hedgehog

Blair's 'slave ship' Britain

Matthew Campbell

TIRED of being everyone's punchbag, the French have hit back at their favourite enemy, "les rosbifs". A book published in Paris has depicted Tony Blair's Britain as a land of paupers; "fat cats" and mindless consumers.

It was written, enthuses the blurb on the back, "with the heart of an Anglophile" but few writers since Napoleon's day have been ruder about "la perfide Albion" than Philippe Auclair, author of Blair's Magical Kingdom.

President Jacques Chirac will love it. Britain's Conservatives, meanwhile, should consider putting Auclair in charge of' their election campaign.

Blair's Britain, says the London-based correspondent for Marianne, a French news magazine, "is socially, economically and ideologically redundant".

He compares Blairism to a form of "totalitarianism" reminiscent of George Orwell's 1984.

No country, says Auclair, has been exposed in recent years to so much radical social engineeringas Britain but "the social and human cost"
of it, he argues, "can and should terrify - poverty, the abandonment of the notion of public good in the name of profit".

This slave ship, he goes on, is "awash with money" but l3m people are living in poverty. While 10m adults have no insurance, no savings and not enough clothes for winter, he claims that "2m homes are without sufficient heating" and that 25,000 old people died in their homes of cold in the winter of 2004. None of it stops "les fat cats': from enjoying their six-figure bonuses.

After privatisation, the British railway system is more fit for "cattle on the way to the abattoir than for humans" and Blair's "third way" has brought the National Health Service to its knees.

Education, too, is a failure: "A frightening proportion of Britain's adolescents leave all forms of education at 16. Many can barely read or write." However, he ends with It message of hope: "Britain will survive Blairism." Otherwise, there is always la belle France

Flatcapdriver

Yeah, well when the French liberalise their markets and adopt true free market principles then they can cast the first stone but when their Prime Minister lacks the ***** to face down a bunch of students, I can't see how they can crow too much. The legacy of the Thatcher years is that the UK economic system is far more adaptable than other European economies, which partly explains why growth has been so sustainable in the UK and why, even Labour's tinkering on the fringes hasn't proved too much of a disaster - yet.

At the end of the day, the UK is the largest free market, non-protectionist economy in the world which inevitably throws up winners and losers which is what he is alluding to. So what? It's simply survival of the fittest. No biggy. As so often with these articles, the author needs to look inwardly before pointing fingers.

Some of his figures look a bit dubious too.

Suresh

Let's take a look at some figures (from The Economist) :

French unemployment : 10%
British unemployment : 5%

French economic growth : 1.4%
British economic growth : 2.6%

French Race riots and car burning: Yes
British Race riots and car burning : No

The cheese-eating surrender monkeys are economic failures so who actually gives a toss what they think?

hedgehog

It might also be argued that as a democratic country the French Government simply reflected the will of the people, something the Stalinist regime in the UK has failed to do on many issues.

However, this was not about France and it's faults, it was about the UK and I think it is easy for any of us to see that we are being subjected to ever more extreme forms of social control. Perhaps that doesn't worry anyone very much but the systems of control that Blair is putting in place today are there to be used by whoever gains power in the future. I can't help but wonder how the BNP, for example, might use Blair's recent "Enabling Act" which allows him to modify legislation without the need to consult Parli. I would also be interested in the plans the BNP might have for the ID card system and the ANPR system which gives information on all the movements of all the citizens. Will the ISA system be used to deny coloured people use of the motorway network? There are certainly a lot of questions you can ask in relation to the systems of control which are being forced upon us and it is interesting to reflect that outsiders now see the citizens of the UK as victims of a controlling state.

Adrian F

The problem is that no poltical party is going to undo the system of Big Brother that Blair is creating.

Flatcapdriver

My response was based on the economic assertions within the article, so I think it entirely appropriate to point out the lack of success enjoyed by France and it's economy compared to that of the UK.

In terms of the 'Enabling Act' it concerned me enough to write to my local MP, who seemingly has better things to do than bother with a response but quite simply the Anglo Saxon model is simply further down the evolutionary curve in terms of controlling it's population than others. Simply look at Australia and the US for a glimpse into the future. Where do you think the majority of vehicle controlling policy is coming from? Australia, the land that many on here consider to be a modern utopia and antidote to the UK.

