Tuesday, 6 June 2017

Stephen Timms

Subject: Stephen Timms

I know I am accused of banging on about political things when your real interests are what happened on your last holiday or the news that Susan has given birth to a boy. These are the practical things you relate to, the stuff which used to be the talk of neighbours, back in the time when you knew your neighbours. 
Politics, made up of unscrupulous people is a game played out with words, words once the highest attainment of human connectivity, now down graded to lies and deceit, to the phenomena of  fake news and propaganda.
Why sully your mind in trying to interpret the mind of a politician.
Yesterday I was walking in the London Borough of Newham when I came across a the known Labour politician Stephen Timms canvassing for the General Election. Timms was a government minister and as Chief Secretary to the Treasury was in the Cabinet of the last Labour government. I had always liked the cut of his jib as they say but this was the first time I had had a chance to talk to him. After pleasantries I said I was a supporter of Jeremy Corbyn and was impressed by Corbyns leaked manifesto pledges on which he plans to fight the election. It was if I had driven a dagger into a dummies heart. With a pained expression he said he had been at odds with Corbyn but didn't elaborate any views towards his leaders choice of political platform. In fact he was akin to a wolf in sheep's clothing standing with his labour leaflets and his rosette pledging his allegiance to something he didn't believe in. As to what he did believe in was vague beyond that he believed in the Labour Party. There was no intellectual toughness, no sense of a shrewd political mind able to instinctively shift gear from the banal,  "I want to see my bins emptied twice a week" (which is in the gift of the municipality) or the closure of the old people's home down the road, which seemed to trouble most of the shoppers in the street, when it came to the nitty gritty of social policy he was a void. 
Perhaps because he knew I was not from his patch and therefore of no value as a voter but when having returned from breakfast and having read of the backlash the Tories were promising the Electoral Commission for having dared to bring an action against the party for their misuse of funds in the last closely fought election (only 12 seat majority) where the spending limits on electoral candidates had been massively overspent in crucial swing seats at a ratio of 6 to 1. The police had been called and dossiers assembled but the Public Prosecutor, who's decision it is as to whether to prosecute had decided there was not enough evidence to bring criminal proceedings. Malpractice had occurred, funds had been spent where they shouldn't but it was all put down to accounting errors
We have a Tory government who's election may or may not have been aided by the money spent on candidates in getting their message across. We balk at the sight of the many millions of dollars spent in the American election where it is deemed necessary to spend these colossal sums because they do effect the result. Clearly money talks as they say and the fact that the Tories have been allowed to get away with it and worse who now seem hell bent on pillorying the body set up to oversea the spending is bizarre. Even more bizarre was the luck-warm response I got from Mr Timms when I challenged him over Labours near silence on the matter in Parliament. His shrug of the shoulders says it all. Perhaps the celebrity status in the Borough and the £74.000 a year is enough for this man, who needs political discourse still less commitment when a promise to look into the refuse collection is enough.
As a representative of the peoples vote to carry our voice into parliament and enact laws to protect us, heaven help us.

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