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DonateDonate monthlyDonate yearlyToday, there is an king,
who is so excessively fond of pomp,
that he spent all our money on his coronation.
Today (6th May 2023) a seventy-four year old man with no appropriate noteworthy talent sat on a throne in an abbey and had a crown placed on his head.
Was it a circus? Was it surrealist comedy? Apparently, crowning the head of state is tradition. It is a connection with its past for UK, particularly for England. Historians disagree slightly on who was first king of England – Alfred or his grandson Æthelstan – but the tradition of the nation’s monarch is over a millennia old and it retained it’s family connection throughout and often via more than one branch of the family tree due to royal predilection for incest.
Traditions are acceptable if they are beneficial or else non-disruptive. UK royalty does not benefit the public and it never did. It leeches off the public who pay for everything including this absurd coronation. More money is taken via hereditary royal “ownership” of land and property. Royals’ ancestors stole land violently. Royal history is a history of war, theft, murder, decadence, inhumanity and worthlessness. It is the opposite of beneficial and is very disruptive.
Its modern purpose is useful to exploiters and their puppets in parliament. The existence of and marketing of royalty is a distraction, it is a means of gathering people to support a worthless idol so they are easier to control, and it exemplifies faux-betterment, superiority and concomitant limitations of others. It normalises land theft, tax-avoidance and intrinsic criminality of the financial system.
Cost of living is rising exponentially, rivers are full of excrement, health service is being destroyed by the government, rights (workers’ rights, right to protest, access to justice, access to the right to vote) are disappearing, shops have empty shelves, politicians are posturing for war against Russia and China, and man-made climate change is accelerating, but people shouldn’t complain because UK still has this bloke on a throne with a crown on his head.
Commentary of the coronation and analysis of it was not how sentient beings communicate. It was creepy. Media coverage treated viewers, listeners and readers as intellectually underdeveloped.
“How splendid his Majesty looks in his crown, and how well it fits!”
every politician and every journalist cried out.
“What a design! What colours!
This is indeed a royal crown!
The whole event was constructed to side-step critical thinking, sense and emotional maturity. A celebration of self-induced stupidity incompatible with civilised society. Infantalism. Perverted.
We were told to pledge allegiance to the king while watching the coronation. Show one’s commitment and loyalty to a worthless entity. Pretend it is something of substance. Ascribe qualities to it that are absent. See what isn’t there.
Hans Christian Andersen wrote a tale about an emperor and his new clothes. The clothes didn’t exist but the people were told only fools couldn’t see them. The emperor paraded in front of a huge crowd, naked, but everyone praised the splendour of his attire because no-one wanted to be outed as a “fool.” Eventually, a child remarked “he’s got nothing on.” Gradually, everyone else realised they had been duped.
“But he has nothing at all on!” at last cried out all the people.
When will everyone realise the same?
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It would be incorrect to assume all fans of royalty are motivated similarly or to assume they share intent. Below are general categories of fans of royalty.
Presented by media outlets as eccentric, quirky or simply jolly, The Fixated use their appreciation of royalty or of a favourite royal as substitute for meaning, depth and requited friendship in their lives. They are mostly harmless though immensely annoying.
Their happiness is dependent on suppression of critical thinking, underdeveloped emotional maturity and antithesis toward ego1. They behave in a manner that is partly akin to religious belief, partly similar to celebrity fandom and partly from the same perspective as someone who anthropomorphises mundane household items. Grin-laden excitement is a comfort blanket.
They are proud of being royal fans but their pride is exaggerated to counter criticism.
Less gooey-eyed about royalty than The Fixated, Tradition Patriots enjoy supporting royalty because to do so is a particular British tradition.
Their interest in royalty is similar to loyal support for a sports team: The national anthem is a favourite chant; the union flag is the team’s colours; the royals are the team members. Supporting the royal team provides permanence in their lives. It helps to keep their lives connected as they age. It is important to them that royalty’s existence is reliably continuous.
Patriotism is used by some people to justify their rancid bigotry, prejudices and xenophobia. Draped in union flags, their form of communication is drivel, their natural stance is anger and they are ready for violence at any time.
Encouraged openly by newspapers, broadcasters and politicians, they hate anyone or anything foreign, anyone who isn’t Caucasian, anyone with liberal philosophy, any political views to the left of Mussolini, all religions except Church Of England, and anyone who isn’t straight. They are extremely misogynistic.
