Anticipating Keir Starmer’s ascent to the office of Prime Minister, I’m reminded of that great Bob Monkhouse line: “When I said I was going to be a comedian they all laughed. Well, they’re not laughing now!”
As a radical Left-wing schoolboy, Starmer probably envisaged a future when Britain became something like Cuba, but without the weather. Later, as he matured maybe the social-democratic paradise that was Sweden became the model. But, now on the cusp of power if he were to look around the world which society might his gaze alight upon as the model for British society within the next generation? I’m not sure. But my fear is that whatever our potential next Labour Prime Minister aims for, I suspect where we will end up is something dispiritingly like South Africa, but with Chinese characteristics.
The adoption of ‘capitalism with Chinese characteristics’ has had a remarkable effect on the Chinese and world economies over the past 40 years or so. But it’s another set of ‘Chinese characteristics’, this time relating to the ‘surveillance’ society, utilising facial recognition technology, social credit scoring and fiscal cancelling, when allied to South African style social breakdown, that may become the societal model that Britain and many other parts of Europe and the West are destined to follow unless steps are taken to resist this trend.
Contemporary South Africa is characterised by extreme levels of violent crime with an annual homicide rate 40 times greater than the U.K.’s. Over one third of the population is unemployed, with rates among the young even higher.
South African society has always been a two-tier society. The apartheid racial split is still evident, but the simple racial divide has to some extent been overtaken by the emergence of both a black and Asian middle class moving into what were previously exclusively white areas. Increasingly segregation is class based, with the middle-class living in gated compounds or migrating.
In the 30 years since the ANC came to power, the share of GDP going to the poorest 50% of the population has halved. Conversely, the share of GDP going to the wealthiest 0.1% has doubled.
It’s not so different in the U.K. A recent report by the Centre for Social Justice, ‘Two Nations: the state of poverty in the U.K.‘, draws attention to the ever-growing divide between the ‘have’s and have nots’ and the social breakdown that this can lead to. It highlights that many people turn to welfare rather than work and that wages tend to do little to improve people’s financial well-being.
Back in South Africa we find that in addition to a worsening of the social class divide public services have failed to improve. South Africa now is plagued by rolling power cuts, with many households and businesses using petrol generators to keep the lights on. It doesn’t take much imagination to foresee a similar situation in the U.K. with unreliable power provision. Already, people are being paid to switch off their electricity and last winter it was only the mild weather that allowed us to escape power outages.
In South Africa crime, particularly violent crime is endemic. The police have largely withdrawn from many urban areas. In Johannesburg, the commercial centre has largely relocated itself to Sandton, a purpose-built Central Business District, and in the process abandoned the old centre to urban decay.
We see similar patterns beginning to emerge in many European cities. ‘Working from home’ has exacerbated the trend that’s seen the hollowing-out of our cities. Empty shops and offices in city centres have permitted the emergence of tent cities and squatters.
Riots have broken out in Dublin and many other European cities. Islamist inspired stabbings across Europe have lost their ability to shock, though this may, in part be due to the suppression of the details of the story by the mainstream media. As in South Africa, the police in areas of Stockholm, Brussels, Dublin and Paris observe ‘no-go’ areas.
Elon Musk, discussing his motivation to buy Twitter with Joe Rogan, attributed the decision to the social collapse of downtown San Francisco, which he blamed on the widespread adoption of woke ideology. This collapse is more fully explored In a recent UnHerd piece, where Freddie Sayers investigates the causes of San Francisco’s decline. Despite the self-evident problems there are plans to partially ‘defund the police’ with the loss of hundreds of officers. The suspicion must be that the residual police officers will spend their time policing the more ‘well-to-do’ areas while, effectively ‘no-go’ areas will be left to ‘police’ themselves.
Like our haircuts, fashion sense and dance moves, we hit a rut in our late teens or early 20s and never really break out. So, it is with much of our politics. I rather suspect that Keir Starmer in his dreams still hopes that one he’ll wake up and magically we’ve all morphed back into 1980s Sweden, Abba will be number one again and Volvos will be rolling off the production line.
