The Hope Blister

I hope Britain gets what it deserves. Whether that is a better country or one facing a bleak future is where hope becomes a scary thing.

Part of me hopes that whatever the outcome of the General Election, people are happy with it, because if they’re not the following five years could spell the end of life as we know it today (and, really, I’m not being melodramatic, £12billion of planned cuts proves that).

Hope is full of fear and trepidation because, as we’ve seen for the last five years, one man’s happiness has far-reaching consequences – the divide between the haves and have nots has widened – officially. The ‘economic resurgence’ that Osborne assures us is around the corner, but not echoed by others, is highly selective with its bonuses – there are far more people not feeling this economic optimism and it’s being reflected in the polls.

The polls hold hope for just about everyone that isn’t the usual three. Green, UKIP and especially the SNP have benefited from more coverage and it will be reflected in results. The thing is, forget the SNP because there is a certain fait accompli about them, the Greens and the UKIP are going to do a lot more damage than people, pollsters and politicians believe…

I’ll tell you what I hope more than anything – I hope the mood of the nation hasn’t been misrepresented by the press because I have a horrible gnawing feeling that the turn out could be higher than expected and many voters are going to confound the experts.

The election no longer appears to be about policies and visions, it appears to have become a kind of weird Presidential Race, where the leaders of parties dictate the amount of support they will get.

Nigel Farage is many things, most of them arguably libellous, but he said something petulant recently that had more than a ring of truth about it. While accusing the BBC of bias and being left wing, he made the comment that people lie. Activists and militants – left or right – will manipulate procedures to get onto debate audiences, manipulate opinion, etc. Extrapolate that to polls and it is completely feasible that polls can have a greater degree of inaccuracy than offered, or even that the majority of people polled are already decided and might not reflect what the rest of their street feel or intend to vote.

All polls really do is give hope.

I’ve spent an inordinate amount of time over the last few months subliminally polling people. The election is a talking point and during an average day I will talk to a reasonably substantial number of people – dog walkers, people queuing at the post office, chatting to neighbours, in the pub and I’m building a picture in my head that should have Sally Keeble, Michael Ellis, whoever the Lib Dem candidate is and even Tony Clarke worrying, because if I had to put my poll of about 30 people quizzed in the last week up as any kind of reflection of the mood in Northampton, then Tom Rubython* – the UKIP candidate – is going to have a devastating effect on the vote in this seat.

Let’s put it this way – I have spoken to four people who say they’re voting Green (will make Tony happy); one Labour and the rest have declared for UKIP …

I sincerely hope this isn’t reflected in the election because UKIP could really decimate British politics yet barely win a seat. The effect of them, and to a lesser extent the Greens, on voters could see safe seats overturned and reopen the debate for Proportional Representation, especially if we end up with a minority government with 29% of the vote.

What I want to know is how people who don’t read newspapers, watch the news or politics programmes can form their opinions.

Take one of my neighbours. He has struggled with a damaged foot for the last four years and today he has it amputated. He is a self-proclaimed anti-Conservative. He hates them and all they stand for. He wants a party that will look after the NHS and gives the young a fair crack. So far so good. But he also wants less foreigners, because ‘they’ve caused so much damage to this once great country’. He hasn’t got a clue about the economy; he doesn’t want to know anything except how the NHS is going to be saved and who is going to get rid of all these Eastern Europeans and give their jobs back to people like him who can’t get jobs now because… He wouldn’t vote for that Miliband bloke because he’s a bloody immigrant himself and he hates Cameron because he’s a toff and doesn’t understand the common man. But Nigel? He likes Nigel. Nigel has his vote, even if it isn’t Nigel who is standing in Northampton.

Nigel wants to privatise the NHS, I protest. What if he does, at least it will be British. There was no point in arguing with him because like me, his mind is made up.

When I walk the dogs, I meet all manner of people and unusually politics between ordinary people seems to have become acceptable, almost an ice-breaker now and once where people would keep their voting intentions to themselves, in 2015 they don’t care if you know their fascist tendencies.

Did they watch the debates? No. 

