Thursday 5 July 2012

A SUMMER OF DISCONTENT

The confidence we have in ourselves and in the communities in which we live underlies the whole scheme of the life in which we exist. It is born from the confidence that people have in each other, confidence in their integrity, confidence in their honesty, confidence in planning their collective futures. And when we speak of each other or of the place we live in, town or country we talk about "my" friends or colleagues or about "our" town or "my" country we are all naturally possessive in language and also in our souls, it's the reason we feel pride when acknowledging the sporting achievements of those who we see as representing us and why we sometimes without understanding shed a tear for people we have never met before but feel attached to through our common endeavours and community links.

So just what have we got as a nation to feel proud about at present? OK the Jubilee and the Olympics for those so minded offer a maybe welcome diversion from the stark realities of our everyday lives, but they are little more than hollow escape from our real troubles, and these are stacking up by the bucket load.

So let's look at the levels of integrity and honesty of those who impact heavily on our lives and also on the confidence we have in those who rule us or control our economic and material futures. Let us put under the microscope that unholy alliance of MP's, Bankers and Journalists who impose their decisions, views and labours upon us.

Well for a start our MP's are hardly in a fit state to preach to us much at present are they? Soiled and sullied by the expenses scandals with many of their number now doing time for fiddling the books they have diminished our confidence and respect in their profession down to an all time low, and that's saying something given Parliaments already chequered history. Membership of the three political parties is now at an all time low less than 500,000 members nationwide between all three of them down from a high of 5,000,000 50 years ago they now have many time less members than most of our registered charities, the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds for example has more members than all three parties put together and the few left to raise their parties standards do so against a background of an untrusting and disinterested electorate who express their opinion in the main by either not voting or voting for none of the above. But still they win access to the corridors of power usually on the support tiny percentages of the constituencies, national or local that they represent. Local Government is now also a farce played out by very poor actors pretending to be all powerful whilst all of their authority and decision making powers have been taken off of them by an officer class truly irritated by their presence. SO LETS NOT LOOK TO OUR POLITICIANS FOR ANY ANSWERS UNLESS THE QUESTIONS ARE OF PERSONAL NATURE OR OF POLITICAL INTEREST TO THEM.


But what about the giants of Britain's media and the journalistic world, surely the press will step up to the plate and be our vanguard for good against evil in these troubled times? Tell us all in heavy print where the country is going wrong and cast an Independent eye over those ruling us, Sorry guys but they are equally and perhaps even deeper in the doghouse. The Levesson enquiry rolls on exposing day by day the darker practices of their craft and more and more of their number are then arrested, bailed and their futures left in abeyance, what's more worrying is that they are taking a large number of Knacker of the Yards boys with them, all intertwined in a bowl of rotten noodle soup made up of illegal activity, back door payments and illicit practices devised to sell tittle tattle gossip at the expense of people's privacy and rights, whilst ignoring the fault lines really dragging Britain down SO DON'T LOOK TO THE NATIONAL MEDIA TO SAVE US THEY ARE TOO BUSY TRYING TO SAVE THEMSELVES AND THE SICKENING WORLD THEY INHABIT.

So if our politicians and our press are as corrupt as each other then we must fall back on the professional classes for comfort and sound advice to see us through the mire. Let's all give three cheers for the Bankers! Then again let's not, a bigger bunch of lying cheating greedy and corrupt individuals you are unlikely to find anywhere in humankind. Having created the Banking crisis which led to the worlds deepest depression since the 1930's they collectively stand outside the worlds government houses with their hands held out asking for the politicians to spare them some loose change in order to save their own skins "if we go down then you will fall just as fast as we do they all say" The politicians in response do what they do best, they look after themselves and throw more and more of our money at them in the hope of salvation. The trouble here though is that this Banking Monster is so greedy that no amount of cash, even if we print it anew will satisfy their greed and desire, so they cheat and they manipulate and they fiddle the figures to make themselves even more money, to wrap themselves up against the cold of the recession cutting deep through the bones of the masses. "The Libor rate", they say, "no one understands that so lets tweak the figures here and there, we can make billions and the home owners and the small businesses can pay the price in higher mortgage and loan costs". So expect another Judge led inquiry and eventually another round of arrests. SO LETS NOT LOOK TO THE CITY TO BRING US ANY RELIEF AS THEY ARE TOO BUSY RELIEVING THEMSELVES ALL OVER US AS WE LAY IN THE GUTTER BENEATH THEM.

