Former Prime Minister (no, seriously) John Major says that the current Labour government is sleazy.

In fact, he thinks Labour is sleazier than his administration was.  This is because, he says:

Lots of people misbehaved in the 1980s and 1990s, but they were all individuals. It was never institutional. It was never related specifically to the Conservative Party or to the Conservative government. The distinction is that sleaze has seemed to be systemic since 1997.

An interesting argument: “I don’t deny that Tories are corrupt bastards but we’re not as corrupt as those Labour bastards.”  When exactly did we become the kind of tinpot banana republic where supposedly intelligent politicians argue among themselves as to which of them is more disreputable than the other?

Let’s see if Major’s claim stacks up if we change just one word in his quote.

Lots of people misbehaved in the 1980s and 1990s, but they were all individuals. It was never institutional. It was never related specifically to the Conservative Party or to the Conservative government. The distinction is that racism has seemed to be systemic since 1997.

In other words: would perpetual and repeated racism be any more palatable because it was committed “individually” by members of a wider group?  Exactly.

Personally I’m not inclined to take a lecture in morality from a man who spent four years fucking a woman married to someone else and only stopped because he’d been appointed to the Cabinet, but it got him back in the papers on a slow news day so fair play to the fella.

Seriously, he really WAS Prime Minister.  It says so on Wikipedia and everything…