Well, yes Zac

There\’s something to this:

“The flip side, for me at least, is that I was born into a position of privilege and am therefore not corruptible.”

Although you can already hear the squeals of indignation over that one I\’m sure.

The real point though is that corruption is not just about gaining advantage. There\’s also the corruption which seeks to maintain advantage and privilege.

We\’re unlikely to see someone who inherited £300 million in trust funds arguing that the inheritance of trust funds should be confiscated (to take a wildly extreme example).

Corruption actually isn\’t to do with one\’s financial position: it\’s to do with one\’s willingness to use position or access to improve or maintain that position, whatever it is. There are those with very few beans who are not corrupt (one thinks of th Beast of Bolsover here) just as there have been those with many who were (fill in blank to taste).

5 thoughts on “Well, yes Zac”

  1. Mr Goldsmith risks losing a significant amount of his fortune in a divorce settlement with his wife, Sheherezade, with whom he has three children.

    As an MP he could influence divorce laws, for example. Probably too late in this case though…

  2. How long has Skinner been an MP? Decades of lining his pockets and you say he has very few beans; I don’t believe it.

  3. The only thing that we can learn from that quote is that the Zacster just might have a Robespierre complex.

    And the Tories think this guy will somehow make more them electable?

  4. I think the general evidence is that he who is driven by the love of money is generally less of a danger to the general public than he who is driven by idealism, especially that most terrifying of desires to “make the world a better place”. If somebody wants my money, I know where I stand with them and can predict to some degree their behaviour. If somebody wants to reform my morals, all I know is that he will oppress me without restraint or remorse and without end, because he believes that whatever he makes me suffer is for my own good. There’s a famous CS Lewis quote about this…

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