Government and ECHR - the inside story

 

“We don’t care much for society’s wishes.  They too often conflict with our objectives and frustrate progress.   

 

"Progress is vital if we are to thrive, by which of course we mean  continue in power.  We can best do this by retaining the support of those who are aghast at what they see as the huge problem of immigration facing our country.  We know this is a comparatively minor issue in the grand scheme of things and that the boat people are mostly asylum seekers who are entitled to come here but can’t get here any other way, but ‘immigrants’ sounds much better doesn’t it?  We understand too that some of these asylum seekers have skills we badly need and so could contribute much to our country and its economy and that their taxes in such a situation would help to forestall future tax increases which would be disastrous for our reputation.   

 

"The more astute amongst us realise that what would really make a difference to UK would be investment in infrastructure, skills training, and the like, but those things are all a bit long term for us and don’t hold much appeal for our older supporters whose votes we are so desperate to hold on to, particularly following the recent all too public references, with distressing amplitude, to Boris' Covid gaffes (which even The BBC, whom we thought we had under control through judicious senior management placements and steady whispers in their ear about the possibility of changes in financing arrangements, felt obliged to air).  Moreover, previous promises in this vein are seen as shallow by the ‘red wall’ that, well and truly charmed by Boris, came to our aid in 2019.  Also, investment’s fallen out of favour ever since the late Lady Thatcher pointed out the need to manage the UK’s finances like the family budget. We simply can’t afford to invest if we don’t have the money.  Other countries seem to manage it, but then they don’t have our wisdom and standing in the world. We used to control more than half the world, for goodness sake.  A few of us know we invested in former decades and that that led to an economic boom, rising living standards and a good supply of social housing, but that was then. This is now, and priorities have changed.  As we said, we don’t care much for what the wider electorate think they need.  They’re just the electorate.  We’re the government.

 

“Anyway, what’s getting in the way now with stopping the boat-bound immigrants is The Supreme Court’s pronouncement and the European Court of Human Rights.  The latter is a real nuisance.  It prevents us from getting so much done.  Just as that awful, overbearing EU environmental legislation got in the way of letting us enable the water companies to press on with what they need to do in order to maximise their shareholders’ dividends.  Some of them were in such a parlous state that they had to borrow to finance dividends!  A real Brexit benefit, and what’s government for if we can’t help our friends in business to thrive?

 

“Without our corporate donations, where would we be for goodness sake?”

 

“ECHR has huge potential to frustrate progress with our exciting Freeport and Charter City plans, which can hugely empower our corporate donors. Our plans to strengthen links with multinational corporate interests and help them ease their way into UK stand to be undermined.  Our donations from fossil-fuel companies are under threat from increasingly frequent and high-profile demonstrators and protest groups.  We see from polls that most of the public favour the phasing out of oil and gas but our trusted advisers in Tufton Street assure us that they're just deluded and worrying unncessarily.  We can't have protesters getting in the way threatening our income stream. Also, holiday pay, maternity pay, and all those sorts of perks are impacting on our donors’ production costs. So, for all those sorts of reasons, we must do all we can to extricate UK from ECHR’s misguided focus on people rather than profits.  The trick’s going to be in persuading the electorate that it’s in their interests too for us to take UK out.  That’s where all our references to us ‘being on the side of the British people’ and taking a stand against a range of counter-agents such as judges, lefty lawyers, and do-gooders come in.  We managed it with Brexit thanks to some very clever propoganda, a compliant and powerful media, and a none too astute electorate, so we're reasonably confident we can pull it off again. 'Stop The Boats' provides a perfect hook to hang it on as it has considerable support. Once we're out we're out and then we can capitalise on all the other new-found freedoms."

 

The above is all a bit “tongue in cheek”, of course, but is it that far from the reality of UK today?

Brainchild of Winston Churchill after the horrors of the second world war, and largely drafted by UK lawyers, the ECHR (which predates and has nothing whatsoever to do with EU)  bestows priceless protections on us all.  Here’s Amnesty International’s webpage about it. If you don't already know, as I'm sure many of you will, take a look at those web pages to learn what it does for us.

What will our children and grandchildren think if we let it slip away?

The dreary delivery of The King’s speech, and the malign influence of Tufton Street.

 

On a scale of 1 – 10 just how dreary was delivery of The King’s speech?  But let’s not be too critical. When a man who has spent much of his life promoting welfare of the natural and human environment and the need to cut back on carbon production has to proclaim “his” government’s intention to continue issuing oil and gas exploration licences it must be very difficult to muster enthusiasm.  Such is the token connection between monarchy and government, but it must have been particularly galling when he's waited his whole life for this opportunity.

There’s disconnection elsewhere too.  Polls show that a sizeable majority of the electorate favour policies which are geared to furthering decarbonisation. (Ipsos and UK Government). Some people certainly favour continuation of oil and gas extraction out of concern, in most cases, for local employment and economies, but the majority would prefer withdrawal from that sector in favour of renewables.  So why the push for more oil and gas?  It won’t cut energy prices in UK as the output will flow to the international market to be bought back again at market rates.  A boost for economic activity?  Perhaps, but at the cost of focussing less on development of exciting new technologies related to renewables, technologies which I suspect could bring substantial economic growth, as other countries are doing.  Are our politicians really so averse to strategic planning and devoid of long-term thinking that we'll forever be lagging behind more enlightened countries and dependent on them for supplying us with power?  At the cost, too, of engendering enmity from the growing band of nations seeking to reduce global carbon production let alone those suffering from its effects including, it could be argued, UK.

Why would a government act so perversely?  Like much in life, I suspect the answer is money.

With party memberships in decline, political parties need to find other sources of income to replace dwindling subscriptions.  Thankfully for the Conservative Party, there’s a steady flow of funds from oil-related interests.  There’s also pressure from lobby groups, not least those based at 55 Tufton Street and masquerading as respectable institutions acting in the public good while drawing a very opaque veil over their funding sources – sources which are widely understood to include carbon fuel interests.   You’ll recall Liz Truss announcing with unseemly haste a few days after moving into 10 Downing Street that new solar arrays on agricultural land were to be prohibited, followed in short order by her Tufton Street inspired mini budget.  The unfortunate realty, in my view, is that a change of governing party will make little difference in this respect.  Labour too need money.

With national energy strategies across the world increasingly turning away from carbon fuels, those whose businesses have been built on oil and gas production, and whose continuation depends on it, are understandably desperate to keep avenues to survival open.  It is suspected too that, just as tobacco interests did in the 1960s, they are using publicity campaigns to further their cause.  (Take a look at Wide Awake Media’s Twitter page, for instance.  They, too, are coy about declaring their funding sources.)

It's clear that the world’s climate has had warming and cooling cycles over the centuries.  It’s a fact too that El Nino is currently having a short-term warming effect.  But to my mind it defies all logic to deny that human activity isn’t exacerbating a warming trend.

So, with the balance of government loyalties between the interests of the electorate on one hand and those of its funders on the other tipping in favour of the latter, such funders are able to influence and manipulate strategies towards their own objectives and away from the national interest.  Democracy?  I don't think so, and I can’t see anything on the horizon which will reverse this trend.  What are we to do?  Any suggestions?