With all of the above in deep and deserved trouble of their own making we will soon be in a position when our prisons are populated more by the professional classes than the traditional criminal classes, old lags will soon start moaning that they have to share their cells with individuals far more unpalatable than the murderers and sex offenders that they are used to bunking up with. And meanwhile, we, us, the British people will stop talking of "our" country and "my" nation as a new age of "them and us" returns with a flourish not seen since the 1600's. "We are all in this together" says the Prime Minister wishful thinking on his part I think, and soon exposed as a cruel and wicked lie as the cuts hit hardest at the poor whilst the uberrich count out the sum totals of their tax cuts and find ever more cunning schemes and dodges to avoid paying their fair share of taxes in the first place. Meanwhile a women wearing a £1m hat takes a horse drawn golden carriage ride to Westminster to give a speech about austerity and tell us all how hard times really are and how her government will ensure we all pay for the mess we are now in

I predicted on this blog before prior to the summer riots of 2011 that trouble was ahead of us, I took no comfort from being proven right, and now we have the irresponsible bleatings of County Chief Police Officers across the Country telling the press that they will not be able to police the streets in coming weeks and months in the face of any such disturbances due to their numbers being depleted by both Olympic duty and cuts to police numbers. What an utterly stupid thing to say. Their predictions of unchecked unrest were thankfully only read by an uninterested few and now by the relatively small number of regular readers of this blog (around 2000 worldwide if your interested) but if their self fulfilling prophecies come true then I am sure that they will soon gloss over their previously expressed inflammatory comments.

So think less of an Arab Spring and more of a Summer of the Disenfranchised. I hope as always that they are wrong, it is the weak and the innocent who always suffer at such times and it will make life on our streets far more difficult to live in not less, but when you take away a nations hope, when the governed feel that their government no longer have a mandate, when locally and nationally all you see and hear about is cuts to services whilst at the same time see the rich shoving as much of our cash into their own pockets whilst shirking their own responsibility to pay their share of the bills whilst we are still paying ours, then I am afraid unrest is at some point inevitable.

Britain is now more than ever morally and economically bankrupt and whilst it is hardly a new analogy it has to be said that once more it's the same the whole world over, it's the poor what gets the blame, it's the rich what takes the pleasure, ain't it all a bleeding shame.

5 comments:

  1. A study into the state of democracy in Britain over the last decade warns it is in "long-term terminal decline" as the power of corporations keeps growing, politicians become less representative of their constituencies and disillusioned citizens stop voting or even discussing current affairs.

    Results of the last local Election (Thursday 5 May 2011) show turnout in some Wards of less than 30% i.e. Castle 28.79%, Obelisk 28.88%, St Davids 29.09%

    What happened on Big Brother last night….

    ReplyDelete
  2. I think, if my memory serves me well, that it was the Italian political philosopher Mocha that put forward the theory that "an organised minority will always triumph over a disorganised majority", which is why the political parties with only 1% of support hold 99% of the power in this country.

    There are a number of consequences of that declining membership. One is that they have a shrinking pool of talent from which to select their candidates, and secondly it leads to a situation where the political parties have to arm twist people into standing for election so that they don't lose face by being unable to field candidates in every ward. Some of the hapless fools even manage to get elected much to their surprise.