They adore statues. They are fans of the most right-wing politicians. They follow instructions from influencers readily. Their patriotism is a vocation and consumes their lives.
Privilege, entitlement and elitism are inherited gifts but recipients feel the need to remind themselves and everyone else of their possession of these qualities. For them, royal fandom is to be part of, or to think they are part of, the elevated few. It is an exclusive club whose membership requirements are either ancestral or expensively bought.
They look down upon everybody. This behaviour is deliberate.
Despite possessing no skills of political cognizance and having a blinkered and warped anti-knowledge of the world, they assume superiority and are keen to pontificate instruction-heavy opinions and guidance.
Their self-positioned place in a spurious hierarchy is lucrative financially. Many of them work in exploitative careers or are marketeers for such industries. All have perfected the vacant look.
This category includes politicians, think-tanks, journalists at right-wing newspapers and broadcasters, large business owners, brokers, stock market gamblers, senior police officers, senior army officers, major landowners and royalty itself.
Their support for royalty is strictly business. Whether benefitting directly or working in highly-paid posts for a beneficiary, Political Manipulators know the role of royalty in UK is to distract people, to maintain a false solidarity between royals and the public, and to perpetuate faux veracity of elevated sections of society, all of which help to dissuade the public from focussing on or challenging their exploitation by rabid capitalist thieves assisted by government.
Political Manipulators fear growth of anti-royal views and, equally, fear growth of indifference to royalty. They want active support and keen interest.
Notes
1 Psychoanalytical definition of ‘ego’
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Ade Adelekan, Deputy Assistant Commissioner of Metropolitan Police, was handed a platform by broadcasters yesterday, 4th May (2023), to assert his philosophy that his police force is a political organisation and its officers will make decisions accordingly.
In an interview he stated that the Metropolitan Police will have “low tolerance for anyone seeking to disrupt the coronation.”
However,
Adelekan meant “Metropolitan Police officers’ actions will not be based on whether anyone is committing a crime or not, but solely on whether anyone is kissing royal backside or not.”
In a written press release published on 3rd May, a frenzy of authoritarianism and onanism over royalty (the police operation for the coronation is called Golden Orb), he stated the same political point above and added and “we will deal robustly with anyone intent on undermining this celebration.”
“Undermining this celebration” is not a criminal offence. It is a human right to disapprove. Adelekan decided that police action against someone should be directed wholly by that person’s political view on royalty.
He used “robustly” to stress that police actions will be visibly violent toward anyone not kissing royal backside.
Adelekan’s stance is typical of senior police officers and police force commissioners who are notoriously pro-royal to the point of prostrated adulation. In any situation involving royalty they act entirely in the interests of the royals and eschew all adherence to law and human rights.
Police forces subservient to royalty are anathema to democracy. Adelekan is proudly an enemy of democracy.
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Deliberate voter suppression by Tory government is a symptom of its general philosophy of opposition to democracy.
Today, 4th May 2023, many people were unable to vote in local elections in England due to requirement of specific photo ID. The government was very selective in its choice of acceptable photo ID. It tagetted younger people and people on low income to stop them from exercising a basic democratic and human right.
In an additional act of anti-democratic behaviour the government employed people at entrances to polling stations whose job was to dissuade people without sufficient ID to not enter so they would not be recorded as present to vote but unable to do so. Consequently, the government and its media allies can claim the number of people disenfranchised is less than the true figure.
Tories trialled voter suppression in 2018 council elections at selected polling stations and Electoral Commission calculated that 3,981 people were refused, or 1.67% of those who tried to vote. That might seem a low percentage but several important points should be made:
The government was delighted that its trial in 2018 worked as voter suppression but realised it needed to make voting more difficult for some people and so was careful in its choice of valid photo IDs for this year.
It would be reasonable to assume that such blatant anti-democratic actions by a government would be attacked, exposed, criticised and fought relentlessly by opposition politicians and be discussed and analysed in depth by journalists and broadcasters with constant demands for explanations from government. None of that happened. Labour and Liberal Democrat politicians’ complaints were infrequent and half-hearted because they are equally as keen for some people to be dissuaded from voting. Right-wing media is fervently in favour of any reduction in democracy; liberal media is increasingly detached and it treated the issue as a small inconvenience.
