You can ignore the howling of a country that hates you and doesn't want you in power. You can dig yourself into Westminster like a toad under a stone for four years whilst this country bleeds from a thousand cuts. But you can't run from progress, and you can't roll back the changes that thirteen years of progressive government have put in place. Labour did many terrible things, but they also helped open a pandora's box of visceral social change. You can't undo that, not ever.
You did not win, and you cannot rule absolutely. The Liberals may have turned traitor, but they're going to shackle you. They're going to neutralise the rabid dogs on your backbench and pare down the most illiberal of your schemes to shit magnificently on the poor and the disposessed, on welfare claimants and women.
You can't 'rebuild the family'. The nuclear heterosexual family, that fragile unit of industrial capitalist economy, has been broken for a generation as people realise that they don't have to chain themselves to each other in order to survive. You can't cram that back in its box, no matter how many women you try to persuade that they'll be better off wedded to their sinks, no matter how many children you shame for having divorced parents, no matter how coldly you judge or how hard you slice at people's earnings. Times are hard already. They won't stand for it.
You can't put gay liberation back in its box, either. You can't replace the official prejudices of the Thatcher years, section 28, that's not ever coming back.
You can't stop people wanting more than this. You can't erase people's resentment at privilege and pride, especially in difficult times. People won't be patronised or wheedled into behaving. The public are not going to behave. We won't allow it. You may be prime minister today, but the country is not behind you.
You can't stop the cities. You can't stop the internet fracturing everything that was solid and safe about the priggish culture that made you. You can't stop the riot that's brewing as people in Britain realise that they have been cheated, time and time again, by a system stuffed with people who hate them and want to put them into boxes and make them do what they're told.
And you can't, as a new Tory MP just told the BBC newscaster, 'put Britain back.' You can't ever put Britain back. You can't disappear inside Number Ten and slam the door on the future; if you do, the future will go on without you. And we all know what happens then.
If you try to push back at the raw edge of modernity, it's going to cut you.
And gods, I'm scared right now, I'm scared as hell of what's going to happen to this country and city I love, but I'm going to enjoy watching you bleed.
The Lib Dems didn't 'turn traitor' - if Labour wouldn't work with us, there was no other choice. Other than that, and calling Labour 'progressive', I agree with every word...
ReplyDeletePenny, sometimes regression does follow periods of enlightenment.
ReplyDeleteHere in the US we're probably only one bombing and a commercial bank collapse away from fascism.
Aye, that will do for a start.
ReplyDeleteOut of curiosity, will you still be gracing The Guardian's comment is free section after they inadvertently supported propping up a Tory regime?
ReplyDeleteCompletely agree with all your sentiments btw.
'The TORY is one who is governed by sense and habit alone. He considers not what is possible, but what is real; he gives might the preference over right. He cries long life to the conqueror, and is ever strong upon the stronger side – the side of corruption and prerogative.'
ReplyDelete- William Hazlitt, 1817
After watching Labour degenerate into authoritarian shambles I dread to think what the Lib Dems will become.
ReplyDeleteNevertheless, a hobbled Conservative government may do better than their predecessors. Much if what Labour did was abominably illiberal - I didn't ask 24-7 overlapping video surveillance - and their new-found enthusiasm for free markets was poisoned by laughable incompetence in basic purchasing & management. Anybody fancy a bit of consultancy work, or a PFI contract?
The cost of getting anything done - building a mile of road, re-signalling a railway, providing the most basic of community services - the costs have doubled, trebled or quadrupled under Labour. If you don't like the consequences of the cuts that are coming under Cameron, consider this: if Labour had kept costs under control, Cameron's cuts would leave us with better public services than we started with in 1997.
It is telling point that the Conservatives first act in Government was to renationalise a substantial part of London Underground, reversing the unwanted and inefficient Public-Private-Partnership. Bluntly, NuLabour spent a decade trying to be the Conservatives and they were rubbish at it: all of the nastiness at three times the cost, and none of the benefits.
It remains to be seen what, exactly, those benefits might be: but reversing Labour's failed economic policies might be a start.
As for fairness in this election... I think that a majority wanted Labour out, and we've got that. It seems that we didn't want them out badly enough to put up with a Conservative government, and that less than a quaryer of the electorate viewed the Lib Dems as a credible government-in-waiting, or even as acceptable local MP's.
