Monday 18 January 2016

18th January 2016

As the influence of Jeremy Corbyn moves the Labour Party membership towards the left of the political spectrum, often against the instincts of both his cabinet and back benchers, so the political right digs in deeper to secure its alliances with the worlds of finance, media and business.

Last week I settled down to watch back to back episodes of Silent Witness on iPlayer.

At first as my attention was caught by the developing story line I could see how the current recruitment of Jihadi's might have its roots in the deeper history linking back, as the storyline did, to atrocities carried out in Bosnia in the early 1990's.

But, as the story unfolded it became increasingly clear that I was watching pure, shameless propaganda.

The question underpinning the concept of 'Estates' is essentially: Who is fit to Govern society?

In Europe generally, and in France especially, the First Estate was the Church, which is why the Lord's spiritual, even today sit in the House of Lords.

The Second Estate was the nobility, the Lords, who sit with Bishops in the House of Lords.

The Third Estate was everyone else, who at the start of the French revolution numbered 27 Million!

In England, and Scotland, the third estate is represented by the House of Commons made up as it is of those elected by the population at large to Govern in the interests of, and for the welfare of, the people as a whole.

Over the years and into the 20th and 21st Centuries a 'Fourth Estate' emerged compromising the news media and especially print journalism, as a sub-text to this, the emergence of bloggers and outlets such as independentoped.com, can sometimes be seen as a 'Fifth Estate', although some in parliament might see it as a 'Fifth Column".

These 'Estates' have held sway for generations, where I live in Cumbria the name tithe or Tithe Barn, or Glebe or Glebe Field is a constant reminder of the role and power of the Church as 'First Estate', when a tenth of the harvest was collected and held for the benefit of the Church. But this power has waned to the point where the gathering of Lords Spiritual in Westminster looks increasingly anachronistic and the Churches isolation in areas such as Human Sexuality, Gender and especially in what is usually called 'Gay' marriage, leave it exposed to a lack of public sympathy which is fast becoming for the Church of England an existential crisis.

Ironically, it is the second estate, represented by the House of Lords, that is becoming the unofficial, if not only, opposition to the Government of the day. In the matter of Tax Credits recently it was the Lords who called on the Government to rethink and now the issue of funding of opposition parties and the Government's blatant attempt to secure its own position and weaken the Oppositions by challenging Union funding of the Labour Party and the reduction of what is known as 'Short Money' all of which has been traditionally a Cross Party issue, but which was announced by the Chancellor in his most recent statement as a 'done deal'.

But it is not only the Church which is facing an existential crisis, Parliament itself is becoming increasingly divided as Labour engages in a battle of conscience over the renewal of Trident and the Conservatives battle over to Brexit or not.

Add into this mix, the attacks on welfare and benefits, the bizarre and unsustainable attack on those who wish to seek safety and security in Britain but who are being told that they must earn above £35k annually, £10K above the minimum wage, to stay here if they wish to work as nurses, health care workers, teachers or Barrista's.

When in the early 18th Century France's Third Estate rose to overthrow the First and Second Estates its battle cry was Liberty, Fraternity, Equality.

The soundtrack for the revolution was the rattle of the wheels of the Tumbril's on the wet cobbles, the crashing of the guillotine and the clicking of knitting needles. In Manchester during August 1819, the sound of screams, the thunder of horses hooves, the rattle of Sabres was the soundtrack as Cavalry, the Second Estates storm troopers, charged a crowd of 70,000 people at St Peter's Field as they gathered to demand Parliamentary reform.

Today, as the Davros economic forum opens for business, Oxfam reports that a mere 62 people own more than 50% of the world population.

Divisions have become so glaringly wide that they are now a disgrace which must be addressed urgently, if the world is going to continue to do its business on a daily basis without disintegrating into chaos as the Ponzi economies collapse as though we have all been playing a game of surreal Monopoly.

But is the Fourth Estate up to the job? Do we have a free press? The BBC, as a public service corporation is meant to be fair and independent, it has been criticised by both this Government and the previous coalition Government as being biased and there are suggestions that its funding arrangements and its franchise should be challenged, secret meetings between Richard Murdoch and George Osborne have been rumoured.

However as recent programmes have indicated the Corporation demonstrates a clear bias against the Labour Parties leadership in its news and current affairs output, as have other red tops, tabloids and print journalism, but the BBC in its entertainment shows such as Silent Witness, demonstrates clearly that whoever you are, whatever community you may belong to, you may well be depicted unfairly and inaccurately, entertainment as propaganda is as insidious as it is wrong.