Britannia Radio

After the histrionics of the G20 (see press coments following) here 
is Jeff uttering a cry of rage at what  Brown and his cronies have 
done to Britain.

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TELEGRAPH    2.4.09
Forget the G20 mob, coping-class fury is about to reach boiling point
Decent folk have been roasted on a spit by a tribe of political 
pygmies - and they're really angry, says Jeff Randall.

By Jeff Randall

There's fury on London's streets - and G20 demonstrators are letting 
us know all about it. Police officers are attacked, buildings smashed 
and transport disrupted. From lamp-posts they hang effigies; on 
monuments they daub slogans. In the blogosphere, messages of hate are 
pinged to and fro.

Judging by its chants, placards and T-shirts, the mob has many 
reasons to be vexed: financiers, bonuses, capitalism, consumerism, 
climate change, the homeless, the stateless, poverty, riches, 
vivisection, nuclear weapons, Iraq, Afghanistan, Palestine and, of 
course, Sir Fred Goodwin's pension.

The participants form an itinerant version of Agent Harman's Court of 
Public Opinion. They picket summits, spew out grievances and then 
drift away to squats, welfare cheques or, in the case of one wannabe 
cannibal, a professorship (albeit suspended) at an institution 
laughably known as a university. Having caused mayhem, some will 
conclude: job done.

Yet long after the G20 circus has left the capital and the mess has 
been cleaned up, there will remain, right across the country, a 
festering resentment with disgracefully few legitimate outlets for 
redress. It is the product of frustration, exploitation and a 
mounting sense of betrayal.

This is not the synthetic indignation of those who would eat the 
bankers, but the boiling rage of the United Kingdom's coping classes 
- law-abiding, hard-working, tax-paying citizens - who, over the past 
decade, have despaired as their country's sovereignty has been 
dissipated, its freedoms compromised and ancient institutions 
diminished by a tribe of political pygmies.

For more than 10 years, these decent folk have been roasted on the 
spit of a Chancellor-turned-Prime Minister who, having failed 
miserably as the regulator-in-chief of financial services, is now 
trying to rebrand himself as a statesman of international repute. It 
is a shameless performance from a leader who has buried his country 
deep in debt, while building up a democratic deficit among those 
whose voices he blocks out. The G20 shindig is his last chance to 
claim a triumph, even though it will be a fudge.

Since the turn of the millennium, Britain's finest have paid about 
£1.2 trillion - trillion - in income tax. This does not include VAT, 
inheritance tax, excise duty, stamp duty, death duty or, for the self-
employed, business taxes. To put this colossal plundering of wage-
packets into context, it amounts to more than twice President Obama's 
bail-out package for the US economy.

At Labour's first party conference after its return to power in 1997, 
Tony Blair spoke with great conviction: "This country, any country 
today, will not just carry on paying more and more in taxes and 
getting less. the new welfare state must encourage work not 
dependency. and we cannot say we want a strong and secure society 
when we ignore its very foundation: family life. [we must] build a 
country whose people will say that 'I care about Britain because I 
know that Britain cares about me'. that is the Britain I offer you."

Fine words, but it never happened. Quite the reverse. We keep paying 
more and more in taxes and getting less. Far from encouraging work, 
the state penalises it, while rewarding handsomely the dependency 
culture of Karen Matthews and her ilk. Family life has not just been 
ignored, it has been debased by a benefits system that subsidises 
teenage pregnancies with generous handouts and social housing. It 
incentivises single parents.

As for the promise, "Britain cares about me", it turned out to be 
true only if you are an MP with your fingers in the Commons' petty-
cash tin, a fully abled claimant of incapacity benefits, or a bogus 
asylum seeker. The rest of us have been subjected to a remorseless 
onslaught on our traditional values, civil liberties and freedom of 
speech. Now we are angry; really bloody angry.

It is the contained ire of citizens who don't have the time or 
inclination to join a riot because they are too busy fulfilling their 
duties of personal responsibility: caring for children, paying the 
bills, funding the profligacy of ministers, some of whom are not 
merely dim-witted but dangerous.

When the will of the people runs contrary to Government intentions, 
it is simply bypassed. How else can we interpret an admission by 
Caroline Flint, the Europe Minister, that she had not even bothered 
to read the Lisbon Treaty?

Isn't this what we pay her for? Having claimed £158,000 in expenses, 
it would have been nice had she done a little homework. There again, 
why bother? She knows that we will not be offered a referendum on the 
EU Constitution because it would be rejected. Instead, the treaty is 
rammed down our throats.

Immigration is dealt with in much the same way. Strip out a crumbling 
economy, and Britain's open door to foreigners is the public's number 
one concern. It's not just worries about competition for jobs, but 
also fears over dilution of national character and social cohesion. 
Many are dismayed at the way their local communities have been 
changed - irreversibly - beyond recognition. Does the Government 
listen? Not at all. It tramples over dissent, bullying through an 
unpopular policy with ludicrous propaganda.

As the screw tightens on household budgets, state education is a 
disgrace. Only this week, we learnt that at almost 800 primary 
schools (about one in 20), the majority of 11-year-olds are unable to 
read or write to a decent standard. [And today we learn that all the 
top primary schools are 'faith' schools where the parents back the 
teachers and the teachers can - er - teach. -cs]  No wonder so many 
aspiring parents are prepared to move home, embrace religion and take 
on two jobs to give their offspring a better hope of securing a place 
in a grammar or private school.

It gets worse. Rural communities are banned from hunting foxes, while 
British soldiers are sent to grisly deaths in sub-standard equipment. 
Fine young men and women from good families are, literally, blown 
away in desert hell holes, fighting to establish freedoms that are 
being usurped in their own country. Could someone, please, explain 
the priorities here?

Those in the Armed Forces who make it back in one piece, return to 
the kind of society which Mr Blair vowed in his Brighton speech to 
banish: "A country. where gangs of teenagers hang around street 
corners, doing nothing but spitting and swearing and abusing passers-
by." In short, a place where civility and manners have become glaring 
anachronisms, and their promotion ranks a poor second behind the 
indulgence of thugs and spongers.

This Government, I accept, is not solely responsible for the 
diminution of decency, but it has played a significant role. It 
promised much and delivered little. In doing so, it fostered a wrath 
among those who cling on to the hope that sanity can be restored to 
high office. These voters will not be found hurling rocks at the Bank 
of England or setting fire to RBS's head office. But, make no 
mistake, their yearning for fulsome retribution is palpable.