Adventures In The Land Of Make Believe

There’s a reason why I refer to the world in which we currently live as “the matrix” and it’s not because I believe that we’re all avatars living in some digital universe… well, some of us on social media may believe that, but they’re the kind of people who believe they have “natural immunity” to covid 19 without having ever contracted it . No. It’s because in this world, but more specifically, the United Kingdom, the media (mainstream of course) has created a world of illusions, which are crafted by daft journalists from incoherent narratives and endless opinion polls on “voting intentions”, all of which are intended to manipulate or deceive the public. The people who create these illusions, naturally, deny that’s their role.

On this morning’s edition of the weekly arse-kissing fest that’s the Andrew Marr Show on BBC1, Helen Lewis, who was reviewing the papers with someone from The S*n, inadvertently let the cat out of the bag by opining that the “sleaze” scandal currently engulfing the government had, apparently “run out of steam”. Lewis, formerly of the New Statesman and now employed by The Atlantic, then proceeded to tell Andy Marr about how her profession creates narratives. So, there it was, the truth, coughed up like some mental fur ball. Turn away from the telly for a moment and you’d have missed it.

The “sleaze” scandal will only “run its course” when the media decides they’ve had enough of running stories of political corruption and grift, and returns to bashing its favourite all-purpose bogeyman, Jeremy Corbyn, who is apparently responsible for all manner of evils plaguing contemporary Britain. Add to this, the endlessly recycled World War Two rhetoric, and you have a country in which many of its citizens are unable to separate reality from the fantastic narratives created by a media that wouldn’t know a true story from a fairy story. It’s a land of make believe in which people ride unicorns and warm themselves on the sunlit uplands created by Brexit enthusiasts, many of whom have stashed their wealth offshore and have secured a bolt hole far away from this shit hole country.

Alternatively, we can expect more stories about “migrant invasions” brought to us by the BBC’s Simon Racist atop the White Cliffs of Dover, to divert the public’s attention away from corrupt politicians, crumbling infrastructure and structural inequalities.

Welcome to the Land of Make Believe.

“He stabbed his brother in the back”…

One narrative the Tories are keen to push is the notion that Ed Miliband “stabbed his brother in the back” to become leader of the Labour Party. I’ve heard some ridiculous things in my time, but this claim that Ed “stabbed his brother in the back” is rubbish. Did David Cameron stab David Davis in the back to become leader of the Conservative Party, or does this rule only apply when two brothers contest a party’s leadership?

If I were to play my brother at chess and I win the game, have I “stabbed my brother in the back”? No, I beat him fair and square. This narrative that Ed Miliband used nefarious means to become leader appears to have been drawn from either a notional understanding of classical Greek tragedy or the Cain and Abel story, yet the idea itself is worthy of a bad Whitehall farce scripted by Lynton Crosby.

Today, Michael Fallon resurrected this notion in his attack on the Labour leader. Fallon claimed Miliband would “barter away” Trident to get into Downing Street because he “stabbed his brother in the back”. Talk about lazy thinking. I’ll return to Trident in a moment. Yet, even Fallon’s fellow Tories have criticized him for personalizing the election discourse.

Fallon, the MP for Sevenoaks, read Classics and History at St Andrew’s University, which would explain the appeal of this sub-Classical narrative. While he was Deputy Chairman of the Treasury Select Committee, Fallon claimed mortgage repayments on his Westminster flat in their entirety. This was against Parliamentary rules.

Jon Swaine writing in the Telegraph in 2009 wrote:

Between 2002 and 2004, Mr Fallon regularly claimed £1,255 per month in capital repayments and interest, rather than the £700-£800 for the interest component alone. After his error was noticed by staff in the Commons fees office in September 2004, he said: “Why has no one brought this to my attention before?”

There’s more:

He began making the excessive claims after buying the Westminster flat for £243,000 in June 2002 and designating it as his second home.

Various other household expenses he claimed for after September 2004 included a £250 per month cleaning bill, which Mr Fallon reduced from £300 after being asked for a receipt.

In addition to his expenses claims, Fallon is also

…paid as a director of three companies. His salary from one, a money broker, is reportedly £45,000. He also pays his wife from his taxpayer-funded office expenses to work as his secretary.

The main issue with Trident is that it is expensive and that it isn’t actually owned by Britain.  The Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament states that “it is technically and politically dependent on the United States”. Richard Norton-Taylor writing in The Guardian in 2009 states that it would cost the country £130 billion to renew. That figure increased to £350 billion by 2012. The Tories are fond of telling us how the country can’t afford the NHS or other public services, yet they would be prepared to fork out billions of pounds on something that will never be used. The real beneficiaries of the renewal of Trident are weapon’s manufacturers and the Tories who have a financial stake in its renewal.

The idea that this country needs a nuclear weapon to guarantee its national security is an over-dramatization. I’ve just heard Fallon making a speech in which he claims that the world is a “dangerous place”. Well, excuse me, but it’s always been dangerous. Possessing weapons of mass destruction won’t make it safer.