Sweden has shown their politicians: disregard the grassroots at your peril

 

 

The main news this morning is the lying-in-state of the Queen, accompanied by reports of the transfer of her coffin from Buckingham Palace to Westminster Hall, with photos of the people walking past to pay their respect (link). This also applies to the online editions.

For the record, two reports in the DT deserve honorary mention. One is about Gordon Brown and the current Scottish Secretary, titled: 

“BBC ‘politicising’ coverage of Queen Elizabeth’s death is ‘outrageous’ – Gordon Brown and the Scottish Secretary angry over report saying King Charles’s reign could be defined by ‘eventual dissolution of the UK” (paywalled link)

The BBC eminently deserves this criticism, not least because Auntie politicises everything, as we all know. Nothing new there, and no politician is ‘outraged’ or angry about that. However, for once enough was enough

“Alan Little, a special correspondent, alleged that Scotland had grown apart from the rest of the UK and speculated it could separate during the new King’s reign in a report about the extraordinary events that day in Edinburgh.” (paywalled link)

I can already hear the reply from the BBC: this correspondent is entitled to his own opinion. However, there’s a time and place for everything. This, as well as the demand for dissolving the Monarchy altogether, is not something to be displayed at a time and place where thousands upon thousands are paying their respect to the late Queen. It’s nothing to do with ‘Free Speech’, it’s to do with good manners and simple courtesy, asking that one ought not to offend those who are mourning just because one wants to peacock one’s own opinion.

I don’t know if the headline for the sketch by Quentin Letts in The Times was written by himself or by The Times editors. Contrary to the sketch, it encapsulates what anyone has observed who has been watching the reports on the Queen’s coffin transported from Balmoral to Edinburgh, on to London and now Westminster Hall: “Crowds need no protocol to be moved by death’s majesty” (link, paywalled).

Just so, but again, the Westminster ‘elite’, including the Whitehall mandarins, have shown their ignorance and deep distrust of us, the people. This is underlined in a report in the DT, about the fact that the Royal Train wasn’t used to convey the Queen’s coffin to London:

“Plans were in place which would have allowed vast swathes of the nation to wave farewell to the Queen as her coffin passed by train along 400 miles of track between Edinburgh Waverley station and St Pancras, in central London. And yet on Tuesday evening, Her Majesty’s coffin was loaded on to an RAF C17 Globemaster, a workhorse logistics aircraft, and flown over the heads of the population to land at RAF Northolt on the outskirts of the capital.” (paywalled link)

Apparently, and as per usual, nobody can be blamed, ‘authorities’  hiding behind ‘concerns’:

“Just why the Royal Train was left sidelined and in the sidings has turned into a blame game, with no authority willing to put their head above the parapet and admit who canned it and why. But the Telegraph has pieced together a chain of bureaucratic events which suggests that a risk-averse culture, accelerated by the Covid-19 pandemic, prompted a u-turn. Largely on grounds of health and safety and security worries, and over fears Britain’s hapless rail network would struggle to cope, the Royal Train’s role in the funeral was quietly shelved two years ago.” (paywalled link)

Thanks to these ‘health & safety & security’ worries, thousands of people have now gone to London. Thousands of others have lined the motorways, stopping their cars and standing at the central division, to pay their respects, even in the dark. How ‘safe’ was that? 

It’s not just here in the UK where ‘authorities’ and governments are so far removed from the people that they simply no longer understand their vital concerns. In case you missed it, there were elections in Sweden this past Sunday. With the votes now finally all counted, the Sweden Democrats have become the largest Party in what The Times calls ‘the right-wing bloc’ which will now form the government, ousting the long-reigning left, to the dismay of the reporter who at least mentions why the Swedes voted as they did:

“The outcome was a historic political shift in the traditionally liberal nation amid a surge in support for the Sweden Democrats, a party with neo-Nazi roots. […] The Sweden Democrats rode public concern over a rise in fatal shootings and gang violence in which innocent bystanders have been caught in the crossfire, including one case last month in which a young mother and her five-year-old son were injured by stray bullets during a shooting in the central city of Eskilstuna.” (link, paywalled)

There’s an accompanying opinion piece with yet another click-bait title:

“Rise of the hard right shatters Sweden’s dream – Angered by violent crime and unchecked immigration, one in five voters backed a party with a recent Nazi past” (link, paywalled).

After the expected hand-wringing, we read at the end of this comment piece:

“The common theme is the arrogance of too many centre-left, ultra-liberals who will not listen to even mild concerns about uncontrolled immigration or greening the economy so fast the lights go out. This result in Sweden is not about voters taking some wild swing to the right or being fooled by demagoguery. They have responded perfectly rationally to fundamental changes to society and policy failures.” (link, paywalled)

Might we hope that a similar, dispassionate analysis will be applied to us British voters? After all, here as well there are too many ‘centre-left, ultra-liberals’ who will not nor ever have listened to our concerns. This selective deafness, accompanied by ‘we know better’ and the denigration of ‘extreme far right’ views on immigration, has been going on for years.

We see the result today: thousands crossing the Channel in their dinghies, being ‘housed’ in hotels in towns, costing the taxpayer millions of £££. Apparently, young voters have also supported this ‘right bloc’, disregarding green policies:

“There’s another corrective, for those who believe the media myth of the Greta generation. Early data suggests younger voters went right, on the back of fears about crime. If voters aged 18-29 had their way, the conservative margin of victory would have been large. Sweden hasn’t gone mad. It is changing, hopefully not before it’s too late.” (link, paywalled)

‘Too late’ for what? To stop the inevitable crime wave when lights go out because of the energy crisis? And what about our own, turquoise government and ‘green’ MSM? Will they learn the Swedish lesson, not just in regard to immigration but on green policies as well? Will we have to wait until winter when blackouts are threatening? Will we have to wait until the lights go out on the continent, with consequences for our country such as supply-chain disruptions?

When will our government stop taking us for granted while distrusting us so much that they resort to governing by nudge and propaganda, to implement their disastrous policies? Above all – when will they see reason and scrap Net Zero and all those ‘green’ surcharges on our energy bills? 

Warning bells ought to ring in No 10 and the Westminster bubble when even the young in a liberal country like Sweden have had enough, despite having been indoctrinated all their lives to accept lefty-greenie policies. Will they alter their disastrous course? I’m not holding my breath though …



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