Spot the difference

On the one hand, we have a government which is going to tell the future generations that all is well. That we have “freedom, fairness, civil responsibilities [and] democracy”. But then notice the clever avoidance of the words rights, and liberties that are normally associated with the word “civil”. Then assess that in comparison with yesterday’s headlines, telling us how “the Prime Minister wants the government to have the power to override court rulings”. Might it then be worth considering that you can’t square the two?

Of course not. Yesterday’s measures outlined by the government in a “leaked” letter to Rabid Reid, are nothing short of dictatorship. So now we’re going to give power to the executive to decide when it wants to disregard a judgement in a court of law? Will anything stop the Prime Minister from tearing up all those liberties that we once treasured? More to the point, will anyone even notice, or bat an eyelid? As long as we get rid of those foreign types who murder our mistresses, rape our children or steal a bag of salt and vinegar crisps from the corner shop. Who needs rights?

Then, in a supreme example of muddled doublethink from the government, all of the endless erosions of our civil rights actually count for nothing. We are still free. We are still the bastion of liberty that is the beacon for the rest of the world to imitate. No. The concept of Britishness is as just as alive and well as before, and it encompasses all of those wonderful things in the first paragraph. Hang on… does that not account for every other liberal democracy on the planet? Yes, I believe it does. So while the government is desperately trying to carve up a definition of “Britishness” on the back of a fag packet, something that will not affect our lives one bit, they are actually doing away with all of those things they claim to be part of our society.

Then they have the cheek to tell us that they will soon be indoctrinating these “values” on our children. What they actually mean is that they will be indoctrinating their version of what were once our values onto the population. They will accept what they are told, and they will believe that when Tony has curbed our rights to protest, assemble, speak, or be judged by a set of our peers, it is all to protect us from the greater evil of the dastardly, out of touch, judiciary. All of this despite the fact that the government passed the Human Rights Act 1998, in a glorious triumph of at last giving us proper protection of our rights that is normally afforded to others in a written constitution, and now they are distancing themselves from their own legislation. The legislation which the judges rule on. Now they have decided that we do not deserve these rights.

In fact, so far are they from the original position that the only people who deserve “rights” are those who are obedient and turn out well disciplined future citizens who will not complain when they are faced with the burden of paying for the enormous state pensions of the future. Oh, and maybe they should only vote Labour too. Well, why would you need any other party if that is going to be the only principle to our society any more, if the only issue that matters is if ‘the law-abiding majority can live without fear’?

New Labour would like a country of drones who never question anything. There is a difference between “breaking the rules” and breaking the law. Now we are not going to be able to test the boundaries of those rules any more. And yet, it is only by constantly innovating, creating and challenging accepted norms that society progresses.
A revolution is occuring under our noses. But it’s not one we seem to care about. The British seem to have lost interest in how vital rights are; and there’s no greater evidence than that of how many people wish to tear up the Human Rights Act, leaving the government free to once more drive through anything it wishes as long as it has its compliant majority in the Commons. Perhaps when people are on the receiving end of the “speedy, simple summary justice” that Tony Blair wants to place throughout our justice system, where the word of a corrupt police officer is good enough to stitch you up, then maybe then they will care.

Until then, enjoy your Britishness lessons, kids. Maybe they will teach us how to rebel? It’s something we seem to be out of the habit of doing.