I've made it clear since I moved to this part of Scotland that voting Labour is going to be a wasted vote. Dumfries and Galloway is firmly split between the sitting Tory MP and the SNP, whatever happened to Labour in Scotland after Gordon Brown and before Jeremy Corbyn has pretty much killed them in all but a handful of places.
But, at heart, I'm a socialist and even the SNP's brand of socialism is more palatable than voting for someone else, even if my heart isn't really in it.
In my social media bubble you'd think Labour will win a landslide election, but the reality is much different, because one thing stands in the way. The Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn is a most divisive of character, but if you can actually get 'floating' voters to tell you why they will vote for anyone but Corbyn, usually the answer is quite unfathomable or based on the kind of Chinese whispers you expect the right wing media to be right behind. After all, the right wing media turned people against the EU without using a shred of actual evidence, but by pressing all the buttons a disgruntled, confused public will get behind. The Tories and their media have branded Corbyn many things. He's a racist. He's a communist. He's anti-semitic. He's incompetent. He's stupid. I mean, if people said, he's old, he's got a beard, he's a bit scruffy, he's got an allotment, it has as much meaning, except much of it is absolutely true; all of the shallow, callow accusations aimed at him are essentially bollocks. But it doesn't matter; the press has done its job and people simply don't like him. In a world where we no longer really like being told what to do, a lot of people have been told what to do and they're in danger of doing it. Free will? In your dreams.
I don't expect anyone who reads this and isn't voting Labour will be swayed by anything I say, after all, it's just my opinion and there are far more cleverer people out there, who know what they're talking about. Except, I haven't got a vested interest. Life will, one way or another, continue for me as it will for everyone else as it did before on December 13th. That's, in a way, quite depressing because those people who won't 'vote Labour because' are throwing the baby out with the bath water.
Yeah, I know. You had to do it. 'Anyone but Corbyn' you'll cry without realising that you'll have been conned for a second time in 3 years, but that doesn't bother you because no one is going to tell you how you should vote; you're voting for what's best for Britain, while actually you're not... But it really doesn't matter what I say, you'll always come up with another reason. The sad thing is you might as well say, 'I don't want a bearded PM' because it's as logical as the reasons you give, but in many ways less more honest.
There's a few memes floating about, one preaching to the converted about only people over £82,000 a year will pay more in tax and that if an extra £20 is taken from these people, how will they survive? The other is how any working man can look at the promise of more services, a shorter working week and free wifi as somehow less important than ensuring the rich who don't pay any tax continue to pay no tax. Like it's a good thing that we have money hoarders and an even better thing is we have homeless children because, directly or indirectly, of these money hoarders. What kind of person will dismiss a manifesto geared at making as many ordinary people happy as possible as stupid, but think a PM who thinks maybe building actual bridges - like one from Northern Ireland to Scotland - might be better? Johnson calls Labour's plans 'crazy' and yet he wants to divorce us from our largest trading partners in the hope we'll get a better deal from Rwanda or Cambodia. We'll be all right for yams and noodles all year round!
I can't convince anyone that they're voting the wrong way, because it's your vote and you do it the way you see fit; but at least be honest with yourself. At least be comfortable with the fact you're okay and you don't really care about those who aren't.
What's that? Most people on benefits have only themselves to blame? They're all on the fiddle; they all play the system. Benefits fraud totalled £2.6billion in 2017 - that's a shit load of cash; you could save the NHS with that. It's an awful amount of money and one that needs to be addressed, in a fair way. However, and all these figures are available by searching the internet for reputable sources, were you aware that almost £60billion was not paid in taxes, the vast majority of which was by overseas companies, who treat their employees like Victorian slaves? Your Amazons, Facebooks and Microsoft pay less money in tax than someone on £150,000 a year.
Yes, but I could be poor and those dole scroungers are making it difficult if that happens.
Surely, you'd want it fixed so you can get what's entitled to you and people who fiddle don't? I would. I wouldn't punish everyone because some, probably a step or two ahead of the DSS Fraud squad, screw the system and I'm sure that most people would feel the same way; but maybe they wouldn't. You see the whole Leaving the EU thing has meant that hate is now out of the closet and is being allowed to take centre stage. We have at least a third of the country despising politicians to the point where they will do all the hard work for them at the virtual hustings and then become the turkeys who voted for Christmas.
I know you won't, but ask yourself this: if you vote Conservative and help them win, will they really do what they can to help improve your life? Or will there be more cuts, more deaths as a result and less accountability? I know you don't care about that because the nasty things always happen to someone else or in those dirty stinky cities, with their metropolitan, pan-sexual weirdos and Somalians. But what if you're a working class person who votes Tory in the North East because you think they'll fix all the problems they started; do you really, honestly believe that? Will you be able to look at yourself in the mirror and feel clean. especially if someone you know or love suddenly becomes one of those 'statistics' you think is left wing bullshit?
You only have to look at places like the Financial Times - not a Labour paper by any stretch - and see the fiscal deficit now stands above a trillion pounds and is 86% of GDP and compare it to when Labour 'left us in a real mess' to see these Tories really can't be trusted with the economy. Look at it this way; if 1 million seconds equals 12 days and 1 billion seconds equals 31 years, what is a trillion seconds? Now apply that to money. A billion is a thousand million, a trillion is a thousand billion.
If you think Labour represents the unions and unions are bad things; remember that Thatcher removed the teeth of the unions and got it built into any EU (EEC) agreement that unions will not have the same power again. Also remember that without unions you wouldn't have 90% of the benefits you get working somewhere that has a union, or that life will be much different without those benefits. But most of all, remember that even if you despise unions with a passion and blame them for many things, you still get the same benefits if you weren't in a union, and without them? Good luck negotiating that 1% pay rise on your own.
If you think austerity was needed, but now complain that your bins aren't being emptied enough or the street lighting is poor, or the potholes on the roads are worse; that wasn't Corbyn's fault; just like it has never been Corbyn's fault that the Leaving the EU bill has never got through our viciously hung parliament; he's in opposition; it's his job to stop the party in power from damaging the country, even if a third of it thinks he's a traitor for doing so. If it was the other way around and Boris trying to do what he can to stop a bad Labour deal, how would you view it then? If Corbyn was trying to give you what you voted for but Boris, like he did with his own PM at the time, voted against it; how would that make you feel? Would Corbyn be so bad if he was doing all of this in power?
