A Racially-Motivated Message

I was in Ayr earlier this year. Ayr's like Scotland's Bournemouth and was, without doubt, the most cosmopolitan place I've been to since I've lived in Scotland. While I was sitting in the sunshine, outside Poundland, I saw a group of young women - schoolgirls on holiday - all wearing hijabs. It was the first proper Muslims I'd seen in over a year. No one up here seems bothered by it and the fact all the girls sounded Scottish, you wouldn't have known any difference if you'd had your eyes closed.

Interestingly, about twenty minutes earlier, when we were wondering up to Primark, we saw two nuns - not your usual soberly dressed women, looking like nurses with headgear, but two full-on penguins. More extravagant and with just as little flesh on display. Yes, they're women of God. The girls in hijabs were probably devout followers of Allah. We have preconceptions of Muslims. Boris Johnson displayed that in August with a column about not allowing Muslims to wear what they want to wear.

I'd never defend Johnson. The man is a conniving and devious politician and disguises his ambition with buffoonery. However, reading his column you had to acknowledge that his 'offensive' remarks have probably been made worse by the solitary fact he wrote them. There was elements of casual racism, but largely he was trying to make a jokey point about a sensitive issue.

He failed. But... did he really? He's become more of a champion to the new far-right than he was before that column (and his slagging off of his former boss) and, at the time, we had people uttering the words 'freedom of speech' and so they should, because it is only right. Like it is only right that any speech can be challenged, in a constructive way, using the same freedom of speech rules. Racists and bigots need to be challenged, rather than banning them. That just inflames and makes a mockery of the 'freedom of speech' ideal.

What Johnson has probably achieved is help drive the wedge between xenophobic/racist Brits and normal people deeper. I mean, when you read about Pakistani rape gangs in Yorkshire and ISIS terrorists and radicalised British wannabe martyrs, how can those who will never be happy until all non-British people are gone ever be appeased? How are Muslims ever going to feel accepted when in some places they must have begun to feel like Negroes in 1950s USA? For every newspaper or twat US President claiming we have Muslim enclaves in our cities, we have genuinely scared people avoiding the streets for fear of reprisals because of their culture.

Now we discover that the UK has an incredible racial bias that extends to pretty much anyone who isn't white, heterosexual and, above all, English. Brexit has allowed English people to believe they're on the verge of a new Empire, one that finally kicks Johnny Foreigner squarely in the testes. History suggests when you start to alienate certain groups of people it isn't long before your cohorts are alienating others. We live in a 'Kingdom' that demonises pretty much anyone who isn't British and employed; but as The Guardian newspaper has found, even if you are British and employed, it depends on how 'British' you are.

A percentage of Brits are of Asian, African or West Indian origins. In fact, a number are also of European heritage, but are not as well accepted because they have a foreign - too foreign - sounding name. Farage is okay, but Davidovich or Simkiewicz isn't.

Let's be clear about something; I had a Chinese landlord once who thought Indians were 'dirty bastards'. I knew a man from Pakistan who thought Arabs (Iranians specifically) were allowing the world to destroy itself because they want to rule everything. I've met a man from England who believes in Brexit so hard that any dissenting voice is a liar and I've seen evidence (whether real or Russian bot) on social media platforms of such vile callousness towards people 'not like us' that it's added a new dimension to the "I'm all right, Jack" mentality. An attitude I'd always attached to dyed-in-the-wool Tory voters who believed that homelessness was a left wing conspiracy and that anyone on welfare/benefits was a scrounger or out to make something from the state. The human race is inherently xenophobic - I'd call them racist, but it's simply a fear and loathing of something that you can't relate to.

Michael Gove (or Pob as we like to think of him) pretty much declared there would be violence and national unrest if his Brexit doesn't happen and while that is just the Hard Brexit supporters' own Project Fear, in this world of intolerance he's probably not a hundred miles from the truth. But hey, in the USA BAME citizens feel like their rights and position has been eroded more in the last 2 years than it has since Rosa Parks told a white boy to find his own seat on the bus.

I look at BAME Tory politicians and wonder how long before they start to feel like a token gesture to tempt the delusional blacks and Asians to continue voting for them - 'You're all right, it's those black and Asian kids the Nazigraph is talking about' will be a variation of the excuse given to them.

Living in this part of Scotland you see a lot of casual racism, which you oddly don't see when someone is getting a takeaway from the Chinese or Indian restaurants, and, to be fair, I've not heard any overt nastiness from anyone up here towards anyone culturally different, but that's not to say it doesn't exist. There are enough Scottish Tories with bizarre ideas about a lot of things and there's considerably more Brextremists who've moved up from England, despite the fact that Scotland voted by a big margin to stay in the EU (and has been largely ignored by England since). These are the kind of people who'll always look for someone else to blame and once the country no longer has any Europeans to blame, they'll pick on the black, brown and yellow foreigners, while beginning to cast an eye of suspicion at Canadians, Australians and New Zealanders - because, you know, they might look and sound like us but they've probably stolen jobs, hospital beds and the last place on the twice weekly bus service which was hacked and slashed by the Tory controlled council and nothing to do with a 'foreign' tax payer and contributor...

What we need to realise is white people can't possibly understand what it's like to be black or Asian; the same as they can't really understand what it's like vice versa. Heterosexual people might think they can relate to homosexuals, but we can't really understand what is going on inside their 'souls' even if we can put our minds into that space. I'd like to think rational people - the kind of people who would rather help than hurt - really struggle to understand how a fellow human being can be purposefully vile and nasty to someone less fortunate (and equally, I can almost understand how 30-year-old neo-fascists can believe the Holocaust was just some Jewish propaganda and couldn't have possibly really happened... that is until the first people start being shipped into camps, like Muslims in parts of China).

The thing is it's pretty much the difference between someone with left politics and someone with right.

History is there to be learnt from and if we can't learn from it then we don't really have any right to be here. Without humans there would still be many similar traits in the animals; war, love, compassion, hatred, fear ... that's because, we're still just animals too. Devious, nasty and cruel ones, but we still shit, like having sex and beating the fuck out of people who are weaker or not like us. Not everyone is and many people who vote Tory, or feel their have little or no prejudices, probably aren't. The thing is it's easier to hate than it is to embrace and hold and until a large percentage - the majority of the population of the world - understand and practice this, just about everyone is screwed.

What part of the Bible or the Quran which tells us to 'love our neighbour' also tells us to kill them if they don't agree 100% with us? Because, that's all I've really got. I don't have a solution (apart from the war I've been forecasting for the last three years). When 50% of the planet suffers from different degrees of cognitive dissonance, you ain't got a hope of living in a peaceful non-prejudice world; so you turn your back and let the worst parts of human nature run rampant among the people supposedly running the world. And because you know you're just one person, you know you can't do much about it and if you think like that it's already too late...

No Soft Option

Having recently discovered that facts are irrelevant, I don't see the point in banging on relentlessly about this, that or the other. Take the EU exit for instance - no one knows what is going to happen; very few people really believe that the UK is going to get a better deal and the hard reality is that the other 27 EU countries are going to force limitations on what we want. They weren't that ecstatic we wanted out after all...

The truth is if we're coming out of the EU it has to be a HARD one, realistically there is no soft option. It will cost too much money and pretty much leave us in the same situation we were in except without any voice. The hard option will also cost us but it will be front loaded - costs will rise, some goods will no longer be available or no longer at prices the average person can afford and no one really knows how it will affect unemployment - it could go down. One thing is certain, the people who voted to leave because they believed it would be the best thing will be hurt either economically or emotionally.

