Laurie Penny

Pop culture and radical politics with a feminist twist

Bread, circuses and tea towels can’t stifle dissent

The case for disrupting the royal wedding.

By Laurie Penny Published 21 January 2011 17:20

Civil society may be dissolving, governments are in crisis across Europe and significant parts of the inhabited world are either under water or on fire, but it'll all be fine as long as nobody disrupts the royal wedding. The opposition leader, Ed Miliband, has joined the chorus of hand-wringers pleading with students and the trade unions not to start any funny business while the prince and his bride walk up the aisle.

On the BBC's Andrew Marr Show, Miliband said that the notion of as yet unplanned strikes during the wedding or the Olympics would be "absolutely the wrong thing for the trade unions to do". Distancing himself from organised labour, the Labour leader's advice to the public was clear: stay home, be quiet and watch it all on television.

Over the next two and a half years, a full calendar of bread and circuses has been scheduled to keep the British public happy and obedient while the government puts its economic shock doctrine into effect. This year, it's the Wedding of Mass Distraction; next year it's the Diamond Jubilee and after that the Olympics. The timing is a gift for any government attempting to push through punitive and unpopular reforms - the chance to smother dissent with a dampened commemorative tea towel of pomp and circumstance. This is the highest function of what Guy Debord called the society of the spectacle: not just to distract popular attention from the machinations of government, but artificially to invoke the imagery of a national consensus that doesn't exist. In David Cameron's Britain, respect for the popular mandate is in no way important. All that matters
is the iconography of public ritual, just enough to make everybody shut up and shout hurrah.

Real war memorial

Precisely the same logic of baseless deference is at play when the press condemns student protesters who swing from war memorials during anti-cuts marches. While everyone gets worked up about a few kids harmlessly tampering with symbols of wartime sacrifice, the greatest war memorial of all - the welfare state - is being ripped to shreds.

Universal health care, universal education, out-of-work benefits, voter enfranchisement and respect for women's unpaid labour were all legacies of public consensus after the two world wars; all are directly threatened by the brutal programme of cuts about to be enacted by this government. As far as regards respect for the fallen, Cameron may as well have burned down the Cenotaph and replaced it with vending machines and a flashing
sign reading “Big Society".

Venerating the static symbols of Britain's uncomfortably bloodstained imperial traditions requires much less compassion, and much less effort, than preserving the living institution bequeathed to us by former generations. Give the public a ceremony and a huge parade, the theory goes, and general complaisance will follow. This time, though, our leaders are beginning to worry that it might not be enough.

Ed Miliband horrified the labour movement by declaring that strikes are "a sign of failure" and that the way one challenges a dissembling government is “at the ballot box". This may have been the case once, but when democracy is subsumed within the simulacra of choice - when voting only gives power to a government that U-turns on all of its significant promises and implements an austerity programme for which it has
no mandate - the time has come to challenge the iconography of obedience.

This is exactly why the possibility of disrupting the stultifying public pageantry of the royal wedding must remain on the table. Do we want to be part of a culture that sits in front of the TV, whining while the big decisions are made for us and cheering on cue? Or do we want to be part of a culture that stakes a claim, stands firm and answers back to injustice?

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123 comments

Mon, 2011-01-24 21:27 — Des Demona (not verified)

@ Martin L
You have already proven yourself to be a complete ass in other columns. To use some of your own vernacular, take your meds and fuck off.

Sun, 2011-01-23 16:15 — mike lewis (not verified)

"mike, I think you are missing the point I was trying to make, which is, if you transplated an average higher thinking 1950's brit brain into an average 2011 brit skull, he would be only good for giving out parking tickets/sweeping the leaves."

And are you saying our brains have actually become more sophisticated and technologically adept or have they simply adapted to ambient conditions? What if we could send you back...could you work out cube roots on a slide rule?...logs?...change a gear-box?...design and guide a rocket without millions of bites of processing power? Whatever wonders the "average higher thinking 2010's brit brain" might perform, it's generally achieved by pressing a few keys to operate a piece of software, one of whose primary functions is ease of use by any idiot who comes along. Are you telling me the "average higher thinking 1950's brit brain" wouldn't be totally at home with Windows, surfing the net and operating all manner of software within a week or so?...Reverse the process...how long would it take you to adapt in reverse?

