The credulity of the Sheeple

[Peter Presland]

I feel sure he will find a constituency in which to sustain his banalities. He is just perfect for Parliament; infantile, closed mind, boorish and possessing a truly inherent idiocy.

Fortunately Peter, there are many others out there who see the real picture - or at least glimpse its lumbering foul mass in the twilight - that the days of this sort of brainless nincompoop are numbered.

Well I certainly hope you are right David, but I won't hold my breath. Thing is, I was not a million miles away from similar boorish attitudes and beliefs myself back in the late 70's/early 80's - to the point of being on the CP candidates list too.

It's the psychology of these things that fascinates me. I don't think I was any more blameworthy than the average thrusting young wannabe - at the time. I found I was quite good at public speaking/haranguing a crowd and assorted other nascent abilities essential to an aspiring politico. I was ambitious; I instinctively 'KNEW' the party line on the so-called major issues and reserved any display of unorthodoxy for the safe margins of policy - all the usual stuff. I even came within a whisker of selection for a safe seat (Cannock and Burntwood 1983 which Gerald Howarth went on to win) but withdrew at the last minute because of a dawning realisation of just what election to Parliament would mean for someone who spent every summer with family in the border area of South Fermanagh through much of 'The Troubles'. So I tried to get rich instead - and still no serious questioning of the bona-fides of our wonderful 'mother of parliaments' democracy.

The journey to my present relatively enlightened state has been a strange one - and I don't claim any particular credit for it either. It was a combination of many things but probably the strongest was up-close witnessing and being on the receiving end, of serious - and I mean serious - out-of-control police brutality during the Hunting Campaign. Strange thing is it doesn't seem to have had a similar effect on many of my colleagues from that period. Most are genuinely nice people but I am slowly becoming persona-non-grata among them because I bloody-well refuse to keep my big mouth shut. The reaction is embarrassed silence and my card is marked accordingly.