As the Guardian notes this morning:
A letter to Boris Johnson sent a fortnight ago by James Ramsbotham called on the prime minister to save the north-east from the “damage being done to our economy” by Brexit and urged him to give it his “most urgent and personal attention”. Two weeks later, it remains unanswered.
As the author of the letter says, three quarters of his members are anti-Brexit. He did not put that in the letter to not cause offence to the prime minister.
As he also noted to the Guardian, in his opinion Brexit is the point where the Conservatives and business parted company. Returning to the single market is essential, he and his members think.
I am sure he is right. But my question is what are they going to do about it? Why don't they all join the Conservative party for a start and overthrow its absurd policies? If not its next leader (and it looks like there could be another one soon) will be at least as bad. If they join they can change that. Why are they waiting?
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James Ramsbotham, who is the chief executive of the North East England Chamber of Commerce, has not been listening. Boris Johnson has been entirely clear: “Fuck business”, he said, three years ago. https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-44618154
Indeed
Surely the answer is that they are waiting for the Tories to further reduce worker rights, financial reporting standards – anything reasonable which in fact business sees as a burden?
As Aeron Davis has pointed out in his book ‘Reckless Opportunists’, the way these bodies talk to each other through the media is a just a masquerade of accountability and debate to make it look as though we have a democracy.
What Ramsbotham is REALLY saying to Johnson is to remind him of all those secret behind the scenes assurances and promises that the Tory backing businessmen were pledged when handing over their cash before BREXIT.
That’s my opinion anyway.
I like your thinking.
PSR, hello, I agree about the fake narrative construct.
Heading into the ‘glorious’ shoots of silly season , the borders and checks having been artificially lowered so the technocrat minions of the fading empire can enjoy their faux aristo grand tours to their continental Tuscan and Dordogne idylls – some may be chocking on their islands and yachts – the occasional covering editor may get away with squeezing a bit of actual truth in their MSM channels.
The Obsessive Groan tends to avoid it nowadays by the wholesale plugging into the Bill&Mellinda Propaganda Channel (ah cosy cuddly billionaire couple just like that tv series HarttoHart, ‘when they met it was Moider’ , not so cuddly and not even a couple anymore , but that is another story that I may detail another time) – but here is a morsel that has been squeezed into a Covid denialism beating up piece today, that speaks directly to the subject here.
It explains a lot , as obviously any one familiar with ‘The Sting’ already knows and as I have been trying to by banging on about the BrexShit con and how it was perpetrated.
‘In 1952, the sociologist Erving Goffman analysed the art of the con in a seminal essay, On Cooling the Mark Out. To understand the phenomenon, he identified a cast of characters: first, the “operator”, who perpetrates the con; second, the “mark”, the target of the con; and third, the “cooler”, an ally of the con artist who attempts to console the victim once the fraud has become apparent “in a way that makes it easy for him to accept the inevitable and quietly go home”.
Goffman observed that all “marks” eventually come to understand that they have been defrauded. But strangely, they almost never complain or report the crime to the authorities. Why? Because, Goffman argues, admitting that you have been conned is so deeply shameful that “marks” experience it as a kind of social death – the painful end of one of the many social roles we all play.‘
I won’t link to the article.
———-
Secondly I am pleased that Stuart Lee has finally caught up with my years long thesis about why the British public have been sold and bought into believing that toffs of the thickest to the slimiest smartest (Bozo the killer clown to slitherry Moggy) are given plenty of internal mental forelock tugging , sold to us by the MSM. Stuart explains, as I say rather belatedly:
‘ Fifteen years ago, during a period of mental instability, I appeared on a grammar quizshow hosted by Downton Abbey creator Julian Fellowes, who patronisingly explained afterwards that privilege and inequality were natural and that my betters had my best interests at heart. Downton Abbey carpet-bombed the idea of benign aristocratic paternalism into the ITV viewing proletariat, class traitors such as Dame Maggie Smith and Dan Stevens softening the ground for the advance of Boris Johnson’s silver-spoon commandos into the red wall.’
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2021/aug/08/andrew-bridgens-mantra-urination-urination-urination
That can have the link because I sort of liked Stuart, but he better say something soon about attacks on Indy journalism, otherwise I will know for sure, he too has succumbed to the DarkSide and is playing the role of the Cooler.
Anyway the two references show that what is being played out by the North East letter writers , it is on a MSM stage after all, is just another Act in the Grand Sting.
The article you mention is by Brooke Harrington – a friend of mine
A con, undoubtedly, but what’s the point? Perhaps this chap on Youtube, running an idea up the flagpole to see who salutes I imagine, might be signposting the desired future https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aIlqbg8whss
Bill Kruse, BULLS EYE! I completely agree with your recognition.
