America

I know quite a few Americans. Unfortunately, the other 800 million appear to have one brain cell and they share it. Now, I can't say for sure what the politics of the Americans I do know is, but I do know that they're all pretty intelligent people and have gone a long way to preventing me from just having a complete and irrational dislike of inhabitants of their country.

American politics has always fascinated me. In many ways, I find it far more interesting than British politics. I also find it ironic that the two homes of democracy - the USA and the UK are both tied to an electoral system that stretches the literal definition of democracy very thin.

On Tuesday, the USA goes to the polls for the midterms - they're a bit like our council elections, except in the USA they have far more impact on the central government. A massive swing away from the politics of the President and his work becomes increasingly more difficult, if not almost impossible, because the senate and congress have to ratify any idea he has and if he's democrat and they're republican, they simply won't endorse any of his ideas, even if they're good ones. US politics is so disparate, the other side invariably votes against the side in power even if they have a good idea. It makes you wonder how anything ever happens in the world's most powerful country (and I am aware that I am over simplifying it, but this is a punchy, pithy blog and not a politics lesson).

Listening to the coverage from the forthcoming midterms has reminded me that so many citizens of the US of A are basically morons. Barrack Obama inherited a country that had been royally butt-f*cked by George W. Bush Jr was a president who had so little idea of how to run a country that it almost fell apart. Obama has spent best part of his 20 months in office trying to sort the mess left by the previous administration; he has been stymied by Republicans (who themselves are in their own form of turmoil) and the world recession and on Tuesday is likely to be stymied even more as supposedly loyal democrats switch sides because they think the republicans can do better. Well, the republicans had 8 years before Obama and they didn't do anything for the people of America, unless they owned oil wells or munitions factories.

What annoys me most about these flip-flop Yanks is that they are quite happy to have a warmonger in charge who employs people that know as much about the economy as I do about the inside of a famous film star's anus, yet aren't prepared to give the man currently in charge a few years to try and sort the mess out. I recall Jimmy Carter saving the USA's bacon - economically - only for Ronald Reagan to be elected and take all the credit for it. An astute businessman was given 4 years in power and ousted and a man who played sidekick to a chimpanzee got 8 years (and he couldn't even remember the name of one of the members of the British royal family and famously joked about bombing Russia off the face of the planet) but that's the kind of thing a nation more preoccupied with their stomachs seem to like!

And now we have this almost offensive Tea Party movement, led by ultra right wing republicans. Which is a bit like our Conservatives being run by the BNP. The thing is, because the US press is run by ultra right wing fascists, this movement is gaining support and the chances are that come 2012, there will be an uber-fascist US president (please God not that Palin woman) and then we'll really see what a mess this world will be in.

I love melodrama - as anyone who reads this blog will no doubt agree with - but if the ultra right get in power in the USA, then there really will be a 3rd world war. We'll see Muslims treated like the Japanese were in 1940; we'll see more and more money directed towards war as the USA returns to its position of world's policeman and as a result, the UK, always keen to be seen as the USA's lapdog will face an even greater security threat - no, let me quantify that statement - the UK will become a legitimate terrorist target, rather than a fictional one. Because most of the world is not at risk from the largely made up (as in fictional) Al-Qaeda at the moment, but give Palin or any of the Tea Party madmen the reigns of that country and Al-Qaeda will be the least of our worries.

The Power of Paranoia

Accuse me of being a terrorism denier if you want; but is it just possible that the explosives found on planes headed for the UK and USA might be the figments of the imagination of the people who run the countries?

Currently the ConDems are facing a massive backlash from the huge portions of the general public; the cuts they're bringing in have been met with considerably more defiance than agreement. Over the pond, Barrack Obama is facing meltdown less than 2 years since winning the most powerful man in them world contest. What better way of detracting from the issues at hand than by bringing terrorism back to the forefront?

Of course, these incidents may well have happened; there are, after all, a lot of fundamentalists out there. However, the timing of this is so Falklands War its unreal. I just can't help thinking that there is considerably less threat out there than our governments let on. After all, terrorism is such an insidious way of not achieving anything, it is feasible that government spin doctors suddenly hit on this great idea to turn peoples' fears into a weapon of mass hysteria.

