The almost total blackout on broadcast media of the police attack on the popular protest by thousands outside Downing Street – with 30 injured and 17 arrests – is in stark contrast to the wall to wall coverage of the staged fake “riot” in Glasgow in which 6 people were slightly rude to Jim Murphy with no arrests and no injuries.
Thanks to the UK’s appalling electoral system, we now have a seriously right wing government with absolute power from an absolute parliamentary majority, but which 63% of voters voted against, and which was supported by only 23% of those eligible to vote. Many of the 38% who did not vote at all, were not apathetic but actively disgusted by a corrupt political system which offers little meaningful choice in most of the UK.
Legitimacy is a different question to legality. The government is undoubtedly legal under the current rotten system, but its legitimacy is a different question entirely. Legitimacy lies on the popular consent of the governed. With an extreme government supported by only 23% of the population, actively planning to inflict actual harm on many more than 23% of the population, there are legitimate philosophical questions to be asked about the right of the government to rule. With so many, particularly but not exclusively young people, now reading sources like this one and not being enthralled by the mainstream media, today’s protest is but a start.
“It doesn’t seem clear at all to me. Your idea of a slumbering social democratic mass awaiting a progressive party and/or PR seems questionable seeing as how people have decidedly failed to vote for either in recent opportunities.”
Well, the AV referendum of 2011 wasn’t a referendum on PR. Wouldn’t you agree with me that that the vast majority of the disaffected third who didn’t vote are likely to be young progressives who heeded the call of Russell Brand?
October 20
https://vimeo.com/51833106
Banner headline on Sky News –
Cameron is building a cabinet…….
Q. Has he been to IKEA?
Was this another rigged election, or are there really that many selfish pricks that actually voted for the Labour Tory scum?
“Was this another rigged election, or are there really that many selfish pricks that actually voted for the Labour Tory scum?”
How dare voters vote for political parties on the basis of what they perceive to be in their best interests.
“Cameron is building a cabinet……”.
That will make one hell of a dent in ending the housing crisis.
Is Craig saying that their has never been a legitimate UK government? The largest minority voted it in and isn’t it always thus? Maybe it will take civil unrest and a few murdered Tories to satiate his unpleasant thirst for blood? For every grubby State-addict on a protest march, there are many more who voted Tory. Something to remember.
“Many of the 38% who did not vote at all, were not apathetic but actively disgusted by a corrupt political system which offers little meaningful choice in most of the UK.”
And many more, maybe, were quite content to let others decide, did not particularly care either way, had more important things to do.
Abstention is a dark number, see? You can spin it any old way you like.
It is the combination of fairly high abstention rates in elections and a complete absence of any traction for real socialist movements, in or out of Parliament, that argues more for contentment than disgruntlement. But professional stirrers, agitators and bloggy worriers and warriors don’t like to consider that possibility.
Show me the British Podemos or Syriza and I’ll believe the majority care a monkey’s about politics. Summer’s coming! Nearly time for Wimbledon! Come on, Andy!
“Thanks to the UK’s appalling electoral system, we now have a seriously right wing government with absolute power.”
Phooey. A ‘seriously right wing’ lot (there you go again with the vapid binaries) would be denationalising the NHS and the BBC, restoring capital punishment, taking us out of the EU, sending troops to defend Ukraine, sinking immigrant boats in the Med, etc etc.
And a ‘seriously left wing’ team would be renationalising the railways, abolishing the Lords and the monarchy, upping top income tax rates to 80%, putting workers on the boards of companies, leaving NATO and decommissioning Trident…
I am old enough to remember when there was a real choice between parties, or at least between substantial and influential minorities within them: Militant or Tribune v. the Fabians, Monday Club v. the Bow Group.
The days when hundreds of thousands of voters still thought it was worth paying subs, licking envelopes and tramping the streets. Now the active membership of parties (we don’t know yet if all those Nat signups will ever become active) is down to fewer than 50,000 in the entire UK.
