Tony Grist (poliphilo) wrote,
Tony Grist
poliphilo

The Anybody Elses

It appears there's been a battle at the top of the British government. We, the people, have only found out about it after it's been lost and won. The combatants weren't elected politicians, but a faction headed by the PM's chief adviser and a faction headed by his fiancee. The fiancee's party seems to have won. What does any of this have to do with democracy? Not a lot, so far as I can see. What does it have in common with the carryings on of a Tudor or Bourbon court? Quite a lot, I think. The favourite pulls one way, the queen or mistress pulls the other; between the two of them the king is bewildered and befuddled.

When you elect a government in a modern so-called democracy you are in fact electing a monarch and their court. The court will consist of elected officials- who are answerable for their actions, unelected officials who are less so, obscenely wealthy godfathers and godmothers who need to be heeded and appeased or else- and a mixed bag of family members, cronies, lovers, flatterers, creeps, gophers and people who know where the bodies are buried- almost all of them hungry for power. A strong monarch may be able to keep this circus in some sort of order; a weak one- which is what Boris Johnson appears to be- will be pulled every which-a-way.

Come election time all the court wants you to see is the smiley face of the monarch- and the less you see of anybody else the better. But once the votes are in it may well be the anybody elses who get to run the show.
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  • 17 comments

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    I cut the grass. Or, rather, I cut some of it. I like a garden to be a bit wild.....

  • Disclosure Day- As If......

    Steven Spielberg is a member of the elite. He'll have been read into a lot of their secrets. I think he feels a certain nostalgia for the days…

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    We have a Friend (Capital "F" meaning Quaker) who appears to be lapsing into strident Islamophobia. He quotes Rupert Lowe and Ant Middleton…

  • Second Childhood

    I was watching raindrops race one another down the window pane. Sometimes they go fast, sometimes they dawdle and sometimes one of them will pause or…

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    I had slid back into looking at newspapers. I didn't let them get to me, only scanned the headlines to find what out what they wanted us to be…

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