The following brief post by Patrick O’Flynn for The Spectator provides an interesting commentary on the nature and political persona of Labour’s Keir Starmer.
By Patrick O’Flynn • 17 June 2023, 7:15am • The Spectator
(Credit: Getty images)
Can a political leader keep getting exposed for conveying obvious untruths and yet be judged a fit person to occupy 10 Downing Street or even just a seat in the House of Commons? That’s been the theme of a week at Westminster which has seen Boris Johnson excoriated as someone not fit even to hold a pass giving him access to the Parliamentary Estate as a former MP. So it is odd then that almost nobody has commented on Keir Starmer’s exposure for the commission of a new political fraud – even though it came in the high-profile setting of PMQs.
While lambasting Rishi Sunak for permitting Boris Johnson’s resignation honours list to go through, Starmer argued that the result would be that:
‘Those who spent their time helping to cover up Johnson’s lawbreaking are rewarded by becoming lawmakers for the rest of their lives.’
But how can this be so given that Starmer himself claimed as recently as December that he is committed to abolishing the House of Lords and replacing it with an elected second chamber, as envisaged by the report of Gordon Brown’s constitutional commission? He told Sky News that he wanted to get the reform done in a first term ‘because when I asked Gordon Brown to set up the commission to do this, I said what I want is recommendations that are capable of being implemented in the first term’.
All I know is that I inherently do not trust Starmer in any of his guises.
I thought that this was a very good post by Pete North on Twitter.
I don't think it's a foregone conclusion that Labour will win the next election. The closer we get to an election, the more we will see of Labour and the more we will see how unfit to govern they are. The Tories deserve to lose but Labour doesn't deserve to win. We might well be headed into hung parliament territory. Sunak might be able to cobble together a collation. It's anyone's guess.
But supposing Labour manages to win the next election, they will come unstuck very quickly. They face all the same problems as the Tories do now, only they have no more idea what to do about them. We can only be sure that things will get worse with Miliband in charge of energy policy. There is no green revolution to be had.
Even if renewable energy was viable, the "industry" simply doesn't have the capacity to meet the political ambition. The investment capital to expand the grid isn't there. Miliband's energy policies don't intersect with reality at all - and if they're not serious about getting energy costs under control, then they're simply not serious at all. Labour will double-down on all of the worst aspects of Net Zero and will have to go through their own learning journey at our expense - right when we can't afford it.
Mercifully, under the Tories, Net Zero dogma has now reached high tide, and those tides are now receding. Sanity is gradually, quietly creeping in through the back door. But they won't repeal any of the primary Net Zero legislation. We're still locked on course to economic oblivion where we can't even keep the lights on. So again, though the difference is marginal.
The Tories can still fairly claim they are the least worst option but neither party is offering us a way out of this mess. Both parties place net zero ideology ahead of the economic wellbeing of Brits. On every other issue, we're left to endure the same old rudderless managerialism and witless tinkering as our infrastructure crumbles and the social fabric tears.
The good news is that wokery appears to be dying on its arse, but wokery in public institutions and offices of state are a symptom of the intellectual and moral decay within, where no branch of government works and there are no leaders capable of lifting them out of their malaise. Westminster is a den of deadbeats and lightweights who simply don't have what it takes to understand what's happening, let alone affect positive change. You wouldn't leave any of these people in charge of the TV remote.
With five prime ministers and a constant political churn we've had a turbulent few years - and there's no reason to believe this turbulence is going to be over any time soon. Starmer's party is equally fractious and similarly lacking a sense of purpose. If Cameron couldn't secure an outright mandate in 2010, then Starmer can't next year. We are a long way away from a political settlement. The country is not united and we could even say we're far beyond uniting the country. The culture gap between London and the rest of the country has only widened in recent years - as have the generational divides.
The political churn we're experiencing down to the fact that our system of government just doesn't work anymore. Politicians talk about "restoring trust in democracy", failing to understand that for as long as they conspire to deny us a meaningful choice at the ballot box, and while we are unable to veto the agendas they impose upon us, *they* are the cancer in our democracy, and the main impediment to democracy. They are a closed shop, incapable of listening, and too wrapped up in their own self-righteousness to recognise the damage they're doing.
This is evident in the way they believe dissenting opinion is the product of "disinformation" - and something to be tackled with laws and "fact checking" units - rather than free and open debate. They know they're living on borrowed time which is why they're so keen on censoring dissent.
Ultimately, we don't want or need these parasites. We don't want their "green revolutions". We don't want them to "build back better". We need them to stop meddling and to get out of our way, and stop treating this country like a social engineering experiment. We need more direct democracy so we control what happens to us. Representative democracy is not democracy - especially when the system is only capable of returning these social climbing, narcissistic parasites and their sycophantic apparatchiks.