There is strong anecdotal evidence to suggest that the Falklands War was constructed by Thatcher and Galtieri because both of them were on the verge of being ousted from office. Just 4 months before the 'war' started, representatives from both countries met and the very amicable meetings could easily have led to the 'need' to do something to stop socialists from regaining power. Four months before the 'war' Thatcher was the most unpopular UK prime minister ever. She was so far behind in opinion polls, it was possible she might be responsible for the complete destruction of the Conservative party. Then this war comes along and she wins the subsequent election by a landslide. All it cost was the lives of some easily expendable lives - after all, that's what you join the army for.

The problem with having theories like this is you're branded a conspiracy theorist, nutter or somewhere in between...

Reality Bites

Apparently, I'm a 'Deficit Denier'.

This is the term used by Tory boys for anyone who either doesn't feel the cuts are fair or doesn't believe that Lord Snooty's plans aren't the best thing since torturing fags at Eton.

I don't think there are many people who are actively denying that cuts were needed. Britain, like most of the rest of the world, is in debt and something needed to be done about it. It's just an even more massive insult to intelligent people to be told by pompous 'I'm all right Jack' Tories that we actually know nothing.

On Nick Clegg's Facebook page there was, at first, a stampede of insults aimed at the political equivalent of a Transformer (he's a Tory in disguise!) and then, quite remarkably, a backlash against the backlash. Ironically, very few of the people defending Cleggatron were actually Liberals, most of them were Tories. One in particular, a guy called Andrew, was a self-employed financial advisor from Oxford who like Neil O'Brien, the Director of the Tory supporting Policy Exchange, was calling for more money to be taken away from the poor; because giving them less will encourage them to get jobs. An idea which would possibly work if there were jobs to apply for. Andrew also spouted on about people having to make difficult decisions and these cuts not being about fairness but about being in the national interest. Like most politicians, when casual readers of the Facebook page asked him for specifics or to explain himself, he suddenly was no where to be seen.

I've been slightly bemused by the way the press seems to have drawn a line under the affair. On Thursday there was 11 pages devoted to Lord Snooty; by Saturday, The Guardian's coverage had dropped to less than 2 pages. But, I realised that the editors probably felt having page after page of commentators forecasting the end of civilisation as we know it would probably not be good for sales. Obviously the Daily Mail thrives on such stories, yet amazingly they seemed to be in full support of Blackadder's sanctioned cuts. After all, of the 1.8million unemployed in the UK, probably 1.7999million are scroungers, fraudsters and are purposefully screwing the rest of us while laughing into their Pinot Grigios, watching their flat screen TVs and driving their Lamborghinis (without tax or insurance) around the filth laden streets of Britain's council estates...

The main thing we all need to understand is that a lot of these massive cuts will not happen for a few weeks or months. This allows us (and Dave Blackadder & Nick Baldrick) to prepare for the changes. It makes me wonder how this entertaining double act is going to deal with the mass unemployment that will undoubtedly kick in once Georgie's cuts kick in. I mean, even if the Private sector has faith in the future of this country, it's going to take a while for that to actually happen. It'll also be interesting to see how the ConDems deal with the fact that the so-called Export-led Recovery will only work if other countries decide to buy anything from us. It seems the ConDems are the only people in the country that haven't noticed that every other country in the world are having the same economic problems that we are.

On a moral standpoint; how long is it going to be before the conscientious Liberals (because there must be a few of the left) realise that the unfairness of making the poor pay for the mistakes of the bonus greedy bankers has placed them in an untenable position; one which is likely to see them all out of work and joining the swelling ranks of unemployed and hopeless people?

Of course, there could be a school of thought in Westminster that is actively waiting and hoping that there is some form of civil unrest; because governments love the peasants revolting, as it suddenly gives them the moral high ground regardless of how wrong their policies are. Violence solves nothing and neither does industrial action. If there were mass strikes once the cuts start to bite you might get a high percentage of the populace actually supporting them; but once the rubbish starts to pile up, or the buses stop running, or X Factor isn't on the screens, the support will waiver and crash. Just look at France: 79% of the population supported the industrial action; but once the petrol started to run out and the bins started overflowing with effluence, that support has dropped to 59% and it will continue to drop; because, essentially, the majority of people will only support something as long as it doesn't impact on their own lives for long.

