Our three neo-con major political parties have come up with a jolly cunning plan to lift money direct from the taxpayer, in addtion to being paid by big business to promote the interests of big business against the people.
A government inquiry is recommending that £20 million a year in public funding be given to the three neo-con parties. Is there no end to their greed? I suppose the logic is perfect – it will finally cement into our political system the monopoly of power by parties that are arrogantly unrepresentative of the will of the people, knowing that their system, above all by control of the media, locks out any alternative from competing for political power.
I write with certainty that all our three political parties are now neo-conservative, but with great sadness. The Tories became fully neo-con around 1979, New Labour around 1996 and the Lib Dems around 2010. All the parties contain still a minority of resisters, the fewer the longer they have been neo-con. So Ken Clarke is an almost entirely isolated resister in the Tory party, Jeremy Corbyn one of very few left in New Labour, while the Lib Dems still have a few Norman Bakers who have not yet been entirely corrupted by power and money, but you can see the process working on the Lib Dems like acid and their integrity will have been completely eaten through in another 18 months.
Meanwhile, there are some who don’t get it, like poor deluded old bat Polly Toynbee, who still has not worked out that New Labour went neo-con. Yesterday’s Toynbee article has the headline: “Executive pay soars while the young poor face freefall. Where is Labour?” You are a fool, Toynbee. The ex-ministers of the last New Labour government are in the boardroom picking up those massive remunerations and perks you are rightly complaining about. Did you really not know that, or do you just refuse to see?
New Labour is now neo-con, Toynbee. It is fifteen years since Peter Mandelson said that “New Labour is intensely relaxed about the filty rich.” Mandelson and Blair and Hewitt and Jowell and Milburn and Burnham and Reid and Blunkett and the whole lot of them are now filthy rich. Somebody explain this to Toynbee.
But it is an extremely important point that I did not see a single mainstream politician yesterday questioning the obscenity of directors’ earnings rising over 49% last year – from a huge base – when average real incomes were falling. The media was packed with apologists explaining trickledown theory to us. I also noted that the Occupy movement needs to beware of the media appearing to give them coverage, when in fact the media are deliberately picking on people whose hearts, instincts and minds are all in the right place, but who lack media experience and formal education in the ground on which the media places them. The media can then give the impression of debate with the cards severely stacked, to make the view that in fact the large majority of those at home will hold, that executive salaries are obscene and untenable, appear amateur and ill-informed.
The parties do not represent us and their collective membership is falling, as they are now a vehicle for career rather than belief. No wonder they want to pick our pockets to keep up the pretence of democracy.
Sorry this is off post Craig, but a good future post might relate to your ideas on Saif al Islam Gaddafi’s offer to submit himself to the International Criminal Court with whom he has been in contact (reported this morning on news programmes in Romania) to defend himself against accusations of cruelty and genocide, and whether you think he will ever take the stand. Personally I think they will do him in.
Mark Golding – Children of Iraq “We are the 99%, they are 1% and the money system *is* the head of the snake.” Nice sustained metaphor, especially in the light of Stephen’s allusion to George Galloway as a reptile. Anybody thinking of George Galloway as a “reptile” can only be either an American (the country Galloway took to court and won) or a UK neocon US sympathiser. Or perhaps he thinks he lives in “the best of all possible worlds”.
“much in the same way as John Major resigned over sleeze, ‘cash for questions,’ arms to Iraq embargo breach and Defense Minister perjury over secret deals with Saudi”
He didn’t resign – he lost an election
“In an ideal world right now every single person on earth could have a quarter acre block of land with fertile soil to grow vegetables.”
Not my ideal world – or of other omnivores or those that don’t like gardening. Some might have rather a long way to travel to their quarter acre.
“Those of us through intelligence or sheer hard work who know better and refuse this ‘dumbing down’ either via the government or popular media, fall under the system’s method of ridicule and at the extreme, incarceration, assassination or a timely death.”
On the other hand the ridicule could be because of your arrogance and stupidity.
