Category Archives: History

With the recent revelations of the horrible corruption of USAID, a number of “awakened” commentators, broadly supportive of the Trump revolution, have lined up to express caution lest the president’s own team dismantle Deep State evils only to construct their own. This is a sign of political health – if from the start one’s supporters are critical friends rather than starry-eyed worshippers, then the checks and balances of a political entity are operating.

There’s a good deal of optimism amongst “conservatives” (a euphemism for “Far Right Thugs” to Mr Starmer, of course) about the breakneck speed of the turnaround under Donald Trump. I share it, and yet I wonder why I still seem to feel these are “bad times” rather than “good times,” and still less the start of a “Golden Age” as per the President’s inaugural rhetoric.

It’s strange how, as so many of us have noted, society seems to be divided into at least a couple of quite distinct and watertight realities. One is that fed to us by the mainstream media, and the other by alternative sources of one kind or another, seemingly with few connections between them.

A former medical colleague was urging me recently to lobby my MP to vote against the Assisted Dying Bill. I’ve done my share of ethical lobbying in the past, even on the same subject, contributing to a series of parliamentary consultations as well as twisting the arm of my representative in the Commons. But I think my friend, like so many well-meaning people, has insufficiently realised how Parliament has, especially since the Blair government, changed from being the place where the common people’s views are represented, to the place where they are kept under control by the illusion of representation.