Prince Charles and Prince William are presenting the Queen's Speech today in their role as Royal Commissioners. There are two either Commissioners. One of them has apparently rejected royalty as unfit for purpose and the other is barred from royal duties by the monarch as he is unfit for office, in her opinion.
Simultaneously we have a criminal, corrupt, lying, incompetent neo-fascist as a prime minister, who it is said will not leave Downing Street unless a flame thrower is involved. So democracy looks to be failing.
And we have a media hounding the Leader of the Opposition for eating at a work meeting, when the Tory who led the charge against him is on record for having a lunch with the Gurkhas the very next day, without apparent work reason. And, the police have, very oddly, only chosen to investigate one of these incidents.
Might I suggest that we are seeing pretty robust signs that we are living in a failing state?
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Agreed.
Failing? How about failed?
Who is the Tory having lunch with the Gurkhas?
The police have acted oddly throughout this scenario. One could be forgiven for thinking that they may be corrupt. I am not the only one who has thought this.
My MP and I’d rather not give him any more publicity by naming him here.
Well, at least in a failed State it should be easier to buy a flamethrower.
Does anyone know where I can get one?
An Army surplus store perhaps?
I’m all ears.
“May I suggest……”
Yes, I think you may.
🙂
An interesting comment on the role of The Police in all this
https://davidallengreen.com/2022/05/the-real-problem-with-beergate-and-with-partygate/
Yes it was an interesting comment. Owen Jones did a comment piece which took a somewhat different angle:
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2022/may/09/policies-keir-starmer-labour-leader-boris-johnson-beergate
The ending was rather good & reflects many comments in this blog – over the last two years:
“Whatever happens, this episode has underlined the fatal weaknesses of his (Starmers) operation. His team has avoided making the argument for transformative policies, which this country vitally needs, because even if they believed them to be politically desirable they fear that doing so will invite a media onslaught. But it didn’t matter; the press has unleashed mayhem on him anyway. If only his team had read more Greek tragedies, they’d have learned that hubris is invariably followed by nemesis.”
All of these “Partygate” and “Beergate” distractions once again prove the state of party politics.
The reason that we never get anything meaningful investigated is because all parties have skeletons in the closet, to use an old phrase.
Any attempt to expose real wrongdoing is met with “you expose us, we”ll expose you”
Until the corruption of party politics is tackled, nothing will change.
It is amazing that voters are swayed by the yearning for a previous era where Britain is perceived as a powerful nation and the wrapping in the flag as evidenced by the prominent position of such symbols whenever a minister or minor member of the government speaks but fail to realise that no past era would have tolerated the behavior of such an obviously corrupt state and its supporters in the press. Politicians used to have some integrity or at least behaved as if they did. That is long gone. The fact that the press is occupied with what is deflection away from the proven inadequacy and admitted criminal behavior of the incumbent Prime Minister in favour of an obvious mis portrayal of the opposition leader is a clear example that power has been hijacked by non democratic operators. The DM was very keen that the public “moved on” from Johnsons failings but does not operate the same standards when it comes to others. One can only hope that the hypocrisy displayed will come back to haunt them.
The main function of the state from our ruler’s point of view, is to stay in power. Thus far they have been successful in keeping any popular opposition or attempted uprising or major civil unrest at bay.
However, things may be changing when pensioners are forced to ride on buses all day to keep warm or workers miss breakfast and lunch and only survive on one meal a day. It is now only a matter of time before there are major stirrings from the 99% and it may well not look pretty. Will it be a Sri Lankan situation or barbaric clampdowns as in Myanmar, Belarus, Hong Kong, Thailand…………….
Seeing Liz Truss dealing, if you can call it that, with the Northern Ireland Protocol, it may no longer be outrageous to call the UK under Boris Johnson a rogue state. Normal states do not generally consider unilaterally violating treaty obligations, other than under the most exceptional circumstances. What are the exceptional circumstances in this case? I am aware of none.
Agreed
Just tweeted on this
Dear Professor Murphy, it is not that “democracy looks to be failing”. In the UK there has never been a full democracy, because the head of state is unelected and hereditary, and because the members of the second chamber were/are hereditary/appointed and all unelected.
I think it’s pretty obvious from the legislation the government has put forward that they have compete contempt for the population who elected them.
The concentration on wedge issues, stirring up of hatred and a complete lack of support for anyone struggling shows that they think they can control the plebs by throwing them social media friendly legislation to appeal to raging right wingers. It’s the fascist playbook, as you have mentioned many times before Richard.
The trouble they have is that rage and indignation don’t pay fuel bills, and however much spin they try to put on it, that will become obvious soon.
Plenty of Sun and Daily Mail readers will be suffering too, and this time the government will have a lot more trouble blaming the immigrants for their woes.
…at which point they’ll need scapegoats who are already here.
Perhaps “liberal lefties” and the “metropolitian elite.” I suppose that’s why they are banging the drum about tearing up the NIP again.
Yup, the need for more scapegoats will be apparent now. I see Patel is trying to blame lawyers for the already apparent failure of her grotesque new policy. So much for respect for the rule of law then.
Who else? Oh yes, the EU for telling the government to implement an agreement it signed itself very recently. So much for respect for the rule of International law as well then.
If all else fails, fall back on the one group every dishonest, corrupt or incompetent ruler has used to divert the mobs’ attention down the centuries….the Jews!! You know, the rootless, overly intellectual ‘cosmopolitan elite’ tories so hate. Accuse them of cultural Marxism. That should get the idiots who consume the right wing press foaming at the mouth.
The same press of course that has ceaselessly banged on about WW2 for decades.
Hard to feel sorry for Keith because he lied his way to the leadership. I think they’re clutching at straws though because his indiscretion bares no comparison with The Downing Street ones.