Your argument is clearly that of an average "higher thinking 2010's brit brain".

Sun, 2011-01-23 16:38 — Tim Avenell (not verified)

It's so refreshing to read the well written and incisive pieces above from Mike Lewis and I fully agree with his criticisms of the self serving tosh from Ms Penny.

She constantly warps facts to fit her particular shtick and in this case.

Look at her first sentence

"Civil society may be dissolving (No it isn't) governments are in crisis across Europe (Governments are certainly having to face the difficulties posed by economic mismanagement and poor regulation but 'crisis'? There are no popular insurrections aimed at toppling democratically elected governments though you might be willing to believe that if you take Ms Penny at her word)and significant parts of the inhabited world are either under water or on fire ( 'significant'??, not at all significant in fact in global terms, insignificant)but it'll all be fine as long as nobody disrupts the royal wedding (Ms Penny fails to realise that most people in this country ie those who are truly working class and read the Sun and the Mail support the Royal Family and willing to share in the happiness of William and Kate)

She sets herself up as a voice of the proletariat but she ain't.

Sat, 2011-01-22 13:03 — Carboniferous (not verified)

You write elegantly Laurie but the logic does not (remotely) stand up. I mean I know our evil capitalist overlords are powerful and all knowing but they are not that powerful or all knowing. On the basis of your argument presumably you believe someone is currently planning the Queen's and Charles' assassination for say 2015 to ensure William's jubilee can be used for a spot of oppression in 2065!

Sat, 2011-01-22 13:27 — Daniele1

traitorfish is right: Mike lewis you should be glad that people like Pennie are socialists, not castigate them for being in the wrong class.
By the way, I am no middle class bitch with a Vuiton bag, so the "violent anarchist" does not need to shoot me. I am from a working class background, this is what pained me even more to see so much apathy in that class.
Brad Vaughan:
Which paper do you see on the dashboards of the "white vans"? Socialist workers paper?? no, you see, invariably "the Sun" and " the news of the world" poisoning their tiny minds with racist and right wing shit.
I bet you if you did a survey tomorrow, you would find that there are more socialist republican thinkers among the middle class than among the working class. Obviously people like you and Mike Lewis do not go about educating the masses about their rights and interests very well.
it is because the working class vote Tory that we have this government. it is also because of their "soft spot for the Royals" that we have to keep that scrounger family with our taxes.How many Republicans are working class? I'd love to know.
So what is your point with my "classist bullshit" again?
These are facts, sad as it is.

Sat, 2011-01-22 13:53 — Sam (not verified)

Excellent article. Much as I am a Republican and not besotted with an undue love of Royalty; the point of protesting in some format on the day of the royal wedding isn't to protest against the royals themselves, it's to protest against the fact that people become placated by some bizarre nationalist pride they garner from the event.

It's important to remind people that the problems haven't gone away, still exist and are still of great concern regardless of what fills the front page of the tabloids in the weeks leading up to, and after, the event. Panem et circenses was part of the theory the Roman Empire used to control the plebeians and prevent an uprising - make sure they have a basic subsistence and then keep them so busy oggling at spectacles they pay no attention to the obstacles in their way and the inequalities of existence. We must use this opportunity to say en masse "we are not fooled".

Sat, 2011-01-22 14:56 — Barbs (not verified)

