A new oxymoron - British Democracy

This is how the Oxford English Dictionary defines DEMOCRACY:

"Government by the people; That form of Government in which the sovereign power resides in the people and is exercised either directly by them or by officers elected by them."

If you entertain the amusing notion that modern Geat Britain is a democracy a few seconds contemplation of that definition should rapidly disabuse you. A couple of weeks ago many people in England and Wales went to the polls to elect local councillors. I was one of them. The fact that I did so was almost a conditioned reflex; as I suspect it was for many of the people who dutifully placed their crosses against their chosen candidates. The truth is, very few of us really believe that the act of voting has anything other than symbolic importance any more. We may, individually and collectively, genuflect in the direction of the democratic ideal but we all know that, for reasons most of us can no longer define, democracy is slipping away from us like a half-remembered dream.
We know how it is meant to work. As the OED says so clearly, it's Government in which power resides in the people and is exercised by them or on their behalf by elected representatives. Or, as the Americans more succinctly put it : Government of the people, by the people and for the people.

We also know that our leaders are confirmed disciples of the process because they never fail to tell us so as they send young British soldiers to die and be maimed in the name of democracy in places like Iraq and Afghanistan. Few world leaders can emote so sincerely as Blair, Brown or David Millimetre in the name of democracy. Unfortunately, there is a disjunction between their fine words and less than fine actions. The governance of Great Britain in the 21st Century owes more to Vladimir Putin than Thomas Paine. If you don't believe me, consider just a few recent examples.

• The creation of Rowland Hill, the General Post Office was once one of those peculiarly British institutions - along with our education system and NHS - of which we could justifiably be proud. The concept of a delivering an item of mail to anywhere in the land for a set fee was so revolutionary that, in its own way, it was as important to the establishment of democratic government as Universal Suffrage. For the first time, thanks to the penny post, people all over the country were able to exchange news and information as and when they felt like it and not when officialdom in all its guises decided to share it with them. That concept of Universal Delivery survived two World Wars, untold changes of administration, floods and the Great Depression. The one thing it couldn't survive was the dead hand of the European Union. Amid all the debate about Post Office closures, the loss of the second post and the prospect of privatising the Royal Mail, the one fact that the politicians of all stripes have been desperatel to play down is that they can do nothing to turn the situation around. And the reason that they are so powerless is that all of the Post Office's ills are attributable to an EU edict that forced it to open up its services to commercial competition. To cut a long story very short, those competitors fell on the profitable bits of the business like wolves savaging a lone calf, leaving the Royal Mail to struggle along with the not-so-profitable parts. Hence, for the first time in a couple of decades, the business is now haemorraging money. What has this to do with democracy? Simple. When were any of us in this country given the opportunity to discuss, disagree with or refuse the legislation that has crippled our postal service? Answer: NEVER. The EU legislated and our administrators did what they always do when it comes to the EU, rolled over to have their tummies tickled. What makes it worse of course, is that none of the legislators in question was or ever will be elected to their highly remunerated positions. They were appointed by a Commission that is, itself, an unelected body. Government for the people by it's elected representatives? I think not.
• A few weeks ago - a life time in Politics - Not SO Flash Gordon promised that he would drop the pay as you throw taxes for rubbish collection by local councils. He made the promise in the aftermath of his party's mauling at the local elections. Quite what good he thought the statement would be AFTER the event is anybody's guess. Perhaps, his script writer slipped the "No more pay as you throw taxes" speech into the pile after the one about " getting on with the government of this country" but before " making the longe-term decisions that need to be made". Whatever the reason, there is little doubt that Gordon promised to rein in the more over-excitable councils who were handing out fines to rubbish bin sinners like sweets at a children's party. With the elections behind him and no immediate reason to score extra Brownie points, Gordon has now lost interest in the topic. The truth has managed to break through the froth of lies and broken promises that passes for what New Labour calls News Management. And that truth is that, even if Brown wanted to stop the "Pay as you throw taxes" he couldn't. It's the EU again, see. Apparently, on the advice of a group of Professors in Dresden ( ex-East Germany, significantly) the EU has ordered member states to introduce the taxes across the board. And not merely to introduce them but to establish Rubbish Police equipped with SatNav chipped bins and trackers, to enforce the taxes. Exemplifying the EU's unique take on democracy, these professors caution officials faced with disgruntled local residents : ..."lack of consensus should not be allowed to intimidate us into avoiding innovation" In other words, if the locals don't like it fine them until they grow to love the idea. Government by the people etc? As far as the EU and our current rulers are concerned, that's just a load of old garbage

Police State

When and how did Great Britain become a police state?

