As I wrote in The National yesterday:
SOMETIME in the middle of last week, it occurred to me that I have good reason to be frightened of the politicians in the country in which I live.
At the age of 67, I might have disagreed with almost everybody who has been in government throughout my lifetime but I have never been frightened before now.
Now I believe everything has changed. I now think I need to live in fear of those politicians, their ideas, their demands, and what those might mean for so many people.
And as I concluded:
Never forget that this [neoliberal] goal of uniformity is the ultimate quest of neoliberal economics. It has always promoted the idea of perfect markets in which perfect people pursue perfect products in a situation of perfect competition, and where, as a consequence, absolute standardisation is the norm and deviation from it is never permitted.
It is those callous assumptions of uniformity – wholly unrelated to any form of humanity ever known – that are now being promoted as the basis for the right of residence in what Farage inappropriately calls Britain.
All neoliberal thinking is truly terrible, but never have we seen that so starkly as we have in the moves made last week, which I find frankly quite terrifying.
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The incompetence of politicians has long worried me. But of late, I agree, I’m beginning to fear their intentions. It’s clear they are fighting each other, and fighting for their positions, in a world where there is only so much room at the top. They are fighting for the approval and patronage of people who are completely without morals, and seem more and more willing to do bad things to achieve their goals. The biggest threat our country faces is our own political class, and their funders.
The danger starts when they start taking one seriously.
If it were only uniformity….
You hastily added , and correctly so, callous to uniformity.
It is the cold, hard-hearted entitledness that sets me off.
Thankyou & keep writing
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I’m 68 and I’m genuinely scared too. Call me paranoid, but driving down to Devon all the roads I drove down were riddled with potholes and uneven. It got me wondering whether, in the age of AI and ANPR, our political class intend to privatise our highways so that a favourite company charges us per mile/car value/age/engine capacity on the basis that it will maintain and upgrade the roads. After all they have done this with water and we have congestion , emission and toll charges. Welcome to SERCO Highways or Crapita Road Services? What could possibly go wrong?
You are justifiably cynical.
Wait until they charge for air.
I too realised some time towards the end of the recent chaotic Tory governments, that I was, for the first time in my >70yrs of life, SCARED of my government.
Firstly because I didn’t trust them to look after my security, my health, or to maintain and regulate the infrastructure and services I depend on, whether in public or private hands.
Secondly, because I realised that the current Labour government, is determined to crush dissent, and that took precedence over any other values it might have pretended to espouse. Their long complicity in war crimes set the tone. Terrorism was redefined as disagreement with the government, and unlawful use of a Sharpie pen.
My assessment of how little the government cared for MY human rights is based on their increasing cruelty to refugees, immigrants and asylum seekers, and their failure to deal with violent fascist thugs on the streets, let alone their worsening abuse of the poor, sick, disabled or homeless.
I lost all hope in our current overlords when Starmer made his “island of strangers” speech, and Yvette Cruella Cooper started her latest round of dehumanising treatment of detained asylum seekers.
I no longer consider I have any sort of duty or loyalty to the state nor to the rule of law, because they don’t respect it. If I obey laws it will be because I choose to, not because I “ought” to. I’ll decide all that for myself on the basis of a higher law. My loyalty is now to my “neighbour” (as defined by Jesus) not to the state.
They seem to forget that many of us have lived through real terrorism, in both NI or GB, whether from the Provisional IRA or Islamists in our cities.
But now the terror is coming from the White House, from Whitehall and Tel Aviv and it is directed against dissenters, against the citizen, the stranger, anyone who doesn’t fit the norm.
I no longer consider myself part of all that.
I am the dissenter, and they frighten me. I do not trust that they think I have the right to think.
I am also watching with trepidations and I will not be able to vote in any case …EEA National :-(. I can “only watch”.. may be not just… but..
Does the election of Zack Polanski as leader of the Green Party together with the next generation and breakaway labour, alongside Zarah Sultana, offer a glimmer of hope … ?
They really need to find a way to ‘come together’ in some alliance to fight the Far Right, and push this horde of neo-liberal scavengers who are endangering us all. They will need support, they will need to hear “us all” because one thing that is still missing here …. and is always needed to get on the top of such dangerous cohort of politicians and their in-fighting trying to hang on to power using Populist Propaganda, is fresh Leadership and achieving some consensus about critical priorities… desperately needed and fast.
Agree neoliberalism’s roots are steeped in oppression and eugenics.
And today I read that Cooper “loves flags” and it would appear from what she says that she has them around her house and garden. I also read that. Starmer also “loves flags”. Their simplistic mindsets make me very very fearful for the future of our country and the future of my 6 grandchildren. My friends and I are both ashamed and very frightened for the future.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cx2x2p2w41jo
I’m definitely more scared, now they’re arresting and house-searching people for organising a protest against a cynical, unjustified proscription that mis-identifies non-violent direct action AGAINST GENOCIDE with https://dictionary.cambridge.org/dictionary/english/terrorist
I listened to the UK PM interview on BBC5 this week. I was horrified to hear him say he is proud to have an English flag in his flat at Number 10.
I hope he also has a Welsh flag, a saltire and NI flag too, but he did not say that.
He is the PM of UK, not the First Minister of England, but he fails to understand even that distinction.
About time England had its own house of assembly away from Westminister.
I can hardly believe he said that! Such comments can only possibly be aimed at the right wing flag sh****rs. How has politics sunk so low?