“This illusion of democracy that currently exists is now being focused”
And what may I ask is the mechanism by which you see your ideas being transmitted to the 99% who have lived in ignorance and been duped by the 1% for so long – and how exactly will they take control?
Given that my ancestors and I have been involved in the struggle for many years for the advancement of democracy (read EP Thompson if you really want to use some intelligence and do some hard work) perhaps we have a better understanding than you of what democracy is, how it achieved and how it can be advanced further – rather than being provided with instruction from someone who wiushes to tear it all up and start over again in some imprecise manner, and provides nothing but mealy mouthed platitudes with regard to the behaviour of Saddam, Gadaffi and his ilk.
Could I suggest that if you really think the 99% are on your side – that you tell them waht you want to do, how you will do it and stand for election to see if the 99% agree with you – or are they really too stupid and deluded to understand so we really need to elect another people??
It is true, all three parties are neo-cons. And to think I voted for Blair (the first time) still makes my blood boil at my stupidity. Labour was not everything some hoped for but it was clear from the moment Blair re-wrote Clause 4 that an Orwellian repositioning had taken place and the sheep (who could not read, or chose not to) would be sent to the slaughter while those who stood on two legs would prosper. Baa. Baa. Baa.
Craig, send you an email that matters, yesterday.
Once again, I have a lot of sympathy with what Stephen is saying.
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So often on this blog we get passionate denunciations of what is going on and nothing constructive in return.
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Agree also btw about EP Thompson because he describes the bloody process working people went through in this country to achieve democracy.
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It is only since Blair that the electoral process has appeared to lose all meaning, because he not only believed in Hitler’s mantra that if you’re going to tell a lie, tell a big one, he also – and this was really the point of that mantra – established by continual practice aka brainwashing a convention that lying was OK.
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Until Blair although people have always torn their hair out about politicians since the year dot there was at least some sincerity amongst them.
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Stephen I think is saying maybe we should not give up on the process just yet.
Perhaps – working with what we’ve got – we should all visit our MP’s for a discussion, if we can’t get to St Paul’s. Otherwise, quite extraordinary – interesting piece, and thanks.
Stephen,
Major resigned as leader of the party after his defeat.
Stephen – ‘tear it all up and start again in some imprecise manner’ – the point is that nobody is tearing it all up. The system is being torn up from within and nobody is doing it. I don’t know if you remember The Avengers episode where people are announcing they are already dead, because it is so certain they will be shortly, but the capitalist system, at least this version of capitalism, is just like that. Capitalism based on aggressive free markets and globalised finance is as dead as a dodo. Once it’s gone you’ll be amazed at how obvious the replacement will be. These people in their daytime tents aren’t the people who are tearing up the system. They are the people who want something better and can see the dark age ending soon.
Galloway’s a reptile. (I should know, I’m one myself.)
Komodo, you’re a dragon! Beware of George. But from earlier posts I’m sure you have mush in common.
I’m in close to total agreement with Craig’s analysis. He’s right, and disolusioned, which is understandable, as the Liberalism he believes in, a kind of enlightened capitalism, is vanishing before our eyes like mist.
UK politics resembles US politics more and more. Today, we have, effectively, three neo-conservative factions… of the same, single, dominant, party, envolved in a ritualised battle, rather like professional wrestling, a triumph of style over substance.
There is no opposition any more either. So we have three factions, with barely a dime’s worth of difference between them, no alternative, and opposition. Can one have anything close to democracy under these conditions? I think not, at least not in the sphere of politics. The residual influence of democracy can, and does, still exist, just not in the political sphere anymore. What we have is ‘totalitarian democracy.’
Toynbee can hardly be expected to write about any of this, except obliquely, because it’s a deeply depressing conclusion to come to; that the era of bourgeois democracy has passed into history almost unoticed.
Conjunction,
I see reason in your argument and yes I too have respect for Thompson PBUH. Many of us realise that CND was subversive yet while MI5 was busy bugging us they failed miserably to expose Russian spies like Melita Norwood.
