The Second Coming is Overdue.

Clement Attlee, British Prime Minister 1945-51 (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

 I am approaching the evening of my life and I can never recall a period where there has been such a political, moral and cultural vacuum as exists at this moment.  As a young man in the sixties for a fleeting moment our generation was foolish enough to think that we were going to put an end to the evils of  poverty, war  and social division. And yet starvation and disease are rampant across much of the world and governments, who tell their citizens that there are no alternatives to austerity, continue to spend billions of pounds on arms and allow the rich to get richer whilst the poor get poorer.

 Nor is there any solace  to be found in the religions of the world where the conservatives in charge strive to maintain their grip on power and, in so doing, allow the zealots and extremists their head. However I refuse to be downcast and one of the lessons of history is always to expect the unexpected.

 In late 1922 an election candidate, who had risen to the rank of major in the First World War and suffered injury and terrible dysentery from the trenches, wrote in his first election address, "Like many of you I took part in the Great War in the hope of securing lasting peace and a better life for all. We were promised that wars should end, that ... the men who fought in the War would be cared for, and that unemployment, slums and poverty would be abolished. I stand for life against wealth.  I claim the right of every man, woman and child in the land to have the best life that can be provided. Instead of the exploitation of the mass of the people in the interests of a small rich class, I demand the organisation of the country in the interests of all.." He narrowly defeated the popular sitting MP, who although a Liberal, stood for Limehouse with the official support of the Conservative Party.

 In late November of 1922 he said in his first speech in the House of Commons, "Why was it in the war that we were able to find employment for everyone? It was simply that the Government controlled the purchasing power of the nation. They said what things should be produced; they said, 'We must have munitions of war'. They took by means of taxation and by methods of loan, control of the purchasing power into those things that were necessary for winning the war.
  That is what we are demanding shall be done in time of peace. As the nation was organised for war and death, so it can be organised for peace and life if we have the will for it".

 The man was Clement Attlee, later to become Prime Minister of the greatest reforming government in Great Britain in the twentieth century. Despite continued and repeated efforts to ameliorate what he did in the years between 1945 and 1951, by repeated Conservative governments his National Health Service (still the envy of the world and something that The United States of America despite its massive wealth, to is shame, has never contemplated) and much of his Welfare State remain in existence to this day.

 Indeed had he won further elections he intended to introduce even more radical measures in which land and capital was to be owned by the nation and used for the benefit of the community. He believed mankind was at its best when people were selfless and co-operated together to build a better world. The nation state, in his mind, was an anachronism and he believed passionately in World Government and a United Nations which, alone, would have an army and the teeth to settle the world's disputes, as a last resort, if necessary.

 He was both radical and reforming and would have been ashamed of Ed Milliband and New Labour with their war mongering and tame neo liberal policies, allowing the financial deregulation that allowed the crooks in The City to bring about the current economic crisis and massively force up the cost of housing for working people.

 So I am effectively disenfranchised, having shed tears as a boy when Mr Attlee was defeated, because his government had allowed me to have free bottle of cod liver oil and a orange juice as well as a doctor to tend to me when I was ill. I suspect that I am not alone in the world and that there are tens of millions of us who yearn for a New World Order. I may never see it in my lifetime but my children and grandchildren may hopefully one day pause and remember that I was one of those that pointed the way and that all is not lost. Great men have emerged before and, one day, the lions of social justice will roar into life once more.