Posted by seumasach on July 12, 2009
Polly Toynbee
11th July, 2009
New depths have been plumbed by Rupert Murdoch‘s newspapers. If the Guardian’s revelations only concerned lurid journalism it would be disgraceful but not sinister. However, the way the police, the public prosecutor and judiciary appear to have prevented exposure of this industrial-scale bugging is a reminder of just how cleverly Murdoch companies manipulate officialdom.
Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged: against oligarchy, British oligarchy, Murdoch empire | Leave a Comment »
Posted by seumasach on June 7, 2009
Hutton renews here the traditional preoccupation of the British oligarchy with chopping off the heads of monarchs. However, I find it quite bizarre to see Gordon Brown presented as a monarch. A puppet might be more apt- he is so obviously subordinate to the City, bestowing unlimited largess on them at unimaginable cost to ourselves. That the extreme concentration of wealth is incompatible with democracy and, ultimately, any viable body politic, seems to have been lost on us. However as I have argued here the oligarchy, on a high after pulling off the bailout heist, now wish to institutionalise the impotence of the executive and the political class in general.
If we are to stand up to these people we need a strong executive So, by all means, reform the legislative, introducing a written constitution with PR. etc.; but recognise that the logical consequence of this is to create a seperate, elected executive. In other words, a presidential system. The piecemeal reforms on offer will not extend democracy but restrict it and subordinate it to oligarchy: a return to what Disraeli dubbed the Venetian System
Confirming this is the fact that in all this debate supposedly about democracy nothing is said about the encroachments of oligarchy, the privatization of every aspect of political life, even the legal system, and such extraordinary abusesas the substitution of unelected, anonymous, unconstitutional bodies such as COBRA for
the cabinet.
Will Hutton
7th June, 2009
I remember Tony Blair early in his premiership discussing cabinet government with Roy Jenkins. Or, rather, not discussing cabinet government. For, as Blair explained, he did not intend cabinet ever to last longer than an hour; the best cabinet was 30 minutes. He planned to drive government from Number 10, using all the powers at his discretion to get his way as fast and efficiently as possible. Jenkins gently reproached his young charge; it would lead to great political mischief, as it did. Think Iraq.
Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged: British oligarchy, constitutional change, End of empire, executive power, stop the bailout, The Venetian system | Leave a Comment »
Posted by seumasach on January 7, 2008
Cailean Buchanan
4th May 2008
Much has been made of the collapse of the New Labour vote at the local elections. What is really striking is this: two British Prime Minister’s have burnt out in less than a year. Brown is now less popular than Blair and its fair to suppose that his successor will rapidly become more unpopular still. This unprecedented situation is undoubtedly a reflexion of the collapse of British financial power and the attendant economic crisis. But it also reflects the impotence of government in the face of it. For Britain is now a fully-fledged oligarchy where good governance is, at every turn, subordinated to the power of financiers feverishly engaged in looting the country, its treasury, its public assets, its pension funds, its local authorities and its people; the kind of regime which was once reserved for our colonies.
Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged: against oligarchy, British oligarchy, End of empire, financial collapse, nomenklatura | Leave a Comment »
Posted by seumasach on January 7, 2008
Cailean Bochanan
30th November, 2007
The humiliation of Gordon Brown may seem to be fair sport, but there are good reasons for not getting carried away as the Lib-Dem and Tory leaders already have done. They should have been thinking “there,but for the grace of God, go I” for the British behind-the-scenes elite have no particular grudge against Brown: in the new circumstances in which they find themselves, their projects for global domination in disarray, the object of their hostility is nothing less than constitutional government itself, in as far as we can claim too possess it.
Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged: against oligarchy, British oligarchy, oligarchy | Leave a Comment »
In These New Times 