A nother serious blog. (I promise more trivial pursuits will be along shortly! ) But a few years ago, a friend of mine - Paul Redhead - told me that one of the conditions of being able to live in in a democracy was the absolute responsibility to vote. I argued that living in a democracy also gave me the right not to vote if I so wished, as that also exercised my right to use my vote in a certain capacity too. Having said that, I've always tended to believe that you SHOULD vote when you can, as otherwise it does limit your right to bitch and moan with any degree of righteousness thereafter. Usually.

But today in the UK, I'm sure I've joined a lot of people in NOT voting in the local elections. Because right now, it's hard to think of any politician I actually trust. In the last month or so, Westminster has been turned upside down by the revelations regarding hundreds of MPs' expenses and opportunistic fiddling of accounts etc. The 'crimes' actually fall into three categories... 1) the genuine possible oversights where an MP has put something so silly on expenses that it CAN only have happened by carelessness/lack of attention because if it was done deliberately they'd be laughed out of town (example: the guy who put in a chit for the donation  made at a church service)... 2) the wholly opportunistic claims where the rules of claiming haven't actually been technically broken but the spirit of them has been bent out of any reasonable understanding (example: those who have used holes in the system to claim thousands of pounds for extra homes - closer to parliament than they need - or have abused flight allowances or fudged household needs...or built a sodding house for their ducks! 3) the ones who in ANY other profession would have had been walked out of their place of work for 'conduct unbecoming' , kicked in the arse and dumped on the pavement or even had the police on the doorstep with handcuffs (example: those who claimed for non-existent mortgages, or went for years excepting payments they weren't entitled to, ie: FRAUD).

In the last few weeks, the MPs have been dropping like flies, usually jumping rather than being pushed, but only doing so when a newspaper is about to blow their cover, rather than out of some genuine 'I'm correcting this before anyone even thinks it was deliberate!'  In many ways you'd think that would be just fine. Get rid of 'em. Isn't the government better if all the welathy opportunists leave?  Ah yes, but in this job, you don't just leave.  (In fact, I genuinely can't remember the last time a politician was fired? Can you?) No, you gallantly say that you've actually done nothing wrong but after due consideration you've decided to step down at the NEXT GENERAL ELECTION (ie: sometime next year) to spend more time with your family... but only AFTER after you pick up lots more expenses and grants for holding out for another twelve months. (It's like a waiter spitting in your food and then demanding you negotiate the tip anyway while promsising he'll be back to do it again tomorrow!)

All this disconnect from the public and the general consideration that whatever you're caught doing as an MP, there's a fair to middling chance you can get forgiven by your colleagues and back into government after a few years in the directorship of several prominent firms wilderness anyway (Yes, Peter Mandelson, I'm looking at you! Oi, David Blunkett, don't even think about it!) means that this country has lost almost all its faith in its leaders. Change we can believe in? Not so much over here, mate.

I don't fall into the easy trap of thinking ALL MPs are crooks. I'm sure most are reasonably fair or no more opportunistic than the average person. But if the only way to force all MPs to open their books and show if they've bucked the system is to have a General Election, then so be it. It's dramatic, but it gives the public a voice and a line they can draw in the sand and at least START to regain a mutual trust. (Simon's done a great opinion/ blog about this too) I doubt merely losing Gordon Brown as leader of the Labour Party (surely now a possibility after the day's and evening's events and the mass resignations and mea culpas) will solve anything, but a forced changing of the attitude as much as the guard in general, just might.

If not, I'm afraid that nothing changes. Or worse than that, it'll cause people to buy into the like of the BNP's savvy spin-cycle campaign (that their BNP leaders are no longer a bunch of nasty right-wing nazi-sympathisers but actually cuddly-wuddly misunderstood and honest, non-book-fiddling patriots) and give them more power in a protest vote against the main parties. The BNP has tapped into a mood of genuine anger and frustration and a need to believe  in the best for/of our country (and offered questions that, yes, actually  DO need addressing/answers...) in a way that few other parties have dared. Yes, it's bait and switch of the most insidiously bigotted  kind, but when the BNP starts looking remotely more credible than the government, you KNOW you have a problem.

It's a dirty time in politics. The question is, more than ever, just what else will need to come out in the spin cycle? I wash my hands of it.