As a youngster I first encountered the British establishment through satire. Private Eye, TW3, the Pythons, and notably Derek and Clive. So as I grew, I saw in my mind red-robed judges invariably with ladies underwear, stockings and suspenders hidden from view, priggish bowler-hatted paragons mired deep in sleaze and vice, MPs preaching virtue then stealing the silver, sin-damning bishops caught cottaging in public lavatories. Of course, cases such as 'Bunnies can and will go to France' provided joy and hilarity, and Peter Cook's take on that bent judge's summing up remains a classic.
However, these things aren't static. That 1960s establishment is just a crude parody today. Pompey's faction, the new Patrician Class, is in the twenty-first century a very different cohort. Here are my candidates for its composition.
THE POLITICAL CLASS
Professional politicians of all shades, lobbyists, advisors, SPADs, researchers, consultants. In particular, those who have never had a job in their lives unconnected with politics, those following explicitly the fast-track Oxbridge PPE - researcher - MP route. Neither party, sex, race or faith preclude anyone from membership and indeed one of the most egregious exhibitions of political nepotism is from Labour; Jack Straw's son Will, Tony Benn's boy Hilary, Kinnock's lad Stephen, Corbyn's son Seb, McDonnell's 'political advisor' and being groomed for a safe Labour seat are amongst the most famous.
THE FOURTH ESTATE
The mainstream press and broadcast TV - Sky, BBC, ITV. For years they've skated by convincing us that the balance they should maintain is that between left and right - when in fact left and right are just adjacent faces of the same new establishment. The fourth estate, the MSM as they are known in abbreviation, are unashamedly pro-establishment, pro-globalist and pro-supernational, and thus deeply hostile to reform.
THE UNELECTED ELITES
Not only the unelected bosses in Whitehall, but those at the most senior chief officer level throughout the civil and public services. Police chief officers, NHS and local government chief executives, specialist scientific and technical advisers and more commonly now those who run the unaccountable NDPBs and fake charities - the agencies and their drivers, doing the dirty work of the establishment away from public control and scrutiny. Salaries exceeding that of the PM, generous golden hello and farewell payments, murky routes of appointment, make this entire cohort so utterly remote, so completely unfamiliar with the ordinary people of Britain they could all be aliens.
THE JUDICIAL GLOBALISTS
British trained lawyers, judges, jurists who believe that the future of law is global, a world legal order, encompassing intellectual property, tax, incorporation, contract, mercantile and relations between the global corporates and the supernational authorities. They support the executive legal authority of the EU, UN and other global agencies and want to see more legal power flow from the world's nations to these bodies, staffed and run by unelected elites. Already they have corrupted part of UK law with Eurolaw, through the role of the ECJ, the EU's political court, in destroying national judicial independence
THE FAT ABBOTS OF ACADEME
As bloated, dissolute and greedy as the greasy-palmed Abbots of pre-reformation days, our university vice-chancellors have stuffed their mouths with ponzi gold. These are the new denizens of an aircraft's first class cabin and free champagne, jetting to Asia, Australasia, the States for missions and conferences, five star hotels and lavish film-star treatment, their air-con limos gliding them from one spurious quasi-academic event to another. The merry go round is reciprocal - hosting their wealthy foreign counterparts at home, with generous hospitality and an official blessing. Theirs is no longer the world of scholarship, education and knowledge but a billion dollar globalist business that makes its elites very, very, wealthy.
THE GLOBALIST THUGS
It's now a familiar game for the global corporates, the mutually beneficial trade-off with the supernational organisations of the EU, UN and other globalist bodies to encourage ever-greater and complex regulation. Regulation restricts competition, creates barriers to entry for new firms, gives huge advantages of incumbency to the existing global actors and disadvantages competition from SMEs and start ups. The globals have exhausted their own capacity to be profitable, and exist solely through this anti-capitalist thuggery and by an ever decreasing series of takeovers and mergers. Their stranglehold over the UN and EU, and through their adherents and beneficiaries in the new establishment their power over us all, has slowed growth to a glacial pace here in the West. Only freeing the creators of growth and innovation - the SMEs and national actors - from the shackles of the global corporates can restore Britain's international competitiveness.
