We are much more complex creatures than we give ourselves credit for and certainly more than those who mis-govern us give us credit for.
If you’ve paid any attention to the government over the last seven years you’ll doubtless have learnt that our only worth is in whether we are working or not, and if we are not, we are essentially scroungers and bone idle useless eaters.
In the mental dribbling of Priti Patel and fellow authors of ‘Britannia Unchained’ they accused British workers of being “among the worst idlers in the world”.
They don’t even care whether we raise our own children or not, just as long as we’re working and ‘hard working’ at that.
The very idea of family has taken a beating in the past few decades, from Thatcher onwards. Thatcher used an entirely fallacious argument that “too many people have been given to understand that if they have a problem, it’s the government’s job to cope with it”, “They’re casting their problem on society”, to declare, “there is no such thing as society”. To conflate government with society is one of the most ridiculous things I’ve ever heard, she might just as well have said, ‘there’s no such thing as government’ for all the meaning it had. But for all it’s meaninglessness it has had powerful consequences.
Casting (sharing) our problems on society has been the entire history of human development, a vast collective endeavour of co-operation, interspersed with power hungry grasping wars and empire building, none of which was of the people’s making, who pretty much always just want to get on and not see their off spring die at the behest of colonial minded elites intent on conquest at the people’s expense. We are, in fact, social creatures and we exist and develop and grow through co-operation.
The past seven years have been brutal in government attempts to individualise us and set us against one another. Thousands have died, hate crimes have risen, collective bargaining has been crushed, wages have tanked, job and life insecurity has risen, our most cherished public services have been near destroyed. We have seen very well what happens without society and working together with one another for our common good.
It was Thatcher, again, who said, “There’s no such thing as entitlement, unless someone has first met an obligation”. If you study the lives of those in the cabinets of David Cameron and Theresa May, what you’ll discover is a world of entitlement ordinary people don’t even dream of, a world so utterly divorced from our common awareness and consciousness that we live, literally, worlds apart. David Cameron was the very epitome of privilege and the embodiment of entitlement who accused the poorest in society of a ‘culture of entitlement’ as he launched his governments all out attack on Britain’s system of social security in his war on the poor. Many gave up their lives in despair and many more wondered if it would ever end.
But then, in 2015, something remarkable happened. After the 2015 General Election, Ed Miliband resigned as Labour leader and a leadership contest was held in which a rank outsider found his way onto the ballot sheet, Jeremy Corbyn. He went on to win the greatest electoral mandate of any UK political party leader in history, twice, the second time, after being attacked from within by his own party, with an even greater majority. Jeremy Corbyn was the people’s choice. Attacked by members of his own party elite, reviled by the press, along with all those who voted for him and supported him, he stuck and not only that, he rose. Steadily and relentlessly, he rose as a dominant figure in the political arena to the utter dismay of the powerful and privileged, especially the moguls of the media world, who used every trick in the book to denigrate him and destroy his credibility and ours.
Why?
In the most simple and yet most complex way, Jeremy Corbyn spoke to humanity. He resonated, he empathised, he shared common cause, he spoke plainly and clearly, he understood and was understood, he was and is a man of the people.
Many of us wondered if he could survive the relentless onslaught of the attacks he had to endure. He did. Personally, I shuddered at even the thought of undergoing the trial by fire he endured, knowing I would surely have crumbled. He didn’t.
And then, post EU referendum and looming Brexit, for reasons which remain elusive, having pledged she would not, Theresa May, pretender to the political throne of Britain and a one party state, called a snap General Election and then ran for the broom cupboard, perhaps hoping that the polls were right and that her future was secure as Britain’s leader and dictator, no matter what.
Jeremy Corbyn took to the streets, towns and cities of the nation, producing a fully costed manifesto for rebuilding Britain after seven dismal years of Tory misrule, and the country started to shake and then rock, and then roll for a country of the people, by the people, for the people. It seems almost asinine to have to say it, but a country is its people. Even the worst dictator in the world isn’t so stupid as to kill all the people off, just subjugate them and drive them through fear, but still the people make the nation, with scant gratitude from traditional ruling elites.
Corbyn, an allotment owner, understands that people are the bread and butter of a nation, a vegetarian for some 50 years and a man of peace and strong in defence of peace, he shares a vision of a nation working together and prospering in every way, politically, culturally, educationally, healthily, personally and together.
The Telegraph, that stalwart of conservatism, declared in 2016, “Jeremy Corbyn is joyless vegetarianism made flesh”. There is nothing to be seen of joylessness in Corbyn as he tours the country, in the people laughing and cheering, in the hope he inspires and, in a short time, I very much hope, leader of the nation, when the Telegraph will be forced to eat its own measly words.
Can you feel it coming?
Hope is back, front and centre, and it feels great.
KOG. 21 May 2017
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-19300051
https://briandeer.com/social/thatcher-society.htm
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jeremy_Corbyn
https://anotherangryvoice.blogspot.co.uk/2016/06/jeremy-corbyn-3-main-myths.html
https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2015/sep/12/jeremy-corbyn-wins-labour-party-leadership-election
https://www.indy100.com/article/the-reason-why-jeremy-corbyn-became-a-vegetarian–Wk35Qn7uIl
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2016/05/17/jeremy-corbyn-is-joyless-vegetarianism-made-flesh/
