My mood changed yesterday. My Twitter comment reflect the fact. Begin with this::
That gave way to this sentiment:
That then lead to this feeling:
I still have that feeling. And in response I want action, and not just Labour saying 'we'll do better'. A coup demands real reforms, not just a change of government within the existing system:
I suspect I am far from alone in thinking that the Metropolitan Police has been acting in a way that appears politically motivated and corrupt; that Johnson has no regard at all for the law, accountability and precedent that drives the UK constitution; and we have now crossed the Rubicon. It's not now enough to say we can stop things from failing. It seems clear now that they have failed. The question is not about alternatives within the system. It's about how we might change the system.
We know how to do that:
- PR
- A written constitution
- House of Lords reform
- Reinforced human rights
- Accountability for the police
- The re-empowerment rather than the belittling of government
And so on.
Is it so hard to expect politicians to deliver this now? We have had enough.
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Agree with all this,
But of all the people for the establishment to prostitute themselves over, doing it for Johnson is beyond my ken.
Thank you.
And whilst we are at it, look at this:
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2022/jan/28/pittsburgh-bridge-collapse-biden-infrastructure-speech
It’s not socialism or communism that has delivered outcomes like this.
This is Neo-liberalism and so-called centrism – an over tolerance of free-market fundamentalism and an intolerance of Government intervention in the commons and a tolerance of the world view of the mega rich.
In this country we are no better than Pinochet’s Chile; all we need now is for them to start killing us in the street and Boris and Co have got a full house based on Neo-liberalism.
What was that Stereophonics song ‘If you tolerate this, your kids will be next’.?
Wake up Britain. Now!
You got the wrong Welsh band. It’s the Manic Street Preachers.
Good post PSR but it was the Manic Street Preachers, not the Stereophonics
Both fine bands though
It was the Manic Street Preachers. Not the Stereophonics. Not really a huge point but one I’ve made nonetheless.
Thanks all for putting me straight – Manic Street Preachers it is.
And although I’m crap with Welsh bands, John Warren is right in my view: the crime(s) have been committed by those who are members of the headwaters of the legal system – the highest court in the land – the birth place of legislation itself – Parliament.
So we have a legislature incapable of behaving within the law(s) it creates.
Parliament apparently cannot enforce good law on its self. And this is not the first time in recent years that it has failed to do the right thing because the Party system comes first – democracy, Parliamentary due process and good law – last.
Only Parliament can sort this out. Those Tories demanding Johnson’s exit seem to know how Parliament should work. Rees-Mogg and the other party-first Daleks don’t. Anthony Brigden has gone up in my estimation – BREXITEER or not. I never thought I’d say that!
But how would Labour be behaving now if it were them? Well, they’d have been hounded out of office by now. Or would they play the system as Boris is doing? Because the system is inadequate anyway and as rightly pointed out it needs changing.
The deep flaws now being revealed may be to public surprise, but they run deep in our antiquated, dysunctional constitution; it is astonishing to me that nobody ever noticed. The ‘Met’, I looks exactly like a rabbit in the headlights; it did not wish to be in this predicament, and does not wissh to be there (and tried to worm-out of the problem last week). Even the over-hyped Sue Gray has failed to deliver.
Why? Because constitutionally this is solely a political matter; a matter exclusively of Crown-in-Parliament prerogative, that can only be fixed by Parliament, which alone has the sovereign power. The problem here is that in our inadequate constitution we have a governing party of invertebrates which is incapable of putting anything before the interests of the Conservative Party; and that is how our constitution ‘works’.
Even the law does not wish to go there. The problem is that the PM, in a Blue Funk over “parties” and the living executive catastrophe to which his hubris and stupidity has reduced Downing Street, and ‘playing for time’ threw the Sue Gray report in, simply to play for time. The Conservative Party owes Johnson Brexit and an 80-seat majority. It just wanted the problem to go away, and believe it could insist. After all, Sue Gray will report to him, and nobody in the brain-dead Cabinet thought the political fall-out from a Civil Service investigation could possibly spin completely out of control. Somehow thay didn’t know they had a fool for a leader. Instead, all that Johnson, the Cabinet, the government, the Conservative backbenchers and the Party have managed to achieve, is throw the Civil Service, the Met and now the decaying, obsolete Constituion under the bus.
It is extraordinary to me that the British political establishment has never grasped that if Scotland, for over 250 of the 300+ years of Political Union the leading-edge of dyed-in-the-wool Unionism (and Empire before that), has decided that ‘the Union’ is not working, and seriously considers independence; we do not have a serious constitutional problem. The consequences of two world wars were learned more profoundly in Scotland; and Brexit, Covid, Johnson and conservative incompetence are merely the accumulating ‘coup de grace’.
