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Stephen Fry on MPs expenses (BBC Newsnight)

Worth watching wherever you are in the world just for his opening remark, but interesting in general.

Watching political scandal unfold from abroad is interesting. By which I mostly mean, much better. I’ve been able to avoid the soul-sucking impact of twenty-four hour exposure to journalists getting overexcited to smear and humiliate MPs, and I haven’t walked past an Evening Standard headline placard in five months. But, I can still observe the unfolding situation with all the aloof judgement and disdain for humanity I’d have back home. It’s brilliant, like you’re only watching the ‘Previously on Journalistic Posturing…’ intro to each daily episode.

Thanks to the quantity of coverage passing through Twitter and written news coverage in general, it’s really not hard to make a swift rational conclusion about it all:

Everybody in this room is a cock.

MPs have cultivated and permitted a long term culture of opaqueness in many areas of Britain’s political system. The resistance and sheer scale of the process involved in passing recent legislation to have the expenses system made public is embarrassing. I quite like the quirks and historic soup of the way England operates, but when someone points out something like this should be open, I think it requires a certain corrupt inclination to resist it.

So, MPs could be doing rather better. And of course, it does seem that some of the expense claims recently exposed should not have been allowed.

But, then we have journalists. By which I barely mean ‘reporters’. I refer to the lowlives that exist only to smother this sort of eventuality in coverage to their own gain. These who mostly work for tabloid newspapers, but you already know that.

These are the kinds of shitbags who can’t order breakfast without indicating a political bias: They’re either trying to smear the Tories, or (as seems to be the trend at the moment) promote them to government. These are the scum who’ll turn the Prime Minister’s choice of coffee blend into a question over his ability to lead. And they’ll write about it for three solid days with misleading headlines of escalating provocation until you, a member of the public, give in and acknowledge their coverage.

The British tabloid is a two year old child whose pleas for attention start out at screaming, then quickly escalate to throwing toys, before finally rewarding your disciplined parental ignorance by stripping off and taking a gigantic shit in the middle of your living room.

Of course, it’s all made worse when they have a whiff of an actually substantial story to work with too.

These are the kinds of journalists without moral fibre to separate their actions from consequences, least of all, long term consequences. As in the video:

Michael Crick

But surely this will deter people from voting?

Stephen Fry

Only because you keep saying so…

The atmosphere now is one whereby ‘all MPs’ are abusers of taxpayer money. The profession has been tied ever tighter to a culture of corruption to the degree that voters are incited to be angry at this amorphous blob of ‘politics’, rather than actually judge their local MP on his or her individual failings. The result? Lower general turnout in future elections, and when they come around it’ll be much easier for journalists to swing the result of elections through ever more scandalous reporting of their unfavoured party.

Tabloid journalism is a profession that demonstrates more contempt for the rest of society than any other I can name. Even investment banking. They long since separated themselves from the role of ‘news reporters’ in favour of an egotistical endeavour to become influential; not to report on what has happened but to determine what happens next. As the deathknell for physical newspaper tolls again in the distance, their egotistical greed has combined with a desperate need to shift product to the lowest common denominator. The effect is rampant stupidity, lost of context, and unconstrained by any sense of responsibility or sanity.

Here is a fault in the British political system that at it’s core requires reform and simplification. Here is a situation that has been blown out of all proportion.

It’s enough to make you wish for a Swine Flu apocalypse.