The end of one tribe but maybe not another

I am not an anthropologist so don’t ask me for the answer to this but why do some tribes die out whilst others go on to prosper?

Last week for example saw the final extinction of a tribe that were the indigenous people from a small island which is part of the Andaman Islands in the Bay of Bengal. They dwindled and dwindled until rather poignantly there was just one childless elderly woman who died of old age last week without anyone to speak to in her native language which also dies with her. So farewell Boa Sr. and the Bo tribe – we will not see your like again.

Here in Britain it is a quite different story. On the small island of Westminster there is a giant palace filled with by members of a very different – money-fiddling politicians. The amateur anthropologist in me wonders why they have not joined the lost tribe of Bo in extinction – maybe, if we actually take our vote at the coming general election seriously enough we could help this process on its way.

Over half the present crop of MPs have been charged with misuse of public money under the audit carried out by Sir Thomas Legg and only mildly modified by the appeal judgement considered by Sir Paul Kennedy. Today, some of our MPs may well be charged with criminal offences. Others are having to pay back large sums of money that they should never have claimed in the first place.

Whilst the people of Bo lived a simpler life, without the need of castle moats, duck houses, phantom mortgages, bell towers or £30,000 gardening services, their culture has gone whilst most of our MPs will merely head off into the business world where they will use their avarice in other ways, find plenty of people who speak their own language and survive perfectly well thank you.

Let’s make sure that they don’t come back to Parliament. If a candidate comes to your door electioneering when that time comes, ask them a few probing questions and if necessary, don’t vote for your own political party if they have chosen anyone that smells of Legg. There should be a friendly independent candidate who could teach the main parties that we don’t want any more crooks in parliament.