My goodness me - People ignorance regarding the NHS being dismantled is astounding!! Their is a list of operations which have gone round for knee and hip replacements, cataracts, grommits and much more which are on hold with a view to not being available on the NHS, there is a list of prescribed medicines which GP's are being urged to cut back on or withdraw from patients. This is without the privatisation which has already been started and is now set up to kick in big style!!
Re education - thats pretty obvious whats going on there re student loans and end to EMA.
Re benefit cuts, there is housing benefit which is being cut back to the 30th percentile from April 2011 - this is a biggy affecting 700,000 households who may or may not be in work, cuts to tax credit, housing benefit reduced by 10% if you do not find a job within a year. Reducing DLA recipients by 25% despite the fact that the fraud rate for this benefit is only 0.5%. taking the mobility allowance away from people in care homes so they are institutionalised 24/7. Abolishing the Independent Living Fund which enables people to live in their own homes with care provided. The Employment and Support Allowance for sick and disabled people aimed at finding 92% of people assessed fit for work. Withdrawal of benefits as a sanction - thus ending up in a situation where the sick and disabled are found fit for work, forced to work on threat of withdrawal of benefits, end up too sick to work which will be seen as a refusal, resulting in 3 years with no benefit and then death by starvation if they have not already died from the housing benefit reductions and ended up homeless.
So yeah - not too bothered about a Royal Wedding!

Wed, 2011-01-26 08:49 — Barny

This is an interesting piece. I'm with those who think disrupting the wedding would probably by counter-productive but wouldn't oppose it either. The royals are the figurehead of inequality and ought to be challenged. Leave war memorials alone though - just do.

Sat, 2011-01-22 15:01 — mike lewis (not verified)

"traitorfish is right: Mike lewis you should be glad that people like Pennie are socialists, not castigate them for being in the wrong class."

I'm not castigating anybody for what amounts to a simple accident of birth...I'm castigating her for having written a series of articles about herself which purport to show her as something she plainly isn't. That makes her a bullshitter..and I'm not to thrilled at the prospect of a bullshitting exhibitionist becoming the media's pet/token leftie...I'd rather it was somebody else...some with a genuine stake; not somebody motivated by a shoddy personal and professional ambition.

Someone wrote above that they considered themselves 'authentic' working class and yet they supported Ms Penny. My issue with this is: How can anybody claim to be an 'authentic' member of class X while accepting the advocacy of somebody who clearly isn't a member of class X, nor has any genuine feeling for or understanding of the issues affecting class X...despite their farcical attempts to claim some tangential affinity with class X via some very misleading articles.

As for the notion that I should be happy that Ms Penny is a Socialist and I should thank my lucky stars that she thinks and writes the way she does...

1) She is not a Socialist...I'm sure that a couple of years ago, she was still claiming membership of the Lib Dems...now they might have been justifiably described as the most left-wing mainstream party, at the time, but they were no more Socialist than I'm a three legged giraffe. Ms Penny's politics strike me as notably: relativist, identity obsessed, supportive of a range of unaligned single-issue groups but at all times..painfully 'right-on'. None of these are especially compatible with class consciousness nor solidarity. Neither is she a universalist nor primarily motivated by a redistributive agenda.

Her politics strike me rather as a rag-bag of fashionable and trendy accessories; incoherent and inconsistent. She is NOT a Socialist.

2) A significant factor in Ms Penny's 'success' is her class. The liberal media, print and broadcast is a middle-class fiefdom who like to deal with their own...that way they know where they stand and what to expect. The way she's willing to act like a mischievous performing monkey...presumably her take on radical left-wing passion, shouldn't disguise the fact that, at bottom, she's very much one of their own and can only ever give a distorted and vicarious account of the problems facing the truly destitute and oppressed. Why can't we have it from the horses's mouth?

Sun, 2011-01-23 18:06 — Mike Thomas (not verified)

Frothing at the mouth fruitbat lefty lunacy of the highest order.

Please, please, please try to disrupt the royal wedding, you won't have the Police to deal with but a very angry public wanting to give you a righteous good hiding.

This might be news to you Laurie but you represent a gobby minority who we are all thoroughly sick to the back teeth with.

You spout nothing but ideals but when you want a gopher you can't pay a living wage.

That makes you a big fat hypocrite.

Sat, 2011-01-22 15:13 — mike lewis (not verified)

...and anyway, I don't think for a moment that she's gonna read anything I write then shrivel up in embarrassment and retire.

However, if she's called on it every time she's goes over the top, every time she overdoes the purple in her prose, stretches an analogy too far, 'reinvents' her past just a little too imaginatively or pulls a logical distortion past the elastic limit, then she might eventually take note...and become a better writer and more considered commentator in the process. Lacking the average person's facility of self-awareness, she should perhaps take note of others' opinions.

