Influencers – politics, cosmetics, fashion: no difference … the sheep will follow
“If voting changed anything they’d make it illegal”– this quip was proved correct yet again by the ‘super Thursday’ local and assembly elections, now over, done and dusted. We’re back to ‘normal’, the old normal where the voting public is supposed to go back to sleep, enabling the various party political spin doctors and their friends in the MSM to keep going with their games of nudging us while obscuring what is taking place behind the scenes.
For example, let’s ask why it is that nothing is being made of the surely wonderful opportunity given to the young voters in Scotland and Wales. There, the Lab and SNP governments lowered the voting age to 16 -18 year olds. Surely, given the results, the reinstated ‘first ministers’ and their party spin doctors would have crowed with delight if this exercise had gifted them with their success. Instead, except for a brief wail that not enough young voters had registered in Wales (link) – there’s been nothing. Perhaps it’s not surprising when we read that:
“Research published just before the first lockdown in March 2020 suggested young people in Wales had a “very limited” understanding of Welsh politics.” (link)
Well, not many older Welsh people had a better understanding, else how to explain the success of Welsh Labour. Still, there was a poll result in February this year, according to which:
“[…] 69% of 16 to 24-year-olds thought the Senedd elections were important – the second-highest proportion of any age group after the over-65s.” (link)
Focussing on this issue isn’t parochial because the reason for this swing is scary and applies to all of the UK, providing a glimpse into tour political future:
“While campaigning may traditionally be associated with knocking doors and posting leaflets, this year grime artists, fitness stars, and Instagram and TikTok influencers have been weighing in.” (link)
No, I’ve no idea what ‘grime artists’ are. It’s the increasing role of social media, of obscure ‘influencers’ which is important. It doesn’t bode well for our society when those who profess to have ‘limited understanding’ of politics – I bet that 16-year olds in England also have ‘limited understanding’ of politics – can be made to change their minds a bit later because TikTok and Instagram ‘influencers’ tell them it is. Who, one might ask, influences those ‘influencers’?
We know who ‘influences’ our MSM. In his fine election analysis in Lockdown Sceptics, Toby Young writes:
“[…] the Government has just agreed a contract with a media buying agency to spend a further £320 million of taxpayers’ money on pro-Boris propaganda.” (link)
Toby’s article is worth reading in full and keeping on file, not least because he shows that this was a covid election because the incumbents, from Scotland to Wales to the various mayoral elections won by Labour, profited from the lockdown policies. They ‘kept us safe’, didn’t they … and thus the political parties and their spin doctors have a new blueprint to nudge us to vote for them.
Moreover, we do know that the next point on the BJ agenda is greenery – and who could argue that keeping the planet safe from us is a heroic undertaking! Surely, the covid and lockdown months have shown that they can get us to do as they want, no problem. In this scenario, does electoral success really depend on having a ‘good brand’? The defeated Hartlepool candidate seems to think so:
“Labour lost the Hartlepool by-election because too few voters knew what the party or Sir Keir Starmer stood for, its defeated candidate has said.” (link, paywalled)
Interestingly, he also bemoans a ‘brutally effective Conservative campaign’. But – is such campaigning not becoming obsolete when “we” can have MSM paid for by the incumbent government, when ‘influencers’ on social media can tell people whom to vote for? Let’s not forget who governs social media: tech giants who can ‘vanish’ unsuitable users and their content at a keystroke.
And then there are the top influencers behind their puppets, the politicians whom they’ve helped gain their position. Their latest attempt at nudging world politics into keeping covid and vaccination in the headlines was overshadowed by the Thursday elections but it’ll come again to the forefront of the international MSM soon enough. There was the demand by Biden to scrap patent rights for vaccines, to ‘help the poor of the world’.
That didn’t play well at the moment, so “we” are back with the slogan of ‘vaccine nationalism’, the USA, the UK and – don’t laugh! – the EU being the main culprits because of their vaccine export ban. The DT quotes the inevitable ‘expert’:
“Professor Simon Evenett, who leads the HSG’s Essential Goods Monitoring Initiative, […] noted that the major players attempting to control exports – the US, European Union and India – all face heavy domestic pressure to stop inoculations exiting their borders.” (paywalled link)
I’m not aware of any ‘domestic pressure’ on BJ to stop exporting vaccines, but hey, what do I know … perhaps it’s the EU exerting opposite pressure by not ordering any AZ jabs? And – India? Really? Surely even this ‘expert’ must have been aware of the ‘rampaging’ covid infestation in India? After all, our MSM were full of it until a few days ago. Life in ivory towers, once one’s a designated ‘expert’, must be wonderful.
