What Britain: What venomous, turgid land is this?
At what point do the people of Britain say enough is enough, what sort of country are we allowing ourselves to slide towards, and at what point do we call time on our press?
We have entered a period in British history that will hopefully be looked back upon as a blip, an aberration during a time of transition. Basic progresses we have taken for granted as a society seem to be slipping away and we have stumbled into a parallel Britain when the phobias of generations passed are coming back to haunt us. Who do we appear to have at the vanguard of this drift back into a mist of intolerance? Who is giving power to the elbow of the racists, bigots, homophobes? You have to point an accusing finger at the collusion between the press and the most morally/ethically/intellectually bankrupt politicians in living memory. One example of this is the quote doing the rounds from the Sunday Times:
Putting aside the vulgarity and cowardice of the language, you have people (supposedly Labour MPs but not one brave enough to put their names to their words) who clearly show either a complete lack of understanding about how British politics is developing for the British public or they fear politics of the people for the people by the people because it contests with their personal ambitions and does not profit them. Just as we have abysmal idiots like David Davies, Christian Holliday and Sam Gyimah, whose ambitions have been enough to secure them in roles as MPs despite lacking basic humanity or intelligence, we clearly have Labour MPs who, when faced with the current Tory government, can’t see beyond their own ambitions or their own egos.
Like a lot of Labour members, part of what guided my vote for the Labour leadership in 2016 was a sense of protecting Labour as a democratic party. Equally, just as a majority of Labour members rejected the other candidates in 2015 because of the politics they represent, I also voted in 2016 against a “contender” whose politics I disagree with, who lacks substance, and who represents the sort of spiv politics Britain is currently being subjected to by the current Tory leadership. The idiot that wrote the above about Corbyn just can’t see that it isn’t millions of people voting for a politics because they are “nuts”, they are voting against idiots like them, voting against their politics because their politics are part of the problem. Yet we have seen those within Labour who merely look at the worst that has resurfaced in Britain since the EU Referendum as voter ground to be battled for, not battled against.
We see the continued attacks on a couple of public figures like Lily Allen and Gary Lineker, hardly significant political voices, yet they have faced torrents of abuse for expressing rather basic expressions of support for humanity and the press are leading the campaign to direct hate towards them. Voices like Jeremy Corbyn’s have been raised to defend them but, notably, the Tory government have not condemned the likes of the Sun, Mail, Express etc for stirring the pot of hatred. We have a gutter politic-media alliance presiding over Britain, it wants to protect its position of power by turning the people of Britain in on themselves and it is portraying basic common human decency as a plague to be purged. Watch Ken Loach’s ‘I, Daniel Blake’ and see the way Britain is denying people dignity, humiliating them, and turning the clock back in Britain to the 1800s, all so that a few can profit. Sanctioning of social benefits is not saving taxpayers a penny, those companies who have been incentivised to penalise societies most vulnerable are mopping up far more from taxpayers than the government may profess they are saving.
In contrast, we have the preposterous rewriting of history that surrounds the likes of Michael Gove. Gove’s media hack supporters do seem to have a habit of buzzing like shit round an even bigger steaming pile of shit and now we have some taking to re-imagine Gove, not as the erstwhile backstabbing self-focused much despised cretin but, as someone who only had Boris Johnson’s best interests at heart when he railroaded him out of his leadership challenge. From his time destroying Education, Gove has enjoyed press cover-ups for his incompetence and wanton destruction and yet he still stands as one of the most toxic, hated, figures in Westminster. Remarkable. You can’t polish a turd but I guess you can wrap it in newspaper and simply lie that it isn’t a hulking great turd but people still seem to resist it. Imagine how hated and toxic a figure Gove must be if his coterie cannot avert the smell, regardless of how often they have tried and with the resources at their disposal.
Among Britain’s fall from grace we have the continued fear of the gutter politic-media circus of Jeremy Corbyn’s leadership of Labour. Corbyn isn’t playing the game and the dregs with their teeth currently in Britain’s neck fear far more than being pushed aside from the top table if people take back control of British democracy. Britain’s choices could not be more stark, the very worst of society is being reinforced, stoked, and created by a press that are controlled by too few people and, after the corruption by Cameron of the BBC’s neutrality, there is no public broadcaster to hold them to account. Equally corrupted and compromised is the current Tory leadership and government. Britain needs a political leadership that will break the influence of the press and politics and restore public broadcasting to acting as a balanced voice.
Where might it all lead?
