Politicians R Criminals & George Monbiot’s “Britain’s Mafia State”

Just read George Monbiot’s recent blog, “Britain’s Mafia State”.  It definitely mirrors the concerns of our #PoliticiansRCriminals campaign. Monbiot, one of the world’s great political fact finders, asks “Where does legitimate business end and organised crime begin?”

He highlights some of the criminal aspects of our political system most convincingly. Just a few points:

• “Social cleansing is transforming inner London into an exclusive economic zone for property speculation.”
• There are no penalties for leaving buildings empty; the UK has become “a haven for the proceeds of international crime”. Financial secrecy provides “a conduit into the legal economy for gangsters, kleptocrats and drug barons.”
• The political privilege of the financial sector is astonishing – the City of London is a “semi-offshore state” “the only jurisdiction in the UK not fully subject to the authority of Parliament.”
• No link between political donations and seats in the House of Lords? Research by Oxford shows the probability of so many major donors “arriving there by chance” is “equivalent to entering the National Lottery and winning the jackpot 5 times in a row.”
• Without public consent (or even knowledge of the details) the government is negotiating treaties like TTIP & CETA which are above both parliament and the law.

Clearly, ours is a government for profit – not people –  politician’s criminal behaviour obviously not a worry.