The problem with Corbyn is unless you're a tax dodger, or a Tory with vested interests in low taxes, no services and a lack of workers' rights, you're helping tar a human being with a brush loaded with lies. The other thing you're letting happen is turning a monumental decision into a popularity contest, or, as it seems, an unpopularity contest. The 'whataboutery' has been ramped up to 11. Boris won't tell people how many children he has, but what about Corbyn? He's been married three times and had an affair with a black woman. Boris lies and lies again; says whatever he thinks, even if it's rather distasteful and borderline racist/sexist, but Corbyn is promising the impossible. Or worse still, those people who now think that politicians are corrupt and that is now a good thing. In the 1980s, Cecil Parkinson lost his job on the Tory cabinet for having an affair that resulted in a child (one he was always going to look after if the need arose); 30 years later and we have an adulterous PM, with a questionable number of children and relationships; one who has the police called to his home because of fears of domestic violence and no one bats an eyelid.
Now, ask yourself this, if you dare; why is it safe to believe that attacks on Boris are left wing conspiracies that you believe almost without a doubt, but anything you hear about Corbyn must be true? Even if some of the stuff you hear about Corbyn was true, surely, by the law of averages, some of the accusations leveled at Johnson must also be true? Why do you have so much trouble believing a truth is a lie and a lie is a truth?
Why do you think this is some kind of Presidential race and that whoever wins will do all the work? I don't get this, anti-Corbyn people think that if JC was PM he would make all the decisions; he would be in sole charge and his cabinet would just be turning up for coffee and their wage cheque. That would be impossible to do, especially for a man of his age, and it's why we have a chancellor, a defence secretary, a housing minister, a leader of the House - they all have their jobs; they all have a certain amount of autonomy.
Ask yourself why Sajid Javid says he wants to bring a £10 minimum wage in by 2020 and Tory supporting newspapers say that economists reckon this is a great thing, yet ten days earlier, John McDonnell was saying the exact same thing and it was going to bankrupt the country? It's because they know that if you read a Tory supporting newspaper you'll believe any old shit they tell you and what's better is you'll convince all your mates who don't read the paper to think the same way. How many lefties reading this will nod if I suggest you've met people who don't read papers, don't watch the news, don't go to political rallies who all know that Corbyn is an evil stupid man? Ask them what it's based on and you get outbursts that would shame a 6 year old. The internet is full of people who stick their fingers in their ears and go la-la-la-la-la-la very loudly whenever you suggest otherwise. It's like people want to suffer; it's like subconsciously there are people out there who feel we should have extra pain; feel more injustice and widen that net to get even more victims of today's society.
Just be honest. Your opinion of Jeremy Corbyn is based on hearsay and what you've heard others say. If there's never smoke without fire, then apply that rule equally or you might as well take up golf so you can cheat at it every game.
This is too long and no one voting Tory will have got this far; so lets up the ante a bit. I know someone who won't read the Labour manifesto; wouldn't vote for Corbyn because he reminds him of Tom Hanks and he really can't stand Tom Hanks and doesn't care if his family starves as long as we leave the EU because the country is overrun with foreigners, says a man who claims to have a Pakistani Britain as a best friend and uses the Polish deli down the road, almost as much as he's in the bookies. He's also been one of the dole scroungers and if looked at in black and white would fit the profile of a pro-Remain Labour voter...
I know a man who won't vote Labour because his grandfather got screwed over by the unions in the 1970s and a friend who got screwed over by them in the 1980s. They both saw hardship as a result and for some reason that has stuck with them, despite living through 16% interest rates, British industry being sold off and a proliferation of food banks - just three of the things we can say the Tories gave us. It's like Labour (or their associates) can only fuck with us once; but the elite aristocracy, shit, they're allowed to do it repeatedly. I know my place. And that is, in many ways, why this election should be about the PARTY that offers the most hope going forward; not one that is offering nothing and claiming everyone else is crazy. It might sound like the Tories are just advocating realism, until, that is, you factor in that these same people are the ones who were in power when all this madness began. If nothing else, let that fact sink in. You've done no good with them for 9 years, what evidence is there to think it won't be more of the same?
The voting landscape is inhabited by unpaid trolls sowing vague seeds of doubt - the most easy to germinate - and like collaborators during the wars, they live for the now. It's uncool to care; unhip to help; it's okay to be vile and hateful because you can hide behind an anonymous icon and think you're balancing the books. With politics there is no better place to do the bidding of the people who convince you that you're better off under them while doing nothing for them at all. It's probably why spam still exists; there's always some mug who'll fall for it, despite every warning under the sun.
Finally, why not 'anyone but Boris?' Why not 'What's to lose with trying something radical and different?' We can't sink any lower than we are and as the same people who say 'anyone but Corbyn' will remind you, we get a chance every four or five years (usually) to pick a new government; if Labour screw up then vote the Tories back in or their yellow buddies, but don't dismiss them before you've had a chance to see if their ideas work. Or are you that far beyond taking a calculated risk? Because if you think you have a better chance of surviving the coming storm with who have been in charge for the last 9 years, then you're already dead.
The Politics of ...
Sunday 17 November 2019
Monday 11 November 2019
Abandon Hope All Ye Who Enter Here
I've recently seen two viral video clips that have been circulating Facebook from my left-leaning cadre of friends. The first is a woman in Pennsylvania who literally declared that she would have no problem if, as Donald Trump said during his first election campaign, he shot someone on Fifth Avenue. "He's the President; he can do what he likes," was her tacit comment.
The other was of a American-Hispanic border patrol officer in southern California, who, when asked about the supposed swathe of migrants (actually there's no 'supposed' about it, but that's a story for another time and probably another person) attempting to cross the border into the USA. "I can't understand, anymore, why they want to come here?" This tacit comment was alluding to the fact that immigrants are now persona non grata in the Land of the Free. A country built on immigration now wants to be so selective about who they allow in, it's like Rosa Parks was never born.
