Although much of the focus in the UK political reporting is on Boris Johnson’s government (the UK has gone into “Tier 5”, which is basically a lockdown in plain language), it is worth remembering that throughout the COVID-19 affair, the leader of the Opposition, Sir Keir Starmer, and leader of the Labour Party, has called frequently for longer, earlier and more severe controls on the public, salved in his mind by calls also for even more gigantic amounts of debt (inoculated, he hopes, by central bank fairy dust). An example of such a call is here.
Sir Keir (he was named after Keir Hardie, first leader of the Labour Party) knows that he will not be held accountable by most voters for any of his calls, or maybe hopes that is the case and that when the next general election is called, this shitshow will be a memory, and his demands for lockdowns will not be held against him. Such are the dangers of our lockdown consensus among large swathes of chattering class opinion.
Even so, I think commentators who want to wind Sir Keir and his colleagues up, and scold and irritate their supporters, should start to refer to the Labour Party as the Lockdown Party on every occasion. It may be rude, even thought a bit juvenile. But we are past the time for being sweetly reasonable towards those who quite clearly want to use these powers and would do so again, possibly on even weaker pretexts than now. If Sir Keir has referred to the civil liberties issues of lockdowns, as Lord Sumption has done, I have missed it. And remember, Sir Keir is a lawyer by profession. One might think that some concern about the civil liberty aspects of lockdowns might be a matter he might address.
As for the Liberal Democrats, they might as well belong in a museum.
Anyway, back to the Labour Party. I think Lockdown Party sounds much better. This will be a more accurate reflection of its values. The party is not really interested in work any more – groups such as the teaching unions seem to positively recoil from it – and many of its members no doubt hope that in world of universal basic income, paid out of the profits of Big Techs in some sort of Brave New World, human labour will be irrelevant.
Let’s make the change, today!
So what will we call the Conservative party? The other lockdown party? The lockdown party but vote for them because the others are even worse party?
The Cockup Party?
Concentration camp party?
Sir Keir of the Labour Party will be on television tonight – demanding a lockdown and mass vaccination. Prime Minister Johnson has already announced these policies – but Sir Kier will demand them anyway, and pretend he is an OPPOSITION leader (when he is actually an ECHO CHAMBER). Sir Keir will also say that he demanded X,Y, Z before the government did it (in short the government is, according to Sir Keir, too moderate).
As for the Liberal Democrats – they had a real chance last year, when both the governing Conservative Party and the Labour Party came out in support of a lockdown, the Lib Dems could have denounced it. Instead they endorsed it as well.
Ed Davy was supposed to be an “Orange Book” pro freedom Liberal Democrat – but he spent most of 2020 repeating (as truth) Frankfurt School Collectivist Talking Points from Black Lives Matter and other organisations. “Ah but Paul – he does not really BELIEVE what he says”, so Ed Davy is a hypocrite – that is meant to make us feel better?
I would like to believe that the mass vaccinations will mean an end to the Big Government policies – but we are likely to see a “Climate Change Emergency” declared as a reason to to keep totally unlimited government (and Corporate – those Corporations that are allied with the governmental bureaucracy) power.
Will the Labour or Liberal Democrat parties oppose a “Climate Change Emergency”? NO THEY WILL NOT – again they will shout and scream that the government is “not doing enough” and-so-on.
Whatever the government does, on anything, the “Opposition” parties will demand EVEN MORE.
We are facing not the failure of this or that political party (still less the failure of an individual politician – for example the idea that Mr Alexander Johnson has personally thought up these policies, or they would have been different with some other Prime Minister, is utterly absurd), we are seeing the failure of THE SYSTEM – internationally, in many countries.
Sadly I have no idea what can be done about this – indeed I strongly suspect that nothing can be done.
The Emperor Honorius was condemned for concerning himself with his chickens (he ran a little model farm) in Ravenna whilst Rome itself was under siege from the Goths. But by 410 AD there was nothing much the man could do – had he marched out of Ravenna with the handful of men he had, he would just have got himself killed.
So he was perfectly rational to concern himself with his chickens – whilst the Empire burned.
In our time it is called “going off grid” and such different people as Congressman Thomas Massie and Tim Pool (the person who brought “Occupy Wall Street” to the attention of the world) are doing it.
Go somewhere away from the cities – and find a way to live, and hope (pray) the powers do not notice you.
Although there can be unexpected nice things ……
For example, a major 5th century landowner (name – I forget his name) ended up as the Abbot of a out-of-the-way monastery – but in his refugee days there was an odd incident.
A savage looking barbarian tracked him down – but did not kill him. On the contrary the barbarian PAID HIM for the land he had taken over. True the gold paid was a tiny fraction of what the land had once been worth – but the man was utterly astonished (and rightly so) by the behaviour.
I doubt the World Economic Forum and the various governments and corporations will behave so well in our time.
Small business and farms will be taxed and regulated to destruction – and their former owners will be left with NOTHING.
Of course even if governments and the PET Corporations decided to pay for something – they would not pay in physical gold. That would not fit with their design for a totalitarian “cashless society”.
The Conservative party seems to have a policy of doing whatever the public sector (remoaners all, no doubt) zealots engaged by Public Health England tell it to, but only after being ‘shown up’ (in their own minds) by Labour and the SNP for not doing enough.
The Conservative party is a clear and present danger to the well-being of the people of England. Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland have their own death wish parties.
This post prompted me to look up antonyms to ‘labour’.
Noun ▲
Opposite of great effort expended towards a particular goal or aim
laziness idleness inaction indolence passivity inactivity inertia languor laxness listlessness slackness sloth sluggishness dormancy inertness lethargy slothfulness torpidness dilatoriness faineance faineancy lackadaisicalness languidness languorousness supineness torpescence vegetating weariness do-nothingness shiftlessness
I quite liked the idea of the ‘Languor Party’