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.
Farewell to the United Kingdom
Tariq Ali
‘A large majority of Scots never voted for her (Thatcher). They reached breaking point under Tony Blair and New Labour. It was the proudly vaunted Thatcherite politics of Blair, Brown and their Scottish toadies that accelerated the rise of civic nationalism and fuelled desertions from Labour to the SNP that realized the only way to defeat Blairite Tories was by positioning themselves to the left of Labour on every major issue: the SNP opposed the Iraq war, defended the welfare state, demanded the removal of nuclear weapons from Scottish soil and slowly began to build up support. Labour remained in denial. The first tremors were ignored. The tectonic plates shifted last week and has destroyed them. It will take time but Scottish independence is now assured and a damn good thing too as it will weaken the neo-imperial and military pretensions of the UK state and could open a real debate (not the fakery witnessed on the BBC and other networks) in England leading to constitutional reform (including a written constitution and a democratic electoral system) and the emergence of a radical alliance in England, an insurgent force that breaks with the decaying Labourism that has crippled the Left for a century, first the official Communists and later their Trotskyist offspring. Remnants of both ended up in New Labour (the thuggish Stalinist John (now Lord) Reid and the creepy Alan Milburn who as Health Secretary opened the doors to privatization and is now a well-paid consultant of private health firms and a virtual Tory. There are others.’
http://www.counterpunch.org/2015/05/08/farewell-to-the-united-kingdom/
Weekend Edition May 8-10, 2015
Tut tut Jimmy Giro.
Top Definition
MRA = Men Run Amok
The most screaming announcement of insecurity and masculine shortcomings short of two pit bulls in a lifted 4×4 truck with a “No Fear” sticker on the window.
They never live up to the “no fear” slogan though.
An MRA is always suffering from Little Man’s Complex.
Hates women because they wouldn’t give him the time of day.
An MRA is an evil loser.
Urban Dictionary
Just remind us, Craig:
How did the British people reply when they were asked whether they wanted to change the voting system?
How did the Scottish people reply when they were asked whether they wanted independence?
How many people voted for you the last time you stood in a parliamentary election?
Your contempt for democracy isn’t hidden very well, is it?
Did the feminists ask for your vote Mary?
If not, then they cannot claim to represent you, or any other woman.
“PS He has refused to disclose his parentage. Strange?”
Well you’re our resident genealogy expert, Mary. What are your suspicions?
Craig
I can’t agree with you on this. The protest has had media coverage appropriate to its size and importance. I was annoyed to read that some of the protesters had defaced a memorial to the women who fought in WW2. This protest has achieved nothing.
As for your statements on the views of those who didn’t vote, your guess is as good as mine. It is even possible that many who didn’t vote were happy to put up with the present government but the point is, we don’t know.
Bob
Craig
“No, there has been no change of wording. Perhaps you read more carefully the second time.”
Ok, I was wrong then. I think I did read it too hastily.
“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.”
We all know what happened at Downing Street, there was a protest, there are protests al the time, ten a penny protests are. The attacks on campaigners in Glasgow were denied, you even went as far as to declare the photos of the incident were fake, it was proven they weren’t.
You wrote four blog articles about the events in Glasgow, will you be doing the same for the events in Downing Street?
John S-D at 12.04 – Good advice. Wise words indeed. Hope they’re heeded.
@Bob Smith,
But surely we can speculate.
Consider what ‘non-voting’ involves: either ‘disconnection’, or acquiescence. Is any of those two conditions compatible with the politics of the radical mind? If not, then most of the non-voters were more probably ‘conservative’ in their sentiments.
Or at least, if the disconnected were more prone to radicalism, they would be least amenable toward voting, compared to the ‘acquiescent’, who could be provoked out of their idleness to vote for ‘more of the same’.
I’ve now heard several Labour bigwigs saying that their problem is that they’re not far enough right. This time they lost seats in Scotland, next time around they’ll lose deposits.
I voted according to my political beliefs Jimmy Giro, regardless of the candidate’s gender, political being the operative word.
I wish I had not put up that definition of MRA. I realize it sounds offensive towards you. Someone else used it on a previous thread and I had not heard it before. In my day the expression was MCP which was most probably offensive to pigs.
Anon1 Why not? What is Harper covering up? All the other pocket pols seem to be able to tell us including Gove. We even know Theresa’s dad was a clergyman and Dave’s dad was a wealthy stockbroker born in Scotland at Blairmore!! House.
‘Blairmore House, the school’s premises, is a Victorian mansion set amid 50 acres (200,000 m2) of woodland beside the River Deveron. It is 6 miles (9.7 km) from Huntly, 40 miles (64 km) from Aberdeen and 60 miles (97 km) from Inverness. The house was designed by architect Alexander Marshall Mackenzie[2] and was built as a private home in 1884 for Alexander Geddes, a wealthy businessman and great-great grandfather of UK Prime Minister and Tory party leader David Cameron. Cameron’s father, Ian Donald Cameron, was born in the house in 1932. Geddes made his fortune in Chicago in the US in the trading of grain in the 1850s, and a safe belonging to him which survived the Great Fire of Chicago was installed in the house’s Billiard Room. During World War 2 it served as an GHQ Home Forces for some of the Auxiliary Units.’