    I disagree that it is the officer class that is undermining the role of the elected councillor. It is the way that the system has been changed to concentrate more and more power in the hands of fewer and fewer politicians who have been selected from a shrinking pool of talent that is to blame. The 'chosen few' politicians that reach to top of the heap have no confidence in their own ability and decision making, so they seek to control any semblance of critical challenge or opposition by information censorship. In Northamptonshire County Council we now have an elected dictatorship which is very unhealthy, and Northampton Borough Council seems to be heading the same way with the cabinet refusing to meet in public. Officers are just doing their political masters bidding so I don’t think that it is fair to blame them.

    Democracy is in a bad place at the moment. It would be good to break the back of the party political system, but no matter how badly they behave or perform, the public still vote for them because they are more organised than us independents.

    ReplyDelete
  3. Liam,Much of what you say is correct,but because of the shrinkage there is a growing interchange between for instance the 'political' leadership and those who head the structures.Think of the number of MP's who started out as political assistants or Spads,and then were found seats by the party machine.Think of the number of chosen sons and daughters who are parachuted into 'safe' seats,even though they might never have visited the constituency before,but because the machine wants them in place.
    Why? Because of course they are poodles who crave power without a single idea in their heads.And what is true in parliament is happening more and more in local government too.Regional party bosses are picking local council candidates.It has even reached the stage where the Tory candidate for Police Commissioner started life as a political assistant to Jim Harker on NCC,progressed to senior post on NCC counting paperclips, and now will sack Chief Constables!
    You couldn't make up the degeneration of the political system.

    ReplyDelete
  4. John, Is your space bar defunct?

    ReplyDelete
  5. Liam, Perhaps I owe some of our officers an apology, as you point it is not all of their fault and many do try to uphold a decent standard of Local Government Service, however too may at the top find it convenient to simply hide behind the lack of democracy and use that as a shield against either criticism of the service or change. Therefore for those reading I agree with Liam that it is not fair to blame all of you, and you must decide yourself which side of the divide you sit on?

    ReplyDelete

Archives

Followers

Blog Archive

Thank You

Thank you for visiting "tonyclarkegreenparty" The views expressed here are mine and mine alone. They are made by me personally in my own capacity as free citizen and not as representative of any outside body or council that I may serve on or be employed by. However if anyone is offended by any of these comments or feels that they should be corrected then please contact me in the first instance at tony.clarke@email.com and I will do my best to consider your comments and correct any errors.

