The Gray Monk

Oh yea of little faith!
"destroyed from within" - no way
Winston Churchill said that the further one can look back in history the further one could see into the future.
Think about the big picture - how would you write up the last 25 years in a history book 100 years from now?
The end of the social improvement vs economic improvement model of politics that dominated the post war years? The rise the media as an independent political class? the end of politically powerful unions? the rise in living standards? a period of national critical introspection of the injustices in our past that has now reached the end of its usefulness? the rise of technology, foreign travel, and communication? The end of the cold war and the threat of MAD. The rise of real equality for women and ethnic minorities? maybe you agree with some of these and could add some more.
I think the main problem in Britain today is that people are still seeing the world according to old programming. Most of the issues that were important 25 years ago in this country have been solved. Political Correctness for example is simply the old stop racism/sexism programming applied to a totally inappropiate situation. They are trying to fight a fight that has already been won! Same with Thatcher vs the politised unions and tax and spend - She won and her victory paved the way for new labour's "third way". Now nobody agrees where labour is on the political spectrum - some say centre-right others centre-left, other far-right, or even pc left. In fact where you place new labour on the political spectrum is more indicitive of where you stand on the old political spectrum than where it actually is. The political spectrum has changed yet we are still thinking in terms of the old model. Thats why even when a solution is proposed it seems like a band-aid rather than a genuine political movement. And that's why we are so cynical of the state of Britain today - we don't have faith in our ability to solve our problems because our old political dichotemy doesn't provide any solutions.
Even the big political issues of our time are framed in the old paradims especially by the left and the media. Iraq and Global-warming are not capitilist vs socialism issues - they are not economic issues. And finally almost no one is talking about the third big issue of our time - how much are we influenced by the media we watch/read and how do we tell what is the truth and what is opinion, comment or lies?
I'd like to know what you think.
And by the way - I like the name of your blog :)

I agree with a great deal of what you say in your comment. Sadly though, our political landscape is, as you so rightly point out, dominated by a clique who are still fighting the battles of the 60's and who do not see that centralised control, government diktat on who may have what, and how, and when, is no longer appropriate. They are too wrapped up - and far too many of their parasitic sycophants have vested interests in - their own agenda's that they do not see that the landscape and the populace have changed.

The unelected "Fourth Estate", the Media cause me grave disquiet, particularly as they are now dominated by the 60's "Class War" warriors and their disciples. The distortions in presentation of "news" are blatant and governed by the particular slant and agenda of the editor and his or her vision of Utopia than by any desire to reflect accurately the state of the world or the events they purport to be reporting. This permeates the presentation of "documentary" programmes as well, with history being distorted to fit the "message" the maker wants to present. If the facts don't fit they are twisted or ignored. The bias is frequently blatant and often inaccurate in the picture it presents. As one of those who has had the misfortune to belong to a professional group recently subjected to biased and misrepresentative reporting, I have good reason to know this.

As to the undermining of the nation, I am a fan of Churchill and find his writing illuminating, but even he was wary of the use of "spin" and "propaganda" pointing out that eventually the truth will be exposed. Like Pliny, Cicero and Tacitus, he believed in maintaining a strong sense of who we are (His History of the English Speaking Peoples is instructive to say the least) and in maintaining a strong defence against aggression. That is hardly the position of this present shower of "luvvies" and cronies.

We may survive the assaults on our nationhood and on our identity of the last few years, but there is one major point on which our politicians and we, the electorate, had better get a good grip. Our children cannot expect to look forward to increasing prosperity as a right. My children are already faced with a lower standard of living than that which I have achieved, and their prospects of finding careers in which they can build professional pride and satisfaction are also almost non-existent. Only the elite few who have the connections and the backers can aspire to that in Blair's "Cool Britannia".

If you are not one of the politically connected, or the sycophantic hangers on who can call on sponsorship by someone who is well connected, you are condemned to wandering from one insecure job to another. You need look only at the glut of junior Doctors who have recently qualified and now cannot find work in that great Socialist Myth Factory and job centre for the worthless well connected paper shuffler - the NHS.