The thing is Treeza and co., are all too aware that regardless of how you spin it, her party, UKIP and the right wing press have forced her into believing that the EU referendum was actually about migration and if that isn't addressed, then regardless of what the 48% wanted, there will be factions within the country who will deal with immigration in their own 'unique' ways. It might happen even if we close our borders, but the reality, at this moment in time, is that it will cost us a lot of money whatever way we choose and people will still want to blame migrant workers and the EU for it. Honestly, if the Tory's can - 7 years on - still blame Labour for the country's ills (never addressing the fact that in those 7 years they've made it actually worse) and get away with it, then if you're foreign then you'll pretty much take the flak for every hike in inflation, rise in unemployment, redundancy or failure to obtain a job.

The sad thing is regardless of the truth people will always blame the easiest thing. Migrants, for instance, don't steal peoples jobs. I'd like a Brexiteer to explain to me how migrants steal jobs? There is obviously not identity theft going on, so are these migrants infiltrating factories, working harder and offering to work harder for much less money? Even if this was the case, it would not be them stealing jobs, it would be employers preventing the indigenous from getting these jobs by a mixture of fraud and bad practice. There is no other way of looking at it. If you hear someone say, 'bloody foreigners stole my job,' you need to ask them how exactly their job was stolen and whose fault it was, really?

How about the country is full, there's no more room... Well, it isn't. That is about as facile a comment as a bunch of people with no authority promising you - the people - that £350million will go to the NHS if we pull out of Europe. Yes, we have a rise in homelessness, but is that because of migrants? Are you stealing peoples houses? Moving in surreptitiously at night, moving out a British person's belongings and acquiring their house by some medieval EU law? No, the truth is the government has made life so difficult for genuine strugglers that they face a Christmas with little or nothing. Because of the way our renting system is now you'd be lucky to get a stable at an affordable price. More affordable houses need to be built and while the government looks to the house sales market to keep the economy at least marginally 'balanced' there's unlikely to be any nice cheap homes for any of the disenfranchised to move into.

Of course, we can say without fear of contradiction that migrants are responsible for the strain on public services. I mean, it was obviously E|U migrants who slashed the public sector budgets and they've obviously been forcing the government to not build new hospitals or schools, or make public transport better, because it makes perfect sense that EUs will come here and destroy our services so they can access them easier...

Blaming migrants for the woes of the world is just blind refusal to blame the government - of which many people voted for. If by some UKIP fluke of nature and all migrants who have moved here since 2000 were deported, would we see a vast improvement in our lives? Would the government invest all that lost tax revenue back into ailing services, or, would they more likely award fat contracts to private companies making 'consolidation' their main aim.

The blame for migrants and the way they are seen is mainly at the feet of the right wing press, who seem so intent on stirring up hate it would seem their only intention is to cause some kind of civil race war within the country, presumably so they can then sit on their high horse and say they told us so. The Tories have to take a lot of the blame - they have it in their power to end hostility to migrants almost immediately, by gagging their pit bulls in the press and showing the stats that prove the migrant crisis isn't a crisis at all, just something blown out of proportion by the Mail, which has a history of essentially being neo-Nazi.

Obviously, Treeza won't do something as calamitous as admitting their incompetence is the main reason for the lack of things, nor will she rein in her media allies, so we have a situation where racism, or at least xenophobia, is allowed to escalate to the point where there are twats openly being arseholes all over the country and using freedom of speech to perpetuate their hate, while failing to see the irony in being called out by the fair people who they themselves have repeatedly abused.

Recently, a friend of mine commented on the Guardian's CiF section lambasting trolls as being worthless and hopeless antagonists who must have sad lives if the only pleasure they get is out of being nasty in a comments section. His comment was 'moderated' and deleted, despite having no bad language in it, but possibly being disrespectful to the people who do nothing but be disrespectful. His follow up comment complaining that the Guardian seemed keen to delete a message that was essentially criticising the Guardian for having double standards was also deleted. On the same page there were several attacks on 'hand wringing liberals' that went unmoderated. When a newspaper as (and I use this term loosely) moderate as the Guardian starts censoring people complaining about the lack of censorship from hate groups then you have to start wondering where we're going as a race.

The parallels to the 1930s are there for all to see and it's much faster because of social media and the new and different ways we have of communicating with each other. It isn't just migrants facing daily abuse; Pinko-liberals are getting it too. The left wing is now as much a target for the papers as migrants and presumably because some left wingers are pro-EU and believe in the freedom of movement. How long before those who advocate this are considered enemies of the people?

So the hard truth is a hard Brexit. Yes, all of us Pinko-liberals who voted remain will suffer the consequences, but they'll be no different than those who voted Leave. This won't be a Tory party pandering to those who voted for them and ignoring those who will never vote for them, this will be a real true moment of 'we're all in it together - whether we like it or not'. Apart from the cost, there's the social implications of a soft option - this is a generalisation but one with some basis in fact; quite simply Leave voters are more likely to cause problems than Remain voters and as I keep saying Treeza doesn't want to call a GE for a number of reasons, both legal and because if people don't vote for Labour and want to vote out the Tories, who does that leave?

As much as I'd like to think there could be a second referendum, I'm also acutely aware that should that vote be 53-47 in favour of staying after all, then there would be much more of a fight from the 47% than there has been by the current 48% of remainers. The sad truth is Brexiteers want you to accept a result they would never have accepted had it been a mirror result.

I also discount the claim that only 28% of the actual population voted for Leave. 72% of the people who could vote voted and frankly we have absolutely no way of knowing if that 28% would have swayed it towards Remain. I met an awful lot of people who had made their minds up they weren't voting because they thought they'd already lost. I think the country voted for Brexit because being out of Europe was some rainbow-shitting unicorn to solve all of our woes and the Leave campaign did a fantastic job of making the Remain camp out to be a bunch of scaremongering liars.

Quite simply, as I jokingly said two years ago, we need to exit and quick and then sit back and watch everything fall apart. However, I no longer believe that people who voted Remain should then rub it into the faces of those who voted Leave, because wars have been started for less.

Look at the options: decide against the vote and go back to the EU and renegotiate our membership - which isn't going to happen, but even if it did we've caused far too much disruption to expect anything in return. Or leave, jump off the cliff, and face the consequences and see if we have politicians and businessmen with the guile and acumen to sort it out and make the best of what will undeniably be a bad lot - for a few years at least.

The soft option angers too many and that's where Treeza is a bit of a populist and has angered some of her own MPs by being a bit UKIP-lite, presumably based on the combined readership of the right wing press. Hard Brexit might end up being a Pyrrhic victory for the Tories because, let's be honest about this, they've not really shown any evidence that they're any better with an economy than Labour, in fact now that they're borrowing more money than ever before they'd be hard pressed to accuse Labour of doing the same, especially as Labour might have borrowed too much but there is some actual evidence to suggest it was spent on infrastructure rather than feathering Richard Branson's pension fund.

The Matrix is Broken... The Matrix is Broken...

Recently I watched one of my right on and new age friends rage with unrestrained passion about something that he didn't agree with at an event he was involved in. It made me want to use his own words and assure him that 'everything happens for a reason and perhaps he needs to embrace this set back and look for the positives in it', but I couldn't help think that it would be seen as antagonistic rather than anything else - and to be fair there would have been an element of antagonism in there, but only after a fashion.

The thing is it made me realise that even the most non-judgemental of us are exactly the opposite of what we hold as a solid human trait. Prejudices appear all the time and it isn't just the ignorant or the rich who do this. I recently made friends with a man who seemed extremely decent; his job, wife and lifestyle suggested the last thing he is was an ignorant xenophobe with obvious BNP/EDL leanings - even seemingly intelligent people can exhibit levels of fuckwittedness that beggar belief.

