Politics: dead to me now

Well that’s it.

I’m done with any kind of an interest in British politics.

The reason?

Maria Miller MP

• Maria Miller has a home in her constituency, a mere 45 minutes on an excellently-serviced train route to Waterloo
• Maria Miller was investigated by the independent parliamentary standards commissioner for stealing public money (what you or I would call fraud)
• Maria Miller failed to cooperate adequately with the investigation
• Maria Miller openly threatened the investigator
• Maria Miller was found guilty of ‘overclaiming’ (a euphemism for ‘stealing from the taxpayer’) a subsidy of £45,000 for a second home in London
• Maria Miller didn’t live in this taxpayer-subsidised home, even though this is what the parliamentary rules clearly state must happen
• Maria Miller’s parents lived, rent free, in this taxpayer-subsidised home
• Maria Miller’s report from the independent parliamentary standards commission was altered by a not independent committee of vested-interest MPs
• The committee of vested-interest MPs decided that if Maria Miller paid back just £5,800, and said ‘sorry’ to parliament, justice would have been done

And yet, despite this extensive catalogue of wrongs:

• Maria Miller has been given public support by the Prime Minister (Cameron, D)
• Maria Miller has been given public support by Ian Duncan Smith (who called the journalistic investigation ‘a witch hunt’)
• When journalists began investigating the Maria Miller affair, one of Maria Miller’s aides rang the investigating newspaper and made not very veiled threats in relation to press regulation

So that’s it.

I’m done with politics.

I am now convinced the only thing that will give us the MPs we need to have, will be a complete change of our political system, because the current one is broken beyond repair, is unfit for the purpose, and does not serve the public – the people who it should serve.

What we need to happen is:

• the abolition of the political party system
• stopping candidates from standing for office
• moving to a system where MPs are chosen from the list of voters, on a lottery-based system
• MPs banned from being in office for more than three terms

Until we take away the cosy little clubs, the gangs, the wheeling, the dealing, the influences, the vested interests…

Until all of these things happen, we will never have a fair, balanced system of political representation from a group of people who are supposed to be working for us.

The Maria Miller affair has been the final nail in the coffin of my political interest.

The stench of corruption, the rancid smell of favour, now permeates every single level of our Government.

Who has publicly supported this act of thievery?

• David Cameron
• Boris Johnson
• Nick Clegg
• Theresa Villiers
• Ian Duncan Smith
• Craig Oliver (David Cameron’s press chief)
• Jo Hindley (Maria Miller’s special advisor)
• Mary Macleod (Maria Miller’s parliamentary aide)

When the head of this country exhibits such a tremendous lack of judgement just to support someone in his party, when members of the Cabinet are wheeled out to support an MP so corrupt that every single member of the public can see it, but the MPs think they can just ride out the storm, when parliament sees itself as not needing to be accountable…

When these things happen in such a blatant manner, it is time to pull the plug.

I have been disenfranchised by the sleaziest, most crooked, corrupt, bunch of self-serving, loathsome hypocrites I could ever have imagined.

These people have nothing but contempt for the public, and a complete disregard for the rules they are supposed to observe.

They are also immoral beyond belief.

Until the system changes – wholesale – I’m not participating any more.

Because under the current rules, no matter who I vote for, the government always gets in.