When Liz Truss, the Justice Secretary, failed to condemn daily newspapers for castigating high court judges applying the law that the aforementioned daily newspapers fought such a hard Leave campaign for, it suggests, yet again, that we have politicians who either don't know the rules and laws of politics or are wilfully ignoring them for political purpose. This alone suggests that the UK is no longer being run by politicians, diplomats and multi-tasking bureaucrats, but by largely incompetent, selfish, self-serving individuals and this means that the two most powerful English speaking countries in the world are run by idiots who shout bullshit louder than the common sense and have glamoured ignorant people, not interested or disillusioned with politics.
How else would you explain the slightly surreal state of the world at the moment?
Honestly, the ill-informed really need to start paying attention and not be distracted by issues for which they get emotionally charged about. It isn't the Romanians/Poles fault you a) haven't got a job b) can't get a hospital appointment c) face an uncertain future, or d) are a feckless racist wanker (whose time is running out because once you get your own way you need to deal with it or be found out). It is the fault of successive governments making money from the freedom of movement across the EU. The introduction of a minimum wage and workplace pensions pretty much put paid to unscrupulous employers giving jobs to Europeans because £4 an hour is still four times what they'd get in Budapest or Wroclaw. But why allow facts to get in the way of being xenophobic?
Look, being pissed off that Treeza May wasn't elected is as helpful as hoping that Trump gets impeached/assassinated/goes mad - what do you get if that happens? The same asylum, just different lunatics.
Maybe it's time to ban people who want to go into politics from going into politics; in the long run it will be in the majority's interest. Passionate politics fans tend to be either Right or Left and at the moment we probably need a few decades of Firmly In The Middle and our experience, albeit brief and unpleasant, of that didn't work out well for anyone.
So, with Labour being steered towards another meltdown as Brexit activation date approaches (to take the focus away from the government) and then two years of inflation-fuelled anxiety, fear and probable increased recriminations as some things, not all, go utterly Pete Tong, and the Lib Dems thinking that becoming the Third Party again will have any lasting impact highly delusional, we've got to hope the Tory's own deep-set fissures can either make the coming hurt less painful or offer us a painless way out.
Maybe we'll get cyanide pills or no death duties and a state paid funeral if you save governments money by killing yourself?
When we reach a point in the UK's history when a party responsible for more heartache and pain than Thatcher's 1980s version is 17 points ahead in the polls because their opposition, all of their opposition, are more of a laughing stock than they are... Isn't it time someone with some authority looked at the entire thing and came up with a better and fairer way of having MPs, a parliament and government that is in place to serve the people as an entirety rather than as a select few?
The Politics of ...
Wednesday, 22 March 2017
Wednesday, 8 March 2017
Inflate NOW!
So... the price of food is going up and not just because Spain has had a harsh winter. (There be irony in that statement beyond the pale) Food inflation is expected to reach 3% next month, compared to the 1.6% of this month and the -0.8% of the previous month. Your food is now going to go up in price.
Rewind to the autumn of 1971. My mum is working in a greengrocer's, in a shopping precinct, in Daventry and the price of spuds has just gone up from essentially 2d a pound (at Christmas 1970) to 3p a pound in the September of 71. The reasons for this huge rise in price was two-fold: a poor summer and autumn meant much of the crop was lost and the hangover of decimalisation; although decimalisation did seem to be a perfect opportunity of rising the price of some things by 100% without anyone really noticing. For some strange reason, despite only being 9 and not really showing any great affinity to maths or economics, something my mum said, over dinner one night, has stuck with me for 45 years. Mum was only 38 then and hearing her talk about 'old women' seemed strange to someone who thought all adults were 'old'.
She said something along the lines of this: "Two old women were in the shop today complaining about the price of potatoes. One of them said the price would go down soon, especially if we had a decent summer next year. I said to them, surely they were old enough to realise that prices never really go down." I suppose it was my first example of my rarely cynical mother being highly cynical and that is why it stayed with me, that and the fact that she was dead right - prices never really go down. You could argue that up until February food prices had been steadily declining over the space of the last year or so and, in real terms, have dropped remarkably since 1971. You only have to watch that fabulous Further Back in Time for Dinner and see how much more better off we are now, with our courgetti and our smoothies than we were with a bruised and warty apple or a gnarly spud covered in cow shit.
To say that all of the costs around food production have dropped, either through technology or cheap labour is almost a crass example of proving that food prices have come down, but it is a fact. The cost of your dinner isn't just what you paid for at the shop; it's the fuel used to prepare or store it, it's the energy used to propel it across the world or country; the packaging, the labour, the taxes... I know, you don't want to know or understand this, but it is a FACT. Unless you grow your own food, on your own land, using as little outside influences as possible, you might be able to grow a pound of potatoes for about 3p - in real terms.
I read something last week that both infuriated me and caused me bemusement, disbelief and amusement in equal measure. An alleged Remain voter saying that now inflation was 1.6% it was cheaper to buy food than it was because the underlying pay increases are 2%, so we're all better off. What was worse was when EVERY CONCEIVABLE point was made to prove to her that her statement was ignorant, insulting and plain wrong was met with an obstinacy I've rarely seen before; this person made the 'I voted Leave because of bent bananas' woman seem like a brain surgeon.
The argument is not going to be repeated here, not in full anyhow, but after everyone pointed out everything from inflation being monthly and wage rises being annual, to most people don't get wage rises (only the rich get them and they're usually massive ones which make the poor seem like they get one after averages come in) and haven't - in real terms - for seven years, so any increase is going to cost them, whether it is 0.001% or 50%, the person arguing her side concluded that [leaving the EU] really is a good thing in the long run because it will force people to shop at cheaper shops, thus forcing supermarkets to drop their prices while simultaneously ensuring their British staff get paid a fair amount of money... This person actually exists - she inhabits a discussion on inflation on The Guardian site and rides a rainbow-shitting unicorn through the golden streets of Moss Side... It's people like this that make fair-minded socialists like me understand why Neo-Nazism has become so popular...
The feeling seems to be that leaving the EU is now definitely going to increase food prices until our ministers can negotiate a deal with the EU and other countries to be able to import all of food for either exactly the same rates or less than we're currently paying as part of one of the largest economic blocs in the world - which is a statement almost as bizarre as the one in the paragraph above. The harsh reality is that supermarkets operate on a profit and loss basis, except without the loss bit. In general food prices are driven down by giving the producer of said food less money for it - outside of special offers, etc. You hear horror stories of major supermarkets holding fruit and vegetable growers to ransom and this is the model you can expect, this is why agriculture likes foreign workers, because they'll do it well for little fuss and seasonally. When people claim that leaving the EU will force employers to pay more for British staff, what actual reality are these people living in and has the rainbow-shitting unicorn done a whoopsie in your mouth?
Imagine this scenario. Employer A: I can employ 100 EU migrant workers (possibly for less than minimum wage), they want the job, will work hard and I make maximum profit, in a short window of time, from the supermarket.
Employer B: I can't employ 100 unemployed Brits, so the DWP has forced them to work for me. They don't want the job and do not do it satisfactorily for the National minimum wage and I am in danger of it not being harvested before it starts to rot in the fields and the supermarkets are demanding product, for less money, than I have to give them.
