Society must aspire to hope and intelligence within this world of ‘ alternative ’ facts
Society must aspire to hope and intelligence within this world of ‘ alternative ’ facts
By Matthew Clifton
Issue # 2 , 22 nd April
The general election is in full swing with the release of the manifestos from each of the major parties . Labour ’ s was announced and remained largely unchanged from the draft that was leaked , the Liberal Democrats was as expected , very pro-EU and the European idea . The Conservatives have no real ideas that are new , with more austerity expected . Of course , the Conservatives manifesto is merely conjecture because they haven ’ t actually released it yet .
There isn ’ t much evidence to suggest that the Conservatives will abandon their austerity measures and Theresa May hasn ’ t ruled out an increase in tax and VAT . The line has been to give Mrs May a ‘ stronger hand ’ for Brexit , although no-one is quite sure how an increase of MPs in Westminster for the Conservatives will affect negotiations with the EU .
Labour ’ s manifesto has been costed with perfect symmetry , the Liberal Democrats are very much pushing for the anti-Brexit vote but still their policies are a little confusing over which demographic they specifically targeting . Nonetheless we are in full flow and media appearances are ramping up , Theresa May did Facebook live with Robert Peston , which got hijacked by Jeremy Corbyn , who used his Facebook page to ask May , why she wouldn ’ t face him in a TV debate .
Diane Abbott accidentally walked the wrong way off stage , thus prompted people to call her stupid and incompetent , as if them as individuals have never done
something like , not quite got their bearings right and walked the wrong way and had to quickly turn around . The same day Phillip Hammond forgot how much HS2 cost by £ 20 billion and had a £ 2 billion hole in his budget , yet most media outlets forget these or don ’ t bother with it .
Covering this election is tiring because you hear the same rhetoric and lies over and over , they get rinsed and repeated . No matter how many times the lies get proven factually incorrect , the more belief in these lies grow . We live in an era of post-fact , where people fear innovation , scared of the future and what we could do , if we worked together . Scared that the alternative will fail and leave us with nothing , keeping the status quo is the safe option , better the devil you know ?
Attlee and Wilson proved that fear of the unknown can work if you are strong enough to keep it under control . “ With great power comes great responsibility ”, James Callaghan ’ s downfall was his inability to control and failure to truly acknowledge the responsibility he had to the public . Our society once revered intelligent people , and their knowledge wasn ’ t frightening but incredible . People used to aspire to intelligence rather than
5 belittle it , never feeling inferior because of it .
Those on the right who aspire for us to be ‘ Great ’ Britain once more must understand that Britain is no longer and hasn ’ t been ‘ great ’ for a long time . The British Empire is a black stain of our modern history of oppression and innocent blood spilled for our own personal gain . The East India Company was a horrific organisation who built its empire through slavery , robbery , oppression and violence . The first time we became great was after World War 2 , Clement Attlee won the general election and helped build the foundations we live on today , the NHS and the welfare state .
Our lawyers drafted the laws that led to the creation of the European Court of Human Rights ( ECHR ), so that people like Hitler cannot rise again . Since the creation of the ECHR and eventually the EU , we ’ ve seen the longest period of peace between EU nations in history . Britain ’ s impact has been significant , but we haven ’ t been alone and the reason we were able to achieve so much , was because we were all informed . The first step in solving the problems of our society is to recognise that we are not ‘ Great ’ Britain .