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Neal Ascherson: Death of the British project – my life in three demonstrations of public outrage
"I HIT bottom. But then I heard somebody tapping from underneath." It’s a Polish saying. But it’s immigrated to Britain. Each time, you think there’s nothing worse they can do. And each time another even grosser blunder arrives to splinter away more of the world’s diminishing respect for the United Kingdom. And here once more comes the English political elite, treating their subjects as credulous peasants, and getting away with it.
Can something even more humiliating than absurd Brexit and its dishonoured referendum be waiting round the corner for its cue? Surely there’s no further to fall, after Tory ministers threaten to use nearly two million foreigners living in Britain as diplomatic hostages? Just listen for the tapping underneath.
I remember the sound of three mighty London demonstrations against misrule, separated by a tract of 60 years. First memory is the battering of hooves and the screams of women, drowning the chants of "Law, not War". That was the Suez protest in November 1956. That was the end of political virginity for my generation. We had never imagined that a British government could commit criminal, illegal aggression in a secret conspiracy with France and Israel to invade Egypt, overthrow its regime and return the Suez Canal to private shareholders. We did not know, until then, that "our" police could slash batons across the faces of young girls, and drag them across the pavement by the hair.
An innocence died. So did a hank of the nerves which had told the British public to obey orders and – with mild scepticism – to trust those who gave the orders. But the Establishment (which wasn’t yet called that) was surprised and vexed at the fuss.
http://www.heraldscotland.com/opinion/14609459.Neil_Ascherson__Death_of_the_British_project_____my_life_in_three_demonstrations_of_public_outrage/?ref=twtrec
Can something even more humiliating than absurd Brexit and its dishonoured referendum be waiting round the corner for its cue? Surely there’s no further to fall, after Tory ministers threaten to use nearly two million foreigners living in Britain as diplomatic hostages? Just listen for the tapping underneath.
I remember the sound of three mighty London demonstrations against misrule, separated by a tract of 60 years. First memory is the battering of hooves and the screams of women, drowning the chants of "Law, not War". That was the Suez protest in November 1956. That was the end of political virginity for my generation. We had never imagined that a British government could commit criminal, illegal aggression in a secret conspiracy with France and Israel to invade Egypt, overthrow its regime and return the Suez Canal to private shareholders. We did not know, until then, that "our" police could slash batons across the faces of young girls, and drag them across the pavement by the hair.
An innocence died. So did a hank of the nerves which had told the British public to obey orders and – with mild scepticism – to trust those who gave the orders. But the Establishment (which wasn’t yet called that) was surprised and vexed at the fuss.
http://www.heraldscotland.com/opinion/14609459.Neil_Ascherson__Death_of_the_British_project_____my_life_in_three_demonstrations_of_public_outrage/?ref=twtrec