I'm doing her a favour. I expect no thanks.

Sat, 2011-01-22 15:37 — Sean Fear (not verified)

Arise ye stavelings from your slumbers. We cannot rest until the last Capitalist has been strangled with the guts of the last Royal.

Fri, 2011-01-21 17:37 — Aliqot (not verified)

I remember attending an anti-wedding picnic when C married D. Perhaps there's a good market for anti-royalist memorabilia too. I'm not sure that strikes and marches are the way to go, unless they have overwhelming support from 'ordinary people'. The left needs a lot of imagination - we have to find a way to act without alienating the public.
But how?
Surely there are plenty of people in their sixties ( like me) and older, who will not just sit and go soggy with sentimentality at a fairytale wedding.

Sat, 2011-01-22 15:57 — J Rodolfo (not verified)

"This is the highest function of what Guy Debord called the society of the spectacle: not just to distract popular attention from the machinations of government, but artificially to invoke the imagery of a national consensus that doesn't exist. In David Cameron's Britain, respect for the popular mandate is in no way important. All that matters is the iconography of public ritual, just enough to make everybody shut up and shout hurrah."

I think you're being naïve to believe that one day this was not true regarding any nation. The entire concept of nation, national identity and citizenship is always already discursive, artificial and performative.

Fri, 2011-01-21 17:44 — matthew (not verified)

The Royal famiyy would appear to have a mandate (according to every opinion poll ever conducted) as much as we Republicans wish it wasn't so.

I hate the glorification of war that seems to go along with 11/11 but I wouldn't describe respecting war memorials as "baseless deference" I'd say it's more about realising that common people, workers, normal folk, die in these conflicts and that posh students should show more respect.

This article is weird - what big decision is being made at the wedding (except waity Katey and Will saying yes), what stand is being made exactly? You talk of democracy adn building movements but I don't think trying to disrupt the royal wedding will improve the lot of a single worker in this country.

Fri, 2011-01-21 19:08 — john (not verified)

this is one of the biggest load of fantasy driven nonsense i have read in a long time.

Sun, 2011-01-23 19:37 — Left Is Forward (not verified)

I think you'll find, Mike Thomas, that there will be a very angry public that wants to give Dave Cameron, Nick Clegg, their unconstitutional government, and our unelected royal family, a righteous good hiding.

All sympathy for the super-rich and the undemocratically powerful is being slashed away by the government's vicious cuts. The people are angry - seriously angry. Don't underestimate the mood on the streets.

Sat, 2011-01-22 17:18 — Al (not verified)

Woah. Mike Lewis spends a LOT of time thinking about Laurie Penny.

Sun, 2011-01-23 20:22 — mike lewis (not verified)

"I think you'll find, Mike Thomas, that there will be a very angry public that wants to give Dave Cameron, Nick Clegg, their unconstitutional government, and our unelected royal family, a righteous good hiding."

I hope you're right...but I sincerely doubt it. Of all the times I've been ashamed to be British (which have generally inspired by tinpot anti-democratic arseholes either displaying outrageous senses of entitlement, covering their backs or playing lapdog to the US)...the one which affected me most deeply was the public show of craven lunacy and pathetic communal 'grief' which accompanied the aftermath of Lady Di's death. More than anything it displayed the extent to which we've absorbed the truisms of therapy culture...truly stomach turning.

Looking back, and also upward at these comments, and sensing that Laurie Penny might soon be adopted as the Twitter generation's People's Princess, my only regret is that Henri Paul didn't pass on that last brandy and had kept his eyes on the fuckin road.

Sun, 2011-01-23 21:54 — ang (not verified)

Cameron wants roads to be closed off in order to celebrate with street parties for this marvellous couple and their family and many hangers on. WHY?
WHY should we be interested, why should we care, why are they relevant, why are they here, why are we paying for their existence, why are we paying for security at their wedding and WHY is Cameron insidting that we bow to these over-privileged fuckers, when he is screwing the rest of us?

