Time to Change?

Before any of my 'not lefty' friends baulk at the title of this expecting it to be another attack on the Tories and why we should all vote Labour, you can put that notion to bed straight away. No ordinary Tory should be fearful of voting Labour at the moment unless you thought Ted Heath's Tories in the early 1970s radical loose cannons. Left wing political representation is almost non-existent in UK politics at the moment, so you can put that 'woke socialist takeover' on hold and concentrate on which party will privatise National Health first.

However, what I am going to talk about is trust in politicians and politics, because no one has trusted politics for about 15 years now and it doesn't matter what colour you wear, the average man in the street thinks you have yourself, your party and your party's friends interests at heart and the rest of us will have whatever's left of their time and inclination. The idea that a local MP has entered politics for altruistic reasons might have been the original narrative, but most MPs become so corrupted by what's on offer to them that principles often get thrown out with the rubbish and if you remain a man of principle then you're often the target of ludicrous smears and accusations.

Just remember kids, if you call your neighbour a cunt and then write it down on paper and post it through other neighbours letterboxes, at least two things you'll have is libel and slander; your neighbour can have you on those two things without hesitation. In politics, decent people can be called anything the press fancies and the victims have zero recourse unless they want their careers replaced with long-running libel/slander cases. The haters always win this scenario because if you want to stay true to your beliefs then you have to accept and ignore the shit that is thrown at you and if you decide to argue with these people you're therefore prevented from doing what you want to do, so your opponents always win.

Today's episode of 'What the fuck has my politician been up to today?' is about the Tory MP who thought he could put the cost of his own birthday card on his expenses. Remember something here, there are actual genuine cases of poverty and hardship out there that even gammons accept are not dole scroungers or liggers, but all Tory MPs for the last umpteen years have voted consistently to prevent the poorest people from getting more in benefits, yet he thinks he can put the cost of his own living as an MPs expense?

If it wasn't so horrendously stupid and ignorant it would be offensive. These people are on a minimum of £84,000 a year; they only have to breath and it can go on expenses. More than half of them have other jobs, whether actual physical jobs or acting as 'consultants' and some of these people get £3000 an hour for doing these extra jobs. They'd rather see a child starve than pay £2.50 for a birthday card (let alone try to claim someone else's expenses as your own).

What we need, whoever is in power, is a code of conduct for MPs that strips away all of the things that make being an MP a cushy job with no need to do much apart from say 'hear hear' or laugh at the opposition. No subsidies on second homes; no jobs for the wives and children if they're not actually working; no putting everything from cards to stables to coy carp ponds as MPs expenses. We need to stop normalising this kind of casual corruption, especially as these people would be the first to fire someone if they nicked so much as a Post-It note. 

MPs are elected by US to serve US and be responsible to and for US. That seems to have gone. It now seems to be we elect these charlatans to go and do whatever they want with no fear of recriminations. This is wrong and needs to stop. Then people might start to trust MPs again.

Subdivisions

One thing that most people in this country would agree on is we've never been so divided as a nation. I'd rather not spend time trying to separate all the different Tribes of Britain, but we have a new kind of politics in this country, one that embraces certain elements of Conservatism but also has a many Labour ideals, such as social justice and equity - these people aren't Liberals; let's get that straight from the word go - a liberal isn't what a lot of citizens of England have become. 

I know people who you would call Conservative through and through calling for more support for the poor and disenfranchised, while there are people who call themselves Labour supporters who display all the traits of racists and intolerant bigots towards selective audiences. I know socialists who had meltdowns when one of their children came out of the closet, while I know a Conservative who thinks voting for Brexit was a stupid thing and he wishes we could have a referendum again. Politics isn't simply red and blue with a dash of yellow thrown in; politics is multi-coloured and people are allowed to be socialists and not like European people.

Oddly enough I've never met a single person who thinks food banks are good and I've met no one who thought Gary Lineker was out of order for being a decent human being, but that might be down to the fact that in real life you rarely meet anyone with the specific views you often see on social media and where I live you rarely see anyone doing something like protest, not because we're following the example set by hypercritical newspapers, but because in the stick protests are few and far between; in fact the most contentious thing to happen to me in my quiet rural corner of Scotland has been the upcoming Coronation of Chaz the Third.