I mean we all know that once we start deporting all the people who clean the shit up in our already governmentally-ransacked NHS, it'll be down to us feckless Brits to find someone who will actually willingly do that kind of work. And how many people rely on immigrants to wipe their demented parents' arses, or bring them food in a care home, or treat them with a damned sight more respect than some questionably dodgy Brit who resents waiting on some old twat? Imagine a workforce that doesn't want to do it picking your strawberries or wiping your poor old mum's private parts?
Of course, there are the imbeciles who will argue that it's what we did in the 50s or 60s, but I have to point out to them that a lot of water has gone under the bridge since those halcyon days and I don't want my cheese rationed in 2017 or eat bread made partly with saw dust or have an outside toilet. Do I need to give you a very long list of what wasn't better than today in the 1950s or will you think I'm lying because I wasn't there? Maybe I'm doing it to deliberately screw up the post-Brexit economy; because all of those Brexiteers will need someone to blame when a loaf of bread is £2.50 because of wheat prices and once you get used to paying £2.50 for it, what's the point in bringing the price down? I mean, prices rarely really come down.
Watching our government, the trending signs from the economy and the fact that Conservatives like Ken Clarke and Michael bleedin' Hesseltine defending poor people with more vigour than you could imagine was possible surely must make you realise that the precipice is hurtling towards us, our guides are blind and retarded and we have a dead duck as an umbrella.
But, it's a price worth paying, isn't it? Having all this sovereignty and control back? The fact that Brexiteers are now rebelling against the sovereignty and control they originally asked for - presumably because they disagree with it - suggests a lot of misery and death has to happen before these pillocks of society realise what they have done.
Rewind to the autumn of 1971. My mum is working in a greengrocer's, in a shopping precinct, in Daventry and the price of spuds has just gone up from essentially 2d a pound (at Christmas 1970) to 3p a pound in the September of 71. The reasons for this huge rise in price was two-fold: a poor summer and autumn meant much of the crop was lost and the hangover of decimalisation; although decimalisation did seem to be a perfect opportunity of rising the price of some things by 100% without anyone really noticing. For some strange reason, despite only being 9 and not really showing any great affinity to maths or economics, something my mum said, over dinner one night, has stuck with me for 45 years. Mum was only 38 then and hearing her talk about 'old women' seemed strange to someone who thought all adults were 'old'.
She said something along the lines of this: "Two old women were in the shop today complaining about the price of potatoes. One of them said the price would go down soon, especially if we had a decent summer next year. I said to them, surely they were old enough to realise that prices never really go down." I suppose it was my first example of my rarely cynical mother being highly cynical and that is why it stayed with me, that and the fact that she was dead right - prices never really go down. You could argue that up until February food prices had been steadily declining over the space of the last year or so and, in real terms, have dropped remarkably since 1971. You only have to watch that fabulous Further Back in Time for Dinner and see how much more better off we are now, with our courgetti and our smoothies than we were with a bruised and warty apple or a gnarly spud covered in cow shit.
To say that all of the costs around food production have dropped, either through technology or cheap labour is almost a crass example of proving that food prices have come down, but it is a fact. The cost of your dinner isn't just what you paid for at the shop; it's the fuel used to prepare or store it, it's the energy used to propel it across the world or country; the packaging, the labour, the taxes... I know, you don't want to know or understand this, but it is a FACT. Unless you grow your own food, on your own land, using as little outside influences as possible, you might be able to grow a pound of potatoes for about 3p - in real terms.
I read something last week that both infuriated me and caused me bemusement, disbelief and amusement in equal measure. An alleged Remain voter saying that now inflation was 1.6% it was cheaper to buy food than it was because the underlying pay increases are 2%, so we're all better off. What was worse was when EVERY CONCEIVABLE point was made to prove to her that her statement was ignorant, insulting and plain wrong was met with an obstinacy I've rarely seen before; this person made the 'I voted Leave because of bent bananas' woman seem like a brain surgeon.
The argument is not going to be repeated here, not in full anyhow, but after everyone pointed out everything from inflation being monthly and wage rises being annual, to most people don't get wage rises (only the rich get them and they're usually massive ones which make the poor seem like they get one after averages come in) and haven't - in real terms - for seven years, so any increase is going to cost them, whether it is 0.001% or 50%, the person arguing her side concluded that [leaving the EU] really is a good thing in the long run because it will force people to shop at cheaper shops, thus forcing supermarkets to drop their prices while simultaneously ensuring their British staff get paid a fair amount of money... This person actually exists - she inhabits a discussion on inflation on The Guardian site and rides a rainbow-shitting unicorn through the golden streets of Moss Side... It's people like this that make fair-minded socialists like me understand why Neo-Nazism has become so popular...
The feeling seems to be that leaving the EU is now definitely going to increase food prices until our ministers can negotiate a deal with the EU and other countries to be able to import all of food for either exactly the same rates or less than we're currently paying as part of one of the largest economic blocs in the world - which is a statement almost as bizarre as the one in the paragraph above. The harsh reality is that supermarkets operate on a profit and loss basis, except without the loss bit. In general food prices are driven down by giving the producer of said food less money for it - outside of special offers, etc. You hear horror stories of major supermarkets holding fruit and vegetable growers to ransom and this is the model you can expect, this is why agriculture likes foreign workers, because they'll do it well for little fuss and seasonally. When people claim that leaving the EU will force employers to pay more for British staff, what actual reality are these people living in and has the rainbow-shitting unicorn done a whoopsie in your mouth?
Imagine this scenario. Employer A: I can employ 100 EU migrant workers (possibly for less than minimum wage), they want the job, will work hard and I make maximum profit, in a short window of time, from the supermarket.
Employer B: I can't employ 100 unemployed Brits, so the DWP has forced them to work for me. They don't want the job and do not do it satisfactorily for the National minimum wage and I am in danger of it not being harvested before it starts to rot in the fields and the supermarkets are demanding product, for less money, than I have to give them.
I mean we all know that once we start deporting all the people who clean the shit up in our already governmentally-ransacked NHS, it'll be down to us feckless Brits to find someone who will actually willingly do that kind of work. And how many people rely on immigrants to wipe their demented parents' arses, or bring them food in a care home, or treat them with a damned sight more respect than some questionably dodgy Brit who resents waiting on some old twat? Imagine a workforce that doesn't want to do it picking your strawberries or wiping your poor old mum's private parts?
Of course, there are the imbeciles who will argue that it's what we did in the 50s or 60s, but I have to point out to them that a lot of water has gone under the bridge since those halcyon days and I don't want my cheese rationed in 2017 or eat bread made partly with saw dust or have an outside toilet. Do I need to give you a very long list of what wasn't better than today in the 1950s or will you think I'm lying because I wasn't there? Maybe I'm doing it to deliberately screw up the post-Brexit economy; because all of those Brexiteers will need someone to blame when a loaf of bread is £2.50 because of wheat prices and once you get used to paying £2.50 for it, what's the point in bringing the price down? I mean, prices rarely really come down.
