Beat the Bullies!!

In the news today, two separate reports, one on the armed services and one on the NHS highlights the serious problems of bullying. Such reports follow reports on bullying within the police services, the care sector and many other areas of British life. Bullying has been the principal characteristic of the British for many years now since the triumph of Thatcher's policy of managerialism, that is, allowing managers free rein to do whatever was necessary to implement her neoliberal policies. In further education I watched the spread of bullying across the sector following the privatisation of further education in the early nineties. I warned all of my colleagues, but they were too arrogant to listen until it finally hit them with a vengeance and by then it was too late. Bullying is one of the clearest signs of the callous indifference that too any people in Britain have towards others, an indifference that has been fostered by a dominant ideology that there is no such thing as society, that the poor and disadvantaged have only themselves to blame, that there is a job for everyone who wants it and so the unemployed are all skivers and scroungers etc.

Bullies are cowards, they are normally incompetent as well, that is why they bully because they know they are vulnerable and try to scare their colleagues into silence. Look at the Westminster parliament, at the banks and financial institutions, at the management of the NHS and those industries previously held in the public sector. Incompetence on a genuinely Olympic gold medal scale runs through British society like a cancer, and is held in place by a culture of bullying and malice. Anyone in a position of influence in Britain who challenges government policy gets sacked. As I reported earlier, even in British universities, this culture now means that there is only one model of economics being taught. When the Tories tell you that there is no alternative, they mean that literally, and if you dare to offer an alternative you will be replaced. If you are being bullied you will immediately see the cowardly side of them if you confront them, which of course is what you must do. Competent leaders have no need to bully because they gain the respect of the people they lead and the hatred of the incompetent. In further education, management was taken over by bullies because following privatisation, the boards of management, encouraged by politicians, were determined to destroy the terms and conditions of the workforce and break the professionalism of staff. As a result, they hired managers with impeccable neoliberal credentials who were quite prepared to do whatever was necessary to please their masters. Thus, bullies were appointed, who then appointed other bullies at lower levels to do their dirty work for them. This process has been repeated throughout society in all institutions, and Labour were every bit as guilty of this as the Tories.

We are ruled by a dominant ideology of aggressive individualism, and therefore this produces aggressive individuals. Indeed, in a society of aggressive individualism it is only aggressive individuals who will succeed, because decent people are repelled by such a culture. What is required in this society is a profound cultural shift and a serious challenge to the dominant ideology. We need to say enough is enough, the bullies can be beaten. People who know me know that I was never bullied, many tried, they all failed because I refused to be bullied. It is sad, but there is no solution within the current political system because there is no party to vote for who will offer an alternative vision. The Scottish people must stand up to Westminster and Scotland must start afresh and offer alternatives. This, if successful, will actually be to the betterment of our colleagues in the rest of the UK. You have been warned.

Your Servant
Doktor Kommirat.