Daily Times

Resolutely sat she, London. Steeling herself for an imminent stoning-and-dethroning as those wanting to be anarchy made their stealthy advance. Un-vanquishable in number they may have appeared. Initially. But these, she knew, were no children of a wiser day preparing to rise like lions after slumber to Liberty unshackle.

Death in the apocalypse was not their promise. The holy trinity of God, King and Law, not their target. Idolaters of another creed were they. Looking to the edge of the world before taking out their mats and praying to the West, where the sun is said to settle in its final location. Much easier to prostrate themselves than to light the fuse of rebellion that might just prompt their tearing down of the House of Commons. In brand new shoes.

These, after all, were the children of the centre-left revolution. And they absolutely could not be fooled.

Challengers to the economic legacy of the man in borrowed robes – that totalitarian-warmongeringliberal, that witch who was Blair – with its talk of socio-democratic and just capitalism, they were not. The yellow brick road of the Third Way, they knew, offered the shortest of cut to a brave new world. Where a shopping scheme happily comprised the sum total of their future dream. Where capitalist theft – that term of revolt manufactured since all markets were free, right? – had the potential to render the United Kingdom just another council tenancy. Where consumerism’s battle lines pitted the chavs against the chav-nots. And where political correctness could be bought off with a single boo to Nanny.

The writer is the Deputy Managing Editor, Daily Times. She can be reached at mirandahusain@me.com and tweets @humeiwei

Published in Daily Times, August 23^rd 2017.