You are right that the boundaries between "Left" and "Right" have been blurred - but then all politics is circular, and being circular is unlikely to find solutions. We need a major reform of the Parliamentary system, perhaps giving more direct access to the people who make the decisions for the electorate, certainly we need to smash the "first past the post" electoral system. We also need a directly elected Upper House to balance the excesses of the fools who currently abuse our democracy from the Lower House and we need the scrapping of the "Parliament Act". The Civil Service needs reform as well - slimming it down to under 10% of the workforce would be a good start - preferably starting at the top and firing all the Sir Humphreys and Dame Floras from their featherbedded posts and destroying all the Whitehall Empires built up in the last 60 years. Regionalisation is not the answer, it merely creates even more bureaucrats and destroys more real jobs as the cost of each job rises in the tax cost to pay for the worthless bureaucrats.

The unelected Media need to be made accountable as well, and I for one would like to see the BBC "Licence Fee" scrapped. If the BBC wants to be the Labour Party propaganda Ministry then let Labour pay for it. I gave up watching the BBC News programmes years ago because of their biased reporting on everything from local politics to world events.

This post and subsequent comments strike a note of agreement with me. Yes, the multiculturalists are very much on the defensive right now, but you rightly point out that the current elected dictatorship will fight tooth and nail to preserve the 'status quo'. You are also correct in identifying that the current political machinery in the UK is in need of a massive overhaul. In fact, the greatest irony is the so-called 'modernisation' of our public services - which actually really means their politicisation - needs to be applied to its architects and their corrupt institution!

So where are we now? At a crossroads where we are unsure which way to turn. We have no effective opposition. Bliar and his apparatchiks are slowly but surely dismantling the democratic foundations of our nation, and yet the Great British Public seems to care not a jot. The fact that that man is still in office says so much about our moribund society. In memory of a recently deceased actor: ''Beam me up, Scotty''!

I too read the Joan Collins article and was taken aback by her assertion that we're not allowed to describe ourselves as English any more. I can't think of a single instance when anyone questionned my use of the term or was offended by it.

I don't think you have to worry about British culture being replaced with one that is atheistic considing how hard the multicultists are appeasing Islamofacism. The goal of the multicult being foreign and anti-British however is only too true.

Thanks for replying to my comment :)

I think it's a very good point that we have no effective opposition. The question is why?

Starting from the late 1980s the media has increasingly taken the role of oposition itself. They simply do not need any political opposition which has to have constructive as well as destructive comments. The media has the luxury of simply concentrating on the problems without doing anything about it. The only people they don't allow critism of are themselves. They are also lazy which was the reason why 'spin' worked in the beginning for labour - package the story with comment and the correspondents will go to print with it because they don't have to do any work. Spin from political parties no longer works. The media assumes that any political party is telling lies - and nothing will convince them otherwise - "lies" are sensational - and therefore media worthy. On the other hand spin from "independent" organisations is still taken favourably even though these "independent" organisations are very political witness iraqbodycount or the swift vets association. Spin is also accepted from non-english-speaking groups because it takes a lot of effort to translate their real policies and there is no incentive for such groups to appear in our media if they are going to be attacked - so it's their news or no news. The media in effect is acting as a group of disperate polictical parties with no plan for government. The effect has been to undermine public trust in ALL politicians to such an extent that the public no longer knows who to believe. In this case unless one is willing to actually read the manifestos and research independently behind them then the safest option picking between a group of "dangerous liers" is to pick the one you know best i.e. the incumbent government. Personally I have a great deal of respect for all the leaders of our main political parties simply because the business of government is hard, however this is very unusual and the undermining of trust of politicians has lead to an equating of the value of opinions of serious politians with mavericks such as George Galloway.
The temptation for politians is to ride on the media's coat-tails and say what the media wants them to say in order to get widespread coverage, similarly going against the media is seen as political suicide even when the considered opinon of the law is with the politician - an enquiry or court case goes against the media's view and the court or enquiry is labeled a whitewash or politically biased.
In conclusion them, to get an effective oposition the media bias against all politicians must be countered so that the public can judge between compeating programs of government. It isn't a problem with parliment as such it is a problem with the lack of power parlimentary parties have to explain their programmes of government.
How much of this would you agree with?
I think the issue here is identifying the reasons behind the problems and then what actually can be done in a strategic sense. Even if one decides it's only personalities rather than policies or societal trends that are the key (nit true in my opinion) then the question remains how do we ensure the personalities are right and how do we ensure that the policies are carried out correctly?
Cheers Steve