There are more. This list is by no means comprehensive. Bishops and Brigadiers no longer play the roles they played in the past, and though they may hold globalist establishment views, their effect is diminished. For a comprehensive list of establishment individuals, including those in show-business and so forth, see the Wikipedia catalogue of Remain supporters.
And don't be disheartened by their number and power. They are Pompey's bloated patricians - and they face us, Julius Caesar's lean legions of plebeians. And we always win.
42 comments:
The term British Establishment became popular in the 1960s. It means the Royals and the Landed. It includes the military, security, diplomatic and intelligence top brass, and it also takes in the established Church, along with the judiciary, the Governors of the BBC, and media owners. It includes the Tory Government and the Executive, along with senior civil servants and bankers, and many other ex-Eton, and other such schools bigwigs. It absolutely does not include trade unions, the Greens, Labour, the LDs, mutual societies, co-operatives, the general scientific community, and the like. Yes, Theresa May, Rees-Mogg and Boris Johnson are all in it, as is Nigel Farage. Jeremy Corbyn is definitely not, however, and it is why you will read endless distortions about him in this silly rags such as the Daily Mail.
You mix up the metaphorical establishment with the real one Raed. That is, those who predominate the discussion spaces in the media, rather than those who exercise direct influence or who wield actual power, and who enjoy the support of the rest of the network.
The Right Honourable Jeremy Corbyn PC not a member of the new Patrician elite? Well I never.
There's none so blind as those that will not see Radders.
No, Raed, because he does not enjoy the support of the rest of the network, the English the state-within-the-state.
That's not quite the same as the so-called deep state.
"because he does not enjoy the support of the rest of the network, the English the state-within-the-state."
So Jeremy Corbyn couldn't walk into any charity, any university, any government quango, any media outlet incl the BBC, any union HQ. any government department (incl the NHS which of course is one of the largest single organisations on earth let alone the UK) and get a warm welcome from people who support him? And not just from the rank and file, the top management? Who do you think would get a warmer welcome at all those nexuses of power (and they all are in 21st century Britain) Jeremy Corbyn or Jacob Rees-Mogg?
I could add to my list any local council offices, and any court of law (there's no doubt there's more Corbynite judges than ones who vote for UKIP. In fact I'd be highly surprised if one ever voted UKIP or Leave).
That little group looks to me like a lot of big fat nothing, a bunch of closed shops, with good reason to be.
They produce nothing but fetid hot air as they shower themselves and their friends with our enforced largesse.
Having relatively no value as a product makes them more determined to hang on to nurse and fight back.
I hope we win, but it's going to be dirty.
Well over a hundred Labour MPs come from working backgrounds, and had other, normal jobs before going into politics.
Now, I read articles in the Times, the Telegraph and the Daily Mail, so you have a look at this
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2019/jan/23/panic-davos-inequality-global-elite
The EU is one of the few entities with enough chutzpah actually to try to tax these people properly, and to make them put something back.
I propose Diane Abbott as the classic example of an establishment figure.
Don Cox
'Figure' being a technical term rather than an aesthetic one?
David had to beat only Goliath, not the whole army of the Philistines. What gives you hope and confidence in the face of these massed contingents?
The wiki Remain list is frightening. Rorke’s Drift springs to mind.
BBC ‘Today’’ in anti-Brexit overdrive this morning.
The key players in the ERG really need to start playing dirty.
Sackerson - they're weak, they're scared to take risks, they've got too much to lose to be bold, they're on the back foot - never knowing from whence the next brickbat comes, their morale is shot and they're ill equipped to fight a campaign of mass attrition through social media.
Plus, as we've seen in France, they don't like to get their hands dirty - and those they rely on to suppress the masses, the police and street-level public service workers, are ready to desert them.
Every threat they utter gives me more confidence.
Billy, "play dirty"?
What, you mean like, tell whopping lies, and get their friends in the £11 billion-a-year anti-EU industry that is the British press - often American-owned - to repeat them endlessly, you mean?
I think that they took that advice from someone else years ago, me ol' china.
I reckon that Raed's group just means any public or influential figure, who does not expressly rage against the smoking ban, really.
It's ancient history. You lost. Get over it.
Anon - "the £11 billion-a-year anti-EU industry that is the British press"
Eh? WTFing F? Seriously? There might be one or two newspaper that tentatively supports Brexit but are otherwise mouthpieces for Globalism.