So, the long and the short of it is, the ConDems know that however much a percentage of the country will moan about it; the support and sympathy of the rest of the country will not stick for long. The reason for this is because about 25 years ago, a very evil woman destroyed community spirit, made the unions out to be the spawn of Satan and turned a large percentage of the country into greedy bastards.

***

Speaking of Maggie: Go here - http://www.thedailymash.co.uk/news/society/thatcher-gaining-strength-from-nation's-misery-201010223185/

When this woman finally dies there is going to be some crazy things happen. There will be a goodly percentage of people who will demand that she is given a state funeral and that she is honoured in some way - maybe a statue in Trafalgar Square or even Parliament Square. These people will campaign tirelessly for the woman to be given the send off she deserves.

On the other hand there will be a goodly percentage of people who will spontaneously break out in celebration; these people will organise street parties and the streets will be over run by people for whom that day has been a long time coming. It might be viewed by people as a horrendous display of disrespect to the dead; especially one who achieved so much for this country. The people celebrating her death will undoubtedly campaign tirelessly for the woman to be given the burial she deserves - either dropping down an abandoned colliery or left in a dustbin on a council estate in Toxteth. Perhaps they could just cut her body up into pieces and give parts to any one who can prove that she was responsible for the downfall of whatever part of the country they live in.

Straight Answers, Please

The cuts have been made. There's no changing them now. The poorest 10% and the richest 2% will pay the highest percentage of the debt. There's no changing that.

The question that is being asked more than any other question is whether or not this deficit strategy is fair to the poor. I have heard this question posed to numerous ConDem MPs and do you know, not one of them has answered it with anything other than rhetorical 'we're all in this together' styled answers. Therefore, NOT ONE OF THEM HAS ANSWERED THE QUESTION!

We had David Blackadder and Nick Baldrick in Nottingham today avoiding answering the question. We had the Transport Secretary on Question Time not answering the question. we've had Tory sympathisers all over the country claiming that people don't realise the mess we're in. But NO ONE IS ANSWERING THE QUESTION!

The poor are, over the next couple of years, going to be royally shafted, while the rich will have to limit Jacosta and Tarquin's allowances by a couple of hundred quid a year; they might not be able to afford a new pony. Daddy might not be able to buy a new Porsche.

Neil O'Brien, the new Director of Policy Exchange, on BBC News today claimed that taking money away from the poorest people in the country was a good thing. He claimed there was no point in throwing money at the poor because it doesn't help them. All credit to BBC newsreaders Ben Brown and Ellie Crisell for managing to stay professional in light of unbelievable pompousness from a man who undoubtedly earns more in a year than a minimum wage cleaner in Middlesbrough earns in 5 years. At least he didn't try and hide behind rhetoric, he just came straight out and made people realise he was a fascist.

It still doesn't answer the question of why no one in government is answering the question of how this is fair on the poorest. Is it their fault that the world economy is such a mess? It certainly isn't the former Labour party's fault, despite every Tory and their suck arse Lib Dem fags blaming them. Yes, Labour might have handled it differently; it might have taken twice, possibly three times longer to cut the deficit; but they wouldn't have ignored it and the poorest wouldn't have to take the most burden.

There are some good things that will come out of this.

• Nick Clegg will never serve as an MP ever again. His goose is well and truly cooked!
• The Liberal Democrats will never be given the opportunity to govern anything again.
• The Tories will never taste power again until we're all long dead and buried.

If only two of these three things happen, it will be a good result.

I intend to write Mr Clegg a letter in the next few days. The letter will be as restrained as I can muster, but the upshot of it will be that I voted for him because I thought he'd make a difference. I never expected the difference he would make would make me feel as though I've robbed this country and its children of their futures. I shall point out to him that the coalition does not have a mandate to instigate the kind of damning changes it intends and I shall ask him if he would like to explain to me in simple terms why the poorest 10% of people in this country are being expected to burden the brunt of these cuts and whether or not it is fair.

