Tories and sociopaths

Its been a bad week as far as this government is concerned, but we have learnt something very important, that this is a government of cranks and oddballs. First up for this week we have had the resignation of the arch -Thatcherite Defence Secretary Liam Fox, because of his bizarre relationship with his friend Adam Werrity. The mind boggles that anyone in a position of power and trust could just invite his chum to tag along on foreign trips and meetings with foreign politicians to discuss defence issues. But this is the Tories that we are talking about, so while Adam was tagging along, there were, of course, fat salaries and five star hotels, all paid for by their businessmen buddies.

Next, we have Oliver Letwin, another Thatcherite and special advisor to David Cameron who was photographed wandering round a park in London tossing correspondence from his constituents into the waste bins! I'm sure the people who had written to him were well impressed. This was followed by 'man of the people' Ian Duncan Smith, losing it and ranting because the Child Poverty Action Group had the temerity to challenge his plans for the capping of housing benefit, which will lead to social cleansing in London with up to 9,000 families being forced to leave their homes.

And in the same week, Jamie Oliver has rightly condemned the Health Secretary Andrew Lansley's obesity strategy as "worthless, regurgitated, patronising rubbish". Because Lansley's strategy is basically to blame obesity on the fat. Is he just daft? No, being a Tory he is a friend of money and the big food corporations.  When it comes to profits the health of the nation is a long way second. The food corporations encourage people to eat processed food containing high amounts of salt and sugar. They are like the tobacco companies and its about time they were treated the same way.

The point is that there is a pattern here. This is a government of reactionary cranks. Tory ministers are simply not the ordinary 'men in the street' that they would like the rest of to believe they are. They are either wealthy people from privileged backgrounds, who have never had to apply for a proper job, or people who support and aspire to privilege, and people who see no problem with there being vast inequalities in society, as long as they and their loved ones have their snouts firmly in the trough. They are a curious blend of the public schoolboy and second hand car salesman, people who know the price of everything and the value of nothing. People who are quite happy to impose poverty and hardship on others through £81 billion worth of cuts which will hit the most vulnerable people in society the hardest, and cut health services for the rest of us. I suspect that many of them are probably sociopaths.

The profile of a sociopath is too complex to describe here but if you can take time to examine this definition, reflect on the qualities of the people in power I have mentioned, including David Cameron, and see for yourself if you think they fit the profile. Here are some rules to help you deal with sociopaths when you meet them, because you undoubtedly will.