As for the horrible ‘vaccine nationalism’ – well, it seems those countries who should benefit from the dropping of vaccine patents, from our relinquishing ‘vaccine nationalism’, don’t actually want the vaccines. Hardly any attention was paid to a report in a German paper two weeks ago. ‘Die Welt’ (paywalled link, in German) reported that several African countries are planning to destroy the vaccines they’ve already received because too few of their people want the jab. These jab deliveries anyway make up only 2% of the world-wide doses produced. But let’s all wail about ‘vaccine nationals’ and demand that the patents of the various vaccines be scrapped. Covid madness still reigns supreme!
I leave you with an example of government speak which is too ghastly to let sink below the horizon. We’ve been told that the railways are in turmoil because 800 carriages were withdrawn from service on Saturday since they showed cracks in their carriages. Well, you’ll be interested to know that we have a ‘rail minister’ who wanted a bit of limelight by letting ‘Our MSM’ know that he’d called on the rail operators to ‘urgently set out a comprehensive plan’ to deal with this issue.
Clearly, Great Western Railway (GWR) and London North Eastern Railway (LNER) can’t be expected to do so by their own sweet selves. They need to be given marching orders. This is what the rail minister, Chris Heaton-Harris, told the MSM:
“I expect operators to explore all options for replacement services to help people complete their journeys and have asked Hitachi for a safety inspection plan, as well as a longer-term repair strategy. Our focus is to ensure trains are returned to service as quickly as possible, once they are fully approved as safe. Only then can we start to rebuild a reliable and punctual timetable for passengers. I also want to thank passengers for their patience during what could be a significant period of prolonged disruption, likely to continue for some time.” (link, paywalled)
‘He expects’, does he? ‘He focuses’, does he? Are we already living in a socialist command economy where ministers tell operators what to do? And why thank passengers for their patience when there’s clearly nothing they can do except endure? I suggest that covid imperialism has infected more government departments than we realise when ministers or indeed their Whitehall handlers think it’s now their turn to aggrandise themselves and peacock around on the media stage.
This, I’m afraid, is only the beginning of the pernicious influence of covid imperialism on our governance. It’s another instance of how our government is utilising covid policies to prepare us for a socialist country, tinged turquoise – that’s blue with a green tinge. Stay vigilant and
KBO!
The government is now stable, We are partly out of The EU. Opposition from the left has not yet sorted itself and will not for a while yet. We have all sorts of unknown horrors around the corner and no doubt the Con Party will be looking to cement power with goodies. Its opportunity time.
Now is yet again a good time to construct a new party or rebuild an old.. All the signs are there. All the opportunities are there. The tories are complacent and will engage in personal aims. Their enemies will all be in the Tory party. . Good people will be frantic, and despairing. They didn’t vot tory in support but in despair. They were the ” rightest ” they could find.
So what to do. Build quietly. Build solidly. But have a plan. The plan is the easy part but seems to be mystical to most. Pick me up on that. A plan that a businessman would understand and money will come. They’ll try and use its advantage, but will appreciate its absence. But for heavens sake don’t imagine yourself as ‘leader’.
It’s oppornockity time. !
I am going to sound DAFT. We need a ‘PARTY’ of INDEPENDENTS!
Just think about it. The policies of each candidate for any election are entirely up to the candidate. Ditto who supports what candidate.
It’s really back to what we’ve discussed before. It’s a sort of umbrella organisation providing a website where prospective Independents can state their intentions.
Interesting point Pauline but we also need cooperation as we cannot have the vote split amongst competing independents. Egos will have to be set aside for the greater good.
I think it worth highlighting that “The defeated Hartlepool candidate seems to think” the best way of communicating with his electorate is through an article he wrote published in The Times:-
“Labour lost the Hartlepool by-election because too few voters knew what the party or Sir Keir Starmer stood for, its defeated candidate has said.”
How many potential Labour voters read The Times?
Just continuing the “out of touch” theme, including the candidate himself. He was standing for the Labour Party, did he know what the party, kneeler AND himself stood for?
Let us now ‘call a spade a spade’! The cause of all our current ills is ‘extreme corruption’! Corruption of the whole rotten edifice of public governance has brought Britain low! Coupled with a programme of dumbing down of education; manipulation of electronic communications (including the MSM – printed or otherwise!); years of bread and circuses conditioning (of a ‘consumer oriented’ people) and ‘stupification’ of the majority of the populace by instilling fear and trembling over a ‘conveniently’ discovered and heavily accented virus.