Which suggests that some kind of compromise is an outcome which fairly reflects the wishes of the electorate... Which, in turn, makes Clegg a better democrat for seeking compromise than all the pure-in-their-principles armchair politicians who never get anything done and don't want *any* government if it isn't exactly the government they wanted, and to hell with the voters.
@Andrew Hickey: "no other choice" doesn't include leaving the Tories to run a minority government?
ReplyDeleteAfter reading this article title on my blog-roll I was convinced that the post would be a 36 point bold "Go f**K yourself".
ReplyDeleteOK, so we had the choice between:
ReplyDeletea) Let the Tories run a minority government, with no checks whatsoever on their worst excesses, *none* of our policies getting implemented, and Tories having the ability to call a snap election at any time which they're the only party to be able to afford to fight and would win overwhelmingly or
b) Form a coalition, get what appears to be a large chunk of our manifesto implemented, keep rabid homophobes like Grayling from bringing in their worst excesses, and lose half our votes at the next election, which would only be called when all parties are ready to fight it
Not really much of a choice, is it? There were no *good* options here, but I'd rather see some liberal policies implemented than no liberal policies implemented... though I'm still waiting to see the details.
The thing is, though...would a Tory minority government actually have been able to do anything? At least as far as "worst excesses" go, the (relatively) progressive parties would have a majority and certainly be able to keep them in check.
ReplyDeleteThey'd have tried to push through some populist-but-evil shit, got blocked, and then called an election saying we need "strong government" and other such nonsense, winning because neither Lib Dems nor Labour can afford to fight a second campaign this year and they can.
ReplyDelete@Andrew Hickey: I'm trying to be reasonable, but I am really not convinced. On the face of it, this is much worse than letting the Tories soldier on for a little while until they lose a confidence vote, with the country fully reminded about how awful these Thatcher idolaters really are. Good luck to the Lib Dems; I might be wrong, but they seem to have sold our birthright for a mess of pottage. Who is going to vote for them when we, the people, are next allowed to express our views, and what has anyone gained for it?
ReplyDeleteWell, so far, what we've gained from it includes:
ReplyDeleteThe Tories not implementing their inheritance tax cuts
A referendum on AV
Tax cuts for the poorest workers
Pupil premium - more money for poor kids
Scrapping ID cards
and Chris Huhne as Home Secretary so probably the Great Repeal Bill going through.
I am absolutely certain it will lose votes for the Lib Dems next time - a LOT of votes. I'm also coming round to the view that it's better than *not* gaining those things - things *LABOUR* wouldn't agree with but I would hope every 'progressive' would - and I'm far more concerned about that than about how many votes we get at the next election...
The conservative's -43rd act in government, it would appear - the nationalisation happened 8 weeks ago, but the election precluded publicising it.
ReplyDeleteAnd an end to detention of child immigrants!
ReplyDeleteAdmittedly, we've still got the Tories' *EVIL* welfare plans, but they were going to get through with or without us, and that's what happens when you have to compromise...
@Andrew_Hickey: not convinced about AV, the rest is good but not dazzling. I'm more concerned about what will actually happen than whatever has supposedly been agreed at this stage.
ReplyDeleteWhat worries me most of all is that it appears to have been stitched up for the next 5 years, according to the Guardian: "Fixed term parliaments, including this one. The next general election will be held on the first Thursday of May 2015." http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2010/may/11/general-election-2010-live-blog
Lib Dems did not 'turn traitor'. Lib Dems will temper the worst of Tory excess.
ReplyDeleteUnless anyone can give me the other option the Lib Dems had...
Is the tail that wags the dog,going to be that of a bull mastive,or a subserviant lap dog.
ReplyDeleteThis is probably the stupidest anti-tory diatribe I have read yet. You come off as one of the most in-tolerant people I have ever come across. The majority of the electorate disagrees with you, stop hating the rest of the world for not thinking like you.
ReplyDeleteFor fucks sake the DC is way more liberal than gordon is and after 13 years of our rights and liberties being removed you should be glad not scared.
Ok they are not going to push your socialist / feminist ideals, but then labour didnt either, and to be frank I dont think the majority really like your ideals either
Also please stop hating democracy, like it or not DC has more of a mandate than GB.
Finally half of what you wrote is drooling hyperbole, nobody is going to chain women to the sink, and nobody in a position of power has any intention of eroding gay rights. Calm down and actually listen to what DC is saying
Rabid, Democracy does not work. The majority of the electorate - that is people who voted - did not vote for the Conservatives. The last paragraph? Nonsense - what else is a tax break for married couples but an incentive to maintain the outdated notion of marriage?