Etiketler

100 key seats 1980's 1997 2013 50th Birthday 96 Abington Park absent parents abuse Academy Status Adam Simmonds Adam Simmonds. Police and Crime Commisioner Northamptonshire. Class A drugs Adam Simmonds. Police commisioner. Northamptonshire County Council Afghanistan Afro Caribbean Agent airbrushed for change airlines Al Quida Aldi allowances AlQuida Anarchist ANC Andrew Mitchell animated fairy story Anjona Roy Ann Frank Ann Timson Apathy Arab League Council Archway cottages Arms raid arrears. Northamptonshire race Equality Council Ashes to Ashes Ask a Socialist astragate Asylum seekers Audit Baathe Party bamboo joint Banana Banker barbecue tax Bashar Assad bbc BBC radio 4 Bedroom Tax Benefits benito mussolini Benjamin Netanyahu Big Freeze Big Society Billy Bragg Binners Birds black and white cats Black Swans Blair blogger blogs Blood Blowing smoke up your skirt Blue Light Services BNI BNP boardroom buffoons Bone marrow Boris Johnson borough council boot and shoe borough council elections Borough Solicitor BP Bradlaugh Brian Binley Brian Hoare brighton Britain in Bloom British Government broken britain Brown Pelican Bryn Estyn Children's Home budget cuts Bulgarian Bullingdon Club Burglars Bus Interchange Bus Station Bush businesmen Cabinet Call in campaigning Cannes canvassers capitalism Captain Ska Car Park Revenue car parks career wreckers carillion carlisle Carrillion CASPAR Castle Ward Castle Ward 2 Catherine Tate CDC censorship Census 2011 change Charity Commision cheating cheats chicago Chicago Fruit Police Chickens Child Abuse China Chloe Smith Chris Grayling Christmas Christopher Myers chronicle and echo Clement Attlee Cllr Andrew Simpson Cllr Andy Mercer cllr Bill Parker Cllr Brian Hoare Cllr Brian Markham Cllr David Mackintosh Cllr David Palethorpe Cllr David Perkins Cllr Dennis Meredith Cllr Elizabeth Gowen Cllr Gareth Eales Cllr Jean Hawkins Cllr Jim Harker Cllr Jim Harker Road Safety Cllr John Caswell cllr John Yates Cllr Malcolm Mildren Cllr PD Varnsverry Cllr portia wilson Cllr Richard Church Cllr Robin Brown Cllr Sally Beardsworth cllr Scott Collins Cllr Tony Buckley cllr Tony Clarke Cllr Tony Woods Cllr Trini Crake Clr David Perkins Clyde Loakes Coalition government cobblers combustion committee places Community Basher conference 2013 Conservative Conservative Party Conservatives consumption Contracts Corby corporate fools corporate spin corrupt Council Council tenants councy council County Council Election county council elections CPS credit crunch crime Crimea cuts CWU Daily Mail daniel hannan mep. NHS Daventry District Council David Cameron David Harvey David Perkins. Brenden Glynane David Ross day fotlu DDC debt decent homes Defend Council Housing Delapre Abbey democracy wreckers destruction disaster DIT Britain Dostiyo Dot Cotton Duckenfield Duckinfield Ealing Council Earworm Community East Midlands in Bloom East Midlands Labour Party easy read economy Ed Balls Ed Millaband Ed Milliband education election Elections 2013 Electoral iregularity Ellis Island email Emilie Oldknow Emily Oldknow Empowerment fund Enterprise Enterprise Managed Services Environment Agency Eric Pickles ester ranzen EU euro European parliament expelled F W De Clerk F*ck you facebook FAir is worth fighting for Fairground ducks Fairytale of New York Far Right fire Fish MArket Fitzy fixed penalty notice Flashman Floods Florence and the Machine flytipping Fountain free Friends of Delapre Abbey Full Council Gaddafi Gang Culture Gaza GDP general election Geoff Howes George Bush George Bush Jr George Osborne George Osbourne Germany Glasgow mosque GMB Golden Handshake google gordon brown government Government Cuts Grant Shapps greed Greedy Bankers Greek economy Green Green Party Greyfriars growth 1980's Guantanaomo Bay. Shaker Aamer Guernsey Harry Enfield Havelock Havildar Gaje Ghale haymarket Hazel Blears health Helicoptors Help the aged highways Hillsborough hoodies hope not hate House of Commons House of Lords Housing Housing numbers Housing. eviction human rights Ian Gibson IDF il duce Immigration imprint Independent Independent Green Independent Network independents India Injunction inquiry international internet Iran Iraq Iraq war ISIS Islamaphobia Israel Italy IVA jedward Jeremy Clarkson jerk chicken Jihadists Jimmy Carr Jimmy Saville jingles Joe Joyce John Dickie john gardner John Lennon Johnston Press Journalists justice justice for the 96 KBC Ken Livingstone Kevin Quigley Khudadad Khan KPMG Kraken Kurdistan La Madala Labour Labour Group Labour Party Lady Wantage Lampedusa Land Tax Lansbury last of the summer wine Leadership