Illegitimate Government: News Blackout on London Protest 168


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.


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168 thoughts on “Illegitimate Government: News Blackout on London Protest

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  • Daniel

    The Tories got 37% of the vote which means that nearly two-thirds of the population didn’t want a Tory government. Of course, it wasn’t actually even two-thirds of the people but two-thirds of the people who actually could be bothered to vote. A third of the people who were entitled to vote, didn’t. That’s the real scandal, in my opinion.

    The Tories got the biggest vote. The second biggest vote went to the people who didn’t vote at all. Just think about that or one moment. I strongly believe that it should be obligatory for people to vote even if that means putting a cross next to “none of the above”.

  • Anon1

    “The almost total blackout on broadcast media of the police attack on the popular protest by thousands outside Downing Street”

    Been a bit of a change of wording here!

  • craig Post author

    Anon1

    No, there has been no change of wording. Perhaps you read more carefully the second time.

  • Mary

    On the previous thread Juteman linked to Liam O’Hare’s Twitter.

    The first tweet is timed at 9 hours back, ie 3pm

    Liam O’Hare @Liam_O_Hare
    · 8 hrs 8 hours ago
    Anti-Tory demo in London is on the move. Just marched past Downing Street.

    Liam O’Hare @Liam_O_Hare
    · 9 hrs 9 hours ago
    On my way to anti-Tory demo at Conservative Hq in London. Follow me for updates!

    He is:

    Liam O’Hare
    @Liam_O_Hare

    Journalist with @TheCommonSpace. Politics & investigations.
    Contact me: liam at common.scot
    Glasgow · commonspace.scot

    He says he will report on Common Space. Let’s hope he is OK and not banged up or injured.

  • RobG

    @Mary
    10 May, 2015 – 12:06 am

    Don’t worry it’s just Habba & Co hitting buttons on their keyboards, because Mary is obviously a threat to national security.

    All these little tossers at GCHQ, et al, will be brought to account.

    Make no mistake about that.

    They will be brought to account because they are total vermin who are an utter disgrace to our country.

  • wendy

    i dont trust the result of this election. just doesnt ‘feel’ right for some reason.

  • Jon

    Daniel, yes, “none of the above” would be a small but important change. However, I fear the powers that be regard it as too radical, and the start of an increasing number of people spoiling their papers. I doubt it will be introduced.

  • OldMark

    What is needed is an electoral system that does not award 52% of the seats for 37% of the votes.

    Agreed- especially as the votes cast/seats won ratio in Scotland was even worse.

  • Daniel

    Jon, you are probably right. I just find it extraordinary that the second biggest single bloc after the Tories are the people who couldn’t be bothered to walk 10 minutes to their nearest polling station.

  • John Spencer-Davis

    Daniel
    10/05/2015 12:14am

    Are there implications for social control in legally requiring everyone to vote?

    I’m wondering what knowledge about me the state would need to have in order to legally require me to vote, and whether that knowledge is any of the state’s damned business.

    Kind regards,

    John

  • Daniel

    Old Mark, it is extraordinary to me that Cameron somehow feels obliged to give Nicola even a cursory glance following the election given that the amount of votes the SNP received was less than that received by UKIP.

  • OldMark

    He is:

    Liam O’Hare
    @Liam_O_Hare

    Journalist with @TheCommonSpace. Politics & investigations.
    Contact me: liam at common.scot
    Glasgow · commonspace.scot

    He says he will report on Common Space. Let’s hope he is OK and not banged up or injured.

    Don’t worry Mary- he was still tweeting about today’s events an hour ago.

    O’Hare has, surprise surprise, a background as a public sector drone- and when Glasgow CC relieved him of his sinecure as a ‘consultant’ last year he got the usual suspects to complain noisily about this outrageous act.

    http://www.heraldscotland.com/politics/wider-political-news/anger-as-teenage-vote-job-is-axed-after-comments.23491463

  • Midloo

    Cameron Scrap the Human Rights Act? Why? It’s a meaningless gesture. He’s still subject to the Court and retains responsibility for past violation of obligations (inter alia, torture, interference with correspondence, restrictions on freedom of assembly, deprivation of liberty, security, and life.) To get off the hook he has to exit the Council of Europe.

  • Becky Cohen

    So you think that now we’ve got a 100 per cent Tory government this should shake powerless young people up a bit and there’ll be some grand revolution, Craig? No, there won’t – they’ll be crushed as evidenced by the total media blackout and it’s the people who gave them a leg up into total power like you and your ‘marvellous’ chums here who gave them the mandate to do that to the proletariat. Good job, eh? – not!

