There's something rotten in the state

Well the Euro Elections have proved to be very interesting, with the centre left and left getting sat on by the electorate across the continent, irrespective of whether they were in power or not. Without understanding the mechanism behind the continent-wide move to the right, it does suggest that Labour's ills are part of a wider malaise amongst the centre left and that there is something else going on that was only exacerbated in this country by the fact that they are both in power and facing the fall out for the MPs' expenses scandal.

I shall be reading the analysis of this election with a great deal of interest over the coming week; I'd like to get a handle on precisely what's going on; it's clearly more than just dissatisfaction with Golden Gordo and his Jolly Crew.

I was also struck again by the downside of living in a society where we at least pay lip service to free speech when the BBC interviewed an arrogantly pompous Nick Griffin after he had won the BNP's first seat to the European Parliament. He is such an odious little man, leading such vileness that it beggars belief that he and his party have managed to gull enough of the electorate to produce not one, but two BNP MEPs.

I was struck as much by the sad conjunction of dates as I was by the sickening fact of their election. Although the European results were only counted and announced yesterday, they were cast on Thursday at the same time as the County Elections, June 4th. Two days later, representatives of the victorious allies were in Normandy commemorating the 65th anniversary of D-Day, the day the allied Western Liberal Democracies stormed Hitler's Festung Europa. Though we did not know it at the time, the heirs to that day had already decided that their interests would be best served by elevating the British equivalent of the Nazi Party to a power credible enough to serve its interests in Europe.

When the people who voted BNP look at photographs of, or heaven forbid visit the Normandy cemeteries, will they stop to ponder the fact that this week they have effectively told the men buried there: their fathers, grandfathers (perhaps great-grandfathers), uncles, brothers, husbands - 'fuck off; you died for nothing'.

There's something rotten in the state

Well the Euro Elections have proved to be very interesting, with the centre left and left getting sat on by the electorate across the continent, irrespective of whether they were in power or not. Without understanding the mechanism behind the continent-wide move to the right, it does suggest that Labour's ills are part of a wider malaise amongst the centre left and that there is something else going on that was only exacerbated in this country by the fact that they are both in power and facing the fall out for the MPs' expenses scandal.

I shall be reading the analysis of this election with a great deal of interest over the coming week; I'd like to get a handle on precisely what's going on; it's clearly more than just dissatisfaction with Golden Gordo and his Jolly Crew.

I was also struck again by the downside of living in a society where we at least pay lip service to free speech when the BBC interviewed an arrogantly pompous Nick Griffin after he had won the BNP's first seat to the European Parliament. He is such an odious little man, leading such vileness that it beggars belief that he and his party have managed to gull enough of the electorate to produce not one, but two BNP MEPs.

I was struck as much by the sad conjunction of dates as I was by the sickening fact of their election. Although the European results were only counted and announced yesterday, they were cast on Thursday at the same time as the County Elections, June 4th. Two days later, representatives of the victorious allies were in Normandy commemorating the 65th anniversary of D-Day, the day the allied Western Liberal Democracies stormed Hitler's Festung Europa. Though we did not know it at the time, the heirs to that day had already decided that their interests would be best served by elevating the British equivalent of the Nazi Party to a power credible enough to serve its interests in Europe.

When the people who voted BNP look at photographs of, or heaven forbid visit the Normandy cemeteries, will they stop to ponder the fact that this week they have effectively told the men buried there: their fathers, grandfathers (perhaps great-grandfathers), uncles, brothers, husbands - 'fuck off; you died for nothing'.