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  • Walter's Blog.
  • Home
  • Introduction
  • About Walter
    • 1980 Joining Up - Grafton Street >
      • Arrival and First Impressions
      • First Week
      • Training
      • Passing Out
    • Yaumati Cowboy >
      • Getting on the Streets
      • Jumpers, pill poppers and the indoor BBQ
      • Tempo of the City
      • Into a Minefield.
    • Why Tango in Paris, when you can Foxtrot in Kowloon? >
      • Baptism By Fire
      • Kai Tak with Mrs Thatcher.
      • Home; The Boy Returns
  • 1984 - 1986
    • PTU Instructor & Getting Hitched
    • Having a go: SDU
    • Starting a Chernobyl family
    • EOD - Don't touch anything
    • Semen Stains and the rules
  • 1987 to 1992 - Should I Stay or Go?
    • Blue Lights, Sirens & Grenades
    • Drugs, Broken Kids & A Plane Crash
    • 600 Happy Meals Please!
    • Hong Kong's Best Insurance
    • Riding the Iron Horse
  • Crime in Hong Kong
    • Falling Crime Rates - Why?
    • Triads
    • The Saga That Rocked Hong Kong's Legal Fraternity
  • History of Hong Kong Policing
    • History 1841 to 1941
    • History 1945 to 1967
    • Anatomy of the 50 cent Riot - 1966
    • The Fall of a Commissioner.
    • History 1967 to 1980
    • Three Wise Men from the West
    • The Blue Berets.
    • The African Korps and other tribes.
    • Getting About - Transport.
    • A Pub in every station
    • Bullshit Bingo & Meetings
    • Godber - The one who nearly got away.
    • Uncle Ho
  • Top 20 Films
    • 2001 - A Space Odyssey.
    • The Godfather.
    • Blade Runner
    • Kes
    • Star Wars
    • Aliens
    • Ferris Bueller's Day Off
    • The Life of Brian
    • Dr Strangelove.
    • Infernal Affairs
    • Bridge on the River Kwai.
    • This Is Spinal Tap.
    • Chung King Express
    • An Officer and a Gentleman
    • PTU
    • Contact
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    • Family Guy Star Wars
    • Zulu
    • Hard Day's Night
  • The Long Read
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    • The Hidden Leader
    • How The Walls Come Down
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Reflections on recent events, plus the occasional fact free rant unfiltered by rational argument. 

"If you want to read a blog to get a sense of what is going on in Hong Kong these days or a blog that would tell you what life was like living in colonial Hong Kong, this blog, WALTER'S BLOG, fits the bill."  Hong Kong Blog Review
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30/5/2019 2 Comments

Are the tectonic plates of politics shifting?

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Mrs May is no longer a lame duck prime minister; she’s a dead duck. In response, every Tory with a whiff of ambition has thrown their hat into the ring. When I started writing this piece, the tally was ten contenders. It’s now eleven. We can expect more. This race is going to be fun to watch.

You’d expect calls for a general election. That won’t be happening. Why? Well because the opposition Labour Party is in meltdown. Corbyn’s sitting on the fence fell flat with the voters. Or they don’t trust a man who is so dogmatic that if you dare to vote for another party, you enter the wilderness.

Politics is the art of the possible, except for old-style lefty types who steamroll anyone who dares to think differently. For them, it’s a short distance from expulsion to the gulag.  


Who is crunching the numbers at Labour Central? The Brexit Party cannibalised UKIP, the Tories and a section of former Labour voters. That means traditional Labour voters were in the majority voting for the Lib Dems and Remain parties.

​Corbyn appears intent on alienating these same voters by expelling someone that voted as they did. He’s made the wrong call again. Maybe that tremendous political intellect, Diana Abbott has the spreadsheet. 


Even a town steeped in the history of the Labour movement, Merthyr Tydfil, has rejected Corbyn. You get the impression there are two Labour Parties; the London elite, and in the post-industrial towns, the restless working folks. 

That second category is looking for a new political home given Labour’s performance. After all, Corbyn is hardly the ‘working class’ hero he purports. 


