The political system

The UK is a constitutional monarchy and parliamentary democracy - or so they would have you believe! There have been satirical TV shows over the years depicting Members of Parliament - namely Yes, Minister - Yes, Prime Minister and The New Statesman, played by Rik Mayall as Alan B’Stard. The show ran from 1987 to 1994 and was a savage parody of political greed, ambition and corruption - so it was largely accurate. Every week, the Prime Minister faces Prime Minister's Questions (PMQs) in Parliament. Imagine if your workplace required the CEO to stand in a crowded room while hundreds of colleagues shouted questions, jokes and complaints at them on live television. That's basically Wednesday in Westminster. The Fat Badgers have actually attended PMQ’s back in the day in 1995 when the grey coloured John Major was Prime Minister. We can’t tell you the full story of how we got in although it didn’t involve digging any tunnels. A certain MP lied to get us in and told the powers that be that we were the children of the Australian Prime Minister so we were ushered up into the Commonwealth Gallery and sat next to a rather exotically dressed woman from Africa who had lots of fruit in her hat - very tempting for a Fat Badger! From our seats, we could have thrown rotten fruit at Lord Coe who was an MP at the time but as he’d won gold medals at the Olympics for Britain, we chose not to (and we didn’t have any) We could have done the same at Winston Churchill although this was the grandson of THE Winston Churchill won was the wartime leader. We had no political reason to be at PMQs, we just happened to be in London with a cute ski rep we met in Italy so we pulled a few strings to impress her.

The British politician: a field guide

Think of them as a rare breed of wildlife found mainly in Westminster, TV studios and occasionally their own constituencies. • The Backbencher - spends years perfecting the art of nodding thoughtfully while not being asked anything. • The Minister - instantly identifiable by the haunted look of someone who has just been handed a folder labelled “URGENT”. • The Party Leader - part motivational speaker, part cat‑herder, part crisis‑management specialist. • The Spin Doctor - communicates exclusively in phrases like “what the public really wants” and “we’re focused on delivery”.

Their natural behaviours

• • Answering a question with a completely different answer o A classic defence mechanism. Ask about schools, get a speech about economic stability. • The Doorstep Shuffle o A ritual dance performed when a journalist appears unexpectedly. • The Policy U‑Turn o A graceful manoeuvre in which a politician pivots 180 degrees while insisting they’ve always been facing that way. • The Photo‑Op Survival Instinct o Includes holding babies, stroking dogs and wearing hi‑vis jackets in places where hi‑vis jackets have never been needed.

Their habitat

• Parliament - a grand building where centuries of tradition meet the modern art of talking loudly over each other. • Constituency surgeries - where they meet actual humans and remember why they got into politics. • Breakfast TV sofas - where they attempt to look relaxed while being grilled about something that happened five minutes earlier. The main problem if you go to the pub with a member is not answering the questions, U Turns and them constantly disappearing to get into someone else’s photograph “Do you want crisps?” - “Well, what’s important is that we’re focused on snacks going forward.” “I’m not having another drink.” - Two minutes later: “Alright, one more, but this was always the plan.”

Corruption

The problem with most members is that they are never very far away from dodgy dealings, whether it be in the Houses of Parliament or Local Councils. They will spend money as if it’s going out of fashion and they either believe it’s ‘their’ or the government / councils money to spend or they know it’s taxpayers money and they simply don’t care what the general public think. The 2009 expenses scandal where members were using taxpayers money to heat the duck house on their moat, a total of 392 MP’s were ordered to pay back £1.3 million pounds. David Chaytor, Elliot Morley, Eric Illsley, Jim Devine and Denis MacShane, all Labour MP’s were actually jailed such was the seriousness of their offences. Labour MP Margaret Moran would also have been jailed but she put pencils up her nose and shouted “Wibble” so she was let off for being mad. It’s no different today, it’s just better hidden from the public - local Councils spend millions of pounds on all sorts of rubbish and are never called to account. Trips to Benidorm for multiple councillors and millions of pounds a year on ‘taxis’ just get added to ‘the accounts’ with many more items redacted from the records, presumably as they involve handcuffs, whips and other items which might upset children. As for children - the 2026 government announced that they would be lowering the voting age so that they would allow children to vote but then announced that they would be banning children from looking at Facebook or anything that Elon Musk is involved with - presumably he’ll now have to make his cars invisible. The MP’s then trotted out the same argument to anybody who disagreed with the ban that 90% of people with red hair, one leg and a gay dog who responded to the question about banning Elon agreed with it. What they didn’t tell you is that disagree wasn’t one of the answers that they could choose.

