How British elections represent the state of Europe | EurActiv

The day before the UK’s general election, this article  published by Euro Activ is quite thought-provoking. The author, George Friedman, is an American political scientist. It’s worth a read.

via How British elections represent the state of Europe | EurActiv.

Whilst, I do not necessarily agree with the total thrust of the argument, it certainly made me think more deeply about the challenges. Nevertheless, there are a number of powerful points.

Firstly, whilst this is a domestic election in the UK, it is still globally important in a geostrategic sense. The second point is that the UK’s geostrategic power is related to separately its influence over both the US and Europe respectively. Thirdly, this is to be differentiated with the UK’s own geostrategic influence prior to WWII, when the Royal Navy protected UK interests. Fourthly, there’s a challenge that the British national identity was not effectively defined at the end of WWII.

Having been in Canada on Canada Day, I noted the pride Canadians have for their national identity, whether immigrants or eighth generation  – they support their country and respect their flag. Sadly, I do not think there is the same national pride in the UK any more. I remember when I was a youngster in the Boy Scouts, how much we all respected the flag – that was half a century ago; it’s different now.

Let me ask an open question:

Does the British national identity need refocusing?

Thoughts?

Opinion – Meet the invisibles – the wealthy and powerful at the heart of the Tory party | Polly Toynbee | Comment is free | The Guardian – John Gelmini

Dr Alf is right because this is really a case of the pot calling the kettle black and of desperation plus hypocrisy running riot.

To begin with, the Conservative Party has always had more backers both public and secret from the business community, ranging from hedge fund managers and investment bankers at the top to Times 1000 Chief Executives at one end of the spectrum to mid cap-managing directors in the middle, to SME business owners and micro business owners at the bottom.

That this has been the case for my entire lifetime and that of Dr Alf’s put together, ought to give an impartial observer or unbiased reporter (what Polly Toynbee professes to be), a moment for pause and reflection, if only to pose the question “Why is this”?

Sadly, it never has and probably never will because this woman believes in high taxes and controls for everyone else but never for Guardian Media Services Group, which ultimately pays her salary.

Since there are huge numbers of these business-people and the Guardian is normally not interested in them or the wealth they create, the Guardian does not normally report their activities, so they are bound to remain “invisible”.

Polly Toynbee also has no right to talk about Conservative Party backers being one of the “Invisibles” because if she looks into the BBC, most Quangos and the serried ranks of the Labour Party, she will find that large numbers of them are members of the Fabian Society (Tony Blair was a member), Common Purpose (they have heavy representation in the upper management ranks of left leaning local authorities, constabularies and the NHS, all of which are heavy contributors to Guardian and Observer advertising revenues, and major buyers of training from the Guardian’s training subsidiary which Burton Group PLC once used for a report writing course I was sent on in the late 1980s when I was the only private sector course participant out of a course contingent of 12 people.

Within the Labour Party, Ed Balls and Ed Miliband are both Bilderbergers and Ed and his brother David Miliband are also members of the Committee of 300 in common with Tony Blair, David Cameron and the Chancellor George Osborne. Membership of both these organisations is secret, although over the years a combination of dogged research and the internet has revealed who is involved.

Until yesterday who had heard of Lord Scriven the man who allegedly overheard David Cameron and Nick Clegg discussing the election and David Cameron admitting that he was not seeking a Conservative majority because he couldn’t get one? It seems odd to me that he is a Sheffield Hallam councillor, has never said anything before, and has just decided that at this late stage to Tweet about a private conversation just at a time when it is likely that Labour will take Sheffield Hallam (Clegg’s seat), from the Liberal Democrats.

It is also strange to me that Polly Toynbee and the BBC have chosen not to report the fact that Paddy Power the bookmakers have consistently not predicted a hung Parliament or said that the election is “too close to call”.

It suits the BBC and papers like the Guardian and the Observer to have a Labour victory or a hung Parliament because they see the racing certainty of a fat licencing fee settlement at the BBC along with highly paid non jobs for Guardian readers, greater advertising revenue for Guardian Media Services PLC owned papers and a blind eye turned to that newspaper’s tax avoidance arrangements which mirror a scheme set up by one of the Big 4 in Tesco PLC’s better days when it actually made taxable profits which it could then avoid paying tax on.

The BBC is also complicit in these efforts by Polly Toynbee to promote the idea that the Conservatives are tainted by money from secret donations or by secretive backers by the use of Panorama programs, such as the one that attempted a hatchet job on the Barclay brothers who own the Daily Telegraph and were able to expose the expenses scandal involving both MPs and members of the House of Lords. During this election, they have packed television studios with well primed left-wing members of the public (probably Guardian readers to boot) and then moderated debates featuring politicians in an effort to slant the end result to meet the agenda of the Labour Party which follows almost word for word the things that Polly Toynbee writes in the Guardian.

John Gelmini