Monday, 30 May 2011

Devil's Kitchen speaks - by Richard... Monday, May 30, 2011


"The idea that the government - and local authorities - must come grovelling to beg us for their funds each and every year is enough to make the entire exercise worthwhile ... ". So says Devil's Kitchen, who today gives his endorsement to Referism.

DK was once one of Britain's premier independent bloggers, hugely enthusiastic about the medium which he – like many of us – took to for its revolutionary potential, only then to become disillusioned. But his instincts were not wrong. He was simply premature in his expectations, in what was still an immature medium that had yet to find its voice.

From the publication of their six points in 1838, it took the Chartists ten years to mount a demonstration on a scale that really scared government. Even then, they were not immediately successful, but they did change British politics forever. And their demands – all but one – were eventually met. We need to have the same patience and persistence - and the belief that we can force through change.

With the MSM going into self-destruct mode, however, the truly independent blogosphere is almost in the position of the grown-ups taking over from the children, as it now confronts the issue of promoting that revolution. But, just as the MSM goes AWOL, the tide is turning in our favour. Never more in recent times has the public sentiment more favoured revolution.

What the blogosphere cannot do, as yet, is put people on the streets. We are not in the same dire situation as the peoples of Greece and Spain, although we share the same direction of travel. But what we can do – and have the power to do – is to set an agenda, lodging an idea and getting people talking about it. From a position where this was once the monopoly of the MSM, we are able to challenge it, and set our own agenda. And that is where real power lies.

More by luck than judgement, we may have more time than the unfortunate PIIGS, but our problem is the same – a government which is not under control, where the traditional democratic processes no longer provide an adequate – or any – check on its behaviour or performance. But, as DK so ably demonstrates, in Referism are the seeds of a mechanism which could bring our government into line.

In attempting to do so, our main enemy is us, ourselves – our lack of confidence in our ability to effect change. But, as I never get tired of saying, there are more of us then there are of them. All we need to prevail are a belief in our own power and a realistic objective to embrace. In Referism, we have an objective. With DK's piece today, we took a significant step towards believing it can happen.

The power of the idea is unstoppable.

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A backwards look - by Richard...

The Cynical Tendency revisits the Heath and Wilson era, and asks: "what has changed?"

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An invitation - by Richard...

Now that it is up and running, the Independent Political Bloggers site can accept up to 100 authors. We are now two, which means the system can accept another 98.

This blog, I feel, should be a joint property, and I would be more than happy to register any other independent political blogger on the site. If anyone wants to drop me a note from the "contact" link, smoke signals or whatever, I'll send you an e-mail and get the process moving.

I'm also thinking of doing a blogger-a-day feature: 200 words description, a screen grab of the site, and a link. Anyone who fancies kicking it off, send me their 200 words and I'll post it (subject to all the usual caveats) on EURef and the IPB site.

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The power of an idea - by Richard...


There is a reason why the British media are ignoring the current demonstrations in Athens and Spain. They are intrinsically anti-establishment, which means they are beyond the pale. The media is the bastion of the establishment in this country and elsewhere, setting and controlling the agenda, keeping minds off the terrifying prospect that people are clamouring for power.

I'm going to write another of my on-line essays today, exploring this theme, and picking up some of the ideas rehearsed on the forum over the last few days. Hence, there is a "work in progress" sign up, and I will keep adding to this until it is finished.

Worthy of note, in the interim – the contagion seems to be spreading. In Paris, hundreds took part in a protest rally at the Bastille Square, in solidarity with demonstrators in Spain calling for a popular democratic uprising among Europeans. This could be something – could be nothing. But sure as Hell, the British media is ignoring it. The lack of coverage cannot be accidental.

Even the broader detail seems to be evading them, such as Friday's news that Greece was close to a run on the banks. From the early morning, there was serious pressure for withdrawals on deposits, especially small amounts.

The pressure began last Wednesday and it was significant that, on Thursday and Friday, an estimated €1.5 billion had been withdrawn, bringing the May outflow to at least €4 billion, up from €2 billion in April. The majority of withdrawals were made by pensioners and small savers, with amounts ranging from €2-3000, then increasing to €10-15,000.

But if we get nothing of this from the media, it will be for much the same reason we get 1,040 results on "referism" in the blogs and 3,760 results on the web (up 700 in two days), but then: "Your search - "referism" - did not match any documents". That is in the news section ... the voice of The Man - who wants to control the message and the agenda.

