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The British parliament was prorogued last week ahead of the general elections due to be held on May 7. The date is fixed and set in stone as it were. That is about 40 days from now. Our own yahapalanaya government has a few days less than that in its 100-day programme which is intended to bring greater good to the country and its people.

If some people are heard reciting even more eagerly than before the Pali stanza “Devo vassatu kalena — Raja bhavatu dhammiko” that has come down to us from the days of our ancient kings, it is perhaps because their trust in political leaders and politicians in general, has fast eroded and they hope that righteous rulers will inherit (for a maximum of two terms as those pushing for constitutional change might insist) this country and bring joy and happiness to a hapless people.

But as the poet Alexander Pope wrote that is the kind of hope that springs eternal in the human breast.

No sooner had the government changed, the new foreign minister Mangala Samaraweera rushed west to the UK and the US to offer his salaams to the great white chiefs who had taken umbrage at the treatment they had received at the hands of Sri Lanka’s defeated president Mahinda Rajapaksa.

Prime Minister David Cameron takes part in a live Q&A during the Sky News/Channel 4 programme: Cameron & Miliband Live: The Battle for Number 10, moderated by Kay Burley (not pictured) at the Sky Studios in Osterley, west London, Thursday March 26, 2015. REUTERS/Stefan Rousseau

You do not have to believe me on this. Samaraweera issued a statement the other day over some unsavoury allegations made about him regarding a member of his delegation in which he admitted having undertaken a two and a half day “whirlwind” visit to Washington DC and New York.
Hoping to shed light on the “forces of darkness…. that are beginning to raise their ugly heads again” he set out why he went to the US. It was as part of the ” new government’s strategy to win many of Sri Lanka’s friends in the international community who had been alienated as a result of the Rajapaksa regime’s disastrous foreign policy.”

I would have thought he wanted to win back those who had been alienated not just win as the writer of this statement states. By the way Samaraweera should get somebody else to draft his statements if the best the current one can do is to resort to clichés and confuse “complimentarily” and “complementarily.”

Never mind the aberrations and all this talk of cheaper hotels and travelling by train. Why does the statement make no mention of the fact that Samaraweera stopped over in London on his way to the US, that he met the foreign office minister dealing with Sri Lanka, Hugo Swire, and probably an official of Amnesty International during his stay here?

After all, there seems to be nothing wrong in paying obeisance to our former colonial power from which we learned so much about democracy, the rule of law and the value of the old school tie. In fact this government also, misled like the Rajapaksa administration, is taking the Commonwealth seriously when those with a head on their shoulders know that it is a waste of time and money and certainly requires no adviser which the country never had since it joined this loose organisation.

We should not forget or diminish the value of some of the old lessons. Why, this Government is even thinking of returning to the Donoughmore reforms which set up in the 1930s a committee system for our legislature.

It is not a bad thing to experiment with what has gone before seeing that the tampering with our electoral and parliamentary system has heaped misery on the citizens of this land.

See how earnestly the present government has followed the old British traditions made even more visible to the point of public disgust by the current British Prime Minister David Cameron who thinks only old Etonians and British public school toffs suitable to hold public office.
Sri Lanka has come to the stage when our own Cabinet has a plethora of ministers from a single Colombo school and still others were inducted just the other day. Is this the price the country has to pay for free education?

One can understand this slavish imitation, the UNP and the British Conservative Party being such close political buddies.

But this yahapalanaya government has gone far beyond anything that the British have done. In a game of political manipulation, it has blurred the distinction between government and opposition. It has reached a point where today’s opposition becomes tomorrow’s government ministers, where those who castigated the present leaders during the election campaign and later, are accepting with alacrity office under them.

As though to heap insult on injury, former minister Vasudeva Nanayakkara has suggested that Dinesh Gunawardena replace Nimal Siripala de Silva as Opposition Leader. Vasu’s suggestion was doubtless genuine.

But those who are keeping a count of those contemporaries or classmates of Ranil Wickremesinghe holding positions in this Government or given tasks to perform, making Dinesh Gunawardena opposition leader would inadvertently be regarded as a home and home match as we used to say in our student days.

Is it surprising then that the current joke is that one needs to be an FRCS to get somewhere. That is no medical qualification. It stands for Former Students of Royal College.

What is even worse is the way ministerial appointments are being made today — way above the number promised during the election campaign. It smacks so much of manipulation for it is not the ability of the person to perform or the dire need to get a job done before the 100 days pass that necessitates these appoints at tax payers expense.

It is political tinkering in order to secure the votes of these MPs for the two-third majority the Government needs for constitutional change. In short earlier promises on a limited cabinet are being blatantly broken and the parliamentarians are accepting office in exchange for their votes. How desperate they all seem to be to cling on to office.

While we might have learnt all about parliamentary democracy from our British colonialists, it seems the Brits are learning political dirty tricks from us for which should charge VAT or something.

It all happened on the last night of parliament when Commons leader William Hague — a former foreign secretary — took Westminster by surprise by tabling a vote to hold a secret ballot after the general election on whether or not Speaker John Bercow should continue. While some saw it as revenge for a series of spats between ministers and the Speaker, Labour saw it has part of the plot between Conservatives and the Irish Democratic Unionist Party aiming for a coalition and putting a Northern Ireland MP in the Chair.

Not to be outdone by the plotters, Speaker Bercow used his powers to grant three urgent opposition questions which had the effect of postponing the Hague-sponsored debate.

This gave time for opposition MPs on their way home to return to the Commons in time for a vote which was defeated amidst accusations by Bercow supporters of Hague’s “squalid manoeuvres” and “shabby” tricks.

When it comes to dirty tricks, back stabbing and other sordid deeds our politicians have a thing or two to teach the British.

Thanks, I suppose, to yahapalanaya without which the Conservative Party would still be groping for a means to get rid of the Speaker.