Politics has become a small crowd of bland bourgeois careerists disputing a minuscule ‘middle ground’ in policy while foreigners and financiers fix the big stuff behind the curtain. The reason we have enormous swings in elections nowadays is because the real-world consequences of switching from one brand of UK consensus politics to another are so small.
“With so many, particularly but not exclusively young people, now reading sources like this one and not being enthralled by the mainstream media, today’s protest is but a start.”
The main impact of the internet has been to make more people who should know better indulge in guilty pleasures. They waste more time reading trivia and gossip sites such as Mail Online instead of occasionally perusing a well-thought-out article in an old-fashioned dead tree newspaper.
The internet is the new opium of the poeple. For everyone who finds his or her way to sites such as this (whose quality is more Speaker’s Corner than Socratic Symposium anyhow) a hundred are salivating over Kim K’s bottom. An extra benefit for the rulers is that they can track the ruled’s baser tastes and use the info to mindwarp or blackmail them into submission.
Matthew Arnold’s fear about the growth of literacy not leading to a more informed and thoughtful polity has been borne out a thousandfold.
PS: My mother spent four years in the WAAF in the Second World War, and she is not all that impressed by yesterday’s London demonstration. You forgot to mention that aspect of it in your starry-eyed middle-aged Pied Piper turn.
Enda Clarke
‘Phooey. A ‘seriously right wing’ lot (there you go again with the vapid binaries) would be denationalising the NHS..’
Wake up. It is already happening. Hunt keeps his Health job too.
‘The internet is the new opium of the poeple. For everyone who finds his or her way to sites such as this (whose quality is more Speaker’s Corner than Socratic Symposium anyhow)…..’
Stop sneering at this blog while you are at.
Enda Comment.
Non-voters legitimised the outcome by differentiating those who care from those who do not. If you boycotted the election, then you effectively voted for a Tory majority government. Pathetic excuses justifying an ignorant refusal to participate in a (faulty) democratic process makes no difference to the outcome. 23% of the population made their voices heard over the mute. Their votes were not only legitimate, they were made more legitimate by those who don’t care and those who are deluded about non-voting.
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There is something more fundamental than just the percentages of votes for the governing party, as well as the media propaganda against Labour and UKIP – I’m not even convinced the Tories won fair and square. As a former Tory voter myself, I simply don’t believe there was enough sentiment in England for Cameron to be re-elected with a majority.
The problem is, of course, that the newspaper propaganda machine, among other things, points the finger at other nations that have rigged elections but never contemplates that our own might be.
I’m starting to think you might have been right, Craig, about the Scottish referendum – exactly as with the general election, the polls predicted a closer result than what happened and then they proceeded to gloat at the losers.
It cannot be said often enough – the mainstream media is the enemy of nearly the entire population.
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Get into your “Pen and Sword” military classics, in particular “The Operators”, which details the British security operations in Northern Ireland. You don’t expect Westminster to let go lightly, do you, folks? Study and learn, just in case.
Charlotte Church responds to the criticism of her activism
More of a Prosecco Girl Myself
Posted: 12/05/2015
CHARLOTTE CHURCH
On Saturday I was one of 250 citizens who met at the Queens Street statue of Aneurin Bevan, to protest the Tories’ austerity measures, with the Cardiff People’s Assembly. Thankfully, it’s my democratic right to do so.
Whilst I was aware that my presence at the rally could attract the media, I’m sure that you’ll be shocked to hear that I didn’t do it for some self-aggrandising purpose. As I’ve stated in my previous piece, I have no wish to be trolled and abused. It would be much easier for me not to engage. I’m not promoting a record or a tv show. My only motivation for attending was to try to make a difference; to further political discourse in my community; to draw attention to a cause that is more than valid, it is vital.
/..
http://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/charlotte-church/more-of-a-prosecco-girl-myself_b_7263296.html?utm_hp_ref=uk