An Act of Unity

The surround-sound of deference is becoming deafening. The tat, merch and souvenirs are becoming ubiquitous and the drum-roll of propaganda is getting louder. Just as the memory of the Queen’s endless funeral fades – the next Royal pantomime arrives.

A week after the Bank of England’s chief economist, Huw Pill told a podcast that “Britons ‘need to accept’ they’re poorer” – Charles (estimated personal wealth £1.8 billion)  is going to get in a Gold Coach and ride through London before being anointed.

British households and businesses “need to accept” they are poorer and stop seeking pay increases and pushing prices higher, the Bank of England’s chief economist, Huw Pill, said. “If the cost of what you’re buying has gone up compared to what you’re selling, you’re going to be worse off,” he explained helpfully.

“So somehow in the UK, someone needs to accept that they’re worse off and stop trying to maintain their real spending power by bidding up prices … what we’re facing now is that reluctance to accept that, yes, we’re all worse off, and we all have to take our share.”

According the the central bank’s annual report, Huw Pill is paid a salary of £180,000.

The Daily Mail had him at £190,000, and reported it next to a giant bust of Charles made out of ‘melted down Celebrations’

STV reported the departure of the Stone of Destiny down south to sit under the royal bottom for his coronation. It’s a symbol of subjugation but someone called Dr Joe Morrow – the “Lord Lyon King of Arms” told us: “It came back under our last Queen, it was meant to be an act of kindness when that came back and now its going south for the coronation of Charles III. And its very significant indeed, because its an act of unity to see us all together and celebrate our new monarch.”

There you have it, for all the tech and the rest of it we live in a medieval society and what you are about to observe (and pay for) is  “an act of unity to see us all together”. Bring out the bunting.

As the US enters unintended gerontocracy we live under a Southern oligarchy ruled by a Hedge-fund millionaire that no-one elected and overseen by the glory of a hereditary monarchy. It’s a pitiful state in which our powerlessness, as Scots unable to determine our future is celebrated alongside the hysteria of the coronation, a Festival of Deference.

The absurdity spews out across your timelines like confetti. Today we are told that Air Chief Marshal the Lord Peach has been appointed to carry the Sword of Mercy:

Air Chief Marshal the Lord Peach has been appointed to carry the Sword of Mercy.#Coronation pic.twitter.com/SUQhvUkEqq

— Royal Central (@RoyalCentral) April 27, 2023

The announcement of Lord Peach’s role comes on the same day we are told that The Public Order Bill, which has now been passed by Westminster, is deeply troubling legislation that is incompatible with the UK’s international human rights obligations regarding people’s rights to freedom of expression, peaceful assembly and association, according to the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Volker Türk.

Türk drew particular attention to the Serious Disruption Prevention Orders introduced by the law that allow UK courts to ban affected individuals from being in certain places at certain times; being with particular people; or using the internet in certain ways, and could lead to the individual in question being electronically monitored to ensure compliance. It is especially concerning that such orders can be made against people who have never been convicted of any criminal offence.

“Governments are obliged to facilitate peaceful protests, while, of course, protecting the public from serious and sustained disruption. But the grave risk here is that these orders pre-emptively limit someone’s future legitimate exercise of their rights,” the High Commissioner said.

“I am also concerned that the law appears to target in particular peaceful actions used by those protesting about human rights and environmental issues. As the world faces the triple planetary crises of climate change, loss of biodiversity and pollution, governments should be protecting and facilitating peaceful protests on such existential topics, not hindering and blocking them,” Türk stressed.

The problem with the monarchy is not the institutionalised hierarchy, the remnant feudalism, the obscene wealth or the relentless propaganda, the problem is the infantilisation. As Volker Türk explains the dire consequences of our human rights and civil liberties being stripped away Vanity Fair reports that “Buckingham Palace has introduced the coronation quiche—a new soon-to-be iconic dish created by Royal Chef Mark Flanagan.”

But the point being made by Dr Joe Morrow – the “Lord Lyon King of Arms” is a real one. In a country disfigured by poverty, broken by debt and divided by nation, unity is a rare and precious thing. Britain is dead, to paraphrase Timothy Garton Ash, and nobody can say it out loud. That is why we are having this next pantomime.

As Tom Nairn put it: “…the stage hypnotists and sullen audience were compelled to go through their motions – the reproduction of a traditional Britain, crowned by Monarchy and attired in the feudality of Lordship, the reliquaries of caste and imperium, a domain of narrative cast in the familiar immemorial tones of stable repetition. They felt obliged to go on living as if Britain had not died, with troupes of hypnotists encouraging viewers in their suspension of disbelief…”

Britain is a degenerate parody of itself, and requires industrial quantities of bunting and rhetoric to survive. We are experiencing  what Nairn called ‘late or terminal Britishness’. It’s an era and a condition that has now moved well beyond ‘decline’:  “Decline was the older, more genteel form of putrefaction which prevailed until the close of the 1970s … from then on a qualitatively distinct phase has taken over – the brazen simulacrum endured by all subjects of the Crown today.”

This decay, this rotting-down has a new layer to it now of course. Now you don’t hear so much of the rhetoric of Brexit so much, as the grim reality of it settles in (‘what we’re facing now is that reluctance to accept that, yes, we’re all worse off’). Talk of the Sunlit Uplands, the forty new hospitals and the Global Britain is muted. The reality is, as the late Nigel Lawson said that: “Brexit gives us a chance to finish the Thatcher revolution.” Its as if late or terminal Britain has given up on the vestiges of change it once wore. Pre-Brexit could it have become a European country? Pre-Harry and Meghan could it have become a modernised monarchy? Post-indy ref could it have become a federalised group of nations? All these opportunities were squandered and the result is a Britain resorting to type, attacking devolution and attempting to ‘reinvent’ itself through the ‘the reliquaries of caste and imperium’, again.