Labour loses …
What the election has fundamentally exposed is the existence of Two Britains. No, not a Labour Britain vs a Tory Britain — that old divide has been flagging for years. Not poshos vs workers, as Labourite commentators like to fantasise. And it’s not even England vs Scotland. Yes, that divide will undoubtedly be the source of instability in the coming months, but even it is merely a strange expression, an accidental byproduct, of the real Two Britains. Which is, on one side, the Britain of the moral clerisy, which is pro-EU, multicultural, anti-tabloid, politically correct and devoted to welfarism and paternalism as the main means through which to govern the masses, and, on the other side, the Britain of the rest of the us, of the masses, of those people increasingly viewed by the cultural elite as inscrutable, incomprehensible, and in need of nudging, social re-engineering and behaviour modification. Those people whose votes, whose temerity in rejecting Labour, made so little sense to the observing classes.
… Leftists declare “Democracy is a religion that has failed the poor” …
Right now I feel ashamed to be English. Ashamed to belong to a country that has clearly identified itself as insular, self-absorbed and apparently caring so little for the most vulnerable people among us. Why did a million people visiting food banks make such a minimal difference? Did we just vote for our own narrow concerns and sod the rest? Maybe that’s why the pollsters got it so badly wrong: we are not so much a nation of shy voters as of ashamed voters, people who want to present to the nice polling man as socially inclusive, but who, in the privacy of the booth, tick the box of our own self-interest. […]
The utterly miserable thought strikes me that Russell Brand just might have been right. What difference did my vote make? Why indeed do people vote, and care so passionately about voting, particularly in constituencies in which voting one way or the other won’t make a blind bit of difference? And why do the poor vote when, by voting, they merely give legitimacy to a system that connives with their oppression and alienation? The anthropologist Mukulika Banerjee suggests a fascinating answer: elections are like religious rituals, often devoid of rational purpose or efficacy for the individual participant, but full of symbolic meaning. They are the nearest thing the secular has to the sacred, presenting a moment of empowerment.
Nothing, nothing, says “caring about the poor” like voting to have Big Government take more of your neighbor’s earning.
And then the shock at your neighbor objecting to such theft.
Good lord, I hate these people.
h/t David Thompson
Regarding the nearest thing the pseudo-secular has to the sacred, I’ll be damned if “shut up” isn’t much much closer than voting.
It’s like everything else with the Left: Success without merit or effort. Moral brownie points of some sort without having to actually get one’s hands dirty dealing with the poor. I mean after all, they do have a dinner reservation and tickets to a De Blasio fundraiser later.
Ah, where is the compassion for the mentally ill, the deranged ideologues mired in delusions and hallucinations, self-mutilating disorders of personality and politics, metaphorically locked in their echo-chambers of horrors and so dedicated to walling us up with them?
Nah, me neither. Hope Jesus can forgive me for that failing.
Brendan O’Neill doesn’t mention a very salient reason why Labour were so poor – nobody in Britain could force themselves to vote for Ed Miliband. Probably not even his wife.
Of course I didn’t vote for him, I’ve never voted for a socialist in my life and I wasn’t about to start.
Does he also miss another cleavage SW, the Cymru/non-Cymru divide, the rise (and revenge, some may hope) of the Celts?
SW
I’m afraid I don’t follow British politics much … but I couldn’t help but notice the Leftist meltdown which resembles how they react in America when the hoi polloi don’t vote as they demand them to …
Either it is democracy is “dead” or the voters were swayed by the evil rich (Murdoch or Koch) or even that the voters are racistsexistxenophobicwhiteprivileged troglodytes.
it is never their own condescension or collectivist policies.
That’s because only a racistsexistxenophobicwhiteprivileged troglodyte brainwashed by the evil rich in a dead democracy could possibly disapprove of their policies, nor consider them condescending. <pats Darleen on the head> Now go fetch my slippers.
As for Cymru, I don’t know if it’s just the Celts. I do know that the English are increasingly fed up with being the only British nationality without their own parliament nor official recognition. Cameron is promising to provide an English MPs’ veto on matters affecting only England, but that’s not going to satisfy very many for very long — and the ruling-class disdain for English nationalism will only harden the resolve of those who want England out of the EU.
My main uncertainty is where exactly the tea casks will be flung into the water. The symbolism of this place might work.
Make ’em rum casks, and we’ve got an anthem.
Tag.
The Celtic divide looks to be a thing – a quite substantial thing. In practice, it is completely irrelevant. Look at Scotland first – 56 SNP MPs will be on the losing side of every single vote in the House of Commons. Nicola Sturgeon may puff up like an adder and boast how she told Cameron a thing or two. Cameron didn’t even have to switch off his iPod. The SNP are utterly powerless on the UK stage.
As for Wales, Plaid Cymru have 3 seats. Meaningless. “Why Richard, it profits a man nothing to give his soul for the whole world… but for Wales?” Assuming both the SNP and
Plaid Cymru caucus with Labour, so what? Look at this map. What do you notice about Wales? Mostly blue now.
After ‘New Labour’s’ swing to the middle, Labour was recaptured by the traditional left, and elected as leader a died in the wool socialist, a genuine SJW. The country know damn well who nearly turned Albion into a Greek tragedy, and weren’t prepared for the lunatic tax and spend Labour hardliners want. The sad truth is, even if Labour had come into power, they couldn’t make those dreams come true. Coupled with the most inept leader since Michael Foot, Labour were doomed.