In contemplating the prospect of ‘South Africa with Chinese characteristics’ there are three fundamental questions to ask. Firstly, is it inevitable? Secondly, is it desirable? Thirdly, is there the will to stop or reverse the trend?
Sad to say, but I think unless something is done very soon to control it then it’s inevitable. What’s more, there’s no obvious sign that many people either recognise it as a threat or, if they do, are minded to fight against it.
The surveillance society is not going back in its box anytime soon. Let’s look at a few examples. Facial recognition technology is already widely deployed. It makes policing easier and cheaper; it’s here to stay. Likewise, electronic payments. Like it or not, cash is disappearing fast, and unlike cash, electronic payments always leave a trail. Stephen Timms MP in a recent speech in Parliament highlighted new legislation that will allow Government to look inside your bank account. Your phone tracks you, ANPR cameras track you. Your spending and viewing history tracks you. The surveillance society is here, we’re already living with it.
Fifteen-minute cities appear to be coming fast, but even without them various forms of ‘zonal’ control allow the authorities to track people in real time via mobile phone and facial recognition of ANPR cameras.
The second question is the desirability of the surveillance society. The argument in favour is always the same: “If you haven’t got anything to hide, then what’s the problem?” But, of course, surveillance of private citizens by the state is the antithesis of what the role of the state should be. The state should be subject to the will of the people, serving individuals in pursuing their goals, yet increasingly every facet of our lives is subject to state oversight.
The key drivers that allow this continual extension of the surveillance state are cost and fear.
Let’s take ‘cost’. People want their streets policed. Installing cameras, deploying drones and tracking vehicles is much cheaper and more cost-effective than deploying police officers to do the same job. Doing an electronic search of people’s bank accounts for anomalous payments is far cheaper and more effective than deploying tax inspectors. Road pricing by the mile driven is far more targeted and opens up the possibility of using the price mechanism to manage congestion, but it requires real-time vehicle tracking. All these things can happen and so, we must assume, will happen.
The surveillance state inevitably changes the relationship between the governors and the governed. In the spirit of Churchill, his advice to ‘never let a good crisis go to waste’ was very much taken to heart during the Covid period, which saw a remarkable extension of state power and the diminution of the ability of the individual to resist that power.
With regard to ‘fear’, Covid gave us a glimpse of how ‘nudge’ units and the control of the news and social media can instil totally irrational levels of fear in the vast majority of the population. In the same way that it was relatively straightforward to whip up paranoia over Covid, so we see the same tactics being used over Net Zero. Who’s to say similar tactics won’t be used over ‘terrorism’ or the threat of the ‘ultra-Right’.
Enlarge the state and you create the need for yet more state resources to both carry out those additional tasks and manage conformity of the population. The budget deficit is running at about 5% of GDP as we continue to pile up debt and reduce the ability of the State to direct additional resources where they’re needed. Interest payments on U.K. borrowings are running at about 10% of Government spending. As an item of expenditure, debt interest payments run second only to the NHS!
There is an obvious need for the state to do less but it keeps doing more.
If the Government can incite enough fear of viruses, climate change and terrorism people can be persuaded that ever greater levels of surveillance are indeed for their own good.
Unless the erosion of freedoms can move up the political agenda I see no prospect of the slide towards South Africa with Chinese characteristics not continuing. Organisations such as the Free Speech Union and Big Brother Watch, in addition to the citizen groups that emerged during the pandemic such as UsForThem, have worked hard to highlight the growing problem. However, neither Labour nor the Conservatives put personal freedoms front and centre of their agenda. Encouragingly, Reform has a lot to say about personal freedoms. But if it’s only Reform raising the issue it’s too easy for the mainstream media to dismiss personal freedom as a minority interest of the ‘far-Right’, with their usual smear.
The obvious requirement is for someone or something to articulate the inherent danger of the loss of personal freedoms. We’re very much in ‘boiling frog’ territory and unless many more people can be awakened to the importance of what’s being lost then it’s only a matter of time before we discover that our society looks like South Africa with Chinese characteristics. Not a prospect I relish for my children.
