The persistent and determined refusal of Gordon Brown to face all and any election to office is a hallmark of both the man and the Party of which he is Leader (a status itself achieved without the inconvenience of facing election). There has been a determined policy to avoid by-elections. There is a flagship Labour policy to remove from elected local authorities all powers that interfere with regime policies determined not by open and public debate but formulated according to privately set agendas and, in many aspects of social policy, the consultation by invitation of stake-holders and other interest groups carefully chosen for their advantage-seeking through conformity to regime objectives. During this regime there has been also the alteration from first past the post election to a democratically crippled form of proportional representation. Particularly, this has been so in elections impossible to avoid such as those for the European Union, and for those Labour thought it could allow safely as theirs was the inbuilt client advantage bought and paid for from tax-raised funds - the devolved governance of Scotland and London (even Wales is almost lost). So far, so familiar.
Voters are out of control: every chance they get, however remote from recovering some power from New Labour, is used to speak out for the end of Brownism. It used to be a function of the Head of State to warn and advise but, now that all activity in that office has been either circumvented or abandoned, the warning aspect has become an undertaking of the people. Nothing the matter with that, the People every time over any hereditary, failing office. So voters must be corralled into some power-deprived, guided activity that expresses aspiration rather than determines outcomes. Any means to do this can be adopted: threats, criminalisation, belittling, purchase, institutional skulduggery with the mechanisms of voting - New Labour are up for it.
The Parliament Acts, ostensibly protecting our exposure to any government and attempts to alter the length of parliamentary terms, have been as exposed to this regime's post-democratic interference as much as any part of what was once our Constitution. With the ruling by nine Law Lords that the 1949 Act is primary legislation and is capable of being used to modify the provisions of the 1911 Act, the two Acts together can be used to put almost any face on our constitutional beliefs and claims that the Executive must go to the country at least once every five years.
Our regime doesn't do elections, not even the teeniest weeniest of elections unless forced. We cannot enforce any general election ever, never mind by 2010, by any constitutional means. And the inertia of events is not on our side; things are going too badly wrong for the concession of a vote.
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I fully anticipate a "National Crisis" in early 2010 which will force the Government to cancel any election on the grounds of National Security.
The form chosen could be the subject of a national prize really, L. The evidence lies before us that there will be a manipulated consultation of the People.
To consult is not to obey.
Lilith, you are probably right. I suspect the crisis wiil take the form of a million people walking down Whitehall with pitchforks and bales of piano wire.
It has taken over a year of writing Angels to accept the obvious: this regime is not going to give way by any means other than violence. And for that they are preparing by criminalising all direct political action.
The police force is no longer a civilian body but organised, equipped and trained as a paramilitary force. The legal system has been politicised and reorganised into conformity with regime aims and requirements. All are required not just to suffer the intrusive governance of the regime but to participate actively or pay - from disadvantage through close surveillance, to penalty.
Nomad has suggested leaving now while it is still possible with wealth and goods. For any one with vulnerable family members that would be my view too, now. The degredation of the educational system has threatened the fulfilment of intellectual lives for two generations, and the university has become an inferior good when considered with universities elsewhere. Academics are closing ranks around their disciplines and interacting at a high level only within those groups; for the students there is a profit-seeking university with targets achieved by professional administrative 'staff'. Dons? They can be seen in lecture halls like animals seen on safaris.
What of professions to take up? Who would want to be a civil servant for this state? Or a career police officer, or a teacher required to manipulate the emotional and cognitive state of vulnerable pupils? (and, yes, there is just such a pilot project taking place in three educational authorities.) Would you like to be a priest when the threat of prosecution for thought crimes imposes conformity of cultural expression? It is not given to most of us to be painters, sculptors, musicians, or poets. Individual work even in these fields can be subjected as well to governing culture aggression, as so many Soviet writers and painters attested in their work and in their misery under authoritarianism.
If your family has elderly members you will find that there are unspoken but fully formulated policies in a monolithic provider- oriented, authoritarian health 'service' that will not serve them. Leave your tax-overburdened existence here and go where your money, that you keep, buys what they need.
There is so much more that could be written of in detail, but it is summed up in a single word.
Leave.
...And for that they are preparing by criminalising all direct political action.
Very true HG, but in my personal experience in the Lebanon and Africa, the judicial system crumbles rapidly with the onset of civil war. If push really comes to shove, I think that these "paramilitary" organisations would find out very quickly that they would really be up against strong and determined opposition and bullyboy tactics against ordinary people will merely serve to increase their rage and determination to resist. I also suspect that there will be deep and serious splits in their ranks. Many police officers do not like what is happening to their country - or their terms of service - and your post does not mention the likely reaction of the armed forces.
It is a trait of us Brits that as a nation we are very patient and usually try to give the benefit of the doubt where possible. But there really is a line in the sand beyond which we will not be pushed. At that point, if the government does not draw back from the precipice, expect serious, well planned and organised rebellion with no holds barred.
This present ultra brilliant opportunistic shower - Brown, Prescott, Blunkett, Reid, Martin et al - have had 11 years of lying, dumbing down, stealing, vote-rigging, over-taxing, corrupting, removing basic freedoms, installing unaccountable and unelected quangos to rule us with no come-back, and generally screwing up anything and everything they touch. The two wars our forces are engaged in are and will remain very unpopular with the populace.
It has now almost reached the stage where people have had enough and the lid is about to blow. The recent petrol price hike, coupled with the announcement of a possible huge increase in MPs' remuneration have turned the temperature up a further notch. The result of the Labour-heartland Crewe by election showed clearly the seething anger in the land, and it is no surprise that Brown refuses to put up a candidate in the forthcoming by-election; he knows full well his policies are totally indefensible. Would-be potential candidates are understandably reluctant to accept the poisoned chalice there. But, importantly, until now proper procedures have been followed.
