I asked, earlier this week, if the centre of UK politics can hold, quoting poet William Butler Yeats.
As readers of this blog will know, I have signed off many posts saying ‘I live in hope'. It has always been true. Now I have to admit that I am not so sure that I can make that claim.
The Tories deliver new depths of abuse, almost daily. Its position as a purveyor of extremism of many sorts is now clear.
Labour used the abuse of Diane Abbott to score political points yesterday, but has so far made no effort at all to restore the Labour whip to her, which is a failure that feels both racist and misogynistic to me. When a white, male, suspended Labour MP had the whip restored yesterday for a seemingly more significant breach of the Parliamentary Labour Party's paranoid criteria for membership but Abbott was not any other explanation appears hard to find
The Speaker revealed his own hypocrisy yesterday, not calling Diane Abbott to speak in the Commons when she has been subject to a death threat when he claimed so recently that MP safety was his primary concern, unless they are black or a woman it seems. He has destroyed his own credibility.
And the Royal Family is now being openly mocked on mainstream television in the USA, with speculation that Kate Middleton might be injured or even dead being commonplace, or that at the very least her marriage is over because of Prince William having a long-term affair, about which there appears to be press silence in the UK, presumably because of significant threats of legal action. My own guess is the current silence is due to protracted negotiation of a divorce settlement that might protect the children, but what we do know is that the truth is not being told. What I suspect is that the myth that the monarch is sustainable will not survive this year.
And meanwhile, the myth of having a sustainable two-party democracy within a constitutional monarchy looks as if it is over. All the elements within that narrative look to be damaged beyond repair, with Speaker doing his best to help the crisis along. Labour's poll lead only exists because its true state is not yet apparent to most people, as yet. That will happen.
So, what next?
I know that we need electoral reform. Only genuine PR is acceptable now.
The nature of the Union has to be on the table.
The monarchy is over. We need to be a republic.
The Lords cannot survive.
Party funding has to change. Large donations have to go, and corporate funding has to go completely.
Rules on control of the press have to alter.
Those not telling the truth have to be called out, and go.
And we need a new approach to economics, the environment and the meeting of need.
But will any of that happen, incredibly quickly, which is what is necessary if democracy is to survive in this country? I really don't know. I am not sure I do have hope that all this can be achieved simultaneously as now seems to be necessary, and that is deeply troubling.
But it does all suggest the fifth reason for the mess we are in to be included in a new book, and that is the failure of the state, most especially here in the UK, but in the USA as well, albeit fur slightly different reasons.
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You make an excellent point about the Speaker’s hypocrisy yesterday. Do any readers know what lies beneath his despicable failure to call Diane Abbott? Orders from Starmer? Our discredited and deeply compromised Speaker is I suppose another symptom of the political failure we are seeing, as described in this post. Whatever his imperfections, John Bercow would not have been cowed by Starmer or anyone else.
Whether you agree with Diane Abbott and the things she has said and done or not, it is undeniable that she was the first black woman MP and has been an MP for more than 36 years. She had faced enormous criticism, often on an express or implied gender or racial bias, for years and years, and deserves a large slice of respect.
So it is absolutely extraordinary to see the footage of her repeatedly standing up to attract the Speaker’s eye, dozens and dozens of times. She is very noticeable, in a bright red jacket, just above the cross aisle on the opposition side, bobbing up and down like a jack-in-a-box, listening to many colleagues – largely white men – talking about her, in front of her face, but given no chance to speak for herself.
The Speaker must have seen her – people sitting nearby were called upon. Utterly shameful.
Almost as shameful as Labour’s sloth in restoring the whip. A year or so ago she said a stupid thing in a clumsy way and immediately apologised. We all know what she meant – the casual daily racism experienced by someone of non-white appearance is of a different character to someone who “passes”. Which is not to deny that other forms of racism exist.
But look, is Labour going to support another candidate against her at the general election? If not they should just get on with restoring her party membership.
Agreed
I emailed my tory MP last night about Hester’s disgusting remarks directed at Diane Abbott who as you say has been subject to years of appalling racist and misogynist abuse, urging him to join other tories (a few still have some semblance of decency left?) in getting the party to return Hester’s tainted money. I pointed out that it was a bit rich of Gove and Sunak to be redefining extremism but to exclude Hester from being called one, and that in the light of two MP’s already murdered (David Amess was a mentor of my MP apparently) his calling for her to be shot is utterly unacceptable.
But I bet the tories won’t return it. Desperate to cling to power come what may I suspect they’re building up a huge war chest and refusing to hold an election for as long as possible so they can spend months trying every sort of dirty trick imaginable to discredit labour and, for all I know, to rig elections now that they control the Electoral Commission. Perhaps they’ll use their bulging war chest to do what they did with rotten boroughs in the past, i.e. bribe people to vote for them, find fresh ways to disqualify non tory voters from voting etc.
Mind you, labour seem to be doing a great job of discrediting themselves anyway.
