'LITTLE EMPERORS'

WHENEVER DEMONSTRATIONS ON THE CONTINENT turn nasty, the police introduce water cannon, tear gas, rubber bullets, and, in extremis, stun grenades to break up the anarchy: the same police are also known for wielding their batons robustly and indiscriminately. They do so in order to defend themselves and their comrades from injury. The public on the continent understand this and even the demonstrators know what to expect from the authorities when their behaviour gets out of hand. They do not go running home to the suburbs to complain of  the police’s ‘disproportionate response’ to their behaviour.

            In this country it is different as we saw last Thursday when the sons and daughters of the bourgeoisie took to the streets of London to complain of university fees. Whatever the rights and wrongs of the issue, what will be remembered from the events that took place was the behaviour of the demonstrators.

            The Metropolitan Police, by comparison with their colleagues on the continent, showed great restraint . The Met tried to accommodate the demonstrators by liaising with the NSU organisers in order to secure a safe route  along which the march could take place. We now know that many of the marchers broke away hell bent upon provocation and violence.

            How many actually took part in the violence that was to follow is an interesting feature of what occurred. Those reporting the events for the media insisted that the provocateurs were a ‘minority of anarchists’ hell bent on trouble.

            But for those of us who were sitting at home watching the unfolding drama, such a comment was in direct contradiction to what we were seeing on our television screens.

            It is true that those attacking the police had their faces covered, but there were many others taunting the police and even more applauding such behaviour. If they were a minority then they were a minority whose numbers reached the thousands.

            It was not just a minority of ‘outsiders’ causing the violence, but many of the spawn of Middle England; which is no doubt why the Daily Mail in particular  used the ‘minority of anarchists’ theme when reporting the violence.

MANY OF THOSE working in the media attended university and no doubt have children attending, or are about to attend university.  It is from such a source that we were given our information regarding  the events surrounding the demonstration.

            The response to the students was commensurate with their pattern of behaviour. It was reported, for instance, that snooker and golf balls were thrown at the police. Such missiles cannot be picked up off the street – they have to be brought to the event with the sole purpose of causing injury to the police. Yet even when faced with such premeditated violence, the police acted with far greater restraint than their colleagues on the continent.

            Instead of water cannon and tear gas, the Met used a tactic known as ‘ketteling’; which is mean to confine the protesters within a given area until they have calmed down sufficiently to be allowed  to leave gradually in small numbers. This is what happened last Thursday when  the police, to prevent students going on the rampage in other areas of the city, set about ketteling the protesters.

            Of all the methods used for controlling out of control demonstrators, ketteling must be among the least violent forms of managing crowds used by any police force anywhere in the world.

            For these ‘Little Emperors’ to pretend that they had been attacked by a ruthless Gestapo and brutally attended to, may fit in with those preconceived prejudices of the Left regarding the police, but the reality of last Thursday’s events were observed by millions of people who let their eyes inform them of the reality; and that reality did little for the reputation of our higher educated.

THE HEIR TO THE THRONE AT THE COURT OF SEPP BLATTER

MOST INTERNATIONAL BODIES are more or less corrupt. Whether it is the United Nations, the European Union, or the IOC and FIFA; the greater the level of an organisation’s unaccountability to the public, the more their members will be tempted by the possibility of a first class carriage on the gravy train.

            Today the second in line to the throne, as well as our prime minister will both go crawling, cap in hand, to one such body – FIFA. They will be pleading on behalf of the FA for the 2018 World Cup to be staged in the UK; and such is the overwhelming hunger for such an event to be staged on our shores, that our future head of state and his prime minister are not only fully prepared to ignore the corrupt behaviour within this organisation, but also to condemn as ‘unpatriotic’ the BBC’s decision to show last night’s Panorama programme that sought to expose FIFA’s fraudulent practices.

            It is a somewhat strange form of patriotism that  allows itself to cohabit with such a body as FIFA, while condemning those who wish to expose its dishonesty in the national interest.

            I am no friend of the BBC but it was right to show this programme when it did; and if our Great and Good wish to tarnish themselves and the office they hold by ignoring the scandal, and actively negotiate with such an organisation, then they should forfeit whatever public deference they may command.

           

THE UK should never have bid for the event in the first place knowing the kind of people they would be dealing with. FIFA’s president, Sepp Blatter, knows how addicted to the game are its millions of supporters; and as such he is all too aware of the power he wields over their governments when it comes to the World Cup. He sits Buddha-like orchestrating the bids and forcing governments to change their country’s laws to suit FIFA’s requirements.

            It is surely a sign of decline into irrelevance when a country is willing to send, as part of its delegation, its prime minister to help negotiate, not with another government, but with the heads of a sporting body. Both FIFA and the IOC have become over powerful . They should have no more influence over politicians and princes than does the British Tiddlywinks Association. By pandering to such sporting bodies our politicians have devalued their office and elevated Mr Blatter’s.

            No matter how popular it is, football is a sport and should be treated as such. It is now, sadly, common practice for our political leaders to involve their office, for populist reasons,  in the sporting world.

            It began, I believe, with Harold Wilson in 1966 when we won the World Cup. It was Wilson who began the political association with sport and sports people and it has flourished ever since. Today we even have a sports minister interfering in what should be  left to the various sporting organisations to oversee .

            Because all sport is popular our politicians want a piece of the action and are prepared to demean their office in pursuit of it. They are like Roman emperors courting popularity through the provision of the circus. Today’s rulers however, have turned themselves into Mr Blatter’s courtiers, hoping to receive the nod that will see them return in triumph to these shores.

            As with the decline of the Roman Empire, superficiality has been elevated above all else in the Western  society; thus we have had the rise of celebrity, football, and a particular favourite  in this country, the rise of the chef. Where once we admired heroes who did great things on our country’s behalf, we are now inundated with countless food programmes which have given us the celebrity chef to fawn and fret over.

            The picture presented to us, is one of decadence and decline. Our leaders pay homage to the trivial because to do so means clinging on to power. To be popular one must profess affection for and knowledge of  all kinds of populist  culture.  Today, it is more important for a leader of this country to read Hello magazine than it is to have read Dickens or Trollop; or , for that matter, to have had a solid grounding in their country’s history.

            For our prime minister and heir to the throne to supinely approach a corrupt sporting organisation and plead before its governing body for a sporting competition to take place on UK soil is humiliating to people he represents.

            If leaders of other countries think so little of the offices they hold that they feel comfortable dealing with such people, then so be it. But for our leaders to ingratiate themselves with the FIFA family only reduces further their own reputations among the British people.