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How odd that I lived for half a century free from pandemics and for some bizarre reason now it’s one the of the biggest and most imminent threats we face, that apparently could happen every few years.
Odd. Very odd.
I wonder if there’s a correlation between the risk of pandemics and the increase in USA-sponsored bio-labs in various dodgy countries?
Just asking?
To be honest the most glaring cause and effect I’ve noticed is Bill Gates saying there was going to be a pandemic and then one being declared. He seemed so sure of it he went around the world warning everyone.
When they ran the ‘Event 201’ or whatever, war-gaming thing, they already knew that C-19 was out the lab and airborne, maybe earlier than Aug 2019..
I believe the UK is involved as well.
A comment I have made dozens of tomes here on DS.
Prior pandemic attempts occurred on 2004 (bird flu) and 2009 (swine flu). Unfortunately, for COVID, lessons had been learned from this abortive attempts and pandemic marketing was thus much more effective. The same people who helped to kill the swine flu hoax also spoke out against COVID. They were quickly sidelined as far right extremists and antisemites and the shit show just rolled on.
Don’t forget the 1976 swine flu & subsequent quacksine push in the US back in 1976.
Dr Wolfgang Wodarg led the effort regarding 2009 swine flu.
Anyone remember monkey pox
Even odder for someone who has lived for 3/4 of a century!
I’m just so pleased we have all this gain of function research going on to help prevent another one. It’s such a shame that Russia closed 31 bio labs in Ukraine last year.
Ministers have no intention of veto-ing the WHO’s attempted power-grab. This is just a pretence that they’re concerned about defending British Sovereignty.
You are correct in that assumption I’m afraid ! “The Dirty Rotten Scoundrel’s” in parliament & I mean every one of them ! will just let this come about !
It’ll be worth their while though.
Yeah if the were so worried about our health they would have dropped the covid jab, or not brought it in in the first place.
***
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All bureaucracies are the same. They expand and seek more and more power and control. ——–This is all part of the drive to World Government, and the worrying thing is that the politicians all over the western world (except Trump) pander to this One World Government idea rather than to the people who actually vote for them.
Not Trump ! Ron De Santis is the man !! If Only
Six of us ffs ! Or is it the 77th showing their disapproval ??.
Ron de Santis is just another actor in the corrupt uniparty debacle. He has weakened bills in Florida which would have protected the citizens there against all health ’emergencies’, rewriting them just for covid which the MSM then promoted as a win for Florida.
His campaign is funded by the Bush Foundation.
No politician will ‘save’ us. Any who get into a position to even run for a position of power is chosen by the hidden actors behind this whole evil agenda.
So six MPs were ”alarmed” then. SIX!!! Captain Obvious says ”You’re screwed!”
So, exactly what we sceptics said when it was first announced, and were once more derided for spreading ‘conspiracy theories.
Been going on about this for months and it’s finally hit the MSM!
The World Council for Health has prepared a comprehensive Policy Brief that has been delivered to every MP in the House of Commons. It details the sweeping proposals put forward by the W.H.O., the loss of sovereignty and control of our own health and the sinister movement towards a global unelected, unaccountable government.
Should MPs allow the updated International Health Regulations to go through after being fully informed like this, it will be ceding our sovereignty. I think it would be tantamount to treason.
For more information on the W.H.O. and I.H.R., read James Roguski at stopthewho.com.
It will happen ! It’ll be a done deal , most MP,s won’t even check the detail !! REMEMBER not long back Teresa May went to Morocco & signed some bollocks treaty or other designating that there is no such thing as migrants etc we are all equal and can travel anywhere no probs !! ( while she was there two girls from Scandinavia were beheaded in the mountains ! NICE !
It is daunting. The odds may be stacked against us. But it is up to each and every one of us to do our best to stop this tyranny and look after one another. Maybe we will fail. Maybe we will succeed. At the end of the day, we are responsible for our own actions. When we have done our best, regardless of the results, we can at least be at ease with ourselves.
Ghandi got us out of India in 1947 using peaceful disobedience !
