‘All protest is resistance to authority’
During the last government, the Labour Party liked to crow about all the things it “delivered”. No-one remembers what any of those things were. The Labour Party probably doesn’t remember now either. But plenty of people will now remember how, after demonising social welfare recipients, after promoting schemes to undermine paid labour, and after boasting about how the Troika had crushed attempts at a political alternative in Europe, they “delivered” show trials and criminal convictions for children protesting their rule.
This is what ‘making the centre hold’ boils down to these days: preserving the sanctity of the State and its dignitaries, and their basic right to do whatever the hell they see fit -because they’re the ones in charge- by going after children. And they cloak it in the language of upholding ‘public morality’, according to which it is perfectly moral to socialise private banking debt, slash spending in health, education and social services, and operate a tax haven for multinationals. Sure isn’t it all legal?
By contrast, the way they see it, if anyone’s at fault, if anyone’s acting immorally, it’s kids who lift their heads and refuse to go along meekly with the prospect of being robbed of a future.