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Who remembers Dr Vic Allen’s booklet, Images & Reality in the Soviet Union? He wrote “Soviet democracy is not that which is derived from counting votes but the dominance of the largest class …. The suppression of opinions hostile to it is intended to maintain its integrity”…
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The ‘cold war’ did not cost many British lives and I don’t remember thousands of kids being slaughtered either.
Mark Golding, while I agree with you about cutting off the head of the snake, it is easier said than done. Of the 99 per cent I estimate at least 90 per cent are apathetic (though that could change as times get harder). I’ve copied this from Poetry24 which is relevant to your comment as well as that of the canon of St Paul’s.
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God Helps Those…
(with apologies to Martin Niemöller)
First I went to the bank;
but I wasn’t a banker, so they did nothing.
Then I went to the politicians;
but I wasn’t a banker, so they did nothing.
Then I went to the Press;
but I wasn’t a banker, so they did nothing.
Then I went to the Church;
but they had shares in HSBC, and called the riot squad in.
© Philip Challinor
of course the obvious is that toynbee is a neo con herself .. and of course so is the guardian .. except superficially since it has to sell its papers to the gullible left.
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as for galloway he does appear to speak from the heart regardless of whether you follow his politics .. one thing though he is a fairly bad judge of other peoples real intent and character.
Cuddly Clarke.
Cute Cigar.
http://thewholedamnworld.blogspot.com/
Cunt.
lol sorry. Wrong link.
http://thethirdestate.net/2011/10/between-people-and-property-why-the-anti-squatting-amendment-must-be-opposed/
“The media was packed with apologists explaining trickledown theory to us. I also noted that the Occupy movement needs to beware of the media appearing to give them coverage, when in fact the media are deliberately picking on people whose hearts, instincts and minds are all in the right place, but who lack media experience and formal education in the ground on which the media places them.”
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. the media in the uk is largely neo con govt affiliates , why would it represent the 99% ? as for the fat cat celebrities .. too busy selling their christmas trash .. via the neo con media .. ‘youre with us or against us’ bush/blair said it from day zero
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the occupy movement need to announce their National Transitional Council (NTC) (and just hope the Saudis dont send their tanks in) ..
I think we should set up a some kind of parliament with as many people as possible online that deals with the same current issues as Parliament does, with full debate and then a vote.
So long it’s not manipulated by our ever vigilant intelligence services, we could get some kind of democracy in theory and as numbers of participants increase it could be used to counter our increasingly corrupt and subservient Parliament.
I think if they got £1[?] a vote [in general elections] with the winner getting the balance from the uncast votes in each constituency, divide by five and thats their annual allowance and any outside contributions reduce the allowance pound for pound. Of course you’d have to treat all candidates the same above a minimum level of support, say 5% of votes cast, again on a constituency level.
T see the parties increasingly growing closer with only peripheral issues up for discussion to the point where we have political theater to go with the security theater at airports etc.,regulatory theater emerging from every orofice of every quango and soveriegn debt crisis theater adding to the usual news theater; I think what I mean is I dont believe anything anyone in politics or the media say anymore, even when it’s true.
We have to bear in mind that a real life game theory test of unprincipled ‘market forces’ has been played out to produce both termite colonies and ants colonies where a single individual controls extremely expendable workers controlled by a thuggish ‘soldier’ caste who are also infinitely expendable, pretty much what you see when you look at any us client state. Our rapidly developing brainwashing/population control techniques are just allegories of the pheremones used in those societies, and in the end most of those currently involved in these processes,or their descendants will not be at the top, but among the rest of us.
Time to tear it up and rethink.
Wendy, there is some commonsense in your witty comment, but as a professing pacifist, having seen what has just happened in Libya, I couldn’t support any NTC (which probably means I would be shot as a supporter of Cameron) if there was a NTC. Great joke! Except it’s not funny because something similar almost certainly happened in these Unholy Wars in the Middle East and North Africa. Looking for practical solutions that are not going to make things worse is something we need to address. And I don’t even know who we is!
The Royal Mail has received more than 80,000 applications for 18,000 seasonal Christmas jobs – thousands more than last year, figures have showed.