Do they read a paper? No.
Watch the news? No.
What is it about Nigel that they like? He’s a man of the people. He understands the common people. He’s English.
You suggest to these people that he’s ex-Tory and that seems to galvanise him and them.
You struggle to debate with them because they don’t really understand the politics.
Nigel drinks beer, smokes fags, belittles the establishment – he’s everyman.

UKIP is Nigel Farage. People aren’t voting for their local candidate, they’re voting for Farage. If you abolished the monarchy tomorrow and had a presidential election – he would win because everyone would think it was him against the establishment; we all only say these horrid things about him because we’re scared of him.**

If ever there was grounds for a political fait accompli, Farage holds the key to it. What will the pundits and politicians make of it if UKIP split the vote so much that even safe seats suddenly hang in the balance. The ignorant – and I mean that respectfully – view UKIP as an alternative to Labour and its continued march to the centre ground; the wilful view UKIP as an opportunity. For racists, xenophobes and people who view the election as a single issue – immigration – UKIP is a shoo-in, because they’d be even more radical than the Tories.

If this scenario could happen, it should also worry the Conservatives more than Labour, because many Labour strongholds are considerably more UKIP proof than Tory’s would like their safe seats to be. UKIP works on the best way to sell your product – the oldest way – word of mouth; if you are not of a particular political leaning – one of the majority of floating or non-voters – then the passion generated by Farage’s ability to appeal to the silent masses gets their vote.

I see casual racism all the time, even if people aren’t even aware of it and something about the way UKIP has been legitimised by the press has made this extreme Nationalist party considerably much more palatable than the BNP, despite having incredibly similar manifestos. Oh and Nigel isn’t a violent thug.

I’d talk about UKIP policies but frankly they could have published The Beano and the number of people who intend to vote for them might have increased. This is the crazy thing – their ticket is immigration and pulling out of Europe because that’s the cause of the immigrants. No one voting for him gives a hoot about whatever they plan to do with the NHS, the economy, education, anything else, because he will deal with the only real problem they see. The root of all the other problems – get rid of them there immigrants and problem solved.

It is horrible simplistic politics and the damage it could do is unthinkable. There has never, especially in Northampton North, been a better time for tactical voting. I have the greatest respect for Tony Clarke, he’s an old friend and he should be involved in frontline politics; but he could split the Labour vote as severely as UKIP is going to dent Michael Ellis. David Cameron is hoping for a 1992 moment and the floaters will put their Xs next to a blue flag, because that’s what British voters have a tendency to do, but equally many of them might see UKIP as the best form of protest vote they can register and that throws this seat and many others into jeopardy.

Polls suggest a hung parliament with blue and red neck-and-neck on seats and the smaller parties holding the cards. It is quite reasonable to suggest that both the major parties could end up with as many as 20 less seats than forecast and with the Lib Dems facing a real wipe out, UKIP could become the third party by default and have as much bargaining power as the SNP.

Can you imagine that? We get an unexpected 65-70% turn out and pretty much 50% of voter go for a right wing party and 50% for a left wing one. What kind of country - what kind of future - would be have when half the electorate will have politics that is an absolute anathema to them? Especially if two extremes can form a government.

Tories will have it that any Labour government, whether propped up by someone else will destroy everything they’ve done. Everyone else will have it that another Conservative-led government would continue to destroy everything else they haven’t already destroyed and if you are poor or disabled you might as well kill yourself now.

Personally, I’d rather live in a society that views people as equals rather than one that has steadfastly and openly discriminated against the poor and disabled while making their billionaire friends richer.

*Presumably this is the same Tom Rubython that was going to stand for a Dorset seat in 2015 but stood down because of racist comments attributed to him. It is also presumably the same Tom Rubython that used to go by the name 'Batman Rubython' and was convicted of libel in 2006 and someone who can be linked to the infamous tax avoiders the Barclay Brothers. None of this is worth anything to the people who will or might vote for him because all they see is Farage.

** Oh and If you can think of a way to give an easy example of how to dissuade people from voting for a single issue that doesn’t really affect them, when they steadfastly believe that any dissenting voice is through fear and not through logic, I’d be pleased to hear it. I hope you can, because I hope I’m wrong about my UKIP fears.