I've met wilfully ignorant people in the last few weeks; people who smoke while pregnant; people who work zero hour contracts and have the urine extracted from them by their employers; people who still believe the NHS will be £350billion a second better off now we're out of the EU, because they haven't taken any notice of a newspaper or a news program since the day after the referendum. I've met a school teacher who voted Leave, who told me she did it because she wanted her country back, that the country was getting to the point where there wasn't enough room and it would be nice to have the majority of kids in her class where English was the first language... A teacher... You have to start wondering about whether humanity has just subconsciously developed an absurdist self-destruct gene?

Having a wife who earns a little too much money has meant that my periods of unemployment in recent years has garnered me the absolute minimum I should be entitled to, yet someone I've known best part of my life and hasn't been remotely interested in getting a job - since 1992 - gets so much support, even now - in the wake of IDS and his purges - that it actually made me feel anger towards him (my friend that is, I've felt anger towards IDS since about 1999). After years of contributing to the economy and paying my NI, I was entitled to essentially fuck all. Had I been 'a feckless workshy wanker' I could have got just about everything I needed - like free prescriptions, bus fares or other frivolous things people with money take for granted. The sad thing is I'm not a particularly nice person but I felt slightly ashamed of myself for feeling angry towards my friend's 'life choice'.

It also should be noted that my friend with the unemployment fixation is also damaged goods and probably now falls into the category of 'people never likely to be able to do a real job again, ever'. Whether he arrived at this situation through nurture or nature isn't for debate (I know the answer to this specific question, though), but one thing is clear 50% of the blame, at least, has to be placed at the feet of the governments of the late 1970s and early 1980s, because they didn't do enough to change attitudes, or invest enough in education (because what sense is there investing in our future?) and it only got worse in the 80s and 90s.

After spending over 15 years working with the disenfranchised and becoming a good socialist as a result, I know the difference between the disenfranchised and those who play the system because they don't want to work or contribute - the people who think it is okay to live off of everyone else without contributing anything other than more actual cost to the taxpayer. Yes, you can argue, it isn't their fault they're in whatever predicament they're in - more the fault of successive governments doing little or nothing for the most isolated and alienated in already poor communities, while simultaneously finding something unrelated to blame - but I'm also not that left wing where I won't call a feckless wanker a feckless wanker.

Take the argument that migrant workers put too much strain on our services. The blame for this appeared to be placed firmly at the feet of the EU despite the fact that 62% of our migrants come from outside of the EU and never once, during the EU debate, did any party - Corbyn's included - point out that the strains on hospitals, schools and public services was actually the fault of the government for not investing in expanding it all when the need grew. I mean it doesn't take an idiot to realise that even if they hooked private business into the building of these things, they would all have been patronised, would have employed more people and would have injected money back into the economy. That isn't socialism, that's common sense that could have been exploited however the Tories wanted and still been beneficial to the majority of people.

I have suggested before that I'm beginning to think that politicians are mainly all idiots, or have finally decided that we're all idiots, because all politics seems to be choreographed now; even Corbyn really appears to be quite toothless because no one - apart from the lovely Mairhi Black (who is 21) - seems to asking the pertinent questions or making any salient points. Take the decision to overrule the No Fracking decision by Lancashire Council - whatever way you feel about fracking, when you consider the overall costs compared to, say, putting up an offshore wind farm, you have to wonder if our politicians are also brainless psychopaths too. Am I the only person who questions his (or her) own sanity at comments, actions or interviews given by politicians. I mean, is Priti Patel even real?

I recently spent a few hours talking to the owner of a small private hire company and he told me some astounding facts about taxis. 54% of all taxis booked are by girls/women aged between 14 and 40. But even more incredible is that upwards of 60% of all taxis are booked/hailed by people on benefits. As someone who has, at times, viewed £10 as an important third of my shopping bill, to be in a position where walking or catching a bus doesn't even feature in someone's thinking, despite having nothing makes me begin to wonder if the Tories are right and that some people exploit the system. Or perhaps kids in poor schools need more education as to how to prioritise their money better when they leave education and go straight into a career on welfare. Ironically, we've allowed TV, the media and commercialism/advertising to brainwash the young into thinking that having an iPhone is more important than eating healthily and we've seen, throughout the last few decades, common sense levels in most individuals drop to the point where (almost) statistically more than half of the people here are twats. We've all been persuaded to spend all of the money we haven't got on cheap shit that won't last while simultaneously blaming Johnny Foreigner for stealing someone else's job...

The unswerving power of commercialism has placed many of our citizens in a position where they view essentials as trivial and trivia as essential and urban ghettos and isolated areas of deprivation are as a result of no government ever addressing - in my life time, at least - the problems in any long-term way. Mix commercialism with a bit of prejudice and you create a dependent with the belief of entitlement. That's the fault of governments since the 1960s who didn't acknowledge prevention was better, and cost less, than cure. Governments never really see or understand the problem until it is too late to fix. And then you need to acknowledge that to fix just some of society's ills - the ones who wield power fancy supporting - it would cost far more money than is available and we all know money is an exclusive privilege of the rich.

***

Over the last few days we've seen the right-leaning media ratchet up the hate and racism against migrants, or in fact anyone not from the UK. I fail to see what the ultimate aim is, unless Murdock, Beaverbrook and the rest actually want the UK to become a xenophobic, isolated island with no trade deals and vilified by the rest of the world.

What good are these 'rags' doing? What possible positive outcomes can we hope to get when facts are ignored in favour of jingoistic hate and bile? With at least 52% of the country's voters prone to believe sensationalist bullshit and lies you have to start wondering if there's a crazy agenda being set out by the media. Because it has to be crazy - Jeremy Corbyn is a fair politician but is treated and talked about like he was a former Nazi death camp guard, while the Tories and their supporters get nastier and the only places these are covered are in blogs, news sites (not affiliated to money) and Twitter - thus having little or no credence to the 52% because it wasn't seen on the BBC or read in the Sun or Daily Mail.

We're in the depths of a self-fulfilling prophecy; I'm not sure what the prophecy is, just that it appears to involve hate and ultimately violence.

Crazy crazy world

Honestly, you couldn't make it up.

If, say 15 years ago, you were told that the UK would elect a Tory government despite more than 50% of the country being pissed off with poverty and misery, and would also vote to come out of the EU based on a mixture of feelings, misplaced patriotism and idiocy and then we might witness the election of a President of the USA who, frankly, is crazier than batshit daiquiris, you'd probably think I was describing a new Armando Iannucci political comedy, because I'd think all of that and I'm a) writing this and b) living it too.

We live in a Post-fact, post-expert, post-logical world where people simply don't give a fuck about facts - especially those who voted for Leave. Experts are just there to scare us. Logic is there to confuse us and Facts are there to be ignored and derided because Feelings and Pride are far more important to the future of everyone.

The problem is we're talking about a majority of people now. You know and I know that it isn't really a true majority, but it's big enough and ugly enough to dictate the country's rhetoric. The sad truth is a large percentage of the 52% voted as a protest to the shit they've been suffering for years without really understanding that the referendum had nothing to do with what has been happening to them and no one made a big enough issue out of the fact that it was the EU that stopped the worst off and most disenfranchised among us from being marginalised even more. If you weighed up the difference between what Westminster and Brussels has given to the people of South Wales you would have thought they would have voted 99% to remain, instead of 61% of them opting for the exit button. What's worse is these people think that our government is going to save them... That's how stupid people are now. 

There are people in Sunderland facing economic oblivion as their largest employer scales back and considers moving elsewhere who actually feel happy and proud that they've helped precipitate their own downfall. I'm amazed Cameron quit; the referendum gave a warped legitimacy to everything him and Gideon were doing; the fact that Treeza May is actually attempting to reverse some of their less humane achievements almost smacks of the same level of crazy.

I loved a short statement made by *Yasmin Ali - "Tonight I went to a Tory Party meeting on Brexit. More specifically, I went to a Tory meeting on what happens after Brexit to bring the nation together again.   So what did I learn? If I distil it down, it is that they have no idea. No idea how to leave the EU. No idea what happens now. All they know is that they are so loved up with their vote that all these tedious questions are nothing but Party pooping nonsense."

