What is it that happens to politicians?
This has nothing to do with the 50-plus marketing - it's a personal gripe.
I have had personal contacts with two of the people in the UK news.
Ages ago, at the dawn of time I did IT marketing consultancy projects with a guy call Steve Timms. He was bright and a thoroughly decent guy. He was also somebody with political ambitions.
Starting in local government he moved up the slippery pole and eventually got into parliament as a Labour MP.
It was not surprising that he did well and found himself in demand being one of the few Labour MPs who had worked in business and one of an even smaller group who knew anything about IT.
Why am I telling you this story?
It was not surprising that he did well and found himself in demand being one of the few Labour MPs who had worked in business and one of an even smaller group who knew anything about IT.
Why am I telling you this story?
Well in the dying days of the Labour Government, Steve is Minister for Digital Britain. The name says enough, doesn’t it? After 12 years in power Steve’s bosses have discovered this “digital stuff” and much to their amazement discovered that the UK doesn’t rank much above the level of a Third World county in the quality of its digital infrastructure.
What bright idea did they come up? Honestly, I am not joking, this really is the truth. They are going to tax everybody in the country with a broadband connection 50p a month.
Steve is doing the media rounds, telling anybody who will listen that the “broadband tax” is to raise £175 million to fund “high speed networks”. Of course nobody believes him and sees it for what it is: another way of screwing tax out the poor saps in employment. It is just like the days when Brits had to pay tax on windows and more recently there was a tax on mobile phones. Like all of the “Green Taxes” it's just another way of plugging a massive budget deficit.
What is so sad is that Steve is a decent guy, who really was in politics for the right reasons and who is bright enough to see this idiot tax for what it is. So he ends his political career, peddling a lie. The poor guy will not be remembered for the decent things he did but as somebody who sold out and supported something he must know is wrong.
Another person in the news is Baroness Scotland, who is the UK’s Attorney General for England and Wales. She is effectively the UK’s top legal person. Her misdoings are personal – claiming to much personal expenses and employing an illegal immigrant.
I don’t know the Baroness but I was at school with two of her brothers. She is one of twelve children. The Scotlands were an amazing family. Not just that there were so many of them but they were exceptional honourable kids. I know that sounds crazy, but even at the age of fifteen, you knew there was something deeply good and honest about them. And could her brothers play cricket!! Her parents must have been exceptional.
All these years later and the women stands on the edge of political oblivion and is widely ridiculed by the press and even her own political colleagues. Somewhere along the line she lost the plot
These are just two of countless stories of where politicians start off doing the right thing and end up with their moral compass smashed to pieces. How sad for them. How sad for us. Dick Stroud
What bright idea did they come up? Honestly, I am not joking, this really is the truth. They are going to tax everybody in the country with a broadband connection 50p a month.
Steve is doing the media rounds, telling anybody who will listen that the “broadband tax” is to raise £175 million to fund “high speed networks”. Of course nobody believes him and sees it for what it is: another way of screwing tax out the poor saps in employment. It is just like the days when Brits had to pay tax on windows and more recently there was a tax on mobile phones. Like all of the “Green Taxes” it's just another way of plugging a massive budget deficit.
What is so sad is that Steve is a decent guy, who really was in politics for the right reasons and who is bright enough to see this idiot tax for what it is. So he ends his political career, peddling a lie. The poor guy will not be remembered for the decent things he did but as somebody who sold out and supported something he must know is wrong.
Another person in the news is Baroness Scotland, who is the UK’s Attorney General for England and Wales. She is effectively the UK’s top legal person. Her misdoings are personal – claiming to much personal expenses and employing an illegal immigrant.
I don’t know the Baroness but I was at school with two of her brothers. She is one of twelve children. The Scotlands were an amazing family. Not just that there were so many of them but they were exceptional honourable kids. I know that sounds crazy, but even at the age of fifteen, you knew there was something deeply good and honest about them. And could her brothers play cricket!! Her parents must have been exceptional.
All these years later and the women stands on the edge of political oblivion and is widely ridiculed by the press and even her own political colleagues. Somewhere along the line she lost the plot
These are just two of countless stories of where politicians start off doing the right thing and end up with their moral compass smashed to pieces. How sad for them. How sad for us. Dick Stroud
Labels: Personal Gripes
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