Frightening Realities

When John Laurie used to say, "We're doomed; all doomed," it usually got one of the biggest laughs in an episode of Dad's Army. Private Frazer had a way with being pessimistic that tends to have become a staple in sitcoms. The glass isn't half empty, it's been drained and then thrown - Greek style - into the fireplace smashed into smithereens.

We are all doomed.

I have a friend; he's poor, he lives in the deep south of the USA. He's a carer; his opportunities to succeed have pretty much been taken away from him by the general scant disregard the USA has for the disenfranchised and yet to 'listen' to him you'd think he was a multimillionaire on Palm Beach or Beverley Hills. When you get him onto the subject of politics he's as right wing a Republican as you can possibly imagine. His hatred of Democrats and them being almost commies belies the fact he is an incredibly intelligent person; yet that intelligence has not seeped into his ability to differentiate between a party that has his best intentions at heart - even if they fail to deliver because of the fubar that is American government - and a party that pretty much prey on all of his fears and then do nothing to solve the problems and only make his life worse.

But saying that, I know a few British people whose politics does not sit with their stature or social position. I presume a lot of people's voting intentions are forged not by the now but by the then...

People think of Labour as the weak, lily-livered bunch of idiots that allowed the unions to dictate ridiculous demands in the 1970s; yet people forget it was Heath - a Conservative - that presided over the 3-day week and was responsible for a lot of the things that meant Labour were going to struggle once they were in office. Harold Wilson claims he was always going to retire at 60; but if you look at the mess Heath and his cronies left the country in you have to wonder if his retiring was more to do with his desire to be seen as a good British PM and not the man in charge when it all fell apart.

History, because it is largely written by those who want you to see some of the past but not all of it, doesn't make any references to the rubbish Heath government; the cronyism, the backhanders, the 'jobs-for-the-boys' - in fact, like many Tory governments most of their most horrendous decisions were never reported on because most of the media then was run by people who donated to Tory fundraisers - very much like today.

Why do you think the press is making more of the Savile case than the HSBC tax evasion. The press will argue that people are more interested in historic sex abuse cases involving former DJs than the fact that HSBC alone contributed to aiding and abetting more tax evasion than the National debt. The poor and disabled are paying for the banks fleecing of the country and yet all we hear about from all the parties is how public spending needs to still be cut... Why? Aside from the fact that most independent economists will tell you that more needs to be spent on public spending to invest in the future and produce people who earn enough to spend enough to generate prosperity. Apparently, it's not rocket science, but Sky and the BBC seem to think it is. The press in general seem to think picking on a woman who had a bad day and making it front page news is more important than the fact that the banks have been walking roughshod over every rule and regulation in the book.

I know someone who isn't on any benefits; who wants to work but has an injury that prevents him from doing much at all. He's been waiting over 6 months to get a referral to see the second level in the new NHS merry-go-round system that basically throws as many obstacles in the path of someone needing something that costs more than a fiver. Essentially, if it isn't cancer, let them wait, seems to be the new NHS motto. This person is involved in a vicious circle that could be solved by simply not punishing the people who aren't responsible for the mess.

And then we get to the really frightening part. Walking the dogs the other day, I sometimes bump into a bunch of fellow canine ramblers who I have given the highly imaginative noms-de-guerre of 'The Old People'. A couple of my dogs have soft spots for them and vice versa and usually our conversations are about their health; the dogs and general stuff; however, this particular day their wives weren't there, so the subject matter changed, the language became bluer and my heart died a little...

Two of them, John and Ernie, I have (or maybe that should read 'had') a soft spot for them. Ernie, like me, suffers with his back and has struggled to get anything sorted by the NHS over the last five years and tends to be one of those 'mustn't grumble' people you kind of wish you could be. John has been struggling with retirement - he worked in the shoe industry for 40 years and was made redundant at 56. He struggled to find work elsewhere from that point, and now 11 years later, he only worked two of those 9 years before he had retirement foisted on him by the DWP. I'm sure their stories are echoed all over the country.