Doesn’t the sneer “but for Wales?” tell a story that isn’t settled (not merely for Wales, but for the rest of the onetime non-English speaking buggers the Isles over), save in the most temporary of senses though SW? Certainly these wretches may not have political power now, but this is what they seek, I mean. Perhaps they awaken one day to discover their desire will not lay in socialist clap-trap, but somewhere else altogether.
I think we have seen the peak of Plaid Cymru come and go both on the national and local stage. In the devolved Welsh assembly they have now sunk to third overall. The UK has changed so much in the last 20 years, and there has been an influx of conservative voters into the former Labour Welsh heartland. I don’t think Welsh independence will be on the cards for a generation or more, sdferr.
Of course I speculate not merely at a great distance from events (and men) but upon a pitifully slim grasp of the peoples involved SW. Nevertheless, given centuries of history come to today, not even the dimmest of witnesses such as I would expect so significant a change as independence in the blink of an eye (a generation in ration to hundreds of same). Yet, as self-identifying Celtic people see with their own two eyes populations of speakers die out, the drive to live remains and may be strengthened. On that electoral map evidence exists in the absence of color in the Irish Republic, an evidence with which others may wish to join. But again, it’s an idle speculation.
ratio
The Welsh have had over 800 years to mull over their loss of country sdferr. I know some of them can hold a grudge. Worst B&B I ever stayed in was in Cardiff run by a woman still bent on avenging Edward’s wrongs.
In the end, though, they have been diluted by the invaders. That didn’t really happen in Ireland.
By dilution and other means. I mean, saved in the nick of time, or about to blink out altogether? And this elimination of speech was no accident, but a policy.
It just seems to me that there is something far more central to the core of politics as such in the bands of such human matter as language and ways than all the bright young ideas of political science in its most vigorous implementation today. Enduring, driving even. And that’s possibly because our political science is just plain stupid in its hubris.
Irish Gaelic is in a much better state than Welsh and Scottish Gaelic, and Irish is considered to be on life support. But for the majority of the people that make up those countries, the language has nothing to do with their feeling of national identity. Even incomers can begin to feel some of that.
Holy moly
https://twitter.com/hashtag/toriesoutnow?f=realtime&src=tren
Truly nothing to do would be surprising, at least to me it would. To the extent that immigrants ‘feel’ or adopt a national identity, I guess we can safely rule genetics out as a fundamental (if it possibly remains as an ancillary) cause of that felt sense. National identity wants for definition though, still. Making a distinction, a nation, I suppose we might say, is one thing, a people is something else? — though even a people only gets us a temporary sign-post, until such time as has passed that intermarriage and with it a wholly new peopling takes place. So turning back to the nation, is this felt sense an identity with the regime, with the arbitrary boundaries of the place, with some palpable concept of the history of the place, with what shared business, if not with a shared language, and shared daily communications? Commerce? Blood shed in common cause? Something else altogether? Religious voting! Ha!
Well clearly, in the case of the Welsh, Scots and Irish, the overwhelming majority of them do not speak (share) the native language of their country, so it must be something else, perhaps your “palpable concept of the history of the place”.
They speak English. As Celts, they take the identity of the defeated. That’s who the Celts are: they’re the ones that got beat. And nearly eliminated. That’s not too difficult. The question however, is whether having taken the identity of the defeated means always being defeated. I’m just not sure that it does. But maybe so. We could ask the Jews, I guess.
In the case of the Celts of Britain, they took on the identity of empire, and forged another identity, of the victor.
That’s true too. More importantly so it may prove.
the important thing is P. Charlotte’s clear of the royal ute so Kate’s ready to get royally knocked up again
chop chop Willem
fucking axlotl tanks got nothing on this bitch
Y’know, if your dog can’t help but shit all over the place, maybe it’s time to put him down.
u so mean
i wish words were like little toy guns
Did thor slip some of his anti-antipsychotics into your cupcakes, hamster?
I think what you really wish is that you were born with different plumbing.
thor’s the god of thunder you better watch it mister he’ll hammer you up
I’m the god of not giving a shit about the Troll Brethren.
i’m watching
The Killing Fields on grittv
the sjw types are like queermorerouge circa 2015
i’m watching the almighty johnsons on netflix
it’s very nicely done – amazingly adroit cast – and kinda buffy-like in how it takes a ridiculous premise and just says okey doke let’s do this
the best parts of >the killing fields< nixon made the demonrat congress cut aid to s. vietnam. and some john lenin "imagine"
and proggtarded angst
lillehammer, slewfoot, aceofspades.
Tomato, tomato, tomato.
“… apparently caring so little for the most vulnerable people among us …”
There is a difference between “the most vulnerable people” and “the vulnerable people”
tomatoes aren’t even involved that is a lie and you are a liar
about the tomatoes
but who can be mad at such a cute lil pup
i just wanna tickle you til you poop
What the English and Welsh have opted for is a Softer Fascism that only a Wet Toff like David Cameron can provide.
This is his moment to step-up to wicket and bat away, but, I fear, he will be caught and bowled.
He’s more cockroach than cricket.
zono.
Yamato.