We held a poll and 100% of people who responded agreed that we should go the pub today

Fat Badgers and politics

The Fat Badgers have no political stance as we don’t have opposable thumbs so we can’t pick up the mace (well it is very heavy) and whack somebody over the head with it if they are being a twat so we would always vote for Sir Brian May to be the leader but yet again we are overlooked and not allowed to vote. Grumpy Old Badger often has an opinion on politicians but we often don’t know whether he’s joking or pissed so we don’t usually get to discuss the latest scandal by a politician or councillor who has been mis-behaving. There have been many scandals over the years but before the invention of radio & television, it wasn’t so easy for the general public to find out what had been going on with our political ‘leaders’. With the introduction of social media, it is becoming more and more apparent that many of the political ‘elite’ shouldn’t be anywhere near any position of power. Historically politicians came from the nobility and their children from families that had wealth. This wealth whilst not always gained from honest deeds, at least showed that these people had an ability to run businesses successfully and ‘balance the books’. In more recent times ‘Politics’ has been a subject taught at schools and universities ensuring that these people were successful at politics and now many politicians know how to run ‘the system’ but not a company which requires budgetary controls and true leadership. Consequently, politicians from all parties can be incompetent or corrupt and the general public have no way to remove them until the next election, unless of course they are bad enough that the courts deem their wrong doing bad enough to convict them of a criminal offence! Occasionally they do resign or are sacked but it’s usually when they have been shown to be useless or corrupt - or make mistakes as they would like to put it, such as David Cameron over Brexit of Peter Mandelson over the third time he got caught being a very naughty boy.

Major types of British political scandals

1. Personal and sexual scandals These are among the most high-profile, especially when they clash with public morality. • Profumo Affair (1963) o Secretary of State for War John Profumo lied to Parliament about an affair with Christine Keeler, who had links to a Soviet diplomat. The lie, more than the affair itself, brought down his career and badly damaged the Conservative government. • Jeremy Thorpe Affair (1970s) o Liberal Party leader accused of conspiring to murder a former lover. Thorpe was acquitted, but the case destroyed his political career and reputation. • Recent decades o Numerous MPs have resigned over affairs, misuse of power, or inappropriate relationships, often intensified by media scrutiny and social media. Key theme: hypocrisy and abuse of position matter more than private behaviour alone. 2. Financial and expenses scandals Money-related scandals have had lasting effects on public trust. • MPs’ Expenses Scandal (2009) Widespread abuse of parliamentary expenses was revealed, including claims for luxury items and non-essential property costs. Consequences included: o Resignations and prosecutions o Creation of the Independent Parliamentary Standards Authority (IPSA) o A major collapse in trust in politicians • Cash for Questions (1990s) o MPs were found to have accepted money to ask parliamentary questions on behalf of lobbyists. • SNP finance scandal o An investigation began in 2021 after concerns were raised about approximately £667,000 that supporters had donated to the Scottish National Party. The money had reportedly been raised to campaign for a future Scottish independence referendum and questions arose about how those funds had been used. SNP chief executive Peter Murrell was charged and, in May 2026, pleaded guilty to embezzling more than £400,000 from party funds. Murrell was married to the First Minister Nicola Sturgeon who claimed to have not seen the £125,000 motorhome that he bought or the expensive coffee machine in her kitchen or the luxury designer handbag she was carrying despite telling everybody she was more “hands on” than any other previous politician. Perhaps she meant “hands in” (the till). Although she said “No Comment” to every question when arrested, the authorities decided she was a good girl and the naughtiest thing she’d ever done was run through the fields of wheat. Or that might have been another politician, we’re not sure who to believe these days. Key theme: public outrage is strongest when taxpayers’ money is involved. 3. Corruption, lobbying and “cash for access” These scandals concern influence rather than outright illegality. • Cash for Honours (2000s) o Allegations that political donors were rewarded with peerages. No convictions followed, but the scandal highlighted blurred lines between fundraising and patronage. • Lobbying scandals o Former ministers and MPs accused of selling access or influence after leaving office, raising concerns about the “revolving door” between politics and business. Key theme: legality does not always equal ethical behaviour. 4. Government misconduct and cover-ups Some scandals involve institutional failure rather than individual wrongdoing. • Westland Affair (1986) o Cabinet divisions and leaks over the future of a helicopter company weakened Margaret Thatcher’s government. • Iraq War intelligence controversy (2003–04) o Claims that intelligence on weapons of mass destruction had been exaggerated led to inquiries and long-term damage to trust in government decision-making. Key theme: credibility and honesty in government communications. 5. Standards, rule-breaking and behaviour in office Modern scandals often focus on whether politicians follow the rules they impose on others. • COVID-era rule breaches o Allegations of gatherings in government buildings during lockdowns damaged public confidence and led to investigations and sanctions. Key theme: fairness and accountability. Whilst not all politicians are ‘wrong ‘uns’ those that are tarnish the rest. We try not to get upset apart from when they blame us for giving cows a cold, what we do get very angry about is the amount of tax the government takes from pubs - a pint of beer in the UK ranges widely in cost around the country for various reasons including the amount of alcoholic volume however the government takes at least a third of it in tax before the publican has to cover the cost of staff wages (which the staff pay tax on), rent / mortgage, business rates (more tax), Energy (gas, electric), maintenance, cleaning, waste, licensing (another tax) and insurance.

This leaves the publican with around one fiftieth or 2% of

a pint as profit!

Politician however have subsidised food and drink in numerous bars in the Houses of Parliament which means that we also pay for their drinks. We don’t have any bars in the Fat Badger offices as it would be ridiculous to think that we should be drinking alcohol whilst trying to operate heavy machinery (or heavy petting) what responsible company would allow their employees to drink and then make important decisions? Maybe, just maybe Oliver Cromwell had the right idea when he said: “It is high time for me to put an end to your sitting in this place. Is there a single virtue now remaining amongst you? Is there one vice you do not possess? “

Buffoons - the lot of them.