Perhaps because the UK had it's civil war long before other modern democracies we no longer have the capacity to fight for some of the more trivial matters but as it stands, I'd settle for the level of control HMG currently has coupled with our standard of living rather than put up with the bureaucratic quagmire that is France with it's trade unionist bias and a government incapable of modernising it's economy.

KiwiGTI

What?? Where do you get that idea from? There is a hell of a lot less control in Australia.

Leslie

T think that Adrian F may well be right. Cant see the turqoise chameleon throwing that kind of power away myself. Its a real worry!

Les

hedgehog

I think it is a very sad state of affairs indeed when the French can feel sorry for us. As others have been keen to point out France is hardly perfect itself and yet the people in it feel sorry for us in the UK because we have sold our freedom for an economy built on sand. When it all falls down around us we will have neither cash nor freedom but we will have created a ready-made flat pack dictatorship kit.

Suresh

France is a weak country that has a long history of surrendering rather than standing up for what it believes in.

How about a book that feels sorry for the Swiss because they have dubious business ethics and live in denial of their past? If someone wants to write it, good luck to them, but I don't expect a lot of takers. Not much different to a book feeling sorry for the British.

dpb

As far as i see it their electorate stand up for *exactly* what they believe in - and thier say counts

They didnt invade Iraq
Their government want an intergrated europe, but the *people* say non .
Whilst they are part of the EU , you wont catch the average countryman abiding by ever single dictac handed down from Brussels.

Economically their socialist background is going to catch up with them of course - prerhaps your refering to their government surrendering

KiwiGTI

But their description is the most accurate yet. modern Britain has no social ideals or values and the people that have any decency are apathetic to do anything about it. It's a very selfish society where everyone looks out for number one and doesn't care whether it is at the expense of other people.

I think Britain is the most 'consumeristic' society in the world, much more so than the US.

Anyone who works in the public service will realise the incredible amounts of money wasted on useless projects and top-heavy departments full of managers and project managers that deliver a series of failures or nothing at all.

And the standard of todays schoolchildren and graduates is laughable, the system completely eroded by lack of discipline and liberal teaching standards. Most lack even the basic standards of writing, communications and mathematics. The ones that do well are getting through entirely on natural intelligence or from their parents teachings.

France may not have the perfect economy but the certainly know there is more to life than greed.

Flatcapdriver

Really. Then how come the cops there have forward mounted speed radars in their vehicles. Where do you think the idea for cameras in catseyes comes from? ANPR? Same country. The Australian cops make this lot look tame when it comes to the demon speeding issue, as do the pollies with their stupid attitudes towards policing the roads.

They've simply gone from being the most corrupt bunch of malcontents in the Western world, to the most **** - like when it comes to speeding. It's way easier to earn demerits there than it is to lose your licence in the UK.

KiwiGTI

I agree and disagree. Forward mounted speed radars are commonplace in Aus /NZ and have been for years.

Also both those countries have mostly 2 lane highways as their main roads, not a large network of motorways as there are in the UK, which are far more dangerous. And then they tend to target accident blackspots.

In the UK it feels oppressive at times and it is also so clearly a revenue gathering exercise.

I feel that in Aus they are genuinely concerned at preventing accidents.

hedgehog

While the speeding issue is certainly one area where Oz and the UK don't have much between them but what is Oz like in relation to other freedom issues? Like, for example, have they just passed a law which allows the ruling party to introduce legislation without consultation with the citizens and their representitives?

I know that MacQuarie (sp??) are from Oz and they run the M6 toll road but are also, possibly, in the frame for the various monitoring schemes for citizens. They recently bought all the old IBA transmitter sites for example and there is much speculation that this was done with a view to tracking the movement of people and vehicles. We have also recently seen that the ID cards are actually going to be RFID cards and so they can be read from a distance without making any contact with the reader. This, we are told, is because if there were contacts involved they might wear out. Of course it also means that when you zoom your CCTV camera in on a citizen (I believe the UK has by far the highest concentration of CCTV cameras in the world) you can also read their ID card. Criminals have nothing to fear from this as they will not be carrying ID cards, at least not their own, and so we must question what it will be used for. Will Oz have a similar system?

Will all vehicles in Oz be required to have a satellite tracking system to interface with road tolls and citizen tracking operations? Again the criminals will not be worried as they will have a way around the system so the only people being tracked will be the law abiding citizen, why should the state wish to track them unless it also wishes to criminalise them?

Leslie

That RFID card is even more frightening. God help us!

Les