Just more bent politicians

Did anyone really imagine that after the mass-culling of bent MPs from the Rotten Parliament that Westminster would transform into an exemplar of probity? No, of course not. The game has changed - and not getting caught is now the name of the game. To make things fair, and to balance the list of Lobbyists, Levenson will no doubt now back an official register of undercover journalists, fake sheiks and investigative reporters and make it an offence to gull an MP. 

And no one really imagines that if UKIP were at Westminster things would be much different. Already somewhere I'm sure a newly-elected UKIP Councillor is pocketing a fat brown envelope in return for believing that what his ward really needs are a few more bloody windmills built by Romanians. 

And still there are out there strident voices urging us all to support them all the same; a bit like salesmen convincing us that blue asbestos is just the stuff from which to make children's play equipment. Oh yes, they aver, Labour and Tory sleaze, corruption and fraud is completely different. Labour mostly go for money, while for the Tories it's deviant sex. Or maybe LibDems. Just shuffle back into line you lot and support detached millionaire confection Dave for top fruitcake. 

It's gone way past that of course. We'll all vote UKIP in 2014 to deliver such a kicking to Dave's curly icing that will be felt right through to his Angelica bits. And that's about as adult and responsible as it gets.

It's Whitehall as much as Westminster

You can be sure of one thing in respect of the governments pernicious data snooping proposals - that this is an idea from Whitehall. The mandarinate have long dreamed of total access to the nation's emails, tweets and personal data, and thought they'd have no problem forcing through the measures under Labour. The reaction of both the public and the opposition shocked them, and the proposals were quietly put on the 'pending' shelf. Now they've dusted them off and are using Cameron's government to force them through.

Commentators are starting to notice that the public have had it with the Big Three. The data measures are exactly the reason why. The cosy relationship between centralised, metropolitan and controllable permanent political parties and Whitehall suits the mandarinate down to the ground, and so mandarins such as Hayden Phillips and Christopher Kelly will always propose measures that establish the Big Three as parties of State. In return for pushing through the legislation that Whitehall wants, Whitehall will manipulate the system to secure seats in Parliament for the tame State parties.

Osborne, a man with the permanent expression of a furtive Onanist, is no more competent now than he ever was. Treasury officials, who undoubtedly spotted the pratfalls of the Pie Tax and the Granny Tax, allowed him to take the hits. They probably thought he needed a little slapping down, a reminder that he should go back to belting-off in the Ministerial WC during working hours and leave the important decisions to them. 

This 'crisis of confidence' as the MSM would have it, or popular awakening as the rest of us would say, is a realisation that we can trust neither the Big Three nor the Whitehall machine in league with them. Alcohol pricing, a ban on smoking in cars and homes, a biscuit tax, data surveillance and, after a decent interval, compulsory ID cards are all Whitehall ideas. What possible incentive would politicians alone have to introduce such unpopular measures?  We can vote out the Big Three, but how do we rid ourselves of the mandarinate?