Watching our government, the trending signs from the economy and the fact that Conservatives like Ken Clarke and Michael bleedin' Hesseltine defending poor people with more vigour than you could imagine was possible surely must make you realise that the precipice is hurtling towards us, our guides are blind and retarded and we have a dead duck as an umbrella.
But, it's a price worth paying, isn't it? Having all this sovereignty and control back? The fact that Brexiteers are now rebelling against the sovereignty and control they originally asked for - presumably because they disagree with it - suggests a lot of misery and death has to happen before these pillocks of society realise what they have done.
Friday, 3 February 2017
Nothing is Coincidental
Has the irony sunk home yet? I'm presuming that it is so obvious that no one is linking it to anything because they figure everyone will see it? I mean, this time it's bad weather, but once we're no longer beholden to Spain, Holland and Greece for our supplies of salads and summer vegetables during the most barren months of winter, don't you think that vegetable rationing and the need to import fruit and veg from even further afield, contributing to pollution by having those of us who like a bit of lettuce during the winter getting it from Malaysia rather than Spain, could end up being what supermarkets are more likely to be like post Brexit?
NPower's massive price hike on electricity is also something you should be paying attention to, especially as we're no longer able to use only our own gas and oil now it is running low. Do you honestly think when EON or NPower or one of the other of the Big 6 energy suppliers say that their increasing price rises are down to Brexit and the higher cost of buying fuel the majority of people will be happy about it because we have control again? Some might, but frankly they can as proud as a priapic pig between now and when they freeze to death for all I care. This is what they wanted, this is what they'll probably get.
Now, I desperately want Brexit to succeed, from a personal position (but I'd love to see it fail from an anthropological standpoint) because in this case I don't mind being proved wrong. In fact, I desperately want all those Leave twats to be able to remind me of the fact every day, because, frankly, if it makes life better than it is I will happily accept it, even if that sounds a tad hypercritical. The thing is when David Davis stands up in Parliament and tells us all to 'be a bit optimistic, for heaven's sake' I want to, but a) we've just quit an excellent club that 50% of the population simply didn't understand and were never properly educated about and b) THE TORIES!!!
The thing is I think many of you will probably think that there will be shortages of things, and price rises and the need to return to more seasonal produce even if it means pissing off the worthlessly selfish consumers. I expect the government is already viewing the extra food needed to be supplied by our own farmers as a good enough reason not to subsidise any of them and now that our fishermen can strip mine our waters for anything that can be eaten, the price of food will drop until there's nothing left. Then what if people can't get stuff? Can you imagine the red pepper becoming a luxury item? Some Del-Boy taking a boat over to Holland to score consignments of Dutch salad vegetables.
I think we also expect energy bills to increase, and with the introduction of a number of 'measures' to ensure our path out of the EU is not as fraught as it could be, I expect we'll feel both 'safer' and more 'encompassed' by the time 2019 comes around. Maybe a little thinner, which obviously will be good for all those obese people.
Anyone who seriously thinks that life will be cheaper, variety will be greater and happiness will be so much easier to find than it is now, please tell me how this is going to be achieved. I don't want soundbites or optimistic bollocks, I'd like some actual evidence that what 52% of the people voted for wasn't a one way path to oblivion.
NPower's massive price hike on electricity is also something you should be paying attention to, especially as we're no longer able to use only our own gas and oil now it is running low. Do you honestly think when EON or NPower or one of the other of the Big 6 energy suppliers say that their increasing price rises are down to Brexit and the higher cost of buying fuel the majority of people will be happy about it because we have control again? Some might, but frankly they can as proud as a priapic pig between now and when they freeze to death for all I care. This is what they wanted, this is what they'll probably get.
Now, I desperately want Brexit to succeed, from a personal position (but I'd love to see it fail from an anthropological standpoint) because in this case I don't mind being proved wrong. In fact, I desperately want all those Leave twats to be able to remind me of the fact every day, because, frankly, if it makes life better than it is I will happily accept it, even if that sounds a tad hypercritical. The thing is when David Davis stands up in Parliament and tells us all to 'be a bit optimistic, for heaven's sake' I want to, but a) we've just quit an excellent club that 50% of the population simply didn't understand and were never properly educated about and b) THE TORIES!!!
The thing is I think many of you will probably think that there will be shortages of things, and price rises and the need to return to more seasonal produce even if it means pissing off the worthlessly selfish consumers. I expect the government is already viewing the extra food needed to be supplied by our own farmers as a good enough reason not to subsidise any of them and now that our fishermen can strip mine our waters for anything that can be eaten, the price of food will drop until there's nothing left. Then what if people can't get stuff? Can you imagine the red pepper becoming a luxury item? Some Del-Boy taking a boat over to Holland to score consignments of Dutch salad vegetables.
I think we also expect energy bills to increase, and with the introduction of a number of 'measures' to ensure our path out of the EU is not as fraught as it could be, I expect we'll feel both 'safer' and more 'encompassed' by the time 2019 comes around. Maybe a little thinner, which obviously will be good for all those obese people.
Anyone who seriously thinks that life will be cheaper, variety will be greater and happiness will be so much easier to find than it is now, please tell me how this is going to be achieved. I don't want soundbites or optimistic bollocks, I'd like some actual evidence that what 52% of the people voted for wasn't a one way path to oblivion.
Tuesday, 3 January 2017
Sheep Wars!
Edwin Starr sang, 'War - what is it good for? Absolutely nothing. Say it again.'
He was totally wrong. It is nothing more than left wing lies.
Sheep.
As any fool knows, war solves all manner of problems and can usually be legitimised - after a fashion. Wars are great. They create jobs. They trim the population and when they're over all the corporations get to rebuild the world, creating more jobs and more wealth. Win win. Honestly, who gives a damn about people dying when we can all bask in a glorious post-war future?
I'm not a historian and I know people who will put me right, but my guess is business discovered the magic of war probably after the Second World War and therefore a 'Third World War' is likely to be a little bit different from any that have gone on before, because of the sophistication of business. I say this because I think we're experiencing the preamble. I think the people who actually run the world are feeling a little uneasy because it feels a little like someone has opened Pandora's Box and no one really knows how to close it.
Sheep.
If the world is as uneasy about everything as the press want us to believe, it suggests that no one really knows what is going to happen next week let alone in a year or two. Depending on what you read and where you read it, we're heading for a USA/Russia pact to put an economic squeeze on China. Or it's going to be a USA/China deal to further isolate Russia. Then there's the Middle East - the Saudis have been exposed; Syria is a scrap in the playground compared to Yemen and while the whole of ancient Arabia is also uneasy, Israel is worryingly quiet. Then there's the Far East - there's some seriously worrying shit happening in Australia's backyard and the rest of the world would be stupid to ignore it.
A political map of the world might suggest that there's a nice even split between left, right and centre, but to steal a line from communism critics, some political parties are more equal than others. Which is why any future war can't be political-alliance driven and probably explains why immigration and the freedom of movement of people has become the paramount issue for a lot of people; it isn't about politics it's about control. So for the Powers That Be to start a war they'd have to ensure it is a religious one, even if it isn't the given reason, and that can be the cause of border disputes or acts of aggression due to or because of indigenous ethnics.