A purposeful and unashamed assault on a basic right for a functioning society is entirely expected from the current Tory government. It is a criminal enterprise whose focus is fleecing the public to feed the wealthiest.
Tories and their associates need to remember that if people are robbed of the ability to change government via a vote then they may consider other options to attain its removal.
Related blog (2018): Tory use of voter suppression is another cowardly act
A few days before his coronation King Charles gave royal assent to a law that allows police to stop any protest or interfere with the liberty of anyone who promotes a protest (verbally or in writing) or who they suspect might be thinking of protesting.
Public Order Bill also imposes much longer custodial sentences for non-violent protests and allows courts to apply indefinitely long orders on anyone who protests to prevent them from protesting again.
The unusually short time from success of the bill in parliament to its assent was a deliberate act to ensure it could be used by police prior to and during the coronation. The king colluded with the government to attain its quick implementation.
It is no surprise the king endorsed further attacks on democracy by Tory government. Repeatedly, he and his mother altered proposed parliamentary bills to benefit themselves and their ilk and they dodged tax via use of offshore arrangements with consent of government.
British royalty is in opposition to democracy much more than the obvious fact of its mode of appointment (via succession). It exists as a signifier of elitism. It perpetuates validation of privilege. It moralises ancestral ownership of land and property acquired via theft and violence centuries ago. Its popularity acts against complaints about massive wealth and continuity of concentration of that wealth. By being what it is, it is a dampener on social progress and a barrier to radical change.
The king knows what royalty is and what his role is. He knows a key aspect of his reign is to keep people in line by both distracting them and by presenting his enormous wealth and law-avoidance as something to be admired and to be unalterable.
Protest, voicing critical opinions and seeking radical changes are incontestable features of democracy and of viable societies. Protests in UK focus presently on issues that affect peoples lives directly: Cost of living; climate change; war; public services; workers’ rights and wages; government corruption. Each of these protests is a threat to power and control of moneyed and propertied class. Fuel and food suppliers (cost of living), oil industry (climate change), arms industry (war), fleecing privateers (public services), exploitative employers (workers’ rights and wages) and donors to politicians (government corruption) do not want protests against their capacity to extract money from us. They want suppression.
More so for any decade since 1920s UK is divided between exploiters and public with a government focussed entirely on working for the former. The king is committed to assisting government to continue its plan. He is an obstacle.
Protesting against his coronation and the existence of a monarch is vital because it is opposition to more than an unelected head of state. It is a challenge to the ingrained concept of the right of exploiters to use most of the people as a source of unearned income via land ownership, property ownership, business ownership, public service ownership and price-gouging of necessities.
All means of fighting against exploitation are being erased. Access to justice, workers’ basic rights, tenants’ rights, the right to vote and right to protest are disappearing while exploitation is ramped up in intensity.
The king knows which side he is on and it isn’t ours.
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National Conservatism, or NatCism for short, is a tool to promote extreme exploitative free-racketeering capitalism by using people’s connection to the country where they live to coerce them to not notice and/or not complain about their exploitation.
N.B. When pronouncing NatCism or NatC (National Conservative) pause briefly after first syllable to avoid listeners inferring use of an acronym from a previous political epoch.
Conservative blogger Peter Franklin explained for Unherd why NatCism is a current mode of conservative deception: “National conservatism differs from social or religious conservatism because the institutions that it seeks to protect have yet to be dissolved by the forces of modernity. The family has been redefined and the church pushed aside, but the nation remains a potent force.”
UK’s NatCism is a subset of USA’s. The latter is part of The Edmund Burke Foundation. The opening line in its introduction to its Statement Of Principles is
“We are citizens of Western nations who have watched with alarm as the traditional beliefs, institutions, and liberties underpinning life in the countries we love have been progressively undermined and overthrown.”
That quote is in tune with philosophies of David Duke in USA and Paul Golding in UK. It could be the opening line of a book called, for hypothetical example, ‘My Struggle.’
The key exposition of NatCism by its followers is to promote and acclaim it as an alleged preference to “globalism.” It is an utterly fatuous argument but it isn’t a real proposition. NatCism is a means to persuade people to accept whatever privations exploitative capitalism imposes upon them by pretending that everyone is part of a team (a nation) and that villains are elsewhere or are within the nation but acting against it.
