So the Australian ex-minister has launched a crowd-funded inquiry into the Aukus arms deal. How very modern, and how very pathetic. Once upon a time, inquiries were the preserve of statesmen and serious institutions. Now we have GoFundMe tribunals. It is a sign of the times: democracy reduced to a subscription model, like Netflix for accountability.
Let us consider the historical parallels. The Aukus pact, for the uninitiated, is yet another Anglo-Saxon attempt to hold back the tides of history. It reeks of the late Victorian era, when Britain, in its senescent arrogance, thought it could still police the world with gunboats and treaties. Now we see the same hubris dressed in nuclear submarines and digital payments. The crowd-funding aspect is especially delicious. It suggests that the official channels of scrutiny are so bankrupt that the public must now buy their own truth. This is the triumph of the punditocracy, where the loudest voice is the one with the deepest pockets.
Mark my words, this inquiry will achieve nothing but a fleeting headline. It will be forgotten as quickly as the next viral outrage. Meanwhile, the real decay continues: the erosion of parliamentary sovereignty, the commodification of national security, the slow collapse of the West into a circus of clicks and cash. The Fall of Rome had its bread and circuses; we have our crowd-funded commissions and 24-hour news cycles. The Aukus deal is not the solution to anything. It is a symptom. The patient is terminal, and we are debating the colour of the curtains.