Politics is changing so fast politicians are struggling to keep up with it. This is largely down to people accepting they have no control over some things, but could have massive control over other things, which might give them some control over the first thing... Racism is no longer a political thing despite being the biggest and hottest of political potatoes. Racism unites rich and poor with a common (mis)belief and if this happens it allows the government of the time to do things that the poor would otherwise find heinous or even oppose. This was how National Socialism swept to power in a certain country at some point in our history - not the only reason, but a deciding factor and without it perhaps we wouldn't have seen a WW2 quite the way we did.
Sheep.
We have a deep suspicion of Muslims, foreigners and well, anyone really, apart from people we like. Philanthropic people (whether it's their money or their time they give away) are actually few and far between. There isn't that many 'decent' people out there. Recently I watched a US drama series where the main character was arguing against the gentrification of his neighbourhood; as with any well-made TV show, the case was eloquently made, probably with more heart and soul than any real politician and when the question was put to the vote he was the only person opposing it. People care about their communities only after they care about themselves and most will put themselves first, by a long chalk. We have been taught, since the early 1980s, to not 'love thy neighbour' but to consider having to shop him or her at some point to ensure our own lives continue as unmolested as possible.
Ironically, being a 'hand-wringing liberal' is a bad thing now and you kind of realise at this point the world is heading for something not so good...
Sheep.
I'm sure if I had unlimited power I'd be a power mad megalomaniac; perhaps it comes with the job. But I'd rather live in a world where the majority is happy most of the time rather than one where the minority is blissfully happy and the rest of us are left searching, in vain, for the next bit of good fortune. Surely if everyone was happy it would be better than the opposite?
Sheep. Led to believe they have an idyllic existence before one day being driven away to the abattoir to have their throats slit. Actually, they have it a bit better than us...
He was totally wrong. It is nothing more than left wing lies.
Sheep.
As any fool knows, war solves all manner of problems and can usually be legitimised - after a fashion. Wars are great. They create jobs. They trim the population and when they're over all the corporations get to rebuild the world, creating more jobs and more wealth. Win win. Honestly, who gives a damn about people dying when we can all bask in a glorious post-war future?
I'm not a historian and I know people who will put me right, but my guess is business discovered the magic of war probably after the Second World War and therefore a 'Third World War' is likely to be a little bit different from any that have gone on before, because of the sophistication of business. I say this because I think we're experiencing the preamble. I think the people who actually run the world are feeling a little uneasy because it feels a little like someone has opened Pandora's Box and no one really knows how to close it.
Sheep.
If the world is as uneasy about everything as the press want us to believe, it suggests that no one really knows what is going to happen next week let alone in a year or two. Depending on what you read and where you read it, we're heading for a USA/Russia pact to put an economic squeeze on China. Or it's going to be a USA/China deal to further isolate Russia. Then there's the Middle East - the Saudis have been exposed; Syria is a scrap in the playground compared to Yemen and while the whole of ancient Arabia is also uneasy, Israel is worryingly quiet. Then there's the Far East - there's some seriously worrying shit happening in Australia's backyard and the rest of the world would be stupid to ignore it.
A political map of the world might suggest that there's a nice even split between left, right and centre, but to steal a line from communism critics, some political parties are more equal than others. Which is why any future war can't be political-alliance driven and probably explains why immigration and the freedom of movement of people has become the paramount issue for a lot of people; it isn't about politics it's about control. So for the Powers That Be to start a war they'd have to ensure it is a religious one, even if it isn't the given reason, and that can be the cause of border disputes or acts of aggression due to or because of indigenous ethnics.
Politics is changing so fast politicians are struggling to keep up with it. This is largely down to people accepting they have no control over some things, but could have massive control over other things, which might give them some control over the first thing... Racism is no longer a political thing despite being the biggest and hottest of political potatoes. Racism unites rich and poor with a common (mis)belief and if this happens it allows the government of the time to do things that the poor would otherwise find heinous or even oppose. This was how National Socialism swept to power in a certain country at some point in our history - not the only reason, but a deciding factor and without it perhaps we wouldn't have seen a WW2 quite the way we did.
Sheep.
We have a deep suspicion of Muslims, foreigners and well, anyone really, apart from people we like. Philanthropic people (whether it's their money or their time they give away) are actually few and far between. There isn't that many 'decent' people out there. Recently I watched a US drama series where the main character was arguing against the gentrification of his neighbourhood; as with any well-made TV show, the case was eloquently made, probably with more heart and soul than any real politician and when the question was put to the vote he was the only person opposing it. People care about their communities only after they care about themselves and most will put themselves first, by a long chalk. We have been taught, since the early 1980s, to not 'love thy neighbour' but to consider having to shop him or her at some point to ensure our own lives continue as unmolested as possible.
Ironically, being a 'hand-wringing liberal' is a bad thing now and you kind of realise at this point the world is heading for something not so good...
Sheep.
I'm sure if I had unlimited power I'd be a power mad megalomaniac; perhaps it comes with the job. But I'd rather live in a world where the majority is happy most of the time rather than one where the minority is blissfully happy and the rest of us are left searching, in vain, for the next bit of good fortune. Surely if everyone was happy it would be better than the opposite?
Sheep. Led to believe they have an idyllic existence before one day being driven away to the abattoir to have their throats slit. Actually, they have it a bit better than us...
Is Labour Worth Saving?
One of the other horrible things about 2016 that has largely gone unnoticed has been the lurch to the right by The Guardian's political and editorial staff. It still sometimes feels like a newspaper that is fighting unfairness, but the ruthless and relentless way it has pursued the Labour Party last year, specifically Jeremy Corbyn, has been both disgraceful and has probably cost them a fifth of their readers. So it was no surprise when they almost gleefully focused on the Tory's 16 point lead in pre-Christmas opinion polls, despite the Conservatives being a bunch of headless chickens and how Labour is trailing in every single demographic apart from communist allotment botherers.
We all know opinion polls have margins for errors, but even with the worst one built in Labour is still looking as electable as Nigel 'Bye-election King' Farage, yet still I held onto the belief that polls are not at all reliable and polling companies are usually sponsored by someone with political interest or skewered by the fact that the same bunch of people are polled all the time. Look at the Brexit vote and how everyone who thought they knew were flummoxed by one single factor - no one bothered to ask the man in the street. Or probably more relevant, no one listened when the man in the street spoke.
As people who read this regularly will know, I was not surprised by the EU vote based on my own experiences talking to people while out walking my dogs. Dog walkers are literally all types of people, from all kinds of backgrounds, with myriad beliefs, but these hardy souls have one thing in common - their dogs, therefore before long your dogs' friendships turn into human ones, albeit in the most fleeting of ways. Many of the people I meet regularly stand and chat, chew the fat, while the dogs check each other and the surrounds out, I have no idea what their lives are outside of the field we stand in. Conversations rarely turn to politics, it's like an unwritten law that you don't venture into areas of controversy because... well, you just don't.
During the run up to the EU vote I was pretty much floored by the anti-EU sentiment I heard all over and with a wee bit of hindsight, I am, at times, quite astonished that Remain got 48%.
