The big news story over the last couple of weeks or so has, of course, revolved around not so honourable members of parliament caught with their hands in the public till and the general and predictable melt-down of the Brown government. Many thousands of words have been written on this subject by professionals and amateurs alike so nobody really needs my contribution. But I am going to give it anyway and it was prompted by visiting the BBC news website this morning only to find that for a change politics was not the main story. Swine flu has made a comeback as the lead.

I found the whole media frenzy over MP’s expenses to be both indicative of what is rotten in UK politics but at the same time found the public outrage to be somewhat hypocritical. Fiddling expense claims and trying to reduce income tax liability have long been considered an English sport from the hiring of advisers and accountants by the wealthy to the loading of overtime by the rank and file. Who can honestly say that at no time in their working life have they claimed a dubious expense, put in an overtime claim for work they did not do or even stolen a pencil from the stationery cupboard? A matter of degree perhaps but it is the same form of corruption. The difference, of course, is being found out so we can all sit sanctimoniously back and point an accusing finger while conveniently forgetting our own small victories against our employer or the tax man.

What was of real interest while these revelations were being published, was the frenzied reaction of various politicians. For a while there, many of them exposed our democracy for the sham it really is. Suddenly we were being very publicly told what is fundamentally wrong with our system of politics – an inherently corrupt system that so favours the government of the day that any election victor will automatically choose to maintain the status quo. In particular there were sudden placatory calls for alternative voting systems; for an ending of the ‘whip’; for back-benchers to have more say in law and policy making and for fixed term parliaments.

All of these proposals, calls for which have recently come from all shades of the political spectrum, would greatly enhance true democracy in the UK. A voting system that allows a government to be formed without a majority of nationwide votes is by it’s nature suspect. The whipping system that keeps MP’s in line with party policy has nothing whatsoever to do with representation of their electorate or with the convictions that drove them into politics in the first place. Fixed term parliaments would remove the advantage a sitting Prime Minister has to call an election based on current public opinion. And giving the majority of those who call themselves the nations representatives the actual tools they need to represent us could be the one, single act that could change our form of governance for ever and for the better. I suspect that the majority of our population do not fully understand the difference between ‘government’ and ‘parliament’ which is the way any incumbent government like it – but over the last couple of weeks, if they were listening properly, they should have found out.

There is, I believe, very little likelihood of real change. The route from being an earnest and honourable candidate, through to a back-bencher drone making up the voting numbers, on to a junior minister, a cabinet member and finally Prime Minister is littered with compromise and an acceptance that without those very undemocratic processes at play life for a government would not be so easy.

And yesterday signalled quite clearly that we were back to business as usual. Gordon Brown announced a placebo enquiry into our voting and electoral system while another Labour party spokesman made it clear that any referendum on the subject would not be binding. But it was left up to David Cameron to hammer the nail into the coffin of the short-lived hopes for proper reform when he responded to Brown’s statement with the infantile and fallacious comment that the Prime Minister was trying to rig the system to ensure a Labour party victory at the next General Election. In that one statement, Cameron reduced what is an imperative for true reform to the usual playground behaviour of wanting to be the first on the swings. He is either stupid or – more likely – can already smell the scent of power floating on the winds. So why rock the boat?

Despite my youthful view on life I… nah, OK – I can already hear the hilarity that sentence would cause in my family. How about despite being young in spirit? Any good? No? Oh well – forget it. I have, now, to be considered a member of ‘older people’. Not – I hasten to add, quite yet an ‘old fart’ but… oh come on – let me at least have that one! How about on the threshold of ‘old fart’?

When young people are around and an old fart starts a sentence with something like ‘when I was a kid’ there is usually a collective groan and often a turning off of the capacity to hear. It means that the old fart is about to talk about the times when – as my younger son so imaginatively puts it – things were in black and white! So i am not going to use that intro. Instead, I will use ‘once upon a time….’

Our rubbish was collected punctually every week by a group of people known as ‘dustmen’. They came onto the property in search of the bin – took it outside and emptied it and then bought the empty bin back! They even closed the garden gate when they left.

There were Park Attendants in city and town parks. They would keep an eye on things, help keep the park tidy, intervene in any acts of vandalism or hooliganism and wear a watch so they could always tell you the time.

People collectively known as ‘Road Sweepers’, would, er, sweep the roads and gutters of debris and discarded rubbish. They would keep the pavements clean and remove broken glass and empty the rubbish bins.

School class sizes were about 30 pupils and there were always enough teachers to go round. Later – if you didn’t have much money – generous grants were available from public funds to attend college or university. Even for those with money, higher education was free for all.

Hospitals were run by Matrons who may have been downright scary but kept the place running like clockwork and made sure everything was as it should be. And if you needed medication – you didn’t pay for it. You didn’t need to pay for dentistry either.