At this stage in the electoral cycle, with the ruling Tories in an appalling mess, you’d expect Labour to surge ahead. Wrong. Corbyn is intent on missing every open goal.

He was never able to deliver a decisive blow to Mrs May during PM questions, by dithering or rambling on too much. The body language of Tom Watson, Labour’s deputy, gave away his frustration. Expect him to make his move soon. More blood will flow. So May is gone. I suspect Corbyn will join her given his fragmenting support. 


Much of this would be easy to dismiss except the real consequences for people. With all the political oxygen sucked up by Brexit, industries are faltering, and no one has a strategy to address the decay. 

The latest victims are the steelworkers of Scunthorpe. Five thousand workers face the dole, plus 20,000 men and women in the supply chain. With British Steel in administration, the impact will be severe.

When the Redcar steelworks closed in September 2015, a surge in suicides — especially amongst men — swept through the town. 
What comes with that is domestic violence, mental health problems and alcohol abuse. In that instance, the blame landed on EU rules for hampering an intervention that could save a community. 

Scunthorpe produced ultra high-quality steel. It built the Jodrell Bank Lovell radio-telescope that allowed us to study quasars, pulsars and see deep into space. With that gone, not only are communities devastated, but the UK slips behind in the technology stakes.

Meanwhile, Nigel Farage has pulled off the most astonishing political feat. He’s taken a party that didn’t exist six weeks ago to the head of the line. 

His message was simple —  for too long, the main political parties have ignored whole sections of British society -- especially those places overwhelmed by hardships and demographic changes. 

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The Brexit Party took a page out of Barack Obama’s book. They harnessed existing social network platforms, and grassroots campaigners to spread the message. In the process, the Brexit Party bypassed the mainstream media helping feed the narrative of bias in the BBC and others. 

It worked because these ignored communities are looking for answers, and Farage spoke to them. Counter-intuitively, the fact that the Brexit party had no manifesto didn’t seem to matter. 


It was surprising to watch that across the country, ordinary citizens challenged BBC reporters. Think back 30 years, when such would be unthinkable.

This change is partly due to perceptions of bias and such cases as harbouring sex offender Jimmy Savile. With their reputation trashed, people are questioning this once mighty institution. 


At the same time, the whole process has turned much nastier. It started with milkshakes — laughed off as political theatre in the Guardian — then soon became bricks at a political rally in Preston. 

Then we had the whole suicide bomber nonsense. Social media is feeding that frenzy. It’s not so much that people are in echo chambers, more like social media amplifies messages including distortions. 


So, are we seeing the wholesale reshaping of British politics and a shift in public attitudes?  Indeed, the two political behemoths, Labour and Tory, that dominated for so long are looking fragile. Brexit has exposed deep internal divisions. 

At the same time, once favoured public institutions are under suspicion.  That includes broadcasters, the courts and the police.

There is no paucity of people to blame, something that Farage exploited. But to go further, he will need to put some meat on the bone.
2 Comments
Gloria Bing
31/5/2019 11:05:56 am

“Politics is the art of the possible, except for old-style lefty types who steamroll anyone who dares to think differently. For them, it’s a short distance from expulsion to the gulag.”

On this I think you have missed the mark Walter. Old-style lefties like Tony Benn were great parliamentarians and defenders of your right to disagree with them. It is the ‘young, vibrant, progressive’ – and largely bourgeois and metropolitan – warriors for social justice of the New Left that show the distinct Stalinist tendencies that make the trip from ‘It’s ok to punch a Nazi’ via the gulag to the gallows, such a short one. The hideous habit of labelling even moderates of the centre-right as ‘fascists’ and ‘Nazis’ (without being able to define either) should be a dead giveaway…

“That second category is looking for a new political home given Labour’s performance. After all, Corbyn is hardly the ‘working class’ hero he purports.”

Agreed. It is no longer politics as usual. Labour no longer represents the working classes but is an entirely bourgeois movement (as is the left generally). The Tories are no longer conservative in any meaningful sense. In ideological terms the Labour and Conservative parties have practically merged and it is only old tribal language that distinguishes them. So, in reality, what we are witnessing is nothing less than civil war amongst the liberal elite, centred almost exclusively on, and in, London.

