Two Tier Kier and a history of riot

(This is based on some words I wrote for a sister blog back in 2020 and at the height of the Black Lives Matter protests; whatever the rights and wrongs of those protests, you may remember that Sir Kier Starmer famously took the knee in support of the protesters.)

Two tier Kier

Avoiding The Victim Mentality

We undoubtedly have a good history of protest and riot in England. Perhaps not on the scale and with the same passion as the French but still with the ability to shake society to its core.

My recent reading, “The Mirror and the Light” by Hilary Mantel and “Tombland” by CJ Samson, has taught me many things but one thing that struck me in both books was this tendency for the English people to regularly protest and rebel.

While I had some awareness of the Tollpuddle Martyrs and the Peterloo Massacre, the Civil War spoke for itself and I’d lived through the Poll Tax riots but things like uprisings in Cornwall and Norwich were new to me as was the Pilgrimage of Grace in 1536. This latter uprising surprised me, not only because I’d always imagined the pilgrimage as some sort of royal walk about or meet and greet undertaken by Henry VIII with Thomas Cromwell but also because, having finally understood its true nature, of the way its leader was first received by the King only to be subsequently executed having been arrested on his way back to the North. 

Of course all of these protests and riots were triggered by different factors. However common themes are a deep sense of injustice, discrimination and poverty together with the fact that in the short term they all failed and their leaders suffered the appropriate justice of the day.

With such a history of injustice your average English man and woman might have a right to feel aggrieved. We’ve been overtaxed, under paid, under represented, driven of our land to make way for sheep, replaced by machinery, religiously persecuted, conscripted, pressed, deported to the colonies, expected to hammer the Scots, been hammered by the Scots, had heads cut off, hands cut off and suffered all manner of mistreatment and yet still manage to maintain a stiff upper lip and keep singing "God Save The Queen" with gusto.

Unlike other nations, and for whatever reason, we do not appear to be able to bear a long term grudge. We have made a decision, as good Englishmen and Women not to be victims. We remain determined to forgive, turn the other cheek, look for the positives in the situation, respect authority and recognise that the best man won this time.

This “I am not a victim” approach will not suit all but it is I believe at the heart of being British and underpins our British Values. We are encouraged to be a tolerant nation and tolerance is about accepting what you don’t agree with and not simply accepting those things that you do agree with.

Man of the people
But mainly boring

Diversity and Inclusion; the fallacy?

Tolerance is very much the philosophy at the heart of Diversity and Inclusion - a mindset that numerous bodies now espouse to. The idea behind diversity and inclusion is that this process is in some way synergistic; we improve our culture by opening it up to the influence of other cultures. But for me this philosophy could be potentially flawed as it assumes:

1. The original culture is in need of improvement
2. The influence of other cultures will in fact be to the benefit of the original culture

One example of this flaw in practice would be in the concept of a “snowflake generation” or “snowflake society” which is so contrary to the concept of “I will not allow myself to be a victim” I described earlier. At what point in our Diversity and Inclusion journey did we allow that to pass into our psyche?

Research has shown that there is link between profitability and diversity in the workplace. But as we know correlation is not evidence of causation.

‪Of course things like positive discrimination have tended to undermine the process so that you simply end up with another section of the workforce feeling excluded. 

In my experience, based on my experience in the woke EDF, industry will not accept the counter argument, that diversity isn’t wholly synergistic and might in fact be detrimental to your culture.

Why British Values Matter

We must not forget our values
©Harveywetdog

People would rather wallow in the misery of their perception of history than reflect on the benefits they have of being part of project Great Britain. If you believe you cannot progress in life because Britain was a great colonial power who invested in slavery, then you are never going to progress because Britain is always going to have been a great colonial power who invested in slavery.

In my travels around the world I have seen far worst deprivation in the townships of Nairobi and in the streets of Delhi than I’ve ever seen in England. In those countries it is usual for the mildly wealthy classes to live in gated enclaves complete with razor wire, patrolling dogs and security guards.

I do not believe people are flooding across the English Channel to deface statues of Winston Churchill and burn flags on the Cenotaph; they are coming to enjoy and benefit from the British Values that the statues and the sacrifice represents.

Ironically it is when they stop queuing up at Sangatte to cross the channel that we will know we have a problem.

My Starmer sound bites 2024

Let’s face it rioting and looting is wrong and cannot be accepted

BUT

We had rioting and looting during BLM and Starmer’s response was to take the knee in an act of appeasement. If he can’t see his hypocrisy now that people are protesting that WLM as well then we are truly lost

Hypocrisy

When you are PM but less than 1 in 5 people voted for you any heavy handed action you take can only drive further division in the country and putting your tough boy pants on on the BBC won’t change that

I think the mistake was to misunderstand the importance of the Rwanda plan as a visible talisman of a country prepared to take a stand. This is in addition to its deterrent value. Of course it was never the whole answer, but the sight of a plane of illegals heading back to wherever would have demonstrated that the situation wasn’t completely hopeless

Jam and Jerusalem! Attend a rural Women’s Institute sewing bee and ask them what they think.

You have to remember that 4 out of 5 people in this country did not vote for for SKS to be PM so achieving balance may be difficult

As Boris told us, Starmer is “a lawyer not a leader”. Faced with his first crisis he reverted to type and used his CPS contacts to come down hard on the perpetrators, which he could do because these largely law abiding individuals were not hiding behind aliases or lurking on the dark web.

Remember in his first speech as PM Starmer, playing the leader, promised to unite the country but in his first real test as PM he showed his true colours and acted to divide us.

I think it might have been the old Queen dying which was the point when the English realised all hope was lost. To think we lost Boris and the Queen in such a short space of time. The thought of a future with Weak woke and wet Charles and William has filled us all with despair.

The gladness that we take now is the gladness that our time is nearly up; how poignant, how true 😔

His government have shown a complete inability to negotiate in their dealings with the unions; how can we trust him to negotiate a "Brexit reset" with the Germans and French? We are Fncked!

On Starmer’s decision to axe winter fuel payments for pensioners - This was a deliberately targeted Machiavellian move by Starmer/Gray/Reeves designed to show intent, flush out malcontents within their back benchers (and test their mettle) while at the same time attempt to add credence to the alleged £22Bn Tory black hole (it must be true or we wouldn’t have had to take this drastic action).

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Harveywetdog/Author - David Robinson CEng FIET 

David spent approaching 50 years in Her Majesty's Electricity Supply Industry before retiring

He was part of the highly successful design team on the Sizewell B Nuclear Power Station Project before spending 25 years producing safety cases to keep our aging AGR fleet generating for the good of the nation

He is responsible for the Harveywetdog YouTube Channel which he maintains as an outlet for his creative talents

David is now in remission from blood cancer but refuses to be a victim

All views are now his own but might be influenced by the medication he's had to take