A Yorkshireman in America

According to the circus that opposes the Leader of the Opposition, it's all about power.

Jeremy Corbyn, they say, would not be able to command a sufficient parliamentary majority to form a government, and so he should be replaced. The levels of personal ambition betrayed (betrayal is an unavoidable stain on the circus) by the current Wilson leadership campaign are impressive, but it appears to me that all we Labour Party members are offered is empty promises of an overnight change. Switch your bank account in a day, switch your party leader as though he were a football manager after an unsuccessful season. Welcome to the twenty-first century realpolitik.

Usually I am pretty sickened by marketing campaigns, since it appears to my cynical eyes that marketing is a technique used to make people believe that their lives will be improved by spending money on things they don't really need. My life has taught me that there seems to be a lot of truth in the classical Buddhist assertion that suffering is caused by desire. Since marketing's purpose is to engender desire in people, I can't see it as a good thing.

Since the Chancellor's messages to the financial community are often coded, I thought it might be interesting to try and interpret the hidden messages behind the words of last night's Mansion House speech by the newly-re-elected Chancellor of the Exchequer, Gorge Gideon Oliver Osborne.

My Lord Mayor, Ladies and Gentlemen, it is again an honour to attend this wonderful dinner and to speak to you as Chancellor for the fifth time.

Hello, everybody. What an election!.

[Editorial note: I am not currently in America]

There's been a huge brouhaha within the Labour Party after its recent election defeat. Strident language is being used, and supporters of Tony Blair's thinking are attempting to use this to stage a comeback (for the ideas, not the leader, thank Heavens). Everyone agrees that the party needs to change, and there are forces pulling in wildly different directions.

I have no right as a British national to come across as holier than thou in this matter. Britain has been screwing over other nations since before the United States of America was a gleam in the Founding Fathers' eyes.

My fundamental question is this:

Why, if democracy works, is a Congress with a 7% public approval rating not being vociferously opposed as and when it seeks re-election? You know my position; I am a disenfranchised immigrant from your former colonial ruler.

It's a strange time to be living in America. It is said that those who cannot remember history are doomed to repeat its mistakes. Yet very few people seem to realize that there are some uncomfortably close parallels between present-day America and 1930's Germany around the time of the collapse of the Weimar republic.

There has been much talk lately about the vacation of the various sites occupied by protestors. Those critical of the protest movement have interpreted this as evidence of lack of determination. Yet, as Lindsey Walker put it in her open message to the city of Portland and its occupiers, "who would camp outside if they didn't have to?"

That, of course, leaves those that have to: the people with no houses to go to.