The way Ernie talks I've always been under the impression that he's probably left of centre politically; John has never really voiced a political opinion. In the two or so years I've been talking with them, he tends to avoid the subjects that I like the most. The other day; the day the immigration figures made bad reading for the Tories - who tried to bury it under the latest Savile revelation - which incidentally implicates Thatcher's Tory government so much but without a hint of condemnation from anyone. Ed Milliband's father was a Marxist and managed to garner pages of hate filled vitriol from the Daily Mail, yet Thatcher's government can bend the rules because a high profile paedophile and sex pest might save them a few quid and that is dropped in as casually as an 'And finally...' news story and dwelt on for as long as you hover over the Like button on social media.

Anyhow, we were discussing Ernie's NHS woes and the bad immigration figures when John says (and I apologise for the language), "It's that cunt Cameron's fault. The man's a spineless idiot." Lots of nods of agreement and finally I knew it, John, the working class local had nailed his political leaning on the mast. "What we need is Nigel to come in a sort it all out." I stopped in my tracks, a mixture of horror and hilarity - was he joking?
"The problem with Nigel is he only has one policy - get rid of the immigrants."
"And that would solve all our problems. I never hear an English voice now. Polish shops; Albanians running places; all those people in hospitals and barely any can speak English."
John chimed in with, "Yes, but all of our doctors and nurses are leaving the UK to go and work in countries where they are appreciated more; we have to employ these people." Ah... some sanity at last and I didn't have to open my mouth. "But, if you got rid of all of them it would mean there would be more jobs for us." Egads!
"Yes, but, you just said it, all of our nurses and doctors are going off to the States or Germany to work. We need to employ these immigrants or our hospitals would collapse under the pressure."
"Yes, but if we paid them enough money they'd stay. Nigel is just the man to do this. If we pulled out of Europe it would save us so much money, it could be spent on all the things this lot are cutting back on. Nigel has the working man at his heart." My new-found respect for Ernie disappeared instantly.
"You do know that if we pull out of Europe everything will cost more, don't you? Food, fuel, higher taxes to subsidize our farmers and industry, which the EU currently does."
"If farmers can't make a living then fuck them," says John.
"But John, if we pull out of Europe we'll have to depend on our own farmers more because we won't be able to afford to buy fruit and veg from Europe because we wouldn't be part of the EU." But he wasn't listening, he has it in his head that the way of solving all of the countries woes is by shipping out all the immigrants. That's the solution and he doesn't want to hear why that wouldn't work. He doesn't want to know it'll cost us money. He doesn't want to know that while UKIP go around telling people that's how they'd save the country; they don't ever acknowledge the huge impact pulling out of Europe will have on the wage packets, human rights and general living standards of those who wouldn't benefit from pulling out of Europe. The 1% (of which Nigel is obviously on their payroll).

What followed belied belief. John, who had likened David Cameron to female genitalia seconds earlier was saying the best thing that could happen would be a Conservative/UKIP coalition, because Nigel wouldn't let Cameron get away with the shit that Clegg has let him get away with. I tried once more to tell him that Farage was an ex-Tory who wouldn't know a working class man if he bit him on the arse; but these people were convinced that UKIP was the only way forward and every negative thing you say about them is twisted around and used as a weapon or a conspiracy against them because they represent real people. Well, my final gambit was to tell these people, I was rapidly losing respect for, that Nigel and UKIP are essentially a media friendly wing of the BNP and a vote for them was a declaration that you're a racist. John countered with, "If we got rid of all the fucking Poles and eastern Europeans and all the Indians and coons then perhaps we'd be happy; this country has gone to the dogs once it started letting fucking Muslims in..."

Aha... We have a fully-fledged racist here. We have a man who given enough rope made sure you knew firmly where his flag was flying. A man that Adolf Eichmann would have been proud of. A man who does not have an opinion, he has a belief that foreigners are the root of all evil and you can supply him with all the evidence you can muster, but it won't stop the fact he is just a worthless racist and a worthless racist who will make sure he votes in May. Like people who vote for political parties that couldn't give a toss about them; he was driven by his own deluded belief that Party A would save his soul.