  • Becky Cohen

    You betrayed those kids to get what you wanted and stole their futures like a blood sucking parasite.

  • Becky Cohen

    @Mary “The fascisti are coming. They Thought They Were Free – Milton Mayer
    The Germans, 1933-45”

    Mary, the ‘fascisti’ were actually the Italian fascists of the regime of Benito Mussolini. The German Third Reich of 1933-45 were Nazis which is short for National Socialists or to give them their full title in German: National Socislistche Deutsches Arbeiter Partei (National Socialist German Workers’ Party) or the acronym NSDAP.

  • Richard

    An inclusion of ‘None of the above’ on a ballot paper might well be a good idea, but you don’t have to wait for them to do it for you, you can already write that yourself if you wish. In the past that’s what I have done. “None of these useless tossers” was the precise wording used, though this time I voted properly – not for the winning party as it happens, so I haven’t got the government I voted for. Perhaps I should start my own country.

    Anyway, compulsory voting is a bad idea. The freedom to vote is also the freedom not to vote and the imposition of compulsory voting is a check on the freedom of the individual equivalent in principle to telling them for whom they should vote.

    The voting system has been what it is for a long time. In saying that I’m not defending it, merely wishing to emphasise that the most important thing is the quality, morals and integrity of the people who are attracted to put themselves forward for election. For whatever reason, those wishing to do so seem to be disproportionately homicidal and kleptocratic. Such people will corrupt any system, no matter how carefully designed, so jigging about with FPTP or PR or anything else won’t get to the root of the problem so long as people like Cameron, Clegg, Blair, Straw and so on can get in there and game it to their advantage. That probably goes for Sturgeon too, though time will tell. I saw her earlier shouting something to the effect that ‘Scotland must be heard’ or whatever it was. My first reaction was “Hang on, haven’t they just had exactly the same vote everybody else had”. Then, on reflection, I considered that the S.N.P., for its own political advantage, has been set on the job of driving a wedge between the people of these islands. That’s despicable, nasty and grubby; the worst kind of politics and they have been disturbingly successful at it. Ideally, neither the people in Scotland nor the people in the south should fall for it, but sadly sufficient numbers of both of them do. So that nasty little piece of theatre was designed as much for consumption south of the border as it was for her own constituents, possibly more so. And unfortunately it will work, at least on some and at least enough to give some purchase to her project.

    As for the Human Rights Act, it is just a confidence trick as will be Cameron’s scrapping or pretence of scrapping of it – a con built upon a con.

  • bevin

    Yes, Becky, but they called themselves fascists, admired Mussolini’s success which they spent a decade attempting to emulate and chose their party name-at a time when Hitler was still on the British government payroll (as had been Mussolini)- because socialism was extremely popular among the German masses.
    Incidentally Mussolini himself had been a leading member of the Italian Socialist party and editor of its organ Avanti!
    Fascists saw the Socialists as their enemies-as did the industrialists and financiers who kept them well supplied with funds-and as soon as the fascists came to power they exiled, imprisoned and killed them.
    It is a matter of fact, embarrassing to Jewish fascists such as those governing Israel, that the fascists conflated Jews and Bolsheviks because so many European Jews were actually socialists. It was to kill them and their ideas off that what has become known as the Holocaust began.
    The idea that Mussolini, Hitler and Franco-responsible for killing hundreds of thousand of suspected socialists, many of them while his barbarous government was under US protection- were in any way connected with socialism is a slander so disgraceful that only Tories inclined to fascism themselves or tenth rate hacks on the fringes of social sciences would enunciate it.

  • bevin

    “.. it is extraordinary to me that Cameron somehow feels obliged to give Nicola even a cursory glance following the election given that the amount of votes the SNP received was less than that received by UKIP.“

    Following your logic, Daniel, I suppose that Cameron will refuse to meet with the Irish ambassador because the Irish coalition parties also received fewer votes than UKIP.
    Did it escape your notice that the SNP did not run candidates outside of Scotland, whereas UKIP ran almost a full slate in the much more populous UK (question mark)

  • lysias

    Becky, please allow me to correct your spelling: Nationalsozialistische Deutsche Arbeiterpartei.