When that changes it may well be too late to get the train out.
HG, your last comment above looks as though it should be republished as a separate post. But are we getting too apocalyptic with this talk of rebellion?
'importantly, until now proper procedures have been followed.'
It is the procedures that are too little defined to prevent abuse in practice. Our procedures require a common attitude to their following, a willingness to recognise the spirit of those procedures, for their working. Take the New Labour law officers, they have been outrageous in their political interpretation of their roles. The Head of State has taken non-intervention in political life to lengths where the constitutional aspects of political life have withered and fallen and political behaviour that should be constrained has been left unchecked. The ousting of Blair and imposition of Brown is not in keeping with our constitutional practice. Astonishingly Brown has let it be known he intends to try to do the same thing with the next Leader, have an unelected takeover in mid parliamentary term.
Manifesto commitments upon which elections are fought are often not met through failure, but it is not proper to refuse arbitrarily to meet a manifesto commitment that affected the votes of so many, as this regime has done. As Tony Benn remarked, he had not thought he would see parliament repeal Magna Carta. Well, he can watch the repeal of the Bill of Rights soon and its replacement with an ill-written set of orders for the citizenry.
Death in custody is so badly investigated and becoming so frequent yet the regime is limiting investigatory powers, not enhancing them and making victims' families able to get explanation more readily. And it is limiting coroners' powers over investigations into deaths on active service. We could all add to this list.
None of this is coming from the EU. This is home grown and unique to the UK. No other people in Europe are putting up with what this regime is doing, and installing for permanent control.
The procedures are not being followed, they are being flouted until they can be either permanently brushed out, or replaced where they are embodied in written law.
Yes, HG, I agree. I used the term proper procedures to refer only to the holding of the Crewe by-election. Had they so wished NuLab could have found ways of and excuses for deferring that (or, a la Mugabe, interfering with the results) for a long time and I suspect they were genuinely quite surprised at the bashing their candidate took. That, and probably the result of the London election, indeed may have been the key that opened the eyes of the general public (unlike us up to the minute bloggers!) to the state of the nation and what Brown and gang are up to.
Most people are happy just to get on with their lives and not be bothered with what is happening at Westminster, but too much, too often, and too close to home (10p tax grab, petrol prices, Lisbon, no referendum etc) has now changed that and even certain sections of the press are beginning to wake up to the reality, remove the scales fom their eyes and voice concern.
On the general point I would hope that all those who have had their traditional powers curtailed, and there already seem to be one or two who are prepared to speak out, would side with the "good guys". On balance, at present the runes are not favourable.
The current status quo in the UK is highly unstable, S. I would not encourage anyone to oppose by force, not with the readying of the machinery of repression that has taken place already.
Apocalyptic? No, the change is a miserable slide into lives lived much less than they might be. Lots are already living such lives; this isn't the future, this is what is being built now. It has been in construction every time the social engineers get into power, and then they are voted out by an infuriated, interfered with electorate. So there will not be a throwing-out this time, procedures are being rearranged and any trouble planned for.
You have me worried.
Nu Lab are reactive.
The only things they were ever any good at was media manipulation, intimidation, mendacity and procurement of power. As for running a civilised country ? Forget it.
I want to object - I can't with any real effect.
Now I want to object illegally - so that it has real effect.
The real sanction against me if I object illegally (refuse to pay council tax, vehicle excise or BBC licence) is not a fine or imprisonment but that I lose my job.
What's so bad about this in welfare UK ?
I and my family would end up abandoned by the police on some sink estate at the mercy of Nu Labs' chav-scum.
I don't think the underclass were created by design, they were the clear failure of socialism. But now that they're here ...
... they are Nu Lab's perfect weapon against middle-class dissent, created by default but a very happy accident so far as Government is concerned.
This is war - a real an bloody war and productive-class people are being killed in it, be they those whose heads have been 'kicked like footballs' for daring to ask for peace and quiet, mowed down by 'joy' riders or be they innocent lads murdered in bakers' shops at the age of sixteen for looking at one of Nu Lab's 'army' the wrong way.
Every chav-scum released back into the community after feeble sentencing is a warning to us "These are OUR people. Step out of line and you will be forced to live among them unprotected and at their mercy."
We really ought to be fighting back. I think the coming recession, when people have nothing to lose, will bring with it the necessary impetus.
It's such a pity that Nu Lab have brought us to the point that we need to have total failure in order to recover from the damage that they have inflicted upon us.
And they did all this in just over 10 years. They must never be allowed to hold office again.
I believe that Cameron will, unwittingly, perpetuate the whole thing if he is elected.
His cow-towing to political correctness (again this week with Borris Johnson's aid) does not bode well.
Your first comment E_K (wrings hands in despair). People are living vile lives, now, built during this regime, two generations of primary schoold children have been lost, Brown's inane remarks about a generation lost to Thatcherism is a wicked, misleading lie. It is the New Labour regime that has produced modern day squadristi who drag others into their hopelessness.
"Our procedures require a common attitude to their following, a willingness to recognise the spirit of those procedures, for their working."
You hit the nail on the proverbial head.
It is the abandonment of that common attitude, which one might summarise in the words of a gentler age by the phrase "knowing how to go on", that started the real rot.
It's depressing, but I do believe that even the sated worm of the British people will finally turn if faced with an attempt by Nu-Lab to extend their term of office.
I may be wrong; bread and circuses have a long history, and rarely fail, but I think our heritage is not quite that dead. It may, though, be at the last gasp. Just let them try...
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