In a week when we discovered that IDS's latest abomination was saving the government £80 a week by withdrawing DLA to an 8-year-old deaf, dumb, blind and disabled child because the assessment decided that a) she was fit to work and b) her DLA should be paid by the Germans as the child's father is seconded there by his British firm. This alone should make people realise that the Tories really don't care about those that need help the most. Can you imagine what kind of life this kid will have if UKIP do have a say in government and they persuade people to pull out of Europe and therefore allow the UK to opt out of the Human Rights Act? It might sound far-fetched and histrionic to suggest that the disabled child's mother could, in the future, be prosecuted, because her anti-government rhetoric would be regarded as sedition and inciting terrorism. Seriously, I'm not joking or scaremongering.

How this country has got to the stage where it is more concerned about the Brit Awards than it is about how unfair and cruel society is becoming can only be attributed to whoever has been in power making people believe that greed is good and those worse off than us deserve no better. When people become more concerned with someone 'stealing' £5 worth of benefits than they are about organisations embezzling literally billions of pounds - the billions that would propel us from being in debt to being the wealthiest country in terms of cash on the planet - then you know that Thatcher probably would be happy with Dave's Britain. Job done; now all the poor have to do is die before their pensions are due to be paid...

Some basic truths about leaving the EU

I just happened to stumble across something on Radio 4 the other day. It was in the wake of the CBI conference in Westminster, where some business leaders called for the referendum on Europe to be held as quickly as possible to stop all the upheaval caused by uncertainty.

People who know me will know that I consider myself European and I am quite passionate about us staying in the EU. Apart from UKIP, who must have some kind of agenda otherwise they really are just a bunch of racist ignoramuses, the only people who wouldn't mind us 'going it alone' are the heads of major businesses, because they'd be the only people who would benefit from us being outside of the EU.

Eurosceptics - answer this - you don't want us to be in Europe, that's fine, but how is us being in Europe directly affecting your life? This isn't a question to business leaders, because as I stated they would only benefit from us not being in the EU; this is a question to people who casually say, 'We should pull out of Europe; all that cost, all those bloody immigrants, all that child support flooding into Romania...' The sad truth is most people simply don't understand what the EU is for and because our right wing press and our infotainment providers do not wish to educate us, the myth is perpetuated and grows and becomes 'law'.

Walking round Sainsbury's last week, the first thing I noticed was the amount of fruit and veg that comes from non-EU countries. A little bit of research allowed me to discover that Egypt has a trade agreement with the EU; the UK doesn't, it benefits from the EU agreement and as a result you can buy 500g of green beans for £1.50, even if the food miles alone make that fact abhorrent. A little bit more research discovers that the EU has a trade agreement with Peru, that means we can have asparagus all year round for £2 a bundle rather than just May and June. The crazy thing about asparagus is that the stuff that has been flown halfway around the world is cheaper than the stuff grown down the road from you. To cost conscious hipsters and ignorant airheads (the kind who spout off about things they have little or no understanding of) this is great, they can have their asparagus and not bankrupt themselves in the process.

You can argue that being in the EU costs too much money, but the money it costs doesn't directly affect you, does it? If the UK pulled out of Europe then we'd have to renegotiate the trade deals with Egypt, Peru and every other non-EU country and do you really think that we're going to be able to negotiate a better price than we already have? No. As I've pointed out before, Norway buys capsicums from The Netherlands, the average cost of a pack of three multi-coloured peppers is about £5 as opposed to the £1.50 we pay over here. I dread to think what the cost of green beans from Egypt or asparagus from Peru costs in Oslo, or Tromso, or Svalbard...

The withdrawal of the UK from Europe - should a referendum vote that way - wouldn't just mean more expensive imports from the rest of the world; it would also mean more expensive imports from the EU. The Norway example would become the UK example - fruit and veg that is not sourced in this country would go through the roof (and there would be a quality issue - Norwegians are convinced Holland treats them worse than other importing EU countries). The same fruit and veg we buy from the EU would also be more expensive because we would no longer be part of that negotiated trade deal so would have to go it alone - without the collective bargaining power. it's not going to be cheaper is it? The Spanish are not going to say, "Oh it's the British, we'll do a better deal for them."