I read this morning that Canadian-born hippy-rock-70s-icon Neil Young is having problems with his citizenship application because of previous misdemeanours with pot. My first thought, as it is with whoever wants to apply for American Citizenship is 'Why?' Why would you want to go to a country that, from the outside, looks like a thoroughly unpleasant place to live apart from the scenery? I went to the USA 25 years ago and I've never had the urge to go back. But that's just me; I'm not wealthy and I'm also a lefty vegetarian.
The thing about the USA is that since the mid-1980s, a growing number of Tory MPs have looked at the USA, with its rampant inequality; monefied health care system and its reliance on wealthy philanthropists to prop up ailing communities and liked what they saw. In many ways, despite its size and free-thinking, the USA is the authoritarian utopia many wealthy Tories aspire to bringing to the UK and they're pretty much on the cusp of doing just that.
Now, I've changed my stance on the Leaving the EU situation. I believe that it could work if we have the right government in place; the problem there is whoever is in charge of the separation when it finally happens, because, let's not kid ourselves, we're leaving the EU on January 31st barring some kind of countrywide epiphany, needs to have the entire country's best interests at heart.
One side of the divide wants deregulation, removal of personal employment rights, amongst other civil liberties and to turn the UK into a massive Service Industry Island for money to be kept - but not spent - and to pay the same kind of wages for the poor that would make them competitive against Third World growth economies. This isn't 'lefty bullshit', there is evidence out there to prove that many of the members of Boris Johnson's pre-election cabinet were and are all for making it easier for employers and harder for employees. You might think this is a good thing; it might stamp out the fecklessness that has crept into the British workforce, but history suggests happy workers are more efficient workers, therefore more profitable. But, they can have a go at flogging a centuries dead horse again, with a modern twist, to see how long it'll last this time.
The other side wants us to stay pretty much where we are, but with more investment, even if it means borrowing, but borrowing to pay back through productivity.
As an aside, are people aware that if you look at theoretical political structures throughout history, the most successful have been co-operative societies? These have lasted the longest, by a long chalk, than capitalism, fascism, communism, socialism, neo-liberalism - which, are actually mostly quite modern and are surpassed by such things as feudalism and monarchies. The overriding thing from it is that co-operative societies have always lasted a long time and arguably because they were the happiest; as soon as you put someone 'in charge' or appoint governments to decide what's best, things start to go wrong and this is usually by implementing societal changes or laws - usually ones people didn't want and which benefit the people who made them more than others. Once constraints of whatever nature are applied to some but not all, you get division and it is how class structures develop. In co-operative societies, most things were done by consensus, usually a 2/3rd majority, and everything was discussed or allowed time to be discussed by whoever in the community wanted to; governance was usually by the elders and people accepted things that didn't agree with their way of thinking, usually because the next decision probably would. Political division - the one we're used to - has existed a lot longer than organised politics.
The problem with humans is they are essentially greedy, selfish or prejudiced - three things that have consistently happened as a result of politics and have polarised since the arrival of communications.
The thing about the upcoming UK election that I find the most frustrating is the obstinacy of a certain demographic of voter. I don't know if it really is cognitive dissonance or if the constant drip drip drip leading to some form of ideological osmosis has truly made the citizens of a lot of the UK no longer actually care.
Care about what?
Nothing. Except themselves. I'm not even sure you can include 'their own' in that.
My overriding memory of the Thatcher Years was how the country I'd returned to in 1969 had changed from a community-based, caring society, that was extremely naive, yet oddly happy to something a lot different. The late 1950s and 1960s had seen Britain boom; we were coming out of the post-war years like a bullet train and things were looking good. There was a divide and very much a class-based society, but people worked, they saved, they planned for the future, they were 'the best years' according to many Baby Boomers yearning for today's technology to be married with that sense of the UK going places. When people remind these thinkers about all the shit things that happened during this time, it is rightly dismissed - in the 21st century, we won't have things like the threat of nuclear war, or rickets or TB or unions to drag us down; we should live a long happy life of prosperity where everyone is happy and the lowlier inhabitants doff their caps at the gentry with an admiring and loving smiles on their faces. Margaret Thatcher dispelled the image of old happy Britain in the early 1980s; instead of Love Thy Neighbour she turned it around 180 degrees and suggested we should Shop Our Neighbours. The community was our enemy; there were dole scroungers, drug dealers, child abusers and slubberdegullions littering our streets and they needed to be removed so that people could live without the risk.
I remember a few years ago, an old boss of mine telling about how he was a newly-qualified social worker, just starting his journey, in the 1980s when the 'hotline' was introduced; the telephone number that was created for people to ring in anonymously and express your fears or whatever you have witnessed about what was going on in your neighbours houses. It obviously wasn't worded like that; it was hidden inside a concern for the welfare of children, so if people were fearful for the safety of a neighbour's child, they should be able to report this without having to get themselves involved. My old boss said at the end of the 3rd year of this telephone number being introduced, almost 80% of the calls were hoax or worse still, angry or disgruntled neighbours trying to get people into trouble because they didn't like them.
It didn't take us long to Hate Thy Neighbour. Thatcher might have done many good things for this country (according to others), but her dismantling of the community structure was probably the reason we're where we are now.
Things haven't exactly got better. We now demonise everyone who isn't 'normal' (Normal meaning in work, with money, home-owning, latte drinking, Netflix watching and Tory voting) and use them as a scapegoat because... get this... we have absolutely no point of reference to compare our lives with the rich, so we look at what is worse and say, 'I'm not having any of that,' like, if we kill off all the poor, through one means or another, there won't be any more left and we can not have anyone to blame because it'll all be okay. Except if it is, then maybe get rid of all the foreigners because they steal jobs (how, exactly does someone 'steal' a job?), they put pressure on our (almost non-existent) services, they clog up A&E with their foreign emergency illnesses or physical damage when some white, British [read: English], fully-employed tax paying Tory voter might need it.