Wendy, 12.29a.m. I feel the same. Instinct of some kind. Don’t know what happened-but something did, for sure.
In Scotland, 71.1% voted of those eligible to do so. Exactly 50% of those voted for the SNP, i.e. 35.55% of the electorate. Yet the SNP have 95% of the seats.
To paraphrase Craig, “thanks to the UK’s appalling electoral system, we now have a party with absolute power from an absolute parliamentary majority, but which 64% of voters didn’t vote for”. Or does this complaint not actually count when it’s the party that you support?
The BBC, like the MSM, does not consist solely of front line journalists who ignore, exaggerate, make up, distort stories. Yet the rest of the staff, whom I assume are ordinary people like us, do nothing.
Graham
Of course the SNP should not have got nearly all the seats with half the votes. The SNP is committed to electoral reform.
@Mary,
“I voted according to my political beliefs Jimmy Giro, regardless of the candidate’s gender, political being the operative word.”
Presumably you voted for someone who would represent you, so that they could call themselves your representative.
My point is that Feminism has never risked the ballot box, therefore can never claim to represent anybody. Therefore when an electorate gets feminist policies, they are being misrepresented.
Vronsky
The Guardian/Observer is leading with a big Tony Blair pitch for the Labour Party to move right, and is plugging the privately educated pro-Tory Chuka Umunna. Scottish Labour might as well close down now.
Who have Murnaghan on Sky got on to discuss the aftermath as described in the corporate media?
Lord Blair (Met) Diane Abbott who is standing for London Mayor and Rachel Johnson, Boris’s sister.
No chance of getting Craig on?????
Under PR and with the same votes cast – we’d still be living under the yolk of a Tory/UKIP majority government.
Of course PR would give hope, but the fundamental problem is the ‘I’m alright Jack’ majority of the British population. They actually support bashing people on benefits rather than helping them.
The selfish ‘centre’. People who are happy enough in their own lives to keep voting Tory – but not happy enough not to need a scapegoat. ie the ‘undeserving poor’, the people who need foodbanks…
Bob Smith 8:49
Regardimg the defacement of the war memorial. Is their proven identity of the culprit/s? “Popular protester/s” on a spree (spray ?) or 77 “chindit daubers” on a practice sortie?
Medialens –
The Guardian’s love affair with Blair goes on and on
http://members5.boardhost.com/medialens/thread/1431240224.html
~~~
He knows a lot about ‘compassion’ of course. Ask the Iraqis, the Afghanis and the Palestinians.
Labour must be the party of ambition as well as compassion
Tony Blair, the last Labour prime minister to win an election, commends Ed Miliband for his courage under savage attack
http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2015/may/09/tony-blair-what-labour-must-do-next-election-ed-miliband
9 May 2015
Messiah pose below –
Blair tells Labour: return to the centre ground to win again
Former PM says party has to be ‘for ambition and aspiration as well as compassion and care’
http://www.theguardian.com/politics/2015/may/09/tony-blair-labour-return-centre-ground-general-election-defeat
10 May 2015
The illegitimacy of government is reflected in the suppression of facts and a constant cover up actualities in the corporate media that is further carried out in the alternative media through the various paid stooges, and idealogical pygmies.
The illegitimacy of the government is patently palpable and reflected in the mass rejection of the governed of the dog and pony show that is supposed to be delivering “democracy” and “free beer”!
The illegitimacy of the governing classes have never been so clearly manifest, as the riots are raging around its barricaded fenced off, and heavily policed headquarters.
Je
Eggs have yolks
Serfs labour under yokes.
~~
Sorry I could not resist it. 😉
I do hope Chukusyamoney becomes leader. He is so hopelessly out of his depth that he will surely drive the Labour Party into oblivion. Can you imagine Cameron tearing into him at the despatch box? Delicious.
@Fedup,
You can replace ‘government’ with ‘socialism’ or ‘feminism’ and it would still be the same message; only the difference is that the protesters are legitimate socialists.
Craig
Umunna was on Marr. Jeez, creepy.
Thanks Mary. Perhaps I could have put covered in the yolk of a Tory/UKIP government.
This is what won it for Dave’s partei.
‘It came as the Tories unveiled the latest party election broadcast. It features a glass cloche clock representing the British economy being destroyed by a sledge hammer, representing the Labour Party. It will be televised on Tuesday evening.’
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xrqG6CbmZjw
421,000 views. Do you believe any of it?
ex Torygraph
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/politics/ed-miliband/11580062/Ed-Miliband-will-install-limestone-manifesto-monument-in-Downing-Street.html
Edward Bernays would be proud.
Our governers have undergone some hours of education. as have the architects who design and construct our buildings all of which are questionable.
ww.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2327440/Couples-fury-garage-new-200-000-home-narrow-cars-open-doors-parked-inside.html
Something has gotta change when its not fit for purpose; questioning government actions is like saying why are the bricks to close together in the garage.