ReplyDeleteThis idea that the Lib Dems are somehow bravely going to temper the excesses of the Conservatives demonstrates a complete lack of understanding of the current situation. None of the manifestos had even one third of the required public service cuts detailed in them. Hence, Mervyn King's now-infamous quip that whoever gets in now will be out of power for a generation. The idea that you will be able to "moderate" the excesses of Tory cuts is either an indication of total ignorance of the economic realities or nothing more than Lib Dem spin.
ReplyDeleteIncidentally, a recent analysis shows that if just one in four Lib Dem voters switches to Labour at the next election, the Lib Dems lose a third of their seats. I'm willing to bet that at the very least one in four Lib Dem voters are pretty pissed right now.
Fuck yes. THIS.
ReplyDeleteDavid Cameron and Nick Clegg are both very handsome though. Certainly a lot better looking than that awful Gordon Brown. You go guy!
ReplyDeleteFar be it from me, as a member of the Labour Party, to support decisions made by the Lib Dems but I think Clegg's done the right thing for the country, if not for the Lib Dems' future as an electorally successful party.
ReplyDeleteThe problem with a minority Tory government is that it would have resulted either in reactionary policies being nodded through by the others or an almost immediate election with a likely right-wing backlash.
The problem with a 'rainbow coalition' is that it would've provoked at immediate right-wing backlash in the press, followed by another one at the election following the government's inevitable collapse.
(My hope at least) is that the most vulnerable people in society are going to a better deal from two or three years of a moderately centre-right government - which may do some good things re: civil liberties - than from either of the other chaotic options that were on offer.
I think this post falls below your usual high standards, although you're rhetoric is as pleasing as usual. Fair enough you're really angry right at this second, and maybe you will be for the next two, five or thirty years however long DC clings onto power. But do you really believe a lot of what you’ve just said? The entire country doesn’t “hate” Cameron. I’m sure some people do, but 10.6 million voters put an ex next to him.
ReplyDeleteAlso, how have the Lib Dems turned traitor? Not once did Clegg or anyone else say they’d support Labour in the even of a hung parliament. When you put a sign in your window for them you did so well aware that they’d made no promises. They have their priorities, most of which I assume you share, and they’ve gone into government to try and get them through. They owe the Labour Party nothing, all they owe you as a voter is an attempt to do the things in their manifesto.
As for your fear of social policy, well we’ll just have to see what happens, if gay, feminist or racial discrimination become official policy, or even un-officially acceptable then, fuck, I’ll be manning the barricades with you, but besides a few small tax concession for married couples to keep the loonies on the right quiet, I just don’t see anything in current policy to be terrified of.
That was a bit longer than it should have been. Oops.
Kitchmo - even that, bad as it is, has a silver lining, as it also applies to civil partnerships...
ReplyDeleteI love to read the ravings of the desperate lunatic socialists who've realised the 13 year holiday is over. You can all get off your fat benefit grabbing arses and stop moaning about being queer, poor or "insert big bad tory policy here", nobody gives a flying fuck. 306 seats, we won, the majority demanded it, get over it, get a job, shut the hell up.
ReplyDeleteNo more mass immigration, no more public sector leviathan, no more EU groveling, no more minority group pandering, its all over. Marriage, patriotism, monarchist, captialism and traditional morals are back, and they're here to stay.
A Tory - 306 seats is not a majority.
ReplyDelete@ A Tory
ReplyDeleteThe only problem with you thesis is that EVERYTHING the Tories do or intend to do is dependent on the goodwill of the Liberal Democrats. Even with one of the most unpopular Labour Prime Ministers, a recession worse than anything similar in living memory, the expenses scandal, Iraq and Afghanistan, recorded unemployment approaching 2,500,000 with over 8,000,000 men and women categorised as being economically inactive... blah, blah, blah... the Conservative Party failed to get a majority in the House of Commons. Nothing revolutionary is going to happen beyond cuts in spending and rises in taxation. Proposed cuts in inheritance tax and tax breaks for married couples are history. Nick Clegg softly cradles David Cameron's testicles in the palm of his hand. If this coalition of the unelected and the unelectable lasts eighteen months I will be amazed.
All the Tories and Lib Dems have won is the chance to be even more despised and hated than John Major, when the inevitable cuts in public spending and tax rises begin to bite and impact on the lifestyles of everyone in the UK.
Congratulations!