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The postal group said it was delighted with the strong response to fill the temporary positions, which support the 130,000 full-time postmen and women at their busiest time of year.
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The number of applications is 10,000 more than last year.
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http://news.sky.com/home/business/article/16098848
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This callous comment on that news which indicates the desperation of those job applicants comes from Chris Grayling, the (un)Employment Minister.
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“Temporary work gives you an idea of the kind of career you might want.”
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Grayling’s Wikipedia page –
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Between 2001 and 2009,[7] Grayling claimed for a flat in Pimlico, close to the House of Commons, despite having a constituency home less than 17 miles away[8] and owning two buy to let properties in Wimbledon.[9] Grayling says he uses the flat when “working very late” because he needs to “work very erratic and late hours most days when the House of Commons is sitting.”[10]
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During the Parliamentary expenses scandal, The Daily Telegraph reported that Grayling refitted and redecorated the flat in 2005 at a cost of thousands of pounds. Grayling said that both the water and electrical systems failed “leaving the place needing a major overhaul”.[9].
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Comparing Moss Side to ‘The Wire’ As Shadow Home Secretary Chris Grayling’s provoked controversy in August 2009 when he compared parts of to Britain to the Baltimore set TV series The Wire.
It’s nearly 11.45 p.m. here (2 hours different from the UK) and the wine (which is 2 times cheaper than the UK) is going down in twice the quantity as normal, but I bet the secret services have got at least 2 people monitoring this blog, and I hope they get paid twice as much as when I was a civil-servant, and that they also realise that comments here are at least twice as worthy of those of their masters. The point is how does anybody, or any organisation, circumscribe intelligence to destabilise the status quo? Two pounds sterling for anyone with an answer.
And that’s not any answer. It needs to be workable. And no I’m not Scottish, I’m a Yorkshireman,
JG:-
“mush” in common? I really hope that was a typo.
Hope I can avoid George’s basic misconception, anyway: that the enemy of his enemy is necessarily his friend.
Going off post (piste? well getting there!) is there any news of the Malyshevs. We should never let Hague and May get away with this travesty. Still no response from the border agency.
Komo, I laughed when I saw it too.
How to circumscribe intelligence to destabilise the status quo.? Easy, you do what Cheney did. You set up a parallel organisation in close contact with a foreign government and cut the normal channels out of the loop. Two quid please.
Gideon George Osborne with the Grecian 2000 hairdo goes to Israel. How nice for him.
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He says “Israel is an amazing place, an amazing achievement as a country but it’s also an amazing economic achievement.” Perhaps he would like to ask the Palestinians what they think.
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http://www.thejc.com/news/uk-news/57296/george-osborne-arrives-amazing-israel-high-tech-launch
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Note he met Stanley Fischer, the Governor of the Bank of Israel and previously Chief Economist at the World Bank. When at MIT he supervised Ben Bernanke’s Ph.D thesis. Keeping it in the family.
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Banking career
From January 1988 to August 1990 he was Vice President, Development Economics and Chief Economist at the World Bank. He then became the First Deputy Managing Director of the International Monetary Fund (IMF), from September 1994 until the end of August 2001. By the end of 2001, Fischer had joined the influential Washington-based financial advisory body, the Group of Thirty. After leaving the IMF, he served as Vice Chairman of Citigroup, President of Citigroup International, and Head of the Public Sector Client Group. Fischer worked at Citigroup from February, 2002 to April, 2005. He became Governor of the Bank of Israel on May 1, 2005, replacing David Klein, who ended his term on January 16, 2005. Fischer became an Israeli citizen, the aforementioned action being a prerequisite to this appointment. He has been involved in the past with the Bank of Israel, having served as an American government adviser to Israel’s economic stabilization program in 1985. On May 2, 2010, Fischer was sworn in for a second term.[3]
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{http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stanley_Fischer}
You don’t pull any punches, Craig. You tell it exactly like it is. Hopefully it will encourage people to switch off the telly and do something about the general situation. Keep it up.