The media will be second-last to know. Those who rely on the MSM for information will be the last – as always. This is why so many politicians are so ill-informed. And part of the technique for keeping its readers (listeners and viewers) ill-informed is to project situations like the Greek financial situation through a conventional political prism, as if this were normal politics.

Thus we have CBSNews reporting prime minister Papandreou, "buffeted by negative polls and protests" vowing to continue his fiscal "reforms", telling us they are "painful", but they are starting to pay off and the economy will return to growth in 2012. This ignores the fact that, with a national debt 160 percent of GDP, no amount of such reforms will make the difference. This is not normal politics. The situation is unsustainable and irrecoverable.

But, where elements - relatively small factions at this stage, the 50,000 occupying central Athens compared with the 500,000 that the unions can routinely deploy - seek genuinely to force change, the media response is to characterise them as "anarchists".

This, we have seen with The Washington Post, which glibly talks of "a breakdown in the rule of law", failing to recognise that the criminals reside more in the portals of power than on the streets and that – as far as violence goes – the police are as much responsible as the people.


And, in the current round of Spanish protests, the demonstrators are at pains to emphasise the non-violent nature of their activities and their lawful behaviour, even if there are outcrops of violence from the so-called M-15 movement. And, as they begin to frame their demands to put to the parliament in Madrid, what they seem to be asking for does not sound very different from what we want – the ability to control their own governments.

That, then, is the "idea". Across Europe, in separate towns and cities, people are coming to the same conclusions - the systems of democratic control are no longer working, and somehow we need to reassert control. We the people want control. And the power of that idea is unstoppable. Even if those with the power are not going to relinquish it easily, they will eventually have to concede.

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A fantastic fourteen - by Richard...

Here is another selection of independent political bloggers – fourteen this time in order to bring the total to fifty. I'll post that list, in alphabetical order, in the directory, but here is the fourteen to be going on with:
What strikes you is the huge range, the quality of much of the work, and - as a change from the claustrophobic narrowness of the MSM - the freshness. There is some clever, original writing here, passion, and wit. There is also – something the MSM have long ceased to provide – some really specialist knowledge.

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Heatwave? Yeah, right! - by Richard...

That's what they've been telling us, and now we get from The Independent, the classic British bank holiday. A combination of travel chaos and indifferent weather has ensured that, for many, this one has been even more disappointing than most. Across the country, cloud cover and cool temperatures made for a gloomy weekend.

And they're still telling us that the world is coming to an end.

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It's happening - by Richard...


Tens of thousands of people have flooded central Athens on the fifth day of protests against government austerity policies. This is a spontaneous protest inspired by Spanish demonstrators, with estimates of up to 100,000 people assembled in the Greek capital's central Syntagma Square, responding to calls on social networking sites for gatherings across Europe to demand "real democracy".

Below the parliament building, protesters held a placard claiming "poverty is the greatest abuse" while others beat empty pots, chanting "thieves", pointing at the parliament building. "I'm here to say that I've had enough. It's not right to have to pay for politicians' mistakes," said teacher Vivi Villa, 34.

The sentiment here, in common with the Spanish protestors, is decidedly anti-politician, in general – all politicians, on a non-partisan basis. We are seeing here a reflection of exactly the sentiment growing in this country, the polarisation between "us" and "them". Politics are being redefined and history is being made. There is no knowing where it will end.


When that history comes to be written, however, there will be a small footnote on the behaviour of the British media. Locked in its own infantile preoccupations, the world as we know it is falling apart, and if it has noticed, it has so far not bothered to report it. Heaven help those who rely on the MSM for their news.

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Crisis! Panic! Disaster! - by Richard... Sunday, May 29, 2011

Greenhouse gas emissions increased by a record amount last year. We now have the highest carbon output in history. Hopes of holding global warming to "safe levels" are all but out of reach.

This is according to unpublished estimates from the International Energy Agency, and the "shock rise" means the goal of preventing a temperature rise of more than 2 degrees Celsius – which scientists say is the threshold for potentially "dangerous climate change" – is likely to be just "a nice Utopia".

It also shows the most serious global recession for 80 years has had only a minimal effect on emissions. Last year, a record 30.6 gigatonnes of carbon dioxide poured into the atmosphere, mainly from burning fossil fuel. That was – a rise of 1.6Gt on 2009, according to estimates from the IEA.

Fatih Birol, chief economist of the IEA, says. "I am very worried. This is the worst news on emissions." Birol tells The Guardian, "It is becoming extremely challenging to remain below 2 degrees. The prospect is getting bleaker. That is what the numbers say".