  • Oxford (Ol' Miss)

    Looks like Scottish self-determination has a lot of you British subjects utterly confused. You’ve never been properly educated about where self-determination comes from, or what it’s for – understandably so, because as a NATO satellite of the US, Britain has been steeped in US dogma for two generations. You’ve been raised as blinkered provincials from Kansas or Tennessee, to fear international comity and norms as external repression, when it’s actually a check on state overreach. You’re old-time backwoods Birchers with quaint accents. You can’t fathom how a smaller state with rights and rule of law can have more autonomy and influence than an ass-kissing inferior in a servile ‘special relationship.’ SNP seems to hope to bring you along ever so gently, letting you hold onto your US slogans while the world changes around you. Still, you’re going to need to have some courage. The tiny countries are the true world leaders. Look outside your borders and you’ll see.

  • S Paterson

    Hol hang on in there. Not easy I know. Check out BusinessforScotland, newsnetscotland, weegingerdug and WingsoverScotland (to name but a few).

    Hope this helps x

  • Tony_0pmoc

    Sometimes you go through life and you think you are doing ok,,,and then you get fckin wasted…and you meet this little blonde girl who has fck all too.

    And We Cried Together on Her Stairs when John Lennon…

    And Then We Loved Together when Princess Diane…

    We are Innocent People.

    We haven’t Done Anything Wrong

    Sure We Fell In Love . .and Still Do

    That is The People We Are

    Working Class…

    And We Look at You Cunts

    Tony

  • Phil

    Hol527
    “cannot seem to find any information of interest unless I actively seek it myself”

    To have learnt this lesson at 16 is a precious understanding you should hold tight to your chest. Good on you.

  • Techno

    “i dont trust the result of this election. just doesnt ‘feel’ right for some reason.”

    It was curious how the South Thanet result was delayed until 11am when everybody is awake, rather than declaring in the middle of the night, when most people are asleep.

  • seylidz

    It not who wins the election that is problem because whatever party or coalition is in power no major changes will occur that fundamentally alter the conditions that the majority have live under.The basic cause is capitolism, society is organised so the wealthy owners can continue accumulate more and more of the worlds riches to deprement of us who are the majority.

  • Mary

    Harper is rewarded with the job of Chief Whip. He comes to the job with an excellent CV.

    Immigration minister Mark Harper quits over cleaner’s visa
    8 February 2014
    Immigration minister Mark Harper has resigned from the government after it emerged his cleaner did not have permission to work in the UK.
    Mr Harper notified Prime Minister David Cameron, who accepted his resignation “with regret”, Number 10 said.
    http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-26101442

    On matters of foreign policy Harper is a noted Euro-sceptic and a strong supporter of Israel and is a member of Conservative Friends of Israel.
    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mark_Harper

    4 Controversy
    4.1 Characterisation of people collecting disability benefits
    4.2 Proposed sale of public forests
    4.3 ‘Go Home’ ad campaign targeting illegal immigration
    4.4 Resignation as Minister of State for Immigration
    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mark_Harper#Controversy

    ‘Immigration Minister Mark Harper was quoted on the BBC website, saying: “The law must be on the side of people who respect it, not those who break it.” Fine words from the man who was unable to say whether flak-jacketed immigration officers had discriminated against people of ethnic minorities when they carried out their spot-checks at railway stations in August.’
    https://mikesivier.wordpress.com/2013/10/10/papers-please-harsher-laws-for-immigrants-could-mean-nazi-style-id-checks-for-british-citizens/

    and he likes a good night out!

    Table-dancing MP Mark Harper breaks foot in Soho fall
    25 June 2013
    Conservative MP Mark Harper has fallen off a table while dancing in a bar in Soho and broken his foot.

    PS He has refused to disclose his parentage. Strange?

  • Porkfright

    There is very likely an MI5 team, Craig. Some of us have been around long enough to know. Now infesting newspaper comments as never before. I was up at 7 this morning to look around the net. Only just now have I found out about this courtesy of your blog. I don’t watch TV news, of course. GB as GDR at present and for the foreseeable future, apparently.

  • JimmyGiro

    From Oxford Dictionary

    Legitimacy: Conformity to the law or to rules.

    Legality: The quality or state of being in accordance with the law.

    Yep, they’re different. One description uses 7 words, the other uses 11.

    By the by Mr Murray, the SNP run council has deliberately implemented a 50/50 selection policy of their cabinet, by gender. Did the good people of Porridgeland intend to elect a Scottish party, or a Marxist-Feminist party?

    Since only some of the ‘male’ members will be men, and all of the female members will be feminists, there will be cuckolding of the representation of men and women by displacing them with feminists and sodomites.

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