Another Resignation

Yesterday Westminster saw another high profile resignation from the front benches as Douglas Pocket became the latest MP to quit in protest at the direction his party is taking. The last few weeks have been quite a turbulent time in politics and Mr Pocket has proven to be one of the more outspoken critics of his party's leadership. We were fortunate enough to be able to catch a few brief words with him as he left his constituency office.

Douglas Pocket MP:

It's ridiculous! It's getting to the point where any half-decent Member of Parliament can't make a living any more. I keep hearing all this talk about social justice and a fairer society and it just makes my head swim. I mean, what has all that got to do with politics?

University of the Bleeding Obvious:

Well -

Pocket:

Yes, my thoughts exactly. I didn't get into this game to get bogged down in hippy ideology. I was in a policy meeting just the other week and someone starting banging on about social housing. Social housing! I mean, what's that about? I mean really - what is it? Is it where you have to share a toilet?

UBO:

Well no, social housing is -

Pocket:

Whatever. Who gives a stuff?

UBO:

I suppose your constituents might -

Pocket:

Who?

UBO:

Your constituents -

Pocket:

Why bring them into it? The next election is ages away and I've not yet got over the last one - pressing all those sweaty palms, listening to their idiot opinions and having to be nice to their mutant children. Yow!

No, it doesn't matter a tinker's tit what they think about social housing. Or the NHS. Or the environment, whatever one of those is. What does Amazon think, huh? Or Google? Or HSBC, or BP, or Volkswagen? That's what matters. That's where the money is.

UBO:

The money?

Pocket:

Of course the money! You don't think I'm doing this for shits and giggles, do you? I haven't spent all this time sniffing round tax dodgers and corporate donors just so some fantasist suffering from an acute attack of 'principles' can piss it all away. Because that's what's happening. Some refugee from cloud cuckoo land comes along and thinks that politics should be for the people and that government somehow has a responsibility to its citizens and suddenly, guess what, my livelihood is at stake.

UBO:

But surely -

Pocket:

Oh yes.

UBO:

You must -

Pocket:

I certainly do.

UBO:

Look, what I'm trying to say is -

Pocket:

Damn straight, I couldn't have put it better myself. But they don't realise, of course. Them - the people in charge. But they will, eventually. Ten, fifteen years from now, when they're all washed up, there will be no cushy directorships to sidle into. No stocks and shares to fall back on. No friends in the city to return favours. The brown envelopes and backhanders will be a distant memory, and what do you think they will have to show for their glittering careers in public office?

UBO:

I imagine that they -

Pocket:

Precisely. A fat load of nothing at all. Nothing apart from an NHS which isn't turning a profit, an environment bursting with untapped resources and social housing full of 'constituents'. Well, it's not for me. If this is your new politics, you can keep it.

UBO:

Really?

Pocket:

Yes, really. I'm no mug - I'm off to somewhere I've got a decent chance of making a few quid. So goodbye and good luck to you.

Thank you to Douglas Pocket MP for taking the time to speak to us and we wish him every success in his new role as President of FIFA.