A Call to Arms

It's time we took things into our own hands. It is clearly the only option. I feel I've now no choice but to grow a beard, wear a beret and set up a guerrilla training camp behind the bandstand in my local park. The two Eds depressing display at the weekend has made clear that Labour just can't be bothered to mount any kind of opposition to this shambolic government, instead cravenly embracing an economic policy of cutting spending and services which has already been shown not to work. Their reasoning - if we can grace such a betrayal of core political values with such a term - seems to be that the Tories have 'won' the economic argument in the media and that people will perceive Labour as lacking credibility if it disagrees. In other words, they appear to be whining that it is just too difficult to present an alternative economic strategy and convince the electorate of its validity.

So they've just given up, handing the political initiative, incredibly, to a floundering government. This really is pathetic stuff, with Miliband compounding this disastrous change in approach today by basically saying that public sector workers should accept effective cuts in pay if it would save their jobs. Yeah, we should just think ourselves lucky to have a job, should we, Ed? What happened to that 'living wage' you were banging on about when you became Labour leader? I am just flabbergasted that Labour are effectively surrendering in this way - by alienating most of their core vote (which they surely have with these announcements) they've already lost the next election. Which is ludicrous - they should be walking it right now. Faced with an obviously incompetent and unelected government, which lurches from one crisis to another and whose own economic policy is in tatters, Labour should be racing ahead in the polls. Of course, Miliband and the Blairites will tell you the reason they aren't is because they've been in 'deficit denial', opposing spending cuts and therefore losing public credibility. The reality is that they have been hobbled by a complete lack of effective leadership and a lack of courage in actually putting forward a coherent alternative economic plan.

However, rather than address these issues, the Labour 'leadership' has now completely hobbled its own campaigners who, as many commentators have pointed out, now have no answer for potential voters who complain to them about the cuts. Apparently, they now have to say that they agree with savage cuts in services! We now have a situation where we, as voters, have no alternative - all the main parties now seem to be saying the same thing. So, what are we supposed to do? With no apparent democratic means of opposing the ruling regime, does that mean that other avenues - civil unrest, revolution, armed insurrection - would now be considered legitimate expressions of opposition? As I said at the beginning, if our political classes aren't prepared to represent the interests of the electorate they are supposed to serve, instead preferring to prop up a discredited and unelected economic system, we would seem to have no choice but to take things into our own hands.

And I'll tell you where we should start - those bloody credit ratings agencies: Moodys and Standard and Poor. They represent everything that is wrong with the current system - unelected, unaccountable bodies not just dictating economic policy to elected governments, but also making large profits of the back of a global recession they played no small part in precipitating. Make no mistake, this is crucial battle which has to be fought and won. The very concepts of democracy and national sovereignty are at stake. So, brothers and sisters, I urge you to take up your pitchforks, cudgels and flaming torches and march on the offices of these ratings agencies, chanting 'Kill the monster', (for they truly are monsters, just ask the Greeks) as you advance on them. Now is not the time for peaceful protest - these bastards will just ignore you or have you evicted. Occupying Wall Street and the City of London is all very well, but we're fast approaching the moment when there'll be no alternative but to burn them to the ground if we're to curb their evil influence on our governments. Of course, there might be an alternative, (in the UK at least): the Labour Party could remember who it is supposed to be serving and find an effective leader. Right now we need a street-fighter to counter the public school bullies filling the cabinet. Instead we've got Ed Miliband, But it isn't too late for a change. That said, I'm not holding my breath and, in the meantime, I'm sharpening my pitchfork...