So, the cost of food will go up, but the cost of fuel might come down, especially if we align ourselves to Putin's Russia - so that's not going to happen. You could argue that pulling out of the EU will be good for our farmers, but as I mentioned in the opening sentence, I was listening to Radio 4 and it was a farmer who made the point that while he was a Tory voting agriculture specialist, pulling out of the EU would require a lot of things from those further up the food chain. Farms would lose the subsidies they get, but there would be extra pressure from supermarkets and punters for food prices to stay relatively stable - the supermarkets aren't going to want their shareholders to have less, so the onus would be placed squarely on the farmer and they simply wouldn't be able to afford it.

The farmer talking on R4 said as many as 30% of all farmers would go to the wall if the government didn't match the subsidies the EU gave them and we all know we live in a time when the last thing the government wants to do is subsidise anything. The coalition farming and fisheries representative said that farmers would have to diversify and produce more affordable seasonal crops - which sounded to me like Cameron telling them to stop whining.

The upshot is that the retailers would have to go back to Europe to import basics such as eggs and milk because these can be produced much cheaper in Europe - cheaper for them, not for us. So, while pulling out of Europe should at least create an environment where we're educated to be reliant on seasonal and locally produced goods, the consumer doesn't want this. The consumer doesn't want unusual shaped British apples, they want anodyne South African apples with no taste, but all the same size. The consumer doesn't want deformed British grown beans, they want uniform Egyptian ones, because...

The Tories (and UKIP to a certain degree) want to be in Europe but they want to be in charge and set the rules and pick and choose what suits us (them) best. Altruistically this is an admirable thing if they were doing it for the betterment of us, but they do it to line their own pockets and to ensure they get away with things they shouldn't. Pulling out of Europe would allow the right wing to abolish the human rights act and make it impossible to protect yourself from the system. They claim this is down to the growing threat of terrorism, but it is just a gagging ploy because the Internet has allowed people to see things that no government wants us to see, even if most people dismiss the memes and propaganda as scaremongering lies created by people with vested interests.

Pulling out of Europe will vastly change the average person's life. The cost of living would, for at least the first five years, be disproportionately higher than ever before. It would plunge an estimated 5 million more people into food and energy poverty - that's almost 7% of the population would be drastically worse off and something like 70% of the population would simply be worse off than they were the day before they opted to pull out.

Obviously, it would allow us to close our borders and not spend all of that time and money in Strasbourg so that would suit all the xenophobes and racists out there. Except, it wouldn't.

When interviewed about not being in the EU, a Norwegian trade minister said that while they had no say in Europe, they still spent as much time in negotiations and meetings as their EU counterparts and they spend almost as much money just being there as they would have if they were full members.

Norway also has one of the worst poverty to rich ratios in Europe. A country that is oil and gas rich but does not use that money to subsidise the country in reduced taxes or costs. The owners of these companies do not pay enough back into the country to stop its poor from being desperately poor in a country with the highest standard of living costs (apart from Finland) in all of Europe.

Norway also has approx 1 million immigrants or 15% of their overall population - these are mainly from Eastern European countries or children born of foreign parents - and because Norway is part of the European Economic Area (which allows them some discounts on trade deals), all EU member residents have free access to move in and out of Norway. The Norwegian government is quite happy about this because immigrants do the jobs no Norwegian wants to do and for considerably less money. So pulling out of Europe won't necessarily spell the end to a flow of immigrants, we'd probably end up with more from outside of the EU, because that has been Norway's biggest issue with foreigners.

As an amusing aside - the UK features much higher than Norway on the occasionally spurious chart that measures a country's overall happiness. Speak to a Norwegian and he'll tell you that £10 for a pint of beer is not unheard of and while they earn considerably more than we do, everything there is mega expensive apart from fish. The main issue among your average Norwegian isn't the immigration problem, it isn't banks and tax evasion, it's simply the cost of living.