In fact, the crazy thing is, I see right wing people, the so-called normal people nod sympathetically at the genuine cases of hardship in this country and then get on with demonising them. Suggest to them that billionaires should be taxed and unless they're really stupid they simply say, 'Yeah, that's not good, but what about people who fiddle £50 a week from the government?' Because people understand poverty and don't comprehend having enough money to own as many yachts as there are food banks in the country. It is that simple.
You can demonise the disenfranchised because everyone knows or knows of someone who has screwed the system. These criminal people are so evil they ruin it for everyone else. I'm sure if you actually nailed a Tory voter to a seat and said, 'What's more important: someone poor who does what he can to eat or someone so rich they can buy Madagascar, but needs a few more tax breaks?' and they'd struggle to come up with an answer and even if they actually agreed that the billionaire is worse than the benefits 'scrounger' I despair when they back that up with, 'but you can't do anything about the billionaire.' That's all right then; we'll ignore the people who could wipe out poverty without losing their ability to buy a gold plated arse wiper and just focus on the people who can die, in the 21st century, because they're poor and live in the 5th or 6th richest country on the planet.
The stupid thing is if the benefits scroungers bill is £2.6billion a year and the million and billionaires tax dodging is £26billion a year, where is the obvious place you'd think of going if you wanted to ensure the benefits scroungers will stop benefits scrounging? Imagine the investment and change £26billion could do? I'd hazard a guess a lot more than sitting in the Cayman Islands avoiding tax.
"Oh, but they're billionaires, they'll always do it." People argue they'll leave the country and take their money with them. Their money has isn't here any more and is unlikely to return any time soon!
Maybe they will, but why penalise everyone who needs help to ensure these people who are richer than countries continue to get wealthier? How does that help? If we spent some money on employing the right people to ensure the correct members of society are getting what they need (and deserve) and made more - informed - checks on the people who take the system for a ride, then maybe we'd stop thinking about anyone (who we don't know or isn't related to us) needing benefits as some feckless shirker out to rob you of your tax donations.
Once upon a time we paid tax and National Insurance to guarantee we got help in the time of unemployment, sickness and disability; we don't pay that money to ensure the government withholds it from the people who need it. I mean, imagine if you suddenly needed Universal Credit and found the application alone requires half a Citizens' Advice Bureau staff and a couple of legal specialists? If you lost your job, you'd expect state aid; how would you feel if getting that state aid was designed to make you give up or not bother? What if you were disabled and were five minutes late for an appointment and lost your benefits in sanctions because the bus service you also pay towards is cancelled because of a lack of bus drivers? You wouldn't be happy and you'd be on social media complaining about - either directly or indirectly - the bastards you voted into power; wouldn't you?
There's probably a lot wrong with the welfare state, but dismantling it with no intention of rebuilding it in a way that is seen to work for everyone isn't exactly a progressive approach, is it? Maybe if we focused on making it cost efficient and less heartless and distrusting we might get a lot of people not thinking 90% of the people on benefits are there deliberately. I really don't believe people go, 'bollocks to this work lark, I'm going on Universal Credit because I like having fuck all and suffering the indignity of going to the foodbank.'
"But they all have mobile phones and widescreen TVs?"
How dare someone with nothing have something I paid for... Except they maybe did pay for it, once. Or, as many people don't understand, the DWP have ingeniously enforced all claimants to have both a mobile phone and internet access to be eligible for benefits - if they can't ring you or you can't surf the net all day for a job, then you get sanctioned by not getting to even go through the process.
So next time you see a feckless dole scrounger with a mobile, realise that our own government has forced them into getting one to be able to get the money they were entitled to; there's a massive trade in 2nd hand and knocked off phones out there; just because you're paying Apple through the nose for yours doesn't mean some poor schmuck is doing the same. Or is that wrong as well?
But people don't really care and the media enables them to continue not caring by lying and deceiving them - most of us - into thinking that a bunch of very wealthy, elitist borderline aristocrats are looking after them; or worse still, the other party are going to make it worse. That seems to be the underlying message about this election, 'We're bad, but they're awful.' Whoop-de-do; we are all doomed.
The press has done such a good job of labeling Jeremy Corbyn as some kind of evil incarnate communist terrorist sympathiser who is going to destroy the country to punish the rich, that even people who don't believe it are now saying, 'Yeah, but Corbyn.' It makes me wonder what would happen if Jesus actually came back with a message of love, peace and sharing of wealth, how well the press will go to ensure he's crucified either literally or metaphorically in the press to the point where the Daily Mail's headline will be 'Son of God is a Communist'? 'Jesus wouldn't Push the Nuke Button' or 'God Botherer Claims He Now Owns all the Churches.'
As we become less tolerant of anyone who doesn't agree with us, where do you think the UK is going to be in a few years with a right wing Tory government? I'm not even going to hazard a guess, purely and simply because forecasts cannot be made now as everything is Project Fear. The economy will crash - Project Fear; The Russian are coming - Project Fear; You'll starve to death or won't get your medicines - Project Fear; Chlorinated chicken, lower food standards - Project Fear; A nice sunny day tomorrow with light winds and warm sunshine - PROJECT FEAR!!!
Certain things have to happen first, so that all the people who voted for it and them can look around and blame someone else for the trouble we're in. It's never us. It's never the government. It's always the opposition, the people who didn't want to leave the EU, the foreigners, the gays, the blacks, the Muslims, the Jews, the EU itself, the disabled, the single mums, CND, 1970s Labour, GOD. Are people so thick that they'll buy it's everyone else's fault forever? It can't possibly be the government; it can't possibly be the Tory's; I mean, how can all those important austerity cuts and tax incentives for the rich have made us unfit for purpose and with one of the highest rates of poverty and lowest pensions in the bloc we don't want to be part of any more? It must be Corbyn. It must be the EU. It must be those elitists who are trying to ruin our quest for the return of sunlit uplands and a cornucopia of ambrosia fed to us by Page 3 girls riding on rainbow-tailed unicorns...
The current problems are simply all that's wrong with our country, minus what's really wrong with our country.