Brilliant Penny! I hope to god you're right about progress being irreversible
ReplyDelete"You can't 'rebuild the family'. The nuclear heterosexual family, that fragile unit of industrial capitalist economy, has been broken for a generation as people realise that they don't have to chain themselves to each other in order to survive...You can't put gay liberation back in its box, either."
ReplyDeleteEr ... taken a walk round Bethnal Green lately ?
You've not actually read the proposed policies at all, have you.
ReplyDelete"you can't roll back the changes that thirteen years of progressive government have put in place"
ReplyDeleteIs this the kind of amnesia/apologia for the sell-out Thatcherite policies of New Labour that left-liberals will be intoning from now on?
The best that can be said about New Labour is that they moved towards privatised authoritarian imperialist apocalypse slightly more slowly than the tories might have done.
Is there no value in retaining a sense of genuine progress that isn't turned into a hollow joke by association with Labour and the Lib Dems?
All is pain. Not 'the lib dems' but Clegg has turned traiter, selling every single vote he recieved to keep the tories out. Of course the torys had a better flattery machine nick! they, like you, have charming upper class manners. I hate not being able to be smugg about nick clegg; i took hhim for a turncoat straight off the bat, but for those glorious hours of tuesday night wednesday morning, when it seemed that just maybe it was going to be alright.....
ReplyDeleteYour analysis is spot on, Laurie. But I think you're wrong about one thing. He may not like it but Cameron has clearly seen the writing on the wall. For the moment the nutters, homophobes and anti-semites in his party have perhaps also woken up to the shock realisation that they really are now in the minority by a long way and have no choice but to go along with things or face a future of ranting to five people at Speaker's Corner.
ReplyDeleteNick Clegg did say that politics doesn't have to be that way anymore. Two thirds of the country favour a more progressive path. The Tory Press, with its dwindling circulations and ageing readers, will go on screaming about moral collapse and immigrants and the temptation is to shout back. Complacency is always a danger. But perhaps the reason we might think Nick is a traitor or think we don't exactly know what he stands for is because we're so used to shouting and we can't hear him shouting ... Perhaps we need to give Nick a chance to prove he's right.
Penny,
ReplyDeleteI'm not quite sure WHY you're scared. Do you think Cameron is Thatcher? He assuredly isn't. Do you think we have a majority Tory government? We don't. Do you think Labour were anything other than horrifically authoritarian and conservative on many, many things? They certainly were. Do you think Labour would miraculously have avoided the need for huge cuts which are all coming, and are completely necessary? They could only have avoided them via gargantuan tax rises affecting the people they say they protect, but sold down the river many years ago.
And above all, do you want to live in a one party state, in which any Labour defeat ever is somehow illegitimate, and spurious nonsense about the country "hating" the leader of the party with comfortably the most votes - a leader who actually has plenty of empathy and, for a Tory, is really quite simpatico - is concocted instead? I heard those chants of "Tory scum" too: it was typical hard left bigotry and the sourest of grapes from those who think they're tolerant and progressive, but in reality, can't handle it when anyone doesn't think or do exactly as they do.
I'm a Liberal Democrat - and almost perversely, am incredibly proud of what Nick Clegg has done. He was damned if he did, damned if he didn't, and when given the fleeting possibility of a rainbow alliance, Labour didn't want to know. What Clegg has done will, I've no doubt, destroy the Lib Dems electorally, and is already losing us members - but you know what? To hell with it. If even half of what the coalition is proposing actually happens, that'll be miles more than the so-called progressive Labour government achieved. Labour were obsessed with electoral gain at all times; Clegg has put the country first.
So much of the last week has seen many on the left in total denial about the election result, and even wanting to cheat the 36% of people who voted Tory from having a say at all. Sorry, but democracy doesn't work like that. What has resulted is genuinely historic, and might very well change politics in this country for the better; and Labour will regroup, come back, and can blame everyone else for the cuts anyway.
And when it has reorganised, maybe, just for once, it can come up with new ideas which ARE genuinely progressive instead of relying on crass tribalism and fear of the other to get the job done. Fear which, quite remarkably, someone as intelligent as you seems to have bought hook, line and sinker.
Hmmm... judging by the commments here, it isn't the tories who are bleeding just yet.
ReplyDeleteYou can't stop the cities. You can't stop the internet fracturing everything that was solid and safe about the priggish culture that made you. You can't stop the riot that's brewing as people in Britain realise that they have been cheated, time and time again, by a system stuffed with people who hate them and want to put them into boxes and make them do what they're told.
