Douglas Carswell's Blog

The purpose of politics

What, I sometimes wonder, am I doing here? Why stand for election to Parliament?

It is hardly as if the 0.15 percent voting share I get in the House of Commons as a backbencher gives me much clout.

Nor can I be accused of coming to Westminster in order to try to climb the greasy pole. Even if one were to rise to the dizzy heights of under secretary of state in the department for widgets, one would soon discover that it is the Whitehall machine that runs not just widget policy, but the country.

No. The real reason for being in politics is to try to do what the great Milton Friedman suggested. It is not about trying to get the "right people" elected. "The important thing" Friedman maintained "is to establish a political climate of opinion which will make it politically profitable for the wrong people to do the right thing. Unless it is politically profitable for the wrong people to do the right thing, the right people will not do the right thing either, or it they try, they will shortly be out of office."

Directly elected police chiefs, radical localism, open primaries, recall, lower taxes, an in / out EU referendum ...... the aim is to ensure that even the wrong people, driven by the wrong motives, will have to eventually do the right thing.

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