Them and us

Spot the link between these three stories:
1. David Cameron thinks it a private matter whether he took cocaine before becoming an MP. But he does not, apparently, think charlie should be legalized.
2.  The policemen who shot Harry Stanley (crime - possession of chair leg) will not be prosecuted. In the last 12 years, 30 people have been shot dead by the police. There have been no convinctions for manslaughter or murder.
3. The government is threatening benefit claimants with the slogan: "If you're not completely honest, we'll find out." (Hat tip - Jamie). This is the government that gave us Byers, Blunkett, Campbell and Mandelson.
The link? Simple. Our rulers judge themselves by softer standards than they judge the rest of us. This is democracy?

Comments

[Paddy Carter]

1. So if you object to him being against legalisation, presumably you somehow think that having taken cocaine obligates David Cameron to be in favour of legalising the drug? If not, what are you complaining about?
2. perhaps there should have been some prosecutions for manslaughter, but clearly when it comes to "judging" armed police whose job involves having to decide whether to shoot people, some accomodation must be made for the posibility of mistakes. And do you know how many of the 30 people killed by police were killed in error?
3. So you think that the existence of dishonest politicians obligates the state to take no action against people who make fraudulent benefit claims at the expense of tax payers?

Is the average politician more dishonest, and more prone the trying to get away with it, than the average person? Do you have to be a shit to get to the top? What does that say about all of us, who allow them to get there? Yes, this is democracy. Or did you imagine that democracy would somehow include the ability to ensure 100% unimpeachable conduct by MPs?

[Dr. angry economist]

So power corrupts? Nothing much has changed in 6,000 years or so of recorded civilisation, then?

My thought is that politicians think they know what's best for us, that often isn't based on a realistic appraisal of us... or themselves. So occasionally they make an arse of things in their private or public lives that don't sit comfortably with their policy positions.

And we, as democratic voters are unrealistic in our expectations of people in elected office, and as human beings.

That's why the most decent people are drawn to careers in... economics!

[Paul Davies]

It's been said a thousand times before, but we do pretty much get the politicians we deserve. If anything, your average politician is probably a lot more honourable than your average man on the street, although this is obviously a moot point.

[Jake]

I tend to agree with Paul. I think, in the large part our politicians are no less honest than Joe Public.

In fact, you could point to those examples of Mandleson, Campbell, Byers and Blunkett to argue the reverse. Namely, that we hold our public figures to much higher standards than we would do ourselves. Rather as if we appointed them as moral as well as political leaders.

Particularly your first point - I don't see why using cocaine in your past and opposing the legalisation of drugs is a contradictory position to hold. It is not obviously coherent, I grant you, but you could take the individual private decision to use drugs, on the basis of a risk / pleasure analysis but still believe the cost v.s. benefits at the macro level suggest it should be illegal.

Love the blog though - I couldn't say that at the beginning of the comment, it would make it look like spam.

[dsquared]

unfortunately, we also tend to get the economists we deserve.

[dsquared]

unfortunately, we also tend to get the economists we deserve.

[Rob Read]

The policemen who shot Harry Stanley shot a man pointing a wrapped plastic bag at them, refusing to put it down. At the time contents were unknown, perhaps it was a case of suicide by proxy, the proxy in this case being the police.

I'm amazed they didn't pop him sooner.

The welfare state is an encouragement to be dishonest, it's no suprise that our MPs are as dishonest as the rest of society, but keeping the dishonesty engine fueled doesn't help.

[Backword Dave]

Well, I thought it was a wonderfully succinct post, Chris.

And I think I agree with all three points. I'm at a loss how Cameron can *not* want Charlie legalised. He doesn't seem to have said anything about his hot youth, or how he was lured into drug dens, or whatever. He hasn't said that he regrets it. Thus, it seems to me, he is asserting that he wants to lock others up for something he did himself. And he can admit to having done it with impunity. I think, on the whole, I prefer George Bush, who at least changed his mind on the subject.

Everyone who's commented on point 2 has concentrated on the first sentence. I agree that the Harry Stanley case isn't the strongest example of what I take to be Chris's point. 30 in 12 years seems like a lot.

Paddy, Chris did not say, nor imply "that the existence of dishonest politicians obligates the state to take no action against people who make fraudulent benefit claims at the expense of tax payers." What he objected to was the phrase, "If you're not completely honest". Normally, "completely" would be redundant. Claude Rains' policeman in "Casablanca" may be a good policeman, with the interests of the citizenry at heart, but he's not completely honest, and therefore not honest. Blunkett may be honest in most senses of the word: generally law-abiding and forthright, and so on. The irritating part of the slogan is the onus of perfection on the part of claimants.

It's a bit like tax. If they make a mistake, it's a mistake. If you do, it's fraud. Of course they cost money got from tax-payers (I regard it as moot whether it is at that point, tax-payers' money). So do Ministers. I'm a "power corrupts" believer myself. And I don't believe anyone got to the top in politics by pure brain power and decency. Ego, preferably made of steel coated in Teflon, and a curious ignorance of one's faults, and a willingness to brown nose and step on people (not at the same time) help a great deal. The best politicians aren't the most honest; they've just taken more care burying the bodies.

[Phil]

Rob:
"The policemen who shot Harry Stanley shot a man pointing a wrapped plastic bag at them, refusing to put it down. At the time contents were unknown"

Er, no. The policemen who shot Harry Stanley believed he was carrying a shotgun; there had been a 999 call to that effect. They approached him from behind and issued a warning. Being, as he was, a man walking home from the pub with a chair leg in a bag, he had no reason to suppose they were shouting at him and didn't stop. The police then repeated the warning; at that point Stanley appears to have stopped and begun to turn round. While he was turning, the police appear to have 'popped' him, as you amusingly put it.

Someone, I think, blundered, and it wasn't Harry Stanley.

[Backword Dave]

Oops. Re-read my comment, as I should have done after previewing and deciding that I could add more. The "they" in "Of course they cost money ... " refers to claimants.

Phil, good point. In this country, as I recall, we like to try our criminals before passing judgement. The criminals (or suspected criminals) preferences don't enter into this. As Paul Simonon so eloquently put it (The Guns of Brixton, London Calling, 1980), "When the law break in/How you gonna go/Shot down on the pavement/Or waiting on Death Row." (Mr Simonon, poor uneducated minion of the rock star class, seems to have been unaware that execution was abolished fifteen years earlier.) I'm sure "shot down on the pavement" appeals to the morbid fancies of your aspiring thug. Since when was it the function of the police to answer their prayers?

[John East]

The comment, in response to the police being given a free reign to murder innocent civilians, "clearly when it comes to "judging" armed police whose job involves having to decide whether to shoot people, some accomodation must be made for the posibility of mistakes." is a load of piffle.
Views like this allow police to continue flouting the law, be it speeding (remember the policeman who was "testing" his new car at something like 130+mph recently), or be it literally get away with murder.
Might I suggest two possibilites. First, at the very least, a totally independant investigation of such cases Second, take a lot more of them for trial. If, "some accommodation must be made..." the courts are perfectly able to do this.

[Paddy Carter]

Backword, I'd missed that point 3. was in fact a comment on an objectionable form of language, thanks for setting me straight.
John East, I do not read the phrase "some accomodation made for the possibility of error" as equating to "being given a free reign to murder innocent citizens".

[dearieme]

It's remarkable that police shootings are treated with such understanding of the difficult positions that they find themselves in, but that that chappie Martin wasn't.

[Mark T]

Harry Stanley may not be the best example, but how about the far more prosaic one of the head of the traffic police travelling at 90mph on the North Circular becasue he was late for a meeting?