From Richard Murphy's blog on 9th April 2026, entry 'Clinging on to sanity':
'https://www.taxresearch.org.uk/Blog/2026/04/09/clinging-on-to-sanity/
'For most of my life, I, and I suspect many others, have operated with a set of implicit assumptions about politics.
First, that whilst I accepted that politicians could be reckless, self-serving, or even corrupt, there were still limits to what they would do.'
Since these limits presumably did not fall from the sky like hail, this raises some obvious questions:
- Who set these limits?
- How?
- Why did they do so?
Limits to politicians' action in an electoral democracy are (1) set by voters (2) voting against politicians who break these limits. Without this, the so-called limits are no limits at all and will soon vanish into thin air, as we now see.
This raises 2 questions:
1. Was the implicit assumption about politicians facing limits to corruption ever valid?
2. If so, why has the electorate changed its behaviour?
