What would William Cobbett have made of Sir Iain Duncan Smith?
William Cobbett a writer and farmer was a radical Tory who strongly criticised what he saw as the Old Corruption of the political system before the 1832 Reform Act.
He strongly disliked the power of patronage in the system, people who held well paid positions in Government and other official structures not on merit or competence, and certainly not because they were elected, but rather because of who they were or who they knew.
In his Rural Rides, Cobbett criticised ‘pensions, sincecures, tithes and the other ‘glorious institutions’ of this ‘mighty empire’. He referred to this collectively as The Thing.
One wonders how far we have really come, two centuries on, when in the New Honours List we find honours for several Conservative MPs and activists including the architect of Universal Credit Iain Duncan Smith who retained his Parliamentary seat on 12th December by a small margin.
Labour, it will be pointed out, has done very much the same thing when it is in Office, as do the Liberal Democrats in a more limited way thanks to their more limited numbers. One wonders what William Cobbett would have had to say about Sir Iain Duncan Smith
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