A letter a day to number 10. No 974
Wednesday 14 January 2015.
Dear Mr Cameron,
I wonder what future generations will call this period in history since the rise of neoliberalism, my personal choice would be, ‘the age of hypocrisy’.
Margaret Thatcher invoked St. Francis of Assisi the day she arrived at number 10 – “Where there is discord, may we bring harmony. Where there is error, may we bring truth. Where there is doubt, may we bring faith. And where there is despair, may we bring hope.” She went on to wipe out Britains manufacturing base and called workers the enemy within. It must have been a bitter irony for someone who had taken to using the grandiose royal ‘we’ that it was not the country that ended her reign but her own party.
She was a champion of the ‘free markets’, the battle between corporate power and ordinary people which is still raging to this day. The Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP) will mark its triumphal moment ending the sovereignty of the nation state which you are blindly leading us into. If ever there should be a referendum on anything it is TTIP. Ordinary people are in bondage to the hypocrisy of the ‘free markets’.
But let’s move on to Tony Blair and his war of aggression, a military conflict waged without the justification of self-defence, which the International Military Tribunal at Nuremberg described as “the supreme international crime”. The illegal invasion of Iraq, which you voted for, prosecuted by Blair under false pretences was hailed by Bush as the war on terror and bringing democracy to the Middle East. The invasion of Iraq was the triumph of hypocrisy over reason and international law.
Your latest adventure into hypocrisy follows your trip to France along with Forty-three other world leaders in support of free speech after the massacre at the satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo and what was described as “three days of terrorist mayhem”. You have used this tragedy to propose greater surveillance in the UK. You ask in your anti-encryption propaganda, “Are we going to allow a means of communications which it simply isn’t possible to read? My answer to that question is: ‘No, we must not.’” You would seek to ban encrypted online messaging unless your government is given backdoor access. Wow and double WOW!
That is what you meant when you said, “We stand absolutely united with the French people against terrorism and against this threat to our values – free speech, the rule of law, democracy. It’s absolutely essential we defend those values today and every day.” Really? The age of hypocrisy indeed.
http://www.globalissues.org/article/39/a-primer-on-neoliberalism
http://www.dailyrecord.co.uk/news/scottish-news/margaret-thatchers-time-power-destroyed-1819478
http://www.margaretthatcher.org/document/104078
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/War_of_aggression
http://www.theguardian.com/world/2011/may/12/iraq-dossier-case-for-war
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/5108584.stm
http://www.presidentialrhetoric.com/speeches/12.12.05.html
http://www.scotsman.com/news/world/widespread-revulsion-at-charlie-hebdo-killings-1-3654582
Fear and Loathing in Great Britain 