I've travelled the world and London is one of my favourite cities but sadly watching all the jubilee events reinforced how foreign it seems to me. The Queen isn't my queen.
Yes monarchy is as dead as a doornail . Those celebrating it were mindless reactionaries who seem quite happy with imposed , undemocratic institutions . And the flag-wavers : how many are secret racists ? The jubilee celebrations underline yet again how divided people in the British Isles are . Time for Reublics in each British Isles country and a gentle but determined abolition of out-of-date monarchy .
Pravda would have been proud of the BBC coverage this weekend, wall to wall sycophantic dross. At some points it was hard not to throw up at the commentary.
These are the only conditions in which I can see "celebrating" the Jubilee as even remotely acceptable:
- As an excuse to bring the community together i.e socialising with neighbours you don't normally speak to.
- As an excuse to get pissed (for the alcoholics and people who need alcohol to socialise)
- As an excuse to get pissed (for the alcoholics and people who need alcohol to socialise)
Under any other circumstances e.g actually celebrating some wee old woman's 60 years doing absolutely nothing, then you are verging on insanity and need a good kick up the arse.
RupertBH
5 June 2012 8:34PM
Why didnt they just have roman galleys on the Thames with the unemployed, sick and disabled lashed to the oars. This story says all you need to know about the jubilee and "modern" Britian. Good on the Guardian for running with it. And great cartoon Mr Bell.
Time for a peaceful democratic revolution I think. 17 June in Greece and 2015 in the UK. But starting now.
PS apols if this is a bit like my earlier post. They are related!
You can't privatise duty, esprit de corps and loyalty.
You can't get good staff for free.
You can't get good staff for free.
This is madness. This is insecure.
Do VIPs realise they are being protected by people press ganged in for free sleeping under bridges?
Billions of pounds worth of cameras drones anti aircraft missiles. All to no avail as geezer in orange jacket working for free grabs a few winks in the 16th hour of his shift letting the funny looking guy with the body belt into the stadium.
Being tight with money can be its own punishment for those that live like that.
Response to navellint, 5 June 2012 8:38PM
This is the start of right wing populism,the tories love it,making people into unpaid slaves...keep them where they belong.Make a example of them... why don't you.
Response to R0nin67, 5 June 2012 9:21PM
What an absolutely fantastic weekend... It really has put the whole republic argument to bed finally...Seeing the millions of people drown out the anti-royalists was a joy to see...Proud to British.. Let's do the same again next year!
Have you bothered to look at the cartoon? Have you tried to work out what it is about?
It certainly wasn't a fantastic weekend for the unemployed who were bussed in from Bristol, Bath and Plymouth and told were told to work as unpaid stewards or have their benefit stopped.
They were told to sleep on the freezing cold ground under London Bridge. The women had to change into their uniforms outside, in the rain.
A 30-year-old steward told the Guardian that the conditions under the bridge were "cold and wet and we were told to get our head down [to sleep]". He said that it was impossible to pitch a tent because of the concrete floor.The woman said they were woken at 5.30am and supplied with boots, combat trousers and polo shirts. She said: "They had told the ladies we were getting ready in a minibus around the corner and I went to the minibus and they had failed to open it so it was locked. I waited around to find someone to unlock it, and all of the other girls were coming down trying to get ready and no one was bothering to come down to unlock [it], so some of us, including me, were getting undressed in public in the freezing cold and rain." The men are understood to have changed under the bridge.
Two jobseekers, who did not want to be identified in case they lost their benefits, later told the Guardian that they had to camp under London Bridge overnight, to change into security gear in public, had no access to toilets for 24 hours, and were taken to a swampy campsite outside London after working a 14-hour shift in the pouring rain on the banks of the Thames on Sunday.
We put on a multi-million pound extravaganza to celebrate a feudal class system, and use the unemployed as slaves to do so.
This makes you proud to be British?
It makes me deeply ashamed of my country, at what my country has become.
What sort of society have we become where people can even think that this is an acceptable way to behave?