A couple of weeks before Christmas, I did something a little bit unusual with a group of my fellow dog walkers. During a lull in the conversation, I asked them all a question, but I was careful to preface it with enough sensible wording as not to get anyone's back up or turn the conversation defensive. Spurred on by a Guardian headline that suggested Paul Nuttall - the new UKIP fuhrer - was more of a threat to Labour than anything else and coupled with my own blog suggesting that 'The Cult of Jeremy Corbyn' is never going to win anything, I asked my friends this: "I'd be interested in your opinion on something: this isn't about politics, so don't panic; but I read something in the paper this morning that made me realise I really don't know what I think about Jeremy Corbyn and I'd be interested to know what others think about him as a person. Not whether he's electable or anything to do with his politics, just what you think of him."
No one stormed off in a huff or reacted like I'd asked them about their underwear. The replies were disjointed and bitty, because more than one person was often speaking, but I'll break down (and roughly paraphrase) their answers:
J (a former catering manager now a teacher, mid 40s) said: Well, I wouldn't vote for him. He seems like a nice man, but do nice men have a place in politics?
D (a retired widow, 68) said: I think he gets a rough ride in the papers and on TV. He seems like a very decent man. He does seem a bit out of his depth.
T (a retired plasterer, also 68) said: I like him. I've voted Labour all my life, but I don't think he's the right looking man for the job. I'd vote for him but I don't think he'll win.
F (housewife, 50) said: Me and [her husband] have never voted Labour. I've never really paid any attention to him. What I have seen suggests he's being bullied a lot and that makes him look weak.
J2 (housewife, early 40s) said nothing but wrinkled her nose.
J2's mum (retired, late 60s) said: I think he looks shifty, I don't trust him.
Now, a broader generalisation: I'd say J was a Tory voter; D probably Labour but most likely doesn't bother, T is most definitely Labour (he admits it) while F is very blue. I would have thought that J2 and her mum would have been typical Labour voters, however, given the reactions I think they're people who probably don't vote because they have a mistrust of politics (this is borne out by some comments they have made that border on general ignorance), however UKIP probably tempts them.
Over the last few weeks, my friend - A - who is a Momentum member and jokingly refers to himself as 'An Activist', has expressed some deep worries about the Labour Party's complete inactivity in the 'real world'; I argued it's being covert, I might have been deluding myself...
Now the pointless and divisive leadership election is behind us and the Tories are blindly sleepwalking us into some kind of oblivion of our own making, where the hell is the opposition? Despite PMQs just being the modern day equivalent of Punch and Judy, but lacking any real punch or sausages, there are no positive sounds emanating from Labour HQ and personally I believe that's because, like the Tories, they haven't got a clue what to do, so they're just sitting reasonably quietly waiting for the next massive cock-up to surface and hoping that something, eventually, will damage the Tory vote.
I believed for a long time that they were playing the political equivalent of 'give them enough rope and they'll hang themselves', especially given that we're only 18 months into this administration and Treeza isn't showing any signs of calling or forcing another General Election. And, in a reasonable world I think that's not a bad game to play, but I like to think I understand politics (or did, once) and waiting for the right moment to strike and then relentlessly hammering on seems like an interesting weapon. Except... It doesn't appear to be happening. Labour, or specifically the PLP, appears to be a bunch of people thrown together, who are not particularly keen on each other and are grudgingly participating in something they're not really enjoying. Even if the press wasn't preternaturally predisposed to destroying the party anyway, they'd be well within their rights to be questioning where the opposition is.
Hello Labour! Tories slicing and dicing the country up and what are you doing?
I have, on several occasions, since Jeremy Corbyn's first election success, called myself a naive altruist more than a rabid leftie. I have been blinkered by my own refusal to accept everything that is wrong about this new Labour by continually putting forward all of the positives that Jezza's kind of politics could bring. The indications now are that he's neither the messiah nor a very naughty boy.
Last month I told you why Corbyn couldn't be elected. I'm now doubting, especially given the peculiar rise of the right in recent months, that the socialism being advocated by Corbyn and his followers isn't actually that popular amongst most of the voters. Yes, there's lots in their plans that will benefit the country and help bring poor people out of poverty quicker and lots of great ideas on how to make the country money, but as the EU referendum showed: economics isn't the big reason to motivate people to vote. It might once have been, but the media and casual, off-the-cuff public opinion has moved politics into a kind of 'us and them' territory and Corbyn's Labour doesn't even get within a million miles of the isolationism that is growing in rural England.
Tories sway with public opinion like a tree with dodgy foundations - hence why they resemble UKIP more than UKIP at the moment and their rhetoric always makes great use of framing specific words even if they don't mean what they're saying. At the moment they're not as vague as Labour, but you'd need a micrometer to measure it.
History might suggest the worst legacy of Tony Blair was actually the Spin Doctor, because once the Tories worked it out and then threw money at it they became the emperors of spin. The exception to the rule being Scotland, where pragmatism has always meant more than words.
As I said in November, Corbynistas can point at social media, the internet, mobile messaging and whatever and say they're winning that particular market over; but I'm not actually seeing any evidence of this, with one exception - how well Labour's vote has held up in council bye-elections and some of the parliamentary ones. This suggests, especially the way the press has routinely ignored them, that on the ground Labour are actually doing better than we're being told, but you only have to look at my social media news feeds to see that my bubble of like-minded souls are 99% posting 'look what the bloody Tories have done this time' stuff and very little positive opposition stuff.
Preaching to the converted about how crap it is has no discernible effect on the people who might be persuaded to vote Labour (or at the very least not vote Tory) unless they see the message; there's no point in telling people where to look, they need the message force fed to them, which only the Tories seem capable of achieving.
I've said this before but 90% of my news feeds in June were convinced the vote would be remain. 95% of the people I met on the street were voting leave. I don't need to do the maths to highlight that my bubble lost to the real world by about 4%. The main thing that needs to be understood about this vote was, when you boil it all down, it actually wasn't about party politics but about people politics. A proportion of the population basically stated that they didn't like what was on offer. The Tories saw this and Cameron was ushered out faster than the norovirus, and Treeza was seen as the unifying face by the public.
Labour - never as united as the Tories - tried the same thing and it blew up in their faces so badly that I think it's harsh to blame Corbyn for everything; it's his MPs that need to seriously look at themselves but Mr Average won't see it that way. Probably, the wisest move would have been for Corbyn to try and find his logical successor and step aside while endorsing the man best suited to carry on the work he started. Fresh faces at the ballot box does generate some interest in an apathetic populace.
If my straw poll is any indication of how Corbyn's Labour will fair at the next election (given it should be a way off still) then I wonder if he's aware that outside of his massive bubble of support there's a population who either don't care about him or don't really think he's up for the job? If the Labour Party really does care about the country and its people it needs to reinvent itself for the 21st century and start looking at the issues that the people on the street are talking about.
If Marmite subjects like immigration cannot be swept under the carpet, then perhaps it is time the debate was had to really find out just how tolerant our society is at the moment and whether it's worth trying to save?
We all know opinion polls have margins for errors, but even with the worst one built in Labour is still looking as electable as Nigel 'Bye-election King' Farage, yet still I held onto the belief that polls are not at all reliable and polling companies are usually sponsored by someone with political interest or skewered by the fact that the same bunch of people are polled all the time. Look at the Brexit vote and how everyone who thought they knew were flummoxed by one single factor - no one bothered to ask the man in the street. Or probably more relevant, no one listened when the man in the street spoke.
