Thursday 21 July 2011

The state of the nation

The system of democracy under which we presently live, namely parliamentary democracy, has many inherent drawbacks, even though we elect the representatives to the institution known as Westminster.  Regular readers will be aware that it is a system which I term democratised dictatorship, or as some would prefer: an oligarchy. Even allowing for these drawbacks it is a far better system of government than that practised by the European Union, one that is by no means democratic but based on totalitarianism, in that, for example, those at its head are not elected by the people and have to swear allegiance to that entity, forgoing any wish they may have to safeguard their national interests.

Within the United Kingdom we presently have three political parties that perpetuate a system whereby money is taken from the people, both taxpayers and consumers  and channelled into the coffers of central government, from whence it is dispersed to their departments, non-governmental organisations and the civil infrastructure that supports the incumbent government. It is a system that has bred corruption resulting in a loss of trust in those we look to protect us; it is a system that has allowed succeeding governments to condition society to act, speak and think in ways that only they define; it is a system that has spawned - and continues to spawn - incompetence resulting in further cost; and it is a system that has been changed to the extent that honour and principle no longer matter. 

The irony that, by compartmentalising sections of society in the name of equality has resulted in minority and ethnic groups being granted special status and privileges, each thus receiving special treatment in the eyes of the majority, would appear to have escaped the political class. Or has it? The implementation of equality & diversity requirements has produced divisions within our society, divisions that argue amongst themselves, thus taking the eyes of the people from yet further restrictions to their liberty that are being introduced. Divide and Rule?

The fact that behaviour of minority groups, which to the native population of our nation is offensive and unacceptable being overlooked and condoned by means of equality & diversity, can be illustrated by a post from Inspector Gadget, who writes he was told at a police Diversity Training session in 2010 that:
"Spitting is a cultural issue. Young, jobless working-class men spit on the ground as a way of expressing frustration and powerlessness. It is also a way for young men from poor communities to mark territory, a kind of warning to other men in the street that they are present. For successful men, spitting on the ground is a way of demonstrating victory against the harsh realities of modern life, a challenge to others who may wish to rob them of their success.

It is judgemental for a police officer to challenge this behaviour. It shows an ethnocentric approach; why are the cultural norms of the young jobless community less acceptable than those of their more fortunate peers? To achieve the Public Confidence aspirations required by the National Policing Plan, police officers must begin to embed themselves in these cultures. This way, we can achieve our ultimate aim of policing our diverse communities with fairness and understanding."
Politicians continually complain about proposals that they consider would undermine the 'will of parliament', arguing that parliament is 'sovereign'. That argument is, in itself, a contradiction in that if politicians consider themselves representatives of their electorate (and should therefore reflect the wishes of their electorate), then the 'will of parliament' cannot exist as it would be the 'will of the people'. Neither can parliament be 'sovereign' as to be a 'sovereign parliament' it would need to act as a ruler and with the powers of a supreme ruler - which some would argue it tries to do, but I digress. The fact that, even if it wished to act as a supreme ruler it cannot is illustrated by parliament having ceded the powers necessary so to do to a foreign entity, namely Brussels.

As we are all aware, the political class of our nation, for days on end, have exhibited a field of vision comparable to a blinkered horse - aided and abetted by the same media about which they complain. That both have been - and still are - dependant upon each other has been the one obvious factor that has been the sole cause of the present problem that so engages their time and effort. If politicians lie and obfuscate in their dealings with the electorate then how are the people to know the truth if the media do not perform what is the core reason for their existence? Klein Verzt, writing for a Dutch readership but equally applicable to this country, queries whether journalists are really nothing more than political prostitutes and whether the pretence of being a watchdog for the people has been forgotten.

The fact this nation is in such dire straits is due to it having been in thrall to three parties with basically the same policies, albeit written in different ways, which result in the ship of state being piloted onto the rocks with headstrong and, in some cases, gay abandon. Neither is the nation served by the one party, who do have policies to avert the impending disaster, not recognising the necessity to go out advertising and selling their wares on a daily basis, instead appearing to wait for people to come and buy their products - hardly the recipe for becoming a brand leader.

When the ship of state does finally flounder, the people of this nation will then experience their own 'Titanic' moment - because they will then find out that there aren't sufficient lifeboats to go around!

20 comments:

Jacobite said...

How right you are when you say our ruling elite have no honour or principle what an example to set to the population as a whole, it will have its consequences somewhere down the line.

WitteringsfromWitney said...

J: The consequences are only too apparent already!

cuffleyburgers said...

WfW

A fine exposition of exactly the problem but I believe that still only a minority of people actually appreciate the full extent to which Brussels rules and parliament is a front.

How can we get the message across? As long as the MSM are such toadies we have no chance. Blogs are only usually read by people who agree (except for the trolls - how many of whom are on government or party political payrolls I wonder?)

