Harlequin wrote:Do they receive some kind of individual punishment when they do self-incriminate?
Well, that's the point.
They don't. But they absolutely should, when confessing criminal activity, such as gerrymandering.
And, as I've stated before, I think that the activities of party whips should very much be investigated and dealt with criminally. In the same way that if I, or any other member of the public, went up to an MP and bought their vote or special honours or corrupt deals for cash, this would be a criminal matter. And I don't see that party whips have any special legal status that puts them above these laws - it's just a kind of fucked up "tradition" that no-one ever properly investigates or prosecutes.
It's on Hansard. A new MP asked the Speaker if they could force a vote into being a free vote, and the Speaker's response made the legal position clear. As far as the rules of the House are concerned, all votes are free votes. And that how MPs choose to organise themselves is up to them - that is, political parties do not have any official legal status, they are just "MP trade unions" where they choose to self-organise together for mutual advantage. Ergo, party whips do not have ANY special legal privileges beyond what any other citizen has.
That is, MPs have created political parties for their own mutual benefit and then, to enforce some order and policies within their party, have "whips" who go around promising perks and jobs as carrots, and threatening sanction - to lose the whip is to lose party support - as a stick.
But I feel that everyone's become so accustomed to this de facto system that there's insufficient scrutiny over how party whips behave. Offering, say, a ministerial position and its accompanying perks - or threatening to remove this - is a natural and legal means of enforcing order in the party.
But special "secret deals", honours used as bribes, etc. really should be more thoroughly scrutinised. It skirts the line of legality in principle, and I feel that, too often, it's really crossing the line, yet nothing is done.
This is potentially criminal corruption going on. But it's become so "normal", embedded into the woodwork, left unscrutinised, etc. that nothing happens.
If you openly admit to have gerrymandered the vote - and that the only purpose of your policy was to do so - then the electoral commission should really have you arrested and it's thoroughly investigated, with a view to prosecution, if legal boundaries have been crossed.
If an ex-minister is openly admitting to special "secret deals" behind closed doors, then there should be a public inquiry into it - even if it turns out not to be criminal, then it should be fully examined to determine that. Like, you don't just ask a potential criminal "did you commit a crime?" and then just take their word for it, when they say "no". Because, of course, every criminal is going to say "no" every single time.
It's all far, far, far too cosy and unscrutinised and corrupt "tradition" that this stuff isn't raked over with a fine toothcomb every single time.
But it should be. Because this is exactly why they prance around, happily announcing their corruption (some of which might very well be actually criminal - I think it is, but a criminal trial would have to rule that officially, of course), because no-one ever investigates, no-one ever scrutinises, no-one ever prosecutes. Nothing ever happens.
The apple core has become so rotten for so long, everyone's seemingly forgotten what a fresh and healthy apple core is supposed to look like. So corrupt, they don't even realise how fucked up their public confessions are.
It's Trump's "I could shoot someone in the street and no-one would do anything" - and it doesn't so much matter that he's not actually done that (yet), the fact that he believes it and that, worryingly, he's probably absolutely right that he could totally get away with it, is a tyrannical threat unto itself. That bad attitude totally informed his belief that he could just remain as President as long as he liked, and fuck the law, for those Capitol riots. And, indeed, the grand problem here is that, in terms of the distinct lack of any meaningful punishment for doing so, he's kind of right. If the law is not enforced, then there effectively is no law, in practice, whatever flowery language about morals and principles are written down on paper somewhere. If they're not put into action, then it remains just ink on parchment and nothing more than that.
Yes, nothing ever happens. But that's the whole problem that I'm lamenting here. It fucking well should be investigated and I suspect when you do so, there will be repeated grounds for actual criminal prosecution.
(And, of course, "pleading the fifth" was meant metaphorically. The UK does have "the right to remain silent", which is the equivalent right to not self-incriminate. It does also exist, in different form, in the UK too. Like, come on, the Yanks didn't invent this stuff, they got it all from the Magna Carta and Common Law. But, ah, yes, the fact that our constitution is not a written constitution is another, different, bugbear to complain about too.)
"Words ought to be a little wild - for they are assaults of thought on the unthinking."
- John Maynard Keynes