Now, I'm in a weird position in many ways. I've been a lifelong socialist; as I've grown older I've not leaned to the right, because as I got older I actually worked with people who have been left behind; people who are actual victims of an unfair society, who wouldn't know how to screw the system as long as they have holes in their arses. These same people are usually the ones penalised by the system because they don't know how to fiddle; they probably wouldn't dream of telling a lie or misrepresenting their actual circumstantial facts; it would be against the kind of decent people they were. So, as a result, as I got older I saw how we have marginalised people and essentially destroyed their lives by making it more difficult for them.
However, now I live in Scotland, I've seen how politics has changed up here in recent years and how Labour is no longer the force it was and how the Scottish National Party has taken their place; delivering a kind of left-wing Blairite agenda but with more social conscience and funnier leaders. A vote for Labour in my constituency is a bit like a vote for the Monster Raving Loony Party. Scotland is very much a slightly centre left country; so much so that even Scottish Conservatives are bearable; less... nasty. Up here, unless you're wealthy or can't change your ways, you vote to keep the Tories out.
Now that Nigel Farridge's political party has shown its true colours and opted not to contest Tory held seats, the election looks pretty much sewn up for at least a 90 seat majority, for a party that has realised during the early part of this campaign that they can literally do what Donald Trump said and say or do anything because... they know even Labour voters view Corbyn as a toxic brand. That's how crazy we are; a 70-year-old politician with some principles has been made into something he's clearly not and it's easier to believe what you read or hear than actually go and find out if what he's saying makes more sense than suggesting that people who live in highly-inflammable blocks of flats are stupid. But it just won't happen and his obstinance and the ridiculous tactics of supposed Labour-supporting MPs have ensured that Boris will ride roughshod over everything.
I fell out with my Tory-supporting brother recently because of a number of reasons, but he did something that is happening all over the country; he took something I said, omitted a word and made me sound as though I was an evil lefty. I suggested that voting Tory might mean if the cancer he successfully beat comes back, he might find it more difficult to be treated or might even cost him a lot of money. He didn't have a response; well, not one that was rational. He just accused me of wishing his cancer back so I could prove a point... There you have it. If the NHS gets privatised, in his eyes it'll be my fault. That's how fucking ignorant, insensitive and stupid we've got in our haste to not vote for someone we dislike more than the other guy.
I will also hear the 'better the devil we know' excuse, one that has been wheeled out since 1992. How often does the sticking with 'the devil we know' worked out better for us? I'll give you a clue - never. Governments need to change to affect change; if you keep repeating the same mistake in the hope it'll be better this time, you are succumbing to a very real kind of madness. The press warned us of the end of the world if Labour were elected in 1997. They had a second landslide victory 4 years later. That's how change works, even if you didn't like the Iraq war and Tony Blair is really just a pink Tory. The change happened and for ten years the country prospered like no other time than before Edward Heath. Change is good; stagnation often leads to the marginalised becoming even more so; usually for the benefit of the rich.
If you don't want to vote Corbyn, why not look at their manifesto and then try to reconcile the fact we're not a republic where the PM is in charge of everything. Ministers and cabinets are there not for show but to do the work, otherwise why do we bother with politicians, why not just retire the Royal family and appoint a dictatorial President who can keep all of the recently converted heartless bastards happy and screw the rest? You're not supposed to like PMs or ministers, really, but we do trust them with making the right decisions for the benefit of the country and not just their rich mates and that's where your anger and hatred should be directed. Blaming people worse off than you doesn't really affect your life, does it? But if the rich weren't so rich, that might affect your lives in a multitude of positive ways, from buses running on time, to prompt refuse collection to job creation and the retraining of those left behind so they can contribute to society again. Surely that's better than worrying about your workers rights if you get ill or fearing for your bank balance if you break an arm?
If you still can't vote Labour, then work out who is going to have the best chance of stopping the Tory intent on stripping you of all the rights your parents and grandparents fought for you to have.
But, you know, we're obviously a nation of masochists, because we seem to want the same. The Tories have come in for every kind of criticism under the sun in the last 9 years, but... Jeremy Corbyn? Do you know how hopeless and pathetic that actually sounds? I want a better life, but because I don't like that man, I'll stick with the shit one I've got, thanks (Or in many cases, I'm all right, I don't care about the rest).
Last week, I made a claim about something that I believed to be correct and someone 'on the other side' put me right. I neglected to fact check and fell foul of the same thing I accuse others of doing. Instead of being insulting; calling the person a 'Nazi' or lowering myself to the level I see others - from both sides - go, I took a deep breath and said I was mislead and wouldn't make the same mistake again. At the same time, I showed someone who had made a false statement about something - aid we give to India (or don't as the case was) - and I received quite a considerable amount of personal abuse because I was ... er... right. I'm not exempt from getting apoplectically angry at people who do this kind of thing, and usually because I see the same person make the same allegation on another forum ten minutes later, because he simply didn't want to believe I was right or chose to continue misleading others. That's pretty low and wilfully ignorant or cynically distasteful.
It also shows just how uncaring and nasty some people (or bots) can be (or are programmed). It takes away any optimism, any hope I might have for the immediate future.
The last few years have all been about hope. I hope things don't get too bad. I hope we leave the EU as painlessly as possible. I hope there's a bit more compassion towards our fellow man, because I'd like to think that some people believe in a god who would want them to be the Samaritan, even if it's only in the way they try to view others.
All that hope gets ground under the boot heels of real life and real people who don't, for some reason, want that as well. We're at the stage where reason isn't even on the table; the era of blame and belief now dominates. It's always someone else's fault and never our own.
We live in a country where Extinction Rebellion can block a few roads and make people inconvenienced and that is more important than the lives of hundreds of thousands of people whose houses are currently under water from unprecedented rainfall. We've lost sight of how to be human and as a result hope has to go back inside a little box, tucked away for the next time we think we see a glimmer of change.
If nothing bad happens in the next five years and the world gets better then I'll be the first to say, I was wrong, but I was scared and I won't care who thinks I'm a snowflake. It's the last hope I currently have. However, if the country gets much worse in the next five years, will the people who couldn't hold their noses and give change a chance actually realise it was their fault? That's a hope I have no faith in.
