On Leadership, Privilege and Arrogance
On Tuesday night David Cameron, political leader of this country on a mandate of 36.1% of the popular vote and a minority of seats in Parliament, finally lowered himself to return from the holiday we pay for after a mere four days of the worst civil unrest in a generation in his capital city and several others.
When he got back he recalled Parliament for an emergency session and as I noted on Wednesday, made all sorts of vacuous noises about "values... and personal responsibility" and generally acted like the pompous, privileged wanker he is.
Then in the debate yesterday he advocated the use of water cannons, 'baton rounds' (that's apparently shotgun rounds that don't kill people. But can blind them) and legislation to allow police officers to force people to remove hoods if they're wearing them, while also noting that closing down social media channels should also be an option.
Yes - he wants the police to be able to dictate what people can wear, to shoot troublemakers, and to shut down people's access to communication systems. Sounds a lot like the policies of the regimes he was supporting opponents of only a few months ago, doesn't it? How quickly the times change. And don't get me wrong, I'm not in any way equating people throwing off repressive regimes with the Comet smash and grab crowd. But I am equating reactionary political leadership with reactionary political leadership.
I know people who would have wound up slap bang in the middle of a riot earlier this week if they hadn't seen warnings about their area on Twitter. But their safety would apparently just be another victim of Cameron's urgent need to look like he's doing something. Which he isn't. Unlike the thousands of people who organised mass clear-ups of the trashed cities via... what was it now.. oh yes, Twitter.
To understand why our supposed leader's unmitigated catastrophe of a response to this situation, tied to a stunning unwillingness to acknowledge *any* responsibility for it, is so offensive, you have to understand where the man comes from.
And where he comes from is a background of extreme privilege, which led him to one of the most exclusive and expensive schools in the country and time at Oxford University which saw him join the Bullingdon Club, whose purpose is basically to eat the kind of meals that cost more than most people spend on food in a month, get violently drunk, and occasionally trash the premises of various establishments they find themselves in or near. It's a lifestyle rooted in a mindset that reveres excess, self-indulgence and ostentatious consumption, and David Cameron is so immersed in it, it's hard to imagine him even comprehending the way the huge majority of his electorate live their lives - especially as there's never the smallest hint of empathy with *anyone* not just like him on display.
An illustration: this is a man who tried to explain how very unconventional his wife is by noting that she was only a day pupil, not a boarder, at her posh school. That's right: he thinks that *not* being a boarder is an indication of unconventionality...
So this is the man in whose privileged hands all our rights and privileges rest. Whose warped sense of what's normal dictates what we're all going to be allowed to do, say and wear. Whose entire background and upbringing (and of course his actions and decisions) marks him out as of that class who instinctively feel they know better than the rest of us.
There's a certain amount of talk of an 'underclass' in the debates following the riots and looting, which suggests that in some people's minds there's also an overclass.
I wonder who on earth would think of himself belonging in that?