.
How do you like your politics? Tory or New (new) Labour? World Wrestling Federation or Monster Truck Racing? Both are as unreal as the UK political pantomime and the laughable ‘scrutiny’ of the corporate media. You may as well choose between The Muppets and Sesame Street. The absence of any genuine public accountability merely aids the ongoing loss of institutional and social capital.
I haven’t written much recently because I am so dispirited and jaundiced by British politics. All that remains is to map my anger and despair from time to time.
The United Kingdom no longer has a functioning government – it has a sociopathic criminal syndicate who get more brazenly unconcerned with legal and moral restraints with each passing day. It is clear to see the toxic influence of Donald Trump and why Boris Johnson finds him so fascinating. For Johnson’s cabal of chancers, even pretending to tell the truth can now be joyfully discarded as casually as package holiday makers dump suitcases in hotel rooms.
Lying has become the new normal – it is startling (and perhaps an oversight) when our government utters any truth. Lying is what defines public life these days. On the daily media rounds politicians lie about everything. For the most hilarious and extraordinary lies they send Michael Gove and for the most indefensible health related incompetence they send Matt Hancock. The type of lie required defines the fall guy.
But who cares? Large chunks of the public seem to have misplaced their sense of truth or any concern for it. Lost in social media outrage and misinformation, many just choose whatever lies work for them – there is rarely any ingenuous attempt to work rationally through the issues.
Many shout, complain and protest – precious few listen or try to weigh moral drivers and empirical evidence. I’m so tired of it all.
A final straw came while (briefly) subscribed to various ostensibly left wing Facebook groups. Yes people moaned about the Tories, but also about wearing masks, posted gormless rubbish about vaccinations / Covid-19 while smearing Corbyn and his supporters. To confront even a tiny fraction of it would be a full time job. I joined some right wing groups – aside from a dash of added racism the difference was barely noticeable.
The baleful influence of social media platforms cannot be overstated. So many lives pivot around sharing and ingesting bite sized tweets and memes – but there is no derived consensus in these forums – just a white noise of emoticons and barely literate / evidence free assertions.
The root problem of attempting to hold a morally corrupt government to account is that the populace as a whole (with some honourable exceptions) has no coherent shared morality with which to do so – the more the ruling class realise this, the more cock-a-hoop they become.
.
The problem for say the admirably principled Greta Thernberg (or even the markedly less coherent Extinction Rebellion) is that they are trying to morally shame an establishment that has no shame and indeed – no morals. What is the point of shouting about climate change or that Black Lives Matter – if there is no overarching societal agreement that all or indeed any lives matter.
The ‘answer’ to all this (activists assure me) is ‘education’ and ‘awareness raising’ about the ‘issues’ – but of what use is ‘awareness’ without a functional sense of what goodness is or indeed any societal framework for finding out? The kind of education we need is about morality and the rational frameworks that support it – the kind we have routinely places obedience and market utility over thought.
The task of trying to build momentum towards genuine education – that might empower a citizenry towards independent critical thinking is gargantuan. Alas while the owning class retain the (false) belief that their interests are served by keeping the people stupid and at each other’s throats – the job appears a lost cause.
Let us tick the obvious boxes to make up for my absence these last few weeks.
Yes the UK is headed for a second wave of Covid-19 – just as we predicted several months ago. What did we expect when a mafia runs the health service?
Yes the naked corruption of Johnson, Cummings and his cronies grows ever more careless and arrogant – I mean what do they have to do – walk up Downing Street with a wheelbarrow marked ‘swag’ and leave smirking in the evening with it filled full of fifty pound notes?
Yes Keir Starmer et al are playing the role of the other Tory party perfectly – the neoliberal closed shop has returned. You can once again choose your favourite rosette colour while voting to inexorably extend the wealth and agency of the already rich and powerful.
What might sum up the moral chaos and decay of a nation – how about this – a former tory prime minister stands alongside a war criminal to lecture the new tories about respect for the law – ladies and gentlemen I give you the United Kingdom 2020, where Tony Blair is a moral exemplar.
Since 2013 I have worked between 4-6 hours a day on this Ad-Free site: trying to give a voice to those without the power or agency to speak out for themselves and uncovering truths that well paid journalists in the corporate media dare not utter.
I am a home schooling parent on a low income – paying for the domain, web hosting and security entirely out of my own pocket.
If you found this article useful and could spare us a few shillings to help keep our lights on, it would be very much appreciated.
Thank you in solidarity with all our readers. John Lynch, Editor.
I feel it and see it in social media. I don’t see and feel it in real life. People are inherently good. Some are facile (they normally spend their days enraged in their 2 minutes of hate on social media). Some are downright nasty, inconsiderate and wilfully ignorant. Some are fed up of people and mind their own business and try not to get involved (detaching their comfortable existence from the trauma of seeing the rot all around). Some are kind, caring and passive. But all are under enormous pressures from “want”. Why do we all “want”? Probably it’s the oldest unanswerable question in humanity – and maybe it is coded in our DNA and has enabled mankind to reach it’s pinnacle in final extinction. Greed is such an innocuous and simple thing – that empowers our survival yet brings about its extinction. For me, all I can do is what any sane human can do and that’s to live, love and work towards a better future for the next generation in the only way we can. We are slaves to an ancient system, made unhappy by the lie of freedom – which we only get to understand and realise after we’ve already been destroyed by the system.
Great read. Thank you for all your hard work. You must be exhausted! 🙂
Brilliant Journalism, thankyou.
Thank you for taking the time to articulate your reasoned arguments.
The mythical being that all and sundry seemed to believe looked after our primary interests has it seem now left his/her post
The collective conscience that once acted to uphold moral values in society has fallen to the lure of fools gold.
Is it coincidence or a correlation that society no longer seems to need any dependence upon the family structure, traditionally based upon Adherence to religious Belief?
Has the world evolved to the point whereupon we have the knowledge and power to ‘create’ a more economically efficient world and improve upon nature?
Is there any precedent to indicate that man can take on and defeat the laws of nature?
Do we now have enough diversion and distraction to ensure that the guardians of commerce can decide if or not we have relevance to their commercial aspirations or needs?
At 74 I have lived my life with relative freedom and opportunity but I fear for those coming behind. Maybe I shouldn’t, believing that ultimately nature takes care of its own business and this is but an experimental phase 🤔