Wittering on …
My regular readers will no doubt have been missing the incisive Campion-Brown views upon the progress of the General Election but, as I have explained at some length to my editor, whilst I have been following events with my usual day-by-day concentration, I’ve become bored by it and having little to add to the rather bland and predictable coverage in the UK media.
Today, therefore, I thought I’d begin this post by reporting upon something a little closer to home. I live in a self-administered block of flat in north-west London which, on and off, has been administered – or perhaps more accurately I should say controlled – for the best part of two decades by a small cabal of committed and secretive ‘people who think they know best’.
Those who care about such things, aghast at the consequences for good government of voter apathy, like to propound the theory that dictatorships are what happen when those who do not act effectively turn their backs and thus inevitably ‘get what they deserve’.
My block of flats is a case in point. Our Stalinist rulers, relying (but only when necessary) upon a compliant cadre of supporting residents who are too weak or subservient to stand up for themselves, have run the place almost as a personal fiefdom.
Nobody denies that they apply themselves with diligence. It is a fact of life in a large block with a wide range of ongoing complex and often mid-numbingly irksome issues that somebody has get their hands dirty and I suppose even malcontents like myself should be thankful that these guys are prepared to step up to the plate because, if they didn’t (God forbid), then the rest of us might have to get off our fat backsides and get involved ourselves.
But that’s not the line I’m peddling today.
The point is that all organisations and governments – particularly when ‘the people’ are too busy (and/or simply bored at the prospect of having to put themselves out in order to ensure things are run properly) – tend to be usurped by those whose interests (and perhaps routes to self-importance when their own little lives do not have much else going for them) lie in the process of politics and ‘being in charge’ of at least something, howsoever insignificant that might be within the context of the entire known universe.
The fact is that in my block of flats – to coin a phrase – our masters treat the bulk of we residents like mushrooms (i.e. keep us in the dark covered in shit).
Various garden initiatives or ideas for other general improvements that are raised for consideration, sometimes by as big a proportion as 80% of our little population, are either advanced – or indeed dropped – seemingly at the whim on the day of our leaders and all the while nobody gets told anything, gets feedback or even a chance to discuss anything.
Decisions (when they get publicised at all) get handed down like communistic edicts, and perfectly standard minimum good practice company laws and rules regarding the formalities of board meetings, EGMs – even AGMs – are routinely ignored.
Recently a significant conflict blew up.
Riled by the latest proposals issued for how the annual election of directors would be handled – nominations to be received within a few days and the ‘voting’ process conducted by the cabal – a group of us refused to accept them.
We demanded that an independent body be hired to ‘run’ the election, declaring that we had no confidence in the results of any election conducted by our masters.
The prospect that the counting of the votes would occur in the sitting room of one of the cabal without any ‘overseeing’ independent third party scrutiny was risible, given the alleged historical propensity of the executive to rig and/or ensure that decisions and outcomes always suited them and their personal prejudices.
Our masters have had to accept the bringing in – at a cost – of a respected third party and independent organisation to conduct the entire process and we now await further developments.
Which brings me back to the UK’s 2017 General Election scheduled for 8th June.
The political ‘game’ is afoot, with spades on. Inevitably, the politicians on all sides have taken us for mugs. Their inner circles – and their expensive, supposed election campaign expert advisers – plot and plan the roll-out of their strategies on a day-by-day basis, filling our TV screens and airwaves with their latest policy announcements and attacks on the opposition’s equivalents.
We’ve had ‘strong and stable’ Mrs May versus ‘For the Many, Not the Few’ Jeremy Corbyn.
We’re awaiting various confirmations: e.g. a landslide victory for the Tories. The decimation of the Labour Party. The annihilation of UKIP. Potentially tiny advances for ‘boy scout’ Tim Farron and the Lib-Dems. The Greens apparently committing harakiri by embracing the concept tactical ‘progressive alliance’ voting pacts to try and ensure the Tories don’t quite get the landslide the pollsters are predicting.
In the meantime – as decreed by our national ‘impartiality’ and ‘fairness’ electoral laws – our broadcasters have to stand by and collude in the absurd notion that every political party that can raise enough money to field a candidate and withstand the pain of losing their deposit has to be given ‘equivalent’ importance and opportunities to put their campaign messages across. They all have to be interviewed as if their hastily-produced ‘back of a fag packet’ policies and costings are just as worthy of being given consideration as everybody else’s.
The only light relief for we punters amidst all the crap occurs when hapless politicians – sent out to repeat endlessly their Party’s slogans for the day whatever the context and whatever the question put to them – get caught off-guard and actually have to think for themselves (surely the bane of every election campaign manager’s existence) and cock-up, or mis-speak, or dig a hole for themselves.
None of the main players are covering themselves in glory.
Mrs May (sorry, Thatcher-Lite) is being placed centre-stage – presumably because Tory strategists have concluded that this plays to their advantage where the respective leaders’ perceived strengths and capabilities to take difficult decisions are concerned.
The only problem with this is that, woman or not, Saint Theresa and the public do not mix awfully well. Because Saint Theresa doesn’t mix with human beings awfully well, period. That’s why she doesn’t want to appear in any TV debates and does her daily ‘public appearances’ only in front of adoring, staged, Tory voters with hopefully any questions planted or pre-approved. Every time she comes across a real person in front of the cameras, the Tories lose approximately 100,000 votes.
The apparently hopeless cause that is Jeremy Corbyn – to this onlooker’s eyes – seems to be confounding his critics.
He must feel under intense pressure because most of his own candidates have excised him from their campaign literature and/or just fundamentally disapprove of him and his policies, never mind the issue of his lack of alleged competence to be leader.
The media is resolutely against him. However, for all his supposed gaffes, loony-Left manifesto promises and chaotic campaign organisation, when out and about in public (and okay, as with Mrs May, this is planned only to occur in the company of loyal supporters) he actually comes across as human and vaguely good company … in a sort of ‘We, if you absolutely had to go down a pub …’ sort of a manner. By which I am referring to, for example, the theoretical alternative of having to do so with Mrs May.
Lastly, a reference to the dinosaurs – a mere tangent to the main subject at hand.
We have Tony Blair, Nick Clegg, the entire Hampstead set – and even Vince Cable – chuntering on about progressive alliances, a re-grouping of the centre-left, even tactical voting on the issue of Brexit.
This is classic political class fare, straight out of the ‘lip-service to democracy (but in fact that’s the last thing we actually want, which is to rule everybody without regard to what their personal interests, views or aspirations are)’ guide to geo-political statesmanship.
Which is rather where I tried to begin today’s contribution …
