Saturday 10 October 2015

Piggate and British Politics

By now, the claims of David Cameron's initiation exploits have hit every corner of the online world, regardless of how true or not they actually are. It's important to mention that this story is likely not true, but at this point, the truth isn't exactly the important element of this story.

The fact of the matter is, most of the British public know that this is likely a fabricated story from a bitter politician in order to tar Cameron's name. Lord Ashcroft, the person behind the claims raised a vast amount of money for the Conservative party, and thus felt he was owed a more senior role (whether this was implied by dealings with Cameron or not is besides the point, but it was likely an informal agreement based on past political convention). When he was passed up for this role, details of this story were leaked to the biographer working on David Cameron's life story. There's certainly a motive for fabricating this story.

The British public want to believe this story based on David Cameron's politics. For those outside the UK, here's a very brief primer of what's going on. The Conservative party is a right wing political party (somewhat like the US Republicans), primarily made up of privately schooled, middle and upper-class career politicians. The majority of their politicians come from very wealthy, privileged backgrounds, and there is a wide-spread feeling that they alienate themselves from poorer and working-class families because of this. Their policies include: increasing tax thresholds for the very wealthy, separating from the European Union, 'competitive' taxes for large corporations, reducing immigration rates, scraping the Human Rights Act and increase military spending. In short, if you have money, it'll be easier to keep it; if you don't, it'll be more difficult to earn it; if you want to live and work in the UK having come from anywhere else, it will be more difficult; you lose the basic human rights that have been internationally agreed upon; and more money will be spent on waging war. These policies were taken from their 2015 manifesto - i.e. these are the policies they will openly admit to aiming for.

Keep in mind that they had already spent 4 years in power prior to this. When David Cameron was re-elected as PM, amidst some controversy, protests immediately started outside 10 Downing Street. In short, in quite a broad section of Britain, he isn't popular and he is seen to be damaging the most vulnerable people in society to the benefit of the wealthiest.

The British public aren't exactly strangers to political controversy, either, from Members of Parliament claiming ludicrous expenses on behalf of the taxpayer; Andrew Mitchell allegedly insulting a police officer by calling him a 'pleb'; and the 'Cash for Access' scandal where politicians allegedly accepted money in exchange for individual's access to influential politicians. This is all within the last five years, and is just the scandals that have enough proof to be reported on without newspapers and media outlets put in danger of being sued for libel. If something more nefarious were going on, without very significant proof, it could not even be hinted at within news outlets without risk of being libellous.

The fact of the matter is, whether or not it's true, people want to believe that the Prime Minister has taken part in a clandestine ritual involving a dead pig in exchange for acceptance into the rich and powerful 'elite' because it's easier to believe that there's this metaphorical deal with the devil that the rich need to do in order to get the power that they have. There is certainly an element of 'otherness' in how powerful people see poor and working class members of their own society, and this is a way in which that can almost be turned around, and see politicians and influential people as 'other' to them. It's a dehumanising act, and it's almost easier to believe that a person that is so instrumental in cutting support and benefits for vulnerable members of society isn't truly 'human' in the way that many of us would think of humanity.

It's easier to paint people as inhuman monsters than accept that people like this do exist, and are not only accepted in society, but run it. Piggate isn't the problem, but the fact that we can all look at Cameron and think "yeah, he totally could've"...that's the problem, and unfortunately, it's not one that has a simple solution.

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