| Topic: | Re:Re:Re:Re:Re:Re:Re:Re:It is not just Huhne who is a lying hypocrite | |
| Posted by: | Phil Andrews | |
| Date/Time: | 06/02/13 17:30:00 |
| Of course political parties that enter into coalition with one another remain rivals. I even understand the reasons why the Conservatives regarded us in the ICG as political rivals when we were in coalition on Hounslow Council, because that is how they are conditioned to think. I was always able to live with this. However any agreement between people or groups of people still requires a certain amount of integrity. No agreement - whether we are talking about a marriage, a business deal or whatever - can survive if one party cannot be trusted to conduct dealings with at least a certain degree of honour. Without honour and trust no agreement is possible and a coalition agreement, presumably, is intended to benefit both or all those parties involved at the time it is entered into. Otherwise there is little point in negotiating an agreement in the first place. Let me give you an example of this trust thing. When the then Deputy Leader of the LBH Labour Group told a meeting of Borough Council that it was okay to tell deliberate lies about opponents during election campaigns because it was "politics", she was in fact telling us that we cannot ever believe a word that emanates from her local party again. She will protest otherwise, of course, but knowing that lying is considered acceptable in a political situation how can we ever be confident that we are told the truth, even when we are? Or to put it another way, if somebody knowingly sells me a dodgy car then I will never buy a car or anything else from that person again, because knowing that person I can never have confidence that I am not being ripped off a second time. To the vast majority of ordinary, everyday people this will all appear blindingly obvious. Only politicians, uniquely, seem unable to grasp this sort of thing. |