Doesn't this just about sum up the feeling of the Brexiteers across the country? The same people who claim quite self-righteously that if they'd lost they wouldn't be making such a big issue about it... Yeah, right and if my aunt had balls she'd be my uncle...

It isn't just us; there's this Rodrigo Duterte fellow in the Philippines who is basically advocating and promoting a criminal-cleansing spree, allowing his citizens to kill anyone they suspect is a drug dealer or taker or friend of either. The weird thing about Duterte is despite caterwauls of horror and disgust from the rest of the world, he's a bloody popular bloodthirsty tyrant among his own people - the right wing/Libertarian supporting Philippinos think 'Digong' is top banana and his popularity has grown as the graves of the criminals have filled up.

Hungary has been trying to out-Farage Nigel by having a referendum that I'm still not entirely sure about. I could check this but that takes the fun out of it, but apparently they've just had a referendum to reject the EU's migrant policy, which kind of doesn't make any sense because as part of the EU they've already caused ructions by putting a bloody great fence around their country and restricting movement (you know, the thing 52% of our population would get massive erections about if offered the chance). The fact that not enough Hungarians actually voted to make it officially recognisable is, hopefully, a testament to nice Hungarians, because, according to my Romanian neighbour, 'Most peoples from Hungaria are shit.'

I'm sure Hillary Clinton isn't all the things she's being accused of, because if she is then the USA has finally succumbed to Total Dumb by having two unbelievably crooked and dislikable people vying for the job of Chief Button Pusher. I know it's more about how much money you can throw at it than politics, but if the USA wants to be treated with the respect it deserves it should really take a good hard long look at itself. Sometimes the idea of the Yellowstone Caldera Extinction Event seems like a damned fine idea.

Oh and while this isn't strictly politics, you have to wonder what kind of world we're now living in if fear, scaremongering and worst case scenarios are touted as news... At least four tabloids in the last week have picked up on the 'Britain is headed for an apocalyptic winter' news story. This incredible prophecy of doom first appeared in the Daily Express - the paper that essentially talks about three things: the weather, Princess Diana and the evil Labour party. The Express actually just rehashed a story written last October, with a slight edit to suggest they were a hair's width from being totally right about saying 2015 would be the worst winter since the opening sequence of The Empire Strikes Back. The truth was last winter was one of the mildest on record. The Express would have been more accurate had they said 'Pretty bog standard winter with some cold days and some mild days, lots of wind and a cold spring', because this is essentially what six of the last 10 years have been. Of the other four we had two colder than average winters and two warmer than average winters and warm springs (both of these years my apricot tree fruited).

The thing is as the Met Office says on a regular basis - anything over a week and you get into chaos theory and frankly you can only base long range forecasts on trends and computer models, therefore the Met Office has said what I said in the paragraph above - 2016/17: an average winter with colder spells and milder ones. Yet this is the sixth time in seven years the Express has told us we're all going to freeze to death.

Why?

What does scaring the shit out of Brexit-voting pensioners achieve? Do governments just say to newspapers that parts of the economy need stimulating so make up some shite that'll get pensioners in Bournemouth bulk buying bog paper from the local Asda, or is that just a crazy conspiracy theory too far?

* Yasmin Alibhai-Brown (left-ish UK Muslim journalist)

The Last Word

Worst Case Scenario

The country decides to leave the European Union. What could happen?

The stock market could crash and there could be a massive run on Sterling, devaluing Britain by as much as £40billion over night.

This will spark an emergency budget to put safeguards in place should the arse fall out of the economy.

David Cameron - growing increasingly unpopular - resigns and triggers a leadership battle in the Conservatives, where those in favour of Leave become the leading contenders, people with an extreme right-wing leaning and who have publicly stated that the cuts to public services are not deep enough and are unlikely to channel whatever piddly amount is saved from leaving into those services and the excuse will be the fall in stock and the fiscal effect on leaving.

Not a lot else will happen during the first two years as our government attempts to negotiate trade deals and discovers that it cannot accept any existing deal without allowing the freedom of movement - just ask Norway or Switzerland. Except, some things will happen, socially.

As one political reporter (Norman Smith) said, 'Whatever happens it will change the face of the UK'. He knows, as do many others, that the extreme examples of xenophobia exhibited throughout the campaign will spill out onto the streets, probably whatever the result. The referendum has allowed prejudices to be almost acceptable, as like-minded people congregate to castigate and show extreme opinions that align them with some of the worst terrorists and this will affect foreign migrants in this country, who will be stuck in a limbo, not knowing what the immediate future holds for them.

The scary thing is if intimidation begins (continues) and starts to drive EU migrants (and others) out of the country, there is an idiot minority who will view this as a victory and once it starts 'reclaiming the country' will become something that the far right will begin to practice, because if we vote to leave then the lunatics will really be in control of the asylum. You might not care about the economy (you really should) or bureaucracy (there's probably more of it in UK law than in the EU) or even the migrant issue (depending on who you believe it's either the big issue or not really a concern), you might just feel it seems the right thing to do.

That hangnail - you know if you bite at it you'll end up making your finger bleed and sore for a few days. You know that pulling at it is the stupid thing to do, but you do it anyhow and you'll probably do it again. This isn't a hangnail, this is like cutting off your nose to spite your face. This isn't a frivolous thing; this isn't about getting one over the government, or screwing David Cameron, this is self-harm. Ask yourself this: the UK might be a better place out - that fairy tale might come true and Boris & co., will be right. It might not change much at all and you might shrug your shoulders and say 'Meh', or... it might be costing you your job, your children's jobs and futures, your pockets and purses, your civil liberties and you might wonder what the hell has happened and who can you blame for it?

If you vote Remain and nothing changes will it be that bad? But just think, for a second, put those feelings to one side and think about the future, what if it all turns to shit? What if your house devalues by 35%? What if your pension disappears either through lack of money or a corporate raider like Philip Green? What if there are no jobs, no money sloshing around the economy, no cheap goods - what if you can no longer buy what you want or at the right price? People don't want second best, but they sometimes have to accept it - but it tends to be their choice; if you never have the first choice any more and pay more for what you have to have, is that better than it is now? Do you really really want some kind of mythical independence if it is going to cost your kids their future? Can you truly live with yourself if you are one of the people responsible for the isolation and bankruptcy of our great nation?

Vote Remain.

More Than A Feeling

You are 14. You have just met the most fantastic boy/girl. Inside 24 hours you are in love; smitten and wrapped in a warm fuzzy sensation no drug can really truly replicate. When you profess your love for this other new and brilliant person in your life, you are looked at in the same way you were looked at when you were six and farted at the dinner table. "It's how I feel!" You plead with your mum, who knows, all too well, what you are experiencing.

You are 21. It's Grand National weekend and you like a flutter on the Grand National. It's a national pastime, innit? You saw the runners and riders a week ago and you had this sneaky feeling about Bold Future. You think it is going to win. It's 25/1. All week you convince yourself that the odd feeling - that may well have been wind - when you first saw the horses' names is the feeling; the one that is lined with gold.

You are in your 50s - not quite in the baby boomer generation, but old enough to remember the world of three TV channels, ringing telephones that were simply just ... telephones and men with leather patches on their elbows and shoulders of their brown corduroy jackets. You have been 'a European' for 4/5ths of your life and the other fifth you were so young you had no real comprehension of the world around you. Contrary to popular belief most kids that wander around the world up to the age of about 10 do so with an awe-inspired open-mouthed acceptance. You are influenced by what you hear more than what you see because people don't have a tendency to shove pictures in people's faces to continually emphasise a point the way they do with words. Words stick, just ask the mum who inadvertently mutters the word 'fuck' almost under her breath and now has a child running around the house shouting FUCK at the top of its voice.