If there is a cost of living crisis in the UK, which there obviously is taking into consideration the amount of people using food banks, imagine what it would be like if you had to take a loan out to buy a bag of food?

There is also another important factor that people are completely ignorant of. If we closed our borders to 'foreigners' we'd end up with even higher priced trade deals, or none at all because countries would class us as xenophobic and racist and wouldn't want to do business with us - maybe not all, but many. Plus, if we kicked out anyone who wasn't British born and bred how would we deal with the kids born here of immigrant families, or who would we get to clean the shit up or do all the jobs that the Brits don't want to do? And don't say force them to do these jobs if they're unemployed because that is just ignorance and idiotic thinking - simply put, you give a job to someone who doesn't want to do it and they'll do a substandard job. If you start penalising them for being unhappy then you start getting into totalitarian government and we all know how happy these are.

The simple truth of pulling out of Europe is it will cost us all a lot of money and considerable hardship (and all the immigrants would still be here).

What we need is for the infotainment channels to educate us about the harsh realities not just shove Farage on screen with a pint and a fag while bemoaning about us losing our Britishness. That just enhances the xenophobia at a time when we really need to be seen as an inclusive and caring country.

Nothing is Fair in Politics

I might have told this story before, but it's only short, so I'll tell it again.

When I had my comic shop in Wellingborough, my landlord was an old Chinese guy called Mr Chan. He ran the Golden Dragon Chinese Takeaway next door to Squonk! and he was a genuinely nice and considerate man.

I was standing at his counter one day, just chatting and this was back in about 1991 when interest rates had hit an all time high and there was another of those recessions sweeping across the country. Thatcher was gone, but moderate John Major wasn't doing anything to enhance the mood of the poor or disenfranchised, despite it being pretty much nowhere near as bad as it is now. Mr Chan looked at me over his glasses and said, "I don't want or expect a better life, I just want a fair one."

I've probably misquoted him slightly, but the gist is there. I think, but I might be altruistic that if you offered the majority of the population the chance for everything to be fair rather than some have and some not, I still feel that's what most people want. A fair life is hardly a difficult aspiration.

When I listen to the 30 minutes of pantomime that is PMQs, I just hope anyone else watching it gets the same impression of the government sitting there being smug, while being led by the two smuggest people in the country - Cameron and Osborne. What is the point of PMQs if the PM's answers are not actually answers at all, but just a way of blaming the Labour party for the mess we're in. What angers me is the insipid responses of Millband, unless protocol prevents him from producing figures and statistics that categorically prove it wasn't just their fault, but also Cameron's for voting for a lot of the things that dumped us in the crap in the first place.

I wish there wasn't this etiquette in parliament, but equally having some passionate Labour MP tell the PM he's a callous, uncaring buffoon who stands at the box and lies through his teeth, or obfuscates the truth to suit his purposes, probably would mean some terrible reprimand for the offending MP, probably a public apology for saying what 50% of the country agrees with. It isn't just Cameron; since PMQs has been televised it has been a way for the government to pretend to be Leonard Sachs and lord it over the rest of the ineffectual opposition MPs. Any casual observer would wonder why we even have these things if all that is going to happen is 30 minutes of bluff, bluster and lies. No wonder people are switching off from politics, they are just so detached from these people who walk into that chamber and become something we probably didn't ask for.

PMQs isn't a fair representation of anything, but fair isn't a word that sits comfortably with Tories. It's not fair that if they get elected in May they'll dismantle the NHS while telling us its for our own good and it will improve things - unless you can't afford it, then by the time you've waded through the pages of bureaucracy you'll probably be dead.

Had someone close to you who has been saved by the fantastically free NHS? Don't crow about it in five years, you might get a backlash from those who lose someone special because there wasn't enough proper nurses or doctors, or they couldn't prove they were on benefits. I'm not suggesting the nurses and doctors who do fabulous jobs will stop doing it, but with no resources, no investment and no fairness, they will become overworked and probably patients themselves. Most Tory MPs will have private medical insurance anyhow; they wouldn't want to be in an NHS hospital through choice.

