Return To Slavery Underpins The Jubilee.

One of the most shameful and disturbing aspects of the Diamond Jubilee celebration was exposed in the "Guardian" today in a story that outlined the use of slave labour to marshall the crowds in London. Unemployed people, forced to work for their benefits, were bussed into the Capital in the early hours of the morning, forced to change clothes in the street and made to work with no toilet facilities for 24 hours. Arriving after an overnight trip from Bristol many of them were only able to snatch a couple of hours of sleep under London Bridge before they made to marshall the crowds that lined the Thames. Of course in those halcyon days before the Tories seized power these people would have been given temporary contracts and paid at least the minumum wage. But today, with the unemployed demonised as "feckless," the Tories have managed to turn public opinion against themselves to the point where such a monstrous piece of profiteering would even be contemplated. Worse yet it calls into question the very idea of the Jubilee which now stands exposed as nothing more than a political diversion, a celebration of how the "haves" can command the "have-nots" to undertake any demeaning task or risk punishment and how 1,000 years of British history shows us in no incertain terms that there has been no progress whatsoever. Perhaps the Queen, when she sees this story, will find those people, so shamefully treated, and pay them a decent amount of money out of her own personal vast fortune. Perhaps, but I wouldn't hold my breath. The Jubilee gives Britain the opportunity to look at itself. The question is can it look itself in the eye?

Jubilee Anaesthetises The Nation.

The British love to moan about the weather but yesterday proved to be the exception to the rule. TV screens were filled with happy shiny faces cowering under umbrellas and dismissing the usual summer British monsoon with a careless flick of the hand. Words such as "wonderful," "unforgetable," and "exciting" replaced the usual moans and groans, while BBC commentators gushed uncontrollably about how marvelous the Royal Family and Britain actually are. Meanwhile viewers were treated to a mind-numbingly and tedious second-by-second account of Her Maj's progress downriver, with one intellectually-challenged presenter telling us about how dangerous the Thames can be. And the cost to the nation for this rather damp jamboree? A cool £275 million, not counting the cost of security. Still there's nothing like a Royal story to divert attention from reality in this benighted little kingdom. While millions sat glued to their TV sets or braved the British summer weather to munch damp sandwiches in the rain, little regarded news items slipped by without a murmur. While Baroness Warsi has been reported to the police by an outraged Labour MP, the "Independent" pointed out the threefold rise in families being "shunted into bed and breakfast accommodation" by the present gang of spivs and conmen who like to call themselves a government. The "Guardian" reported that family incomes had fallen for the third year in succession while final demand in the economy continues to slump. In the "New York Times" Paul Krugman told the British, yet again, that austerity, apart from being counter-productive, is little more than a cover for the Tory ideological goal of shrinking the state at a time when it badly needs to increase its activity. While the British people stand around innanely waving their little flags and look forward to a summer filled with expensive sporting events to engage their tiny minds, their country, their future and their voice is slowly being lost as a bunch of Tory pickpockets work the crowd.

Britain Readies Itself To Celebrate 1,000 Years of Slavery.

The statues at Westminster say a great deal about this country and about the myths that sustain its skewed view of itself. Hard by Westminster Bridge we have Boudicca, a Celtic Queen of the Icenii, whose statue would more properly sited in Cardiff. Not far away stands the statue of Richard I, a King who spent less than 6 months in England throughout his 10-year reign and who spoke no English whatsoever. 1,000 years ago a gangster who specialised in protection rackets gathered together a bunch of thugs on horseback and butchered the elected, yes elected, King of England. Having won the Battle of Hastings, William the Conquerer then embarked on a shakedown of the country that included the ethnic cleaning of the North. It wasn't until 1216 that anyone manged to even loosen the grip of the Norman mobsters who had seized the country and, even then, Magna Carter was little more than a subdivision of the national cake by another bunch of bully-boys. Through a series of homicidal maniacs,sex offenders, wife beaters and family murderers we have, after 1,000 years of this nonsense, ended up with a Royal Family that is German in origin, not that bright and utterly dependent on a state that cannot afford them. Yet these people are held up as a national icon, proof positive that "breeding" will produce a superior kind of human being. The Queen, through a tortuous route, can trace her ancestry back to an Irish Dark Age warlord called Niall of the Nine Hostages. Funnily enough so can the editor of "The News In Shorts." Him and 12 million other people in this country. Perhaps we should all share the throne along with the other 10 million who can trace their ancestry back to Edward I and the 60-odd million whose families can also be traced back a long way - about 150,000 years like everyone else on the planet.