Weekly news - Ukraine protests / Davos

The unrest in Ukraine escalated to a frenzied new height this week as it so inevitably promised to do, with many protesters being taken injured and 2 being shot dead. The seemingly intractable problem centres around the issue of the country being woven into the EU fabric as opposed to being smothered by the heavy blanket of Russia, who many believe to be calling the shots.

As with all such civilian uprisings they swiftly transcend the initial spark and ignite into something altogether more symbolic; of the masses kicking against an authoritarian state power that, instead of adopting measures to engage or reach compromise, choose to resort to control and suppression.

Personally, I find the struggle in Kiev to be a source of real inspiraton, futile though it may ultimately prove to be; and in Vitali Klitschko the protesters have a traditional revolutionary hero as their figurehead.

All of which makes me long for the possibility of similar protest breaking out in this country if only the initiative might be taken. Whilst the Ukrainians have Klitschko to lead them on, the best we can do is Russell Brand spouting his revolutionary hyperbole before scuttling back to his Hollywood Hills pad. God knows there is enough disaffection and animosity to fuel people on to make a defiant political stand as opposed to simply looting TVs from electronics stores and setting fire to newsagents.

Clearly, Boris Johnson believes such a threat must be brewing given that he has appealed for taxpayer funds to be used to purchase a riot control water cannon. Let's hope the summer is a hot one...

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You might be reading this and thinking - well, what would you have people taking such a stand against? How about the nauseating statistic provided by an Oxfam report this week that the entire accumulated wealth of the poorest half of the planet (some 3.5 billion) is equal to that of the richest 85 individuals.

Such a staggering figure must surely shine with forensic scrutiny on the crushing inequalities that intense financialisation has managed so spectacularly to inculcate and maintain. It is a figure emblematic of the absolutist supersession of capital over people.

You need not look far for evidence of this - from the rising numbers of homeless on London's streets, to the growing dependency on food banks, to Jamie Dimon the chairman of JP Morgan gulping down a $20million bonus despite the firm being fined roughly $20bn for violations over the past year alone.

But above and beyond such examples, the World Economic Forum in Davos is perhaps the most redolent of all that is wrong and perverse with the world. That these reptilian plutocrats are brought together to frolic in the filthy mudbath of their own lucre, often with the power of life or death of vast multitudes in their hands, all behind closed doors, free from scrutiny or effective accountability, is an affront to the risible notion of a democratic society.

As one the Founding Fathers of the US Constitution James Madison envisaged - the primary role of government was 'to protect the minority of the opulent against the majority.' Davos is the epitome of that nefarious ideal.