You are in your 50s and that means you're not too far away from something that seems almost ridiculous - retirement. What you are looking at is your pension, your security and your family (not necessarily in that order, but politics has a tendency to re-prioritise peoples lives) and whether or not you're going to get NHS treatment in the future, because if you haven't started going wrong, it's sitting around the corner waiting to pounce. For the first time in your life you are actually actively thinking about the future, because you've flushed 50-odd years down the toilet and you ain't got that much time left to replay it all again. Tell a 16-year-old he should stop smoking because they will suffer for it when they're 50, they will, almost quite rightly, point out that that's over 30 years away and you didn't listen to the people who told you the same thing.

You might be younger and be reading this thinking carpe diem or death and glory, but trust me, it's like death and taxes, it is something you will do and when you do it's usually with worst case scenarios just to ratchet up the fear factor. You will slow down. You will see time pass without real comprehension.

Now, I'm gobsmacked that we've had 16 years of the 21st Century already. I mean, where did that go? It's like my world has been encased in a select bubble that because it is ageing with me I'm only aware of the numbers. So with that in mind you realise without ever realising it while it is happening that your life becomes reasonably ordered and steady and staid and even a bit boring, but usually it is comfortable and bollocks to going clubbing this weekend, my legs are aching from doing the gardening... It. Just. Happens.

Therefore what you want from the future is that unconscious security you've been experiencing since whenever it started. At least that is my feeling. I'd like that unconscious security to be in Wigtownshire and involve as little work as possible and I'm sure everyone else also has their idyll knocking around in their heads. I'd like to make one last adventure in a life that, compared to my father, has been relatively conservative (SMALL C) despite my belief that it's been more cosmopolitan than many people I've met. I feel that a move will be the best thing I can do with whatever life I have left; the idea of something new doesn't, in the slightest, fill me with dread, but an electric current-like frisson of possibilities and positives.

But, you know, I have COPD, which isn't going away and a history of back and shoulder problems and no private pension to speak of. The wife has family she needs to be around because of her mum's ill health and moving to Scotland would be a massive movement of everything away from everything we know. Still, it's a feeling I think needs to be tried, even if it goes extraordinarily tits up.

What I've just been talking about is what an enormous amount of people I have met on my travels think about the EU Referendum. Obviously not that exactly, but because it is a feeling they have and it doesn't matter how much you can prove to them that the most sensible thing is to RemaIN/Leave, they have a feeling, goddammit! You can't argue with feelings. Look what happens when you question feelings: "Boss, having spoken to that Jimmy Savile fella I've got a nasty feeling he's a wrong'un." And feelings, especially when they've been precognitive, tend to stick in your mind. The 50,000 other feelings that were so wide of the mark they're exiting the known universe next week are always forgotten about. Benign feelings tend to mutate into rose-tinted nostalgia.  Feelings are what are likely to drive even the most responsible of people and of course if everyone with feelings were exempt from voting that would leave the psychopaths...

It doesn't matter what you see that suggests what you do is going to essentially butt-fuck you for the rest of your life, because if you remember that girl/boy you fell in love with when you were 14, you know that you would have walked 30 miles over broken glass in bare feet just to put matchsticks in her shit and that is what this is like. Yes, so I sank my life savings on Bold Future and it broke its neck at the first, I have the rest of my life in front of me. I feel that voting out is the best thing and even if that means my life will become one long continuous nightmare of poverty, alienation and hate...

The 14 year old boy/girl is now 54; he/she is 100lbs overweight, has umpteen children, varicose veins and piles. She/he lives in a housing association shed and thinks having the new iphone is more important than feeding the kids healthily. The words 'sausages', 'Mersey' and 'tunnel' are often used in connection with her. Do I need to carry on?

Ask yourself this, especially if you have a feeling about this referendum. Are you really prepared to risk everything you have and everything your kids might have on the basis of feeling it might be the right thing to do?

The Casual Racist

My grandfather was a goldsmith and a Freeman of the City of London; and I believe he also made the Queen’s engagement ring or wedding ring – he made something important that got him that Freeman status. His political preferences were private; he belonged to a generation that didn’t discuss things such as sex, religion or politics publicly (and knowing how Victorian my family has been in the past probably not privately either), but that didn’t preclude him from discussing politics.

My gut feeling was that Harry Rodway was a socialist and voted Labour. I think his reluctance to talk about voting intentions stemmed from his workplace environment; goldsmiths were usually working class lads - like diamond miners are the least wealthy in their chain - but many had aspirations, because we should all have aspirations and they rubbed shoulders with the Hoi-poloi on a daily basis, because of the nature of their job.

One of my grandad’s sage-like opinions thrown at me when I was about 10 was that it didn’t matter who was in power they all took advantage of the poor. Some were less obvious about it, but it didn’t matter what year you were in you could always identify the repercussions to the working man before you could find anything else. My grandad used to say that it didn’t matter which chancellor was in #11 he’d always put money on fags and booze because the working man needed to know where his place was.

I remember when the MOT test was introduced, despite never having driven a car, he saw this as a direct attack on the pockets of the poor, because the poor were more likely to have a car that failed the test and I don’t care what political persuasion you are that is a difficult statement to argue with. Yes, you could say that people should aspire to own better, less troublesome motors, but we’re not talking ideology we’re talking reality and the reality is the poor simply can’t afford a better car. Therefore my grandad saw the MOT as an indirect tax directed at the poor.

My feeling is he would have felt the same way about the national lottery and probably would have wanted to see just how many winners would have been regarded as working class in his day. The thing about my grandad was he had these opinions but he didn’t have any ill feeling or disdain towards those better than him – that was how it was and it was up to him to make it better for himself and his family, if that was what he had to or wanted. Greed existed when he was young, but it wasn’t a vocational option.

I have always blamed Thatcher for how society is now, but in reality all she did was highlight some of the more restrained human traits; she might have helped destroy the concept of ‘community’ but she didn’t make people do this – it was a choice and one that appealed to the basest of human nature. What happened after Thatcher was far worse and for 13 years of it there was a ‘Labour’ government. Before and after the war, governments behaved like they had a reasonable duty of care for all the people who voted and while the Tories have always been the party of the better off they had socialist values – once you could vote Conservative without fear and also care about people.

Since the 1980s caring about other people, especially people you don’t or will never know, has become difficult and many people – of all political persuasions – are more concerned about their own lives than anyone else’s. The ‘I’m Alright Jack’ culture created by the City of London, which spread throughout the country faster than a zombie apocalypse had a far worse social effect – not only were people becoming dispassionate about neighbours and other humans, they were also getting to the position where they didn’t care what the governments did as long as… they were alright. Sell off everything? As long as I’m ok. Privatise the NHS? As long as I get what I need when I need it. Cut jobs? As long as it isn’t my job. This might seem harsh, but we want to prosper as well as survive; comfort is better than squalor.

But that isn’t the only reason why we have got to where we are. I like to blame Rupert Murdock for a lot of our problems and unlike Thatcher I can’t mitigate some of the blame. Before the Australian billionaire bought into the British press in the late 60s, our newspapers were indeed run by Tory peers or philanthropist peers or aristocrats. They covered politics 99% of the time as news and news didn’t warrant that much of an op.ed; rarely did you have campaigns as disingenuous as they are now. The media controls the way news is delivered and what is deemed worthy of exposure - it is growing more and more obvious especially when horrendous sanctions directed specifically at the poor and disenfranchised are overlooked in favour of the colour of Jeremy Corbyn’s tie or the size of Kim Kardassian’s arse and the reason behind this is the people don’t need to know about that serious politics stuff unless it’s to condemn it for wanting to change or, as recently we have seen, it highlights the true divisions between us and them.

