OPINION: MPs and "being seen" to do the right thing

Yesterday, Rachel Reeves, a Labour MP, tweeted that she had signed the Holocaust Educational Trust's Book of Commitment. I tweeted back that I thought this was tokenism and achieved nothing. She replied this morning that I should be careful about what I tweet and that it was important to remember the lessons of the holocaust.

Now I wholeheartedly agree that it is important that we remember the holocaust and learn lessons from it, as long as we put those lessons into action. Simply getting a warm glow, and using it to get some positive publicity is insufficient - that is why her tweeting about signing the book is tokenism.

Rachel Reeves, as I said, is a Labour MP. In the past decade, Labpur has taken us into two major wars, in Afghanistan and Iraq, that have needlessly cost the lives of tens of thousands of civilians: lives lost, families destroyed, women and children injured and maimed. Has she, or the Labour Party, learnt any lessons from the past, from the holocaust, from history?

As well as being a party of civilian bloodshed, she has shown herself to be signing the book to help her own publicity. Why else would she tweet about it? As Immanuel Kant said, good deeds should be done just because they ate good deeds and not because of any other reason. This would include using a good deed for publicity and even if you just got a warm glow out of it. Sure, if it makes you feel good that's fine, but that shouldn't be the reason to do good. Do good because that's the right thing to do, and encourage others to do likewise.

What Rachel Reeves, and various other MPs, should have done, if they genuinely think signing a book is a good thing and makes a difference, is to sign the book and encourage others to do so. What they did was sign it, then shout to the world, via Twitter, "Look at me! Look at me! Aren't I wonderful? I signed a book of commitment!"

I hope you get the difference. I guess it's the problem with our increasing personality/celeb-inclined politicians who aren't unit to do good but to promote themselves and help themselves up the greasy pole.

By all means do good and by all means encourage others to do good but please don't use it for personal gain. And, ultimately, actions speak louder than words. Do any of the "Me! Me! Me!" politicians act in a way to prevent further genocides and oppression, or will they just cash their pay cheques and not give a toss?