Labour Loans Scandal
Saturday, July 22, 2006
The Labour loans scandal, or cash-for-peerages as it has become known more recently, has gone rather silent within the British media after an initial flurry of reports. Most press and other media reports have limited their analysis to one of defence for incumbent controlling elites (Blair) and completely overlooked the implications for free and fair elections that UK citizens are entitled to under the Human Rights Act.
That there are some problems with British Democracy and the way the media are used by controlling elites to manipulate public opinion and entrench minority controlling elite groups in power, goes without saying (although I have here and here and here and here, for example). I've also offered some solutions to some of the disenfranchisement of the UK people from politics by calling for the repeal of the 1911 parliament Act and reforming the House of Lords into a fully elective chamber.
These measures, although minor in constitutional terms, would have the effect of beginning to re-engage UK citizens with political control of their lives. As Joseph de Maistre pointed out in relation to democracy: "It is said that the people are sovereign; but over whom? Over themselves, apparently. The people are thus subject. There is surely something equivocal if not erroneous here, for the people which command are not the people which obey."
If it transpires that those who command are securing power by abusing privileges of office to corruptly raise finance from a few wealthy backers, gerrymandering, and using establishment media connections to disseminate their propaganda and induce public opinion, then by what democratic right is the claim laid that the rest of us should obey? What democratic mandate from the people of the UK do they lay claim to?
Abbe Sieyes noted in his Political Writings that: "The nobility (ruling elite) has separated itself from the rest of the nation and made itself a people apart. Its insistence on exercising its political rights on its own has made it 'foreign to the Nation by virtue of its principle, because its mandate did not come from the people, and second, by virtue of its object, since that consists in defending, not the general interest, but particular interest'. The aristocracy (ruling elite) monopolize high office in army, Church and magistracy. They form a caste which dominates every branch of executive power. They side instinctively with one another against the entire remainder of the nation. Their usurpation is total. Truly they reign." (italics mine).
David Hume pointed out that: "Nothing appears more surprising, to those who consider human affairs with a philosophical eye, than the easiness with which the many are governed by the few; and the implicit submission, with which men resign their own sentiments and passions to those of their rulers. When we enquire by what means this wonder is affected, we shall find that, as force is always on the side of the governed, the governors have nothing to support them but opinion. It is therefore, on opinion only that government is founded; and this maxim extends to the most despotic and most military governments, as well as to the most free and popular."
That there are some problems with British Democracy and the way the media are used by controlling elites to manipulate public opinion and entrench minority controlling elite groups in power, goes without saying (although I have here and here and here and here, for example). I've also offered some solutions to some of the disenfranchisement of the UK people from politics by calling for the repeal of the 1911 parliament Act and reforming the House of Lords into a fully elective chamber.
These measures, although minor in constitutional terms, would have the effect of beginning to re-engage UK citizens with political control of their lives. As Joseph de Maistre pointed out in relation to democracy: "It is said that the people are sovereign; but over whom? Over themselves, apparently. The people are thus subject. There is surely something equivocal if not erroneous here, for the people which command are not the people which obey."
If it transpires that those who command are securing power by abusing privileges of office to corruptly raise finance from a few wealthy backers, gerrymandering, and using establishment media connections to disseminate their propaganda and induce public opinion, then by what democratic right is the claim laid that the rest of us should obey? What democratic mandate from the people of the UK do they lay claim to?
Abbe Sieyes noted in his Political Writings that: "The nobility (ruling elite) has separated itself from the rest of the nation and made itself a people apart. Its insistence on exercising its political rights on its own has made it 'foreign to the Nation by virtue of its principle, because its mandate did not come from the people, and second, by virtue of its object, since that consists in defending, not the general interest, but particular interest'. The aristocracy (ruling elite) monopolize high office in army, Church and magistracy. They form a caste which dominates every branch of executive power. They side instinctively with one another against the entire remainder of the nation. Their usurpation is total. Truly they reign." (italics mine).
David Hume pointed out that: "Nothing appears more surprising, to those who consider human affairs with a philosophical eye, than the easiness with which the many are governed by the few; and the implicit submission, with which men resign their own sentiments and passions to those of their rulers. When we enquire by what means this wonder is affected, we shall find that, as force is always on the side of the governed, the governors have nothing to support them but opinion. It is therefore, on opinion only that government is founded; and this maxim extends to the most despotic and most military governments, as well as to the most free and popular."
