I don’t believe it

I try not to be political and normally I could be classed in the neutral to apathetic group of voters often feeling any vote I cast is unlikely to make any real difference whatever my beliefs and convictions. Yes I have written about transphobia and how there is a deliberate push by our present government to promote culture wars, in which they are succeeding, and which allows them to get on with all sorts of mayhem undercover.

However, what has got me really riled is the complete contempt for the electorate which has been everywhere over the last few weeks culminating in the unbelievable denials and obfuscations of what has quite obviously happened, albeit a year ago. The audacity of the Prime Minister just saying effectively at first that there was no party and then that if there was no rules were broken and that “he had satisfied himself” until in the end they set up an enquiry to see if there had been a party and if so what occurred. Everyone knows there was a party. The Prime Minister’s leading press guy has admitted he was there and offered his resignation which was refused by the Prime Minister, yet still we are having an investigation to see whether there was a party as alleged!

It is the fact that somehow those in power think everyone is so stupid that if they say something often enough as a fact we will believe it, accept it. In a way what has made all this so much worse for me is the was so many Ministers in the Government, both senior and junior, have been wheeled out to support the indefensible, repeating parrot fashion that we don’t know there was a party let us wait and see what the investigation uncovers yackety yack. Amazingly one of these was the Deputy Prime Minister, the Minister for Justice, who completely straight faced said “retrospective crimes are not normally investigated” when asked to comment on the Metropolitan’s reluctance (refusal) to investigate breaches of lock down regulations. Do they not hear what they are saying? All crimes are retrospective or else they haven’t been committed. He is a qualified lawyer, Minister for Justice………….

Why am I so wound up about this?  I think it is that because it has dragged on for so long and the Prime Minister and his acolytes keep repeating the untenable which makes me feel that they truly believe there is one rule for them and one for everybody else, that they really hold everyone else in contempt and they really believe they can do whatever they want which includes dismantling various levers that protect democracy, The Policing and Borders Bill currently going through Parliament almost under the radar because of all this other nonsense that is attracting all the attention. I am not one for conspiracy theories but is all this nonsense (which could have been killed by a frank admission of yes there was a party, it broke the rules, there are consequences…telling the truth) a diversionary tactic.

Of course I am naïve expecting our politicians to behave honourably and in the interest of the citizens they have been elected to represent, but this is not just a one-off, it seems to have reached a whole new level of hypocrisy and distortion on an on-going basis. Basically I find it so hard to believe that this is the state of politics in this country. I wish I could invoke the spirit of Victor Meldrew and say  “I don’t believe it”, sadly that is not so.