Anon - "often American-owned"
or almost exclusively certain-unmentionable-for-fear-of-bringing-about-anti-S-comments owned, you mean?
That's another area of Globalism that seems VERY off-limits for discussion despite the mounting evidence.
Some recent surveys show that as many as 25% of those asked wrongly believe that "no deal" means staying in the EU as we are.
It rather calls into question that 28% in favour of such an outcome, doesn't it?
We need some diligent polling, as to the extent of serious misconception in this now-excuse-for-country.
The odd thing is Anon, that the very few here would have any truck with the likes of the Davos set anyway, and regard it as with as much distaste as they do the de facto UK Liberal Establishment that infests government and all public life. Its all part and parcel of one and the same thing- a means of controlling ordinary people for the benefit of a few elites, be they mega corporations, or the type of people who move from job to job within the UK Establishment without ever being held to account for their actions. You don't have to be pro-Davos to be pro-capitalist or 'right wing'. In fact I'd say that the Davos set and the politicians and other public bodies that hang around it are all anti-freedom, anti-real capitalism and are pro-crony capitalism and control of the masses.
Open your eyes - the freedom loving right are as against the crony capitalists such as George Osborne and David Cameron (and plenty on the Left too) as you are. You just give the UK liberal establishment a free pass regarding their control freak tendencies because you agree with them, for now. You may find that one day you are persona non grata as well, and then you current support for them will mean nothing.
What Sobers said.
I share plenty of views with those on the Right, and a few with those on what is called the Far Right.
However, after WWII, unsurprisingly, there was general agreement, that no politician should ever appeal to the primitive, dark-hearted beast, which lurks inside every one of us. The reprehensible low-life, who now crave power at any price, have rediscovered this trick, however, and they just cannot believe their luck. We have seen to where this leads throughout history, and it seems that the baying mob of today are just going to have to learn the hard way, all over again.
You know who you are.
I note Anon fails to mention the Labour propensity for nepotism and moving into very rich, millionaire status. Add to the short list from Radders, the Kinnocks. Multi millionaires of his and my taxes. As for Mandelson, recently reported to have purchased an £8 million property in London. As for Trade Union leaders.......Socialism, a euphemism for hypocrisy.
Anon - and I agree with Jeremy Corbyn, whose reasons for wanting to be out of the EU include their prohibition on State Aid for UK industry, the rule of the ECJ over his manifesto and the loss of income, security and futures for ordinary Britih working people. No problem agreeing any of those.
But I can't agree with the likes of Yvette Cooper, Kier Starmer, the fat posh bird or any of the other troughing Labour liggers who would sell their grandmother's corpse for a lick of Juncker's arse.
It's no longer abour right left, or even about where you are on the authoritarian - libertarian axis (I'm strongly libertarian, obv. - another reason I can't stand either labour or Tory authoritarians) it's a fundamental question of how you want to live your life - ruled by the globalists and their dags, or as a free and independent person, whole in yourself, in association with other free and independent persons?
I consider my views to be libertarian/right wing/classical liberal... So pretty much laissez faire, smallest possible government, based on Magna Carta and Habeas Corpus. It is even part of my moniker...
I have never found anything that the troll known as anonymous, as opposed to some of the other anonymous's that aren't, to be either right wing, or something that I can chime with.
Plenty of far left and not so far left (aka far right) views that are the definition of hatred... Oh yes... Plenty of that.
Rupert Murdoch is Australian-American, and owns several UK titles.
Viscount Rothermere of the DM is of English landed stock.
They're not the most Semitic of people, I wouldn't have thought.
The hallmark of an authoritarian is their wanting to scrap the Human Rights Act, and to withdraw from any Treaty, which also limits what the State can do to the individual.
I would have thought that that was blindingly obvious.
No. The hallmark of an authoritarian is someone who wants to impose a straitjacket of State legislation on human behaviour.
Without the HRA, I am free to do as I wish *except* any act that causes harm to another person. With the HRA, the State can govern any aspect of my life EXCEPT those very narrow and specific 'freedoms' I am permitted to enjoy.
There's a big difference.
The HRA says it's fine for the State to intern me in a concentration camp if it's 'necessary' for the State to do so to preserve the security of the State.
