This week my least favourite politician (and I have quite a few to choose from) resigned his seat. The media have made the most of his misfortune. His unforgivable crime was not getting caught for fairly trivial offence of speeding, not even for making his wife take his penalty points, nor even his conspiracy to pervert the course of justice. His heinous crime was telling porkies to Parliament. Imagine that, a politician telling lies!
Why is it that we take malicious or smug pleasure in somebody else’s misfortune? The media especially promote the feeling of schadenfreude, that feeling of pleasure some people revel in when bad things happen to someone else.
My personal dislike of Chris Huhne stems from his devious dealings within the coalition and going against his Conservative partners and through his devious ducking and diving, Britain has been saddled with the most fanatical deep green energy policy in the world. For the wind-farm policy is as disastrous as it is farcical. Not only are these huge turbines an environmental eyesore, they also produce no energy if the wind is not blowing. But even more ludicrously, if the wind blows too hard, they have to be shut down.
With remarkably prescient timing, more than 100 Tory MPs have written to the Prime Minister demanding that the £400 million-a-year subsidies paid to the onshore wind turbine industry should be ‘dramatically cut’. The wind industry is a pack of liars and con merchants who couldn’t lie straight in bed. I have absolutely no confidence in anything they say whatsoever.”
I wonder why his colleagues are so surprised to discover that he has been unmasked as a devious, scheming liar. This is the man who In 2006, less than a year after becoming an MP he promised party grandee Sir Menzies Campbell he would not challenge him to replace Charles Kennedy. Hours later Huhne changed his mind and decided to stand but went on to lose badly. In the leadership contest in 2007, he was exposed on national TV for branding young rival Nick Clegg ‘Calamity Clegg’ in a briefing document. He later narrowly lost by just 511 votes, blaming ballot papers from party members caught up in the Christmas post.
This is a man whom if he were in the navy would be designated as being a “Pig’s Orphan”. Matelots always could unerringly sniff out a charlatan.
So we have one MP facing prison for fiddling three points onto his wife’s licence. A member of the Lords fiddled £15000 on expenses, did not pay it back and is now back in the fold without punishment claiming more expenses. Funny thing is JUSTICE