ReplyDeleteSo true, and yet still only half a million voted for the BNP.
I think you can thank the internet for that, the transnational elites thought they had killed nationalism, though they like their little leftist lap dog/class traitors to do all the more vocal work in that direction.
Where do you think feminism and gay rights will stand once the UK has a majority 3rd world population and all that goes with it?
Anonymous
ReplyDeleteWhere do you think feminism and gay rights will stand once the UK has a majority 3rd world population and all that goes with it?
Please tell me that's a joke because it really made me laugh out loud!
where on earth do you get the idea that we'll have a 3rd world majority population? the daily mail? die sturmer?
you people crack me up. you're so desperately paranoid you can't bear to look out the window and see your little nightmare is so far from coming true. i know i shouldn't feed the troll but it was too ridiculous a statement to let slide.
well said laurie. we'll keep fighting don't worry. they can't roll back the clock. not with our voices raised loud.
This is hilarious stuff, more like this please!
ReplyDeleteDeluded to the point of nausea.
ReplyDeleteSocialist "Progress" for fucks sake? Women wont only be chained to the kitchen sink, they'll be consigned to their burkas when they venture outdoors.
Time to book yourself into get your cataracts done me thinks. Alas, there's nothing we can do about your Socialist lobotomy yet though, much the pity.
Ho Hum.
what's wrong with families?
ReplyDeletenearly every creature on the planet has a mother and father?
if you were a real pagan you would know that everything comes from the god and goddess...
no need to hate people for being straight...
most of us dont care a toss about other peoples sexuality.......
perhaps the west might be a nicer place to live if mothers actually cared for their children instead of shipping them off to a carer while they go out building careers? for what? to buy 4x4 s that they can't drive?
Hysterical.
ReplyDeleteDavina Spart lives.
Yet again a Champagne socialist born with a silver spoon in her mouth dictating what is right and wrong in the name of "Progressive" politics.
ReplyDelete13 years of a full frontal assault on our Sovereignty and Civil Liberties, financial terrorism which leaves our children with £43K worth of debt, a fractured society and breaks in the Union, no accountability and a do as we say, not as we do mentality.
I for one hope this coalition works as the Libs can keep the Tories in check and vice versa.
Socialism prays on the week and miss informed, if your party was there for the poor then why is the gap between the both so large? Why are areas like Glasgow and other Labour areas still poor after 13yrs and children at such a disadvantage who can barely read and string a sentence together "wiv out revrting2 txt spk"? I`ll tell you why, for as you promise them the world you keep them at that level on purpose as it`s votes.
I couldn`t think of anything more sickly, what's wrong with having people in positions who are capable of doing the job as opposed to ticking a gender or ethnicity box?!
Enjoy Paris, and your expensive lifestyle for if you cannot see the hypocrisy in your statement and views then you and your party deserve to be consigned to the Political dustbin.
Oh and one would suggest you`d read into women's Lib who funded it and why.
Get back in the fucking kitchen...
ReplyDelete...you can't roll back the changes that thirteen years of progressive government have put in place.
ReplyDeleteErm, actually, they can. Parliament is sovereign.
A Great Repeal Bill, accompanied by a freeze on money to quangos, fake charidees, single issues pressure groups, and the like, will soon undo the catastrophic damage that 13 years of self-interested leftist hegemony have done to this country.
Turning back progress in personal liberty? Why would the Tories do that? There are no votes in it.
Are you so dumb you can't see that common sense is actually winning for the first time in years? Did. Not. Do. The. Research.
Laurie,
ReplyDeleteWords of advice:
Stop whinging!
Stop trying to be profound all the time!
Try seeing some good in events - not just an opportunity to talk about hard luck stories.
Get a job, have a shag and find somewhere decent to live (preferably far away from 'Angst Central').
I3 years of "progressive politics" has resulted in an oppressive stasi state. What a criminal waste of the sound economy that was inherited.
ReplyDeleteAfter Brownfuhrer and his diligent efforts to turn the country into a police state, this is more than a bit rich.
ReplyDeleteI'm sure Mandelson had the interests of the working man in mind all along.
Chris:
ReplyDeleteA Great Repeal Bill, accompanied by a freeze on money to quangos, fake charidees, single issues pressure groups, and the like, will soon undo the catastrophic damage that 13 years of self-interested leftist hegemony have done to this country.
All the laws in the world will not make people virtuous. A law is only effective to the extent that most people are habitually law-abiding.
