy issues, too?

All parties promised a referendum on the European constitution, but this week the Government (with the grubby complicity of the LibDems) finally ratted on that pledge by shoehorning through ratification of the Lisbon Treaty, without allowing voters a say.

Perhaps it's no wonder David Davis has struck a resounding chord with the public by forcing a by-election on an issue of principle. True, critics have accused him of petulant posturing, but at least it's a breath of fresh air when a top politician fights so passionately  -  if quixotically  -  for what he believes in.

But that brings us to perhaps the nastiest element of an unedifying week for our ruling class: the crude innuendoes by Culture Secretary Andy Burnham seeming to suggest something inappropriate between Mr Davis and civil liberties chief Shami Chakrabarti.

How Labour hates any opposition. How quickly it resorts to smears. We grew used to such vicious tactics under Blair. Shouldn't Gordon Brown, with his 'moral compass', ensure such poison stops now?

Indeed, perhaps every party leader should take stock.

They are heirs to a great democratic tradition. How much longer do they think it will last if some of their their followers behave so contemptibly, while voters grow ever more disillusioned?

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