I'm more interested in preserving my own security and freedom than being a servile chattel of a remote state.
Pls add to your list the filth inhabiting the lobbyist sector and add their sisters and brothers in the very-much-not independent polling industry.
And every time Yvette Cooper opens her mouth she should be asked if she is that picker of the public purse that flipped her mortgage several times - along with her ludicrously stupid but quite devious husband - and can we pls know how much dosh they trousered from their ducking-and-diving? Little better than thieves and she lectures me? Scoundrel.
The HRA absolutely does not say that and you know it Raed. That's the most egregious traduction that I have ever read/
Furthermore it ONLY applies to what the STATE may do to people, so it does not limit human behaviour generally in any way.
It is why the BBC etc. outsourced as much of their activity as possible, because private companies could demand working conditions which would have violated the employee's Right To A Private And Family life if an organ of the State had done it - say demanding short notice travel to a distant location.
Your only concern seems to be for an employer's being able to make those demands, not for the employee's family to be protected from them under any circumstance.
Your frankly ridiculous distortion of the HRA shows clearly that you know not the first thing about law in general nor that one in particular.
Read the damned thing for heaven's sake man. There:
http://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/1998/42/contents
Anon - useful. My post tomorrow will be a full listing of all the State's rights against the person under the HRA, starting with
ARTICLE 2(1)
Rights of the State to execute citizens
The State may deprive a person of their life intentionally in the execution of a sentence of a court following his conviction of a crime for which this penalty is provided by law.
@Raedwald 13:24
Are you sure that's a right Raedwald...
Looks more like a wrong to me.
Is it true that they are killing people right left and centre in the Netherlands and at the very heart of the beast... in Brussels too?
It's got a new technocratic (verified by experts) name though...
Euthanasia.
Surely that is a right too? Especially for lefties, when they have done enough hating, they can start killing... nice.
What it actually says is this, but with more:
Article 2
Right to life
Everyone’s right to life shall be protected by law. No one shall be deprived of his life intentionally save in the execution of a sentence of a court following his conviction of a crime for which this penalty is provided by law.
==
So those clamouring for the Death Penalty should be happy eh?
However, Article 1 of the 13th Protocol, amended in 2004, now reads;
"Abolition of the death penalty
The death penalty shall be abolished. No one shall be condemned to such penalty or executed."
The Article 2 provision now relates only to sentences passed during times of war.
But what the Tories are really after is the removal of the Right To Peaceful Enjoyment Of Possessions.
The fact that some people are prepared to believe, what others such as you write, is why the country is in a total and utter mess, Raed.
Isn't it?
Anon - yes, you're correct in that the Treaty Convention you cite was passed into law in 2004. However, it does NOT amend Schedule 1 of the 1988 Human Rights Act - the government's web version, with which I am quite familiar, states clearly
"Human Rights Act 1998, SCHEDULE 1 is up to date with all changes known to be in force on or before 23 January 2019. There are changes that may be brought into force at a future date. Changes that have been made appear in the content and are referenced with annotations."
The Arts establishment are just as bad. They spend much of their time grant harvesting including, of course, from the EU and its assorted programmes.
Without such grants they would actually have to produce and exhibit work which appealed to the public. The Horror!
The requirements for such grants were bad enough 20 years ago but are now much, much worse. It is now virtually impossible to mount an art project which isn't sledgehammer-subtle SJW.
The film industry in Britain is just as bad. Any film which isn't fully US funded almost certainly has to apply for EU and other governmental or quango funding - usually several lots. Imagine trying to get past a succession of committees comprised of grievance study commissar types with anything which isn't hysterically toeing an SJW diversity line.
Anything which is even just (to anyone sane) politically neutral entertainment doesn't stand a chance.
The list of classic British films of the last century which would get through such a blinkered process unscathed would be depressingly short.
So, basically, being a member of the Council of Europe, and ECHR, does not, per se, prohibit countries making their own laws, which might carry the Death Penalty, notably in Times Of War.
Also read Article 15, which provides for the suspension of certain classes of person's rights, when a country is under serious threat, e.g. from terrorism.
Millions of Daily Mail readers should be dancing for joy eh?
Since this country does not have a death penalty at present, Schedule 1 self-evidently does not need amending, does it?