And that can only be the result of an intricate process of cultural osmosis whereby certain moral principles (and taboos) are quietly yet confidently propagated from generation to generation and class to class, embodied in countless variegated local customs through the mediation of families, churches, schools and other small-scale associations. It is cultural, not legalistic.
Once that ancient and delicate fabric has been torn apart by revolutionary liberalism, the state is forced to resort to legislation, passing more and more laws in a futile effort to control an increasingly bewildered and disorderly populace who have been brusquely commanded to despise their traditional sense of identity and morality. And when the laws inevitably fail, there are always systems of technological control ...
I fear Laurie is right -- you can't put Humpty back together again.
(Of course if society were to really collapse, under internal or external pressure, you can be sure that traditional social structures would soon reassert themselves with a vengeance. In that situation people would be preoccupied with survival and would have neither the time nor the inclination to worry about gender-inclusive language, glass ceilings in the boardroom, lesbian rights and all the other decadent paraphernalia that so preoccupy the pampered classes today.)
This might be one of the most stupidest, most adolescent pieces of dogshit ever self-published outside of some housing coop fanzine of the mid-1980s. Worth coming here just to insult it. Archive it for future laughs!
ReplyDeleteI said - Where do you think feminism and gay rights will stand once the UK has a majority 3rd world population and all that goes with it?
ReplyDeleteWhich ot the reply:
Please tell me that's a joke because it really made me laugh out loud!
So, not a serious response.
Does it ever penetrate your skull that the countries most wedd to gay rights and feminism are also those that are the whitest, the most European. The most influenced by Christian culture.
Do you think thats a coincidence?
Do you think gay rights and feminism are going to survive a state where the majority population come from Somalia, Nigeria & Pakistan (as examples)?
If you do think western civilisation can be maintained with a population please explain exactly how.
"where on earth do you get the idea that we'll have a 3rd world majority population?"
Continued mass immigration - legal and illegal plus differential birth rates. Non-whites have a TFR (total fertility rate) of more than two - more than replacement rate. White women have a TFR below two, ie below replacement rate. Rinse and repeat for a few gnerations and bingo, non-white ie 3rd world majority population.
If you think that scenario wont play out please explain how and why.
"the daily mail? die sturmer?"
I dont get my opinions from the Mail, far too liberal, they are just lickspittles of the ruling elite. As you are if you advocate mass immigration - to destroy our people in the long run and destroy their wages and living conditions in the short run. A class traitor and a race traitor! Boy I wouldnt like to be in your shoes when we bring you before a court come the glorious day.
'Labour did many terrible things, but they also helped open a pandora's box of visceral social change.'
ReplyDeleteThis sentence. it doesn't mean what you think it means. Opening Pandora's box was bad. So unl;ess you think the socialist policies Labour enacted was negative they didn't open Pandora's box. And whatever they did I doubt any viscera was involved. At least I missed the day when they chucked internal organs around.
Labour Delenda Est
ReplyDeleteOk, you have a red marker, well so do I. Who cares about ethnic, gay and women's rights. There is more important things that need sorted in this country, instead of pussy footing around people like yourself.
ReplyDeleteGet back to the cooker and bloody smile you torn face b***h.
Drivel attempting to trade as polemic.
ReplyDeletePathetic.
Another thing Laurie forgot is that a riot, where strength, speed, a strong throwing and hitting arm, solidarity with your mates are all-important, are just not terribly female-friendly places. In some riots (for example the Indonesian anti-Suharto riots) they're particularly unfriendly to women.
ReplyDeleteThe path of history does not wend ever onwards and upwards. The future will not necessarily be like the recent past. Nations, like investments, can go down as well as up. The veneer of civilisation is very thin and people are no wiser than their forebears.
Bronze Age Man is right.
"All the laws in the world will not make people virtuous. A law is only effective to the extent that most people are habitually law-abiding. And that can only be the result of an intricate process of cultural osmosis whereby certain moral principles (and taboos) are quietly yet confidently propagated from generation to generation and class to class, embodied in countless variegated local customs through the mediation of families, churches, schools and other small-scale associations. It is cultural, not legalistic."
What Norbert Elias called 'The Civilising Process' is now being reversed.
Sian - "where on earth do you get the idea that we'll have a 3rd world majority population?"
I would question the use of '3rd world' myself, but this was first predicted by a professional demographer in the Observer back in 2000, and most recently in the Telegraph.
In the early 50s the non-white 'minority' population of the UK was about 40,000, up from 7,000 pre-war. You could probably add about 25,000 Poles displaced by WW2.
