Sometimes an event comes along that has a profound lesson to teach us all. The Boaty McBoatface naming debacle, though undoubtedly funny, is one such incident. It really does tell us, the people, everything we need to know about what it means to be a "citizen" in the so-called Western democratic system.
First, let's make sure we are clear about the nature of the Establishment. In 1955, the British political journalist Henry Fairly wrote:
[W]hat I call the ‘Establishment’ in this country [UK] is today more powerful than ever before. By the ‘Establishment’ I do not mean only the centres of official power—though they are certainly part of it—but rather the whole matrix of official and social relations within which power is exercised.
Fairly accurately identified that power doesn't simply reside in the hands of politicians. There was network of "established" families, wealthy individuals, institutions, organisations, multinational corporations, clubs and societies in the UK—who Fairly sardonically named as "the right people"—that held power outside of the alleged representative democratic system. Moreover, Fairly understood that it was this network, not elected politicians—who he considered subservient Establishment constituents—that controlled "the exercise of power in this country."
While Fairly's published exposure of and coining of the term "the Establishment" was a breath of fresh air in the class dominated British society of the 1950s, Fairly wasn't revealing anything the masses didn't already know. You only needed to read Dickens, Orwell or Noonan's (Tressell's) "The Ragged-Trousered Philanthropists" to know the British and wider Western zeitgeist was already on to "the Establishment."
In a rather pathetic attempt to deny reality, the Establishment subsequently dispatched BBC war time propagandist Lord Bullock who, with the film maker Stephen Trombley, in the New Fontana Dictionary of Modern Thought tried to convince the public that “the Establishment” meant something else entirely. They described "the Establishment" as:
[. . .] [a] term, usually pejorative, for an ill-defined amalgam of those institutions, social classes and forces which represent authority, legitimacy, tradition and the status quo.
Despite Fairly’s concise and easily understood description of “the Establishment,” Bullock—knight of the Establishment realm and associate of the UNESCO eugenicist Julian Huxley—attempted to make everyone believe that “the Establishment” was an “ill-defined” term. It didn't work, everyone knew what it meant and recognised precisely who the Establishment were. The Establishment had been an entrenched facet of British life for centuries.
The existence of the Establishment in Western society, including in the UK, is openly acknowledged in political science . In 2014, political scientists Professor Martin Gilens and Professor Benjamin Page conducted a multivariate analysis of nearly 1,800 policy decisions made by the US government. Their objective was to understand:
Who governs? Who really rules? To what extent is the broad body of US citizens sovereign, semi-sovereign, or largely powerless?
They considered three possible models of alleged “democratic” social control.
"Majoritarian Electoral Democracy" inferred that politicians were the chief decision makers who enacted policies to reflect the "democratic" will of the people; "Majoritarian Pluralism" similarly assumed politicians were the primary decision makers, but in this model they were heavily influenced by organised lobby groups, dominated by corporate interests, through which our "democratic will" could still, just about, be exercised and "Economic-Elite domination" was a model in which the political structure served the economic interests of a so-called "elite" who manipulated public opinion through propaganda.
The political scientists concluded:
Economic elites and organized groups representing business interests have substantial independent impacts on US government policy, while average citizens and mass-based interest groups have little or no independent influence. The results provide substantial support for theories of Economic-Elite Domination and for theories of Biased Pluralism, but not for theories of Majoritarian Electoral Democracy or Majoritarian Pluralism.
The scientific evidence shows that we live in "biased pluralist" societies. A biased pluralist polity is typified by the "the capture of regulators by the regulated." Powerful corporate and financial interests "fund political parties in order to get policies that suit their economic interests." A biased pluralist polity does not "represent the poor or even the economic interests of ordinary workers." The people—the electorate—have "little or no independent influence."
A biased pluralist society exclusively serves the interests of the Establishment. Political science demonstrates that we persistently vote to maintain biased pluralist societies for more or less the sole benefit of an "Economic elite." We vote for our own enslavement and we should certainly stop doing it.
Today, even Wikipedia has to admit that the Establishment exists, although with some ludicrous attached caveats:
The Establishment is a term used to describe a dominant group or elite that controls a polity or an organization. [. . .] One can refer to any relatively small class or group of people who can exercise control as The Establishment. [. . .] Anti-authoritarian anti-establishment ideologies question the legitimacy of establishments, seeing their influence on society as undemocratic.
Of course no one "sees" the influence of the Establishment as undemocratic. It isn't a matter of opinion. The Establishment is autocratic and indisputably undemocratic.
