People keep electing leaders. I have no idea why but it appears to have something to do with a widespread parental separation anxiety or perhaps its a mass formation inadequacy, who knows?
In the UK “the electorate” empowers people who are corrupt and/or stupid. This is a democratic principle which the government then protects on the international stage, currently by sending Eastern Europeans to their deaths. If people didn’t empower them in the first place they couldn’t, but they seem to believe that they need to keep electing them for the good of all, or something like that.
The British have a long and proud history of being ruled. Not only do we elect corrupt wingnuts to tell us what to do but we actually celebrate being pushed around by a bunch of in-bred aristocrats too.
But are we mainly bossed about by crooks (kleptocracy) or unprincipled fools (kakistocracy). Let’s find out.
Boris Johnson, the UK population’s former Prime Minister—although admittedly less than 30% of the “electorate” ever voted for him—, born Alexander Boris de Pfeffel Johnson in New York in 1964, attended Eton, the most self-entitled school in the UK, before being president of the Oxford Union at Balliol College Oxford and a member of the Bullingdon Club. He was then a journalist, editor, MP, Mayor of London and then UK Prime Minister, before, at the age of 59, needing to borrow £800,000—more on this shortly.
In other words, despite being one of the most well-heeled and privileged people in the UK, and enjoying enormous social advantage, Johnson has managed to remain up to his eyeballs in debt for the entirety of his life.
Having gone on a piss-up with his mates, while telling everyone else they needed to remain under house arrest in “social isolation” because there was supposedly a deadly pandemic going around, Johnson then tried to cover up the fact that he and his cronies knew that there was no such thing by accusing his opponent in the House of Commons, Kier Starmer, of protecting Jimmy Saville, the child rapist, necrophiliac paedophile pimp for the great and the good.
This is, of course, precisely what Starmer did, but seeing as he was doing it to protect many of Johnson’s Conservative backers, that probably wasn’t the wisest move by the blonde plum. Amid lurid spunk references, in connection with child sex abuse investigations, and further moronic faux-pas, like publicly admitting that a UK state agent-provocateur, incarcerated and on trial in Iran, was indeed a UK state agent-provocateur, and spawning his own dynasty, despite writing enthusiastically about reducing the human population, Johnson presents a strong case for kakistocracy.
But then we have people like Nadhim Zahawi who provides us with an equally compelling argument for kleptocracy. The current Tory party chairman, whose tax bill reportedly amounted to £5 million, accidentally didn’t pay capital gains tax on the sale of his polling company shares that he held in an offshore account, presumably for tax evasion purposes.
Then, as Chancellor of the Exchequer, he was fined by the HMRC department that he was in charge of. So shades of kakistocracy also creep into his sorry, essentially kleptocrat tale.
While Zahawi voted against proposals for free school meals and laws to force landlords to make their hovels “fit for human habitation,” Mr Zahawi, whose sizeable rental property portfolio and offshore share holdings have made him one of Parliament’s richest—which is saying something—claimed from the public purse for the energy bill owed by his horse stables.
For his efforts Zahawi was due to be honoured by the establishment he has served so well. The aristocracy has now withdrawn its offer. Not because Zahawi is a callous, tax avoiding, financial predator but because he committed the cardinal sin of being caught.
Of course none of this kind of stuff is new. Every parliament is, and always has been, beset with corruption, bribery and sex scandals and filled with paedophiles, warmongers and criminals. From illegal nuclear weapons deals with oppressive rogue states, to drug dealing, international insider trading, fraud, illegal wars and covering up state sanctioned paedophilia, the place has been a cesspit since it came into being.
We might hope that the mainstream media would take seriously its charge of holding power to account. Although there is fat chance of that.
When the people who run the MSM are arranging loan “meetings” for the Prime Minister, who just so happens to then appoint them as chairman of the “independent” MSM organisation supposed to expose precisely the kind of idiotic buffoonery and stomach churning, hypocritical skulduggery they are themselves embroiled in, safe to say the MSM is about as useful as a chocolate teapot.
We all know this is true. Ask anyone, anywhere what they think about politicians and you will be overwhelmed with expletives. Yet question politician’s edicts and you will soon find yourself attacked for being “anti-democratic.” Blind faith is a powerful thing.
So, in summation, its hard to say whether the UK government is a kleptocracy or a kakistocracy. It all depends upon who is exposed as the latest idiot or vile scumbag. All we know is that they aren’t alone in that place. Perhaps klepto-kakistocracy is a more befitting term.
Of course, while parliament is disproportionately comprised of the terminally dense and the criminally insane, that doesn’t mean that it isn’t broadly representative of the rest of society. And that is the problem.
Wave enough enticements in front of any of us and we’ll all be tempted to turn a blind eye or assist the wrong person if it benefits our retirement fund. If the rewards are really juicy we might even engage in some crime ourselves, providing we think we’ll get away with it.
The pillocks some people elect to lead us aren’t “special.” They aren’t more knowledgeable than most; they aren’t particularly gifted or astute; they don’t have higher moral or ethical standards; they are a gaggle of self-serving pricks, just like the rest of us.
Does the bloke down the pub reckon he knows how to win the proxy war against Russia? Then make him Prime Minister if you like. Does the woman in the hairdresser have a great “tax relief” idea for small businesses? Then make her Chancellor.
It makes absolutely no difference at all. As soon as they get into power they will form a “leadership” that is just as useless and corrupt as any other.
The problem is not the leaders. It is that there are still enough of us willing to do what they say to give impact to their decisions. No matter how irretrievably dumb, suicidal or destructive.
So crack on and vote for the next criminal gang of greedy dullards if you want. Suffer their abuses and follow their commands to your own detriment.
I guess all the rest of us can do is whatever we can to ignore the klepto-kakistocrats our fellow citizens keep electing to rule us (thanks for that). We can but try to live our best lives despite them.
