Poldark

Who would have thought that ‘Poldark’, the very well known, romantic drama series packed with incident, unlikely events and even more unlikely accents would be a starting point for a left-wing blog? Well, not me, until it was!

This is only because a person who really existed has appeared in the latest series. This person, Ned Despard, being a bit of a left leaning person, is, naturally in prison when we first meet him, the victim of an establishment stitch-up. There is nothing new under the sun.

Especially the Caribbean (the spot in question is now Belize) sun, it seems, where Ned offended people he referred to as ‘arbitrary aristocracy’ by defending the rights of a mixed bunch of indigenous Indians, freed slaves and others. The offence was caused because the ‘aristocrats’ had a nice little line in stealing land and logging going on and didn’t want to share the benefits. It mattered not at all to them that their possessions had been acquired illegally, after all they were business men and, importantly, white. Their lobbying of the government back home used the powerful – to some – argument that their profitable mahogany trade was being handed over to ‘a set of men of colour’. This went down well in London and, despite the lack of a colour bar in British law, as correctly argued by Despard, he was summoned back to London, eventually ending up in debtor’s prison, where we find him in ‘Poldark’.

Prior to his summoning back, Ned had been elected as the magistrate back in proto-Belize by a large majority on a massive turnout, but, hey, why bother with democracy when corruption is available?

Our hero was released after about 2 years but continued his establishment bothering activities and was the subject of 18th century surveillance by government spooks who had already adopted the practise of preparing reports in which ‘each word must be critically fumigated’ in order to get their man.

He was finally arrested in the company of dangerous labourers carrying documents promoting such unsavoury ideas as ‘An Equalisation of Civil, Political and Religious Rights’, tried and found guilty of treason by a screened jury. He was executed in 1803.

Apart from the execution bit (in the UK anyway at time of writing, but look out for a Brexit Party Britain) it’s fair to say how much things have not changed since the turn of the 18th century.

Corruption, lobbying of politicians by big business, racism at the highest levels of government, exploitation of other people’s lands and persecution of those opposing government are commonplace in today’s world.

It’s true that we in the UK have advanced to universal suffrage since 1800, via a few hiccups such as introducing legal racism back in proto-Belize after 1820, but for most of us it’s democracy in name only. We don’t need to look any further than the current election of a Tory Party leader and, by default the Prime Minister, to see that, the electorate being only about 0.5% of those entitled to vote in a General Election.

Only this morning (July 17th) a former head of anti-terrorism, Richard Walton, was allowed a space on Radio 4, decrying the environmental campaigners known as Extinction Rebellion as ‘anarchists with a smile’ and ‘wanting to destroy the government’. It wasn’t mentioned that he resigned his Met Police post rather than be investigated for his part in the spying on Stephen Lawrence’s family and the groups helping them, nor that he now works for, amongst other organisations, ‘Policy Exchange’ a think tank founded by 3 Tory MPs and one of the lowest rated UK think tanks in transparency of funding.

This is called propaganda, this man did not spontaneously turn up at the BBC and ask to speak to John Humphrys, he was places there by persons unknown but, given his connections, one might speculate ‘highly placed’ as one of many actions taken to subvert and keep down democracy.

His specific target in the item was one, Roger Hallam, an organic farmer and, to be fair, a long standing but by no means invisible activist. Appearances can be deceptive but Organic Roger doesn’t look multi-national backed to me.

BBC rules compel what they call ‘impartiality’ and the interview with an Extinction Rebellion spokesperson made a great job of showing up John Humphrys’ failings as an interviewer by not asking about Walton’s paymasters.

So, we have a modern-day group asking for the equivalent of ‘An Equalisation of Civil, Political and Religious Rights’ being traduced by those whose ‘each word must be critically fumigated’.

Real democracy being undermined by those who profess to protect another ‘democracy’.

— Bob, your uncle

Beauty contest: Richard Walton vs. Roger Hallam