When Jean-Claude Juncker, former president of the EU, had one of his few sober moments, he came up with a brilliant aphorism nailing all modern politics to the wall.
“We all know what to do,” he said. “We just don’t know how to get re-elected after we’ve done it.”
In other words, a real statesman can never get a job in politics. Yet last night’s debate of Tory PM hopefuls proved him wrong.
Do you think there were five contestants on that Channel 4 stage? Yes, that’s what everyone thinks.
But there also was a ghostly presence there, visible and audible only to the chosen few. If you aren’t one of the elect, I’ll be happy to share with you what that ghost of a statesman communicated.
When asked “Can any politicians be trusted?”, the ghost laughed. “Trust a modern politician,” he said, “to act as one. That’s all.
“He’ll make any promise to appeal to the electorate his focus groups identify as the best hunting ground. Can he be trusted to keep any of his promises? Don’t be silly.”
The second question was related to the first: “Is Boris Johnson an honest man”. The ghost replied with a question: “He’s a politician, isn’t he? Say no more.”
From the general to the specific: “What about trans rights?”
The ghost was unequivocal: “As British subjects, transsexuals must enjoy all the same rights won by the people over the two millennia of their history. Yet neither they nor any other minority group should be entitled to any bespoke rights custom-made for them.
“Gender dysphoria is a real, if extremely rare, medical disorder. It must be treated and, in the most extreme of cases, the treatment may require surgery.
“Yet biologically, morally and legally, the afflicted person retains his sex at birth. A man may identify as a woman, a dog or a tree – but as far as I am concerned, he remains a man.
“If he can’t come to grips with his genetic makeup, he deserves sympathy, compassion and psychiatric help. But he doesn’t deserve any special rights. All in all, this is a non-issue, and any sane society would see it as such.”
All that was by way of starters. The questions then got into the area of meat and potatoes. “How will you approach the burning economic matters, such as taxes, cost of living, inflation and public spending?”
“You said matters, plural,” replied the ghost. “But the problem is singular, one. Our economy has been used as a political plaything, a top that politicians can spin around for one purpose only: to gain and keep power.
“To that end they have been bribing the people with their own money, so that they’ll vote the right way. No serious economic management has been in evidence since the war, although at least Margaret Thatcher tried.
“Promiscuous government spending is corrupt and corrupting on many different levels, economic, social, intellectual and moral. Its unstated but true purpose is to increase the power of the central state, meaning that of a self-serving elite.
“That has created a vast underclass, nourished and kept afloat by our unaffordable, morally defunct welfare state. Every premise on which it’s based is socialist and egalitarian, which is to say wicked.
“In the service of this wicked idea, the state extorts, when you add up all the taxes, duties and levies, at least half of what the people earn. This is sold to the public by bien pensant virtue-signalling, which is in fact an evil perversion of Christian charity.
“The people have been brainwashed into accepting the notion of helping the less fortunate. They fail to discern the real meaning of the welfare state: expropriating the more fortunate, that is anyone who works for a living – while shifting even more power to the growing central state.
“We must have welfare, helping those who genuinely can’t help themselves: orphans, the ill and the indigent old. Civilised countries can’t have their citizens dying of want or lack of care.
“But that’s a far cry from a rapacious welfare state, with the government effectively acting as the provider father making the real, what modern savages call biological, father redundant.
“Real welfare is the second most essential function of the state. The most essential one is security, protecting the people from foreign enemies and domestic criminals. To perform those functions effectively, it should be sufficient to finance the public sector to the tune of 20 to 25 per cent of GDP – maximum.
“That effectively means cutting taxes by half. And I mean all taxes, starting with corporate ones. That would stimulate both domestic and international investment, helping Britain compete against all other countries.
“A corresponding drop in taxes on income and consumption would drive up consumer demand, making the British economy grow healthy and robust.”
The moderator gasped: “But how can we reduce taxes when the inflation rate is heading towards double digits?”
