Читать книгу Crap MPs - Dr. Grosvenor Bendor - Страница 5

Some people say that the expenses scandal of 2009 has done more damage to our political system than any other single episode in modern British history. Actually, the reverse is true. Thanks to the recent revelations of fraud, arrogance and incompetence, we are now more aware of the shortcomings of our leaders than ever before. We are governed by a uniquely crap generation of politicians. And now that we know, we can begin to do something about it.

But just how bad are today’s MPs, compared with their predecessors? This book attempts to answer that question by looking at MPs from the sixteenth century to the present day. It includes the murderous, the corrupt, the perverted and the merely useless. We have chosen forty – about one-quarter of whom are made up of current MPs. Only three of the forty are women. Strangely, there are eight Johns. The criteria for crapness are not scientific, and are based (libel lawyers, please note) purely on our own opinion. Some may wonder at the absence of those who ended up mired in political manure, such as John Major, James Callaghan, or even our own Gordon Brown, but political failure does not qualify anyone for this list. Individual failings do.