What were we all doing that was so important that we didn't see this enormous change in our culture creeping up on us? Twenty years ago, the only people with strong opinions about the police were criminals, ex-student activists and TV satirists. If the great bulk of the population had any sort of opinion at all it was probably neutral and tinged with a quiet pride that, in a violent world, a bobby could still police a small village or a great city armed with nothing more than a truncheon, a whistle and, most importantly of all, the support and appreciation of the local community.

In those days, the police were not just visible,they were clearly part of the community they served; frequently living in a police house in a village or local neighbourhood. Police stations were always open. There were blue, Doctor Who police call boxes dotted around and help was a 999 call away. The role of the police was to protect their communities and to nick the villains. Apart from what were called Moving Traffic Violations - speeding to you and me - the chances of most of us having any dealings with the police were pretty remote. It was a situation that suited us and them.

Now, all that has changed.

Political correctness has for the most part forced the police to wear kid gloves when dealing with illegal immigrants, travellers, asylum seekers, the Moslem community and other vociferous minorities. On the other hand, our data-obsessed government continues to set arbitrary targets to feed its need for data about every aspect of our society. So, the police focus their collective attention on the most visible target of all; US.

Thanks to cctv and Gatsos, the police have us in their sights 24 hours a day 365 days a year. There may be several million people, many of them newcomers from Eastern Europe, who fail to tax and insure their vehicles and don't even bother to obtain a driving licence, but they take time and effort to track down. Far easier to use the enormous power of the DVLA database to trace and fine illegal speeders and parkers from the mainstream population.

Travellers can invade and destroy whole swathes of the countryside but the police can't eject them. If they leave , the local community has to pay to clean up the skeletons of cars, the animal and human waste that they leave behind. Nothing can be done to them because travelling and living off society without making any contribution is their human right.

Contrast that with what happened this week when no fewer than seven coppers were despatched to a local bowls club to threaten and eject some pensioners who were occupying the green in a peaceful demonstration against a hefty increase in rent imposed by the local council.

Once upon a time, a local police chief would have thought twice or three times before reacting in such a heavy-handed way against such perfectly respectable tax-payers. But then, once upon a time, the local police chief would have been someone who had worked his way up from the ranks and acquired a great deal of common sense and local knowledge in the process.
His modern day equivalent, by contrast, has probably been fast-tracked to his or her current position having joined the Police straight from University with a degree in one kind of ology or another. Unfortunately, such courses rarely include credits for common sense. Ambitious, educated and with little experience of real life outside of school and college, this new breed of police officer feels totally at ease with his mirror-image; the university-educated politician or career civil servant who has had just as little experience of life beyond academia. Setting and meeting arbitrary targets on arrest levels and crimes solved provides the fuel for both of their careers. The better these figures the better their career prospects. So, in the end, how they obtain them becomes a secondary consideration; all that matters is that the governments' propaganda machine can transmute them into proof of falling crime levels and increasing levels of police success.
It's a scenario in which everyone wins; everyone, that is, except you and me. We are left wondering where our slightly odd, anachronistic police force went to be replaced by a remote, armoured force that is distinctly un-British.

There is no immigration to the UK

It's a common myth that immigration into the UK is out of control. But, it simply isn't true. There are parts of the UK that haven't seen a new immigrant since the Normans popped their heads over the wall almost a thousand years ago now.
The only part of the UK that is drowning beneath a constant stream of immigrants, legal and illegal, is England and even then only that part beneath a line drawn from Norwich in the East to Oxford in the West. People , you see, don't arrive on these shores thinking that they will seek their fortune in Greenock, Wick or Thurso. Granted, some may occasionally take a wrong turn and end up living very happily in Cwmbran or even Glasgow.. But, for the most part, the Land of Milk and Honey they are seeking lies within the confines of the M25 motorway.
That is why, while the population of Scotland is expected to decline by 5% over the next 20 years and those of Wales and Northern Ireland are predicted to rise by a very small percentage, England will see its population explode from around 55 million now to close to 70 million by 2025.
What makes the situation particularly ironic, of course, is that the English people were never consulted before this torrent of immigrants was unleashed on them. They did not choose to have many of their rural towns turned into centres of Polish culture or for up to 40% of Council Housing to be allocated to newcomers from Eastern Europe. Likewise, it was never their intention that vast swathes of Green Belt should be sacrificed to accommodate these newcomers.
No, these decisions were taken on their behalf by people like Gordon Brown, John Reed, Gordon Darling and Margaret Beckett. All of whom, of course, are Scots and therefore extremely keen to share England's bounty with the poor and deprived of the former Soviet empire.
If, in the process, they also managed to regally piss a lot of English bastards off, while providing the Labour Party with a transfusion of potential new voting stock, then so much the better.