You'd think that a man of the cloth would have a better handle on sin than the rest of us, but life ain't like that.
Dr. Rowan Williams, the Archbishop of Canterbury - a man who said he thought Tony Blair acted sincerely over Iraq - now thinks that exposing the institutional greed and corruption of the House of Commons and House of Lords is damaging democracy.
" Dr Rowan Williams said the daily revelations risked making it impossible for people to regain their confidence in the democratic system..."Many will now be wondering whether the point has not been adequately made." ... the continuing systematic humiliation of politicians itself threatens to carry a heavy price in terms of our ability to salvage some confidence in our democracy."
Welcome to the department of Missing the Point. It's not the coverage of the MPs' greedfest scandal that's undermining democracy. It's what the MPs have actually done. They have lied. They have lied to grab even more money from a system they created to maximise their income. They have pushed the system to the limit and beyond. They have been - mix and match from these terms accordingly - greedy, fraudulent, arrogant, stupid, contemptuous of the public, and immoral.
Had the Telegraph saved the story for one huge bad news day, I guarantee that this would have been buried. It would have been too much for most folks to take in. By spreading it over two weeks and maybe longer, the Telegraph has given it time to sink in to even the most disinterested brain, and also given the story the space it deserves. It's not a witch-hunt. It's appropriate.
Our MPs tried to stop us finding out what they do with our taxes, at a time when they demand to intrude more and more into our private lives. I call the Telegraph's revelations poetic justice.
Our institutions are, as I've said before, our fault. They aren't peopled by aliens. They're us. We are the society that caused these creatures to erupt like a plague. We get the governance we deserve, and it's fascinating that we've finally decided things are bad because the likes of Gerald Kaufman treats himself to an £8,000 telly on our tab, not because we have a government that would do Stalin proud. It's our fault.
But don't shoot the messenger who exposes this vile behaviour. And don't blame the public for being angry. Put the blame where it squarely belongs; with the people who have wronged this country. They're the ones who have made us a society that no longer trusts or respects government, the police, the church, or anyone else in authority roles.
Transparency is our right. Telling us to shut up about exposed secrets because terrible things will happen if we don't is the tactic of bullies and exploiters throughout history. We even have MPs whining now about how upset they are by the revelations - aww, poor loves - and warning us that some may even commit suicide. As if we needed any more proof that they really don't grasp how us common folk feel about this; I can see crowds gathering in Whitehall (before the police batter and arrest them, of course) to yell "Jump! Jump!" at any MP teetering on a ledge on the House of Commons.
Sadly, this "blame the victim, protect the sinner " attitude infests public life in the UK, the notion that the wrong-doer is not the fraud or dodgy bastard who does something wrong, but the person who reveals it or discusses it. I've witnessed it first hand - senior council managers expressing outrage that councillors had been caught accessing nauseating porn on computers paid for by the taxpayer. They didn't blame the elected perverts for doing this in the first place. Their anger was focused on the fact that the councillors got caught and the scandal became public, thereby bringing the council into disrepute. They also wanted to keep things quiet because of the impact of the wrong-doers and their families. The link between the wrongdoing and councillor, and whether such a person should be in public office, was somehow lost in this warped value system of probity.
Is all this really so hard to grasp?
I suppose it is for any part of the establishment. They - and by they I include the Church of England, the Catholic church, Parliament, local government, any powerful group that Knows Best and feels entitled to tell us how to live and behave - feel the real threat is the loss of respect for what they are. They're so cemented into their own world-view that they Do Good that dissenters or whistleblowers must by definition be the ones who are wrong and bad. So a few eggs get broken in making the omelette. So what? Aren't they entitled to that?
Er, no. An omelette contaminated by some rotten eggs, if I may continue the Hell's Kitchen analogy, still stinks.
The Church of England is a massively wealthy organisation and major landowner that once had huge political power. It obviously wishes it still had. I've yet to see any church abandon its roof refurbishment fund to divert the money raised to the poor. Like most organised religion, it's all about perpetuating itself and its influence. It really doesn't get what the real sins are in this world.
It's not just the C of E that's at fault, of course; the Church of Scotland is currently getting its sporran in a bunch about a queer minister, and my first thought was to wonder how many folks who signed the petition against him devoted as much fervour to signing petitions about the long list of other sins available in the bible. There's a hell of a lot to choose from. Some of them actually involve causing pain and suffering, which you might think would exercise the consciences of the faithful a bit more than what a gay rev does in his spare time, but no - like most who parade their faith like a designer brand, it comes down to sex. Sex, sex, sex. The only sin they really get worked up about is sex and what results from it. Can prurient god-botherers not find some time to protest about famine, violence, institutional child abuse, or...government corruption for a change?
A fairly good benchmark of "wrong" is this; if you do something you don't want anyone else to know about - and you're not a member of MI5,of course - the chances are it's wrong, and you know it. MPs knew. That's why they didn't want us to know about their property portfolios, vast TVs, vibrating chairs, unpaid tax, moat-cleaning, and other scams. And those are just the ones who were naive enough to list the real detail on their forms. How many have charged hookers and coke to the taxpayer and just listed it as unreceipted food allowance? Or - as in the Lords - made their extra earnings from taking cash from companies to influence legislation?
So spare us the sob story, all you politicians who got caught. If you can't do the time, don't do the crime, as we little people say. You're the ones who've undermined democracy. All we did was sit on our arses watching reality TV, and let you get on with it.
All that it requires for evil to succeed, etc etc etc.
