Almost every time he speaks, David Cameron shows just how far removed from ordinary people he really is. Yesterday, during Prime Minister's Questions, Ed Miliband understandably asked Cameron to explain the links between the Tory Party, and HSBC, after it was revealed that the bank had helped some of its private clients in Switzerland not just to avoid tax, but to evade it, which is a criminal act. The former head of the private banking section of HSBC, Stephen Green, was made a peer, and a Tory Trade Minister, by Cameron, several months after the facts about HSBC had been passed to the HMRC. Cameron's refusal to answer any question put to him during PMQ's has become a sick joke, but his refusal to answer the questions about his links with Lord Green, reached a new low.
Over the last few days, the Tories have tried ludicrously, but in accordance with their attempt on any question you might ask to simply blame Labour, to shift the focus on to the fact that the tax avoidance and evasion brought to light, was uncovered back in 2007. That is ludicrous, because the information itself was not passed to HMRC until 2010, when the Liberal-Tories took over the government. A government could hardly be held responsible for not taking action in response to activity that had not yet been uncovered! The real question is why, after 2010 when the information had been passed to HMRC, the Liberal-Tories did nothing about it, and why, in fact, the Tories made Stephen Green a peer and a Minister in their government! This has all the hallmarks of Cameron's appointment of Andy Coulson.
But, what was worse in Cameron's response, was that rather than answering the question he revealed the true nature of how he and the Tories see the world. Firstly, he tried to tell us that the fact that some very rich people donate millions of pounds to the Tory Party has nothing to do with the kinds of policies the Tories pursue, or the fact that some of those people become peers and Ministers. He then tried to contrast this with the fact that the Trades Unions donate money to the Labour Party, and the Trades Unions, are also affiliated to the Labour Party, and thereby have a vote in determining its policies, and its MP's, and leader.
What Cameron cannot seem to grasp is that there is a world of difference here. When he looks at businesses - as set out recently - all he sees are those same fat cat bureaucrats, who represent the interests of the money lending capitalists that sit on company boards. He does not see businesses as actually being comprised of millions of workers who actually produce the goods and services, and make the profits, that are appropriated as interest payments (dividends, bond yields) by those money lending capitalists, or even as the day to managers of those businesses (the people who Marx termed the "functioning capitalists") who organise the work of those workers, undertake the supervision and planning of production and so on, and who are themselves likely to be members of trades unions as any other worker.
Yet, in fact, when the decisions are made to make donations to the Tory Party by businesses, all of these millions of workers, who produce the commodities, and create the profits, along with the day to day managers of those businesses, are given no say whatsoever in the decision. Those decisions are preserved as the function of those top level boards of bureaucrats who look after the interests of the shareholders.
Similarly, therefore, when Cameron looks at the trades unions, and the donations made by them to the Labour Party, he again does not see millions of workers, who make up those trades unions, he only sees the leaders of those unions, who unlike the top Directors, have actually been democratically elected. For Cameron, the millions of ordinary people do not exist. Whether it is as the actual components of businesses - the people who make the goods and services, and create the profits - or whether it is as members of trades unions, who voluntarily give their time, and vote to elect their leaders, to donate to the Labour Party, and to actively take part in democratically determining its policies, its MP's and its leaders, they are invisible to Cameron and the Tories. They do not exist, for him.
In his Public School, elitist mentality, the only people who exist are the few at the top, whether it is the bureaucrats at the top of businesses, or the bureaucrats at the top of the trades unions. In respect of the latter, the situation is far from perfect from the perspective of a Marxist, but it is far, far better than the situation in respect of the select few who control the board rooms of companies. It is our small, individual contributions that makes up the money that is donated to our Labour Party, it is our voluntary action in attending union meetings to take part in electing our officials, in determining union policy, and in determining Labour party policy, and choosing our LP officials that he is attacking. When cameron attacks the role of the Trades Unions in donating to the Labour Party, and in helping to determine its direction, he is again attacking millions of ordinary working people.
He can't see that, because for him, those millions of people do not exist. He just doesn't get it, because he lives in a different world from the rest of us.
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