DEATH, on 07 November 2020 - 01:51 PM, said:
How many company directors, high court judges and politicians are old etonians?
https://www.theguard...n-by-profession
It’s why it’s been so disappointing in the last decade to see labour roll over and hand them power from nothing but stupidity and dogmatic ignorance.
In a society where my vote carries as much weight as the prime ministers, it’s a travesty that labour made themselves so unelectable for half a century.
Was it really all Labour's fault though, Rob?
Let's look at those ten years.
Gordon Brown led the world out of an economic meltdown created by a financial sector the Tories had argued be allowed even more licence. However it was dubbed 'Labour's recession' whilst those same tories advocated austerity for the majority and tax cuts for the minority.
Yet people voted for it.
After that Ed Miliband was dubbed somehow unfit for office 'cos he couldn't eat a bacon sarnie without looking like Wallace. Or the Daily Mail claiming his Royal Navy serving dad was some sort of traitor. Or a thousand and one other pathetically personal smears that were never levelled at a Cabinet with more former Etonians than women. A cabinet that'd plumbed new depths of 'taking from the poor to give to the rich'. That 'poor' including doctors and nurses and teachers and firefighters and pretty much everyone else they later applauded on a Thursday evening.
Yet people voted for it.
Then Brexit reared it's ugly head. And suddenly the old rights and wrongs became somehow irrelevant. Suddenly it was okay to tell lies. Suddenly it was okay to be racist. Suddenly decency and facts and morals and evidence became second best to the ugliest sides of folks' psyches. And the daftest part of all was that a largely pro-EU Labour were led by a lifelong europhobe whilst a largely, infact often rabidly anti-EU tory party were led by a lifelong europhile.
Yet people voted for it. Well, more or less.
The last election really did take us down the rabbit hole, though. An unapologetic old red surrounded by cronies whose utter incompetence left lifelong Labour loyalists like myself cringing up against a moral bankrupt cheered on by a party full of family value espousing churchgoers. Their campaign was almost Trumpian, with the truth an early casualty as minister after minister looked down the camera and defended doctored videos or fake factcheckers or Bozo's cowardice. Then when he did appear it was to duck and dodge and deny whilst claiming the husband Corbyn was 'against marriage'. That's right, the serial adulterer Alexander Boris DePfeffel Johnson who wouldn't even admit how many kids he's got portraying himself as a champion of matrimony.
Yet people voted for it.
Now as said the last few Labour years can't be defended. My party allowed itself to be taken over by zealots following an increasingly inept leader with almost cult-like devotion. However couldn't the same be said of the tories? For anti-semitism read Islamophobia. For a huge increase in public investment read a pamphlet-esque manifesto saying next to nothing. For Abbott or Gwynne or Thornberry read Reece-Mogg or Gove or Raab. Or Patel. Or Hancock. Or so, so many others. And can you imagine the squeals of a Stalinist purge in the Murdoch media if Corbyn'd kicked twenty-odd MP's off his benches?
Yet it was hailed as strong leadership when 'honest' Johnson did it.
But therein lies the rub. I'd argue that if the two sides had had anything approaching balanced coverage over that decade - or even decades - things might've been different. And before anyone accuses me of saying the British public are too easily influenced - in other words thick - I'd ask a very simple question: why do billionaires spend so many multi-millions peddling propaganda if it DOESN'T have an impact? Who actually benefits? Have the last ten tory years left ordinary folk better or worse off? Meanwhile Brexit continues to unravel as the national con-job it really is.
It's sometimes said that the public get the politicians they deserve. I'm finding it increasingly difficult to argue...
This post has been edited by The Earl of Chesterfield: 07 November 2020 - 03:26 PM
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