Apology not accepted

It never ceases to amaze me how stupid politicians seem to think the public is. Cameron played a blinder today though by forcing all Tories who have claims that 'smell bad' even to repay the money. Go Cameron. A great political move. If Labour follows suit them are damned, if they do not, they are damned. Inspired move.

But can we actual apologise for long term unethical behaviour? Where does character flaw kick in. Either the MP's who made iffy claims did not realise that it was unethical (you're fired) or they did realise and did it anyway (you're fired).

What we need is resignations, quickly and a lot of them. If nobody resigns over this then our parliament is fundamentally broken. If you can be caught doing near corruption, trying to prevent its exposure (freedom of information) and then defend the activity even though at the same time apologizing then its game over.

Time for a change.

Hollow Men

One of the key questions that arises from Hollow Man and in fact many tales involving the invisible man is to do with morals. If you could not be caught would you act morally?

Our politicians have answered that very question. The argument over MP's expenses has been bounced around by the MP's themselves. Answers along the lines of

1) Yes but look at the levels of corruption in other countries. We are not like that.
2) We have done nothing wrong, we have acted within the rules.

The first just distracts the debate. The levels of torture is higher in many other countries so a little bit here is OK. A defense I would like to try if I ever get charged with tax fraud.

But it is the second answer I find the most staggering. The MP's taking this line are mixing up what is right and wrong and following the rules and not following the rules. Just because they follow the rules does not make what they do right. It just makes the rules immoral.

If the rules are immoral then it is not as if they had no choice. They could choose as many did not to claim.

It is not just the claiming that is immoral, it is their inability to understand that these claims, even within the rules, were wrong and to do nothing about them. To argue otherwise is unacceptable.

For that reason, and that reason alone, those MP's caught up in this row should resign.

Hollow Man

The film Hollow Man was on last night. After the scene where they make Kevin Bacon invisible he wakes up and shouts at the other scientists to turn down the lights. The scientist says that it is because his eye lids are transparent to light.

But surely so are his retinas. In other words a consequence of becoming invisible (totally) is to go blind. What fun would that be?