“What has this puny affair of a schoolboy and the alleged theft of a paltry five shillings - what has this to do with our rights and liberties? Only this, once allowed, through indifference, the slow poison of indifference, by being convenient, may cripple and destroy those rights and liberties. It matters not whether the case is about a schoolboy or a pensioner, it matters not if the sum is five shillings or the fiftieth part of the smallest fraction of a farthing. It matters not a jot, for the Winslow boy is none of these. It is not Winslow’s guilt or innocence that concerns us. It is something greater by far.”

“It is Winslow’s right as a common citizen of England to be heard in defence of his honour so wantonly thrown away because of this monstrous assumption, this medieval assumption, that the king can do no wrong. To maintain the common rights against the king, I will fight to the last breath in my body, to the last drop of my blood. And I believe, with my whole heart, that the house [of parliament] will accept the one course left to the government. Let me not rest until the attorney general has endorsed Mr Winslow’s petition, with the time-honoured phrase. The phrase that has always stirred an Englishman, and I hope always will stir him, whether he may be in his castle, in his back yard or in the humblest public house, at the corner of the humblest little street. Let Right Be Done“.

I recently watched the 1948 film The Winslow Boy, which I have watched several times before. The storyline, loosely based on a true story, is about a 14 year-old naval academy student in the UK who is expelled after school authorities concluded that he had stolen a five shilling postal order from a fellow student. The student’s father believes his son to be innocent and employs the country’s leading barrister to defend his son (after struggling to secure parliamentary permission to take the case to court). The Terence Rattigan play focuses on the major financial, domestic and career sacrifices made by the student’s family and the barrister in order to secure justice for the student. It is about the principle - “Let Right Be Done.”

Being open, honest and principled are vital characteristics for anyone either in the home, in business or in governing the country. I have concluded that in the case of the latter, politicians over the last few decades have largely failed to exhibit these key and fundamental traits. This problem is not exclusive to the UK but is abundantly evident in other countries such as the USA, Russia, China, India, North Korea, Israel, and India to name a few of the most important.

Here in the UK we have suffered and will continue to suffer from these moral and ethical deficiencies which have been exposed many times over the last twenty plus years. Back in the 90s Tony Blair rewarded substantial Labour party donors with equally substantial favours. But the one event which marred his record above all else was his support for President Bush in declaring war on Iraq which cost thousands of lives and created the foundation for long-term extreme Islam terrorism. The so-called Iraq Dossier which was presented to parliament turned out to be an almost total fiction on which MPs relied upon to approve the war, despite millions of people demonstrating against it. The UN failed to back the action but with Blair’s support Bush went ahead and caused chaos in the Middle East. Would the USA have attacked without Blair’s support? I doubt it.

Is it right to win power at the cost of truth? Labour’s recent landslide victory was almost inevitable given the last fourteen years of Conservative rule, but did Labour need to mislead the electorate regarding tax increases in the full knowledge of the country’s dire social and economic condition? Was it right to pretend that it was not aware of the true state of public services or the country’s critical financial situation? Was it right to plead ignorance when imposing extra taxes or denying millions of pensioners £200-£300 winter fuel allowance? Was it right to suspend seven newly elected Labour MPs from the Labour party for supporting an opposing party’s amendment to scrap the two-child benefit limit when child poverty has increased substantially? Is it right that Vital public services, charities, social care and GP practices are threatened by the imposition of additional National Insurance taxes? Is it right, when improved national economic growth is desperately needed, to penalise the very businesses that should be providing a large portion of that growth?

Is it right to condemn a country in the most problematic financial and social environment to turn its back on its nearest and most commercially viable neighbour - the EU. And in troubled times such as these, is it right that the government remains arms-length-distant from its politically and socially aligned neighbours?

In recent years UK politics has been in freefall starting essentially with the public’s trust placed in a person known to be immoral, unreliable and a liar? Boris Johnson, through clever catch phrases, wild promises and commitment to remove the UK from the European Union - to “Get back control.” The electorate believed him and rewarded him and his party with a large working majority. It proved a disaster and he was forced to resign following his proven incompetence and dishonesty.

As for truth, openness and doing the right thing…the weekly twenty-five minute Prime Minister Questions (PMQs) is the only opportunity for the public to hear direct answers from the prime minister to direct questions. Unfortunately this never happens. Direct or even vaguely direct answers are never supplied. Instead we get a diatribe about the questioner’s party and a complete diversion. The Speaker is supposed to control proceedings but never ever demands direct answers. Most of the time the prime minister’s MPs ask planted questions, especially during more challenging times. Democracy is not working in a country where the ruling party is able to win a substantial majority on just 34% of the vote secured. This cannot be right.

The USA has just undergone a presidential election resulting in the substantial victory for the Republican party and convicted, corrupt felon Donald Trump. It is hard to believe that the American public ignored Trump’s many faults including trying to fraudulently win the Georgia election, illegal business practices, and corruption. His reliance on lies and more lies spoken during his 2024 election convinced the majority of USA voters to finally vote for him. At noon on January 6, at a rally on the Ellipse one mile from the Capitol in Washington, D.C., Trump claimed election fraud and called on Vice President Mike Pence to overturn the 2020 election results by refusing to certify certain electoral votes. A large mob attacked the Capitol building to stop the vote resulting in six deaths. Trump watched this happen and did nothing to stop it for several hours. Is it right that this man is will shortly be the so-called ‘leader of the free world’?