IF THE GOVERNMENT REALLY HAD THE COURAGE TO “RECONNECT EMOTIONALLY” WITH THE BRITISH VOTER, IT WOULD BE BLASTED BY SHAME AND HORROR ~ Tabitha Troughton ~ What is this, slithering in your direction, smears of red and shards of bone in its wake, smirking ingratiatingly, waving gory tentacles, and muttering platitudes through its 27,000 teeth? Is it a giant slug? No! It’s the UK’s government, which has just been told, by Starmer’s toxic chief of staff, that it needs “to reconnect emotionally with voters”. Given the government’s documented track record of carnage, cowardice and corruption, voters may well flee, but the Guardian is made of sterner stuff. “In a presentation”, that paper explained seriously on its 6 January front page, “ministers were told the government needed to gain back voters’ trust with three Es”. The jokes are writing themselves. Who would not, at this point, risk an MDMA-induced stroke for a brief, delusional high, in which one forgets the government’s ongoing policies, and also the near indescribable awfulness of a recent Keir Starmer promo video, in which workers were invited to Downing Street for Christmas lunch. This showcased the prime minister prodding limply at cold roast potatoes,and pretending to chat to a prole, while completely ignoring their replies. It was the best they could do, or a post-realist joke. The “three E’s” with which the government were told to woo the country turn out to be “emotion, empathy and evidence”. Presumably the same emotion driving continued diplomatic and military support for our ally, the Israeli government, whose continuing genocide in Gaza has seen children freeze to death in inundated tents. Perhaps the empathy to match that of our ally, the Israeli government, who backs settlers ravaging in the West Bank and escalates the torture and rape of Palestinian prisoners with relish and impunity. Or maybe the kind of evidence yet to be heard against un-convicted prisoners of conscience starving to death in UK prisons for opposing weapons supply to our ally, the Israeli government—deliberately held on remand way beyond the legal limit, while the government contemptuously dismisses them. The UK’s prime minister, eyes glassy, refuses to support international law. It is not, he says, in the “national interest”, as though it is ever in the national interest to be a humiliated ally to demented, brutal, sociopathic regimes. The economy of Spain, whose government has stood openly against Trump, is out-performing those of Germany, France and Italy. Meanwhile the UK, staggering and flailing, pays vassal tribute: billions more to US pharmaceuticals, billions upon billions more on “defence”. There is a vast, shapeshifting horror in the shape of civil war, posing on the horizon behind the UK’s giant slug of shame. It is being invited into the country by obedient acolytes Nigel Farage and Stephen Yaxley-Lennon. And this government’s attempt to ditch jury trials, for example, is the latest in a series of gifts to this unholiest of gods. It is now absurdly easy to picture the UK state in five years time as a low-budget version of America, even without Reform. Looking to Gaza, we might be tempted to think we deserve this. But of course, no-one deserves this. If the government did have the courage to “reconnect emotionally” with the British voter, it would be blasted by shame and horror. Hannah Arendt observed, in ‘The Origins of Totalitarianism’, that modern terror is not merely used by dictators against opponents, but as an instrument to rule masses of people, who are perfectly obedient. So, to the barricades, UK citoyens! Keep up your pens and paintbrushes, your guitars and cameras, your research tools; keep raising your flags and voices; sport your frivolous costumes against the coming shadow. Create plans for neighbourhood support. Save the slug from itself. Being “perfectly obedient” is not an escape, or an answer. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Image: Number10 on Flickr CC BY-NC-ND 4.0 The post Gifts to the unholiest of gods appeared first on Freedom News.

