Electable at What Cost?

Disclaimer: I have not voted Labour for five and a half years and haven't been a member of the party for six years. I did vote for them at virtually every other election.

Did you know there's this thing called the Forde Report, commissioned by Labour leader Keir Starmer investigating the antisemitism allegations levelled at Jeremy Corbyn and the Labour Party at the time. You might not have heard of this report because once it was released it got buried, by the Labour Party. The reason? It proved categorically that the allegations against the former Labour leader and the rife antisemitism were a load of hogwash and that there was ONE example of it, originating from an old tweet made by a Corbyn supporting councillor in Merseyside. Considering there are still Tories who would throw their support behind any of the previous PMs we've had, one lone dodgy bloke does not make a political party rife with racism and corruption.

To put some perspective on it, there were 36 recorded examples of Tory Islamophobia in the same period of time, suggesting that it's okay for Tories to criticise Muslims but it's not okay to criticise the right-wing Israeli government and its systematic eradication of the Palestinians? I mean, we know the world isn't a fair place, but that's a bit crazy isn't it?

Anyhow, one of the news channels I usually throw scorn towards, Al Jazeera, released a series of films called The Labour Files, which broke down and investigated the entire incident from the election of Corbyn as Labour leader to the invention of allegations, which originated inside the Labour Party and until the removal of Corbyn, which it basically claims was a centre-right coup. It named all the newspapers as being culpable in the persecution of Corbyn, but focused it's attention at The Guardian, which it accused of adding imaginary meat to the bones of a non-existent story. The Guardian currently moderates or blocks any comments that mention the Labour Files.

These documentaries also go as far to suggest that the right wing of the Labour party deliberately sabotaged their own party's election chances to get rid of Corbyn from the party and that these MPs and party workers were responsible for everything that has happened since 2017. I find it quite crazy that in 2017 when Theresa May looked like she was trying to lose that election that members of Corbyn's party were leaking lies to the press or deliberately starting arguments about non-existent issues. I can't believe these people sacrificed us because they didn't like this old bloke with a beard and an allotment. Everything said about Corbyn for years was a lie; it was a scam and an organised destruction of a decent man.

Incidentally, Starmer has announced that Jeremy Corbyn will not be standing at the next election as a Labour candidate - an election liability, apparently - and the Constitutional Labour Party (CLP) - the mob who basically did Corbyn in - are now considerably more dangerous than Corbyn could ever have been because they are forcing the party to the right, just not as right wing as the Tories. Starmer continues to drive Labour down this centre-right path in an attempt to win floating Tory voters at a time when all he needs to be is competent to win the next General Election - it makes no sense.

Now this isn't designed as a hatchet job against Labour; far from it. The last thing I want is for people to think I've been an enabler to another Tory government, but I'm not sure the Labour Party are very nice people at the moment. Wes Streeting, their Health spokesperson is more for privatisation than any Tory has ever openly said; Rachel Reeves, the Shadow Chancellor, has some ideas that Thatcher would have applauded and opinions on the economy, Europe, immigrants and other things that would have some of us frothing at the mouth if it came from a Tory's mouth. 

Labour's CLP believed the only way the party would be electable again was if it swung slightly right of Tony Blair and they completely ignored the fact that in 2017 more people voted for a left wing Labour leader than anybody had ever voted before. Corbyn might have lost, but his policies still resounded with people, especially the young - he probably lost because the press had already character assassinated him; had someone young and exciting gone to the polls with his policies I'm betting we wouldn't be having this conversation now. 

There are a lot of unhealthy links between top people in Starmer's Shadow Cabinet and regimes around the world we don't necessarily want to be seen aligning with and too many of their opinions seem to agree with the government rather than oppose them. I know a lot of people are saying they're saying this that and the other to win votes, when they get in they'll be far more radical and to these people I say the Tories don't do that; they don't promise one thing and deliver the diametric opposite; even if they don't fulfil any of their election pledges it's usually because of profitability or being ignored, Even if the Tories can get away with lying, the right wing media will never let you forget it if Labour did it. It doesn't matter how good they might prove to be they'll never be forgiven; it would be on every Tory election campaign leaflet for 100 years.

