Today, for the sake of my soul, I’ve left well alone the ‘newsie news’ from Westminster. The print editions’ front pages are compiled in the usual place under the headline “Newspaper headlines: ‘Suella’s picking timebomb’ and ‘UK’s drones for Kyiv’” (link). All the laborious headlines, their authors trying so hard to for clicks, for looking ‘relevant’, for being ‘humorous’ just turn my stomach.
Not only are we offered the same old stuff day in day out, from immigration to yon war in the Ukraine, to the economy – the talking and writing ‘heads’ have been producing the same guff for well over a decade.
The ‘politicians’ are so interchangeable that it really doesn’t matter who is or isn’t in No 10: all of us outside the charmed Westminster circle know there’s nothing we can do about anything, that nothing we have done previously has truly changed this situation. I’ll just say ‘Brexit’ and you all know what I mean.
Recognising one’s own impotence is paralysing. Furthermore, looking back over the years, surely we’ve noticed by now that we’ve participated in a huge theatre production, be it within the confines of one’s local council, be it nationally or, in years gone by, on the EU stage.
It is not by accident that the turnout at the last local elections was around 25%. It’s not ‘apathy’, it’s the realisation that our vote changes nothing. That ought to worry our dear political leaders. No amount of gerrymandering and tinkering to increase the electorate can change this. Giving 16-17 year olds the vote, ‘allowing’ foreigners to vote: it’ll only alienate more of us.
Also counterproductive are the ongoing insults by ‘activists’, desperate to propagate their own political agenda. No, we’re not sheep or ‘sheeple’ just because we’re not flocking to the latest political cause! We’re not stupid, we know full well that the Uniparty , the splinter parties and their willing helpers in the MSM are only interested in our concerns when they need ‘audiences’, when they need ‘acclaim’, when they need to screech that ‘polls have shown’ – in order to convince us of their political prowess.
Does it ever occur to yon politicians, yon serpents, yon scribblers and ‘explainers’ in the MSM that people are simply tired of the whole set-up? How many reports and articles have there been in the last years, especially the covid years when WFH became ‘a thing’, about our betters, from GPs to the HoC to Whitehall and the MSM, needing a proper ‘work-life balance’! Funny, innit, that none of that lot ever wonders about our, the peasants, work-life balance.
Funny, innit, that they expect us to ‘participate’ in their political theatre production when most of us who’ve worked all day and cared for our family afterwards are simply too tired to spend evenings and weekends on behalf of that lot, especially when we experience every day that they don’t listen, that they do what they and their puppet-string pullers want to do, that our own participation has been futile.
Then there’s the ‘general public’, given a platform in the Westminster MSM by ‘allowing’ comment posts under selected articles and reports. This facility has long since changed from ‘give the plebs a place where they can shout’ to yet another means of surreptitiously controlling public opinion. We’ve seen how this took place during the covid years – recall ‘brigade 77’?
Now these ‘facilities’ have become a place where people show their mean-spiritedness for all to see. The latest example is a report in the DT, on a mountain rescue which took place on Saturday:
“A crew of thirteen volunteers were called in for an unlikely rescue – a 33-kilogram dog who was too tired to walk down Scafell Pike, England’s highest peak. The dog, an Akita by the name of Rocky, was “injured and exhausted” with “cut paws” when Keswick Mountain Rescue Team were called to carry it down on Saturday.” (paywalled link).
This story was then picked up by the BBC (link) and Sky News, writing:
“A spokesperson for the Keswick Mountain Rescue team said: “Despite being quite a large dog at 33kg it was a joy to carry such a relatively lightweight casualty.” (link).
Rocky is a very handsome dog as the published photos show. The Mountain Rescue Team probably took those pictures themselves – you can see them in the paywalled DT and in the reports by the BBC and Sky News.
And right on cue the comment posts in the DT show the general mean-spiritedness now pervading the Nation. From ‘waste of money’ to ‘stupid owners’: it’s all there. There’s the occasional praise for the rescue team but the general ‘consent’ is clear. I wonder how many of those vituperative comment posters have ever set foot outside, never mind having owned a dog!
And so I ask: why should we waste our own precious time on ‘standing up for …’, ‘engaging’ in politics, ‘waking up’ and all the rest in the hope of changing things when clearly nothing is ever good enough? Those ‘comment posters’ and the whole Westminster swamp dwellers deserve each other: let them stew in their own misery.
That’s all I have for today. The sun is shining, it looks like another lovely day. I’m going to enjoy my tiny garden because life is getting shorter by the day and I need a respite from ‘news’ and politics. Have a good day.
Hope you enjoyed your day Viv – you deserve it.
This is what politics is all about in 2023.
https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2023/feb/17/boris-johnson-agrees-to-buy-4m-nine-bed-georgian-manor-house-with-moat.
Rackmanism.
For the duration of the war, house prices and rents were frozen. Results :People refused to let you sell, or put up rent or sell —
Mr Rackman formed gangs to force people out of their homes for him to buy at cheap prices and change tenants owners, rents and profit. obscenely. becaause the Labour government refused to change their idiotic stance on a changed world that was just beyond them circumstances.