Professor Lord Stern of the London School of Economics, the author of the influential Stern Report into the economics of climate change for the Treasury in 2006, warned that if the pattern continued, the results would be dire.

"These figures indicate that [emissions] are now close to being back on a 'business as usual' path. This could mean around a 50 percent chance of a rise in global average temperature of more than 4C by 2100", he says.

So .... are all the countries in the world going to sign up to emergency measures to cut emissions? Er ... France, Russia, Japan and Canada have told the G8 they would not join a second round of carbon cuts under the Kyoto Protocol at United Nations talks this year and the US has reiterated it would remain outside the treaty.


Meanwhile, Damian Carrington wants the world economy be re-engineered. In all probability the man is as stupid as he looks. But he is likely to get his wish. Only it isn't going to be for the reason he wants, and he is not going to like the result.

We're domed ... domed, I tells you, utterly domed!

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Not PIIGS but Pigs - by Richard...



Gratuitous violence from the Spanish police. The protests are not going to stay "cuddly" for very long at this rate.

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The darkness gathers - by Richard...

If you talk to the serious men – not the stupid, empty politicians and their mediaclaque, they will tell you of their concerns ... and you can see it in their eyes. They know full well that the collapse of a currency is a life-changing event and, for many, will become a life-ending one.

Now, those concerns are beginning to leak to the surface – nothing that any intelligent observer could not have worked out for themselves, and the thrust of much of what we have been saying. When the collapse comes, this is not going to be contained.

Letting the cat out of the bag, however, is the German popular daily Bild, which has got hold of a CIA report warning that the tough austerity measures and the dire situation in Greece could escalate and even lead to a military coup.

This in repeated in the Turkish press and you can bet your sweet life that Ankara is monitoring the situation very closely. A military junta on its doorstep, perhaps looking for foreign adventures to keep minds off domestic troubles, is not what is wanted at this juncture.

The point is, though, that there is no sensible person who now expects the Greek government to avoid default. Most certainly, the rest of the PIIGS will follow, and the knock-on effects will be catastrophic. Furthermore, it is by no means certain that the contagion will stop there. Spain is almost as vulnerable, and the history of military control more recent.

The situation is almost has the feel of the spring days of 1939, as the storm clouds gathered over Europe. By the winter to come, one might expect the political shape of Europe to have been completely remodelled, the effects of which no one can foretell.


Currently, therefore, Twitter, footballers and X-Factor slebs should not be top of the agenda – but it is perhaps indicative of the intensity of the storm to come that the British media, instinctively, is adopting the ostrich pose. It did it before WWII and, as the darkness gathers, it is doing so again.

On the bright side, it may take several years – even a decade – for the instability to spread to the UK, giving us time to adjust. The problem is, though, that there is no sign of a Churchill waiting in the wings, ready to lead to nation to the sunlit uplands (not that he ever did). But there is not even the prospect of a "finest hour" for us with lightweight fools such as Cameron in the driving seat. With him it may be our darkest hour. But how dark – and how fast it will arrive - no one yet knows.

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Politics of the nursery - by Richard...


The revelation that the idiot Cameron bases his aid policy on having listened to Bob Geldolf on "Live Aid", when he was an 18-year-old, is staggering in its implications. Because a fatuous teenager listened to an etiolated pop star spouting gibberish, the British people now have to find £8.5 billion this year, rising to £12.5 billion by 2014.

But the fantastic stupidity of this comes home when we read via Booker that, despite the latest tax rises, the £10 billion the government had to borrow last month was the highest ever April figure on record.

Our revised borrowing figure for last year was just below £140 billion, which means that the government has been spending nearly £3 billion a week more than its income – and, despite those famous "cuts", its spending continues to rise.

It's good to know, writes Booker, that it only takes us 22 days to borrow the £8.5 billion we hand out each year in international aid, enabling that crass idiot who is pretending to be a prime minister to boast that we are the most generous country in the world.

But, if you think about it, here we are, borrowing money we don't have and can't afford, to give away to people who will most certainly misuse it, only for us then to have to borrow more money to pay the interest on the money we have borrowed, because we cannot afford to repay it.

Would someone like to suggest that, if we had an annual referendum on the budget, this one would be approved? But since Dave is in power, and has his armoured cars, his men in blue uniforms and machine guns, his gated community and armed guards, he can afford to ignore the unwashed masses who are forced to pay his bills.

And yes, it is the politics of the nursery – but it is backed by brutal force. Try not giving Dave his money and see how far you get.

Posted by Britannia Radio at 20:52