It was a common sight to see policeman strolling the streets – keeping an eye on the area – watching out for trouble – there for you if you needed help.

I could, of course, go on and on. The point is that you felt like you got something back for the tax you paid. And in real terms we all pay a lot more tax today than we used to even if most of it is indirect – and I don’t know about you, but this old fart feels like we get bugger all back worth having.

Still – at least life is in colour these days.

Following the recent Crewe and Nantwich by-election which, predictably, resulted in a Tory victory, the media has increased its obsession with the fate of Gordon and whether he has to go for New Labour to stand a chance in the next general election. The airwaves and newspapers are full of Right Honourables jostling for position and trying to side with one camp or the other without sounding as if they are doing so.

Typical of this was an interview yesterday with ex-just-about-everything Margaret Beckett who said:

Gordon Brown can win the next general election for Labour providing he changes course.

Maybe it’s just me but this statement seems to sum up just about everything that is corrupt about our political system, the political party paradigm and the people elected to serve us, the people. At some point in their lives, Gordon and his fellow band of merry men aligned themselves with a particular political philosophy. They all went on to become politicians with the intent of offering that philosophy to the electorate, they wrote a manifesto outlining that philosophy and the assumption should be that if they gain power it is that manifesto and philosophy that will guide their political actions. So how can they ‘change course’? To change course is to throw that manifesto away and take off in a new political direction.

Blair and New Labour swept to power in 1997 not because they offered anything exciting or new. The real problem that the electorate solved was the one of a tired old government that had run itself into the ground. The same old faces, the same old rhetoric, coasting along like an old car with too many miles on the clock. And that’s why New Labour will almost certainly be defeated next time around. It hardly matters who is their leader at the time – the people will decide that enough is enough and vote in a new set of wheels.

Leaving aside my own political stance and views on 11 years of New Labour, if Gordon and the party he leads ‘changes course’ then it is simply an admission that everything they have done since 1997 – good or bad – was a big mistake and it will expose them to what we all really know – but they pretend we don’t know – that politics is about power and not really about politics.

Ok – so the image is a bit hackneyed and overused but old George knew what he was talking about and whilst he may have got the date wrong he would have been sure to notice how England is slipping pathetically, day by day, into a surveillance society, much of it started under the leadership of namesake Tony Blair.

Once it was, and not so long ago, that the principle tasks of government were national economic stability, defence from foreign aggression and the protection of it’s citizens from each other through a system of justice. It has never been adequately explained to me why today’s government desires nothing more than to know every last bit of information and detail about my life, my relationships with others, where I go and what I do when I am there – all of which is only a stones throw away from wanting to know what I am thinking.

Two items came up over the last week. The more recent was the claim that even though we have more cameras pointing at us than any other nation it has done little or nothing to either prevent crime or to solve it – and remember, helping our boys in blue prevent crime is always the reason for hooking yet another camera up to watch over us. I remember when we used, as a nation, to scorn the tactics of the old USSR yet here we are adopting them without an apparent murmur of protest.

The other item was the disclosure that under a so-called “Children’s Plan”, schools may be asked to monitor, record and report on a wide variety of points such as pregnancy, drug use, bullying and where pupils go when they finally leave. Also on that agenda was obesity – the new scare word that has taken over from smoking. Yes – they want schools to report on pupils lifestyle and general ‘well-being’.

What central government recorded and knew about my father was a fraction of what they know and record about me. What they know and record about my children is an ever expanding mountain of detail. What they plan and will record against my children’s children is even more alarming.

And how long before the posters appear? I can see them now, fridge magnets bearing such strictures as ‘Is your neighbour eating chocolate in secret? Call the ObesePolice NOW and get them the help they need to be a good thin member of society’.

Way back in June of last year, when Gordon Brown becoming our Prime Minister was just a threat, I reported on the Scottish Claim of Right that Brown had signed and promised to abide by. On this, St. George’s Day 2008, I am proud to have affixed my name to the English constitutional cause.

“We do hereby acknowledge the sovereign right of the English people to determine the form of Government best suited to their needs.
We call for the holding of a national English Constitutional Convention to determine the way forward for a revised constitutional settlement for England.
We declare and pledge that in all our actions and deliberations the interests of the English people shall be paramount.
We further declare and pledge that our actions and deliberations shall be directed to the following ends:
To assert the right of the English people to live in a sovereign nation state of England, free of foreign control;
To agree a scheme for an Parliament for England;
To mobilise English opinion and ensure the approval of the English people for that scheme;
And to assert the right of the English people to secure the implementation of that scheme.”

As I said in my previous item – this is all about awareness. Until the English wake up nothing will change. You can add your name to the English Claim of Right but you can be far more effective by educating those that do not know.