To assist with its faux team building project NatCism favours extreme restrictions on people’s personal lives. Its Principles include
The above impositions are aspects of control and division. NatCism’s key intent is expressed in other Principles:
UK conference
On 15th-17th May (2023) NatCism’s UK chapter has a conference at Emmanuel Centre, Marsham Street, Westminster, London, SW1P 3DW.
Line-up of speakers and list of topics at the conference are predictable. The schedule includes former UKIP London Assembly member and New Culture Forum director Peter Whittle talking about ‘God And Country,’ David Starkey, Nigel Biggar and Common Sense Society director Emma Webb on ‘History And Heritage,’ former head of MI6 (and defamer of Jeremy Corbyn: “Corbyn is a danger to this nation“) Richard Dearlove on ‘National Realism And Foreign Policy,’ David Goodhart on ‘National Identity And Culture,’ and Matthew Goodwin and Tim Stanley elucidating on ‘NatCism In Britain.’
Five ‘Keynote Addresses’ will be delivered by Tory ministers Michael Gove and Suella Braverman, former Tory minister Jacob Rees-Mogg, new colonialism grifter Douglas Murray and Heritage Foundation president Kevin Roberts.
The purpose of the conference is to ensure all attendees are facing the same rancid direction. It is an opportunity for grifters to meet potential employees. It provides a marketing event for NatC philosophy via media coverage and it creates a library of speeches, faux debates and friendly interviews for broadcast in the future and as reference points for later espousals of the philosophy.
For the Tory MPs present it is instructive.
Laundry day every day
Via networks of money-laundering tax-avoiding think-tanks and lobby groups wealthy business people and wealthy property owners spend hugely on propaganda and marketing of illiberal political philosophies. New think-tanks emerge frequently as do supposed variants of conservatism.
Relationship between politicians and think-tanks is beyond symbiotic; they are the same people. Many Tory MPs, including ministers, were creators of or contributors to think-tanks before they were politicians (for example, Kwasi Kwarteng, Suella Braverman and Dominic Raab); equally, think-tank members become politicians via gifts: Matthew Elliott and Mark Littlewood are on Liz Truss’ resignation honours list to become peers in House Of Lords. UK does not have a government at present. It has gofers for thieves and fraudsters.
As UK collapses with excrement filling the rivers, extortionate prices for food and fuel, authoritarian attacks on right to protest, right to strike and right to vote, and democracy eroded via imposition of charter territories, exploiters’ employees seek new methods of distraction, subterfuge and conmanship, and they are willing to be as nasty and as inhumane as needed to achieve their aim.
NatCism is deliberate regurgitation of an old trick. Logically, it is nonsense; practically, it is unworkable because of the necessity of international co-operation particularly for food, fuel and for tackling climate change; morally, it is an abomination; intellectually, it is a vacuum.
The conference description included “we see NatCism as the best path forward for a democratic world confronted by a rising China abroad and a powerful new Marxism at home.” The Chinese government is building partnerships in Africa, Asia and South and Central America. These partnerships are better for the people than being exploited by G7-based businesses. China’s progress means fewer opportunities for the exploiters and that is why funders of Heritage Foundation and others are keen for promotion of fear of China.
Where is the “new Marxism at home” in UK? NatCs mean any policy that helps people. They mean publicly-owned public services, they mean workers’ rights, they mean tenants’ rights, they mean health & safety regulations, they mean affordable food and fuel, they mean affordable education, they mean NHS. They mean anything that is part of a functioning society because they are diametrically opposed to that.
NatCism’s aim is extreme conservatism that robs everyone to feed the wealthiest but its rhetoric is promotion of hatred toward other countries and toward people within UK who do not live their lives in a specific NatC way. Its tactics can be anything it needs to do to support that rhetoric.
The audience for the invented philosophy of NatCism is the public, partly as electioneering but mainly to dissuade people from objecting to advancement of further policies that concentrate wealth. However, the conference audience includes potential spreaders of the philosophy. Young, nefariously ambitious and sociopathic grifters know that being part of the conservative machine can be lucrative. All they need to do is erase their humanity. “Research fellow” at a think-tank can lead to a myriad of well-paid posts in government, broadcasting, newspapers and at various “institutes.”
