the real British national party

I’ve been a bit AWOL on British politics recently, all the more remiss in the week that Gordon Brown announced the conversion of Labour into the Real British National Party. That’s right: the real one. Not the accumulation of paranoid pond scum, but the moderate, prudent and sensible voice of the British Nation, a nation that stands for good things and is opposed to bad things.

On the one hand we have British jobs for British workers. On the other, we have a conception of talent as a mineral deposit, to be extracted from the individual by the government for the benefit of the nation, in competition with other nations. Obviously, when we talk about national products, we’re talking the Norwegian oil industry here rather than the interahamwe, but you get the drift. Everybody belongs to everybody else, and Gordon will bring us together - pursuing a co-ordinating role, after extensive and ongoing consultation agrees on a unified statement of values for us all. Which reminds me that you’re late for the motto workshop, so you’d better get cracking.

Of course, when Mr Rectitude says that he wants British jobs for British people, he’s lying. His entire economic policy is predicated on the idea that there’s no such thing as a British job, just jobs that can be done more profitably here or elsewhere, by locals or by people imported for the purpose. But lying is contra to British Values. What Gordon is really doing is responding to the Very Real Concerns of the electorate, which is entirely in accordance with British Values. But don’t expect any actual discouragement of outsourcing, say. That would be pandering to racist sentiment, and therefore against British Values, because the British electorate is not racist; it simply has Very Real Concerns.

Confused? Let Gordon sort it out. After extensive consultations with citizens juries, of course.

Comments

[ejh]

Mottoes. How about "never practise penalties"?

[Antipholus Papps]

Mottos: how about Arbeit Macht Frei?

[jamie]

Motto: Platitude, not Attitude

[ejh]

"Did you see Big Brother last night?"

[Phil]

...and we have a winner.

[jamie]

And check this out - last para.

http://libsoc.blogspot.com/2007/09/orwells-brush-with-big-brother-paul.html

[dsquared]

Oh come on Jamie, he only wants a surveillance state for "Islamist crazies", a well-defined objective category which will obviously be clearly delimited. (btw I love the implicit claim in all these pieces that Anderson, Aaro, Phillips etc have exact and precise knowledge of the extent of MI5's operations and are in a position to judge how adequate they are).

anyone would think that you are putting off writing something about Christopher Hitchens' recent discovery that China is a superpower but not a democracy. I've been looking forward to that post for days.

[jamie]

Oh Lord, must I? It makes me feel dirty. Anyway, he's discovered China's THE superpower, not just one of them.

Hitchens is critical now, but given his liking for power and violence I anticipate that soon he's going to be converting to the joys of socialism with Chinese characteristics. Then he'll call for an invasion of Iraq, currently used as a staging post for US subversion of Iran, secular Beijing's staunch ally in the region.

[Matthew]

Does this mean we're no longer 'unquestionably' the second strongest power in the world?