As people who read this regularly will know, I was not surprised by the EU vote based on my own experiences talking to people while out walking my dogs. Dog walkers are literally all types of people, from all kinds of backgrounds, with myriad beliefs, but these hardy souls have one thing in common - their dogs, therefore before long your dogs' friendships turn into human ones, albeit in the most fleeting of ways. Many of the people I meet regularly stand and chat, chew the fat, while the dogs check each other and the surrounds out, I have no idea what their lives are outside of the field we stand in. Conversations rarely turn to politics, it's like an unwritten law that you don't venture into areas of controversy because... well, you just don't.
During the run up to the EU vote I was pretty much floored by the anti-EU sentiment I heard all over and with a wee bit of hindsight, I am, at times, quite astonished that Remain got 48%.
A couple of weeks before Christmas, I did something a little bit unusual with a group of my fellow dog walkers. During a lull in the conversation, I asked them all a question, but I was careful to preface it with enough sensible wording as not to get anyone's back up or turn the conversation defensive. Spurred on by a Guardian headline that suggested Paul Nuttall - the new UKIP fuhrer - was more of a threat to Labour than anything else and coupled with my own blog suggesting that 'The Cult of Jeremy Corbyn' is never going to win anything, I asked my friends this: "I'd be interested in your opinion on something: this isn't about politics, so don't panic; but I read something in the paper this morning that made me realise I really don't know what I think about Jeremy Corbyn and I'd be interested to know what others think about him as a person. Not whether he's electable or anything to do with his politics, just what you think of him."
No one stormed off in a huff or reacted like I'd asked them about their underwear. The replies were disjointed and bitty, because more than one person was often speaking, but I'll break down (and roughly paraphrase) their answers:
J (a former catering manager now a teacher, mid 40s) said: Well, I wouldn't vote for him. He seems like a nice man, but do nice men have a place in politics?
D (a retired widow, 68) said: I think he gets a rough ride in the papers and on TV. He seems like a very decent man. He does seem a bit out of his depth.
T (a retired plasterer, also 68) said: I like him. I've voted Labour all my life, but I don't think he's the right looking man for the job. I'd vote for him but I don't think he'll win.
F (housewife, 50) said: Me and [her husband] have never voted Labour. I've never really paid any attention to him. What I have seen suggests he's being bullied a lot and that makes him look weak.
J2 (housewife, early 40s) said nothing but wrinkled her nose.
J2's mum (retired, late 60s) said: I think he looks shifty, I don't trust him.
Now, a broader generalisation: I'd say J was a Tory voter; D probably Labour but most likely doesn't bother, T is most definitely Labour (he admits it) while F is very blue. I would have thought that J2 and her mum would have been typical Labour voters, however, given the reactions I think they're people who probably don't vote because they have a mistrust of politics (this is borne out by some comments they have made that border on general ignorance), however UKIP probably tempts them.
Over the last few weeks, my friend - A - who is a Momentum member and jokingly refers to himself as 'An Activist', has expressed some deep worries about the Labour Party's complete inactivity in the 'real world'; I argued it's being covert, I might have been deluding myself...
Now the pointless and divisive leadership election is behind us and the Tories are blindly sleepwalking us into some kind of oblivion of our own making, where the hell is the opposition? Despite PMQs just being the modern day equivalent of Punch and Judy, but lacking any real punch or sausages, there are no positive sounds emanating from Labour HQ and personally I believe that's because, like the Tories, they haven't got a clue what to do, so they're just sitting reasonably quietly waiting for the next massive cock-up to surface and hoping that something, eventually, will damage the Tory vote.
I believed for a long time that they were playing the political equivalent of 'give them enough rope and they'll hang themselves', especially given that we're only 18 months into this administration and Treeza isn't showing any signs of calling or forcing another General Election. And, in a reasonable world I think that's not a bad game to play, but I like to think I understand politics (or did, once) and waiting for the right moment to strike and then relentlessly hammering on seems like an interesting weapon. Except... It doesn't appear to be happening. Labour, or specifically the PLP, appears to be a bunch of people thrown together, who are not particularly keen on each other and are grudgingly participating in something they're not really enjoying. Even if the press wasn't preternaturally predisposed to destroying the party anyway, they'd be well within their rights to be questioning where the opposition is.
Hello Labour! Tories slicing and dicing the country up and what are you doing?
I have, on several occasions, since Jeremy Corbyn's first election success, called myself a naive altruist more than a rabid leftie. I have been blinkered by my own refusal to accept everything that is wrong about this new Labour by continually putting forward all of the positives that Jezza's kind of politics could bring. The indications now are that he's neither the messiah nor a very naughty boy.
Last month I told you why Corbyn couldn't be elected. I'm now doubting, especially given the peculiar rise of the right in recent months, that the socialism being advocated by Corbyn and his followers isn't actually that popular amongst most of the voters. Yes, there's lots in their plans that will benefit the country and help bring poor people out of poverty quicker and lots of great ideas on how to make the country money, but as the EU referendum showed: economics isn't the big reason to motivate people to vote. It might once have been, but the media and casual, off-the-cuff public opinion has moved politics into a kind of 'us and them' territory and Corbyn's Labour doesn't even get within a million miles of the isolationism that is growing in rural England.
Tories sway with public opinion like a tree with dodgy foundations - hence why they resemble UKIP more than UKIP at the moment and their rhetoric always makes great use of framing specific words even if they don't mean what they're saying. At the moment they're not as vague as Labour, but you'd need a micrometer to measure it.
History might suggest the worst legacy of Tony Blair was actually the Spin Doctor, because once the Tories worked it out and then threw money at it they became the emperors of spin. The exception to the rule being Scotland, where pragmatism has always meant more than words.
As I said in November, Corbynistas can point at social media, the internet, mobile messaging and whatever and say they're winning that particular market over; but I'm not actually seeing any evidence of this, with one exception - how well Labour's vote has held up in council bye-elections and some of the parliamentary ones. This suggests, especially the way the press has routinely ignored them, that on the ground Labour are actually doing better than we're being told, but you only have to look at my social media news feeds to see that my bubble of like-minded souls are 99% posting 'look what the bloody Tories have done this time' stuff and very little positive opposition stuff.
Preaching to the converted about how crap it is has no discernible effect on the people who might be persuaded to vote Labour (or at the very least not vote Tory) unless they see the message; there's no point in telling people where to look, they need the message force fed to them, which only the Tories seem capable of achieving.
I've said this before but 90% of my news feeds in June were convinced the vote would be remain. 95% of the people I met on the street were voting leave. I don't need to do the maths to highlight that my bubble lost to the real world by about 4%. The main thing that needs to be understood about this vote was, when you boil it all down, it actually wasn't about party politics but about people politics. A proportion of the population basically stated that they didn't like what was on offer. The Tories saw this and Cameron was ushered out faster than the norovirus, and Treeza was seen as the unifying face by the public.