While you could, if you like, "refer" to any "small class" that exercises control as an “Establishment," That is not what it the term “the Establishment” means. The key, as Wikipedia begrudgingly acknowledges, is that the Establishment controls our polity which means "a society or state considered as a political unit."
To be "anti-Establishment" is to be pro-democratic. To be anti-Authoritarian is to be both pro-democratic and also to understand what demokratia actually means.
The Establishment is not comprised of any group of people who could seriously be described as an "elite." They aren't particularly knowledgeable, don't possess unique skills or leadership qualities and have simply exploited their amassed wealth to manipulate society—often causing wars, famine and poverty along the way—for their own benefit. "Parasite class" or the "Criminocracy" are far more fitting description.
While he likes of Bullock wanted us all to accept that the "authority" claimed by the Establishment was legitimate—even some sort of culturally valuable tradition—there is nothing remotely legitimate about the Establishment's claimed authority. Unless you think we, the people, should automatically be ruled by a gaggle of robber barons, predatory bankers and chinless aristocrats.
But what, you may ask, has any of this got to do with Boaty McBoatface?
In 2014, then UK Chancellor of the Exchequer, George Osborn, announced a £200 million "government" investment in to the construction of a new polar research vessel. Speaking about the plans, Osborne said:
I am delighted that we are investing in a new polar research ship carry cutting edge British technology to put British scientists at the forefront of research in both the Antarctic and the Arctic oceans.
Then UK Minister for the Polar Regions, Mark Simmonds, added:
It also makes explicitly clear our long-term commitment to maintaining our presence and scientific excellence in South Georgia & the South Sandwich Islands and the British Antarctic Territory.
Regardless of the exploration vessels scientific value, or the potential commercial benefits of any scientific discoveries it might contribute toward—not a penny of which “we” will ever see—who is this "we" Osborne was talking about and Simmonds referred to?
Governments do not have any money of their own. Every penny they spend is genuinely "ours," as in "we, the people." We either pay for the £200 million investment directly, through the tax taken from us, or, more commonly, we and our children have to pay back the money borrowed by the government from private investors plus interest. Supposedly, we agree to all of this by consenting to the mythical "social contract" that no one has ever seen or signed.
The point, in this case, is that we own the polar exploration vessel. It's ours, not the UK governments.
The three year shipbuilding contract was awarded to the Cammell Laird shipyard in Birkenhead on Merseyside. The construction project supported 400 UK jobs. At least our investment wasn't wasted in that respect.
In March of 2016 the Natural Environment Research Council (NERC) announced that they would welcome suggested names for the vessel from the public. They launched a national PR campaign to promote the public naming of the polar explorer. From the outset the terms an conditions read:
All suggestions will be approved by NERC before they are submitted to the website. The final decision on the name of the ship will be taken by the Chief Executive of NERC.
The Chief Executive of NERC was Duncan Wingham. Wingham was knighted in 2020 for "services to Climate Science." Wingham was rewarded by being welcomed into the Establishment as a Knight Bachelor.
Despite pretending that the UK public had a say in the naming of the vessel, we never did. This was a pure Public Relations (propaganda) exercise by NERC. The public's opinion was not of any interest to the NERC board and they always intended to name the ship themselves, regardless of the fact that the ship was wholly owned by the British public who they disingenuously invited to name it.
NERC is a government project. Its role is to take our money and act as the "driving force of investment." NERC allocates our money to whatever scientific projects the government and its "partners" like the look of. For example, it has decided that "we" want to invest to ensure UK farming achieves "net zero." Which basically means paying farmers not to produce food or simply pushing them out of business. Apparently, "we" are all onboard with this idea.
NERC is working hard to "develop the solutions needed to embed the values of biodiversity into financial decision making." As such it has invested another £7 million of our money to create effective "stakeholder" partnerships to brainstorm the UK government's Green Finance Strategy:
The global transition to a resilient, nature-positive, net zero economy will see trillions of pounds reallocated and invested into new technologies, services and infrastructure. There are huge opportunities for the UK’s financial and professional services industry in this transition. From venture capital supporting climate and nature tech solutions, to banks funding major renewables projects, we want our world-leading financial services sector to drive every step of the global transition.
The Green Finance Strategy is designed to provide "huge opportunities" for the Establishment. This is glaringly obvious when we consider how this investment strategy work.
Let's consider the Hornsea offshore wind projects. At the time of writing, at 15.50hrs in the UK, the total amount of energy coming from all UK windfarms is providing just 8.3% of national demand. As demand rises in the evening, in all likelihood, this percentage will reduce significantly.