John, your last para could be extended to include N Ireland and Wales, both of which are also moving towards breaking away from London’s rule. The theme of Richard’s Great Reform blog today is the need for UK to get rid of FPTP voting, adopt PR, debate and write an actual Constitution, without which UK is condemned forever to repeat the chaos. It would be prudent of them to recognise that the UK as we know it is likely, sooner or later, to cease to be and that, in the longer term, it will simplify matters if they were to accommodate the right of the devolved nations to secede into any future constitution. I can’t see the bulk of the English and especially the Tories ever casting off their colonial attitude towards the devolved nations, but, unless through legislation, they prevent the current chaos from recurring indefinitely, the devolved nations will find a way to secede.
Agreed
“secede”?
Scotland is a nation, older than England I might add, with a treaty with England. A treaty that could be dissolved just as England dissolved the one with the EU.
Scotland’s problem right now is that we are led by a government of devolution, not of independence.
Willie John questions the use of “secede” in my post above. I’m using it in its dictionary meaning of “to withdraw formally from membership of a federal union, an alliance, or a political or religious organization”, so Scotland’s withdrawal from the Treaty of Union would indeed be a secession.
Mr Mathieson,
Two points.
First, quite distinctly from Ireland or Wales Scotland negotiated Union (1707), and dissolved its own Parliament in order to accomplish it. This was conducted by the narrow, elite constituency that controlled the Scottish Parliament (but not really surprising since ‘universal suffrage’ was not part of the conventional script – anywhere). It was carried out puportedly to cement the Glorious Revolution and the Presbyterian settlement; but actually and far more, for Scotland to acquire immediate access to the Crown’s (including Scotland’s Crown under the 1603 Union) Empire, from which it was blocked by the English Navigation Acts. Like it or not, in the early eighteenth century, this was as free a negotiation as you were likely to find. The proof is demonstrated by the degree to which Scotland fully embraced Empire, and drove it forward; this is not prehaps a very attractive modern reading, with Scotland as the imperialist rather than as victim; but there it is.
Second, the 1707 Union was an Incorporating Union (a technical, but doubtful device to make it difficult for either Party to dissolve the 1707 Union). In fact, in the 2014 Referendum, and now in the real modern world it dawned even on Westminster that dissolution (the logic of Incorporating Union being dissolved) was too difficult and costly for both parties to contemplate, and in fact the Westminster Government proposed that the form of break-up had to be secession (implying we were part of a Federal system, which clearly the Union isn’t). Thus next time we will be seceding from an incorprating union, whether anyone likes it or not. This was revealed only when Westminster had to make the position clear on the future of the currency (sterling). Again; there it is.
A manifesto for an anti Tory alliance, Richard and perfect for that purpose, since the content SHOULD be acceptable to every democrat, as none of the proposals are related to Party dogma. Can you see Starmer agreeing, because that’s the first stage?
See my next post
The Labour party are no better.
Purging the party of left leaning members and the continued treatment of Corbyn.
Don’t expect salvation coming from the Labour Party.
The Labour party was never intended to provide “salvation” – by which I assume you mean – provide an alternative voice &/or oppose the Uk establishment. You saw what happened when there was even a small prospect of that happening (Corbyn). The purge of “left wing members” (my conservative business partners have views identical to left wing members – what’s in a label eh?) is just some house keeping designed to bring order. The way to look at things is as follows:
Tories: treat Uk & Uk serfs (uou me, most people) like a test bed for partly worked out ideas (e.g. austerity, or privatisation, or NHS privatisation etc etc)
Liebore: when in power they are mostly quasi-sane Tories trying to fix the most egregious wrongs doing some very modest social stuff – but mostly sticking with the Tory play-book.
Liebore with Keef is now, in the view of your & my “betters” electable. It won’t do mad stuff (upsetting the establishment) it is B.Liar II, the meeja will get behind it. Doubtless it is only a matter of time before Keef kisses the dirty diggers foreskin – or whatever is the correct form of fealty. All will then be fine. I hoep I have not upset more gentle souls?
De Menezes. The man killed by the Metropolitan Police was called De Menezes. Or is your failure to name him correctly part of your ploy to confuse readers by making up names for political parties and people?
Motivations. What motivates Sue Gray? or Cressida Dick. Both are establishment figures protected by said establishment (e.g. everything to do with the de mendes case was smoothed over – Dick was officer in charge when de Mendes was killed by the Met). Mendacious Fatberg characterises itself as anti-establishment (whilst surrounded by establishment sycophants). Liebore is run by the establishment (you don’t get to Keef’s position as head of DPP without being establishment).
Hazarding a guess, the establishment feels a little bit out of balance at the moment – things are “not quite right” and Mrs Gray is probably trying to show she is a “safe pair of hands” – which makes one wonder about inducements. Dick is at the head of her, ermm “profession??” what is left for a “safe pair of hands” – the HoL? Doubless each wants the respect of their peers… in the establishment – & you don’t get that by rocking the boat. & I dobt if Keef in Liebore will rock the boat, he would not be there if there was a prospect of this – indeed if there had been a possibility of boat rocking some variation on anti-sem’ would even now be bubbling to the surface.
