The cashier chewed gum with the slow, meditative rhythm of a cow mulling over its own failures. Bored, I stood there patiently, because misery, much like Wi-Fi, works best when you’re stationary. She didn’t want to be here, I didn’t want to be here, neither really even knew what here was, and given up on dreaming where it is we’d rather be.
Sometimes, it doesn’t just feel like my life is falling apart – it feels like it’s politely collapsing in another room, so I can hear it, but not have to intervene, almost like it’s somebody else’s problem.
“I keep losing my train of thought” he said.
“Maybe stop boarding it” she said.
Britain’s working-class, flock together like pigeons in Trafalgar Square, pecking at the stale crumbs scattered by statues of forgotten generals whose names are known only to bronze plaques and crossword enthusiasts. Above them, the rich lean from their balconies, tossing just enough scraps to keep the birds from flying away. And so, each election, punctual as the hangman’s shadow at noon, the pigeons waddle obediently toward the ballot box to choose whichever suitor promised the fattest crust from the bread that taken from the pigeon’s own pocket.
In the grand theatre of modern democracy, the media plays the role of both narrator and stage manager, except the script is ghostwritten by billionaires and the audience has less influence than a vegan at a steakhouse. Ownership of major news outlets have quietly consolidated into the hands of a few ultra-wealthy individuals, whose interests align with the working-class about as well as a hedgehog aligns with a balloon animal.
Persuading workers to ditch unions is done with the subtlety of a fox flogging henhouse insurance, while the public is kept simmering in a stew of curated outrage, nudged to vote on personality over policy, fear over fact. Headlines scream about culture wars while economic exploitation hides in the footnotes like a tax-dodging ferret in a hedge fund manager’s sock drawer.
Flags, statues, immigration “crises.” It’s like throwing a dog a squeaky toy while you rob the butchers. The Americans perfected this – arguing over toilet signs while their pensions disappeared into the sunset.
The trick isn’t to tell people what to think, it’s to tell them what to think about. Keep the spotlight fixed on wedge issues, scandal, and spectacle, and the structural forces grinding wages down and pricing homes into the stratosphere can slip away quietly, like butter melting into warm toast.
So when election season rolls around, the working class is left choosing between two brands of the same cereal, one slightly saltier than the other, but the other with a free toy, while the owners of the media dine on steak and strategy, having already won the real vote: the one that decides what gets talked about in the first place. It’s democracy, yes, but only in the same way that a pantomime horse is technically a mammal.
Time, in Britain, doesn’t march – it limps. It drags its feet through council estates and forgotten mining towns, wearing boots made of nostalgia and soles worn thin by austerity. Individually, working-class people are no fools. But collectively, they can be as trusting as a labrador with two brain cells fighting over third place. The rich don’t need to force them to vote against their interests, they own the theatre, the script, the actors, the lighting, and the applause machine. When the curtain rises, the audience claps for the very robbery that emptied their pockets.
:: REFERENCES ::
- UK Media Ownership & Funding – RandomBoo
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