WenPolitician for sale
Can any of them explain the term ‘conflict of interest’?
#Law #ConflictOfInterest #Tories #Badenough #Wolfson #Russia #MoneyTalks
Just Tom... 🐁@Wen As someone who spent his working life in a profession where conflicts of interest were simply not permitted, I am profoundly mystified by the demonstrable ability that politicians have for convincing themselves that somehow the concept doesn't apply to them, that they, uniquely in this world, are somehow immune from the inevitable biases and self-serving that ensue. How easily they kid themselves.
@tompearce49 I also find it difficult to appreciate (I can understand the greed). For a number of years I have done as well - to the point at which our personal bank accounts had to be available for audit. With the appropriate security and privacy I was Ok with that - what these sods (and they run across party lines) get away with mysifies me. The HoL is possibly even worse - they are not even elected thieves and scoundrels.
Steve WoodsWell said, Tom.
That arrogant attitude extends from the red and green leather benches of Halitosis Hall, SW1 right down to the local council chamber.
Why do so many of our alleged elected representatives have an integrity bypass?
@wood5y @tompearce49 If you don’t know it Pterry had some amusing insight in The Lost Continent
“We put all our politicians in prison as soon as they’re elected. Don’t you?” “Why?” “It saves time.”
― Terry Pratchett, The Last Continent
Yes satire and most politicians in the UK are not like that, but this behaviour in the words of my American cousin “sucks’
@wood5y @Wen When I started work (in the seventies), there were regular "drug lunches" where groups of doctors were wined and dined (after a brief presentation) by pharmaceutical company reps. There were expenses-paid trips to "conferences" - always in exotic places. Even then I felt that it was quite clear that we were being "bought". All of that has long gone. I think that there is something in the "Westminster culture" where even those entering parliament with good intentions are seduced.
@tompearce49 @wood5y I remember my brother (a consultant surgeon in England now) referring sarcastically to the “sweet call of medics on the piste mid ‘conference’” in regard to sponsored conferences
Tim Ward ⭐🇪🇺🔶 #FBPE@tompearce49 @Wen Only some politicians. I have refused hospitality because I can't be arsed to fill in the paperwork, and I routinely declared an interest and withdrew from a decision when appropriate, and I know plenty of others who also behave correctly.
@TimWardCam @Wen - of course, and it would be wrong of me to tar all politicians with the same brush.
@tompearce49 @TimWardCam One of the problems we have of course seems to be that ‘they are all the same’ is a mentality being pushed out by the media. They are not, but as we know people believe what the Daily Fail and similar tell them.
@TimWardCam @tompearce49 I spent time seconded to government (in London) - an awful place, but the politicians I worked with while pretty awful then - Theresa May as Home Sec - did appear honest if sometime/often deluded. More recent visits with one of her ‘progeny’, won’t say who, were terrifying.
@Wen @tompearce49 "The problem with Theresa May," I was told by someone who worked with her in government, was that once she'd made a decision she would stick with it forever, including long after she knew it was wrong.
@TimWardCam @tompearce49 She was unfailingly polite, unlike Patel (who I met on a visit some time after - she was screening about EU fuvkwits as we walked into the room - her words) with a French colleague.
That was on work that required French cooperation. Her civil servants appeared embarrassed.
May didn’t listen, Patel neither listened or cared. One might have been dumb, the other was demonstrably stupid.