"His message was simple — for too long, the main political parties have ignored whole sections of British society -- especially those places overwhelmed by hardships and demographic changes."

“and”, you might have added, “deeply suspect because they are largely white, working class and not terribly enamoured of the benefits of globalism, and the EU in particular”.

“The Brexit Party took a page out of Barack Obama’s book.”

Or Donald Trump’s or the Leave campaign’s in 2016. Interestingly, when Barack Obama did it, it was considered a new and edgy way of appealing directly to the people. When the other two did it, it was sinister manipulation.

“Counter-intuitively, the fact that the Brexit party had no manifesto didn’t seem to matter.”

The BP doesn’t need a manifesto because it is a one issue party: take Britain out of the EU. I am certain even Farage does not believe his party will continue beyond that glorious day. In any case, since both major parties made manifesto commitments to respect the outcome of the 2016 referendum, and have so signally welshed on the deal, a manifesto might be seen as something of a liability these days.

"This change is partly due to perceptions of bias...With their reputation trashed, people are questioning this once mighty institution."

Media bias (not just in the BBC) has such resonance because it is not ‘a perception’, it is a fact. Independent research has shown that the BBC routinely loaded Question Time and its radio counterpart with pro-Remain panellists. True, much of the media may not lie so much as distort, twist and ignore – just look at the harrying of Carl Benjamin, a classical liberal, and the elevation of Jess Philips to martyrdom for evidence of that.

“At the same time, the whole process has turned much nastier. It started with milkshakes — laughed off as political theatre in the Guardian — then soon became bricks at a political rally in Preston.”

This issue brings us back to the New Left, the cultural marxists, Social Justice Warriors or whatever you want to call them. To them, violence is justified as long as the target of that violence is the right target, and to them anyone engaged in wrongthink is the right target. There is a clear link between characterizing your enemies as ‘racists’, ‘fascists’, ‘Nazis’, ‘xenophobes’, ‘misogynists’, ‘Brexiteers’ (now a portmanteau of all the above) and it being alright to punch any one of them. And apparently the police, at least in Oldham, agree. The violence of the left is growing, and they present themselves as streetfighters against the ‘haters', thereby justifying themselves and exculpating their own hate. The truth is they are the vanguard of an intolerant orthodoxy that already controls large parts of society. They are increasingly willing to use intimidation and thuggery to dominate the parts they cannot control, and these parts tend to be associated with the working class.

“So, are we seeing the wholesale reshaping of British politics and a shift in public attitudes?...Brexit has exposed deep internal divisions.”

Indeed it has, and yes there is a reshaping of politics, and not just in Britain. The faultline now lies between the bulk of the people and a larg

Reply
Gloria Bing
31/5/2019 12:05:40 pm

Darn you Walter! You cut me off in my prime again! If this kind of political censorship continues I will have to cover myself in pink gin and set fire to my underwear. And then you'll be sorry...

Anyway, where was I? Oh, yes,

...and a largely bourgeois and metropolitan elite who, in Marxian style, see themselves as the ones who must save the ignorant masses from themselves and lead them to the sunlit uplands. Democracy? Bah! Democracy is dangerous in the hands of the peasantry! (Sound familiar? Yes, Remainers, it should). But those who spent centuries trying to obtain at least some control over their own fates have seen through the attempt to turn back the clock (the EU) and the recent attempt to nullify their votes by the national embarrassment that the Westminster parliament has become.

“For really I think that the poorest he that is in England hath a life to live as the greatest he; and therefore truly, sir, I think it’s clear that every man that is to live under a government ought first by his own consent to put himself under that government; and I do think that the poorest man in England is not bound in a strict sense to that government that he hath not had a voice to put himself under…”

- Colonel Thomas Rainsborough, Putney Debates, 1647

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    Walter De Havilland was one of the last of the colonial coppers. He served 35 years in the Royal Hong Kong Police and Hong Kong Police Force. He's long retired. 

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