Fri, 2011-01-21 18:04 — Des Demona (not verified)

Using the wedding as a rallying point for dissent will do nothing to further the cause and simply alienate those who don't really give a crap about the royals or the wedding but don't don't like being manipulated by either side (ie. most of us)
There IS such a thing as bad publicity.

Fri, 2011-01-21 18:32 — Luddite (not verified)

stop telling lies... sweetie..

Fri, 2011-01-28 00:59 — Royston Vasey

On Facebook there's the group 'Watch the Royal Wedding? I'd Rather Go Walking!' where you can post details of your House of Windsor free walks on Friday April 29th. Thanks for the Bank Holiday your royal highnesses but like many normal people given an extra day off (assuming I'm still in my public sector job) I'll be up a mountain well away from TV coverage of the irrelevant toff-fest and celebrity freakshow. Rather than bother with dissent lets just show disinterest. Has anyone calculated how many tax evaders will be inside Westminster Abbey on the big dsy?

Sun, 2011-01-23 22:02 — mike lewis (not verified)

"WHY should we be interested, why should we care, why are they relevant, why are they here, why are we paying for their existence, why are we paying for security at their wedding and WHY is Cameron insidting that we bow to these over-privileged fuckers, when he is screwing the rest of us?"

Fri, 2011-01-21 18:45 — Mel Davis (not verified)

Excuse me! I don't do 'spam'! Why are my comments being rejected?!

Fri, 2011-01-21 17:57 — ST (not verified)

Why do you want everyone to be as unhappy and angry as you are?

Fri, 2011-01-21 17:59 — Arturo Bandini (not verified)

A fantastic piece, Laurie.

Our being collectively disenfranchised by the centrists was frustrating but is now genuinely frightening.

Is there really anyone who didn't see this "arrangement" as anything but an attempted distraction from the real issues that affect this country?

We will pay for generations if the mendacious forces in government get their way, as you rightly say, without any form of electoral mandate.

Time to burn the Reichstag.

Sun, 2011-01-23 22:16 — mike lewis (not verified)

"WHY should we be interested, why should we care, why are they relevant, why are they here, why are we paying for their existence, why are we paying for security at their wedding and WHY is Cameron insisting that we bow to these over-privileged fuckers, when he is screwing the rest of us?"

I'm assuming the above question is is rhetorical?..if you really don't know...

What the hell do you know?

..but I'll give you a hint...to this last bit at least

"..and WHY is Cameron insisting that we bow to these over-privileged fuckers, when he is screwing the rest of us?"

a) cos he's an "over-privileged fucker"

b) cos that's the way he rolls

c) cos you need to know your place

d) just do as your told...you wouldn't possibly understand...you didn't go to public school, let alone Eton...so who are you to question your 'natural superiors'?

e) all of the above

f) Katie Price

Sun, 2011-01-23 22:17 — ang (not verified)

@mike lewis.
Great post?

Sat, 2011-01-22 19:45 — mike lewis (not verified)

What a very perceptive and insightful comment. Maybe there's a glorious career awaiting you as an agony columnist in Hello or as a glamorous but slightly sad and cliched pop-psychologist on daytime telly?

Sat, 2011-01-22 19:56 — Al (not verified)

He also uses a lot of big words in an attempt to sound smart

Tim Hardy: problem is, the monarchy thrives on exactly that absence of organised opposition--the assumption that it's not worth challenging because it's too "popular." I'll be demonstrating on April 27, not because I harbour any illusions regarding our chances of inspiring any significant shift in prevailing attitudes in this case, but because not registering my protest would be effectively condoning the façade of the monarchy's legitimacy.

Wed, 2011-01-26 12:25 — Tyler (not verified)

Silly little girl.

The royal wedding will generate significant business revenues. Taxes, remember? As will the olypmpics...which I believe the Labour government brought to this country at huge cost. Not sure how you read into these events that the coalition are trying to hide things behind them.

Of course, if the unions do try and disrupt them they'll be destroyed forever - seen for what they are - self interest groups. I kind of hope they do have a go...10bn for the olympics is cheap at the price for destroying any credible unionism.

Sat, 2011-01-22 20:00 — Left Is Forward (not verified)

The Royal Wedding is being undertaken at OUR expense, so they can only accept it if WE, the people, decide to protest against it.