The other was of a American-Hispanic border patrol officer in southern California, who, when asked about the supposed swathe of migrants (actually there's no 'supposed' about it, but that's a story for another time and probably another person) attempting to cross the border into the USA. "I can't understand, anymore, why they want to come here?" This tacit comment was alluding to the fact that immigrants are now persona non grata in the Land of the Free. A country built on immigration now wants to be so selective about who they allow in, it's like Rosa Parks was never born.
I read this morning that Canadian-born hippy-rock-70s-icon Neil Young is having problems with his citizenship application because of previous misdemeanours with pot. My first thought, as it is with whoever wants to apply for American Citizenship is 'Why?' Why would you want to go to a country that, from the outside, looks like a thoroughly unpleasant place to live apart from the scenery? I went to the USA 25 years ago and I've never had the urge to go back. But that's just me; I'm not wealthy and I'm also a lefty vegetarian.
The thing about the USA is that since the mid-1980s, a growing number of Tory MPs have looked at the USA, with its rampant inequality; monefied health care system and its reliance on wealthy philanthropists to prop up ailing communities and liked what they saw. In many ways, despite its size and free-thinking, the USA is the authoritarian utopia many wealthy Tories aspire to bringing to the UK and they're pretty much on the cusp of doing just that.
Now, I've changed my stance on the Leaving the EU situation. I believe that it could work if we have the right government in place; the problem there is whoever is in charge of the separation when it finally happens, because, let's not kid ourselves, we're leaving the EU on January 31st barring some kind of countrywide epiphany, needs to have the entire country's best interests at heart.
One side of the divide wants deregulation, removal of personal employment rights, amongst other civil liberties and to turn the UK into a massive Service Industry Island for money to be kept - but not spent - and to pay the same kind of wages for the poor that would make them competitive against Third World growth economies. This isn't 'lefty bullshit', there is evidence out there to prove that many of the members of Boris Johnson's pre-election cabinet were and are all for making it easier for employers and harder for employees. You might think this is a good thing; it might stamp out the fecklessness that has crept into the British workforce, but history suggests happy workers are more efficient workers, therefore more profitable. But, they can have a go at flogging a centuries dead horse again, with a modern twist, to see how long it'll last this time.
The other side wants us to stay pretty much where we are, but with more investment, even if it means borrowing, but borrowing to pay back through productivity.
As an aside, are people aware that if you look at theoretical political structures throughout history, the most successful have been co-operative societies? These have lasted the longest, by a long chalk, than capitalism, fascism, communism, socialism, neo-liberalism - which, are actually mostly quite modern and are surpassed by such things as feudalism and monarchies. The overriding thing from it is that co-operative societies have always lasted a long time and arguably because they were the happiest; as soon as you put someone 'in charge' or appoint governments to decide what's best, things start to go wrong and this is usually by implementing societal changes or laws - usually ones people didn't want and which benefit the people who made them more than others. Once constraints of whatever nature are applied to some but not all, you get division and it is how class structures develop. In co-operative societies, most things were done by consensus, usually a 2/3rd majority, and everything was discussed or allowed time to be discussed by whoever in the community wanted to; governance was usually by the elders and people accepted things that didn't agree with their way of thinking, usually because the next decision probably would. Political division - the one we're used to - has existed a lot longer than organised politics.
The problem with humans is they are essentially greedy, selfish or prejudiced - three things that have consistently happened as a result of politics and have polarised since the arrival of communications.
The thing about the upcoming UK election that I find the most frustrating is the obstinacy of a certain demographic of voter. I don't know if it really is cognitive dissonance or if the constant drip drip drip leading to some form of ideological osmosis has truly made the citizens of a lot of the UK no longer actually care.
Care about what?
Nothing. Except themselves. I'm not even sure you can include 'their own' in that.
My overriding memory of the Thatcher Years was how the country I'd returned to in 1969 had changed from a community-based, caring society, that was extremely naive, yet oddly happy to something a lot different. The late 1950s and 1960s had seen Britain boom; we were coming out of the post-war years like a bullet train and things were looking good. There was a divide and very much a class-based society, but people worked, they saved, they planned for the future, they were 'the best years' according to many Baby Boomers yearning for today's technology to be married with that sense of the UK going places. When people remind these thinkers about all the shit things that happened during this time, it is rightly dismissed - in the 21st century, we won't have things like the threat of nuclear war, or rickets or TB or unions to drag us down; we should live a long happy life of prosperity where everyone is happy and the lowlier inhabitants doff their caps at the gentry with an admiring and loving smiles on their faces. Margaret Thatcher dispelled the image of old happy Britain in the early 1980s; instead of Love Thy Neighbour she turned it around 180 degrees and suggested we should Shop Our Neighbours. The community was our enemy; there were dole scroungers, drug dealers, child abusers and slubberdegullions littering our streets and they needed to be removed so that people could live without the risk.
I remember a few years ago, an old boss of mine telling about how he was a newly-qualified social worker, just starting his journey, in the 1980s when the 'hotline' was introduced; the telephone number that was created for people to ring in anonymously and express your fears or whatever you have witnessed about what was going on in your neighbours houses. It obviously wasn't worded like that; it was hidden inside a concern for the welfare of children, so if people were fearful for the safety of a neighbour's child, they should be able to report this without having to get themselves involved. My old boss said at the end of the 3rd year of this telephone number being introduced, almost 80% of the calls were hoax or worse still, angry or disgruntled neighbours trying to get people into trouble because they didn't like them.
It didn't take us long to Hate Thy Neighbour. Thatcher might have done many good things for this country (according to others), but her dismantling of the community structure was probably the reason we're where we are now.
Things haven't exactly got better. We now demonise everyone who isn't 'normal' (Normal meaning in work, with money, home-owning, latte drinking, Netflix watching and Tory voting) and use them as a scapegoat because... get this... we have absolutely no point of reference to compare our lives with the rich, so we look at what is worse and say, 'I'm not having any of that,' like, if we kill off all the poor, through one means or another, there won't be any more left and we can not have anyone to blame because it'll all be okay. Except if it is, then maybe get rid of all the foreigners because they steal jobs (how, exactly does someone 'steal' a job?), they put pressure on our (almost non-existent) services, they clog up A&E with their foreign emergency illnesses or physical damage when some white, British [read: English], fully-employed tax paying Tory voter might need it.