Why is there a whole industry, devoted to misleading the people utterly, as to the facts of our membership of ECHR?
I think that I have answered that earlier: seven trillion quid's worth of equity in people's property.
Rights of the state?
Had a quick scan (equalityhumanrights.com).
Article 8 protects my right to respect for a private life, family life, a home and correspondence.
Unless "public authorities" (whatever they may be, couldn't miss the plural) decide otherwise. But don't worry as there are severe restrictions. They can only do so if they show that it's lawful, necessary and proportionate in order to protect: national security (that's novel!), public safety, the economy (!), health or morals (!!), to prevent disorder or crime (hate crime presumably) or to protect the rights and freedoms of other people.
Well I'll be sleeping peacefully tonight. Best check if I'm allowed to have a shit before going to bed.
Fuck me Radders I think you'll be doing some typing tonight!
Raedwald said...
The hallmark of an authoritarian is someone who wants to impose a straitjacket of State legislation on human behaviour.
==
Quite.
That is EXACTLY what ECHR seeks to prevent.
Of course it has to allow tax-raising powers, infrastructure projects, and countries to set their own penal codes etc.
You'd be jumping up and down wailing that "we are not allowed to make our own laws" if it didn't.
Nah. It doesn't wash. I know phonies when I come across them
Members of the Council of Europe, subject to the ECHR include Russia, Turkey, Albania, Ukraine.
So if we left we could become a horrible authoritarian shitehole like. Oh I don't know Russia, Ukraine, Turkey, Albania.
SO glad we're in!
"Everyone’s right to life shall be protected by law. No one shall be deprived of his life intentionally save in the execution of a sentence of a court following his conviction of a crime for which this penalty is provided by law."
Does that include all those 450 people murdered by the NHS by being injected full of medical grade heroin in Gosport Hospital? For which no-one has been even so much as sacked from the NHS, let alone prosecuted?
https://www.theguardian.com/society/2018/jun/20/gosport-war-memorial-hospital-opioid-drugs-policy-inquiry
So some countries are rubbish at protecting the Rule Of Law.
It's that fact, not the laws, which is the problem.
Aus, NZ and Canada have HRAs near-identical to the UK's and no significant problems.
So why, if the forty-five other countries of ECHR, and those three see no need to withdraw or repeal, do the English Right think that those six hundred billion people are all being duped somehow? Where would you rather live? Algeria?
Sobers, there are many crimes for which no one is convicted. Have you not seen the TV, since Dixon Of Dock Green finished?
Anon.
So NZ has a human rights act as does Turkey. One is a liberal democracy, the other is a grim authoritarian ringpiece.
Do you not think that there may be other factors in play? You clearly do: "So some countries are rubbish at protecting the Rule Of Law. It's that fact, not the laws, which is the problem".
If the rights of the "state" (or "public authorities" - plural) to restrict rights and freedoms of individuals is enshrined in law, that can't make a liberal democracy better but it can clearly be used by an authoritarian ringpiece to become more authoritarian.
Something that enshrines the rights of the state to specifically restrict rights and freedoms of individuals makes the law a problem, makes it a weapon that can be used to oppress. Even if the current governmental structure - like the EU - is a paragon of majesty and moral virtue a future one might not be.
This is not a difficult concept to grasp.
"there are many crimes for which no one is convicted."
True, though not many where the person(s) responsible are both 100% known to the authorities, and indeed are employed by the State.............how come the victims (or their heirs) are unable to enforce the right to life in these cases? How come the all singing all dancing HRA is of no help to them, yet helps a murderer escape deportation (to the hellhole that is Italy no less) because to do so would infringe his human rights?
True, though not many where the person(s) responsible are both 100% known to the authorities, and indeed are employed by the State.............how come the victims (or their heirs) are unable to enforce the right to life in these cases? How come the all singing all dancing HRA is of no help to them, yet helps a murderer escape deportation (to the hellhole that is Italy no less) because to do so would infringe his human rights?
Well they're still trying to hold the bent coppers accountable for Hillsborough aren't they?
It's more likely the cops responsible will die of old age...
Thanks for the Peter Cook clip Raed.
We saw a very similar thing recently, with Harvey Proctor et al, didn't we, surely?
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