Rob Wilson's Westminster Diary, April 30, 2009

Rob Wilson MP • Published 30 Apr 2009 10:00 0 Comments

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NEW media is playing an ever increasing role in politics. Leaked emails uncovered the anti-Conservative smears a couple of weeks ago and blogger Guido Fawkes brought them to our attention.

Last week Gordon Brown decided, unilaterally as it turns out, to reform MPs' allowances via a message on YouTube.

His appearance brings the words weird and bizarre to mind. Weird because he looks it when he smiles in the wrong places and appears extraordinarily ill at ease, and bizarre because you'd have expected him to have consulted a few of his MPs.

The Parliamentary Labour Party was spitting mad and this week saw a stormy meeting that apparently lasted two hours. All that's left is the wreckage of both the Prime Minister's proposals (which he was planning to force through under threat of deselection) and his authority. His authority seems to be draining away at an alarming rate.

The Budget had something to do with this, because the internet very quickly established it was profoundly dishonest. Brown's Budgets used to unravel the following week, Alistair Darling's take an hour. His growth forecasts were contradicted by the IMF and everyone knew it was a dud. But the internet reduced its purported substance to rubble in double quick time. The Government still hasn't mastered the black arts of the internet. Still I can't feel sorry for a Government that has lost all moral authority and exists simply to be in power. Smearing is a past art, breaking manifesto commitments commonplace, ignoring the Financial Ombudsman's Equitable Life findings a stinker, and what about those who have sacrificed everything for this country?

Only this Government could ignore the High Court decision to grant Gurkhas leave to remain and impose settlement guidelines very few could possibly meet. They risked life and limb for this country only to be treated with contempt by a slippery and immoral Government.

It's worse because we cannot hold them to account in Parliament. In the same way the Prime Minister avoids elections, he avoids any substantive debate in Parliament. Democracy is an irritant to his grand global plans and his five-year tractor production targets. We, the people, are a distraction to his new world order.

The Prime Minister acts in the best tradition of seventies Soviet presidents. Unfortunately for him the internet, mobile phones, YouTube, Facebook and Twitter are arguably the most powerful democratic force the world has ever seen.

This blog appeared in Reading Chronicle 30 Apr 09

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