I urge everyone to do the same. You can contact him at House of Commons, London, SW1A 0AA.

It might interest you to know that once upon a time you could email Clegg directly from his web page; this facility has been disabled. It might also be of interest that you could leave remarks on the Liberal Democrat Facebook page; anything disparaging is being removed. It might also interest you that if a general election were to be held tomorrow, Clegg would finish 3rd in his Sheffield seat and the LibDems would lose 48 of their 51 seats. He must be proud of the work he has done. Frankly, I'm surprised at him, I'm anything but surprised at Cameron; he is just a pompous arse who doesn't give a toss about any one.

If it's broke, don't fix it

We all know something has to be done about the budget deficit. We're all aware that Labour had a large hand in putting us into a lot of debt; but arguably, had they not borrowed loads of money a lot of the remaining infrastructure of this country would have crumbled into nothing and our children would have been educated in Portacabins and our sick would have been treated in crumbling ruins. Only a Labour government would have ensured that there was something of a legacy for the future.

Admittedly, they took us into a war that we should have avoided and Tony Blair proved to be as dislikeable as Margaret Thatcher; but arguably every government does things that the majority of voters will not agree with. Just take the current proposed austerity measures; there are few people who don't agree that something needs to happen; it's just that very few people seem to realise that what is about to happen is going to have repercussions that screw up your grandchildren's children.

George Osborne doesn't live on an estate run by a housing association, nor does he need to top up his money with child or housing benefit. regardless of what happens to the rest of the country, he'll be alright Jack...

Except... the current Tory section of the coalition are not stupid. I think many of them realise that this is it. This is the last 5 years any of them are ever going to see in power again.

I blame Labour for this. The party knew they had little or no chance of winning the general election, especially with Gordon Brown leading them. Regardless of how brilliant the man was with our economy, there was no way to fix it. And before any of you suggest that Brown was a brilliant chancellor, just dig out the copy of The Economist that suggested he was responsible for preventing a massive financial crash throughout most of Europe. He stopped Britain from being washed away in a flurry of debt and greed; well, he didn't actually stop it, he just put off the inevitable. So, when it became obvious they weren't going to hold power, or even the balance of power, they screwed it up for the new team. It's a shitty thing to do, but it's also what successive governments have constantly done; they make the incumbents' job impossible for the first few years and with a bit of luck the new government will be ousted before they make any significant changes.

Osborne inherited not just a poisoned chalice, he inherited one that was rotten to the core and probably unfixable. So what better way of dealing with it than screwing up the country to the point where whoever gets in power after the ConDems, won't be able to do a thing about it? There will be nothing left to try and fix or even try and rebuild. There won't be any money to reinstate any vital public services, without plunging the country back into the same mess its in at the moment. Once Osborne wields his axe that'll be it. It'll be goodbye to anything that resembles a public service.

He is going to systematically destroy anything that needs government money and with the private sector having zero faith in their ability to fill the void, we'll see 5million plus unemployed with no hope and no future. But that won't be the end of it: you see Cameron and co can truly believe that the private sector will fill some of the void, but whatever happens, even in the most optimistic worlds, they won't be able to fill it all. So we're going to have a lot more people trying to claim benefits and there won't be any money to pay them. How do you pay an extra 2 or 3 million people JSA or Income Support when you haven't got any money? Come to think of it, how are they going to get all those people off of DLA and Invalidity Benefits when there won't be any jobs for them to do. It's well and good saying that you want to get all those malingerers off of benefits, but they have to actually have something to do. Or are we going to see the new government reinvent things like The Youth Training Scheme or The Community Programme? You remember them (and if you don't); they didn't work. All they did was artificially take a million people off the dole so that the Tories could say how good they were.

George Osborne knows that he has an impossible task and he is acutely aware that aware that this is his once in a lifetime chance to have some power. He is also aware that this being his only chance and that he has no real way of solving the problem, so he's going to make sure whoever inherits his job won't be able to change anything. He won't even have a guilty conscience, because he's going to be okay regardless of what happens.

