Crushing Dissent: What Theresa Erdogan May’s “Election” Really Looks Like 101


This taxi driver was the only member of the public who managed to get anywhere near Theresa May on her much publicised “meet the people” election visit to Bolton yesterday. As not one local person was allowed to speak to her, he is expressing his views in the only way available. He is also exercising his essential democratic right to make his views plain during an election.

This is a policeman from May’s escort immediately moving in to crush any sign of dissent.
The still below does not capture how aggressive the policeman on the motorcycle is. He repeatedly thrusts his pointing finger towards the drivers’ face in an aggressive gesture I have seen used by “law enforcement” in dictatorships all around the world. You get the full idea only by watching the video.

That May’s police escort see it as their job to prevent any expression of dissent says everything about the kind of Britain she is creating. It goes along with her failure, twice, to accept Angus Robertson’s invitation to distance herself from the Daily Mail’s “Crush the Saboteurs” headline.

Disciplinary action should be taken against the policeman for the harassment of that driver – who it should be noted had already been forced to halt and pull aside for a period of time to let May’s convoy pass, and had complied. That we have a police force who think you are not allowed to show dissent to the Prime Minister is deeply troubling.

Visiting Bolton yesterday, May arrived by helicopter, was whisked through town in an armoured convoy, spoke to a tiny audience of vetted conservatives, refused to answer any questions, and was whisked out again. In a precise example of what we have to expect in the next six weeks the BBC reported she had been to “meet the people”, and then gave us a series of vox pops from Labour voters in Bolton who were switching to Conservative.

The media picture with which we are presented is not just a distortion, it is the polar opposite of the reality. It was not a “meet the people” visit, it was an “avoid the people” visit. With not even other members of the political establishment being allowed to question her in debate, this is an Uzbek style election in the UK.

Hat tip – and link above – to Tom Pride.

UPDATE: For those having video troubles – here it is below

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101 thoughts on “Crushing Dissent: What Theresa Erdogan May’s “Election” Really Looks Like

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  • Petronius

    So, this is a glimpse of the descent into fascism of the Great British State Mk2. Roll on le quatorze juillet !

    • Kempe

      Yes everyone lives in perpetual fear of answering the midnight knock at the door and finding a plod in a day-glo jacket pointing at them!

      The horror, the horror.

  • Rob Royston

    Rob G is right, we live in a Police State. It probably all started with the miners strike when they were formed into gangs, given massive pay rises and then sent out to batter people at will.
    I can remember back in the fifties, policemen showed respect to the public, they knew that if they didn’t there were plenty of hardened war veterans in every street who would put them in their place.
    When I first went overseas I imagined one of our bobbies standing in the street blowing a whistle at everyone passing by. He would be pushing his luck, that’s for sure..

    • JOML

      And while police salaries went up, teachers salaries went down, making teaching a less desirable career. Maggie certainly had her priorities, utlising / squandering oil revenues to destroy industries and the people within them.

  • Becky Cohen

    Hmm…,appearances can be deceptive. Not sure whether it’s a guy expressing his dissent or he’s giving the Mayfly the Churchillian victory sign of support: it is coming from a white male shaven-headed taxi driver after all. Traditionally, not known for their left-of-centre sympathies those guys. The cop may be mad at him showing his support for the Tories because he’s a public sector worker has been on a one per cent pay rise since the Tories got in It is annoying when your car or bus is held up so that some ‘VIP’ head of state in a suit can go past, though: was on the way to work once and our bus got stopped by a column of police motorcyclists halting it so that the visiting prime minister of Ireland could sweep through in his limo. Made me think that things just haven’t changed since the days of the Romans, eh? What makes their lives more precious than ours just because they’ve got more money? They are supposedly elected representatives of the people serving us but it doesn’t feel that way sometimes. At least, the servants would never behave like that in Downton Abbey. Perhaps there should be a rule that when the rest of us are made to wait in traffic for bigwigs to go through they should be obliged to curtsey – or at least thank us for not guillotining them today;)

  • Sharp Ears

    Some bite from Matt Carr.
    May’s Gambit
    April 19, 2017

    ‘Her listless demeanour suggested she could already hear the mocking laughter croaking from millions of throats, but still she went on, robotically reciting clichés about our ‘proud history and bright future’ and the ‘opportunities’ awaiting us outside the EU. And then, because it was Easter, and a time for reflection, she reflected on our shared ‘values’ and neatly morphed them into an Anne of Green Gables vision of the simple, goodhearted girl she must once have been before she grew up to become the UK’s answer to Cruella de Vil:

    ‘ This Easter I think of those values that we share – values that I learnt in my own childhood, growing up in a vicarage. Values of compassion, community, citizenship. The sense of obligation we have to one another. These are values we all hold in common, and values that are visibly lived out everyday by Christians, as well as by people of other faiths or none.’

    It’s worth pausing here to remember that the woman who said this presides – as her equally Christian successor did – over a government that forces sick and dying people to work; that is driving the NHS to the wall so that it can sell if off; that has cut funding to social care and the mentally-ill; that drives doctors to suicide and forces nurses into debt; that has driven more than a million people to rely on foodbanks; that makes poor and disabled people pay for having a spare room in their house; that sells truckloads of weapons to any scumbag dictator that needs them.

    Yet she still has the incredible gall to speak of ‘those who go out of their way to visit the sick or bereaved, providing comfort and guidance to many in our country at some of the most difficult moments in their lives.’

    From:
    http://infernalmachine.co.uk/the-gospel-according-to-saint-theresa/

  • Mark Golding

    The Champs-Élysée attacker who was shot dead is once again thought to have been known to security services for “extremist links” –

    My information advises the British public need to be immediately alarmed at an impending spike in terrorist activity within the UK flowing out from and passing off from the fall of Mosul and the retaking of Raqqa, both bound to lead to a higher instance of returning ‘fighters’ and just one of this troop, known of course to the British intelligence services, may well horn into the forthcoming Uzbek style election.

    Just saying…

    • Bhante

      Elementary, Michael. They need to pretend Macron has public support, so that they can fabricate an election win. Who is going to believe that Macron won the election when he was always trailing in the polls – that would have zero credibility and the election result would be rejected by the public as a fraud. With polls pretending he is doing well, everybody will still be suspicious, but there will always be doubt in people’s minds.

      Same as the last Indyref (and probably also Indyref2, unless the SNP take very good precautions).

  • Zeke

    Craig, the man was out of his vehicle, probably with the engine still running (an offence by itself) standing in the middle of the busy road (another offence) while flashing signs of appreciation at May. If the cop gave him a good talking to it is hardly surprising, is it?

    You really are scraping the bottom of the barrel. Now had you picked up on the story that a YouGov person was instructing Labour Party candidates to ignore Jeremy Corbyn you wouldn’t sound so like an angry old man and might have made your point..

    http://knowyourmeme.com/memes/old-man-yells-at-cloud/photos

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