Labour - never as united as the Tories - tried the same thing and it blew up in their faces so badly that I think it's harsh to blame Corbyn for everything; it's his MPs that need to seriously look at themselves but Mr Average won't see it that way. Probably, the wisest move would have been for Corbyn to try and find his logical successor and step aside while endorsing the man best suited to carry on the work he started. Fresh faces at the ballot box does generate some interest in an apathetic populace.
If my straw poll is any indication of how Corbyn's Labour will fair at the next election (given it should be a way off still) then I wonder if he's aware that outside of his massive bubble of support there's a population who either don't care about him or don't really think he's up for the job? If the Labour Party really does care about the country and its people it needs to reinvent itself for the 21st century and start looking at the issues that the people on the street are talking about.
If Marmite subjects like immigration cannot be swept under the carpet, then perhaps it is time the debate was had to really find out just how tolerant our society is at the moment and whether it's worth trying to save?
Friday, 16 December 2016
The um... Kingdom of England (oh, and Wales)
Bloody current affairs... it's just so surreal at the moment it's difficult to ignore...
People who know me know that it is my intention to move to Scotland in 2017. It has been a longstanding ambition and the EU vote acted more as a kick up the arse than any actual reason to get out of 'little' England.
Not that Scotland is exempt from the EU vote, but because they simply seem to be a more tolerant society and that will, if nothing else, soften the coming blows. However, while chewing the political fat with a friend recently, we kind of came up with half a half-baked idea that I want to share with you before moving onto the more ... honest... nature of this blog.
Now, the idea of Northern Ireland campaigning for independence is not likely to happen, but the idea of Northern Ireland being independent from Westminster and autonomous, yet still part of the Commonwealth and a player in a more 'loose-knit' United Kingdom, might just float in Proddy strongholds.
But why stop there? How about an economic union with an independent Scotland and the Irish Republic, that would mean Northern Ireland, like Scotland could remain in the EU with almost as much sway as the old Britain headed by the English had and a lot more respect from the other nations because, well, quite simply, they're not English.
Of course, if Northern Ireland could remain part of the sovereignty but also as a semi-independent state it would negate the need for borders, however it might require closer checks when travelling from Northern Ireland to England and I can think of quite a few Scots who would love the idea of a hard border between England and Scotland. Hopefully not because there would be an influx of disgruntled English people wanting to escape the hell that is coming.
The reason I like this idea is because it allows sections of the British to remain part of what they, in the majority, believe in; would lessen the impact that Brexit-geddon will bring to many in England and Wales and would make these countries arguably greater than the Britain they'd leave, because there would be a kind of Gaelic unity that us English struggle to identify with (because it's culturally different, innit?).
The other reason I like this idea is because I've recently become a traitor to the cause. I no longer have any faith that the Labour Party or specifically Jeremy Corbyn can turn the fortunes of the party around, especially in the face of the growing right wing tide sweeping up even reasonable people in this country and the fact that basic left wing politics just doesn't appeal to a large percentage of a growing isolationist and intolerant society. The only way Labour can appeal to people who've left them or would normally vote for them is if they broke with some of their fundamental core beliefs and under Corbyn and propelled by Momentum that simply isn't going to happen.
I heard this rumour that the Northampton South MP, David Macintosh, would not be sacked by the Tories because they feared a bye-election. I also heard the Labour Party also didn't want a bye-election for exactly the same reason. That reason was because the Tories would probably increase their majority, despite all the corruption and scandal. This was Labour's reason as well - from up top. Now, before you start telling me how foolish I am, consider this - the Tories are actually quite comfortable with an ineffectual old man leading the toothless Reds because they can basically ride roughshod over most things they want to and there's bugger all opposition. Regain a seat currently held by arguably one of the most corrupt politicians of modern times with a greater majority, regardless of boundary changes, it is going to trigger more ructions among the people on the other side of the chamber and eventually if Labour's slide into oblivion becomes too obvious Jeremy will eventually either fall on his sword or another massively damaging leader election happens again, throwing up the possibility that someone who might change things - for the perceived good - might appear and disrupt everything.
I can't help but notice how little Labour appears to be doing about everything. Not even my social media is buzzing - hell, it's not even murmuring inaudibly, so the theory that Jeremy and his team were all over the internet, cutting out the press, seems to be more hope than hit. PMQs is still an hour of backslapping and obfuscation at best and lies and slander at worst and Corbyn could beat Treeza in a wrestling match, with rabid wolverines, and the press would still call it a draw with the Tories regaining the moral high ground even if it is of a subterranean nature.
He doesn't stand a chance. I don't care that Labour are going to try and rebrand him in the New Year, it's too little far too late. Even if he was given a fair platform and some objectivity from the media he'd still probably struggle because NOTHING IS HAPPENING and a lot of that nothing is affecting potential supporters. His message just might not appeal to more than a bunch of internet bubbles.
But, I wanted Corbyn politics to work because I fear for the entire socialist movement in England and that people like me might end up being labelled 'dissidents' or 'subversives' because we don't subscribe the common right wing beliefs, meaning that 'liberal' speech might even be suppressed, probably by those who would have posted it, for fear of reprisals from who-knows-where.
There has been talk recently of a Progressive Socialist Alliance of Centre-Left and Left wing parties - an idea that seems like it has been born out of one of the Tories key issues not to vote for Labour at the last election. In a Britain that is to become divorced from the rest of Europe there is more need for the countries within it to work together in the interests of 'the Kingdom'. The Tories do not speak for Scotland and only have versions of themselves in Northern Ireland. In Wales, despite a waning support for Labour, the Tories are still unpopular in many areas and in England there are socialist heartlands, and more importantly, areas of the country which would have 'socialist' MPs if the centre and left parties worked with each other to stop the rise of the right.
But for this to happen Labour would need to do a deal with other parties and as we saw from Richmond, they'd rather lose their deposit and credibility than be seen working with someone with ultimately the same goal as them.
Labour would need to sit down with the SNP and forge an alliance that would mean Labour gives up Scotland, but works in a democratic partnership with Scotland to allow SNP MPs to vote along side them for the greater good. The Tories suggested this would mean the downfall of the UK if that happened at the last election, for many keeping Scotland happy is now the key to keeping the United bit with the Kingdom part.
It would also mean working with Plaid Cymru, the Liberals and to a much lesser extent the DUP, to ensure that someone other than a right wing candidate wins. It doesn't take you long to work out, looking at 30 marginal seats won by the Tories at the last two elections you can see that had an alliance been in place and the Liberals endorsed a Labour candidate and didn't stand against them and vice versa, those 30 seats wouldn't have been won by a Tory. Yes, it's simplistic and general, but convince the public that it's the best way and fairest way forward for Britain and it might just work.
But Labour still retains illusions of grandeur and the divisions within the party run so deep the entire concept is anathema to them from the top to the lowliest backbencher, because it would mean some of them possibly losing seats or would rest control to a coalition of similarly ideological but deeply different bedfellows. The problem is Britain has clung to it's left, middle and centre model for so long that change is happening and it's leaving politicians behind. How else can you explain the popularity of UKIP amongst a certain demographic and one which UKIP is exploiting to the glee of the Tory party?
If nothing else, a progressive coalition of Labour, SNP, Liberal and Green would at least have similar hymn sheets and could stem the tide of anti-tolerance, bigotry and hate that is becoming more public, by making a government that is both prosperous and tolerant of difference and diversity.
