UK Realpolitik

In my home country, UK it was made abundantly clear at the Downing Street (White House) gates recently that even the UK police can sometimes make the mistake of thinking that they are above the law. As a family friend said recently, “Nobody polices the police.” Due to our traditional emphasis on free speech, tolerance and accountability we have always had a relatively incorrupt police service. Our laughing stock is our celebrity culture.  Starting with Jimmy Savile the ongoing police paedophile ring investigation is horrifying and beggars belief. It must be said however that it is no wonder that these people apparently behaved in the manner in which they did. The pattern by which we exhalt and then pulverise celebrity is perverse in itself. The police are not the only ones that believe they are above the law.

Andrew Mitchel was Conservative chief whip, but the hopefuls for the Downing Street job are becoming younger and younger.  In this amoral age we must ask ourselves the perennial question that we once asked of our leaders – “If these people are willing to act in this way towards their nearest and dearest then how would they behave towards us, whom they do not know?” British generic socialism should have fallen on the beach with Kinnock, but seems to have resurfaced with the fratricidal Ed Milliband. A Post social democratic, genuine and clearly articulated Third Way may have had a chance under Ed’s promising, brilliant and understated brother David Milliband but after the leadership was taken from under the latter’s nose in a typally leftist, definitevely Machiavelian and Stalinesque manner by his underhand brother  a young promising, self-effacing foreign secretary  used to addressing the United Nations was last seen on the board of a third rate UK soccer team. The left has always been fractuois and complicated which is generally a sign that something is far from God.

The word Diabolo means fractured.

The winning of the upper middle class has always been pivotal to gaining the political leadership of working social democracies. Aristotle noted that they weigh up and take the good from both the left and the right, deciding if either or is going to stay on or let another philosophy have a chance. The US copied the UK’s bi cameral system. Despite Reagan’s claims to Keep the world safe for Democracy North American voting apathy is a result of too much democracy -  the senate is completely elected. In the UK we must look to this as we tinker with the Lords, and remember that thus far our bi cameral system has given us left of centre triumphs like the NHS and Margaret Thatcher’s reforms from the right.  What is dangerous now however is that like the rest of the polity the middle class are generally narrow, historically ignorant and often apathetic. Tony Blair’s genius was similar to that of the great Christian writer C.S. Lewis  – making complicated things sound simple. Armed with such weapons the swinging middle class can then be wooed.

 Blair’s philosophy was never definitively articulated. All he offered was what we needed to feel good about ourselves at the time. In William Hague’s word’s He just sat on things. The Third Way is now dead, extinct under UK Labour and a damp squib under Obama.

Micro finance is emphasised and much is made of the hope that the Third World does not make our socio economic mistakes, but much closer to home in the Former Soviet Bloc the far right is being looked to answer the embarrassingly obvious questions that are being asked of the Occidental Social Democratic model.

Since the “Evil Empire” collapsed our wars have become hotter. We have fought governments and insurgents that we trained and funded ourselves. In so doing have stretched our respective militaries to breaking point. Blair’s transposition of traditionally right wing oratorical persuasion was imperative to America or she risked becoming an international pariah herself.

Current opinion polls might say otherwise but unless left with no other option the Upper Middle class will never elect Ed Miliband. In fact with the Labour party becoming at least unilaterally unelectable once again the UK is probably condemned to a generation of unstable government, absolutely defeating the purpose of our hitherto robust, sensible and productive First Past the Post System.  

The incumbent Prime Minister knows this and is completely justified in taking his chance and calling a vote on Europe. This is called leadership and should be applauded and not maligned.

Surprisingly for a man who was impressed by the ferocious audaicity of the late John Smith I would rather vote for David Cameron than Ed Milliband. Personal integrity in a politician is integral. With his EU exit referendum proposal Cameron has at least done something with his tenure and is offering us a plebiscite on EU membership. Britain will always be a masculine country of legalists and does not seem to fit into the generally Latin and therefore feminine spirit of the EU. As Scotland looks to her future in 2014 by 2020 as a country we should all at least have laid some perennial, niggling existential banshees to rest.

As a born and bred Scotsman it was a pleasure to recently experience the latest instalment of the Albert R. Broccoli franchise Skyfall. The film climaxes when Bond returns to his Highland roots. We learn that the arch British hero is in fact the product of a Franco-Scots marriage.  An acknowledgment of the current socio-political discourse?

Probably.