The money spent on it could have saved lives in the NHS or created new life-chances in education. Instead it has been poured down the drain of patriotic narcissism. At a time when so many people are suffering, this is simply unacceptable.

This also presents one of the few opportunities we have to protest directly against the monarchy and show them what we really think. I hope that the demonstrations can be at least as powerful and awareness-raising as the student demos. There's certainly enough anger about, and no sympathy at all for the comfortably rich pseudo-middle class behaviour of those vile aristocrats and the latest royal-wannabe.

Sat, 2011-01-22 20:02 — Cas (not verified)

What a load of patronising bullshit most of these comments are. I thought this was an awesome article, and the personal attacks just highlight that. First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then they fight you... we know what comes next.

Fri, 2011-01-21 18:18 — Tanino (not verified)

"Universal health care, universal education, out-of-work benefits [...] are all directly threatened by this government."

Four utter and complete lies.

Universal healthcare is not being threatened at all, indeed the budget is going up.

Universal healthcare is not being threatened either, indeed imposed upon all not just to the age of 16 but 18.

Out of work benefits are not being touched, indeed they are rising in line with inflation.

Shame.

Fri, 2011-01-21 18:18 — Tanino (not verified)

Three lies I should say.

Sat, 2011-01-22 20:15 — mike lewis (not verified)

"He also uses a lot of big words in an attempt to sound smart"

How big?

...is this really the best you can do?

..and as for this...

"...but because not registering my protest would be effectively condoning the façade of the monarchy's legitimacy."

Just what kind of rationale led you to this little gem...have you considered the implications?..the infinite list of other things you must have 'condoned' over the years...even just today..the last 5 minutes even.. by not 'registering your protest'?

You and Ms Penny are clearly two peas in a pod...sanctimonious, self-righteous and cognitively challenged. I can see why my criticism of her got to you...seems you took it personally.

mind you, I suppose, in some ways, an attack on one self-righteous, self-regarding idiot is an attack on the very basis of "self-righteous, self-regarding idiocy"

Sat, 2011-01-22 20:21 — mike lewis (not verified)

"What a load of patronising bullshit most of these comments are. I thought this was an awesome article, and the personal attacks just highlight that."

are you for real? "awesome"? FFS!...what do you normally read?

Can you let me know what makes it awesome...the prose style..its originality...its 'insight'?

This isn't a comment blog..it's the Laurie Penny fan club...seriously..what makes it awesome?...what is she saying that other people aren't saying with more clarity, more stylistically...and avoiding the detours away from logic and into the realm of hyperbole and wishful thinking?

Fri, 2011-01-21 18:52 — mike lewis (not verified)

I'm really starting to wonder if a privately educated, Oxbridge graduate who seems to have manufactured a 'pseudo-prole' back-story full of squalor, deprivation and the mental anguish of a benefits existence...when it turns out that, all the time, she was living on a inheritance and earning a fair few bob from a few shrill and sensationalist blog pieces....is really the sort of 'voice of a generation' I've been looking for.

Especially since she seems to have appointed herself the 'voice of the oppressed' to boot. The oppressed are surely looking for much more in a voice than faux-empathy, tantrums and ill-considered rants delivered in whiny 8-year-old monotone? If she's the voice of anything, she's the voice of upper-middle-class entitlement to a seat at the self-referential liberal media smorgasbord.

In future Ms Penny, when the hyperbolic demon takes hold and you claim to speak for 'oppressed youth', please add...except Mike Lewis, who likes his 'voices' to be authentic.

Mon, 2011-01-24 00:35 — Robert Taggart

Alas, oneself be far too indolent to travel down to London to run-amok.
But, to those who do - all power to your elbows, fists, throwing arms... !

Sat, 2011-01-22 21:47 — Jim (not verified)

Penny,

Doesn't the popular mandate really quite like the Royals?