InterNatCism
On Friday (28th April 2023) at a meeting at 10 Downing Street Prime Minister Rishi Sunak said to far-right Prime Minister of Italy Georgia Meloni “the values between our two countries are very aligned.” On the same day Foreign Secretary James Cleverley and Business And Trade Secretary Kemi Badenoch met far-right governor of Florida Ron DeSantis at Lloyd’s Building in London.
Cleverly claimed his and Badenoch’s meetings with DeSantis were to discuss trade with Florida but UK government cannot sign (trade or otherwise) deals with USA states. All such deals must be with the federal government. The meetings were a show of political solidarity from the Tory government to an extremist who is engaged in political censorship of education and is attacking human rights viciously.
NatCism conference committee member Emma Webb praised Meloni on 28th September 2022: “Meloni is such a firecracker.“
Normalisation of NatCism
Use of NatCism as a propaganda tool in UK politics is not a new phenomena. However, it has become prevalent in recent years in government and by supportive media outlets. Its use is now the normal mode of presentation of policy by the government; it is no longer an outlier perspective from a far-right fringe. Further, it is the key strategy of the Tory government politically, electorally and in communication with journalists and with opposition politicians.
N.B. When pronouncing NatCism or NatC pause briefly after first syllable to avoid listeners inferring use of an acronym from a previous political epoch.
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Tory soldier boys focus on demands for continuous enhancement of arms industry profits. Ben Wallace, Tom Tugendhat, Tobias Ellwood and Bob Seely depict UK on the brink of being attacked and in a dire state of unpreparedness.
On 20th April (2023) Telegraph published Seely’s fears about impending Russian attacks on British infrastructure, namely sea-based wind farms and their underwater cables. The utter absurdity of his argument was clear from his assertion that “we still don’t know who sabotaged the Nord Steam 2 pipeline” alongside suggestions that Russian soldiers could sabotage UK cables. (Note: Nord Stream 2 was blown up by USA to force German people to pay for gas from more expensive suppliers.)
Seely’s style of written communication was non-factual, repetitive and cod-emotional, and reminiscent of a player’s internal monologue in a game of Risk. The entire piece could be replaced by a single sentence: ‘I think Russia intends to sabotage UK’s energy supply and so we’d better be ready.’
His evidence for his assertion was “the Telegraph story that broke the news of the underwater [cable] mapping [by Russia].” Even that statement by Seely was incorrect. The Telegraph story merely reported what other journalists elsewhere had said and its authors admitted that “details of the Russian sabotage plot in the North Sea emerged from a joint investigation by the public broadcasters of Denmark, Norway, Sweden and Finland.” Those “broadcasters” were fed information by their security services.
Ultimately, the source for Seely’s story was security services working for NATO governments (including UK) who, in turn, work for financial interests that, generally, compete with Russian financial interests or benefit from Russia, and other countries, being cast as about to start a war against NATO.
In common with the other Tory soldier boys, and with Chief Of The General Staff General Sir Patrick Sanders (see Sanders speech), Seely brought China into his fear-laden plea for action.
“The sobering truth is that our potential adversaries, Russia in the West and China in the East, are gearing up for wider conflict. Our world is becoming markedly more dangerous. And Britain is not ready. We have failed to see the trend, in Russia but also in China, because for too long our leaders naively assumed the rulers of those countries shared our own outlook and assumptions. They do not.”
He did not offer any evidence for China “gearing up for wider conflict” except a link to another Telegraph article that pre-quoted a speech by the Prime Minister (Sunak) wherein the latter bemoaned the fact that China remained non-capitalist in its political philosophy.
To whom is China is a “potential adversary?” Chinese government is creating trade relationships with countries around the world, in Asia, Africa, South America, Central America and Carribean. The arrangements differ from trade relationships with Europe and USA because the latter are designed to maximise profits of G7-based businesses at the expense of the people of the countries involved, whereas China creates partnerships for the benefit of people in the countries and in China. China is “adversarial” toward profit-grabbing capability of exploitative international businesses. That is why conservatives are compelled to oppose China.
Seely’s use of “our” above was not benign. “Our world” and “our own outlook” meant a conservative pro-capitalist exploitation “outlook” but also, intentionally, evoked occidental perspectives.
His world is losing.
There was desperation in Seely’s demands. His analysis of supposed Russian intent made no sense. His depiction of cables and pipes being open to attack leading to disaster for UK didn’t sound convincing. He assumed his readers, and journalists taking quotes from his article, must lack critical thought.