Now, I don't have a miracle cure. There's no point in saying, "So what would you do, Phil, if you're so bloody clever", because my cures would rankle as many people as they'd please. I would however not renew Trident; I would pull our troops out of anywhere they shouldn't be; I would employ intelligent people at the tax office to claw back all the billions of pounds that the richest people avoid paying, through one scam or another. But after that I'd be hard pressed to think of anything to cut; you see the problem is that this country needs £150billion spending on it to rebuild its infrastructure and make it a better place. I just have to accept that we're going to be the first generation for almost 70 years that will be worse off than our parents. I have to accept that the kids who are currently going to school are going to be devoid of anything by the time they leave school; devoid of jobs, money, a future and hope. I have to realise that one day very soon there won't be anything left that is supported by a government.

I have to accept that this country, whoever's in charge is so deep in the shit it might possibly never get fixed.

I have to accept that the current government are going to be the people who make this nightmare scenario a reality.

I have to accept that even though it isn't mine or your fault, that me, you, your children and your children's children are going to have to pay for it.

I have to accept the fact that many people will think I'm scaremongering and won't believe it, even when reality bites them on the arse and I'll have to accept the fact that a lot of people will also be alright Jack.

Bin There Done That

You do realise that at some point in the next few years the most obviously seen of your council services - refuse collection - will no longer be part of your council tax - the council will subsidise it but you will have to pay whatever private company collects rubbish to take away anything that isn't recyclable or can't be composted.

Many people might think this is a good thing; a way of encouraging people to be more conscientious about their waste disposal. But the reality is that in many places, there are occupants who don't understand, will not be educated or simply don't give a shit.

The entire business of waste disposal is ludicrous; it should be something the council should always supply; it should attempt to educate people, but it should also be about providing the most direct service that council tax payers see for their money. To charge people, like they do in the USA, is actually a very good way of causing massive unnecessary conflict.

Take this scenario: your black bin - the one that contains all the stuff that can't be recycled or composted - is weighed every time it is collected; at the end of a 3, 6 or 12 month period, you receive a bill. It will have averaged out your waste across a period of time and this will be the tariff you pay for the following year - although black bins will still be weighed. The poor, the devious, the scoundrels, the ignorant will be faced with huge bills and many of them will know this and they will resort to a number of ways of 'cutting their bills'. They will surreptitiously put their own rubbish in the bins of others; they will fly tip; they will cram rubbish into the bottoms of brown or green bins, in the hope they can fake the bin men; but if you contaminate recycling bins with non-recycling goods, the entire bin becomes rubbish.

Short of issuing everyone with padlocks for their bins, which have to be opened the day or collection; or getting each bin men to empty the contents of each bin into the back of the wagon before it's crushed, so they can sift through it - which won't happen because of HSE rules; them logistics of doing this is ridiculous. It will cause fights between neighbours, breakdown communities, lead to witch hunts and ostracism and causing more money to be directed to stem the flow of antisocial problems as a result.

I see enough ignorance and thoughtless retaliation to know that rubbish is a contentious issue and even the most slovenly and unhygienic of people still want some of their rubbish to be taken away. Remember the human conditions people on those Life of Grime programs lived in? That will grow; people won't throw things away because they won't be able to afford to or because they're scared to open their bins because every one else will use them too.

I've also noticed in some places; not Northampton as such, that public bins are not being replaced and in some cases not being put in to new parks and community areas. Dog bins, yes, but litter bins - no. We can take our rubbish home with us. we can move it all around rather than actually dispose of it. Out in the far reaches of the region there is a plan to build a big incinerator which will dispose of 60% of the rubbish and generate not only 15% of the electricity, but about 300 new jobs. The locals are opposed to it; not because it is a pollution threat, but because it will be an eyesore... Nimby-ism strikes again, but do you see the point? Most people are nimbys and rubbish is a real nimby issue.

Only on a Blue Watch

The RMT are calling for civil disobedience. UNISON want a series of crippling strikes. The entire Trades Union movement appears to be gearing itself up for a year of hell.