Mon, 2011-01-24 01:47 — Daniele1

Tim Avenell:
Pass me the sick bag: "..most people in this country ie those who are truly working class and read "the Sun" and "the Mail" support the royal family and are willing to share in the happiness of William and Kate"
Are you for real?Do you think that's cute?
So what you are saying is, and i agree with you there, that the British working class is made up of serfs.
mike Lewis, we actually agree, especially your rant about the education or rather the mis-education of working class children in this country, which is the biggest scandal of all. By dumbing down the education of the ordinary child, the establishment has been fooling them into thinking they were getting better and better educated, while feeding them with complete bullshit subjects of study leading nowhere and certainly not to University. So the rich continue to be properly educated ie. GCSE traditional subjects in THEIR schools and with that go on to take all the places in the best Universities while the rest remains ignorant and barely literate with no chance to ever improve their lot.Plus ca change...
as a result, the class system in this country is more rigid than ever. It is in fact, educational apartheid in this country which then carries on in the whole of society.
The (real) left has a big job to do to open the eyes of the working classes to make them reclaim their rights. At the moment they are asleep, dreaming of bloody royal weddings. It makes you weep.

Tue, 2011-01-25 13:12 — greg1011

I'm working class (honest guv), I don't read the current bun or the mail and I don't like privilege or the royal family but I can't get worked up about Laurie Penny I'm afraid.

I tend to focus on what the article says rather than who wrote it. The mainstream Media's tactics, using distraction to hide what is really going on in the world needs to be shouted from the roof tops as often as possible which is why enjoyed this article.

It would appear that most of you above haven't the first clue what it means to be working class - I love the comment about seeing the sun in the front of white vans - it's there for the footy and the tits my dear and it may come as a shock but not all of us even own a white van.

Sat, 2011-01-22 23:58 — south pacific

As an outsider I am always bewildered that you lot still fawn on the monarchy and have an unelected upper house in parliament.

You tell the world you are the cradle of modern democracy but your head of state and your upper house are institutions of a distant past.

You people complain about that the monarchy costs a lot of money but you do nothing about it.

Your politicians strut around the world stage as if thee still represent an empire.

The reality is you are a small country with a small population with old and quaint institutions.

You cling to the US like a drowning sailor to stay alive.

Watching a royal wedding on TV, you must be kidding. Watching grass grow is more exciting.

As I said that is what it looks like from the outside looking in. A bit like visiting a museum.

Fri, 2011-01-21 20:13 — John P Reid (not verified)

Excellent More police overtime, with the Cuts this'll make up for it.
CAn I take it if Ed Miliband disagrees with you laurie ,that you might not renew your labour mebership. Lets hope Sunny Huindal does the same.

Sun, 2011-01-23 00:14 — Liam (not verified)

Trying to push aside the affront of an idiot swinging from the Cenotaph is such a hideously blasé fahion totally negates your already spurious "argument"

Sun, 2011-01-23 00:16 — Richard P (not verified)

"Over the next two and a half years, a full calendar of bread and circuses has been scheduled..."

How cunning of the queen to plan her marriage 60 years ago so as to be able to use it as a distraction today...

This is freaking bonkers.

Mon, 2011-01-24 09:23 — Mike Thomas (not verified)

I think you'll find, Mike Thomas, that there will be a very angry public that wants to give Dave Cameron, Nick Clegg, their unconstitutional government

1. The government is constitutional. Learn our constitution.

As for the rest of your 'eat the rich' and Republican gibberish. Rather that than another politican as head of state.

Fri, 2011-01-21 20:23 — stevem1

This the best comment I have read on the forthcoming event. Its about time we got rid of these hyper priviledged leaches.

Sun, 2011-01-23 00:22 — mike lewis (not verified)

"As an outsider I am always bewildered that you lot still fawn on the monarchy and have an unelected upper house in parliament."

No "we" don't...even those of "us" who do tend to view them as largely fictional...an especially overblown soap-opera, with none too talented or imaginative writers (a species that some on this blog do, indeed fawn over). They are rarely accorded any degree of respect of deference, whatever the author of this piece might think...then again she's hardly in touch with the average person's opinion, having benefited from a rather privileged and elitist upbringing and education...although she seeks now to position herself as the perennial outsider...any deference is far more likely to manifest itself far from these shores..especially within the confines of your own.