Yesterday was the day when our domestic help calls around. As Meg had not been out for a trip to Waitrose the day before and will probably not do so on our shopping day on Thursday, we took the opportunity to visit Waitrose for our elevenses even though we did not anticipate meeting any of our friends. But we did take the opportunity to get some much needed provisions of which we had run out before we do the main shopping later on in the week. In the mid afternoon, we received a visit of a nurse from our local community hospital who act as an organising hub for our GP practice. The nurse’s visit appears to have been activated by the Admiral (specialist) nurse and she had called around to ensure that Meg had all of the necessary requisites to keep her comfortable. Naturally I had to update her regarding the possibility of a hospital ‘floor’ bed which might be arriving in a few days and she was going to make some recommendations of supplies (creams and the like) to keep Meg comfortable and, hopefully, to keep her asleep at night.
When I consulted my iPhone this morning, the BBC were giving prominence to an article written by an expert they had commissioned and the article was entitled ‘Riots show how the UK’s far right has changed’ The article is long, complex and detailed but the gist of it is as follows: ‘Right wing extremism can be thought of as a spectrum, rather than a coherent whole. It includes genocidal neo-Nazis treated as terrorists by the state… but the term is also used to describe people who stand in democratic elections, engage in public campaigns and put forward policy platforms’ The author of the article suggests that the term ‘extreme right’ should be used for the first group and ‘far right’ for the latter. To complicate this mosaic even further, some of the rioters were simply drunk whilst others were rampant opportunists who engaged in the fact that under the guise of the riot some shops could be looted. The article concludes with the observation that ‘far right narratives are now more mainstream than many would like to think. Is there now a far right culture that is more prevalent in society and which transcends the need to organise in political groups?’ The response from the government and the rest of us in what might be termed mainstream culture is not necessarily a simple one. I happen to believe that almost instant arrest, trial and fairly stiff fines and prison sentences was probably the right response in the short term and helped to quell what could have turned out to be a summer of rioting. On the other hand, we need a more measured analysis of the problem (which the article provides) and therefore more considered solutions. Without attempting to be too simplistic, i think there are two observations that are in order at this point. The first is that a succession of right wing governments that have constantly tacked to the right of the political spectrum which has helped to foster a climate in which such far right movements have grown in strength and influence. As a case in point, I used to have fairly neutral attitudes towards Teresa May when she turned out to be one of our longest serving Home Secretaries before she herself became Prime Minister. Whilst at the Home Office, a report had been commissioned on the economic costs and benefits of long run immigration into the UK. May sent the report back to its authors indicating to them that any reference to economic benefits should be discounted, minimised or removed leaving only the material on costs. There is a very powerful argument that whatever the short term costs of immigration, because migrants tend to be young and healthy they tend to contribute more in the taxes that they pay than they receive back in benefits than the indigenous population largely because the costs of old age such as old age pensions and health benefits are not immediately needed. The argument can therefore be made that migrants therefore subsidise the rest of the population at least for a few decades to come but needless to say this argument is rarely heard and does not see the light of day. Another important observation is that with the prevalence of social media, there is no need for far right political groups to mobilise and indeed incite the population. Instead, we can rely on social media particularly ‘X’ (the successor to Twitter) whose owner Elon Musk to argue that the UK is heading for an inevitable civil war and who will not take resolute and immediate action to remove fake and erroneous reports to circulate. One could argue that right wing governments have helped to create the climate of opinion into which mix the impact of social media provides ‘the spark’ as it were. A very old political expression is that ‘a lie gets half way around the world before truth has had a chance to put its boots again’. So one could argue that governments themselves, although they cannot censor social media, can actively engage in a far more direct rebuttal of evidently fake reports. For example, they could constantly reiterate the message that ‘complex problems need even more complex (and well thought through) solutions’ rather than engaging in the simplistic messages such as ‘Stop the Boats’ which fitted the right wing agenda.
Interesting news that has emerged from the other side of ‘the pond’. Donald Trump’s former White House press secretary took the stage at the Democratic National Convention Tuesday night and shared the brutal one-word message from Melania in the wake of the January 6 insurrection that caused her to quit and she is one of several Republican figures invited to the convention in Chicago to denounce the extremism of the former president and his campaign. On Tuesday night, as she endorsed Democrat Kamala Harris for president, Grisham shared the brief text exchange, which finally convinced her to leave the post. She had apparently received a word one text from Melania, ex-President’s wife, indicating that ‘while peaceful protest is the right of every American, there’s no place for lawlessness or violence’ and that she, Melania, could not endorse that action. On the face of it, this sounds quite a dramatic coup for the Democrats to persuade prominent ex-Republicans to repudiate the Trump’s actions but of course it will cut no ice with the dedicated, not to say fanatical supporters of the ex-President. I wonder how much of this will be reported on this side of the Atlantic?
© Mike Hart [2024]