“neoliberal economics……….promoted the idea of perfect markets…perfect people pursue perfect products…….perfect competition = absolute standardisation”
Apologies for the broken record. “Late Soviet Britain” A. Innes. The book demonstrates that both the USSR and neolibtardism were/are utopian projects (illustrated by your points). Utopia does not (& cannot) exist ergo both “projects” have failed/can only fail.
The supporters of Neolibtardism (neoliberal + retards – & yes I despise them) are
a) not fully functional humans if they believe this stuff and/or far far too stupid to be in charge of anything
b) been groomed to believe this stuff (& sufficiently incurious to be not allowed to be in charge of anything – given they do not ask “is this reall y the case”)
c) corrupt to the very core – they know it is all shite – but have a pay-check waiting at the end of the neolib-rainbow
Which leaves: what are we (empahsis on WE) going to do?
The enemy is in plain sight. How about recall petitions? Targeted at specific LINO imbeciles.
I hear you all, in agreement in the fear of what may come (let’s not even talk about what is going on now in the meeting in China!).
But fear and concerns will not make it, so to speak. We cannot all remain like ‘rabbits in the headlights’ and rehash the roots of our fears.
Political action, rallying under a Common Agenda proactively and pushing for an Alliance to be made – e.g. Green Party and the upcoming “Your Party” and their leadership, potentially with other parties, e.g. Plaid Cymru etc. -, to create this Manifesto / Common Agenda to somehow start moving forward is making our fears productive.
There is a need for a platform and at the risk of repeating myself, Fresh Leadership in the political arena across our communities to gather all those who have retained some “sense” and all those who are fearful of where we are heading.
I think it is going to be time to join whatever ‘section’ / party of a possible Alliance to engage to help make this happen starting at the local level. I am a member of a French political party of the Nouveau Front Populaire.. but as resident in the UK, I need to consider membership in the UK now.
Genuine question: Can the financial system survive a decades long recession?
Because that looks likely, given:
– population falling
– energy becoming more problematic (funding transition to renewables, renewable intermitancy, etc)
– climate change – extreme weather leading to agriculture becoming less productive, damage due to weather
– sea level rise – loss of resources (such as major cities and ports worldwide)
I would imagine that intelligent people at the top are very worried, and that worry translates to authoritarianism as the easiest way to move.
I can see no way in which authoritarianism will help.
Do you?
No it won’t help. What is needed is an honest and open discussion.
On what?
Things that need to be discussed openly:
– How to adapt to climate change – both prevention adaptations and mitigations for the effects – and how those costs will be spread across the population;
– Will the financial system cope with a long recession (due to population drop and climate change)? If not, what needs to be done so it can keep working as well as possible? Or do we need a replacement system that doesn’t rely on growth?
I don’t have answers for either of these – but there doesn’t seem to be any realistic discussion anywhere.
1) First account oriperly for it – then we can allocate the capital. This is my sustainable cost accounting.
2) Yes we can – but only be changing how recognsie the role of money, which is not a private sector created commodity.
Richard,
I’m 69 and I too fear the times we have moved into mostly for my children but especially grandchildren.
Neoliberalism is a phrase not sure of the origin that has now become an evil ideology for some on the left/progressive side of politics.
I’m less sure tbh.
What I am sure of is our political elites by abandoning the power sharing arrangement with the working classes with the election of Thatcher/Reagan set in train a set of events that were not predictable completely but you could have guessed where we might arrive ie Oligarchic rule replacing Democracy.
Middling classes to me are currently being stripped of their wealth and influence as society is run by and for a tiny elite controlling all wealth/income, etc reigns supreme.
If you are in the top 1% this may be great but if you are in the 90% the vision of continuous material well-being is over. Many people miss this vision and they don’t yet have a new one.
I think our politicians want to continue to thrive hence the jostling for influence, wealth and power continues every day in our media.
We the people are not part of this battle and we have no influence on these events. These events are not even about us. We are not important.
For some Reform, Greens, Your Party offer hope but tbh I think they are just part of the jostling for political power.
With the old trade unions, cooperative community groups working people had some leverage in the past but these institutions are not what they were. We no longer share power. We have only a ring side seat at the political contest.
I remain convinced new institutions for working people need to be created or developed for us to build another power sharing arrangement. One that can endure for longer 35 years.
I hope that the process of building a new power sharing arrangement can be peaceful with just outcomes. However my head tells me no chance. Conflict comes before peace & reconciliation.
I have felt scared of politicians for sometime.
This is because far too many of them have been undermining my financial and economic viability for some time. And now, what they are doing – fermenting fascism – is the last straw for me. We are ruled by the enemies of the people. The British people are not broken – it is British politics that is broken – completely.
As you know, I want nothing to do with them or their corrupt system. I have all the working class antipathy there is at the moment for politicians but aimed in my opinion at the right people and the right issues. For example, I am not pro-Fartrage or Reform. I know who has been shafting me, right?
I see myself as ‘post democratic’ – that is to say that I have completely rejected the false democracy that is only an elective oligarchy and see none at all. There are no rules I’m afraid, and would accept any means to bring about change – fair or foul.
Politics has done nothing but make a virtue out of human frailty – such as greed and short-termism. Politics should be the referee of life, roaming the pitch, ensuring fair play. That is what rugby union has taught me. Instead, it takes back handers and other bribes and poisons the game.
I’m not voting for my enemies – simple as that.