Although PR is needed, this would upset the establishment (less control) – the threat was headed off by Cam-moron who neutralised it in the 2010 – 2015 gov. Thus options to drive PR to reality are mostly related to tactical voting @ next election to ensure that only a coaltion gov with a solid mandate to ram through PR followed by an election can emerge. Social media could be the enabler for this. Such a result would be an anathema to Liebore under Keef but doubtless the lure of power will trump all. The idiot Lib-dems (& others) then need to make sure that PR is delivered (they would need to Liebore to sign in blood & expulsion/by-election for any MP that did not support it. Plus term limits for politicos – 3x then gone seems reasonable coupled to constituency selection by all members for MPs & recall ballots etc etc).
I have to agree, the behaviour of the Conservative government has made it clear that merely having constitutional conventions (or “an unwritten constitution”) only works if politicians have morals and integrity – and it has failed because we don’t.
Unfortunately constitutional reform is never going to be the rallying call that wins an election, and to be honest the number of things that would need serious debate in formulating a written constitution (you list many of them) mean it is unlikely to be achievable in a single term of office.
So the pragmatic question is: how would we get there from here?
That’s to muse on…..but maybe tomorrow morning
I support PR but it’s not a panacea, nor will it fundamentally change anything. The problems are bigger than that. The media are obviously a major issue, the hostility to Corbyn showed that. Labour has plenty of honest decent members but the head is rotten, corrupt and bought by the establishment.
Trouble is I am struggling to think what may help other than full blown revolution.
One possible alternative is the current regime leads to social breakdown and then something better grows out of the wreckage.
Mr Burnby-Crouch,
No, the problem is not fixed by PR alone; but it makes a very important difference, because it prevents any party acquiring more power than it can handle, or the electorate could ever, rationally trust anyone to use wisely. The real problem with our representative democracy is hiding in plain sight; the problem, which is dangerous, toxic, uncontrolled and continually costs us all dear – is the political parties. Political parties represent factions, and are havens for ideologists. They attract precisely the kind of people no wise polity would wish near political power; and lacking any judgement save their own survival and success in elections they exercise little judgement over their choice of leader. David Hume understood this almost three hundred years ago, but could not propose a solution.
Be my guest.
There seems to be a contradiction in your post as you simultaneously criticise political parties for containing ideologists and also only only having the judgement save their own survival and success in elections. ideologists surely by definition are concerned with their ideology over electoral success.
Mr Burnby-Crouch,
There is nothing contradictory in my statements. If ideologies were consistent they wouldn’t last long; because ideology unfailingly fails the test of reality. Ideology survives precisely because it interprets reality only by reinterpreting, deforming or misrepresnting facts. Ideologosts are much more interested in success than facts. Indeed ‘Ideologies’ test their ‘truth’ by its capacity to acquire power, and hang on to it, at all costs. It is the only test that matters; that is why ideologies are so political in nature. Politics is reality for an ideologist. Facts are prisoners to be abused, I am surprised you haven’t noticed, or perhaps you have led a very sheltered life.
You will need to do a lot better than that. You still haven’t attmepted to address my request. Be my guest.
I don’t know about others but I am sick to the back teeth of the corruption at Westminster. It is rotten to the core. There is no trust or confidence in the Prime Minister. His Tory colleagues are apparently the only ones who can now remove him from office although we know they won’t. Therefore, his party is betraying the public because they know he is not fit for office. The astonishing reluctance of Cressida Dick and her officers to investigate these parties is a complete travesty. Therefore, trust and confidence in the senior leadership at the Met has also gone.
Our outrage, frustration and objections to this corruption are meaningless because Boris and the Tories do not care. The system must change.
I sincerely hope that we can break away and Scotland will be independent very soon so that we can shape something far better.
Westminster is corrupt to the core. There is no trust or confidence in the Prime Minister. His Tory colleagues are apparently the only ones who can now remove him from office although we know they won’t. Therefore, his party is betraying the public because they know he is not fit for office. The astonishing reluctance of Cressida Dick and her officers to investigate these parties is a complete travesty. Therefore, trust and confidence in the senior leadership at the Met has also gone.
Our outrage, frustration and objections to this corruption are meaningless because Boris and the Tories do not care. The system must change.
I sincerely hope that we can break away and Scotland will be independent very soon so that we can shape something far better.
What some have recognised, and I am not unique in referencing this, is that Johnson’s buffoonery is not happening by accident, and outright lying in parliamentary debates is a universal policy throughout the world. Whilst we all concentrate on the machinations of the lies and buffoonery, the State is being dismantled and legislation is being placed on statute books that take away our rights and support systems built up since the last war.
This is all part of the Neo-Liberal agenda and has been successful because people just don’t want to believe it or afraid to.