England the great power is now in decline. It is still incredibly rich in per capita income status. But a substantial proportion of citizens can barely afford to pay their bills. And it is here that the authors marvel at the shocking nonchalance of the ruling class.
There is a series of parallel and paradoxically perturbing events unfolding in the so-called mother of democracy, the United Kingdom or England. Bernadette Spofforth is a 55-year-old mother of three and a relatively successful entrepreneur. She has been trending on social media since 19 September. Her story is bizarre. In August, a British citizen of African descent murdered three young girls at a place called Southport. There was massive anger and the police refused to release the name of the arrested suspect. This inevitably led to speculation and rumours of illegal immigrants or asylum seekers committing the murders. It led to rioting too. Bernadette shared a post on X about the murderer which was actually “misinformation”. Within a few hours, she realised that the information was misleading. Bernadette promptly deleted the X post and apologised on the platform.
But close to half a dozen police officers paid a visit to her house with three cars and a prison van and arrested her for inciting riots. All her devices were seized. She was kept in a police lock-up for 36 hours. All this happened between 8 and 10 August. But the police “decided” not to prosecute her and she was allowed to go home on bail with stringent bail conditions which included no social media use and no statements on the issue. Large sections of liberal mainstream media vilified her as an ogre and her family was besieged with death threats. Yet, she could not give her version because of the bail conditions. Finally, after 15 September, the British police had enough, returned her seized material and Bernadette was once again allowed to speak. On 18 September, she posted her statement on X. Bernadette is just one of the dozens of citizens protesting against illegal migrants who have been branded as “far right thugs” by Prime Minister Keir Starmer who has “ordered” the cops to arrest and jail such “thugs”. A lot of them have been sentenced to up to three years in jail for social media posts in astonishingly quick trials.
There is another better known star too who managed not to spend any time in jail around the same time that Bernadette could finally be allowed to use her freedom to speak. He is Huw Edwards, a famous BBC anchor who was caught keeping photos and videos of violent and sickening child sex abuse in his mobile and other devices. One of the visuals on his phone was of a seven-year-old being assaulted brutally. Quite naturally, there was considerable outrage and the average British citizen was convinced that the justice system would set an example in this case so that celebrities would not commit such ghastly crimes. But unlike Bernadette, Edwards is a liberal and has an army of fellow liberals trying to whitewash his ghoulish behaviour. The prosecutors and the judge have decided to give a suspended prison sentence. In effect, Edwards did not spend a day behind bars despite being convicted of a serious crime such as paedophilia. BBC journalists and anchors even described that Edwards was guilty of watching “Child Porn” as if the victims were porn stars.
There is massive anger in the country. But the ruling elite, comprising mostly of liberals, have decided to blithely ignore the anger and move on. Any home-grown citizen who raises a voice in protest is labelled a racist, or Islamophobe or a far right thug and ignored if not arrested. The authors are certain that, like elsewhere in the world, there are folks who are racist, who are Islamophobic and who can be safely described as far right thugs. But never before has the British ruling class so ruthlessly ignored the genuine concerns of ordinary citizens who are struggling to make ends meet. England the great power is now in decline. It is still incredibly rich in per capita income status. But a substantial proportion of citizens can barely afford to pay their bills. And it is here that the authors marvel at the shocking nonchalance of the ruling class.
The new Labour government led by Keir Starmer is just about 10 weeks old after the party won a sweeping mandate to rule the nation after 14 years in the opposition. The party promised to clean up the stables. In any case, the Labour Party has been traditionally considered to be taking care of the concerns of working class poor while the Conservative Party was considered to be of the elite. But all such “differences” have disappeared. For example, Keir Starmer has been protesting for years as opposition leader that the then Conservative government was making plans to stop the fuel subsidy given to poor pensioners. A fuel subsidy is a lifeline for them because it enables them to heat their homes in the winters. Starmer promised to take special care of poor old citizens of England. Soon as he became Prime Minister.
Yet, his government has withdrawn the fuel subsidy. This will directly impact about 10 million old citizens who survive on pensions and can just about manage to feed themselves. Many analysts have reckoned that a lot of old citizens in UK have to literally choose between “eating” and “heating” during this winter as their pensions are not enough for both. But Starmer and his ministers and supporters are arguing that the previous regime has left behind an economic mess and that people have to “share the pain and the hardship” so that the British economy can be back on track. But this is where the atrocious double standards and hypocrisy are revealed. Labour Party ministers and MPs are claiming thousands of pounds as fuel allowance for not only their first, but also second homes. This is a socialist regime that swears by the poor.
There is more and much worse. For years, Starmer has been targeting the Conservatives and accusing them of feeding off rich cronies by way of “gifts” and other largesse. He has been continually promising probity. But it has now been revealed that Starmer has taken “gifts” worth more than 100,000 pounds from rich cronies for his and his wife’s clothes and accessories apart from other things. Now, this Prime Minister blithely dismisses accusations of cronyism and says this is normal and “far right thugs” are defaming his government.
Many decades ago, author George Orwell had written two books “1984” and “Animal Farm” to warn the British about the real nature of socialists. He was indeed prescient.
Yashwant Deshmukh is Founder & Editor in Chief of CVoter Foundation and Sutanu Guru is Executive Director.