Lol. City States! I bet he has never heard of Greek or Roman History!
They really believe we are so dumbed down(toned).
———
I have continued to scream about BrexShit- it’s main purpose was to protect the Ancient City! And why Corbynite Labour was fouled against in the fixed election & the installed coup government’s reaction to the pandemic was delayed last year – to propose and pass into legislation the FREEPORTS – the Rand Brittannia Unhinged clone vampires main purpose and Sunaks first BrexShit budget’s ONLY priority, hidden away in all the Global Britain BS. The 25mile/40km extension clearly designed as the crow flies from London Gateway to the City of London.
As soon as it is set up we will be allowed to rejoin the EU leaving that Singapore-on-Thames for the EU to accept as a fait accompli!
Which will happen as Merkel departs and their quisling Macron rules the roost or so they hope (come on Barnier!)
Some dumb kid reading an autocue saying that HE has come up with the revolutionary cure to the worlds ills – City States- is the usual attempt by the Forever Owners of Us Slaves to form yet another ‘-ism’ to keep them well hidden in the clouds by their fake pillars of left&right so us at the bottom can never reach upto grab their ankles and bring them crashing down to Earth, let alone catch sight of their heavenly abode.
They invented Nation States to rob us blinder now they offer us a return to City States always ignoring the natural territories of PEOPLES – as a means to survive the inevitable defeat of the Anglospheric centuries long Imperialism to own the whole world; at the hands of ‘rogue’ Nation States they encouraged and expected to fall in line with every other Nation State they invented starting at Westphalia.
I usually publish you
It does not mean I always agree with you….
Oh so accurate, as usual, PSR.
Reading that puts me in mind of the few articles I’ve read about the Trilateral Commission and its motivations: a group that attempts to sway governments and subvert democracy while claiming to be the benign face of global liberal capitalism. These articles provide the Commission with the faint air of Bond villain gang about it, yet an invitation-only group of the wealthiest and most influential shysters across the globe with the current LOTO as a member has made me wonder (in possibly my wildest imaginings) that SKS might well be the “cooler” in our situation. I freely admit that this sounds at least somewhat paranoid even as I write this.
I’ve been wondering if he is an MI5 plant whose objective is to destroy the Labour Party for some time now.
I did see this coming through my Twitter feed and thought, perhaps unfairly..’ well they did vote for that!’
My conclusion is that as with the fishing sector, a private word was whispered that they would get ‘special treatment’. Of course, each business sector would have been told the same, playing each off against the other. That only explains part of it, they can’t be that stupid can they to not see the consequences? But then again look at the surprise from Rick Stein (German ancestry to boot as well!) when his business nearly went under due to Brexit. There are many others who seem to have no idea of how markets work yet run multimillion pound turnover businesses.
I did think briefly of entryism, join the local Con Club and undermine their support for Chope. This is how I understand the UKIP swarmed into the Tory membership and pushed it to the extreme right. Of cource I could never keep up the pretence for long.
Maybe the busines leaders are far too occupied keeping their head above water or they know that there are more powerful forces controling the dialogue?
I may have said this before, but all the policy is driven by the local constituency associations. Such as the mad idea of letting migrants drown, heavy-handed dealing with minor infractions (yet all the while letting the leaders literally break the law). So one part of the population is very comfortable with the situation thank you very much and these are the people who will continue to vote for this shower, everyone else can go and…well you know the phrase.
This is another constituency Labour is stupidly ignoring. They should have a public conversation with business – and the unions – to ‘get a proper arrangement with the EU and get rid of the government’s barriers and red tape, which is destroying businesses and jobs.’
This would result in essentially rejoining the single market – but that would be an outcome, not a goal of the campaign/conversation, which would be ‘business and jobs’.
Agreed
Three reasons that come immediately to me:
Follow the money. With government expenditure of near 50 per cent of GDP, no-one wants to be missing from the dinner table.
Like the army, (where sex, politics and religion were banned as subjects in the mess – I haven’t been invited for years, so whether this still applies?), senior management are generally loathe to stir the pot.
Retaliation from an increasingly vindictive administration, with lots of nasty powers.
I was party to many discussions over Brexit prior to the referendum within companies and policy tensions were often savage.
Thanks for the thanks All but it’s people like Aeron Davis and Philip Mirowski (agnotology) who sharpened my perception of these goings on – I was nought but a babe in the wood until I read their take on it.
Cheers.
Also, you might want to read this which is very enlightening:
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2021/aug/09/convince-anti-vaxxers