Imagine a door-to-door salesman comes to your house one day to try and sell you a burglar alarm by telling you about the terribly high crime rate is in your area. You’re not convinced, so you tell him you don’t want one. A little while later that same salesman breaks into your house, nicks the [...]
This is a guest post by Natty As we all struggle to grasp what David Cameron’s veto in Brussels last Friday actually means, one theme continues to re-emerge. Indeed it’s a theme that has emerged time and time again in the history of British politics. When asking ourselves why the PM decided to ostracise the [...]
The European Union, in pursuit of an austerity agenda supported only by the elite, has now effectively suspended democracy in two European countries. We have now, within the space of a week, entered the age of the Technocrat government (described brilliantly by one writer in The Times as ‘a form of civilian junta’). It is [...]
Well, my friends, the suspension of Greek democracy appears to be complete. When Papanderou was forced out, to be replaced by a government of national unity. I remarked: Greece’s multi-party democracy has in effect been supplanted by one party – The Austerity Party. The political elites have, in effect, formed a cartel. Greece’s major parties [...]
A week can be a long time in the debasement of politics. Just last Sunday, Prime Minister Papandreou appeared to salvage a smidgeon of honor for his government, when he announced that the Greek people would be given a referendum on the austerity-bailout package. For two years the Greek people have struggled with mounting pain [...]
There are serious tensions building up within the Conservative Party ahead of tomorrow, as MPs prepare on whether Britain should have an in/out referendum on the EU. Cameron has whipped has MPs to vote against it, and the possibility of a minor rebellion has generated numerous column inches. However most commentators have failed to grasp [...]
Am I about to go through a momentary lapse of patriotism? No, don’t fear – no heartfelt conversions to the EDL yet. But there are things that are being said and happening in Britain which make it more likely to see revolt than in many other European countries. 1) We’re Not Taken To Revolting Time [...]
Democracy in Britain leaves a lot to be desired – like actual democracy, for example. Governments secure unconscionable power with 33% of the popular vote; parties run multi-million pound election campaigns, ensuring they owe some millionaire or business, something, sometime; the anachronism of the constituency MP is still firmly in place and not going anywhere [...]
On Tuesday the Guardian printed a fascinating and excellent piece by the philosopher Etienne Balibar. Unfortunately they chose to give it the slightly misleading title “Europe is a dead Political Project“. In fact Balibar argues that the European Union, it’s currency, it’s government and its technocrats, is looking doomed, but that this urgently poses the [...]
So…exactly how shocked should we be that the party that spends most of its time denouncing the EU as corrupt and undemocratic now has an unelected Peer of the Realm at the helm?
