{"id":3226,"date":"2015-03-09T14:08:42","date_gmt":"2015-03-09T14:08:42","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/unitelive.org\/?p=3226"},"modified":"2015-03-09T17:34:45","modified_gmt":"2015-03-09T17:34:45","slug":"end-courting-powerful","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/unitelive.test.igniteamt.com\/?p=3226","title":{"rendered":"End this courting of the powerful"},"content":{"rendered":"
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David Cameron won the leadership of his party telling activists to \u00e2\u20ac\u015blet sunshine win the day\u00e2\u20ac\u0165. Into\u00c2\u00a0the 2010 General Election he went, promising to clean up a political system discredited by MPs\u00e2\u20ac\u2122 expenses. Here was the man to bring about transparency in the lobbying industry and even end \u00e2\u20ac\u015bcrony capit\u00c2\u00adalism\u00e2\u20ac\u0165, to heal Britain\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s sickly politics.<\/p>\n

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Ten years on those sunbeams lie broken in the gutter.<\/p>\n

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He can\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t shake off his association with Andy Coulson, a man he put at the heart of government but who ended up serving a spell at Her Majesty\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s pleasure and is now soon to be tried for perjury in Scotland.\u00c2\u00a0In keeping such company, we don\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t so much see Cameron as a man who would do anything for his friends as one who will do anything for power.<\/p>\n

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Way back then, Cameron\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s promise was that he would \u00e2\u20ac\u015btake the power away from the political elite and hand it to the man and woman on the street\u00e2\u20ac\u0165. In reality, he has abused Number 10 to host dinners for donors, and filled the boots of funders with Lords placements and government access.<\/p>\n

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Going begging to his donors again when\u00c2\u00a0his party\u00c2\u00a0blinged up and stepped out for their Black and White gala dinner at Grosvenor House Hotel, this was certainly not the politics of \u00e2\u20ac\u015bthe man and woman in the street\u00e2\u20ac\u0165.<\/p>\n

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Hedge-fund billionaires, porn barons and c-list cel\u00c2\u00adebrities feasted on the main offer: access to the highest levels of the Tory party.<\/p>\n

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For the sort of loose change that drops off from the average tax avoidance deal, a gala attendee could buy a shoe shopping trip with the Home Secretary. Or perhaps an Iron Man cross-country run on the family estate of Iain Duncan Smith, a man untroubled by the irony of waving the luxury he enjoys in the face of the penury he wrought on hundreds of thousands with his bedroom tax.<\/p>\n

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The auction was shrouded in secrecy so we will never know who of this bunch bought time and access to the highest levels of governance. But we must never let the electorate forget that in seeking to run our government, the Tory party will sell its soul. With this, Cameron\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s descent into sleaze is complete.<\/p>\n

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There has been the odd peep of disquiet among one or two in the Tory press over this grotesque abuse of the offices of state but this pales to a whimper compared to the full-blown hysteria over trade union affiliation to the Labour Party. Of course, they\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ve chosen their colours \u00e2\u20ac\u201c but how dare they, in all conscience, compare the honest pennies given by millions of working men and women to support their party with the \u00c2\u014112m\u00c2\u00a0given by only eight City high-rollers in search of a party to buy.<\/p>\n

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Cameron came to power with the promise to clean up politics. If there is fairness in this world, he will be driven from number 10 accompanied by the stench of sleaze \u00e2\u20ac\u201c even disregarding the voting public just months before a general election by voting to keep second jobs for MPs.<\/p>\n

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Voters who craved a fresh start after the expenses scandal in 2010, who were told to swallow austerity but denied the reform sorely needed to avert another banking crash, who heard time and again \u00e2\u20ac\u015bwe\u00e2\u20ac\u2122re all in this together\u00e2\u20ac\u0165 as their living standards went through the floor have every right to be sickened.<\/p>\n

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When I speak to people up and down the country they are angry with politics, a common belief that those in West\u00c2\u00adminster abide by different standards to the rest of us. They may come for our votes every five years but the rest of the time our politics motors along on the petrol of dirty money and cronyism.<\/p>\n

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This Prime Minister courts the pow\u00c2\u00ader\u00c2\u00adful in order to deliver a govern\u00c2\u00adment that will bring harm to the vulnerable; this must never be allowed to happen again. Which is why the contrast this pre\u00c2\u00adsents with Ed Miliband ought not be lost.<\/p>\n

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Peter Oborne wrote in February, that where Cameron has sucked up to money and power, Miliband has bravely \u00e2\u20ac\u201c and to his cost in subsequent media treatment \u00e2\u20ac\u201c taken on \u00e2\u20ac\u015bestablishment interests\u00e2\u20ac\u0165. Yes, this shows a man of integrity and courage, but for our tattered political life it promises something much more precious, something destroyed in these years of Tory rule but that we must fight to restore: decency.<\/p>\n

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We have that chance for as Oborne says \u00e2\u20ac\u015bconsider this: if Ed Miliband does become prime minister, he will have done so without owing anything to any\u00c2\u00adbody.\u00e2\u20ac\u0165 This, friends, is how our ruined politics can begin to be renewed.<\/p>\n

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