His closing statement did not coincide with reality:
“This century will witness a struggle between two versions of humanity: open societies like our own versus closed, authoritarian societies using all forms of state power to oppress their own people and threaten others. It is a struggle that we have not wanted, but one that we cannot, and must not, lose.”
Tory government is “using all forms of state power to oppress” including voter suppression, criminalisation of all protests, long custodial sentences for protesters, remand imprisonment for protesters, denial of right to express chosen defence arguments in court, interference in education to ensure preference for certain political perspectives, removal of right to strike and other workers’ rights, and, via charter territories, removal of access to justice and access to democracy. Seely voted in parliament in support of Tory government bills that enabled that oppression.
He is desperate because he and his conservative colleagues, inside and outside government, know their control is under threat, both internationally via growth of BRICS and in UK.
Seely wants us to stand next to him in the fight. He can sod off.
Related blog: Seely on Karl Marx
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Fixated Threat Assessment Centre (FTAC) helps the UK government suppress political activism by describing some political protests as expressions of protesters’ mental health issues. This tactic of suppression has two objectives.
On FTAC website one of its Frequently Asked Questions is “what sort of cases does FTAC deal with?” to which the reply given is a group of categories of targets for FTAC including “The Resentful” category.
“The Resentful: These are people who are righteously indignant at a supposed injustice and angrily obsessed with a particular, highly-personal cause or grievance, not infrequently delusional in nature. They pursue an idiosyncratic idea of justice and want, not simply redress, but retribution.”
There is a lot of directive language in the description of “The Resentful.”
Intent to erase political nature of activism is clear. Bypass of legal process is more insidious. None of the people investigated by FTAC are suspected of having committed a crime nor of planning to commit a crime. It stated that “FTAC does not have any special powers. FTAC does not detain people under the Mental Health Act. Rather, it refers cases to the responsible NHS catchment area services who are entirely independent and make their own decisions as to appropriate intervention,” and it said about one hundred and fifty people are “referred” as above each year but chose not to say how many were subsequently deemed to have mental health problems.
FTAC said it acts based on “referrals” to it “from individuals, from the parliamentary authorities or from police forces” of “inappropriate, harassing or threatening communications to prominent people” who it clarifies as “those who are in the public eye due to their public service role” including “main members of the British Royal Family, senior politicians and members of parliament.” That is, any MP or peer can “refer” to FTAC any member of the public who demanded answers to questions or who criticised the MP or peer in person, in writing or via social media. Many politicians make false accusations to police or via media or social media about behaviour of members of the public; the accused are, invariably, political activists.
In a pseudo-academic paper, Implementing A Joint Policing And Psychiatric Approach To Risk Assessment And Management In Public Figure Cases by Frank Farnham, Simon Wilson and David James, where FTAC’s “prominent people” were called “dignitaries,” it tried to justify investigations unrelated to criminal activity by claiming it used a “threat assessment” of “warning behaviours” such that “warning behaviours include posters, newspaper advertisements, attempted lawsuits against the government, chaotic deluded letters to politicians and the police, threatening letters, leafleting the public” – (page 6). FTAC admitted that its “threat assessment has a behavioural policing focus.” The concept of behavioural policing, elucidated stupidly throughout the paper, is a trash concept. One of “the behaviours in question” is “querulant complaining.”
“Querulants” were dismissed as “exhibiting a pattern of behaviour involving the unusually persistent pursuit of a personal grievance in a manner seriously damaging to the individual concerned and potentially also to those that they blame for their situation or who get in the way of their idiosyncratic quest for ‘justice’, in which they conflate the public interest with their personal aims” – (page 22); (the underlines are mine but the single quotes around “justice” are by the authors). “Querulants” were accused of “persistent complaint and litigation.”
N.B. Complaints about or to “prominent people” or “dignatories” are necessary components of democracy. Access to litigation against them is also a necessity for a democracy.
Confidentiality of medical history
Most people assume their medical history is known only to medical personnel and assume laws exist to protect that but FTAC side-steps law regarding such confidential information. “FTAC health-care staff are funded by the Department of Health to provide a service to mentally disturbed individuals who present through inappropriate attention to public figures. As such, they have a legitimate reason to have access to confidential information. Of course, they cannot share that information with their police colleagues, unless there is a public interest in doing so. In the sort of cases with which FTAC deals, the necessary criteria are often satisfied” – (page 11).