But something is different. This isn't the Poll tax riots or the civil unrest of Thatcher's era. This has more of the middle class march against the Iraq war, back in the early part of this century. You remember the one where the majority of the marchers were not mohicaned punks or covert BNP activists, but the well-to-do families from the better neighbourhoods, who were appalled that Tony Blair could lead us into a war with Iraq. A war, no more justified than the Falklands War (but none of middle England went to the streets for that one).

How many threats of civil disobedience did we have when Labour were in power? How many riots were there? Strikes, yes, but most were over fairness rather than survival. Whenever Westminster gets the whiff of something blue, the part of the country with a moral backbone grows indignant and does a Peter Finch from the film Network and they stand up and say, "we're not going to take this any more."

Only with a Tory led government would we have leaders of unions advocating action against our elected leaders.

The government and its group of advisers are the only people who believe that the impending cuts will not affect the poor. Every other fiscal think tank and organisation are wringing their hands and forecasting mass starvation for the poor. One of them is bound to be closer than the other. I said six months ago that if the Tory's got a whiff of power there would be civil unrest and now it seems I'm not the only one. I haven't done anything to incite it; I've been strangely reticent in my off-white ivory tower; preferring to sit and watch the ConDems flounder and fail. So if isolated little me can have a prophecy about the future...

One of the union leaders made a very good analogy on the TV this morning. Why is the benefits fraud department spending vast amounts of money assigning 'agents' to watch the houses of people who may or may not be perpetrating some kind of benefits fraud, when the tax office could be looking at ways of stopping the top 2% of the richest people in the country from housing their money in Cayman Island bank accounts and avoiding paying any tax whatsoever? Just one of these rich Tory benefactors, the ones who have as say in the running of the country, but don't contribute anything to it, would accrue more money than a thousand fraud inspectors tracking a thousand benefit fraudsters. I'd never advocate benefits fraud, but surely people like Lord Ashcroft are far worse?

What amazes me more than anything else are the Liberals. I cannot believe a centre left party would have sold itself down the river for a hint of power. If I was a prophet regarding the looming of civil unrest, let me don my wizard's hat and cape again and look into the crystal ball again...

In the summer of 2011, with public transport at a halt thanks to strikes; nurses threatening to go on strike as hospital waiting lists increase, the police federation challenging the 'no strike' clause in their contracts, with firemen reduced to putting out fires only, with a reduced staff in front line positions constantly under threat and in need of justifying their existence, a number of Liberal MPs will walk to the other side of the house. There will be a massive upsurge in internal dissension amongst the Liberals ranks and the coalition will fall apart. The Tories will attempt to run the country via a minority government, but by the end of the summer another general election will be called and while this one will also have no overall winner, it will be Labour with the balance of power. The Liberals will be reduced to a handful of seats in the south west and Scotland. The divides inside the Tory party will become all too clear, once they realise they may never hold majority power again and they tear themselves apart. Labour will raise taxes on the rich, find the cuts in other ways; the right wing papers will forecast that all of our rich and clever people will leave for other countries, but few will, because everywhere else is just as bad!

I don't know if its my age or if it really is this sense of doom pervading my life and those around me; but I've never known people to have such a gloomy outlook. There's this resignation amongst a lot of people that there's nothing we can do and even if there was we wouldn't stop it. I try to be positive about the future; but look at the jobs section of your local paper - you'll be lucky to see more than half a dozen pages of jobs and all of them are on or about the minimum wage. Look at the number of empty shops and half built sites that are sitting dormant, because no one has any faith in them succeeding and no one has any money to spend in them. If your kid is in a shiny brand new school, then praise the Lord, because the ones who are still sitting in drafts and watching the rain come in through holes in the ceilings are going to stay that way. But, there is a bright side, someone will make a mint out of our forthcoming misery, someone always does.

At the end of October, the country is steeling itself for measures that most believe will affect us all. Because many councils and organisations are already shedding jobs in anticipation of this, by November I expect the largest unions will have mobilised with the intention of disrupting as much of Christmas as is possible. It will be horrible for people; no post, no trains, no buses, maybe no refuse collection, high prices and this time, there won't be that many dissenting voices, because everyone earning under £50k a year is going to feel it and that means most of us are going to feel it.