A consortium of investors including NatWest Group syndicated the loans to finance construction of Hornsea windfarms because the interest they charge was worth it. Orsted, the Norwegian developers, took the loans based upon an agreed fixed "strike price" for the every megawatt hour (MHh). This was guaranteed by the UK government i.e., the British taxpayer.
Energy consumers—we, the people—pay for the construction and the bank's lending profits. With rising global energy costs and interest rates, the UK government has increased the UK energy customers' commitment from a strike price of £37.35 per MWh to more than £70 per MWh just to keep the economically nonviable development on track.
The estimated cost of the first phase of the Hornsea development added an additional £4.2 billion to UK energy bills, as the government promised to pay over the market price for "strike rate" energy. With phase 2 complete, and phase three on the way, UK energy consumers should see their bills skyrocket for the pitiful, intermittent amount of energy they are going to get from offshore wind power.
Part of the exorbitant costs are incurred as the developers---which ultimately means energy consumers---have to pay the UK Royal Family for the rights to the waters they claim that they own. In June 2022, their literal offshore portfolio was worth an estimated £15.6 billion thanks to the UK government's, and NERC's, commitment to the Green Finance Strategy scam.
Transferring a stream of wealth from working people to bankers, corporations and aristocrats—the aristocrats and bankers absorbing ever more money by doing jack shit—is precisely how the Establishment has always worked. Hence "parasite class" or "criminocracy." NERC sits right at the heart of this biased pluralist Establishment system.
No one was particularly interested in the naming the ship until a local radio presenter called James Hand suggested "Boaty McBoatface" for a laugh. This caught the public's imagination on social media and "Boaty McBoatface" won by a country mile. It was the runaway winner among 32,000 other suggestions including 'It's Bloody Cold Here', 'I Like Big Boats & I Cannot Lie' and 'What Iceberg.'
There is no doubt that the people who own the ship, who paid for its construction and fund all of its research and maintenance—we, the people—wanted to call the ship Boaty McBoatface. Sure, it was a joke, but it was also an irreverent and iconoclastic swipe at the Establishment.
The Establishment responded in typical fashion. It assumed authority it doesn’t possess and ignored the will of the people. NERC issued a press release to announce that the vessel would be named RSS David Attenborough after a guy who was dumb enough to present a "documentary" ridiculously claiming that walruses were plummeting to their deaths because "climate change."
The future “Sir” Duncan Wingham said:
The NERC Name Our Ship campaign has engaged the public with the ship's mission on a huge scale and we are very grateful for the support and enthusiasm shown by the public in contributing to naming for our new research vessel the RSS Sir David Attenborough. [. . .] We are also very happy to recognise the overall popular choice through naming one of the ship's robotic vehicles Boaty McBoatface."
Then UK Universities & Science Minister Jo Johnson added:
The public provided some truly inspirational and creative names, and while it was a difficult decision I'm delighted that our state-of-the-art polar research ship will be named after one of the nation's most cherished broadcasters and natural scientists. [. . .] The ship has captured the imaginations of millions, which is why we're ensuring that the Boaty name lives on through the sub-sea vehicle.
Yes, it "engaged the public" who showed "enthusiasm" to name the ship RSS Boaty McBoatface not RSS David Attenborough. NERC weren’t so grateful as to respect the public vote.
Jo Johnson's claim that is was "a difficult decision" to ignore the proles was total nonsense. The decision that the Establishment would name the ship was taken before NERC launched its "Name Our Ship" campaign .
'Name "Our" Ship' never meant name "the people's" ship. We are just the silly saps who pay for it all and "we" have no say in any of the Establishment's decisions. We live in biased pluralist societies not a "democracies."
The Establishment simply took Boaty McBoatface from us and called it its own. It has eagerly grabbed our £200 million investment, thoroughly mislead us, ignored us completely and given us a condescending pat on the head by sticking the name we chose for our ship on a little submersible drone.
The Boaty McBoatface saga exemplifies the relationship between us, the people, and the Establishment. Why we continue to put up with the biased pluralism of the parasite class is anyone's guess. Perhaps we just like being ripped off, ridiculed and abused by an Establishment criminocracy.
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I love what you’ve written but the disappointment I feel is not just with the parasites but with the host. Neither are to be trusted. I’m happy on the margins livin off the land and others junk. Wife, two kids and abandoned abused mine site I’ve called my own for 20 years. I earn just enough to pay no tax but live like a king because I don’t need sweat shop shit and I can still work. Most people are emisserated by their own stupidity and fear.
The "establishment" is a business, namely a gangster cartel.😁