By the 2001 census the ethnic minority population of England and Wales was 9% - about 4.7 million.
In 2008 23% of primary schoolchildren in England and Wales were ethnic minority. The latest ONS stats (for 2008, Table 1, page 88) show that 25% of babies born in England had mothers who were themselves born abroad. Unlike Ms Penny, I believe that children are our future.
There you go. One Guardian link, one Observer, one Telegraph, one BBC (reporting government stats) and the Office of National Statistics. Nary a Daily Mail or Sturmer (it's 'der', not 'die' - that's the feminine) in sight.
Au revoir !
do you really write for all those organs ?
ReplyDeletewhat's the pay like?
my hamster could write better articles than this!
and as for dave being hated?
gordon is more hated than ian brady!
... and could some of the 'back in the kitchen' posters kindly put their head in a dead bear's bum ? No offence.
ReplyDeleteRe Laban
ReplyDeleteAnd 14% of schoolchidren in the UK speak English as a second language at home (more in primary schools, figures from BBC R2 News today). It will be more next year and the year after.
Now I'll try to be nice like Laban and not use terms like 3rd World. And some will tell me these children all speak Polish, or maybe Irish, and of course Cornish at home. But everyone here knows that would be a load of drek.
So here it is. A very cautious estimate tells us that 35% of births in this country last year were to parents of very recent developing world origin. The future from there on in is a given.
And as the standfirst above tells us (Channelling the Bard of Burton Bradstock himself): "Here comes the future and you can't run from it."
So for sianandcrookedrib, why is your first position to ignore and deny this screamingly obvious fact? Surely as a good anti-racist, your first reaction should be to welcome it? To say that it's either an unspeakably wonderful thing or completely irrelevant?
One would almost think that you had some kind of subconscious qualm about it.
The new education stats are out :
ReplyDeleteMeanwhile, separate figures show a rise in the number of pupils from ethnic minority backgrounds.
Some 25.5 per cent of primary school pupils are classified as non-white British in 2010, compared with 24.5 per cent a year earlier.
Hmm. 2008 23%, 2009 24.5%, 2010 25.5%.
"I believe that children are our future"
Penny can I suggest that you have a good cry, dry your eyes and try to put it all behind you. I am sure that in time you will realise that it is not worth getting so upset when things do not go your way. After all I am you do not want to come across as a silly spoilt brat do you?
ReplyDeleteI don't think any party cares if men lie with men, and woman with woman any more. Frankly, I doubt they care if woman lies with dog, providing the dog is consenting.
ReplyDeleteMost of the what Laurie's raving about is just stupid. The tories have fielded openly gay candidates, almost selected an adopted child as leader, supported civil partnerships, and are planning to restore trial by jury.
Both parties want to provide a more supportive environment for families - but we all know that this is about reducing the pressures that make men run out on their kids. Women aren't raising kids alone because they're feminists or feckless - it's because the father bailed. I can't see a feminist argument against this.
If the left can't consider people who think that intact families are good, and that taxes probably should go down when the state is 48% of the economy, as anything other than selfish c*nts, they should probably find a new country to try and run. I'm sure there are lots of tories who have absolute contempt for the average citizen, but at least they hide it!
Sadly all the major parties are committed to keeping the City strong (more bailouts) and house prices stable (forget owning anything until your parents die). Holding that together is going to screw everyone else :(
Anon of Not Searched
Laban: In the early 50s the non-white 'minority' population of the UK was about 40,000, up from 7,000 pre-war. You could probably add about 25,000 Poles displaced by WW2.
ReplyDeleteThe Polish Resettlement Act of 1947 saw citizenship for many more Poles than that. Wikipedia says over 162,000 Poles in the 1951 census. Real number almost certainly higher as many moved on from the UK to SA, NZ, Canda & Oz. The BBC mentions @ 200,000 on more than one page.
Probably the biggest single migration in our history and clearly far less problematical than some other migrations that begin at the same time. But our leftists pals are strangely reluctant to trumpet its apparent success. That wouldnt be anything to do with them being, white, often Christian and often anti-communist of course.
Sadly all the major parties are committed to keeping the City strong (more bailouts) and house prices stable (forget owning anything until your parents die). Holding that together is going to screw everyone else
ReplyDeleteSaw Billy Bragg on the telly earlier, seemed reasonably happy as the coalition will reign in those extreme right tories. So we've exchanged an authoritarian pro-business, socially progressive (whatever the fuck that means). For what? Another pro-business, socially progressive regime - that might try and cut some state spending (which nulab would have had to do if it had won). As far as I can see, while the faces have changed, the globalist elite are still firmly in charge - just as they are everywhere in the west.