Completely agree about Hoyle, he is a disgrace. I remeber hearing that when MP’s were looking for a replacement for Bercow a lot of them, especially the Brexit fanatics, wanted a far more pliable Speaker, who would not stand up for the rights of Parliamentarians. Well, they’ve got it in Hoyle. Expelled Dawn Butler from Parlaiment for calling Johnson a liar(!!!), but did FA to call out Johnson’s lies until right at the end when his own party did for him. Overthrew convention to stop the SNP’s Gaza motion being debated because he was leant on by labour on some pitifiul excuse about MP’s safety, but then ignored Diane Abbott because of convention despite the fact that she’s been the most abused and threatened MP ever.
A weak, pliant Speaker who won’t challenge the executive. More interested in keeping his job than anything else.
I don’t disagree with the problems you identify. They urgently need sorting out. I do question though what will bring the change? Are we looking at massive voter rejection of the mainstream parties at the next general election? Or what?
I think we have moved into uncertainty
I do not know is the answer, right now
Surely the only immediate solution is for as many people as possible to vote LibDems? With the sole purpose of getting PR introduced. That has to be the first step. Then smaller parties will splinter off the Conservative and Labour parties, with coalition governments being the means by which the political landscape will be changed, utterly.
It’s the failure of ideology that’s undermining the state and the failure of the ideology is one of not building in sufficient accountability for both the state and the market so that their goods and services are affordable or timely available for a significant number of people to meet a basic level of well-being. That the Labour Party has taken an authoritarian turn under Starmer is nothing new it’s been going on for a very long time and reflects the lack of democracy and hence accountability in the party.
You make a great case, if you live in Scotland for Indy
I think there are similarities to the situation in the USA.
Will the next election produce another Tory government that will continue the decades long slide into authoritarianism and the death by monetisation of British society, or will we elect some form of Labour or coalition government that might, and it can only be a might, undertake a serious renewal of our values, our politics and our country.
No sign of renewal of values under the authoritarian Starmer more a degrading of the concept of accountability towards others. Only got to look how he was forced to cover his backside in Parliament in regard to his Zionist approach to the the Gaza/Israel conflict!
A truly well written assessment covering all the salient points. Thanks Richard.
Lenin would have said ‘vote tory, advance the revolution’
It is difficult not to agree with your despair.
It seems we have no mechanism for considered reform of the constitution outside what a governing political party has put to the electorate , in part because it is fragmented and scattered and not a written document
In chatGPT words : ‘ the UK’s constitution is a complex and evolving mix of written and unwritten sources, including statutes, common law, conventions, and international treaties. It is characterized by flexibility and adaptability, allowing for gradual changes and adjustments over time.’
Situation seems may only be resolved through some existential crisis – but thats so fraught with danger – but how else would we even get PR voting.
Would a written constitution help ensure hate speech is prosecuted rather than being ignored as current laws stand? The same applies to a large range of issues that clearly call for accountability like trying to pretend you can run a country almost entirely on the basis of the Neoclassical ideology of “marketism”!
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hate_speech_laws_in_the_United_Kingdom
I’ve just been reading this, another way the government is copying the US.
https://skwawkbox.org/2024/03/14/doctors-fury-at-rcp-contempt-and-financial-conflict-of-interest-in-non-doctor-associates/
The main doctor involved in this is Rachel Clarke, who wrote Breathtaking, about covid, and the problems then.
What we don’t want is people like her leaving the NHS as then the government will have won. As she says, it’s all to do with finance.
Trisha Greenhalgh is actually the main doctor as fr as I can see. They work closely together. This looks to be extremely dubious.
Sorry, I don’t understand. I read that Rachel Clarke was supposed to be giving a speech at the RCP conference and has withdrawn because of what happened last night.
There are two Doctor Clarkes, Rachel and Sarah. Rachel is the disgusted one, the one who wrote Breathtaking.
Trisha Greenhalgh is the doctor leading on this issue as far as I can see. I have followed it in great detail. And I do know exactly who Rachel Clarke is.
Sometimes you might really have to credit me with knowing something, JenW. It’s boring to have to waste my time on comments like this.
Thanks a lot, Richard. That hurt.
I really thought you had got the two Clarkes mixed up.
But don’t worry, I won’t bloody well bore you again with my stupid comments.
What we saw the other day was a parliament with its own internal logic driven by external, unseen drivers – the biggest being the funding politicians are given by rich people, be they Jews, Christians, Muslims, black or white, whatever etc. It was the worst I’ve seen parliament since the Brexit debacle.
Parliament in my opinion has now become as detached from us as the rich themselves are. Parliament is not listening to us – that is clear. It’s head is turned to the shadows in attention. It will go on encouraging us to look else where for blame and succour. Parliament is now just bad theatre.
Unpicking the ‘no money’ and taxation lies it is clear to see what is going on as Richard has pointed out.
We are being set up as an exploitative rentier state.
‘Tax payer’s money’ if you are rich is money deliberately not collected because it finds its way into the coffers of politicians who will keep the gravy train pouring.
