A previously unheard-of Government Minister resigned today. David Cairns (for that is his name) is unhappy with Gordon Brown’s leadership, and feels that he can no longer serve under him.
I have just been reading his resignation letter, and, goodness me, what a frightening document.
Here are some excerpts:
“Dear Gordon,
As someone who has never uttered a public word of criticism of our Labour Government, far less ever cast a vote against it in the years that I have been an MP, the concept of loyalty to my Party and our Leader is at the very heart of my political beliefs.”.
Interesting. People go into politics for all sorts of reasons. Their intentions are oftentimes honest, although the underlying philosophy might be misguided. Some wish to alleviate poverty, improve educational standards, advocate greater personal responsibility, reduce the tax burden, and so on.
But David Cairns? Just read the above excerpt: at the heart of what he (without irony) refers to as his political beliefs is the self-serving, unthinking “virtue” of loyalty to party and leader. (I note without further comment his telling capitalisation of the word “leader”.) Loyalty no matter what. To this politician, it matters not what the party or leader may decide, he has no independent principles, no settled beliefs of his own against which to weigh those decisions. If it comes from the party or from the leader, then it’s good enough for Mr Cairns.
He states, as a matter of pride, that he has never cast a vote against the Labour Party in all his years as an MP. What David Cairns is telling us is this: that when it came to Parliamentary votes on serious decisions, decisions on which rested weighty issues such as life and liberty, he voted, not for the good of his constituents, but for the good of the Labour Government.
So the interests of the Labour Party were of primary consideration to him during the Parliamentary votes on detention without charge of suspected terrorists, the EC Treaty, and the declaration of war on Iraq? At no point did his conscience ever kick in to lead him to depart from the Government position. (Perhaps I err in my assumption that he has a conscience independent of the Labour Party.) Of course, I am not so naive as to think that politicians of all parties do not act in so partisan a manner. What shocks me is that, with his chest-beating declaration, he obviously sees such behaviour as a virtue, vainly puffed up in his arrogant mind.
Some more from the letter:
“For me it is an article of faith that the worst day of a Labour Government is better than the best day of a Tory or SNP one.”.
Isn’t that lovely? In other words, whatever an opposition party does or says is, prima facie, bad. To him, the Labour Party alone has all the answers. Truly saddening. What crime did we commit as a nation to deserve such representatives?
At least he has now resigned. Thank heavens for this brief moment of lucidity, but don’t expect it to last. His delusion has truly taken hold, as this letter plainly shows.