Sunday, 16 June 2024
Fake enthusiasm
As we skim lightly across fake media enthusiasm for the UK general election, many of us may be reminded of rigged markets. In this case, that would be a rigged market for political parties in the sense that there is little genuine choice because the major UK parties are so dominant.
It's merely an analogy, but we could go on to view politics as a battle for power over markets, a constant attempt to create rigged markets where the word ‘market’ is wide enough to include a market for political services supposedly provided to voters by political parties. In this sense, voters are consumers of political services. If nothing else, this angle does highlight how threadbare those services are.
Following on from this, we could describe the current media election focus as marketing for those political services. They would be services formerly provided by national political parties, but now in the process of being absorbed by a global market. In which case, UK political parties become regional depots.
Like the demise of the High Street, the main political market is moving elsewhere.
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8 comments:
If voting made any difference they wouldn't let us do it.
~ Mark Twain
DJ - and they are prepared to go to great lengths to prevent it making a difference. It seems to be one of the primary functions of the EU - prevent voters making a difference.
Anywhere the Uniparty rules … prevent voters having any effect.
As a "consumer of political services", I'm struck by the point that much of what is wrong with our country doesn't seem to need ideology, with it's traditions, symbolism, and bands of cheerleaders. It just needs better management. For example, sorting the civil service out would put paid to a lot of waste and would actually get things done. When a sizeable chunk of your workforce just decides to work from home, then difficulties over delivery should be expected. Never mind political views, just give us someone with a spine.
James - it seems to be their only function, the rest is marketing and propaganda.
Sam - that seems to be why Trump is so popular - he is someone with a spine. Also why he is so reviled of course, we aren't supposed to elect people with a spine. We didn't have time to find out with Liz Truss, but maybe that's why she was hustled out in favour of Sunak.
As long as the political market doesn't move to France, I don't really care!
Perhaps we should start using the foreign word 'Nomenklatura'?
A dictionary definition is "The system of patronage in communist countries; controlled by committees in the Communist Party" - but if you rephrase it as "The system of patronage in managerial 'democratic' countries; controlled by committees in the UniParty Blob" then the correspondence is clearer.
Scrobs - in a sense it's partly there.
DJ - I agree, Nomenklatura is a good word. I've used it once or twice in the past, but since then it seems to have become even more appropriate.
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