Dr Mike Yeadon has an excellent piece in today’ Conservative Woman. It should be required reading for everybody followed by extensive and open discussion on all sides!
https://www.conservativewoman.co.uk/why-are-we-being-lied-to-about-covid-theres-no-good-reason/
To say I am incandescent with rage at what some evil-doing numbskull scoundrels are doing to this World, is an understatement!
Agreed Federica, but less learned treatises. WE are interested but who else . Bullet points or slogans much better.as an example Instead of a long talk about how MPs make evil money. Start with ” Candidates are of their constituency”.or ” No second jobs “. ” Represent or go “. or ” Three coppers paid by their village”. or whatever.
“several African countries are planning to destroy the vaccines they’ve already received because too few of their people want the jab”
I grew up in the shadow of the MAD doctrine (Mutually Assured Destruction). It wasn’t mad in truth, to have a similar of larger stick that your enemy. It was enough to deter the bullies and luckily no truly insane person gained control of a red button anywhere. Nevertheless the sense that mankind was on the brink of destroying itself was never far away, and sci-fi flourished with tales of the few survivors eking out a living and rebuilding in remote corners.
Now, that same foreboding is back. Is there now a different mad (lower case) weapon, slower but equally devastating, not tied to any national borders, and with a very different purpose than deterrence. Signs are not good, and I am far from convinced that no insane person, (well people actually – with different agendas feeding off each other) has control of the red needle. Evidence mounts daily, both in physical outcomes and in the illogical, inexplicable (if you discount malevolent purpose) and unjustifiable behaviour of politicians, the media and just about every world body.
If these jabs do indeed turn out to be doomsday machines with no off-switch, and enough Africans, for what ever reason, have shunned them, there is a potentially ghastly symmetry, history repeating itself. Africa, the cradle of human civilisation, may have to do it all over again.
Sorry, my mind is wandering; nonsense of course. I blame Neville Shute; ’On The Beach’ seared itself into my young mind.
“several African countries are planning to destroy the vaccines they’ve already received because too few of their people want the jab” Smart people. If they’re smart enough to refuse the jab. they deserve to survive. Whereas he virtue signalling muzzled dupes here who rushed out to get the jab will bring all of us Westerners down.
…as intended by government and its masters.
It is right to entertain that foreboding; the evidence is indeed mounting and has been for some years. Our biggest issue is wakening the sheeple and government knows it.
Hey up Phil O’Sophical. Words of wisdom. I don’t remember what Neville Shute said but I agree with you.
It’s not just the Jabs themselves it’s all the things that come with them, like passports and mandatory jabs, and mandatory jabs for your children.
Add in the Global madness about climate change. That wasn’t working fast enough, so Wuflu had to be unleashed. The F.B.I. are said to have unearthed a leaked ‘document’ proving that Wuhan was experimenting with using viruses as a biological weapon a few years back.
It’s like you say. This time there is NO DETERRENCE. No means of Mutually Assured Destruction.
The plan sounds good on paper all that ad money and influencers but will come across as inauthentic.
Isn’t it shocking though that the Government, i.e. The Party, can spend that money on advertising themselves.
Not surprising and so not particularly shocking — shock requires some surprise, and to see UK politicians abusing the taxpayer is now routine. Why does the MSM make a fuss about wallpaper when the elephants are running amok in the woodpile*?
JF
*To mix my metaphors.
They believe TAX is theirs to spend.
What I find truly shocking Pauline, is that people seem to be supremely unaware that all these millions are being provided by themselves through their taxation! I begin to think that only massive, major job losses will serve to make people realise that this government has fraudulently manipulated the public purse for its own political ends and is working against the public that it was elected to ‘serve’. (In truth, they are only serving themselves!). As I understand it…..in any private business that would be a criminal offence (embezzlement or malfeasance?) and those responsible would be standing in the dock to answer for it!
Yes I realised when I wrote that, that Governments always have spent taxpayers money on pushing through their policies. The difference now is that effectively we live in a one Party State. So now it is the Party using taxpayers money, to advertise the Party’s policies.
Like you say Frederica it is corruption of the whole rotten edifice.
“…corruption of the whole rotten edifice…” Encouraged by the dupes who vote LibLabTory every single time. I thought the events of the past year would sound the death knell for LibLabTory but nothing doing. The people I speak to don’t know, don’t care, don’t see anything wrong , show a complete lack of curiosity.
No Frederica, We are now policed by “Regulators “. This is yet another destructive American invention gradually and indirectly destroying us. prosecutions are rare and . And stops police from investigating their private moneyprinting racket as well as the almost invisible and few and far between, prosecutions. Their main uselfullness lies in concealing the ignorance of MPs, and domination of the monster firms and the connivance of paid politics inc CS. Almost nobody seems to know how many in 40 years have been prosecuted.