Vive la France!

"Guilluy says France is no longer just looking at an economic or a social crisis, but a democratic one"

Parallels with the Brexit vote except, in the classic Anglo way, those who are really to blame have successfully shifted the ire onto a substitute: the EU. All treaties require parties to sign up to rules, which then have to be enforced. A hidden organisation of functionaries manages the day to day operation. The treaty (or "deal" as we've been manipulated into calling it) requires compromise on all sides (that's right: you can't walk into a room full of people and demand everything you want. Even if you "stand up to them"). The next "deal" (treaty) and the next will be the same. We don't have a giant navy to harass the world with anymore. Two big carriers we can't afford don't count.

Anyway. I digress.

The yellow/green vests are another symbol of frustration with the winner takes all system we've been sold for 30 odd years. To a large extent, the winners were already on the podium before the game began. They've been joined by a few of the ruthless and the cunning, but they still number about 1%. It's a system that was brought to maturity in the UK by a (New) Labour government.

The 1% rest comfortably on a nest of affluent independently-educated accountants and MBAs, whose steel and glass towers now dominate the skylines of our cities in the same way they dominate our politicians and our public services. Privatisation as a political cure-all has provided an affluent livelihood for this class of people and fuelled the emergence of their towers from what were human-scale environments with real jobs. It provided career opportunities for a wealthy middle-class whose traditional resting place in army, church, diplomatic corps or as invited captains of an industry trashed by two world wars in succession was shrinking like the polar ice caps. How did we pay for all that? Efficiencies.

One person's efficiency is another person's misery.

But how is this sustainable in a liberal democracy?

Because liberal democracy is like a stage: we only get in the auditorium when all the messy rehearsals are over and the deals have been done; on the rare occasions the proprietors open the doors. We are so entranced by the performances that we stop noticing that the scenery wobbles and is incomplete, we forget there are highly skilled technicians pulling strings out of sight in the wings. We let hope transcend reality. We do this during every performance, then spend the rest of the time out in the dark and cold of real life, quickly forgetting the whole fantasy.

Well, it seems people are beginning to remember what the performers promised and question why they allowed themselves to be carried along.

Vive la France!

Brexit? Who will you blame next?