Revolution, it seems, is a dirty word in England.
Revolution, it seems, is something best left to the less civilised people of the world, something to ease their boredom.
Revolution, it seems, is certainly not the kind of thing e would do in England, and definitely not during the summer. The Ashes start in less than a month for goodness sake!
Forget the romanticism of Che and Fidel, ignore the success of the Parisian mob of 1789 and don’t even mention the Russians, England does not revolt. It does however sometimes disgust. Let’s start with the war in Iraq - a topic covered in depth in this blog, so outraged were the British public by the idea of an invasion that more than a million too to the streets. 3 weeks later it had been forgotten. Then there was the whole case for war, its highly public debunking, the incredibly suspicious death of the Government scientist David Kelly and renewed claims for a proper legal investigation into the whole debacle. Again a short while later all this was seemingly forgotten.
Now, were this France, things would have been slightly different of course. The Revolution of 1789 which left the king without a head and ultimately began the process by which the French got rid of their monarchy, began when the price of brad went up. I think it is fair to say that even if the price of a loaf of bread in Britain were to quadruple in the next week the chances of a revolution would be slim to none. It is simply not in our psyche to take to the streets and protest. Instead we are a nation of armchair revolutionists.
Had Ernesto Guevara been born in Altrincham as opposed to Argentina then the world would be a very different place
Fast forward a couple of years from the Iraq war, the Kelly affair and the departure of Tony Blair and we find ourselves in the middle of two different financial crises. The first of course is the now slightly passé Credit Crunch, and the second is the far juicier Expenses Scandal currently rocking what is left of the British Government. This is good news for many, me included, as the credit crunch was becoming a bit boring really, after 2 years there is only so much finger pointing you can do.
Thankfully the government has popped up with yet another newsworthy display of shambolic financial ineptitude to keep me busy. It seems that nobody is exempt from blame either, Tory MPs claiming cash for having their moats cleaned and their suits or armour polished, the PM claiming twice for the same bit of plumbing work, unknown backbenchers claiming 3 mortgages each for houses that don’t exist…….frankly the whole thing is an embarrassing mess for a country that claims to be the home of the world’s oldest democracy – a brand of democracy it actively and forcibly exports to other countries no less.
I used to think tha the reason we didn’t take to the streets as much as the French was based on the weather after all who wants to protest during persistent drizzle? But the real difference is that the French understand democracy far better than we do.
In a true democracy the people give power to an elected group of leaders, who in return are answerable to the people who elect them.
In Britain we seem to have things decidedly arse about face. Hands up those who voted for Gordon Brown? At least when Bush “won” the election in 2002 his name was on the ballot paper.
So yes the weather is crap yes the ashes are due to start and no we don’t have a bearded cigar smoking Latino poster boy for the Revolution. But if ever the time was right for the people of Britain to take to the streets………
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