The Guardian sent a list of questions to Ray Lewis, deputy Mayor of London. The most damaging question asked him why he had been dismissed as a church minister in 1999. As a result of these questions, and the fact that he then falsely claimed to be a magistrate, Lewis resigned. (Lewis had been approved for appointment as a magistrate, but he had never taken up a post.)
It is very reminiscent of the period before the Mayoral election, when the Evening Standard was running stories about ex-Mayor Ken Livingstone's policy advisor, Lee Jasper. Jasper was also eventually forced to resign, but politically it was too late, and Livingstone went on to lose the election.
I always supported the Standard's scrutiny of Lee Jasper, as I believe it is important for public officials to be held accountable. However, some people on the left saw a conspiracy against Livingstone by the Standard. In this version of events, the evil capitalist Evening Standard brainwashed the defenceless working class. As a result, the workers elected a right-wing mayor, even though a left-wing mayor would have served their interests better.
I support the Guardian's scrutiny of Lewis, for the same reason I supported the Standard's scrutiny of Jasper. However, I would like to know whether the people who opposed the scrutiny of Jasper will now oppose the scrutiny of Lewis. In other words, is Livingstone allowed to shelter behind socialist conspiracy stories in a way that the new mayor, Boris Johnson, is not?
If socialists are genuine about their wish to help the working class, they have to credit working people with the ability to form independent opinions. It is insulting to suggest that they are brainwashed by the Standard, when in reality they simply find the case for socialism unconvincing.
I think this is a problem for socialism in general. Socialism may use the language of empowerment, but power-hungry socialist politicians just want control over people's lives. In the minds of these politicians, people's lives would be so much better if they lived them in a certain way. Unfortunately, these people are not the mindless proles they read about in Marxism for Dummies, they are human beings with their own priorities for their lives. When the politicians find their patronising offers of help rejected, things start to get more coercive.
If society became socialist enough, we would need Soviet-style coercion to stop people opting out and just living the kinds of lives they want to live. However, even the luke-warm socialism of Blair shows the beginnings of this authoritarianism:
- Blair created academy schools, but parents didn't want them. The government could have changed the programme, to create the kinds of schools that parents and children wanted. Instead, they closed the other local schools, and since school attendance is required by law, people had no choice but to use the academies.
The theory is that state education is about empowerment. The reality is that it has been taken over by socialist do-gooders, who have built the system they think people ought to want. (To add insult to injury, these people often then send their own children to private schools.) - The government decided to create a national system for medical records. No one asked for this. Doctors say it isn't necessary, and patients don't want it because it is insecure. We can only assume that it is another socialist project, introduced because someone in government thought it was a good idea, rather than because ordinary people wanted it.
Initially the government was going to place everyone's records on the system, regardless of any objections they might have. The compromise was that people could explicitly object, and their records would not then be transferred. But as with the academies, no one who used the health service was asking for this system. Instead of the health service providing the health care we want, it is now about providing the health care that government do-gooders think we ought to want.
2 comments:
We also have socialism for the rich in which they get their write-off their extravagant malinvestments on the poor or middle class. Kind of like global warming spokespeople who then fly their own private jets to events and heat their mega-mansions with lots of light bulbs.
Hi Theresa,
Yes I agree. A lot of people call themselves right wing when they are really corporatist. Although I would call myself right wing, that's certainly not what I want.
I want a free market where people compete on merit. I don't want a system where you can only compete if you went to school with the Prime Minister's friend. I don't want a system where the government hands taxpayers' money to favoured industries and companies.
It follows that I don't want the bank bailout. It seems to me that if a bank runs out of money, the first step is to get it into the bankruptcy process, so the shareholders can see that their money is gone. Once that has happened, the remains of the bank could be sold, which would involve the creditors taking a hit. (One creditor would be the government, as it guarantees retail deposits in banks up to £50,000.)
If there was no buyer, the government might have to take the bank over. If they didn't, a lot of the bank's customers would go bust, as their loans were called in. On the other hand, by doing it this way, the government would not have to pay for the privilege of taking over a dud bank. They could say that they would pay the bank's creditors 50p in the pound, and because there were no other potential buyers, the administrators would have no choice but to accept this offer.
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