Jones establishment comments

Over the past few weeks I’ve dipped into the Owen Jones ‘The Establishment’ here and there. Although I have read a good portion of the book now, I feel his introduction (written in the lead up to the General Election) is an excellent starting point for my research. I will begin breaking portions of it here: “What is now seen as completely extreme would become fringe, and then radical, and then controversial, and then common sense. We live in a time of Establishment triumphalism, when other ways of running society are portrayed as unthinkable. That triumphalism must be chipped away if we are to build a different sort of society.”

Here Owen Jones discusses how opposing views are often seen as extreme due to their different nature. They are portrayed as completely radical because they oppose the narrative the establishment wants us to follow.

Examples of this can be found in Jeremy Corbyn’s election campaign for Labour Leadership. Corbyn, a strong left wing candidate is seen as extreme because his views aren’t as centre ground as the Establishment would like. Papers such as the Daily Mail and The Sun frequently reported on Corbyn’s policies throughout the summer of 2015, making him out to be a communist.

His policies and comments, whilst not actually that extreme are portrayed as so in an attempt to destabilise the Labour agenda and for it back into the centre ground (thus giving the Conservative government a less extreme position themselves). http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3207363/Prime-MinisterCorbyn-1-000-days-destroyed-Britain-brilliant-imagining-Corbyn-premiershipreveals-Tories-gloat-Labour-s-woe-careful-wish-for.html 24th August 2015 “The Conservatives are the most natural, devoted political representatives of the of the Establishment. In the past five years, the Conservative-led government has further shifted British society into the Establishment’s favoured direction: slashing taxes on the rich and big business, privatising and cutting public services, rolling back the welfare state, curtailing workers’ rights, and so on.” - THE ESTABLISHMENT In a time of austerity, why is it that the rich are rewarded, whilst the poor are attacked? Jones here touches upon the Conservative agenda - to keep the rich in power.

“The Conservatives have seized upon the economic consequences of the financial crisis as a means to push policies they always desired but did not think possible in normal circumstances. A return to power for the Conservatives in May 2015 would not only mean more of the same, shovelling more wealth and power towards the already wealthy and powerful, to the detriment of working people. It would also serve to move the Overton Window even further in the direction of the Establishment; a second Conservative-led government

could more easily be spun as a vindication of pro-Establishment policies. Labour would have lost because it it deviated too far from the Establishment mantras or so runs the narrative that would be woven within hours of the election result…” “…Labour lost, they will say, because it did not sufficiently embrace proEstablishment doctrines: cuts, privatisation, deregulated free markets and lower taxes for the rich” - THE ESTABLISHMENT It must be remembered that the Conservative government won by just a narrow margin of 12 seats. 36.9% of people voted for the Conservatives, meaning 63.1% of people did not. This is over half of the country that doesn’t support the current government, but this will be ignored and forgotten about by the Conservatives who will claim that their way is what the country wants. http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/election/2015/results 25th August