Do people still use speakers' corner?

WitteringsfromWitney said...

cb: Thank you for your praise.

How do we get our message across? prefereably by spending money wisely on just that, rather than faux publicity of carrying an empty coffin round Brussels? While ukip wait for people to come to them to buy their ideas, instead of ukip going out and selling their ideas, I believe ukip are wasting their chance.

James Higham said...

Klein Verzt, writing for a Dutch readership but equally applicable to this country, queries whether journalists are really nothing more than political prostitutes and whether the pretence of being a watchdog for the people has been forgotten.

Sorry - was there some sort of doubt over this?

TomTom said...

Lord Hailsham used to call it an "elective dictatorship" and Sam Finer regarded England as having the "strongest Executive" of any governmental system.


It is still an Absolutist Monarchical Top-Down System with the Monarch's powers being devolved on the Prime Minister and The Crown being a fig-leaf.

The Queen is more concerned to keep her family in position rather than exercise any significant constitutional role

kenomeat said...

A nice blog by AM yesterday about BBC bias regarding global warming. But, more interesting perhaps, were the related videos about the Guardian's involvement in the Wikileaks scandal. A timely reminder that, whilst the NotW behaved disgracefully over phone hacking, it did not endanger anyone's life whereas the Guardian's irresponsibility could have cost many lives.

cosmic said...

I put the state of British politics down to the EU. Three parties, all agreed on membership, all keen to be seen as 'good Europeans', so they all operate within the same ground rules and there's nothing much for them to argue about apart from peripheral issues. They don't even want to rock the boat in the EU, but they have an increasingly restive electorate to shut up.

The EU model of things being run properly by experts and politicians left to posture and play unimportant games is one that has appealed very much to Westminster and our Civil Service.

Don't forget that by the early 70s the UK was starting to look in terminal decline and with the unions playing far too large a part, ungovernable. The continental economies were looking quite strong. It's no wonder that Heath and Wilson decided to stop running an independent business and start up as rival branch managers.

The way the EU has worked is to keep the apparatus of national government in place as a front, so its actions are less obvious. The EU hasn't figured as an issue in GEs partly because all major parties don't have it on the agenda, it suits them too well to go along with it, and partly because everything apparently comes from Westminster.

One of UKIP's problems is that they are trying to sell a proposition which is to most people, quite abstract and there's the BBC and the political establishment happy to go along with the EU and tell people there isn't an alternative.

There have been a few hiccoughs along the way such as the ERM, keeping the pound and the Lisbon Treaty, but the political establishment has successfully kept us on the EU course.

I don't know what happens when the EU falls apart. I suspect some sort of Northern European Union and Cameron, or whoever, desperate to make sure the UK is roped in. Westminster would be lost without the EU. I think it's the same thing as Heath, they don't really have any faith in themselves or the UK.

WitteringsfromWitney said...

JH: No not really, it was just that I liked the term political prostitute!

TT: Agreed

c: Agree with your first four paragraphs.

On the UKIP front, I meant that they should sell their policies, forget the EU, when they have people 'on-side' on the policy front, then is the time to mention that it can't be done until we leave. To keep banging on about the EU first second and last is what bores people rigid!

cosmic said...

WfW,

UKIP have all sorts of problems, a lot self-inflicted.


However, they have to sell a fairly radical right wing agenda, personal responsibility, equality of opportunity but not outcome etc to a nation lulled for decades by a social democratic model financed by debt and reinforced by a whole state industry more or less reliant on maintaining a state of dependence.

This is a nation which takes the Lib Dems seriously enough to vote for them. People will believe anything warm and fluffy and imagine somemone else is paying for it.

I see the social democratic muddle coming to an end, because it can't be paid for.

I don't see us electing a government which leaves the EU, I see it more in terms of the EU collapsing and leaving us, and that may happen surprisingly quickly.


As for UKIP, it's hard to see them being seen as the sensible choice with the current personalities. Maybe with changed circumstances and the EU really coming apart. maybe with an electricity crisis. Maybe with an injection of new blood in the form of heavyweight Conservatives. Maybe it would be a deal like the old Liberal party and the SDLP.

WitteringsfromWitney said...

c: A very insightful comment, if I may say so.

Ukip's problems are self-made in that the sycophants that attach themselves to NF are useless and have no real idea of what is needed.

If you look at their policies, the majority do resonate with the public, I just wish they would go out and sell them, rather than sit and wait for the public to buy into them - as I said previously. Their approach is wrong, wrong wrong as banging on about the EU just turns people off. Interestingly the audience on Tuesday comprised about 30% of the younger generation.

Agree they need an injection of a few real Tories, not just for the publicity but for having those who had been there and done it who can inject some knowledge of campaigning into the party.

cosmic said...