Or so the story goes. Britain pulled out of India because it was conjectured that the continuous loyality of the Indian Army couldn’t be counted on. A quote I remember was (paraphrase) “They’re loyal to us now, will the remain loyal in future?” However, I very much suspect there was another question here which was at least equally important: “We’re paying them now. Do we really want keep paying them forever?”, ie “Can’t we just handle them like all the old battleships, now that the war is over?”
The Telegraph says: Ministers are understood to be alarmed by plans to increase the WHO’s powers enabling its governing body to require countries to hand over the recipe of vaccines, regardless of intellectual property rights, and to counter misinformation.
Oh yes, alarmed! Of course they are. The recipe, that world beating jollop that has been dropped by the world because it caused very nasty actions including death while achieving sweet FA – that recipe? Hang on to the recipe at all costs! The Science must be followed and the whole tottering reputation of Oxford, The Lancet, the BMA, the Society of MIA Pathologists, the British Heart Foundation (what Atrial Fib?), Astra Zeneca, all those new medical Dames and the marvellous work of H.A.R.M. under Julie Fogg, must be shored up and bolstered. Hang on to the recipe and anyone who says it’s a recipe for death and multiple harms and denies it’s saved trillions of lives, please report yourself for misinformation incarceration.
Luckily for us, the caring Jeremy Farrah Fawcett (one of many new Brit conscript comrades) is now employed by the WHO after his sterling work on burner phones and the Zoonotic story at the start of the late unpleasantness and I’m sure his first care will be to preserve our Britannic recipe for those imminently expected ‘future generations’.
I wonder if the alarmed ministers have had a thought for health of the nation? Or to broaden it out, a thought about anything of concern to the electorate? Or if any minister would register alarm at anything except a threat to their own immediate financial concerns and those of our pitiful ‘health industries’.
God save the King!
3min video with Dutch MEP Rob Roos sums it up;
https://twitter.com/Rob_Roos/status/1661400401885667329
I note Roos studiously avoided mention of BMGF. That said, With his explanation, John Campbell’s recent evisceration of same and the WCH document sent to all MPs – let alone James Roguski’s monumental efforts – any of them who remain silent and/or do not vote against this power grab are traitors.
CCP and Bill Gates are the two main funders of the the WHO,so ours and other Governments are by signing this agreement handing over our countries to be ran by China and a meglomaniac.
Why does the WHO need to have a new treaty at all?, why does it ask for these colonising powers?. Look at the state of the world under their advice, bankrupt countries, economies destroyed, mental health issues, adverse effects from their much promoted gene therapy, lets not forget Monkeypox, that terrible disease that was so bad Tedros overuled the vote taken by the WHO itself to declare it was going to be the next Covid.
We pay high taxes to employ our own bunch of franky incompetant and corrupt health officials, as do other countries, my suggestion is disband the WHO, sack the current advisors, and instead use the Barrington declaration, the Hennagans etc as our advisors, we would all be in a much better position. Countries will share information and work together, they do not need a supra organisation to tell them what to do. Get rid of the WHO, and whilst at it the U.N too
It’s all going to their plan !!
The WHO is being set up to be the health service of the UN with NATO as it’s military wing for when the UN is the world government. They all need disbanding.
It goes beyond pandemics. I forget the exact wording, but Michelle Bachman reported the WHO are seeking to apply their powers to any global crisis, for example climate, misinformation.
Bill Gates, John Kerry et al are key players here as the WHO is being used to set up a global government.
https://gettr.com/post/p2hsb91740c
“Ministers are understood to be alarmed”. Sorry? Which ministers? I can hear 6 MPs who are not ministers being alarmed but Andrew Mitchell the actual minister doesn’t sound alarmed at all. Far from it. He says he won’t let the UK be prevented from taking decisive action against pandemics. No worries, Andrew. The WHO will have us taking decisive action and then some.
The WHO will
imposerecommend trade and travel restrictions on those countries who will not cede sovereignty and play ball whenever the WHO dictates there’s a ‘health’ problem – real or imagined.What took them so bloody long?
“Responding to the concerns on Thursday, Andrew Mitchell, a Foreign Office minister, told the Telegraph that he would block any law that prevents the U.K. from setting its own health policy.”
