Subject: It's a wake up call
One of the interesting things, as Europeans wake up to their parliamentary election results has been the usual spin applied to results which have gone against what the commentariat had hoped for.
There are three elements to the political cake . The politicians and their slogans, the voters and their preferences and the media who report and comment about these things. The power lies in the media to concoct a story around the facts but which is biased to tell its own story. Listening to the French broadcasting service and then switching between the news channels, Euro news, RT, Al Jazeera, the BBC or Sky the flavour of the election is different depending on which academic or political hack is taking part as one voice on a panel of experts.
For some it's been a disaster only mitigated by the fact that the far right didn't sweep the board. For others that the Greens did well indicates the power of the youth vote. Guy Verhofstadt the outspoken Belgian Liberal politician was at pains to applaud the high turn out in the election (over 50%) as a sign that the European ideal was alive and well. What he didn't say was that part of that vote was a vote against the European Union.
The liberal press, plus the liberal figureheads who appear on television and who this morning are twisting and turning trying to imagine the world a different place people like Alastair Campbell, that arch 'sound bite' manipulator for the Tony Blair government. He was in denial at the success of the Farage band wagon and one has to say if he and his ilk don't wake up and smell the coffee, issues such as Brexit or the lack of social funding for health and education which is leaving parts of the UK devastated, then the time for extremist politics will continue.
Europe has made its voice heard on immigration, LGBT rights, global economics and unemployment. It's not a conciliatory voice it's a rough and ready call from the ordinary people who live in Barnsley, Barcelona, Bologna and Budapest, the isolated, nearly invisible working class who came out in droves to vote for charismatic extremists such as the Italian Matteo Salvini, Marien la Pen of France and Nigel Farage.
Perhaps this ushers in another charismatic extremist, Boris Johnson to head the Tory Party but it underlines the fact that the age of old wise heads is over, that the masses wont do what they are told and those fence sitters, Labour and Conservatives had better wake up and decide who's side they are on, otherwise the voting public will do so for them.
There are three elements to the political cake . The politicians and their slogans, the voters and their preferences and the media who report and comment about these things. The power lies in the media to concoct a story around the facts but which is biased to tell its own story. Listening to the French broadcasting service and then switching between the news channels, Euro news, RT, Al Jazeera, the BBC or Sky the flavour of the election is different depending on which academic or political hack is taking part as one voice on a panel of experts.
For some it's been a disaster only mitigated by the fact that the far right didn't sweep the board. For others that the Greens did well indicates the power of the youth vote. Guy Verhofstadt the outspoken Belgian Liberal politician was at pains to applaud the high turn out in the election (over 50%) as a sign that the European ideal was alive and well. What he didn't say was that part of that vote was a vote against the European Union.
The liberal press, plus the liberal figureheads who appear on television and who this morning are twisting and turning trying to imagine the world a different place people like Alastair Campbell, that arch 'sound bite' manipulator for the Tony Blair government. He was in denial at the success of the Farage band wagon and one has to say if he and his ilk don't wake up and smell the coffee, issues such as Brexit or the lack of social funding for health and education which is leaving parts of the UK devastated, then the time for extremist politics will continue.
Europe has made its voice heard on immigration, LGBT rights, global economics and unemployment. It's not a conciliatory voice it's a rough and ready call from the ordinary people who live in Barnsley, Barcelona, Bologna and Budapest, the isolated, nearly invisible working class who came out in droves to vote for charismatic extremists such as the Italian Matteo Salvini, Marien la Pen of France and Nigel Farage.
Perhaps this ushers in another charismatic extremist, Boris Johnson to head the Tory Party but it underlines the fact that the age of old wise heads is over, that the masses wont do what they are told and those fence sitters, Labour and Conservatives had better wake up and decide who's side they are on, otherwise the voting public will do so for them.
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