Comment by Iain Robertson
There should be a red, white and blue Cerberus statue outside the parliament buildings in London, with three laughing heads depicting the band of merry millionaires running the UK’s establishment democracy.
Right wing politics, big business and traditional media intertwine to form a threesome nobody’s mother would love.
“One for all and all for one, to the detriment of all others (bar friends and family)”, should be the roll-off-the-tongue slogan for these anti-democrats.
Wealth unites them.
A recent study commissioned by the Social Mobility and Child Poverty Commission revealed that 54% of the ‘top hundred media professionals’ were privately educated, and around half of newspaper columnists in the UK graduated from Oxbridge.
“We have a situation where the boys – and it is often the boys – are recruiting people just like themselves,” commented Michelle Stanistreet, general secretary of the National Union of Journalists.
Diversity has no place at the top table of UK plc.
The Herald reported last month that former director general of the BBC, Lord Birt, attacked Alex Salmond from the comfort of his £300 attendance seat in the unelected heart of London, for his “singling out” of BBC political editor, Nick Robinson, a man Birt claimed was a “correspondent universally respected for his insight, independence and integrity”.
This of course referred to the incident when Robinson asserted that Scotland’s First Minister had failed to answer a question at a press conference which had been aired live on television during the referendum campaign; a broadcast which clearly showed Mr Salmond had given a full answer to the same question.
Forget the fourth estate, the UK’s traditional media acts in the interests of the ruling Cerberus.
But the traditional is fast becoming the ancient.
The establishment democracy, built up over centuries, is crumbling before our very eyes.
An in-built arrogance and confidence in the corridors of power has led to the growth of a blind spot the size of the Grand Canyon, which means there is a belief among the right wing rump of elites who have monopolised the land, that it is business as usual.
That the “Scottish question” has been settled, that Labour can regain its rightful control of Scotland simply by telling the restless natives that it plans to “listen” to them in future; there really is no end to the misplaced hopes and dreams of those currently ruling the roost.
The referendum happened, and the people became the media: the first domino knocked over.
Those ‘people’ then began joining political parties en masse, a fact that will surely have turned any careerist politician into an insomniac.
But why is this happening?
Because the majority have had enough; people are no longer interested in the tedious and predictable type of politics forced on them every time there’s an election, when everything is reduced to personalities: Miliband v Cameron, Sturgeon v the eggman.
There is a desire for change like never before and, crucially, there are now millions of people equipped to deliver it.
An article on the openeurope blog revealed that the Spanish party, Podemos, ‘a six-month-old anti-establishment party’ is already running high in the polls and would come second if a general election were held in the country today.
This is a people’s revolution, started by social media and soon to be delivered by the masses worldwide.