Extreme politics doesn’t tend to wash in this country; it is a rare thing to see a large uprising of communists or fascists – these people exist, but are seriously outnumbered normal people trying to live normal lives who really have no interest in politics apart from when it affects them. What we have got is a growing amount of ‘allowable racism’ in the guise of nationalism and a reason for withdrawal from the EU. The Out brigade are doing a good job of manipulating the press to make it sound like the In party are orchestrating a campaign of fear, when, in reality, it is the Out brigade who are causing all the fear, because quite simply we know what it’s like to be in Europe, we have no idea what it would be like to be out of it, because this isn’t the 1970s and the world has changed considerably.

There is a degree of hypocrisy shown by people who are going to vote out because ‘there’s too many foreigners here already’, because most of them have never given a fig about people struggling to make it through a day let alone an entire parliament because of penalties aimed exclusively at those not in a position to fight them. They’re now concerned about ‘other’ people and that is through fear. Can you imagine what it must be like to be an EU migrant worker in this country? It sounds crazy, but it must be a little like living in Germany in the early 1930s and it’s mainly being driven by people over 40. The blatant and vile racism I’ve seen, just in small corners of the internet, is breathtaking if you have a shred of human kindness in your bodies.

Back in a time when our borders had just ‘opened’ up to other EU residents, I was working in Corby with young people, mainly unemployed, who essentially now blamed Polish immigrants for their lack of employment rather than Margaret Thatcher, who their parents and grandparents blamed. Yet, when put on the spot and either asked or be taken to one of these jobs being done by Poles, every single one would reply with a variant of ‘I’m not doing that for the money they pay.’ So, you need to ask yourself a serious question: if the unemployed don’t want to do the jobs the foreigners are doing, do you force them to do the work and would you feel comfortable and happy about a workforce doing jobs you depend on who don’t want to do the job? Do you enforce sanctions on these people if they don’t enjoy the work but have to do their jobs to the fullest of their capabilities or face penalties. Isn’t that a bit like beating the donkey with a variety of sticks while hiding the carrots away?

I remember a farmer in Lincolnshire speaking on the radio after UKIP won a number of council seats in towns heavily-populated by migrant workers. He was obviously a Tory and he was furious about peoples’ short-sightedness. I can’t remember exactly what he said, but it was along the lines of, if you want to pay £5 for a punnet of strawberries in the summer then kick out all my migrant workers and force me to employ an army of disinterested kids who I have to pay a higher wage to without the reliability then kick them all out.

If you want a clear indication of how it is ludicrous to suggest prices won’t go up if we vote to come out of Europe it’s our farming industry; the people who put the vast array of foods on our tables who rely on good, hardworking foreigners who might not be more likely to stick a bogey in a pre-packed lasagne than a 17 year old yob from an underfunded council estate with a junkie mother and no hope, who has been told – this is your job, do it or you will have to depend on charity.

The Out brigade tell us about deals set up in the 1950s that we can resurrect or the fact that the EU will still want to deal with us because our business is sacrosanct and yet, answer me this, if coming out of Europe means we can negotiate trade deals better than we currently get, why isn’t the rest of the EU up in arms at the fact if they weren’t in this club they could get things cheaper – why even have this union if all it’s doing is skimming money from countries to sit around Strasbourg drinking beer and watching schnitzel cook? Because it’s like a big buyers club and the combined buying power of the EU means things will be cheaper; if we could negotiate any deal that would be anything close to that we’d still end up with food prices going up.

The reality is simple; most people aren’t really interested in the politics about the EU referendum and they’re not really interested in the mechanics, they just think it will magically stop the flow of foreigners coming over here, clogging up our system, flooding our schools and hospitals with unwanted additions. It’s not like these people don’t pay their taxes, you know? Unlike many of the people associated to the party that got elected into government, most foreigners contribute a damned sight more than some Tory peers. Yet we want to try and kick them all out, keep whatever respect we still have in Europe and expect people to want to trade with us under far better terms? Seriously, what planet is the Out brigade on?

As for my grandfather; it’s sad to say he was a casual racist, as most of my family are at times. He could have had a best friend who was Asian, yet would have called people Pakis or Nignogs without the faintest whiff of realisation. He probably would vote to come out, but he would have been astute enough to realise that there is more at stake than the belief that stopping foreigners will solve all the problems; he’d also be aware that a vote to come out will have its own brand of problems, ones we have no idea about.

My Instincts Are Probably Wrong, But...

I was round a friend's house last night, dropping off a data stick and enjoying a chat and a coffee - we both like to put the world to rights. Last night, I forecast that David Cameron would be gone sooner rather than later. It was a throwaway comment - more hopeful than informed - but my instincts have been pretty sharp in recent years, especially about politics and a little later, without the jest, I made the forecast again.

I said something along these lines: the general ignorance, xenophobia and cold-heartedness of middle England is sad because our society will allow exceptions which makes them seem like hypocrites but somehow that'll be okay or will be written off as 'diversity'. The establishment is moving the people to the right by feeding us a diet of fear and more people are being suckered in while offence is being tolerated more often.

It's easier now to nod in agreement when someone moans about the amount of 'migrants' or 'foreigners' coming into the country than to try and argue with them. People no longer care about facts, they just want to believe someone who agrees with them.

I reckon the country will vote us out of Europe by as much as 65% (maybe more) and within two years 'I Told You So' will be the most recognisable political phrase used by the remaining 35%. What the 'Out' brigade can't seem to get their heads around is as far as Europe will be concerned we would become Russia - big, lucrative but not part of the team.

People and governments don't seem to realise that if they did something the rest of Europe didn't like they'd get sanctions. That's trade sanctions; the prevention of certain things being imported or a ban on exports and, of course, as we've learned from Russia, sanctions are tolerated and help breed even more fanatical nationalism.

Can you imagine Theresa May getting the UK Bill of Rights passed to replace the Human Rights Act? Can you imagine the rest of the civilised world's reaction to something more akin to North Korea? Do not accuse me of being a scaremonger unless you can give me a single concrete reason to change the current rights of humans to something that suits the state more than the individual.

Pulling out of Europe would cause another Scottish referendum and this time they'd go and be queuing in Brussels asking to join before David Dimbleby's breakfast. Despite what you might think, there would be many in Northern Ireland - devout Loyalists - who would consider ceding from the UK because much of NI's trade and economic resurgence has been through its deals with Europe and not the rest of the UK. Things aren't perfect in NI, but they are brilliant compared to what they were and that isn't just down to a peace agreement, it's because NI is a good place to live - economically. Imagine the damage Europe not dealing with us so favourably would have there. And, ironically, we can complain about all those nasty migrants flooding into our country, what would we do if 2 million Loyalists had to be repatriated? I know, it's not ever likely to happen, countries simply don't move entire nations into hostile environments...

The aftermath of it would be more than a disaster for whoever the PM is because if we vote to come out I reckon Cameron will quit. He'd have to because whether he's a puppet or his own man he's not going to want to be known as the PM who oversaw the downfall of the United Kingdom (he'd rather George got that award) - I believe he understands pride. This would mean a fight between Gideon Osborne, Theresa May, Boris Johnson and A.N. Other to become PM and the simple fact that whoever claimed the prize would be accepting a decaying poison chalice would inevitably force them into a General Election and for two reasons: 1) If the establishment doesn't want us to leave Europe because of the inevitable damage it would cause and 2) to simply get a mandate to begin to run the country like a totalitarian dictatorship which oppresses the poor and disenfranchised - because they are a drain on society and people's ability to work - and gives the rest enough money to always want for more.

So, 21st Century USA is the model the Tories are aiming for and one wonders, quite simply, what Tories' problems with the poor, disenfranchised and unfortunate is? By all means target the feckless, lazy and criminal; but why think everyone is trying it on? I meet so many genuine people in need, I simply can't understand how a government can treat them so contemptuously.

