anthonyhowelljournal

It is no good. I can’t just publicise my own activities at this time. What is going on the Russian border and in the Middle East, as well as in the Sudan and elsewhere, demands to be addressed. I will be eighty this year. 2024 was most definitely the worst year I have ever experienced in terms of the state of the world. Yes, I have known worse years in terms of personal tragedy, but as far as I am concerned the world itself is in the most pitiful condition that I have ever known (and that includes the years that brought the destruction of Yugoslavia and the invasion of Iraq). Most of these tragedies are caused by the West. Both the USA and the UK are run by a two party system where there is actually very little difference between the two blocs.

How do we rescue genuine democracy from the deep state that enforces a uniparty upon us, however we vote? Politics has become a career that you embark upon if you wish to become a billionaire. In my view, things will only get worse unless we refuse compromise. Vote for Reform if you must, or vote for the Workers Party of Britain. But for heaven’s sake let’s get rid of the two smug middle-of-road entities which force a corrupt establishment regime upon us. To vote either for the Tories or for Labour is to cement to status quo that has got us into this mess. Kemi Badenoch, Keir Starmer – Yah Boo Sucks!

The Liberal Democrats were wont to occupy the middle ground between the Labour and Conservative parties. They always attracted far fewer votes than the two ‘main parties’. And yet today, it is precisely that middle ground that both Labour and the Conservatives seek to occupy. The theory, if you can call it that, is that unless you resemble the opposing party as far as you possibly can, so as to attract their swing voters, you haven’t a chance of getting into power. But if that is the case, why were the Lib Dems not the biggest party? To aim strategically for the middle ground leads to a form of communism by statistics. When dissatisfied, we kick the buggars out and get the other buggars and the same policies.

First-past-the-post democracy works best when there is a radical difference between the two major parties. This suggests that democracy should be a risky business. A genuine left gets in and implements genuine left-wing policies. Should these go too far, in the opinion of the majority, then, at the next election, the genuine right gets in and reverses the more unpopular policies, and then it may well implement right-wing policies, some of which may prove unpopular. And so it swings, between ideologies at variance with each other. Risky as it is, this is how it should be. It reminds me of Robert Graves’ wonderful poem, Flying Crooked:

The butterfly, the cabbage white,
(His honest idiocy of flight)
Will never now, it is too late,
Master the art of flying straight,
Yet has — who knows so well as I? —
A just sense of how not to fly:
He lurches here and here by guess
And God and hope and hopelessness.
Even the aerobatic swift
Has not his flying-crooked gift.

Forever relying on caution and compromise renders democracy innocuous. A beltway elite, or a Westminster mob, get accustomed to running the show, installing their civil service apparatchiks and going hand-in-glove with shady security services. Matters rapidly become corrupt. On either side, they know that they are playing the same game. I say, avoid all persuasion that would have you vote strategically. Vote with your heart, however small the number of like-minded people may be who choose to vote the way you do. This is democracy’s only chance. Uniparty democracy is one colossal sham.