Today the United Kingdom has descended further into the type of repressive regime it once sacrificed over 450 thousand lives to eliminate. At the same time, it extols the efforts made by the Ukrainian people to preserve, protect and defend its own democracy and freedoms.
Can there be any greater hypocrisy than a government enacting legislation designed to repress any democratic protest, send migrants to concentration camps in the middle of Africa, and generally prohibit the very essential freedoms it has long fought to enshrine.
The very fact that legislators claim that the increased powers will only be used to prevent the grossest violations of public order and are not meant to limit the right to protest is a contradiction in terms and demonstrates either the naivete of these claims or the outright deceit of these legislators. That they adhere to this despicable agenda and support a serial liar and dissembler is proof of their total disregard for democracy and freedom.
The idea that “It can’t happen here” is exploded, because it is already happening here. There is a disconnect in society which has divided western democracies not only along economic and educational grounds, but on simple ideological grounds. It is no longer just a question of rich and poor, but suppressors and suppressed.
What is depressing is that those people who feel hard done, forgotten and lacking in opportunity believe the hype and claims that the liberals have failed them with their ideas of cooperative government which leaves them with minimal government handouts. They are told that the entrepreneurs will save the day and that by the striking down of economic regulations, these entrepreneurs will be free to create the wealth which will shower down upon them. In the meantime any dissenters must be suppressed and pushed aside as all they do is interfere with the ability of the system to move on
Indeed, with the increase in the cost of living, there are a number of enterprises and entrepreneurs who are making a great deal of money. BP, oil and utility companies are making record profits. Hurrah, but where is the trickle down effect. How is the general public benefiting from these record breaking profits? Are utility bills going to be reduced as a result of the profits? Apparently not. The money is not going to trickle down at all. Reinvestment? Bull shit. Higher dividends for stockholders? I think so.
I would have thought forcing these companies to give cash back as a result of these excessive profits would be a sure thing, but no, do not bang the drum too loudly and protest this iniquity as you could be arrested and gaoled for 15 years. Forget a windfall tax, have a windfall discount on bills. Apparently no one believes that these companies can be interfered with or they might go elsewhere. Where are they going to go?
How any parliamentarian has the audacity to sit and support the obvious duplicity of this current government in Westminster is uncanny. To lend credence and support to the current conservative legislative program, such as it is, is shameful in the extreme. A monumental and colossally stupid, incompetent and mean spirited home secretary has never been more apparent than Priti Patel. The deviousness of Ms Truss and her current headlong plunge into breaching the rule of law is on a par with Ms Patel. The ridiculous prissy pedant that is Jacob Rees-Mug has no clue about so called Brexit opportunities as there are none. One could go on and on with this shamble, and they are the majority? Why is that?
I have been stewing on the above for several days now. I do not know how or when the British public will actually react to the ridiculous shambles that is this government. The Prime Minister now wants to sack and make redundant some 91,000 civil servants, and use the money elsewhere, to promote his levelling up, if he is to be believed. The yearly amount could be in the region of just over £3.6 billion. Of course the initial redundancy payment to cover the sacking of 91,000 people will be pretty substantial and it will, presumably, take some time to recover from the initial outlay; but that is just the sort of off the cuff stupidity he displays.
Governments are run by the civil service. The people who actually do the work, who sit behind counters, across desks, on home visits, at borders, passport offices, home offices and any number of government departments who make the phone calls and answer queries and letters, and generally see to it that decisions are made and what needs doing is actually carried out, so that we, as members of the public, can get on with our lives, trusting that these people are competent, fully qualified and trained, and have a complete understanding of their job and function within the greater civil service.
As an example, an asylum seeker’s application will go to an individual, an actual person within the appropriate department. The application will make its way through a number of different people’s hands and assessments will be made by individuals who may have very different opinions, but who are following some kind of policy as promoted by the elected representative heading the department, as well as having to follow the existing law, the rule of law being paramount on all occasions, even overriding the minister’s “policy”. The current policy however, is to forget all that and instead just attach the application and the applicant to a plane ticket and wait and see.
When you have a government so inane and incompetent with policies so far removed from common sense and the rule of law, and the constitution, then you have a very confused and disgruntled civil service who find it difficult to function. So is it any wonder that this prime minister and his cabinet would like to get rid of 91,000 who they clearly see as obstructive to their insanity and incompetence? Get rid of them before they show us up, and get people in who will just do as they’re told. That would be far more efficient than having the current people attempting to be efficient within the existing chaos we have wrought. We clearly don’t need so many civil servants, nor do they need education and training. Anyone will do, in the same way we seem to employ police officers, just give them a truncheon and a set of handcuffs and they’re good to go. For the civil servant that would be a desk, a stapler and a rubber stamp.
That is the government we have. That is the government that was voted into office as a result of the completely inadequate and undemocratic electoral system that exists in the United Kingdom. The situation is screaming out for change and the population is not. Opposition leaders make statements and demands for resignations to no avail. What they say makes no difference whatsoever. Call him what he is, a liar, a dissembler, a multi faced hypocrite, nothing will cause him any shame. He has none. Not an iota. He smiles sort of ruefully, shakes his head in denial, and says he’s moving on doing the important work of government.
This country is about to lose any credibility of any kind over the failed policy in Northern Ireland, breach all forms of international agreements and unleash a trade war at the very moment it should be rallying together with all of Europe, at one of the most desperate and trying times in history. These people are totally unfit for the offices they hold.
There is a world crisis, over climate and governance. The right and far right of the political spectrum has got to be addressed. What young people, and minority parties, appear to be doing in France, behind Jean-Luc Mélenchon is a rallying cry to the rest of the world, assuming anybody is taking notice. I would urge you to read Cole Stangler’s piece in the Guardian.
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2022/may/13/france-left-macron-le-pen-jean-luc-melenchon
It may mean nothing at all and could just be a flash in the pan. A propos of change, there is also Cas Mudde’s piece in the same paper regarding problems facing the democratic party in the United States at:
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2022/may/12/democratic-party-new-younger-leadership-us
Are there no young people who are fulminating about the current situation as much as my generation and me? If there are, show yourselves. If not, then I feel that those of us born between 1939 and 1946, in the shadows of a demonic world in chaos, have not absorbed the lessons, have really fucked up, and it’s about to start all over again.
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