I think we need to understand why there is now a coalition.
ReplyDeleteIt's been reported that in areas of low immigration the swing to the Tories was 5% or more. In areas of high immigration it was less than 1%. In other words, the more immigration there is into an area, the less people see it as a problem.
In march the BBC reported: "A watershed in university participation has been reached - for the first time a majority of young women in England are going to university ... Provisional figures, showing university entrance for 2008-09, show that 51% of young women entered higher education - up from 49% the previous year.
Showing the scale of the social change - 20 years ago only about one in five young women went into higher education and 30 years ago it was about one in 10. In the early 1960s, only about one in 20 young people were going into higher education .... This latest record high has been driven by a decade-long surge in the numbers of women going to university ... A decade ago, although a slightly different measurement was used, 41% of women were going to university and 37% of men."
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/education/8596504.stm
This was in the Murdoch Times in Feb:
"Fewer than a third of the population believe homosexuality is wrong, compared with two thirds in 1980s, according to the latest survey of British Social Attitudes.
And a poll carried out for The Times last summer to mark the anniversary of the Stonewall riots 40 years ago found that the public wanted to see greater liberalisation in the law.
Almost two thirds (61 per cent) want gay couples to be able to marry, just like the rest of the population, not just have civil partnerships, while 68 per cent of the public back “full equal rights” for gay men and lesbians, suggesting that the Church, which opposes the ordination of gay priests, is out of touch with public opinion."
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/uk/article7036912.ece
Most of the Tory party genuinely expected to get a majority and they only just woke up to the reality of a changed country. Either they had to adopt the LibDem manifesto or they will never hold power again. They need watching. The real progressive majority need to hit them hard every time they relapse. Laurie is totally right but she's not the only one who sees this. Nick Clegg has seen this clearly for a long time. Unlike others I think he's impressive in a way no Liberal politician has been for a hundred years. I think one day he's very likely to be Prime Minister. But I also think Cameron is not stupid and relises how much he can learn from Clegg. It's not so outlandish. One-time Fabian Tory PM, Harold MacMillan, wanted to change the name of the Conservative party to the 'New Democrat Party', to form a pact with the Liberals and introduce a degree of PR.
SVL - It's been reported that in areas of low immigration the swing to the Tories was 5% or more. In areas of high immigration it was less than 1%. In other words, the more immigration there is into an area, the less people see it as a problem.
ReplyDeleteIn other words SVL just doesnt get it.
Areas with the highest immigration already contain the fewest people likely to vote tory. Immigrants almost invariably dont vote tory and the whites left in those areas are going to be looking to vote BNP or more likely are still reflexive Labour voters anyway.
Whats SVL's next insight, that if the immigrant population is high enough no-one voytes tory or BNP. That wouldnt be because the white voters have been ethnically cleansed of course.
SVL's happy clappy aint-immigration-wonderful-once-you-get-used-to-it mantra is either a misunderstanding or a willful dismissing of the demographic facts on the ground.
I really don't get why everyone is so bothered about this new government. What did 13 years worth of Labour do? Ruin our economy, send us into an unecessary war, wrecked the education system and the NHS, destroyed our civil liberties....
ReplyDeleteI don't think the Tories or the Lib Dems would have done half as much damage as Labour did, and I look forward to seeing the two work together to create PROGRESSIVE government! Oh, and btw: no I'm not rich...and yes, I am 'queer'!
I was particularly interested in your sentence - "You can't 'rebuild the family'. The nuclear heterosexual family, that fragile unit of industrial capitalist economy"
ReplyDeleteIf you are suggesting that the Labour party is not capitalists and out for all they can get than you are either deluded, insane or a member of unite.
I direct you toward an excellent book called "The Big Red Book of New Labour Sleaze". An interesting book full of many incidents of Capitalism that were brushed under the carpet or 'spun' out of the public eye. Enjoy
Global Türkey Sohbets : sohbet & sohbet odaları & dini sohbet & dini chat
ReplyDeleteThe highest point in the country, Suur Munamägi (Egg Mountain), is located in the hilly southeast and reaches 318 meters above sea level. There are over 1400 natural and artificial lakes in the country. https://www.baltic-legal.com/estonia-facts-eng.htm
ReplyDelete