Chris Huhne in a breathtaking piece of hubris.
The truth is, politicians are no more venal or self-serving than people outside politics, and often far more high-minded. (Anyone who wants to make money should go into business. You lose money in politics.) But there is something intrinsic to the process of politics that kindles distrust. Politics is about brokering compromises to resolve conflict. Inevitably, everyone ends up settling for something less than they wanted or even thought was essential and principled: people are disappointed. The people who disappoint them are their politicians. It is not ultimately a recipe for trust or popularity. But how else can societies set their priorities, and make choices? Politics matters.
Ultimately, the new media aggression is not just a problem for those individuals directly affected, it is a problem for us all. Media ownership must be more diverse because it is the lifeblood of public debate. If competition policy is not enough, then we should have statutory limitations or even help for small media outfits (as other countries do). It is not only votes that make a democracy, but voices too.
It’s all the media’s fault. Well, I hold no brief for the media, ’tis true, but if Huhne and his fellow troughers didn’t lie, steal, cheat and generally misbehave, there wouldn’t be anything for the media to report on, would there? And, of course, when the media do expose their bad behaviour, they are actually doing what they are supposed to be doing – reporting news that is in the public interest, and Mr Huhne’s behaviour was definitely in the public interest. So, no, it is not the media responsible for the mistrust we have in politicians, it is the politicians and the politicians alone who are to blame.
Nice try, though.
Interesting, the quirks of our language… I’d say Huhne’s behaviour was most definitely not in the public interest, though definitely a matter of interest to the public! 🙂
That he was a lawmaker and guilty of a criminal offence was definitely in the public interest.
You left out that he was not just a lawmaker, but also a mealy-mouthed mendacious equivocating twat – allegedly, I hasten to add, in case some lowlife brief (is there any other sort?) reads Longrider…
There’s only one word there which has not been proven true in court. The rest are not alleged 🙂
He could give Blair a run for his money in terms of self-serving treacherous two-facedness and that’s saying something. The old saying “he’d sell his own grandmother” sums it up pretty well.
It’d be nice to see him eventually on trial for the massive fraud he committed in the name of UK energy policy, with the punishment including living the rest of his life with no electricity or gas and a huge noisy ineffective windmill erected in his own back garden blocking all sunlight into his home.
Fuck you Huhne, and the horse you rode in on
I must have been nearly as stunned as you when I heard this – he (in common with so many others of his ilk) just doesn’t get how little regard the rest of us have for him and his lying. On a side issue, when he got sent down I wrote the BBC asking them not to wheel him out as an expert upon his release like they did for Aitken, Archer and others who have no merit and are only notorious for having been caught red-handed and having to give up the political gravy train. I don’t wish to hear another peep from any of these scum, let alone be paying to hear it.