A Whiff of Revolution in the London Air

05/29/2009

THE EXPENSES CRISIS IN BRITAIN

A Whiff of Revolution in the London Air

By John Freedland

Great Britain is currently suffering through one of the most deplorable scandals in its long history of democracy. Several House of Commons members have been helping themselves from government coffers. Perhaps its time for a systemic shake-up.

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Something else has been revealed too. Britons have seen that they are held in a kind of contempt by those they elect. "What right does the public have to interfere with my private life?" asked an outraged Tory MP Anthony Steen, apparently forgetting that the public had been subsidising his private life -- to the tune of £87,000 (€99,650, $140,487) over four years spent maintaining his enormous country estate.

Steen's words were more revealing than he realised. They showed that many British politicians still regard themselves as lordly masters, with the public no more than irritating and vulgar servants. That approach is encoded into our system, which holds that the slippery notion of the "crown-in-parliament" is sovereign -- rather than the people. So while the United States was built on the ideal that power flows upwards from "We the people," Britain still rests on the assumption that power begins at the top, where the monarch used to sit, and flows downward.

This explains much of the rottenness in the British system. A second chamber -- the House of Lords -- that is not elected by the people at all, but appointed by the prime minister. A constitution that is not written down, but shrouded in mystery, so that the British people have no clear idea of the rules by which their society is governed. Election dates that are not fixed, but chosen by the prime minister, coming down from his throne to -- in the actual phrased used -- "go to the country."

It would be an enormous and radical step, shifting Britain from its current parliamentary sovereignty to the popular sovereignty that operates in most other democracies. Will it happen? Usually, when it comes to change in Britain, the smart money bets against: things tend to stay the same. But the Profumo affair blew away the cobwebs and unleashed the age of Swinging London. The expenses crisis of 2009 might leave behind nothing more than a sullen contempt for those in charge. But the current mood suggests something more. Right now there's a whiff of revolution in the London air.

http://www.spiegel.de/international/europe/0,1518,627730,00.html

it's here too.

zalinda

Brits, God bless their hearts, had real economic problems and their people rioted against them. The only riots Americans have these days are when flip-flops are a dollar at Old Navy stores.

There will be no revolution here, because Americans, especially Democrats, are spineless and passive. Most posters here wouldn't be aroused to start a bar fight even if someone dumped a bottle of Perrier down their backs. How are they going to topple the Establishment?

Signs don't do anything. Walking around in "free speech enclosures" doesn't do anything. Doing something that leaves a mark and causes pain DOES something. It tells those protected, insulated rich people that there are mobs who want to hurt them, so they'd better start allowing reform or they might die.

Looking at your icon, you might look at it in the terms of a football game. You have to cripple and maim the other team, like every other football game. Only the other team doesn't simply want to win a trophy; they want to kill you. Your Super Bowl Ring is helping your family stay alive.

Well, sir or madame, what about the WTO protests in Seattle? Seems about the same to me. I offer that you are speaking about yourself and your peers, for me and mine have been in and on the streets my entire adult life. Thousands marched in Fresno yesterday. There were millions in the streets of Los Angeles during the immigration protests, throngs of anti-War protesters across America. There were protests and arrests at the last two Republican conventions.
And you know, I'd never start a bar fight over spilt milk or water. That is just a brawl, just violence. What is the fucking point of that? How does that relate to protests? London had protests, not riots, by the way. They know the difference and so do I. I've seen so much of both here in the States, during my lifetime.

Have you burnt any buildings? Limos? Ministers? Have you done anything but stand around and say "I'm really troubled by not having any jobs or health or food"?

They ignore you unless you draw blood. And because you haven't learned that lesson, your protests might as well be written on toilet paper and flushed.

This is being driven by the media, it isn't some kind of spontaneous rebellion.

The Telegraph is owned by twin billionaires.

My guess is their agenda is to get the populace riled up against the useful idiot politicians (and forget about the bankers)...or it maybe just to sell more newspapers.

Trouble in America is that a lot of people assume that, but just don't care.

It is at that point that people realize they have nothing left to lose except their very lives. It is a grim end game, but it happens often throughout history. The US will have its own end game someday, as well as Great Britain.

QUEEN. It seems they have helped themselves, and pretty freely, too!

--WS Gilbert, Iolanthe