Still, however crazy the political landscape has become in the last 12 months, something that might actually be of benefit to more people in this country than ever before would not get house room and it might take the Tories to achieve complete breakdown of the country's economic and social stability to bring about a change for the benefit of both the country and the many.
People who know me know that it is my intention to move to Scotland in 2017. It has been a longstanding ambition and the EU vote acted more as a kick up the arse than any actual reason to get out of 'little' England.
Not that Scotland is exempt from the EU vote, but because they simply seem to be a more tolerant society and that will, if nothing else, soften the coming blows. However, while chewing the political fat with a friend recently, we kind of came up with half a half-baked idea that I want to share with you before moving onto the more ... honest... nature of this blog.
- Both Scotland and Northern Ireland voted overwhelmingly to stay in the EU.
- Both Scotland and Northern Ireland have benefited more than anywhere else (apart from Cornwall) from EU money - these places wouldn't be so much better off without the EU's money and help.
Now, the idea of Northern Ireland campaigning for independence is not likely to happen, but the idea of Northern Ireland being independent from Westminster and autonomous, yet still part of the Commonwealth and a player in a more 'loose-knit' United Kingdom, might just float in Proddy strongholds.
But why stop there? How about an economic union with an independent Scotland and the Irish Republic, that would mean Northern Ireland, like Scotland could remain in the EU with almost as much sway as the old Britain headed by the English had and a lot more respect from the other nations because, well, quite simply, they're not English.
Of course, if Northern Ireland could remain part of the sovereignty but also as a semi-independent state it would negate the need for borders, however it might require closer checks when travelling from Northern Ireland to England and I can think of quite a few Scots who would love the idea of a hard border between England and Scotland. Hopefully not because there would be an influx of disgruntled English people wanting to escape the hell that is coming.
The reason I like this idea is because it allows sections of the British to remain part of what they, in the majority, believe in; would lessen the impact that Brexit-geddon will bring to many in England and Wales and would make these countries arguably greater than the Britain they'd leave, because there would be a kind of Gaelic unity that us English struggle to identify with (because it's culturally different, innit?).
The other reason I like this idea is because I've recently become a traitor to the cause. I no longer have any faith that the Labour Party or specifically Jeremy Corbyn can turn the fortunes of the party around, especially in the face of the growing right wing tide sweeping up even reasonable people in this country and the fact that basic left wing politics just doesn't appeal to a large percentage of a growing isolationist and intolerant society. The only way Labour can appeal to people who've left them or would normally vote for them is if they broke with some of their fundamental core beliefs and under Corbyn and propelled by Momentum that simply isn't going to happen.
I heard this rumour that the Northampton South MP, David Macintosh, would not be sacked by the Tories because they feared a bye-election. I also heard the Labour Party also didn't want a bye-election for exactly the same reason. That reason was because the Tories would probably increase their majority, despite all the corruption and scandal. This was Labour's reason as well - from up top. Now, before you start telling me how foolish I am, consider this - the Tories are actually quite comfortable with an ineffectual old man leading the toothless Reds because they can basically ride roughshod over most things they want to and there's bugger all opposition. Regain a seat currently held by arguably one of the most corrupt politicians of modern times with a greater majority, regardless of boundary changes, it is going to trigger more ructions among the people on the other side of the chamber and eventually if Labour's slide into oblivion becomes too obvious Jeremy will eventually either fall on his sword or another massively damaging leader election happens again, throwing up the possibility that someone who might change things - for the perceived good - might appear and disrupt everything.
I can't help but notice how little Labour appears to be doing about everything. Not even my social media is buzzing - hell, it's not even murmuring inaudibly, so the theory that Jeremy and his team were all over the internet, cutting out the press, seems to be more hope than hit. PMQs is still an hour of backslapping and obfuscation at best and lies and slander at worst and Corbyn could beat Treeza in a wrestling match, with rabid wolverines, and the press would still call it a draw with the Tories regaining the moral high ground even if it is of a subterranean nature.
He doesn't stand a chance. I don't care that Labour are going to try and rebrand him in the New Year, it's too little far too late. Even if he was given a fair platform and some objectivity from the media he'd still probably struggle because NOTHING IS HAPPENING and a lot of that nothing is affecting potential supporters. His message just might not appeal to more than a bunch of internet bubbles.
But, I wanted Corbyn politics to work because I fear for the entire socialist movement in England and that people like me might end up being labelled 'dissidents' or 'subversives' because we don't subscribe the common right wing beliefs, meaning that 'liberal' speech might even be suppressed, probably by those who would have posted it, for fear of reprisals from who-knows-where.
There has been talk recently of a Progressive Socialist Alliance of Centre-Left and Left wing parties - an idea that seems like it has been born out of one of the Tories key issues not to vote for Labour at the last election. In a Britain that is to become divorced from the rest of Europe there is more need for the countries within it to work together in the interests of 'the Kingdom'. The Tories do not speak for Scotland and only have versions of themselves in Northern Ireland. In Wales, despite a waning support for Labour, the Tories are still unpopular in many areas and in England there are socialist heartlands, and more importantly, areas of the country which would have 'socialist' MPs if the centre and left parties worked with each other to stop the rise of the right.
But for this to happen Labour would need to do a deal with other parties and as we saw from Richmond, they'd rather lose their deposit and credibility than be seen working with someone with ultimately the same goal as them.
Labour would need to sit down with the SNP and forge an alliance that would mean Labour gives up Scotland, but works in a democratic partnership with Scotland to allow SNP MPs to vote along side them for the greater good. The Tories suggested this would mean the downfall of the UK if that happened at the last election, for many keeping Scotland happy is now the key to keeping the United bit with the Kingdom part.
It would also mean working with Plaid Cymru, the Liberals and to a much lesser extent the DUP, to ensure that someone other than a right wing candidate wins. It doesn't take you long to work out, looking at 30 marginal seats won by the Tories at the last two elections you can see that had an alliance been in place and the Liberals endorsed a Labour candidate and didn't stand against them and vice versa, those 30 seats wouldn't have been won by a Tory. Yes, it's simplistic and general, but convince the public that it's the best way and fairest way forward for Britain and it might just work.
But Labour still retains illusions of grandeur and the divisions within the party run so deep the entire concept is anathema to them from the top to the lowliest backbencher, because it would mean some of them possibly losing seats or would rest control to a coalition of similarly ideological but deeply different bedfellows. The problem is Britain has clung to it's left, middle and centre model for so long that change is happening and it's leaving politicians behind. How else can you explain the popularity of UKIP amongst a certain demographic and one which UKIP is exploiting to the glee of the Tory party?
If nothing else, a progressive coalition of Labour, SNP, Liberal and Green would at least have similar hymn sheets and could stem the tide of anti-tolerance, bigotry and hate that is becoming more public, by making a government that is both prosperous and tolerant of difference and diversity.
Still, however crazy the political landscape has become in the last 12 months, something that might actually be of benefit to more people in this country than ever before would not get house room and it might take the Tories to achieve complete breakdown of the country's economic and social stability to bring about a change for the benefit of both the country and the many.
Monday, 5 December 2016
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 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.
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