Last Straw

As you’re probably already aware, Britain re-elected a New “Labour” government on Thursday. Well 22% of the electorate did that is; with the UK’s antiquated voting system that’s all it took for Labour to win 55% of the seats in the new parliament and become government.

As with the re-election of Bush Junior I couldn’t help but think, using the very arguments developed by the Blairites to support their bombing and invasion of Iraq, that you could formulate a pretty good argument for the bombing of Britain, or at least Westminster, to dispose of Britain’s very own elected war criminal. Maybe the International Criminal Court will get him first.

Some solace might be found in the slashing of Labour’s parliamentary majority from 161 to 66. This may seem sizable enough but it’s impotent when you consider many of the Blairite policies pushed through over the years have scraped through with very slender majorities. We could be in for some decent parliamentary rebellions and no doubt this will bolster the trade unions and Labour rank and file in their efforts to put down Blair & Co.

Turnout in Britain has hovered around 75-85% since 1922, but, after the Blairites scammed their way into government in 1997, the turnout plummeted to 59.1% in 2001 and 61% in 2005. Predictably, the experts prefer to blame the electors, contemptuously casting the label of “apathy” onto those who have come to the obvious conclusion: the main parties all bat for the same side - the rich, unelected oligarchy of bankers, financiers and other capitalists.

When Newsnight’s Jeremy Paxman recently asked Virgin’s Richard Branson which party would be better for business, the tycoon responded, “Arguably, it doesn’t matter.” “The difference between having a Labour government for business to having a Tory government has been fairly negligible,” he told Paxman. You’re left wondering when the Blairites will dispense with the bullshit and get round to renaming themselves Old Tory.

For some actual democratic debate on the matter of turnout you’ll need to look somewhere other than the capitalist media. The Daily Show’s Jon Stewart coverage hits the sweet spot as it so often does, and George Galloway annihilates Jeremy Paxman: Windows Media Player or Realplayer.