A Government of National Inanity

Here are two shopping lists: 1) removing wisteria £680;new fence posts £2,024; a massage chair £730; whirlpool bathroom suite £800. 2) Trident nuclear deterrent update £25bn; two new aircraft carriers £3.9bn; Joint Strike Fighters for the aforementioned carriers £12bn; third tranche of Eurofighter contract £2bn; identity cards £4.7bn; Heathrow’s third runway £9bn; Crossrail £16bn; and so on.

The second list comprises just a few of the major spending decision facing government. It is widely believed that the financial crisis means that we cannot afford all of these projects, and most were controversial even before the crisis, because they were indications of a country still trying to punch above its weight.

The really shaming thing about the MP’s expenses row is the revelation that with so many sleep-denying decision in the in-trays (for those in government, that is), some of them have found time for creative accounting in their domestic economies. The expenses row is a huge distraction from the real business of the nation. Never has “fiddling while Rome burns” been more apposite.

Whilst obsessing about such trivia, the government has spent more than a decade dodging big decisions – on filling the energy gap; on reducing carbon emissions; on curbing out-of-control Ministry of Defence spending on prestige projects for the Navy and RAF; on electrifying the rest of the rail network and rationalising its ownership and financing; on rebalancing the economy in favour of manufacturing.

The electorate seems mostly unconcerned and uninformed about most of these mega projects, especially the military ones. The government prefers to make these expert decisions on the quiet, and the Media, which should be creating a forum for debate on these big issues, mostly connives with the public in preferring prurience about dirty linen to examining the technicalities of defence procurement. It is easy to understand the furore. Most people haven’t a clue about the rights and wrongs of buying  Eurofighters or  JSFs. Why should they? But running a household is the only thing everyone understands. Mrs Thatcher used to play this card, claiming that she as a housewife would apply good housewifely principles when it came to the national budget. But it’s a sign of national inanity to be more concerned with MPs' feather dusters than with the great affairs of state and industry.

There is much loose talk now about people power. The humiliation of this parliament seems likely to open the door to a raft of celebrity MPs (the people’s choice) plus an intake of extremists. Do we really think that a Parliament –  probably hung – containing the likes of Joanna Lumley, Esther Rantzen, a few Greens and a small but growing gang of UKIPs and BNPs will be better than the present incumbents at addressing the real shopping list. Because such a grotesque celebrity/extremist Parliament is where our obsession with MPs’ laundry lists seems to be heading.