election league two Learning difficulty Learning Disability Lebanon Lee Barron leeds Legal and General Liar Liar Lib Dem Liberal Democrat Liberal Democrats Liberals Libya libya. david cameron Likely lads Lily allen Liverpool lloyd grossman local candidates local governance local government Local Government Association local press localism bill Loft insullation London Labour London Olympics london riots Loo of the year Lord Mandelson Lord Michael Ashcroft Lord Stuart-Smith Lord Taylor Lord Waterhouse LSE Mackenzie mad as a box of frogs Madiba Mahmoud Abbass Malcolm Mildren Margaret Thatcher Market Square Market Square Fountain Market Trader Martyn Gilleard martyrs May 2ns Medhi Hussein media Michael Ellis Michael Foot Michael Turner QC Micheal Ellis MP micheal martin Middle Classes Middle East migrants Mike Ferrigan Milk Snatcher millions Miserable old sod mk dons mortgages MP's Expenses mps expenses Multi Agency Group Muslim community mydavidcameron.com Narrowboats Nasseem Nicholas Taleb Nathan Worrell National Debt national front Nato Nazis. EU NBC NCC Neil Lewington Neil Magregor NEL. MIPIM Nelson Mandela Neo Nazis NEP New Statesman New Year NHS Nick Clegg nick clegg.norman clegg Nick Griffin Niel Kinnock NNDC NNJPU Noor Inyat Khan North Wales Police Northampton Northampton Borough Council Northampton Chronicle and Echo Northampton Conservatives Northampton Independent group northampton independent voice Northampton Labour Party Northampton Labour Party. Northampton Borough Council Northampton Liberal Democrats Northampton Saints Northampton South Northampton South Conservatives Northampton Town Football Club Northamptonshire County Council Northamptonshire County Council Elections Northamptonshire Enterprise Limited Northamptonshire Enterprise Partnership Northamptonshire Music Service Northamptonshire Police Norwich North not all party's are the same ntfc Number 10 Observer Oil Old Labour Oliver Tambos Paddy Tipping MP pakistan Palais de Festival Palestine Parish Poll. Police Commissioner Elections parking parking services parliament parsons Party Political Broadcast Paul Blantern Paul Varnsverry PCC Pegasus Penalty Charge Notices pensioners pest control pest express Peter Mandelson Peter Righton pfi phillip mears photos for all occasions Pinky and Perky Plain English planning police Police and crime Commissioner Police Commisioners Police Commissioner elections political Polycythemia Pope Francis poplar porkie pies President Obama privatisation Professor Pongoo proportionality public consultation public deficit Public Service cuts purdah que sara sara Racism Radio 4 rats Rebekah Brooks reccession Recycling referendum refuse collection regional labour party relegation Rememberence Sunday residents parking retail Richard Hannon right wing riots Robert Cottage Romanian roofing RPA act RSA Rushden Sainsburys Sally Keeble Sam King Scrutiny Seb Coe Second Life Shame on you shameless Shami Chakrabarti Sheltered Housing Shire shirkers Shona Deans Messinger silver medal Simon Cox Simon Williams Skateboarders skivers. scroungers Slipping back in time SNC Snow Spad speaker spies spring boroughs Spring Boroughs Residents squandering St Andrews st andrews road St James Stagecoach stagnation standard and poors standards board stealth tax Stephen Pound MP. Jeffrey Archer Steptoe and Son Steve Messham Stock Market street lights supergran suspended Syria Taliban Tax Evasion tax the rich tea team GB Terry Waite Tescos Tess Scott Thatcher The Cobblers The Conservative Party The Green 'Un The Green PArty The Press The Queen The Report The Ridings The Saints the story of broke the story of change the story of stuff The Sun through the keyhole ticckle Till Death do us part" Tom Watson MP Tony Blair Tony Clarke Tony Clarke MP Tony Woods Tory Tory Government Tory Party Tory's town centre trade unions Trees Trevor Kavanagh TTIP TUC Trident Tuck Inn TVC E-coli and coliforms tweets twitter UAF UK debt UK floods UK Government UK riots UKIP UKIP. Green Party UKIP. Labour Party Ukraine Ulric Cross ULT UN unemployment union flag unitary authorities unitary government Unite against Facism United Learning Trust united nations Unity College Upper class USA usual channels Vara Varnsverry. Guildhall vat Virtual vlog vote Walter Tull Waltham Forest Wardens watchdog WDC Welfare welfare cuts west northamptonshire joint planning unit Westbridge Westminster Weston Favell School what's the point of Nick Clegg wicked William Hague window dressing winter wonderland witch hunt WNDC WNJPU workers Working Class working mens clubs workshy written questions WWII youth services