Monday 5 January 2015

The Silence


Reading CUs earlier post reminded me of that magical time in 2010. 
It was the day after the election, and no government had won. This caused the usual media speculation, rumours, talking heads and presenters to all gab about as normal.
But for the public there was a beautiful silence.

The New Labour propaganda machine, that had been endlessly droning on and on like a Soviet Commissar with a megaphone, was finally silent. Thirteen years of a double daily bugle call of great achievements, made up statistics, 5 year plans and record numbers of tractors built, was at an end.

All the media had dutifully reported the daily Campbell bulletin. And some had reported the answering Tory denials and rebuttals. 

In the final days the Red Army Labour machine had gone into total denial mode. Stories were seeping out of the Blair/Brown rifts. The mega overspending. The termazepam leader. The coups and counter coups. All were denied and ever greater efforts were made to divert attention from the coming collapse.

The whole new labour  project was falling apart. As the blues advanced on the bunker, the propaganda from inside the bunker only intensified. Ever more relaunches. Ever more spending promises. Ever more fanciful claims. {At one point Labour even claimed to have cured cancer.}

Eventually, as soon as the election was over, it all just stopped. Brown had locked himself inside the bunker and the opposition had no plans of their own. No one was in charge. 

So for 10 days there were no party political announcements at all. Crime wasn't at its lowest level for 500 years. The NHS wasn't about to run out of money. Children weren't achieving record exam results for the 150th year in a row. 

Nothing was happening at all.

And we can expect this blissful period to be repeated this May. 
The calm.. before the storm.

That short, wonderful quiet period.That precedes more politicking.

Or, as Trevor Howard saw it ........


16 comments:

Diogenese said...

There will be no storm - only calm.

The comments on this site reflect the "will" of the people. Sick to the back teeth of politicians - but unwilling to do anything about it.

There is no expenses scandal just a lot of noise. There is no mass ground swell of boots on the ground willing to knock on doors and listen to people.

All there is are a few highly paid media wonks planning a media grid to ensure bad news is suppressed, good news is inflated beyond its actual value and the black arts applied to those that step out of line.

There is no LibLabCon, Mr Smith, there is only the pliant and lazy electorate who are unwilling to engage to make the change.

Nick Drew said...

assuming a hung parliament, the coalition-building phase will be chaos - just look at the players:

- Clegg, made an arse of himself in the 2010 negotiations, will be 'determined to do better' next time. i.e. even bigger arse

- Greens, easily bought with money-for-greenery, a frightening price but one that many eejits will be willing to pay

- Salmond, dangerous single-issue player, will be focussed and ruthless

- probably even the Sinners et al, God help us

- UKIP, should be single-issue focussed like Salmond but (a) no-one wants to give them what they want, and (b) in practice a disparate bunch of piss-heads with all manner of private agendas

- Osborne, the 'strategic genius' who so royally screwed up the 2010 deal with the Libs

- Miliband, doesn't remotely look like a negotiator but will meddle incessantly

these things are bad enough / take long enough in Germany, where it's all well-trod territory

UK/2015 will be more like the Knesset ...

Elby the Beserk said...

The Greens will have no part to play in anything. I gather that thanks to the utter incompetence of Brighton's Green council (why are we not surprised), it is more than like that they will lose Brighton. Nor can I believe that any other constituency will be stupid enough to elect a Green MP.

Cheerio Greens. And don't come back

BE said...

There should be a LibLabCon coalition, just to wind up the Kippers.

Electro-Kevin said...

Only if there is a Con/Ukip coalition will there be noise.

The Left cause a lot of trouble when democratic voting results in an outcome which they dislike.

UKIP anywhere near power will not be allowed. Not by the BBC, the unions nor the students - not even if the people were to vote for it in large numbers.

Electro-Kevin said...

BE - If we Kippers were to be wound up we would have been wound up by now. We have already tolerated insult, lies and misrepresentation on a huge scale.

The people who smash the place up and set fire to buildings are the Left - yet you seem OK with that. Clearly they are the most easily wind-up-able.

Can't you see ? I'm voting UKIP to wind YOU up ! If you want to know why they're doing so well look in the mirror.

Bill Quango MP said...

EK - BE isn't now, nor, to my knowledge, ever has been, a lefty.

A lib-Lab-Con coalition. Its not as implausible as it seems. That way the status quo is maintained no matter how many people vote for other parties. And there are plenty of points of agreement among all of the three main parties.

