I cannot bear to watch the news this week.
The Tory Party parading its narrow minded mendacity in Manchester.
Even the Guardian Newspaper has no choice but to report what is being said from the platform which makes for difficult reading.
If it is possible to draw any comfort from this pantomime of the vanities which is being played out in Manchester it comes from Greece, not the Greece of anti-austerity Syriza and Yanis Varoufakis, but the Greece of Herodotus.
Herodotus, a Greek Historian, born in Turkey in 485 BC.
Herodotus was credited with inventing history as a form of critical study and in his writings drew attention to the two great Tectonic Plates of History.
Hubris and Nemesis.
So I take comfort from my Herodotus as I see the pictures and the read the reports of the drama being played out in Manchester: Ian Duncan Smith advising the disabled to work (whilst showing no understanding of the tragedy that disability can mean for the individual so affected and their families), or Theresa May vilifying the stranger and the refugee in our midst (and being criticised not only by charities but by the IoD!) or George Osborne, declaring that Jeremy Corbyn spoke at a fringe meeting (as he will continue to do for the next five years), or David Cameron announcing how house building will start happening once builders can build for sale and not for rent.
And all this rhetoric set against the realities of what is happening not only Globally with climate change and conflict in Syria, Iraq and Afghanistan which is displacing people from the Middle East and Africa, but what is happening locally in the lives of those affected by the reductions in Tax Credits, the increase in food bank dependency, the closure of the steel works in Redcar.
I make no great claims at understanding what fundamental shifts are taking place in the economy either in the UK or in China, but what is clear as I read Piketty and Stiglitz is that as inequality grows so the future becomes more precarious and as automation and technological change advance relentlessly, so precariousness shifts its way up the social strata from blue to white collar workers and obscene wealth aggregates to what we now call the 1%.
Manchester was the scene for the Peterloo Massacre which happened on the 16th August 1819.
Poor economic conditions and a lack of suffrage in Northern England resulted in a demonstration held in St Peter's Fields in Manchester.
Some 60 - 80, 000 people gathered to protest and listen to speeches. The Magistrates deployed the Military to disperse the crowd and a Cavalry Charge with drawn sabres killed 15 people and injured over 500.
The tragedy was christened Peterloo in an ironic reference to the Battle of Waterloo fours years earlier.
Clearly the Tory Party have chosen Manchester to emphasise their aim of stealing Labour's ideas and promoting the Northern Powerhouse under the Chairmanship of postman's son. Lord Adonis, who despite his name is not, as far as I know, Greek.
As neither was Herodotus, but his survey of Greek History serves to remind us that if there is one great truth to be drawn from history, and this should perhaps be a warning when the Tory Leadership is unable to treat the Labour Leadership with the courtesy that fellow MP's should offer one another, that Hubris is always followed by Nemesis.
So, and it is a small comfort, but I take comfort from seeing and hearing Tory Hubris at its loudest and most grating in Manchester, because I know that it will end in tears.
The Tory Party parading its narrow minded mendacity in Manchester.
Even the Guardian Newspaper has no choice but to report what is being said from the platform which makes for difficult reading.
If it is possible to draw any comfort from this pantomime of the vanities which is being played out in Manchester it comes from Greece, not the Greece of anti-austerity Syriza and Yanis Varoufakis, but the Greece of Herodotus.
Herodotus, a Greek Historian, born in Turkey in 485 BC.
Herodotus was credited with inventing history as a form of critical study and in his writings drew attention to the two great Tectonic Plates of History.
Hubris and Nemesis.
So I take comfort from my Herodotus as I see the pictures and the read the reports of the drama being played out in Manchester: Ian Duncan Smith advising the disabled to work (whilst showing no understanding of the tragedy that disability can mean for the individual so affected and their families), or Theresa May vilifying the stranger and the refugee in our midst (and being criticised not only by charities but by the IoD!) or George Osborne, declaring that Jeremy Corbyn spoke at a fringe meeting (as he will continue to do for the next five years), or David Cameron announcing how house building will start happening once builders can build for sale and not for rent.
And all this rhetoric set against the realities of what is happening not only Globally with climate change and conflict in Syria, Iraq and Afghanistan which is displacing people from the Middle East and Africa, but what is happening locally in the lives of those affected by the reductions in Tax Credits, the increase in food bank dependency, the closure of the steel works in Redcar.
I make no great claims at understanding what fundamental shifts are taking place in the economy either in the UK or in China, but what is clear as I read Piketty and Stiglitz is that as inequality grows so the future becomes more precarious and as automation and technological change advance relentlessly, so precariousness shifts its way up the social strata from blue to white collar workers and obscene wealth aggregates to what we now call the 1%.
Manchester was the scene for the Peterloo Massacre which happened on the 16th August 1819.
Poor economic conditions and a lack of suffrage in Northern England resulted in a demonstration held in St Peter's Fields in Manchester.
Some 60 - 80, 000 people gathered to protest and listen to speeches. The Magistrates deployed the Military to disperse the crowd and a Cavalry Charge with drawn sabres killed 15 people and injured over 500.
The tragedy was christened Peterloo in an ironic reference to the Battle of Waterloo fours years earlier.
Clearly the Tory Party have chosen Manchester to emphasise their aim of stealing Labour's ideas and promoting the Northern Powerhouse under the Chairmanship of postman's son. Lord Adonis, who despite his name is not, as far as I know, Greek.
As neither was Herodotus, but his survey of Greek History serves to remind us that if there is one great truth to be drawn from history, and this should perhaps be a warning when the Tory Leadership is unable to treat the Labour Leadership with the courtesy that fellow MP's should offer one another, that Hubris is always followed by Nemesis.
So, and it is a small comfort, but I take comfort from seeing and hearing Tory Hubris at its loudest and most grating in Manchester, because I know that it will end in tears.
No comments:
Post a Comment