The Deference Disease is rampant in a bizarre England that has, for centuries, supported/ voted for an elite that has never had the interests of the majority at heart. This strange phenomenon – accomplished with sleight of hand, anti-foreigner rhetoric, duplicity and the age old trick of divide and conquer – has had the unfortunate effect – more apparent now than ever – of dragging the less populated countries of the union, down with it. Case in point, either Ireland or Scotland voted for Brexit or Boris.
I’m not fool enough to try and explain Wales…
The Deference Disease was damped down a little after WWI and
significantly after WWII but has gone crazy this century. New, less easily
recognised but aggressive variants have invaded all organs; the media, politics
and wider society.
No, it’s not just the ridiculousness of the royal family – I
mean their very existence. A cabal of racist in-breds, currently protecting a
suspected paedo – who, despite their wealth are still supported from the public
purse as those actually in need forge in food banks.
It’s not just the
different standards so clearly applied to people depending on where the English
public see them in the stultifying social strata. It’s not just the starkly
differing life chances that still depend on which school you attended and it’s
not just that your chances of living a long healthy life directly follows what
class you were born into (increasingly so). It isn’t even the worshipful status
afforded to the who-even-is-that parallel new elite of done-nothing celebrities
who’ve bared their dull souls, shallow personality and baby bump/new
partner/near-death experience/new kitchen in an ‘exclusive’. No. It’s all of
the above and x1000.
More immediately we’ve seen a Prime Minister too involved in
the mess of his own private life – mishandle a pandemic to extraordinary levels
but still riding high in the opinion polls. A man who’s cowardice is on open
display. He was absent for the I’ll lie
down on the runway to prevent Heathrow expansion – vote. And was absent
again – sunning his blubber in a mate’s holiday villa with the latest
daughter-age blonde – sorry Mrs Johnson 3rd – when the half arsed report was
published about the UK’s covid failures.
Is it because the nature of the catastrophic mishandling of
covid was so huge, the waste and loss of life so vast? Maybe. I would argue
that a similar outcome delivered by a Labour or SNP administration would have
been torn to shreds by an enraged public led by a howling press and media. Why
do Brits – and especially the English, accept things from those at the top of
the social pile that they would not from those lower down? It has to be the Deference
Disease. Partly – they are just expected to behave like that and let’s face it
– much of life these days is about managing expectations.
Not only has Boris Johnson gotten away with being a racist,
misogynistic, lying coward - he was elected PM after these things were known. A
la Trump. He has behaved corruptly – buying water cannon to use on the credulous
Londoners who elected him mayor. More recently, when the mad idea of a bridge
from Scotland to Ireland re-surfaced (presumably the millions of pounds in
feasibility will go to Tory mates like the PPE contracts) I scanned the press
for reference to his previous bridge scandal – The Garden Bridge – and came up
empty handed.
How does this work? (That is not a rhetorical question; if
you know tell me…)
Johnson’s Brexit minister Lord Frost is currently bitching
and whinging about the Brexit deal he negotiated and his master signed amid
claims it was a great deal for Britain. Those of us who could see it was a
disaster where ‘doom mongers’ then. Now Frost is expecting (and getting from the
fawners and toadies) credit for being tough on old johnny foreigner. The only
problem is, as almost anyone paying attention has pointed out, it’s his deal.
Yes – I know that whenever the peasants get restless – the
toffs just start screeching and scare-mongering about foreigners and – here’s a
flag to wave – and oh look – here’s a rich dullard in dressing up clothes and a
crown – how marvellous. But dear god –
that might have worked in 1381 – WHY IS IT STILL?
While this Deference Disease is damaging us from within –
preventing the real talent from rising and ensuring that we are governed by the
half-baked (Raab), the witless (Frost) the gormless and slimy (Gove) the
talentless bullies (Patel) etc etc etc– that is not the worst of it.
When we look ‘up’ and see incompetence and politically and
socially incestuous behaviour choking our progress in the world it is a
depressing sight. However, for a while now – the rest of the world has not been
looking up to Britain. It’s been staring down - in disbelief.
*
on a lighter note. Its the Leamington poetry festival this weekend. I'll be performing at the comedy event on Saturday night at The Temperance.