A Lib-Lab coalition will refuse any call for an eu referendum on any terms. Labour might find it harder to resist all efforts at limiting immigration.

A Con-Lib coalition would find many red line areas. Libs are never going to make their fantasy favourite promises so lightly again. And aren't going to abandon the few actual pledges they do make without a care either. Would be a tough month of negotiations. Tories would be wise to ensure no Libs are in the business post this time.
Let them have sport.

An SNP Labour coalition. the most likely outcome at this stage, gives labour a big English problem. It HAS to appease Scotland , and has already promised to do so with English money. A £2 million mansion tax affects about only 3 castles in Scotland. The hit falls on squarely on London and the South-East.
English money for Scottish healthcare is ALREADY the LABOUR promise in their attempt to keep their Scottish seats.

A con-kip coalition, the least likely of all, is the easiest to agree. Allow the referendum to go ahead and allow NF to run the out campaign. Dave, ( or Boris-May-Gove-Hammond take your pick}if wise, allows Clegg-Milliabnd {or their successors}, to run the IN campaign.

Might be a post in this ? Which is the most likely groupings to take power ?

BE said...

That was easy.

BE said...

On a more serious note, there won't be a UK much longer to be I. Jim Murphy is kindly showing us why the constitutional settlement is broken. If the next government doesn't sort out a proper settlement very quickly, there will soon be calls for independence from the residents of Greater Cashcow. These calls will be even stronger if the NF crew get a sniff at power.

Maybe London will start to look even more like Singapore to the rest of England's low-wage Malaysia? Only with less good food.

Timbo614 said...

@BE @ 3:31 :)

Maybe we should re-draw the map to the ancient anglo-saxon boundaries, seems to split to country nicely by attitude attributes etc.

Then I can found the WIP (Wessex independence Party). Seems to be where most of the money is :)

Happy new year...

Electro-Kevin said...

BE has admitted he would be happier with a Lib/Lab/Con coalition than a Tory majority via a pact with Ukip.

He is a Lefty, therefore.

(With the usual smugness to go with it.)



Budgie said...

"Maybe we should re-draw the map to the ancient anglo-saxon boundaries ... " [Timbo].

That means recovering most of southern Scotland. The Borders were conquered by the Scots (an Irish tribe) in 1041 or thereabouts.

Electro-Kevin said...

"Maybe London will start to look even more like Singapore to the rest of England's low-wage Malaysia? Only with less good food."

No. London looks to me like a city full of professionals who are being forced to live in flats and terraces that were originally built for milkmen and hospital porters (@ 9x salary mortgages) - or to travel insane distances to get to work.

(I'm actually on their side and want them to have much better than that.)

"I'm Okay. Oh I do love the coffee shops and shabby chic stores"

No. Really. You're NOT OK. And, erm - our little town's packed with coffee shops and shabby chic ... second hand trade and make-and-me ... well we invented it !

"We can go see a West End show any time we like."

Really ? What ? With YOUR mortgage ??? Oh I see. You have it over 83 years. Well. anwyay. With the exception of Stomp I get a sore arse in the West End... and its not always because I've woken up drunk in an alley. It's because the shows are all too bloody long and formulaic. YAWN ! I was glad when Helen Mirren had a go at those Brazillian drummers - they were disturbing my sleep.

The local dramatic society is much more fun - mainly because they have some right fuck ups. They're doing Pulp Fiction this year.

We have no cultural diversity ? Why ? It was Bristol St Pauls where the fashion rioting and setting fire to buildings started.

That London is the only forward thinking part of the country is a bit out of date now. Haven't you heard ? They're building a new high speed rail link to tap into all of the talent outside of the capital.




BE said...

This is great fun.

Electro-Kevin said...

BE - With such an edgy and brave sense of humour I'm worried that you might start mocking Islam.

Like Ukip, Muslims must believe in a lot of things that you dislike. (In fact if I were a bigot I'd have nothing to fear from Islamification)

The era of comedy in Europe died today. The red line has been drawn and no comedian can claim to be edgy unless he's prepared to cross it.

Now we have one ideology with an ultimate protection from mockery shouldn't all of them be ? Otherwise large parts of the population are going to find themselves at a severe disadvantage if they allow 'comedians' to get away with taking the piss out of them.

Anonymous said...

EK, why are you so keen on edgy? I want my comedians to be funny.