NF is UKIP's greatest asset and one of its biggest liabilities. He's a good speaker, quick in debate and makes telling points. On the other hand, he's not been much of an administrator or overseen efficient administration, and he's surrounded himself with these antics; they haven't sprung up from nowhere. The various stunts don't give an impression of gravitas. He runs it like the NF show.

Why would Tory heavyweights, whose ideals are pretty much in line with UKIP's manifesto; Cash, Redwood, Carswell, Reckless - these are just some obvious names - wish to associate themselves with UKIP? All the hassle of dealing with NF, probably not enough personal support to stand as independent Tories and be re-elected, and see their political careers end and achieve nothing, as well as be looking for new jobs.

I imagine a breakaway radical Tory Party more likely, or a radicalisation of the Tory Party. UKIP's job has been to be the Tory Party's soul and attempt to keep them honest.

I'm of the mind that party politics is a surface veneer and while we have a Civil Service and whole political establishment looking to Brussels, an EU withdrawalist government would be tripped up even were it elected. Until that establishment realises that the old days of spend and shove it on the national credit card are over, and the EU is a busted flush, we won't get anywhere. This is going to be decided by events outside the UK.

WitteringsfromWitney said...

c: Completely agree with your first anf last paragraphs - been saying the first for some time now.

Don't think the Tory party will change, at least not until they get another leader.

Were the names you mention to breakaway, which they wont as they have their careers' to consider, it would at least present some opposition to NF as leader.......

jkgalbraith said...

now lets be frank, as you probably know by now I think most of what you right is paranoid codswollop (well written and well argued paranoid codswollop i grant you) and most of this is no different but your quote from the police blogger blew me away.

SERIOUSLY?!?!?!

I mean yes its clearly a cultural issue (go to china if you doubt this) but c'mon sensitivity awareness on spitting that goes beyond "its hardly a big deal dont get your panties in a bunch over it" seems a bit retarded.

One would hope in the light of some of the appaling policing we've seen during recent mass protests the cops would have more substantial things to concern themselves with.

Oh re parliament being sovereign: others might be able to state this more completely but AFAIK parliament gets its sovereignty from the crown but its legitimacy from the people.

WitteringsfromWitney said...

jkg: Where you been? Missed you.... not :)

If I have read your comment right then you don't believe public spitting to be offensive?

When I went to Northern Cyprus, one of the first things I was told was that if meeting a married couple I did not address the wife without her husbands permission. Weird as I thought it was, I respected that custom. When someone comes to this country I expect them to observe our customs.

Re parliament: whatever, either way it is answerable to the people!

jkgalbraith said...

Public spitting offensive ... No not really. I think refusing to hire some because they're black is offensive, I think holocaust denial is offensive, I think the dail mail's femail section is offensive. Public spitting is at worst a bit icky.

I too would prefer that immigrants would integrate themselves but I'm not sure I'd count spitting as an immigrant custom and I think encouraging them to learn English is somewhat more important.

Respecting local customs has it place for sure, but I'm no so leftie that ijm not above saying that our society / customs aren't just ... Better, than those elsewhere. Saudi, north Korea etc. Cultural relativism is a sop.

If above all parliament must be answerable to the people what's the problem with representative democracy?

WitteringsfromWitney said...

jkg: Here we go again, more disagreement!

Were I to come and live with you (to which we both say God forbid!)would you like it if I totally ignored your customs and way of life?

As to representative democracy, the problem is we don't have it - we have democratised dictatorship!

jkgalbraith said...

WfW i'm hurt ... i have numerous friends who's politics i disagree with, whats to say we wouldnt like each other?? at least you have an opinion thats the bit that counts to me.

All i'm saying is that re spitting lets have a sense of proportion. If you ignored my local customs by beating your wife violently or peeing in the corner of the living room then yes i'd have a problem, if you ignored my customs by spitting in the garden or leaving the toilet seat up i'm sure i could cope.

You seem to muddle "you do things differently" with "you do things in a manner i find wrong vile and morally offensive" i'd suggest that normally thats not the case.

WitteringsfromWitney said...

jkg: Get unhurt please, as no offence intended.

Methinks maybe I did not make myself clear - when saying I find certain things offensive I am talking about our society, traditions and way of life. We do not, generally, spit in public and that is something that those coming here should observe. Understand?

jkgalbraith said...

WfW, fret not, you didn't ACTUALLY hurt my feelings but it struck me as a funny thing to say.

I understand that you're talking about cultural matters I'm just trying to illustrate that there's a hierarchy in action: surely its more important to you that people learn English, allow female children to go to school, don't beat their wives as a matter of course than it is that they refrain from spitting in public?

An agreement between us on this would be a hand across the aisles, never has such distance between opposing views been closed so dramatically etc etc etc.

No comments on Norway yet? rest assured you wont get any liberal / progressive ranting about that, AFAIC it has everything to do with being a paranoid insane nutbag, very little to do with his "politics"