Scared now, because only John Major can save the UK.

Only John Major stands between us and a Pinochet-style coup.

What have I been smoking?  BBC Radio 4 news, is what(1).  The slide towards living in a totalitarian state is a long, slippery and mostly ‘gentle’ one.  The always-slender civil liberties we have (and fwiw, imma rejoin Liberty), are under attack.   I won’t bore you with other manifestations, but one principle of liberal democracies(2) like the UK’s is that serving officers in the military do one simple thing:  they shut the fuck up about party politics.

The head the defence staff, Gen Sir Nicholas Houghton has chosen to ignore this.  Jeremy Corbyn has done the right thing (3) saying that he “would gently say to him, with the greatest of respect,we live in a democracy where politicians are elected to Parliament in order to take political decisions.”

Will David Cameron, that noted small-c conservative, come out swinging for this crucial point of Constitutional principle?  You know the answer.

Who else could, with any effect?  David Davis MP might (we’ll see).  But so what, he’s a “cranky back bencher”.  Other actual conservatives (small state anyone?  military in their place, anyone?) might, but in terms of Establishment Figures, barring Brenda, the only people who could turn this issue into a “woah, what is HAPPENING to us?” moment is a former Prime Minister. There are only three.  Blair, who should be at The Hague, Brown, who is clearly bonkers, and…. John Major.  Younger readers may not have heard of him, but he was Prime Minister from 1990 to 1997.

Will he speak up, and continue speaking up until the BBC can’t ignore him?

I’m scared now….

If you haven’t watched it yet, I strongly recommend “A Very British Coup“, both the book by Chris Mullin and then the 1988 TV mini-series (I can’t speak for the remake).

Footnotes

(1) The 6pm news leads with it, and it is BEAUTIFULLY framed as a piece of very subtle propaganda, with Corbyn becoming “embroiled”  only “hours after attending Remembrance Sunday” commemorations.  So they manage to get Mr Bean and hypocrite smears into one sentence.  If anyone wants an example of how to smear and look ‘above it all’, that broadcast, based on this report, is the way forward.

(2)  Yeah, House of Lords, monarchy, etc etc etc. I know.

(3) I am not a member of the Labour Party. OR ANY OTHER PARTY. Never have been.