‘Tax payers money’ if you are ordinary is the money that the services you need will not get because of a mixture of your declining wages to no wage at all because AI will be increasingly replacing you.
So, to replace that, ‘investment’ by the undertaxed rich will be used to provide a basic service with options to pay more yourself. And that will also help money coming into politics to keep the status quo nice and stable.
Your UBI will be credit based too – at cost.
Extreme wealth is the glue that will hold all of this shite described above together.
There is no other explanation for such unreason.
The concept of public service is now privately owned.
So what happens next I have no idea. Some of us might kick off.
But all I see too many being like is the Eloi in the H.G Wells story ‘The Time Machine’, passive, easily pleased, easily manipulated and fodder for the political and wealthy Morlocks who are gradually taking over.
You know I always felt that science fiction writers were ahead of the game about the future of humanity.
“The best lack all conviction, while the worst are full of passionate intensity”
(Also from Yeats’ “The Second Coming”)
Diane Abbot has received the foulest and most disgusting racial abuse on a daily basis since the day she entered Parliament. Her letter to the Guardian was sent in error, and she apologised immediately. Having read it, it’s hardly the most shocking thing I’ve seen in print, and is dwarfed in terms of sheer racist rhetoric by Hester’s comments. The bit that is constantly left out when repeating his slurs is “It would be much better if she died. She’s consuming resource. She’s eating food that others could eat”
Diane Abbot stood in the Commons no less than 46 times during a debate about racist slurs against her. The Speaker did not call her. Instead, he called mostly white men to talk about racism.
Why, we may ask, has the Whip not been restored to her? My view is this. Starmer set up a private group to plan his leadership bid about six months before the 2019 Election, when there was no hint of Corbyn losing so badly. Morgan McSweeney was his guru, and his stated policy was to wipe out Corbyn. The charge of antisemitism was already bubbling. After the election, those accusations increased tenfold. In the subsequent Labour leadership election, Starmer campaigned on ten pledges, all of which he broke with a year. Starmer then used the Investigation into antisemitism to get rid of Corbyn; and chose to ignore the Forde Report.
Starmer was afraid of Corbyn’s core popularity, and has done everything since 2019 to evict anyone from Labour who followed him, often on trumped up charges of antisemitism.
Starmer courts the Jewish population, to such an extent that he has painted himself into a corner – particularly visible in his reaction to Israel’s assault on Gaza. He cannot retract anything he has said on Israel and antisemitism, or he’ll face an onslaught of attacks.
Diane Abbot’s letter was more about prejudice than antisemitism. Diane Abbot is a major supporter of Jeremy Corbyn. How, then, can Starmer backtrack on his addiction to the Jewish vote and restore the Whip?
“And what rough beast, its hour come round at last, slouches towards Westminster to govern?”
Here are my thoughts, which are worth no more than anyone else’s.
Firstly the past was far worse than the future still can be. There has never been a ‘golden age’, the absence of sound science and complex engineering rendered the past a lottery with longer odds than we enjoy today.
Secondly I often recall how much my father hated the JY Prog, mainly because it forced him to confront the reality that large numbers of folks just didn’t see the world in the way that he did. I used to counter that you had to hear your opponents if you were ever going to persuade people to alter their outlook. I realise now that I was overoptimistic. Our reality is no better highlighted than by the biopic, ‘An Honest Liar’. This wonderful film records how when James Randi exposed the religious fraudsters in the US, the public reaction was to chastise him for taking away their hope. No thanks for lifting the veil. Just abuse for proving them to be gullible fools.
“There are two ways to be fooled. One is to believe what isn’t true; the other is to refuse to believe what is true.” Kierkegaard nailed the human condition.
At some point a pressure will come to bear that changes the direction for humankind. For the better or the worse will depend on the pressure and how we respond. Nuclear war is still probably only a remote risk, today many think it will be climate related. 2020 tells us to not rule out a pandemic. Perhaps it will be the collapse of democracy and capitalism. Perhaps AI. What I can say is that it seems increasingly unlikely that there will be any joined up attempt to alter the current situation before we reach that pressure point.
There are some insidious and non-obvious features of the proposed laws.
Craig Murray, former UK ambassador (currently under investigation in the UK for terrorism, although he knows not what he may have done) describes the potential impact on bloggers like himself (and yourself Richard) if you receive any money from a “hostile foreign power” which apparently can be just someone in the “hostile foreign power” du jour subscribing to your blog (and not knowing they’re from a “hostile foreign power” is no excuse).
That’s near the end of this long interview. The first segment is on the Assange case, which he describes with great clarity, and he also explains how there is in practice no independence of the judiciary in the UK. The last segment is about the laws already passed and those proposed in the UK.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-OeVXqAQXM0
I think that, as usual, he probably overstates his case. I gave beve4 understood why he needs to do so. A fiver from someone does not make me an enabler.
You’ve now arrived where many of the precariat (myself included) have been living for the last decade. Welcome onboard, compadre!