Public accountability
FTAC’s “strategy excludes television or radio interviews with its staff” but it presented its lack of public accountability as the opposite: “FTAC has found it necessary to adopt a public profile.” What it meant was it hands press releases to newspapers and broadcasters and “the production of material for public consumption” – (page 21). It does name any of its members on its website.
Coronation of King Charles
In May (2023) hundreds of millions of pounds of public money will be spent on a spectacle designed to remind everyone of their place. A dim-witted seventy-four year old man, who had the fortune to be born in the royal family, will have St. Edwards Crown placed on his head in a tradition of demonstration of superiority, power and control.
Royal coronations are not frequent events. The most recent was in 1953. Charles’ coronation is an opportunity for protests that not only object to the cost of it but also place the protest in the context of kleptocratic governance. The king is a keen beneficiary of exploitative financial activities (via “investments” and land “ownership“) and of tax avoidance. A protest during the coronation helps to remind people of the relationship between monarchy’s existence and the extreme nature of corporate control and theft.
Some organised protests are planned for the coronation; for example, Republic will lead a protest in Trafalgar Square in London: “We will be loud, visible and unmissable, directly challenging the coronation and the monarchy,” said Republic’s CEO Graham Smith.
Police and other control agencies will make political decisions regarding protests. In its paper FTAC explained its role for spectacles like a coronation.
“FTAC takes part in the forward security planning for major national events, such as the royal weddings to arrange for those with relevant fixations to be monitored more carefully during the relevant period, and to educate agencies as to what they should be looking out for in terms of concerning ideas and behaviours. FTAC also has staff in operational control rooms during such events, in order to advise on concerning individuals as they are spotted at events and to aid in liaison with health agencies to enable rapid intervention” – (page 21).
There were single-person protests against the monarchy this year. A couple of people, separately, lobbed eggs and one person held up a blank sheet of paper. All were arrested. The “rapid intervention” is not motivated by concerns about security and safety. It is a tool of erasure and suppression.
A later paper in 2021, Predictors of varying levels of risks posed by fixated individuals to British public figures, authored by Paul Gill, Emily Corner, Frank Farnham, Simon Wilson, Zoe Marchment, Alice Taylor, Richard Taylor and David James, discussed FTAC “cases” that involved members of the royal family. The focus was on likely, attempted and successful breaches of security cordons around the royals. Apparently, “acting in an inappropriate manner” will bring people “to the attention of FTAC.”
The paper was a tortuous statistic-laded opus speckled with bad concocted mathematical equations. Its purpose was to justify actions against people who had not committed and were not suspected of intent to commit a crime.
Although presented as a psychiatric academic paper its research was funded by Centre For Research And Evidence On Security Threats (CREST) that is funded by “the Economic and Social Research Council, which is part of UK Research and Innovation. The funds for this grant come from the UK intelligence and security agencies and UK Home Office” according to CREST website. CREST received £5,200,000 “from the UK Home Office and UK security and intelligence agencies” in 2020 for three years of research – (source: UK Research and Innovation). Similar to FTAC, CREST does not name its members on its website.
Royalty and mental health issues
Throughout the 2021 paper a large elephant stamped its feet in the room, unseen and unheard by the authors. Their words spoke of analyses of mental heath of people in the proximity of royalty but only of the people who were “querulous” or negative toward royalty. The mental health of the flag-waving obedient cheering teary-eyed royal supporters received no inspection.
The existence of royalty is not just politically and morally reprehensible. Being a fan of it is in opposition to intelligence and adulthood. Anyone with critical thought knows it is an absurdity. A supporter of royalty, whose life is lessened by the existence of it, is not someone in command of their mental health.
Commentary on royals and their activities by politicians and media is mostly detached from sense. Many observers (politicians and journalists), despite sound mental health, choose to partake in the pantomime. The detachment is necessary because there is no sensible and logical discourse available to justify existence of royals.
Will there be a well-researched paper by the same authors that examines thoroughly the mass psychosis of royal support? In September last year (2022) the death of Queen Elizabeth II and her funeral were accompanied by behaviour that had nothing in common with sense, reason or sagacity: Many people queued for many hours (and miles) to view her coffin; journalists and politicians lost the entirety of their intellectual development when attempting to talk about her death – see Queen’s death, king’s accession: Disease infests politicians and media; professional sport games were postponed; BBC cancelled all of its TV and radio channels on the day of the funeral; broadcasters wore entire outfits of black for over a week. It was like being in a bizarre unsettling re-make of The Truman Show.