We in Britain spent 30 years paying America for the Arms and equipment they supplied during WW2, will Ukraine also have to pay back Britain? I have flashes sometimes where I hope Putin defeats Zelenski and Biden along with the WEF!
There seems only one reason for the continuing existence of UKIP with its NEC, that I can think of. and that is to split the right and centre.. Thus maintaining the Uniparty. stranglehold monopoly. Walker seemed a nice enough lad, have the Hamiltons etc bent him.. If they were not so obviously manipulated, UKIP ‘ld be flying now. As it stands, together with Farages personal ambitions to talk about everything,, and Tice’s lifelessness, they’ve sucked the life out of Britain and left us sullen and rudderless. And we are not used to that. I’m sad that AMW is being used by a bunch of wasters as they are using ukip. Only Kurten seems to have any life left. But he’s another who wants to personally explain the worlds workings and his beliefs. I would love to knock their heads together. Spoilt brats.
TG Spokes. I disagree with you about the UKIP and its NEC, but all the rest I agree with you wholeheartedly and without reservation. And you summed up Richard Tice in a nutshell, lifelessness is an understatement. As a result of all this the centre right is rudderless at the moment. Separately they don’t stand a cat in hells chance, but united they may well stand a chance of delivering something, but with the RIGHT leader to speak on behalf of all. However, who is to be? And please do not say Richard Tice as he should be at the very very bottom of any shortlist.
The more that Kier Starmer talks about what he may do if he becomes the occupant of 10, Downing Street, the likelihood increases that he will not win the next general election. If I were a member of Labour’s inner circle I would be having a word in Starmer’s shell like to reign it in otherwise he could be a vote loser. I think when most people weigh him up in their minds about his approach to Brexit, and allowing EU citizens in this country to vote in addition to allowing 16 and 17 year olds to vote as well, they will vote Conservative instead. Not because they are any good or that they will do better than Labour in Office, but because they are less extreme. Last night I looked in at Farage’ programme on GB News despite telling myself that I would do it any longer, and he was interviewing that arch political numpty Vince Cable who supported the idea that 16 and 17 year old should be given the vote. When Farage posed the question that perhaps children as young as 12 should also be given the vote, Cable’s answer was unsurprisingly ‘why not’. The man is a lunatic and its a good job that the Liberal Democrats have never held power.
Starmer is another one strangled by a NEC ( A committee that makes decisions without fear of reality or punishment.
Starmer will be strangled by his own stupidity more like. Nothing to do with NEC’s or Comm-i-tt-ee’s which keep wayward leaders in check and responsible for the governance of a party. That is what Reform UK need right now as its leader needs to elbowed to one side and somebody else put in his place. Come on TGS, I think you should join Reform UK, as its set up is ideal territory for you with no Committees, no real membership rights, no ability to get rid of an under performing leader, no ability to elect/appoint a new leader, and no ability to make policy. The proposition seems very attractive (not).
Off topic but I suspect Dishi Rishi has changed sides. He voted Leave and has generally supported Brexit – perhaps because the Con Party seemed to be that way. But now, lots of little things strike me as significant pointers that he is now wanting us to Rejoin the EU in some fashion.
A mood of fatalism, of resignation, pervades an increasing number of people who are centre right is some way. This is understandable since the alternative of living permanently angry or consumed by despair is no way to live year after year.
It is 25 years since Peter Hitchens wrote his prophetic ‘The Abolition of Britain’. Goodhart, Murray, Goodwin, Kaufmann and others have produced books in lament at what is happening but none have made a difference. LibLabCon are still here and so far as one can tell they will still command a majority of votes next year. If Starmer is PM next year then the abolition of Britain will accelerate when citizenship is even less a requirement for voting rights than it is now, an intensification of trends already present but not actually anything new.
Viv is right. We have indeed participated in a huge theatre production. I last enjoyed it in the few years up to 2016 when editing the script appeared possible. Alas, it isn’t and unlike a bad play, one cannot walk out. There is one last thing that engages me and that is getting Sadiq Khan out. This is not just because I live in our country’s increasingly third world cess-pit of a capital, nor just because there is a glimmer of hope that the pro-Khan wind that favoured him twice may be changing, but because it will be a last hurrah. If he gets in a third time then all hope will be extinguished. So I shall rouse myself one more time.
Good for you Stout.
“The ‘politicians’ are so interchangeable”
So true Viv and most, if not all, are not on our side. I’ve experienced the odd military coup elsewhere, the most recent of which was both necessary and beneficial. No wonder recent governments have trashed our military and severely restricted our right to bear arms.
Traditional newspapers cost money to print relative the material within.
Not the case with online versions where non-events are reported, spun out and packed out with numerous pictures in a way that would be totally uneconomic in the printed version. The stories get ever more wordy.
There’s so many non-stories these days in the on-line versions, it’s hard to find real news.
Or are they just burying events they don’t really want us to know?
Re the dog rescue, we have an exact parallel with the RNLI “rescuing” migrants. Except the migrants are all criminals and the RNLI should be prosecuted for people smuggling.