Part of the problem is that our schoolchildren are taught a curriculum that doesn't reflect the needs of the 21st century child, so we are breeding an increasing number of apathetic worker drones who thrive on a diet of mindless 'entertainment' and political apathy; political activists probably convert as many people as JWs do. Therefore what is needed is something being changed in schools; perhaps making the teaching of politics compulsory, like Maths and English, because and quite simply, politics is one thing that affects everyone everyday even if they're not aware of it. Kids need to understand why we have politics rather than be made to hate it and think it's anachronistic and something old people do. But, of course, the existential problem with teaching school kids about politics is how do make it unbiased; how do you ensure your teachers are being fair and balanced and not secretly indoctrinating the youth into a future violent revolution? You can't. I'm being melodramatic, but people have opinions, even teachers, and regardless of what you might think I've never met one who hasn't expressed one in a classroom, playground or dining hall.

The solution is simple; you employ a politically diverse trio of politics teachers and you divide the students political year into three terms: Autumn/Winter: Conservatives (and all the right wing); Winter/Spring: Socialism/Labour (and all the left wing) and Summer: Liberalism and extremism (because a liberal is the best placed person to be objective about extremism).

I've wildly digressed, but there is a point hiding in there and that is with exception of a referendum, fewer people every year are voting; a large percentage of those not voting are the young and the disenfranchised - probably two groups that need a fairer society. We are relying more and more on career politicians, all playing their own mental version of Celebrity PM, while less people get involved in the ultimate decision making. What is scary is the fear being generated by the Right at the thought of a fair-minded man being in charge of the country. Have the Tories learned nothing from history? Humans don't like oppression and eventually they rise up against it. Have the Tories ever wondered why there are only ever riots when they're in power? Or the mass marches in London tend to be when a Tory government is around (or a Blair one, which is pretty much the same thing). What often happens when a society becomes a bit fairer is the majority of the people are happy; it tends to be the greedy that ruin it for everyone else.

What we need are future generations that will make the right decisions for the people not for a few and that will only happen if we teach kids how important having an understanding of politics is, but more importantly, how to look for fair and unbiased opinion and coverage, because mainstream media news is no longer unbiased and benefits from the nuances of deceit developed by the entertainment industry.

I don't know if there are any politicians in the country who believe that everything about it needs an overhaul and that we should be investing in a country to still be great in 100 years, because your grand and great grand kids will want a world for their children and not a capitalist wasteland of inequality, hate and mistrust.

It's Got to Be True, It Was in the Paper

It's far too early for a lasting shift in public opinion, but some political analysts and media specialists are likening The Sun's defamation of Jeremy Corbyn at the Cenotaph to its initial coverage of the Hillsborough disaster. The paper lied and as a result there has been a backlash. The attacks on a politician who at worst can be accused of having principles have been ratcheted up a few notches to the point where it's getting nasty.

We could be heading for a tipping point - a stage in the proceedings where it can fall one of two ways. The problem is I can't help thinking this is a carefully planned assault, one that gives Corbyn an edge for the next two or three years, but sees it wane as we approach 2020 and the Tory propaganda machine rolls into overdrive and the fear factor is increased, because the Tories probably have already realised that they won't win the next election on policies. We will see a campaign across the media that makes the 'bacon butty face' seem like a playground insult.

Or the PLP will panic, ructions will appear, splits will happen, Corbyn will be ousted and one of the 'others' will step into the breach and return the party more central, angering the CLP and members but leaving them trapped between a rock and a hard place. Can Labour really afford to allow the Tories free reign until 2025 when who knows what the world will be like and how much money there will be to rebuild crumbling Britain.

What has to happen to make all the people who don't care, or who think this government is looking after their best interests, realise that the country is a better, safer, place when the majority are happy, not just those unaffected by cut after cut, destroying the safety net we all agreed to put in place in case, heaven forbid, we need it.

Some people I know think I describe a bleak and unrealistic picture of the world they can't see from out of their windows or that I paint the Tories as borderline Nazis with an agenda that would be admirable if it was physically achievable without damaging the people who need it the most, while rewarding people who, really, honestly, don't need any more. Some people need to realise that austerity might mean not going on a third foreign holiday or buying a new BMW for the missus this year; because an extra 1p in tax you could pay, could help save your life one day by ensuring the NHS is working or you have a good chance of a job if you lose the one you're in. Or it might mean a few kids getting decent meals and maybe their parents too. It shouldn't matter if you think someone is a scumbag, they shouldn't be forced into the fringes of society if it can be avoided - that was how we got the way we are in the first place. The problem is people shouldn't pay tax, the poor should pay for everything and the rich should just preen themselves while being waited on, hand and foot.

I completely understand why the media is the way it is, their masters are genuinely scared that if nothing else Corbyn will get people interested in politics; make people consider fairness as a concept worth trying again. Do you want a world populated by mindless, opinion-less drones, working endlessly while others reap the benefits while dreaming up new ways to work you harder for less so they can have more? Because what do you think will happen to all the people in council estates, housing associations, dingy flats, who might have flat screen TVs and iphones but also have loans with Wonga and live so hand to mouth that if something goes wrong someone misses out. The people with money drove the poor to want to aspire; they made them proud and vain and willing to get in debt to have a TV that they will believe their more fortunate friends will think was achieved through hard work or necessary guile, thus moving them up their friends' respect scale. That was Thatcher's fault - check the history books if you don't believe me.

The feckless are also a bi-product of this; through years of neglect in the 80s entire generations of people lost 10 years of working and many never returned and as a result their off-spring generally felt the world was going to be as fair to them as it was to their folks and that's when some places turned into sink-hole estates in 80s and remain enclaves of the underclasses. A benefit culture has helped create these people, so something needs to be done to break the cycle, but beating the donkey often leads to disappointment or a kick in the shins.

So what benefit does a media organisation have from smear campaigns that could end up with a chunk of their subscribers being unable to continue paying them millions because they backed a government taking money away from people who could be giving it to them?

None. Unless they know something we don't. Perhaps Sky are already losing too much money to debt collectors because all those families in the country's shittiest areas can no longer afford to pay £30 to £120 a month. You can bet the Sun doesn't really make NewsCorpse any money; it's just another tool for Murdock's megalomania.

The ignorant need to realise that if they read something in a daily rag that isn't true, then that's how they should treat everything in that paper, because people being picky and choosy about what they believe was actually one of the key reasons how the Nazi party won power in Germany.

Fear of Islam

The climate of fear generated by the current government, the coalition and, sadly, the last Labour administration has finally begun to eat itself. There will still be Daily Mail readers who will quiver with fear at the mention of immigrants, Muslims, communist Labour leaders, or, if they're Express readers the fear will probably be apocalyptic weather, foreign spiders and the ghost of Diana coming to haunt us all... I said this before (it's a famous quote): the only thing we have to fear is fear itself and politicians and newspapers have this tied up like an ebola-infused Christmas turkey complete with ISIS chef hats and a semtex stuffing.

The latest example of our (non) Nanny State was the interrogation of a 12-year-old Muslim lad for using the term 'eco-terrorism', in a French lesson (so he said it in French - that's more impressive than I could have managed), when talking about protecting the planet from global warming. The boy was taken out of class a few days later, questioned about terrorism, about ISIS and naturally his parents went incandescent with rage. Sadly, this didn't surprise me in the slightest...

A few years ago I worked for one of those Academy schools - the kind that essentially are run as businesses and not as benevolent educational centres. The school was results driven, behaviour intolerant and was run by a former businesswoman with less educational experience than the average schoolkid - she cosseted her teachers, abused her support staff (treating them in many ways worse than students) and began a form of ethnic cleansing to ensure her school was never ever regarded as a Special Measures place, ever again.