In fact, the crazy thing is, I see right wing people, the so-called normal people nod sympathetically at the genuine cases of hardship in this country and then get on with demonising them. Suggest to them that billionaires should be taxed and unless they're really stupid they simply say, 'Yeah, that's not good, but what about people who fiddle £50 a week from the government?' Because people understand poverty and don't comprehend having enough money to own as many yachts as there are food banks in the country. It is that simple.
You can demonise the disenfranchised because everyone knows or knows of someone who has screwed the system. These criminal people are so evil they ruin it for everyone else. I'm sure if you actually nailed a Tory voter to a seat and said, 'What's more important: someone poor who does what he can to eat or someone so rich they can buy Madagascar, but needs a few more tax breaks?' and they'd struggle to come up with an answer and even if they actually agreed that the billionaire is worse than the benefits 'scrounger' I despair when they back that up with, 'but you can't do anything about the billionaire.' That's all right then; we'll ignore the people who could wipe out poverty without losing their ability to buy a gold plated arse wiper and just focus on the people who can die, in the 21st century, because they're poor and live in the 5th or 6th richest country on the planet.
The stupid thing is if the benefits scroungers bill is £2.6billion a year and the million and billionaires tax dodging is £26billion a year, where is the obvious place you'd think of going if you wanted to ensure the benefits scroungers will stop benefits scrounging? Imagine the investment and change £26billion could do? I'd hazard a guess a lot more than sitting in the Cayman Islands avoiding tax.
"Oh, but they're billionaires, they'll always do it." People argue they'll leave the country and take their money with them. Their money has isn't here any more and is unlikely to return any time soon!
Maybe they will, but why penalise everyone who needs help to ensure these people who are richer than countries continue to get wealthier? How does that help? If we spent some money on employing the right people to ensure the correct members of society are getting what they need (and deserve) and made more - informed - checks on the people who take the system for a ride, then maybe we'd stop thinking about anyone (who we don't know or isn't related to us) needing benefits as some feckless shirker out to rob you of your tax donations.
Once upon a time we paid tax and National Insurance to guarantee we got help in the time of unemployment, sickness and disability; we don't pay that money to ensure the government withholds it from the people who need it. I mean, imagine if you suddenly needed Universal Credit and found the application alone requires half a Citizens' Advice Bureau staff and a couple of legal specialists? If you lost your job, you'd expect state aid; how would you feel if getting that state aid was designed to make you give up or not bother? What if you were disabled and were five minutes late for an appointment and lost your benefits in sanctions because the bus service you also pay towards is cancelled because of a lack of bus drivers? You wouldn't be happy and you'd be on social media complaining about - either directly or indirectly - the bastards you voted into power; wouldn't you?
There's probably a lot wrong with the welfare state, but dismantling it with no intention of rebuilding it in a way that is seen to work for everyone isn't exactly a progressive approach, is it? Maybe if we focused on making it cost efficient and less heartless and distrusting we might get a lot of people not thinking 90% of the people on benefits are there deliberately. I really don't believe people go, 'bollocks to this work lark, I'm going on Universal Credit because I like having fuck all and suffering the indignity of going to the foodbank.'
"But they all have mobile phones and widescreen TVs?"
How dare someone with nothing have something I paid for... Except they maybe did pay for it, once. Or, as many people don't understand, the DWP have ingeniously enforced all claimants to have both a mobile phone and internet access to be eligible for benefits - if they can't ring you or you can't surf the net all day for a job, then you get sanctioned by not getting to even go through the process.
So next time you see a feckless dole scrounger with a mobile, realise that our own government has forced them into getting one to be able to get the money they were entitled to; there's a massive trade in 2nd hand and knocked off phones out there; just because you're paying Apple through the nose for yours doesn't mean some poor schmuck is doing the same. Or is that wrong as well?
But people don't really care and the media enables them to continue not caring by lying and deceiving them - most of us - into thinking that a bunch of very wealthy, elitist borderline aristocrats are looking after them; or worse still, the other party are going to make it worse. That seems to be the underlying message about this election, 'We're bad, but they're awful.' Whoop-de-do; we are all doomed.
The press has done such a good job of labeling Jeremy Corbyn as some kind of evil incarnate communist terrorist sympathiser who is going to destroy the country to punish the rich, that even people who don't believe it are now saying, 'Yeah, but Corbyn.' It makes me wonder what would happen if Jesus actually came back with a message of love, peace and sharing of wealth, how well the press will go to ensure he's crucified either literally or metaphorically in the press to the point where the Daily Mail's headline will be 'Son of God is a Communist'? 'Jesus wouldn't Push the Nuke Button' or 'God Botherer Claims He Now Owns all the Churches.'
As we become less tolerant of anyone who doesn't agree with us, where do you think the UK is going to be in a few years with a right wing Tory government? I'm not even going to hazard a guess, purely and simply because forecasts cannot be made now as everything is Project Fear. The economy will crash - Project Fear; The Russian are coming - Project Fear; You'll starve to death or won't get your medicines - Project Fear; Chlorinated chicken, lower food standards - Project Fear; A nice sunny day tomorrow with light winds and warm sunshine - PROJECT FEAR!!!
Certain things have to happen first, so that all the people who voted for it and them can look around and blame someone else for the trouble we're in. It's never us. It's never the government. It's always the opposition, the people who didn't want to leave the EU, the foreigners, the gays, the blacks, the Muslims, the Jews, the EU itself, the disabled, the single mums, CND, 1970s Labour, GOD. Are people so thick that they'll buy it's everyone else's fault forever? It can't possibly be the government; it can't possibly be the Tory's; I mean, how can all those important austerity cuts and tax incentives for the rich have made us unfit for purpose and with one of the highest rates of poverty and lowest pensions in the bloc we don't want to be part of any more? It must be Corbyn. It must be the EU. It must be those elitists who are trying to ruin our quest for the return of sunlit uplands and a cornucopia of ambrosia fed to us by Page 3 girls riding on rainbow-tailed unicorns...
The current problems are simply all that's wrong with our country, minus what's really wrong with our country.
