The UK Has Got The Government It Deserves

This is the transcript of my YouTube video "The UK Has Got The Government It Deserves".

The electorate in the UK complains a lot about the government.  It doesn’t matter which party is in power, everyone seems to have complaints.  No one seems to take a breath and think about where the problem really lies in why we never seem to get a government that actually works with the minimum of things to complain about.  We never seem to get a government that works for everyone, just certain select groups.

People complain that “this isn’t the government that I wanted” or “this isn’t the government that we need” but no one has ever thought that the government we end up having is actually the government that we deserve.

What most voters do is vote for the party who will fulfil what they want because most humans are basically selfish.  I totally understand that because I’m human, despite what some people may think.  I vote, in the rare occasions that I’ve voted in the past, for the party that will improve my life by offering better mental health services, removing the constant disability benefit assessments so I might be able to recover enough to think about going back to work and that would actually support me properly to that end and one that listens to my concerns and acts on them.  Other voters want to reduce immigration because they think that will improve the wages they get or improve the public services and vote for a party that offers what those voters want.

The problem is, however, that voting for a party that offers to fulfil our personal wants isn’t necessarily going to result in a government that will fulfil society’s needs.  Our wants and our needs are not necessarily the same thing; for instance, many people may want a reduction in immigration but what the country needs is more migration for economic growth because we have a reducing birth rate which means that the workforce isn’t being replenished by UK born citizens as the older generation starts to retire.  The UK needs migrants to fill the gaps in the labour market so we can’t have zero migration and deport the migrants we do have because the country needs them.  What the UK needs is managed levels of migration but that need isn’t what many voters want.

Due to the often-incompatible differences between what we want and what we need, we often get governments that fail to succeed in satisfying either.

Politicians, in an attempt to win votes, will lie to get them and, after enough time spent in a Parliamentary career, will continue to lie to keep themselves in the manner to which they have become accustomed with the large salaries and living expenses paid for by the public purse so they can keep even more of the salary they get paid.  It’s an attractive lifestyle especially if you’re just a backbench MP about whom not much is expected because they are there to vote on their party’s frontbenchers’ policies are.  Some MPs do a lot for their constituency but there are MPs that do very little constituency work.  There are also some MPs that do little for their constituency and very little in Parliament either but it would be wrong of me to name Nigel Farage.

The electorate regularly votes against its own interests because it has, consciously or subconsciously, fallen for outright lies, obfuscations and the scapegoating of certain groups to distract them from the failures of the UK government’s own actions and policies.  Politicians pander to the wants of individuals regardless of what’s needed for the country because that’s how people vote.  The annoying reality is that, if people voted for what the country needs rather than what they wanted for themselves, their actual needs would be met and their life would be improved.

The electorate, by voting for politicians who lie, take money or freebies or enact policies that harm the country as a whole, merely embeds this sort of behaviour in the political system, make it acceptable and so the next generation of politicians gets even worse.  The electorate has, over decades, allowed a deterioration in the standard of its political representatives so that it’s now got exactly the type of government it deserves at the expense of what it actually needs.  The American comedian George Carlin put it best when he said:

“[T]here's one thing you might have noticed I don't complain about - politicians.  Everybody complains about politicians.  Everybody says they suck.  Yeah, well, where do people think these politicians come from?  They don't fall out of the sky, they don't pass through a membrane from another reality, they come from American parents and American families, American homes. American schools, American churches, American businesses and American universities and they're elected by American citizens.  This is the best we can do, folks.  This is what we have to offer.  It's what our system produces - garbage in, garbage out.  If you have selfish ignorant citizens, you’re going to get selfish ignorant leaders and term limits ain't going to do you any good, you're just going to wind up with a brand-new bunch of selfish ignorant Americans.  So, maybe, it's not the politicians who suck.  Maybe something else sucks around here like the public. 

“If it's really just the fault of these politicians then where are all the other bright people of conscience?  Where are all the bright honest intelligent Americans ready to step in and save the nation and lead the way?  We don't have people like that this country.”

Now, I’m sure if I replaced the words ‘American’ and ‘America’, most voters in the UK would be able to agree with the majority of what Carlin said.  Some might disagree with being labelled selfish or ignorant or that there aren’t any people of conscience to lead the way, but, on the whole, it fits the UK just as much as it fits the US when Carlin said it.

He continued that he’d “solved this little political dilemma for myself in a very simple way.  On election day, I stay home.  I don't vote.  Fuck ‘em.  Two reasons I don't vote: first of all, it's meaningless.  This country was bought and sold and paid for a long time ago…the shit they shuffle around every four years doesn't mean a fucking thing and, secondly, I don't vote because I believe if you vote, you have no right to complain.  People like to twist that around, I know.  They say well, if you don't vote, you have no right to complain, but where's the logic in that?  If you vote and you elect dishonest incompetent people and they get into office and screw everything up, well, you are responsible for what they have done.  You caused the problem.  You voted them in.  You have no right to complain.  I, on the other hand, who did not vote, who, in fact, did not even leave the house on election day, am in no way responsible for what these people have done and have every right to complain as loud as I want about the mess you created that I had nothing to do with”.

I’m not sure that not voting is the right message to broadcast in a society that’s already in the midst of a democratic deficit but what we do need to do is start to think about what the country needs as a whole rather than on what we as individuals want, educate ourselves on political ideologies and economics (no need to go overboard, just enough to spot the lies when they’re told), expect higher standards of our elected representatives and to hold them to account when they fail to reach those standards.  We need to use our power as voters to hold politicians to account when they do harm and offer respect when they do societal good.  Perhaps then we’ll get the government administrations that we deserve.