Why is the “silly season” so called when it’s the only time when you get some real news on the telly ? Now parliament has been reopened we just have a series of stories based on Gordon Brown’s and David Cameron’s lame press releases and hollow, cliché-ridden speeches. Oh yes, we still get the outrage-du-jour which is currently about children in London getting stabbed and shot. London kids have been shooting and stabbing each other since London was built but only during periods of media hype do we get each one spelled out. Unlike ten years ago, if you get mauled to death by a pit-bull, don’t imagine you’ll get any column inches; only stabbed kids are newsworthy these days.
So, when some real news turns up it’s quite refreshing.
Today in London there was massive piece of civil disobedience as part of the latest anti-war demo. Readers in properly democratic countries (if there are any) may be surprised to know that it’s now illegal to hold a demonstration outside parliament. As shocking as that should be to you, it’s worse than it sounds; that law was brought in because of one, slightly mental, but totally peaceful man. It’s hard to imagine Saddam, Stalin or even Hitler daring to introduce a similar law but here in the “free” UK we let it happen.
So, during today’s anti-war protest, loads of people broke through the barricades and protested in parliament square! Why would so many people break the law like this ? Because they’re just evil ? Because they don’t care ?
Or perhaps it was because they believe in real democracy where you should be able to remind the people that think they run the country that in fact they are simply supposed to be our representatives and that they work for us.
Meanwhile, the Metropolitan Police are still adamant that they never put the public at risk while they were repeatedly shooting an innocent member of the public in the head. Nor did they break any health and safety laws….while they were repeatedly shooting an innocent member of the public in the head. Doesn’t sound very healthy or safe to me.
