£1.377 Trillion.

That’s our national debt.

Churchill wasn’t talking about banks, was he? He wasn’t talking about men who brought this country to its knees. He was talking about men who’d rather die to prevent it.

What would they think, The Few, if they knew the future they fought for had come to this:

a nation enslaved not to Fascism, but to unfettered Free Market Capitalism?

Weren’t they fighting for Democracy?

And remember those Reds under the bed? Turns out it was the Blues in the bank.

One Point Three Seven Seven Trillion Pounds. 91% of GDP. £43 Billion in interest per year, roughly our defence budget.

Imagine a million quid in a pile. Multiply that by a million piles and you only have a Trillion quid.

For a long time we’ve known in our guts that the Great and the Good are not that great and not much good, but we never really knew, did we? There was no proof.

Well, now we have all the proof:

Everywhere we look trust has been abused.

And let’s not forget the police and other public officials. Or the newspapers, which are supposed to “keep the bastards honest”, not slip them bungs for salacious gossip.

Of course, despite the evidence, they’re not too worried, are they, The Great and the Good?

What are we going to do about it? What can we do about it? It’s all sewn up.

Parliament is the ultimate arena, the price of admission set at First Prize in a local popularity contest (all legally rigged, of course). Once the winners take their seats, MP’s may vote as they wish. They may follow their conscience. Or not. If they have any ambition they’ll toe the Party line and pray for a ministerial position. That’s when politics starts to pay.

So lets just stop expecting our elected leaders to look out for us, shall we? They couldn’t care less what we might think or feel at anytime except when an election looms. Did a million people on the streets of London stop the Iraq War? Did Brian Haw? That bloke died protesting.

If we want Parliament to act in the best interests of all, we’re going to have to do it ourselves, and 

the mechanism for peaceful revolution has been staring us in the face for generations: Democracy.

It wasn’t handed to us on a plate; it’s a right our ancestors fought hundreds of years to get. And it’s not God-given either: it has only existed for about three hundred of the last ten thousand years.

The modern version has been with us for less than a century.

So, we don’t have to take up arms. No one will be killed. There will be no executions. All we have to do is line up in an orderly manner, and vote. If you carry on voting the way you have - or not voting at all - the status quo will remain more or less as is: the rich will continue to exploit the poor, rich countries will carry on treating war as an offshore business, politicians will carry on representing their own best interests, and more and more life on this precious planet will suffer.

But there is hope: thirty to forty percent of the electorate in this country don’t vote. If we can tap that vote, we’re players. If we tap them all, we’re the Government!

So join the party! Or start your own. We don’t have to accept the current dichotomy of power rocking back and forth between the left and right wings of the same deranged bird. We owe it to ourselves - and those who did the actual fighting - to wrestle power back to the people. Back to the children of those who battled so hard to get it in the first place.

If you don’t have the bottle to do it for yourself, think of your kids. Think of their kids. If we carry on the same trajectory we’re on, they’re likely to find themselves  back in the time of the Brontes, which is all very well if you’re rich, but not if you’re not. It’ll get bad enough for us: it’ll be unbearable for them.

And if you think it’s a pain in the arse to get off your arse and wander down to cast your vote, think what a drag it’s going to be for me. Think Daniel in a snake pit: the more I’m on the money, the more opprobrium I’ll attract, and it ain’t gonna be pretty.

Remember what Ghandi said:        First they ignore you.

                                                          Then they laugh at you.

                                                          Then they fight you.

                                                          Then you win.

But I can’t do it alone. I need people like you to stand in every electorate across the country.

“THE GREAT AND

THE GOOD

  ARE NOT THAT GREAT

  AND NOT MUCH GOOD.”

                                                   HOI POLLOI   

Keep calm and vote for the Revolution.

This is our war.