Regardless of that, this school has a good Ofsted rating, good examination results and a good reputation throughout the town (not too good locally, though). I was employed to work with the 'problem' kids - the disruptive, the non-conformists and the poor and disenfranchised that were needed to be alienated and oppressed so they perpetuated the situation into future generations (but not at this school...). I was taken on by the new deputy head of behaviour; he had a brief to change the way the school worked and looked at problem students, and I got the job because of the diversity I brought to it and the fact that I am a reformer and not a disciplinarian. This school was not addressing issues in a proactive way and therefore the problem was not going away - I was the antidote.

But this isn't about that, because with all the best intentions some things won't change if you get too much opposition from people who don't understand how this new, progressive way of dealing with young people works and want immediate, gratifying, punishment. 50% of the teachers at that school were simply not interested in why, they just wanted blood and therefore my boss continually had to justify my methods - even with the evidence of it working staring them in their collective faces. But, this really isn't about that and I have a gagging order to prove it. What this is about was one of the things that happened that probably just ensured the school enforced said gagging order on me.

I'd been doing the job about a year when I met 'Mohammed'. He was the least likely occupant of my 'bad kids' class - an extremely intelligent young British Pakistani Muslim from an exceptionally good and well-respected family. Mo (as we shall call him) was placed in isolation because he'd hacked the school's computer system and altered all of his mates' exam results. I have to admit to having more than just a bit of sneaky admiration for this. The school employed six IT specialists and this kid turned them inside out and was punished. I argued that we were doing the wrong thing; that the kind of punishment this kid needed was education not being placed with the 'usual suspects'. I also argued that the school should embrace such a precocious talent and get him working with the IT department to devise a way to stop future Mohammeds from hacking their system. This suggestion was treated in the same way as suggesting we made a child porn movie with the pupils - what made it worse was no one, not even my boss, could see the sense in doing something Microsoft and Apple did wholesale in the 1990s - employ the enemy.

Mo spent a week with me and there was nothing I could do with him; a Class A student who was now a cult hero in the school and that was the school's fault - they did nothing the way it should have been done and as a result this extremely intelligent kid was banned from using a computer or mobile devices while on the premises - a school with pretty much a net book for every pupil, limited net access and a progressive learning policy that embraced the future of technology; so they treated a potential child prodigy like a criminal.

Fast forward six months...

My job had changed; a new school year and a new role, one that took me all over the school dealing with unacceptable behaviour as it happened rather than dealing with it in a retro way. It was one of the few progressive suggestions I made that was treated seriously - although the senior members of staff who wanted us to go back to the cane were always challenging my role with my boss. It was hard work dealing with the staff because unlike the kids many of them were set in their ways. I had spent six years working with young offenders and seriously disenfranchised young people - I was actually in a far better position than half of these archaic dinosaurs to understand the whys and wherefores - so I was obviously ignored with gusto.

I got a call on my radio; it was lunch and I was asked to go and check a commotion in the boys toilets. On arrival I found Mo in a seriously bad way. He had had some kind of seizure, and was flailing around saying he couldn't see and my gut feeling was I was witnessing something very very bad. I cleared the toilets, radioed reception and ordered them to call an ambulance. this was initially refused because I wasn't the school nurse. When she arrived and radioed reception to tell them to call the bloody ambulance you would have thought they would have done that, but no, reception informed the headmistress and her deputy and they 'took over'.

Forty minutes of this poor boy fitting, having a seizure and being in complete and utter hysterics because he couldn't see and he had a headache that he said felt like his head was trying to split into two and the school finally called for an ambulance. I was a mixture of horrified and angry, but I had a job to do, as it was made clear to me, bluntly. Mo's family were informed and as his parents arrived at the school, so did the ambulance. Fortunately the paramedics took over, leaving all the staff who were involved to stand around and pontificate about things like Mo's dad and his reaction to his son's potentially serious seizure; how mum didn't seem upset about it and worse than anything else, the suggestion that these Muslims don't think about their kids the same way as us decent British people.

I was appalled and at the end of the day approached my boss and pointed out that I'd worked with Mo for less than a week, but I was aware his father was an Imam and his reaction was perfectly normal, and that because of the diversity training I had had throughout my work with young people, I was aware that the behaviour of the parents was cultural and had nothing to do with how they may or may not have felt about their children, especially in a stressful place surrounded by non-Muslims. He suggested I speak to the designated 'diversity' rep in the school.

I did and she agreed with my complaints and said she's take it to the staff meeting that evening. The following day I was rudely spoken to by the head, in front of my boss, who later tried to say it had nothing to do with me, but it was clear that my criticism of the way the staff treated the boy and the remarks made after had really pissed her off. The school dismissed my call for some diversity training out of hand, claiming it wasn't needed and that I should concentrate on my job and not others. It was an utterly appalling treatment that was made worse by suggestions from senior members of staff that Mo was actually play-acting and was doing it to get attention.

Unsurprisingly over the next couple of months my job was put under tremendous scrutiny; it was clear that I'd upset some people by speaking the truth and the school didn't like that.

The rest is attached to the gagging order - one made, you have to argue to prevent me from talking about the circumstances by which I eventually 'left by mutual consent' and they gave me money too. They didn't want me there, probably because I questioned the way they did things. I even harbour feelings that I might have been set up. I expect nothing has changed at this school; I expect it's still run as a business; culture and cultural deviations are not even taken into consideration and the way the school's CPO goes about her job I'm amazed that we haven't had more anti-terrorist assault squads descend on the school as it has at least a 15% Muslim content and must be regarded as a perfect breeding ground for anti-British, pro-extremist Islam beliefs. The fact that most of these 15% will end up as lawyers, doctors. or successful businessmen is immaterial.

There have been a number of headlines in the press over the last few years about schools and extremism; my guess is the climate of fear has gripped the educational system like someone has laced the chips at school dinners with antibiotic resistant gonorrhoea. If the marginalised see themselves as being targeted by 'authority' then it easily becomes a fait accompli. Having read a number of reports that completely overreacted - therefore inadvertently sowed a seed - and been a witness to cultural ignorance and general disregard by teachers, I'm grateful for some of the kids - whether they're good or bad - because whether you're gay, Muslim, disabled or SEN, most of the kids I have ever worked with have no problem with any of these things. Teachers, on the other hand...

***

I mentioned 'sowing the seed' and back in 2005, I witnessed something that absolutely disgusted me. I was working at Bassett's Court, doing a night shift and I was standing out the back smoking a fag when a young black lad on a push bike came riding towards me aiming for the alley that ran down the side of the hostel. He looked like any normal 12-year-old kid out, after school, riding his bike. Suddenly a police car came racing along the road to Bassett's (a dead end) and a young copper jumped out of the car and shouted at the kid on the bike; who stopped in his tracks and put his bike down - an obvious sign he was guilty if ever I saw one.

The copper searched the kid and asked him a load of questions. The kid did everything he was asked politely despite the heavy-handed casual racism he was being subjected to and all the time the copper was aware I was standing there watching. The kid finally got on his bike and rode off looking shell shocked and upset, while the copper looked at me. I said nothing, but the young fascist obviously read my mind, "He fitted the description of a shoplifter in town," he said to me like this was all I needed to think he was protecting society from dangerous threats.
"Wasn't him though was it?" I asked. The young copper waved his hand at me, like I didn't understand.
"Just doing my job, sir." He said and I couldn't help but reply...
"Just ensuring that that black lad has just lost any respect he might have had for the police, eh?" I walked back inside the building, I had no interest in arguing with a racist wearing a policeman's uniform.

10 years later and we're actually regressing. That's what fear does. Fear also starts wars and I get the feeling that some people in higher politics view a war as the easiest way to solve the wave after wave of crises we keep being warned about, by the government and the neo-liberal press.