The Westminster system is on a countdown to extinction. It doesn't really matter who wins the next election. We are damned either way. We can only register our apathy and disgust at the ballot box, and the message will not be heard. Humility and intelligence simply do not exist anywhere in that square mile. Our thoughts should turn to how we rid ourselves of the lot of them. We can't afford them, or that corrupt and decrepit relic on the Thames. Their time is up. Let's be done with it.
The premise on which our movement is based is that democracy means "people power". The word democracy stems from the Greek word,demokratia, comprising two parts:demos"people" andkratos"power". Without a demos, there is no democracy. But people without power is not democracy either.
Our current system of government is known as "representative democracy". That phrase is a misuse of the word democracy. People do not hold power: that system cannot by definition be a democracy. We seek to return power to the people.
We are concerned with power - who holds it and under what circumstances and controls, and how to get more of it. Above all else, we hold to the core principle that in a true democracy the people must hold the power.
Our objective is to recover power. Our focus is on the acquisition of power. And once we ourselves, the people, hold the power, we can then attend to the many problems and injustices that plague modern society. But without power, there is only protest - and we achieve nothing of any lasting value.
To help us acquire power, we are adopting the original strategy of the Chartists. Like them, we felt it was vital to frame a very limited number of achievable demands, six in number. These are listed below.
The peoples of England, Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland comprise the ultimate authority of their nations and are the source of all political power. That fact shall be recognised by the Crown and the Governments of our nations, and our Parliaments and Assemblies;
The foundation of our democracy shall be the counties (or other local units as may be defined), which shall become constitutional bodies exercising under the control of their peoples all powers of legislation, taxation and administration not specifically granted by the people to the national government;
The executive shall be separated from the legislature. To that effect, prime ministers shall be elected by popular vote; they shall appoint their own ministers, with the approval of parliament, to assist in the exercise of such powers as may be granted to them by the sovereign people of England, Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland; no prime ministers or their ministers shall be members of parliament or any legislative assembly;
No law, treaty or government decision shall take effect without the consent of the majority of the people, by positive vote if so demanded, and that none shall continue to have effect when that consent is withdrawn by the majority of the people;
No tax, charge or levy shall be imposed, nor any public spending authorised, nor any sum borrowed by any national or local government except with the express approval of the majority of the people, renewed annually on presentation of a budget which shall first have been approved by their respective legislatures;
Parliament, once members of the executive are excluded, must host a constitutional convention to draw up a definitive codified constitution for the peoples of England, Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland. It shall recognise their sovereign status and their inherent, inalienable rights and which shall be subject to their approval.
This is a video overview of the Harrogate Agenda from November 2013.
It all sounds good, especially the part about “real” local democracy which we experienced the complete lack of first hand here in Radnorshire with regard to Hendy Wind Farm when the Welsh Minister, Lesley Griffiths unilaterally overruled the Welsh Planning Inspector’s considered decision that Hendy Wind Farm should not be permitted to proceed as she overrode local democracy.
The Harrogate Agenda is not a political party but rather guidance as to how government could and should ideally operate.
There is a bit more information about how the Harrogate Agenda would work within the context of political parties and Parliament in this video from 2019.
Having been apolitical all of my life, I find it very interesting that it is the fight against not clean nor green industrial wind turbines and the quest to share the truth of the lies of the “net zero” energy transition, the covid control test run and devoting the most part of the past 13 years to researching anything and everything which peaks my interest, that has made me become much more politically aware.
As they say, it’s all about the journey. It’s been a very interesting trip to many destinations – actual and metaphorical – thus far. Where and how it will end is yet unknown for myself and so many other fellow travellers.
Ladies and Gentlemen: I have been advocating for Direct Democracy for many years now. This Representative form of government came from the Roman Slave System. All Representatives are bought off, blackmailed, compromised and controlled by The East India Trading Company, located in The City of London, and their banksters. And anyone like Alex Jones and Mike Adams, who claim that direct democracy is mob rule are controlled opposition. Because of course it’s mob rule. It’s the whole damn mob of us Daring to make our own laws and run our own affairs. Why would a free person allow someone else to make his laws or run his or her affairs? A German philosopher once said that no one is more hopelessly enslaved than he who thinks he’s free. Thanks, for allowing me to speak, Capt Joe Kelley.
Ladies and Gentlemen: I have been advocating for Direct Democracy for many years now. This Representative form of government came from the Roman Slave System. All Representatives are bought off, blackmailed, compromised and controlled by The East India Trading Company, located in The City of London, and their banksters. And anyone like Alex Jones and Mike Adams, who claim that direct democracy is mob rule are controlled opposition. Because of course it’s mob rule. It’s the whole damn mob of us Daring to make our own laws and run our own affairs. Why would a free person allow someone else to make his laws or run his or her affairs? A German philosopher once said that no one is more hopelessly enslaved than he who thinks he’s free. Thanks, for allowing me to speak, Capt Joe Kelley.