WHILE STARMER FLASHES HIS MORAL VOID AND FARAGE GETS A BBC FLUFF JOB, THE PEOPLE CARRY ON FIGHTING ~ Tabitha Troughton ~ For UK comedy, these days one has to depend on the promotional videos still scuttling out from the Prime Minister’s office, like perky little cockroaches. In the recent attempt to launch “Phase 2” of the government, together with “a more powerful Number 10”, the feet of Downing Street staff trudge upstairs (“don’t show our faces!”); the Prime Minister tries to place papers neatly into a folder, and fails; the Prime Minister tries to enthuse his team with “good spirits, confidence and conviction”; someone’s hand fiddles, too menacingly, with a ballpoint. A final close-up shows the Prime Minister clicking, with great concentration, followed by a smirk of triumph, on a mouse. There isn’t, curiously, an England flag in sight—not even a Union Jack; just a sizeable painting of a large, vaguely human-shaped, melting, black blob, directly behind the prime-ministerial chair. It’s not, of course, a depiction of a lost soul, but still the country flails, trapped in Starmer’s moral dissolution. Racists waving flags menace asylum seekers, people of colour, and their allies: Starmer says he loves flags. People swallow vicious, hate-filled lies, egged on by billionaires and supremacists: Starmer “gets” the lies; Great Yarmouth faces a weekend of “the UK’s biggest white power gig for a decade”: Yvette Cooper is wheeled forward to confirm that her house is permanently tricked out like a mini-roundabout. Since then, we’ve had a Cabinet reshuffle which resembles nothing more than the Cups and Balls trick. “You thought David Lammy was under here? No, he’s miraculously turned up here! Oooh, where’s Yvette Cooper gone?”—except that nobody cares where the balls are, and there’s already far too much bollocks to cope with. Assisted suicide! Badgers! Farm tax! Water shit! Cost of living! Welfare cuts! Peter Mandelson! The British public, welded to the rails, stares down the barrel of a train tunnel, from which a puffing, jeering, farting, purplish monstrosity lurches towards them. But worry not, Parliament has been back at work since 1 September and is carrying on as usual. A peaceful young woman in prison is on hunger strike, and in critical condition, detained for 9 months so far without trial. Police are holding back tears as they arrest peaceful protestors for terrorism. Meanwhile the Israeli government continues to starve Gaza and erase it, and increase the conquest of the West Bank. More IDF soldiers have kill themselves. Presumably in later years Starmer will think back fondly to the time he united opposite poles at asylum demos, with the chants of “Keir Starmer’s a wanker” coming heartily from both sides. That’s the cost of holding the centre, say the grown-ups, shaking their heads, but the centre has not held, even if “being a bit murdery” could exist, and, sadly, anarchy has yet to be loosed upon the world. Instead, Labour’s backroom boys are now “fighting like rats in a pack” over the leadership succession, which, again, no-one else cares about—unless perhaps someone is busy trying to reanimate Margaret Thatcher’s corpse. What’s to say about Reform UK, except that the large majority of the country seriously do not want them, despite continuing, slavishly fawning publicity from the mainstream media? Almost every time the mobile group of flag-wavers appear in front of what everyone persists in calling “hotels”, they’re outnumbered. Reform are losing councillor after councillor. Their four MPs, and the leadership, already fight like venal politicians in a sack. The Great Yarmouth white power gig turned out to have sold around 500 tickets, about the size of a bowls club, and has now, thanks to locals and campaign groups, been cancelled. Nigel Farage, who, as Il Duce-elect, still needs to retain his parliamentary seat, has come out as hating his own constituency. Fail not the BBC, which can make Uriah Heep look like a man of principle on a Sunday. Never mind what the people want: Reform, with its lies and racists and fear-mongering and riot-stoking and threats and long-held desire to make handguns freely available is what, we’re being told, they are going to get. “Unless Starmer is able to meet this moment”, falters the Guardian hopefully, like someone trying to insert a metal key into an electronic lock. And lo! Into this horrible scenario gallops Zack Polanski, the new leader of the Green Party, his stallion of truth for once charging down the media bull, meriting not only more coverage in 5 minutes than the Green Party has had in a decade, but a picture in the understandably conflicted Guardian which made him look like a vampiric Shrek. And yea! Looming in the background are Corbyn and Sultana’s “Not Your Party” which manages to be far more attractive than Reform, despite not having a leader, or leaders, or even a manifesto—by golly it’s the Paris Commune! Or maybe State and Revolution. All the while, the people carry on, fighting against this genocidal black pall. From the heart of the Cotswolds to the centre of Edinburgh, from the doubling of numbers queuing for arrest in London’s Parliament Square, to the thousands on the streets of Belfast, the last few days alone are bursting with increased opposition. It’s astonishing. We should do all we can to make it effective, too. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Photo: Peter Marshall The post Farts, flags, and the melting black blob of UK politics appeared first on Freedom News.