FTAC had a role during the lying-in-state. Director Of Security for UK Parliament Alison Giles spoke at Royal United Services Institute (RUSI) on 11th January (2023) where she said “during the lying-in-state, we had to manage fixated individuals that were trying to get access” and she admitted that FTAC helped to “block” people from attending. Every person who queued for hours to view the coffin was “fixated” unhealthily but FTAC gave them a pass.
(A video recording of Giles’ presentation is available to paid subscribers of RUSI only.)
Backsliding democracy
FTAC is a sprocket in the mechanisms of control of political activism. Its key facet is its control of protests via practices outside of criminal prosecution, a tactic that makes an accused’s defence more difficult because the burden of proof focusses on the accused’s proof of (or demonstration of) innocence rather than accuser’s evidence-dependent proof of guilt. FTAC is part of deliberate backsliding of democratic process.
Prime Minister Rishi Sunak’s curriculum vitae is a rancid trail of multi-billion pound theft via a variety of financial crimes some of which he did with and/or for his wife and his father-in-law.
He has no interest in governance. His single objective is to rapidly and hugely transfer more wealth to the already massively wealthy including himself and his family.
In a just society with laws and government in tune with democracy Sunak (and his wife) would be in gaol and all their assets would be confiscated.
A key role of news media journalists in any country is to investigate, question and expose government wrongdoing and to pursue those aims with dogged persistence and to not be perturbed by intimidation. In UK, media journalists avoid that role.
BBC’s “political editor” Chris Mason’s broadcasting career is characterised by non-disruptive steady progress. His constructed persona is presentation of “informal” analysis. He chooses to not encourage BBC viewers to think critically. “I haven’t the foggiest” was a prepared phrase he used in a TV report as a ruse to dissuade viewers from trying to dissect the machinations around Brexit and its negotiations. He added that Noel Edmunds’ comedy sidekick Mr. Blobby “might as well report” on analysis of Brexit.
On 18th April (2023) BBC website published his comment piece ‘How big a deal is inquiry into Rishi Sunak’s declarations?‘ that purported to address whether the Prime Minister answered questions accurately and fully when questioned at a parliamentary committee hearing on March 28th (2023) regarding his wife’s co-ownership of a child-minding agency that had received a government contract, whether his obfuscation was in breach of parliamentary standards, and what, if any, admonishments need to be applied to him.
Mason’s piece began by trying to infuse unseriousness into inspection of the Prime Minister’s activities – “sleaze. It’s a big word, and it gets lobbed around at Westminster rather a lot” – and he was determined to downplay importance of any wrongdoing – “on the Richter scale of these things, it feels like a rather minor tremor. Think a few loose roof tiles rather than anything much more.”
It is true that details and chronology of Sunak’s admittance (or otherwise) of his wife’s benefit from a government contract are not interesting. The key point is that public money was handed to the Prime Minister’s wife and not for the first time. That is not “sleaze” as Mason calls it; it is rancid corruption and theft. Inspection of that is obscured and evaded by light-hearted accounts that focus on inter-parliamentary squabbling over procedure.
Mason said there are “inevitable stories, borne of intrigue and fascination, relating to the Sunaks’ vast wealth, of which this is the latest.” No! There is knowledge of a Prime Minister who, before and during being an MP, a minister and Prime Minister, extracted “vast wealth” via means outside of honesty, outside of morality and, in a just society, would be instantly recognised and dealt with as criminal activities.
If pantomime characters in parliament, on both sides of the House Of Commons, exchange barbs about exact wording at a committee hearing and the timing of a declaration of interest then it is not the role of news journalists to just join in and subsequently state how unimportant it is. Their role is to direct focus onto the real issue: The intrinsic corruption of this government and its persistent continuous theft of billions of pounds from the British people.
Mason’s piece concluded with “[if you say] your government will be defined by ‘integrity, professionalism and accountability at every level’, you bet people will hold you to it” but he is not “holding anyone to it.” Boris Johnson’s loan broker Richard Sharp will be happy with him.
ducksoap 