“This is an economically illiterate question,” smirked the ghost. “Inflation is caused by high government spending, which can only ever be funded by endlessly increasing the money supply.
“The way to reduce inflation is to do exactly what I proposed: cutting in half the state’s share of GDP. Tax reduction is a way of achieving that, a benefit such a fiscal measure would offer the people.”
“But wouldn’t that destroy public services, including the NHS?”
The ghost wouldn’t allow his train of thought to be derailed. “The only thing that would destroy is public disservices, including the NHS,” he said. “Britain is the only major Western European country with a fully nationalised medical service. Alas, rather than being the envy of Europe, the NHS is its laughingstock.
“The good British people have been brainwashed into believing the NHS is free. Yet it’s as free as the slab of cheese in a mousetrap.
“The NHS is a system of financing medicine, and it’s more wasteful and less effective than just about any other. Its problems can only be solved by changing the system.
“An alternative system must resemble the combined European system of public and private participation, financed by massive tax incentives, rather than massive tax extortion. I’ll be happy to submit a detailed proposal in another medium, one more conducive to serious discussion than to swapping meaningless bytes.”
“Are you at least committed to the net-zero undertaking of the Tory Manifesto?” asked the visibly shaken moderator.
“I’m committed to tearing up and binning that economic suicide note,” replied the ghost.
“First, the whole notion of climate change is unscientific and anti-historical. Otherwise it would be impossible to explain why the Earth has been hotter than it is now for over 80 per cent of its lifetime.
“Romans, for example, neither powered their chariots with fossil fuels nor freshened their air with aerosols. However, at the time they ruled England, in the 1st century AD, vineyards thrived in Scotland, meaning it was considerably warmer then.
“Moreover, since carbon enables plants to grow more abundantly, the most prosperous periods in history coincided with the highest levels of carbon emissions, and vice versa.
“I bet none of the other contestants in this beauty pageant has read a single serious scientific study of the subject, especially an omnibus one. If they had, they’d be less eager to kowtow to the vociferous group of neo-Luddites venting their resentment of our civilisation.
“Serving that ignoble cause, they are prepared to destroy the British economy, for make no mistake about it: a modern industry can’t survive if powered by windmills.
“We must build our nuclear industry, half-destroyed by the very reprobates who are now screaming climate change. We must become self-sufficient in energy, and if it takes fracking to achieve that, then so be it.”
The moderator was speechless, but I couldn’t contain myself any longer. “How do you expect to get elected on this kind of platform?” I shouted at the screen.
“I don’t,” smiled the ghost. “I’m a ghost, a figment of your imagination…” And then he vanished in front of my very eyes.
My sense of reality restored, I poured myself a drink and toasted Jean-Claude Juncker. A useless politician, but he did have a way with words.
Once again a bravura performance, Mr Boot. Congratulations! My only problem is the difficulty of validating your argument and conclusions. I admire them, and if wishes could do it I would hold them to be correct. If only!
That’s the problem with short formats, validation. They allow for only a brief sketch, painting the issue with a few quick touches. Most I what I write is based on my books, which, right or wrong, delve into issues in greater detail.
Quite, it is the general public, rather than the political class, who are the real problem. Honestly, at this point there are probably more Holocaust-deniers among us than true-blue-Tories. I despise the demonization of Western politicians and the exaltation of the so called ‘common man’ -who would turn a blind eye to innumerable horrors for the sake of another visit to his favourite tourist trap!
Alas, I never liked a ghost so much nor was ever so saddened by its disappearance….
Can we vote for this ghost? Is there a ghost for the U.S. as well?
There is. But it’s just as ghostly.
Re:… “Can any politicians be trusted?”, the ghost laughed. “Trust a modern politician,” he said, “to act as one. That’s all.”
As Mark Twain once said, “you can always tell when a politician is lying, its whenever you see their lips moving”.