Sheffield Cathedral, Barclays, HSBC

[Staunton]

Some people are clearly not interested, but we all have an interest, and that interest is not being defended by those elected to govern. We have a prime minister who is clearly inadequate to the task and an opposition leader who seems incapable of opposing.

 

Today the UK is in crisis. Law and order has broken down, the police depleted beyond the capacity to function, the courts failing, probation and preventative services hollowed out, privatised and wholly inadequate to the demands of their remits, the prisons in chaos. Schools and hospitals are struggling on as best they can thanks alone to the selfless work of their dedicated staff, even as the privatisers and profit-seekers circle. Council functions are now in the hands of private interests, that is why tree-felling came before the basic needs of people with care needs or disabilities. Students face decades of debt, our children cannot hope to buy a house, we have delivered the young into the hands of the loan-mongers and landlords.

 

Occupy saw these forces looming and sought to draw our attention to the criminal and corrupt practices of the CEOs and politicians as revealed in the financial scandal of 2007/8 and the public-funded bailouts that followed.

 

Unfortunately we didn't listen, and it's taken Cameron's hopelessly miscalculated EU referendum to shine some light on the inadequate, grasping, venal character of the government. But too late. The hard right is preparing to clean up. And if we pause to consider the character of individuals such as Rees Mogg, Farage and Francois we are unlikely to discern any compassion, we shall detect no concern for the vulnerable, the poor, the sick or the low-paid worker except, of course, as scapegoats.

Edited April 8, 2019 by Staunton