Reeves has said there isn't enough money to do anything really radical and it could be that instead of changing things, Labour could get into power and just hope that it coincides with an economic recovery, because the more to the right they shift the less likely they're going to actually do anything or enable something from being built, which means the decaying country in front of you will continue to decay, but at a faster rate. I must share this with you, I heard this the other day and figured it just about sums up this country in a nutshell at the moment: it would cost £14bn to fix all of the UK's roads, but the amount of time it would take would man the cost would eventually be £17bn. However, if the UK was to completely resurface every single road with more than 20% erosion and decay it would only cost £22bn. I know that's £5bn more, but the £17bn 'repairs' cost would become £22bn by the time the 'repairs' finished because there would then be the new repairs to repair. The cost would increase every year - a painting of the Forth Bridge scenario - however, spend the £22bn on resurfacing 80% of the road network, the annual repair costs nationally are in the millions not the billions for at least ten years. 

If people are worried about the UK borrowing money, if that money is used to repair the country, build new schools and hospitals and drag it back to where it should be, ending years of Tory corruption, then that is money well borrowed because it will generate jobs, it will be ploughed back into the economy and the country will prosper again. Fuck your tax breaks and contracts and inflation-busting interest rate rises; create a country that needs people to work in it and if that means extending 1 to 5 year visas to Europeans or Africans or even Asylum Seekers to help do that work and pay more into local communities and wow... suddenly you have happy thriving societies where dislike and xenophobia are a small minority not the overriding majority. This is the message Labour needs to be sending out to every one.

The last seven years have effectively ended the idea of hung parliaments and rainbow alliances; with the exception of the SNP - who are an entirely different blog if I understood enough about them - no one really looks like they can offer any real opposition nationally. The Libdems are basically where the Liberal Party was in the 1970s and the United Kingdom will never elect Green MPs unless it's in places like Brighton; so we're a two party nation and one party is now like the Tory party and the other is like the BNP. What a fucking choice?

Interest-ing (for some)

I like to think I know more than others about politics and how it works. I mean, I've spent enough time reading, writing and ranting about it, so sometimes I'm genuinely confused. I'm none the wiser when it comes to the subject of interest rates and how raising them prevents inflation. I think this is because we've had eleven consecutive interest rate hikes and I've not seen the price of a tin of beans drop; tomatoes and peppers are still going up in price and the cost of a refill pouch of Kenco decaf 'koffy' increased 75p in one week, which is about a 20% increase.

The Bank of England has just put it's rate up again and the explanation for it was this: "This means people have less money to spend on the economy, subsequently causing inflation to drop". There are other reasons given, such as bringing down prices of imports and discouraging people from borrowing, but the obvious fact staring most of us already have less to spend and this is coupled with high interest rates meaning only people with savings are making more money and the prices of food continue to go up - as the latest 10.4% inflation figures clearly proved. Raising the interest rate increases the profits of people with savings and forces more and more people into having to make difficult decisions. These rises have not stopped inflation because these interest hikes benefit the companies already profiteering from it. It's like giving all the energy companies control of their own watchdog, said watchdog will always err towards the shareholders than you or I (a bit like in real life). The bottom line is big business doesn't give a shit if you live, die or starve and freeze because someone will take your place and require the services/food they provide and they'll find a way to pay the bills.

How is this even remotely helping? The Bank of England lackey Andrew Bailey has urged retailers to curb their profits and stop putting prices up - in other words 'give more back to your customers and less to your shareholders', which we all know has as much chance of happening as Boris Johnson being kicked out of the Tory party. Prices of food, fuel and therefore everything connected will continue to rise leaving the UK in a perilous position by the time next autumn rolls around.

