Part of the appeal of the disgraced liar of an ex-Prime Minister Johnson was that he assiduously avoided using his first name with its imperial associations of ‘Alexander’ and allowed (and urged) others to call him simply Boris.
This morning’s Daily Mail front page has the usual sycophantic trash and concentrates on a picture of the Queen and the new Prime Minister with a bubble caption suggesting both of them said, “Hello Liz!” at the same time. I will never use the Prime Minister’s first name and will always refer to her as “Truss”, (I like the idea of something under stress) there will be no humanising or chummyfying of this far-right ideologue who does not have the support of her MPs, the Country or Humanity.
She ‘won’ her election to the top political job with the roughly equivalent number of votes equal to the population of a town like Harlow in Essex.
She has no real mandate and I regard her as being foisted on the people of the United Kingdom. While the democratic [please define, Ed.] rules have been followed, she still appears to be more illegitimate a leader than even the lying buffoon because he, at least, took his beguiling mendacity to a General Election.
But let us sift through the horror dregs that comprise her cabinet and try and find some morsels of comfort to give some sort of support for the dark days ahead.
Well, the fact that there are two women and three politicians of colour in the top four offices of state must be something to be boosted by. Or not.
I still recall (with bitterness) how little for the rights of women the election of Thatcher to be Prime Minister actually achieved.
It was a portrayal of genius in her Spitting Image puppet that Thatcher was portrayed as wearing trousers and standing up to pee – with her ministers saying, “I can never ‘go’ when she is there!” Thatcher was seen as an exception not as an example. And, much as I loathe (present tense, it will never die) Thatcher, May, and Truss look like the palest of reflections of her command of British Politics – at least her command after using the Falklands Conflict to boost her flagging popularity.
The non-white faces at the top are, Kwasi Kwarteng as Chancellor; Suella Braverman as Home Secretary, and James Cleverly as Foreign Secretary. To have, as all the papers have pointed out, no white male in the top four offices of state is a remarkable state of affairs, and on the face of it is commendably positive, but, as with Thatcher and the position of women, it is not who you are, but what you do and achieve with being where you are that counts.
Given the past voting behaviour and statements of Kwarteng, Braverman and Cleverly there is nothing that they have done or said that encourages one to think that they are going to be role models for blacks and Asians aspiring to top jobs. Braverman especially is a deeply problematic appointment, far from being a breath of fresh air, she seems fixated on being more ruthless than her immediate predecessor and has already reaffirmed her determination to banish some aspects of the problem of immigration to Rwanda.
These politicians will be judged on their actions and how far they are able to influence policy and produce results that mitigate some of the deep harm in our public life and public services that have been inflicted by the past 12 years of Tory misrule.
It is obviously unfair to judge them all when they have only been in post for a matter of hours but let us never forget that they have been in government for a considerably longer time – these people are not unknowns and their past voting records are available for inspection so that anyone can check and see what they have done so far and make informed judgements on their suitability for the future.
One of my friends, in talking about the present political situation, wrote, “I’m frightened!” A fair reaction to what the Tory leader has said (and not said) in the hustings leading up to her victory. Her lacklustre speeches since acceding to power have been less than encouraging, but we should, at all times, remember that in theory these politicians represent and serve us, the public. If we see that our interests are not being put first by the people we pay, then we must take action!
I am fond of repeating the old observation that in the Year of Revolutions in 1848 virtually everywhere underwent a radical change to the way that they were being governed except for Britain. The Powers That Be managed to give just enough (and freely use force) to keep revolution ‘under control’ and to maintain the status quo so that essentially everything remained the same with the power of the elites safeguarded.
In one disgusting statistic I read TODAY, it turns out that Britain has the most glaring disparity between rich and poor in Europe only outdone by Bulgaria! And our new Prime Minister wants to use tax cuts to make this disparity even brighter!
It is difficult to know what must happen or be shown to be taking place before the population of Britain says, “Enough!”
I am conscious that I have not given my plan for action and, in truth, given the political situation in which we live, it is difficult to suggest something that says within the bounds of legality that will have real results. I believe in parliamentary democracy and think that action must be pressure on our elected representatives. How that ‘action’ and ‘pressure’ is defined in the key to making something positive from the dire negativity that 12 years of Tory Misrule have forced on our country.
If there is one thing to remember as a spur to action in the forthcoming months it is this: space has been found in government for Rees-Mogg, and a place at the Cabinet table for him as well! As the litmus paper for political inanity anyone who regards him as anything other than a grotesque anachronistic deadweight, must be wrong!
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