Wasn’t it Andrew Mitchell who encouraged MPs to walk out at the start of Andrew Bridgen’s speech?
That’s him, operating under government instruction after No 10 discovered that they couldn’t buy Bridgen off.
There are no words bad enough to describe these people, the problem with the 6 MPs that wrote the letter is that they still think that they will be taken notice of by the minister.
I feel the need for my large pliers again.
I think people should be more concerned about funnelling an enormous amount of money into the WHO (5% of global health budgets) it can then utilize to promote so-called climate action (the health of the planet part of the One Health Strategy which is part of this) and other wokeries. Should this money ever start to flow, then every (US) leech with a (simulated) chip on his shoulder will seek to get a share of it for his pet cause. All od these good for nothing UN organizations need to be drained of funding and – preferably – be dismantled altogether.
As the former head of a regional German MI5 equivalent, LKA Thuringia, recently stated in an open letter he sent to all German MPs:
“Any MP who votes for this is thereby also committing treason under current law.”
He may need to watch his back.
The thing that COVID-19 made me reassess was where HIV/AIDS came from. The treaties we need are ones instigating a global ban on gain of function experiments and the destruction of all biological and chemical weapons.
Interesting you should say that, Fauci has had fingers in the AIDS/vaccine pie since the 1980s. Not a man to be trusted in any shape or form.
Yes, I remember back in the mid-80s in biology class, the mystery of the origin of HIV and AIDS was being talked about and one piece of speculation was that it leaked from a lab. On TV, it was even speculated that the Nazis created it in the 1940s to kill black people and gay people and that it took 30 years to become obvious.
Whatever the case, it emerged seemingly from nowhere in multiple variants and was the ‘bogeyman’ killer of the 80s and 90s with a terrible social stigma attached. Now many people who are HIV+ live longer than non-HIV+ people, thanks to the drugs available.
I hadn’t thought about HIV/AIDS for a long time until the panicked attempts to bury the COVID-19 lab leak speculation. Then I began to wonder…
I remember reading the work of an author who survived fascist Germany and he said that the longing for fascism was there long before it manifested. I think we are in that period control in that the most pervasive longing is the one for totalitiatianism, amongst about 80 percent of the people. A desire to have everything simplified and a few simple easy instructions to follow. We are going to have a serious challenge over the next few decades trying to oppose this force.
life, reality, truth, and justice are going to deliver a ‘terminal lockdown’ to this World Health Organisation and its genocidal apparatchiks
Are people finally waking up to this? The campaign against the WHO power grab have been going for well over a year. It appears it takes that long for politicians to notice.
What could possibly go wrong with an organisation funded by the CCP and Billy Boy (good friend of Epstein) Gates taking over our sovereignity
The last three years were a plandemic, not a pandemic. A man manipulated corona virus released to mankind. Perhaps the WHO could put effort into finding the source of this lab leak and ensure it never happens again. Why would they miss this step and jump straight to lockdown? This is the kind of incompetency that appears to be running riot in all our health agencies and governments.
Looking at the logo of the WHO – and the UN et al it seems we are witnessing the continuance of the Roman Empire. In fact the more you become aware of this, the more obvious it is. It was obvious at the Coronation with Penny Mordaunt’s Neptune Dress and the tiaras fashioned like laurels. The Telegraph wrote at length about the Sword of Mercy, the Curtana and its direct link to the Holy Roman Emperor Charlemagne. How the coronation robes resemble formal ancient dress in the late Roman Empire; the alb, supertunica and mantle. The Roman fasces, a nasty weapon used to crush enemies and opponents, appeared on the golden coach. This weapon is located on either side of the chair in the chamber of Congress in the USA whose entire governing system is redolent of the Roman Empire. Senate, Republicans, Democrats, and so on. The laurels dating from the Goddess Daphne are still to be seen everywhere in the world and are becoming the new symbol of global power – just as the Roman Empire had an insatiable appetite for hegemony, the accumulation of wealth and dominion over people. If there is nothing in this and it is all just a coincidence then that is fine – but the Roman Empire ran on slavery – and if one thing is clear it is that technology is making digital slaves of us all.