Yet the Tories have reduced the 30 point deficit in the polls to less than 10 points suggesting what we're headed for next year is a hung parliament - which must make depressing reading for the 'I'll roll over if you tickle my belly' leader of the opposition. Surely the British people deserve a brighter future? At the moment they have a choice between a Tory party that has somehow convinced people it's not really as shitty or nasty as people thought, or the Labour party, who had their chances of power scuppered by their right wing in 2017, are now bemused as to why the left wing of the party is trying to scupper the next one. This is a party that is so right wing now they approve of what Israel is doing more than many Israelis.

Surely it's time people started to want their politicians to work for the people and not just their mates and surely it's time to be able to sack our local MPs if they are not seen doing a minimum amount of work for their constituencies or are claiming too much in expenses while stymieing the chances of the disenfranchised. We need a new politics at a time when people are becoming resigned to living in a world that is continually butt-fucking them. It has to stop because we're going to be here in 12 months, when the price of that decaf will be £6 for a refill (instead of the £3.25 it had been for years) and there will still be fresh food shortages in the winter because we're still going to be last in queue of EU suppliers, even if we are paying much more. We'll look at the price of petrol and think £1.50 a litre is cheap, the same way in a few years we'll think £2.00 is cheap and filling the car up will become a luxury for some people.

I get the argument from right wingers; there is no other way; people won't pay for the people who won't work, people don't want high taxes - but think about this for just one second; we used to have councils that did everything, low prices, high employment and a lot of things were state owned. In 2023, because of capitalism at its most rampant and uncaring, we have almost a quarter of the country in need of some kind of handout and it's all to do with rising prices and costs and profits. Your rates pay for fewer things every year and if the rich are going to remain very rich then someone's got to pay for it and that someone is us. Yeah, it's always been like this isn't an argument, it's barely an excuse and no, actually, it hasn't always been like this; yes we have rich people and poor people, but we didn't have so many poor people to the point where a company's profit is more important than the welfare of its workers (and therefore it's users/customers).

If you were told by the government that we'd have to share our waterways with a lot of the stuff that comes out of bottoms and pay for the privilege, so that the shareholders of the privatised water industry can buy a bigger and more vulgar yacht to moor in the Bahamas, I'm sure you'd find a lot of people opposed to that and when you find out that the companies that own the water companies have made it increasingly difficult for the government to impose any rules or sanctions on them and have actually been pumping bottom product straight into our seas and rivers do you still feel really confident and happy about privatisation in the 21st century?

Take the rail strikes; yes 50% of the industrial action was about pay, but much of the other 50% was about safeguarding, protection of jobs and customers and rail workers' bosses were not allowed to discuss certain aspects of what was being asked for because the government was pushing for the changes more than the companies that 'own' the railways. That included disposing of almost all staff outside of the train drivers - reducing the service, putting people at risk and allowing trains and stations to become empty and automated, cold and unhelpful. You don't hear about that, you just get told about the evil strikers making people better off than themselves angry at being inconvenienced, even if that patently wasn't the case this time around.

It might have always been like this but I think when you hear bemused Tories and Brexit nuts droning on about how much better the past was, I actually think what they want is for the UK to return to a time where their memories have simply polarised aspects and forgotten other, less wondrous, things. People want councils that fix the central heating, pick up bins, sweep the streets, discourage litterers, they want the police to keep the streets safe and clear of undesirables, who would only exist in small groups and could be targeted by community workers, who like everyone else is an arm of one organisation, not one of 50 private companies trying to think of the cheapest way of helping someone.

A time when people seemed happy and summers were proper long is what people yearn for this and yet are unaware of the fact that it's their own fault we're even further away from what they want because we've bought into all the capitalist bullshit fed to us by whatever political overlords sit in parliament. And it's all the fault of the generation who literally never had it so good; the generation that ensured no one ever had it as good as them again.