You see I think people have learned over the last few years that sometimes keeping what you think to yourself is probably the best thing to do. I saw this happen on Twitter when the Queen died; the people most likely to be disrespectful to a family about their deceased mother took a few days off, let the world do its thing; they ruffled no feathers. It was a wise decision. So as my very loyal Royalist 'town' is gearing up for the kind of public participation event we haven't seen since the Queen's silver jubilee in 1977, it's interesting to see what the anti-Royal and the ambivalent will do or say. Probably nothing because a lot of people in rural communities live and let live; there's plenty of other things to do. Obviously the same can't be said the closer you get to London and as you get closer to ground zero the veins in people's necks begin to pulse and twitch; more people froth at the mouth and talk about respect like it isn't a two-way street, because in 2023 respect isn't; it's a weapon used by whoever wants to take the moral high ground in a divisive issue.

Nothing is proving more divisive at the moment than the Royal family and the crowning of a man with quite a lot of money that's being paid for by his subjects, who currently are struggling to rub two halfpennies together. If this was 11th century Britain you'd understand it, but in 2023? 

British politics is also at a crossroads; the Tories are now slightly right wing of UKIP, while the Labour Party in a desperate attempt to please as many people as possible have morphed into a kind of Cameron-lite Tory Party, leaving the Libdems to feel a bit left wing and the Greens hoping they'll pick up votes from disgruntled left wing Labour voters who would rather remove a testicle or ovary with a rusty spoon than vote for Obi Wan Keir. 

Monarchists however are a curious subdivision; it crosses the political divide and becomes more of an us and them issue with people who do not have the same fawning worship of a bunch of ancestral Germans who gained the thrown through probable unfair shenanigans back around the turn of the 19th century. Where I live there are a number of devout Monarchists who put Pope worshippers to shame and I'm ambivalent towards them as I am towards it all. However, I don't think Monarchists feel the same way; there's a fealty between them that is almost as strong as the one they hold for the crown and they will fight for them; they will stand with hand on heart and recite the pledge of allegiance on Sunday and they will expect every other person in the country to be doing the same or they will be classed as traitors or worse, not British.

You can now be tarred with a brush for not wanting to be involved. I didn't realise that life was a case of choosing sides and if you opt out it's an offence?

Another Reason Why the BBC is Shit

The fact that BBC News now has about 30% outside content suggests the channel is desperate to stay on air with all the cuts being aimed at them. The weird thing about this is BBC News has, at least for the last eight or nine years, been a mouthpiece for the Tory government. Scrutiny has been in short supply of the Tories, the focus has been on anyone but them. So you'd imagine the BBC, in the knowledge that there's a good chance their evil overlords will be ousted from power next year, would be more 'inclined' to be a little more circumspect of the government and not appear to be gaslighting the country for them, still.

I know that theories abound about the BBC and how their impartiality, especially towards the Conservatives, has never been more absent, but one wonders if the actual standard of journalism has been reduced to a level that the average intelligent person will switch off?

This morning on the offensive Nicky Campbell radio phone in - now televised on the news channel for two hours a day to cut costs - one of the many arseholes they invite on to spout bullshit made the comment: 'I completely support the teachers, nurses and other public sector workers desperate for a wage rise, BUT surely there's a more effective way of getting what they want rather than going on strike and effecting the lives of the people who support them?' This is a passive aggressive form of attack, something the right wing has become very good at. It used to be called whataboutery, but now it's more subtle. 

I wanted to be on that show, I wanted to have Twitter open in front of me or my mobile to text the programme. I wanted to say, "If striking doesn't work, what do you suggest they do? Writing a strongly worded letter to the Health Secretary? Stop caring about their patients? How does the caller think a pay issue will be resolved unless the people wanting a pay rise roll over and show their employers' their bellies and hope that's enough?" What an absolute fucking wanker and what a shower of cunts the BBC are for even allowing this idiot onto the show; but what should we expect? Yesterday, Jonty from Chichester phoned up to tell the listening public, in his posh voice, that nurses were greedy, already paid enough and need to stop being greedy! This was like when they invited Nigel Lawson on to argue the case for why climate change is a myth...

I love the way the BBC has managed to make people we were cheering for three years ago into villains now. Every time there's a strike, it never focuses on the needs of those on strike, but always attaches itself to the selfish wants and needs of the individual. "This strike is affecting my life and I don't like it!" Well tough shit, it's ruining the lives of the people who want more money, but don't you worry about them, until you need to have your life saved.