The most important event in world history

What is history anyway? It's a human creation for sure, stories of happenings from our collective past. Given how old the Earth is our recorded history doesn't go back very far, a few tens of thousands of years, maybe a bit more. Most of the ancient stuff is due to discoveries by archeologists. One of the world's oldest human cultures, the aboriginals of Australia goes back about sixty thousand years, a matter of seconds in the long history of our planet.

But no matter, think yourself lucky because you may just have witnessed the most important event in world history - the funeral of Elizabeth II. Being 'interviewed' on Laura Kuennsberg's new show Sir Lindsay Hoyle, speaker of the HoC said:

"We should not let anything overshadow the most important event the world will ever see and that is the funeral of her majesty"

Wow! Where to start with that? Well, I guess it was predictable from a sycophantic groveller like Hoyle, who has been useless since he became commons speaker. And of course he was roundly mocked on social media - as he should have been.

So what was the most important event in history? Social media provided some contenders - the big bang, fall of the Berlin wall, the French revolution, Einsteins theory of relativity, VE day, the building of the pyramids - the list goes on. Take your pick but I would go with any of those before Lizzie's funeral.

In addition, the BBC had to tell us that vast numbers of Brits watched the funeral on telly. The figure for the average audience was 26.20 million according to Wikipedia. That's a fair bit lower than the 1966 World Cup final as you might expect (32.3) million. I'm not sure where the BBC got their figures from, but I know at least one episode of Eastenders has had a bigger audience - Den serving Angie with divorce papers (30.15 million) - and that was in a time when the UK population was a lot lower than it is now.

What was my most important telly moment? Watching the Moon landing live in 1969 with my Dad and a neighbour, who gatecrashed because he didn't have a TV. This is closely followed by the 1966 World Cup final and Manchester United winning the European Cup in 1968.

If the dinosaurs had been able to keep a record no doubt their most important event would be their demise due to an asteroid hitting the Earth 66 million years ago - the real life Don't Look Up. Thanks to climate emergency, and the failure of governments around the world to address it, maybe, one day soon we'll be able to watch our own demise live on TV. Now that will be the most important event in our world history......... watch this space.

Another day, another death.

The MSM has lost interest in the pandemic, and coverage is poor. Last time I checked about a month ago, deaths from Covid were about 210,000. It's hard to find the latest figures. Deaths may be going down but cases are still going up. Add to that the avoidable deaths* from austerity of about 200,000, and deaths due to the underfunding of the NHS and I'd guess we're nearing half a million deaths due to Tory government mendacity and incompetence. General concern about deaths seems to be receding.

But, last week another death occurred -  ‘our’ monarch died, and if anyone dies it's normal to have sympathy for the person and their family. But the reporting of Elizabeth II’s death has been anything but normal, if entirely predictable. Yes, by all means, mourn if you want to, but the wall-to-wall sycophantic MSM coverage is reminiscent of North Korea as many have noted. The UK’s airwaves have been filled with solemn voices, black ties, and glowing tributes, and there is another week of this to go.

At the moment the media is frantically following the new King, Charles, as he tours the UK, making sure his feet are securely under the table, and there is little time for the population to contemplate change. Proclamations have been read, parliamentarians have grovelled, football has been cancelled, strikes postponed, and the use of bike racks in Norwich suspended! 

We are in an economic and cost of living crisis, so when is parliament going to sit again? When are our 'democratically elected' politicians going to get on and do their actual day jobs?

I'm a republican. I have been for over 50 years. I want an elected head of state, an elected second chamber, and a proportional voting system - in other words, a democratic Britain, not the half-arsed, not fit-for-purpose setup we have at the moment.

Britain is in crisis. Truss's 'fix' for the energy crisis is wholly inadequate and is designed to benefit the better off and the very corporations who are ripping us off, not people and businesses. 

Yes, this is truly the end of an era. Most of us have lived with Elizabeth II as Queen for the whole of our lives. But while the crisis of neoliberalism deepens, as it will, we could just be seeing the end of another era - the end of the monarchy. As the pantomime of prehistoric pageants trundles ever onwards and MSM pundits continue to scrape the bottom of a very worn barrel, more people will become jaded and turned off. 

At the latest count, three people who protested against the monarchy have been arrested by the police (the most recent isn't mentioned in this article). No doubt more arrests will follow. And so, as this dreary shitshow continues I expect many more people will be alienated. 

One of the main barriers to the abolition of the monarchy lies in Westminster. Neither the Tories nor Starmer's Labour is going to allow a referendum on this anytime soon. I think Charles will be less popular than his mother, and we really need to organise and fight if we are to get an elected head of state. We're not good at bringing about real change in the UK, but the tide may just be turning. If you want to help bring that change about you could start by joining Republic.

* yes, the figure is 130,000 but they did say 200,000 by 2020