Now, I'm in a weird position in many ways. I've been a lifelong socialist; as I've grown older I've not leaned to the right, because as I got older I actually worked with people who have been left behind; people who are actual victims of an unfair society, who wouldn't know how to screw the system as long as they have holes in their arses. These same people are usually the ones penalised by the system because they don't know how to fiddle; they probably wouldn't dream of telling a lie or misrepresenting their actual circumstantial facts; it would be against the kind of decent people they were. So, as a result, as I got older I saw how we have marginalised people and essentially destroyed their lives by making it more difficult for them.
However, now I live in Scotland, I've seen how politics has changed up here in recent years and how Labour is no longer the force it was and how the Scottish National Party has taken their place; delivering a kind of left-wing Blairite agenda but with more social conscience and funnier leaders. A vote for Labour in my constituency is a bit like a vote for the Monster Raving Loony Party. Scotland is very much a slightly centre left country; so much so that even Scottish Conservatives are bearable; less... nasty. Up here, unless you're wealthy or can't change your ways, you vote to keep the Tories out.
Now that Nigel Farridge's political party has shown its true colours and opted not to contest Tory held seats, the election looks pretty much sewn up for at least a 90 seat majority, for a party that has realised during the early part of this campaign that they can literally do what Donald Trump said and say or do anything because... they know even Labour voters view Corbyn as a toxic brand. That's how crazy we are; a 70-year-old politician with some principles has been made into something he's clearly not and it's easier to believe what you read or hear than actually go and find out if what he's saying makes more sense than suggesting that people who live in highly-inflammable blocks of flats are stupid. But it just won't happen and his obstinance and the ridiculous tactics of supposed Labour-supporting MPs have ensured that Boris will ride roughshod over everything.
I fell out with my Tory-supporting brother recently because of a number of reasons, but he did something that is happening all over the country; he took something I said, omitted a word and made me sound as though I was an evil lefty. I suggested that voting Tory might mean if the cancer he successfully beat comes back, he might find it more difficult to be treated or might even cost him a lot of money. He didn't have a response; well, not one that was rational. He just accused me of wishing his cancer back so I could prove a point... There you have it. If the NHS gets privatised, in his eyes it'll be my fault. That's how fucking ignorant, insensitive and stupid we've got in our haste to not vote for someone we dislike more than the other guy.
I will also hear the 'better the devil we know' excuse, one that has been wheeled out since 1992. How often does the sticking with 'the devil we know' worked out better for us? I'll give you a clue - never. Governments need to change to affect change; if you keep repeating the same mistake in the hope it'll be better this time, you are succumbing to a very real kind of madness. The press warned us of the end of the world if Labour were elected in 1997. They had a second landslide victory 4 years later. That's how change works, even if you didn't like the Iraq war and Tony Blair is really just a pink Tory. The change happened and for ten years the country prospered like no other time than before Edward Heath. Change is good; stagnation often leads to the marginalised becoming even more so; usually for the benefit of the rich.
If you don't want to vote Corbyn, why not look at their manifesto and then try to reconcile the fact we're not a republic where the PM is in charge of everything. Ministers and cabinets are there not for show but to do the work, otherwise why do we bother with politicians, why not just retire the Royal family and appoint a dictatorial President who can keep all of the recently converted heartless bastards happy and screw the rest? You're not supposed to like PMs or ministers, really, but we do trust them with making the right decisions for the benefit of the country and not just their rich mates and that's where your anger and hatred should be directed. Blaming people worse off than you doesn't really affect your life, does it? But if the rich weren't so rich, that might affect your lives in a multitude of positive ways, from buses running on time, to prompt refuse collection to job creation and the retraining of those left behind so they can contribute to society again. Surely that's better than worrying about your workers rights if you get ill or fearing for your bank balance if you break an arm?
If you still can't vote Labour, then work out who is going to have the best chance of stopping the Tory intent on stripping you of all the rights your parents and grandparents fought for you to have.
But, you know, we're obviously a nation of masochists, because we seem to want the same. The Tories have come in for every kind of criticism under the sun in the last 9 years, but... Jeremy Corbyn? Do you know how hopeless and pathetic that actually sounds? I want a better life, but because I don't like that man, I'll stick with the shit one I've got, thanks (Or in many cases, I'm all right, I don't care about the rest).
Last week, I made a claim about something that I believed to be correct and someone 'on the other side' put me right. I neglected to fact check and fell foul of the same thing I accuse others of doing. Instead of being insulting; calling the person a 'Nazi' or lowering myself to the level I see others - from both sides - go, I took a deep breath and said I was mislead and wouldn't make the same mistake again. At the same time, I showed someone who had made a false statement about something - aid we give to India (or don't as the case was) - and I received quite a considerable amount of personal abuse because I was ... er... right. I'm not exempt from getting apoplectically angry at people who do this kind of thing, and usually because I see the same person make the same allegation on another forum ten minutes later, because he simply didn't want to believe I was right or chose to continue misleading others. That's pretty low and wilfully ignorant or cynically distasteful.
It also shows just how uncaring and nasty some people (or bots) can be (or are programmed). It takes away any optimism, any hope I might have for the immediate future.
The last few years have all been about hope. I hope things don't get too bad. I hope we leave the EU as painlessly as possible. I hope there's a bit more compassion towards our fellow man, because I'd like to think that some people believe in a god who would want them to be the Samaritan, even if it's only in the way they try to view others.
All that hope gets ground under the boot heels of real life and real people who don't, for some reason, want that as well. We're at the stage where reason isn't even on the table; the era of blame and belief now dominates. It's always someone else's fault and never our own.
We live in a country where Extinction Rebellion can block a few roads and make people inconvenienced and that is more important than the lives of hundreds of thousands of people whose houses are currently under water from unprecedented rainfall. We've lost sight of how to be human and as a result hope has to go back inside a little box, tucked away for the next time we think we see a glimmer of change.
If nothing bad happens in the next five years and the world gets better then I'll be the first to say, I was wrong, but I was scared and I won't care who thinks I'm a snowflake. It's the last hope I currently have. However, if the country gets much worse in the next five years, will the people who couldn't hold their noses and give change a chance actually realise it was their fault? That's a hope I have no faith in.
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