I was talking to someone at the NBC - Northampton Borough Council - who told me that most councils owe the government money, the government owes money; every one owes money to someone and suddenly there's this Greek leftie suggesting he's going to make sure Greece is not the pooh on the sole of Europe's shoe any longer. What's he been met with from the European politicians and the right wing leaning media is a mixture of incredulity, hostility and ignorance. Greece's people are fed up with being a Third World country; they are a proud race with a rich culture and they, or rather someone in their usually right wing government, messed up and the people have been paying and paying and paying and if you kick a dog for long enough it will bite back.

Politicians should be worried; this isn't a UKIP moment; this is a tide of people, in a country that usually has coalitions, who have voted one party in with more seats than anyone for a long time. The people want this guy to change things and he'll try, even if it means getting into bed with the Russians and the Chinese. Greece could signal the end of the EU because the poor and disenfranchised have spoken and if it spreads to Spain and Portugal and maybe Ireland, it will grow and the left and the right will struggle to coexist harmoniously.

What the new Greek PM wants is fairness. Less stringent measures, more hope for his people. It's a good ticket; it's one that people with little hope for the future will look at and grasp for. UKIP, the Tories, even Labour and the LibDems don't offer fairness; they offer the same in different measures.

If you get doorstepped during the election, ask whoever it is why we have to pay for their mistakes, when there's over £120billion in corporation tax avoidance that has been ignored by HMRC, while persecuting those with nothing for less than £1billion? Ask them why we have to pay for rich people to stay rich and get richer? Ask them if they think it's fair and if they say they think it is then tell them they're not getting your vote.

The Knives Are Out

My wife, often quite unassuming when it comes to politics but not averse to the odd conspiracy theory, made a very pertinent observation: why is the NHS suddenly setting the news agenda rather than having its agenda set? This was in direct response to the sudden media exposure of the so-called 'Winter Crisis' - for this is the media season of hyperbole with Weatherbombs, Thundersnow and Omnishambles! Suddenly and obviously not sanctioned by the appropriately named Jeremy Hunt, the NHS is informing us that it's going to the dogs and without pointing any fingers it has made this year's General Election all about the future and present of the NHS.

Forget Farage - immigration was so yesterday and besides, who's going to look after you when you have that hip operation? There are not that many British nurses because despite having the mickey taken out of him in 1992, Neil Kinnock said that the nurses needed protecting and now without those plucky Romanians cleaning pus and wiping bottoms, the NHS would be a bit like one of those pop-up car wash places.

The Tories have tried to swing the agenda away from the NHS - because there isn't much they can say about it without making them look even more like the key holders to Auschwitz - but the NHS swing it right back and unlike many things the press likes to manipulate - there's simply too much NHS to ignore.

This pretty much would suggest that Labour will, at least, be the party with the majority of seats, even if they won't have a mandate and will have to form coalitions - probably with the SNP, possibly with Plaid Cymru, who knows, the five LibDem MPs left might have a say in the matter, while they sort out who their next leader is going to be. I think the NHS as an entity proves that the next Tory target will have to be the NHS, as there's barely anything left for the Tories to slash and burn and it costs a lot of money to just stand still. This means a Tory government would realistically see a rise in the death rate over the next six years; more dead babies, more dead parents, more Logan's Run style diplomacy in Oncology departments - if Tory sympathisers cannot see, from the last five years' evidence, how the NHS will only be a provider of health care for those that can afford it, or afford to wait, then there is no hope for them.

I'm of the opinion that a vote for any party apart from the two right wingers is okay. You only vote Tory if you're all right and likely to stay all right. You only vote UKIP if you are a racist or believe that the lies that spill from Farage's mouth on a daily basis are worth believing (normally because you are too ignorant fat and lazy to find out the real facts).

If you vote Tory, just hope you have enough money to cover your medical bills for cancer, when you get it; or for when your grandchild faces death because there are no midwives or your heavily pregnant daughter is told she's simply going to have to hang on to it because there are no beds available! Even if you think they look after the economy better; they just want to sell off the NHS to all their own people to make even more money from you for something you've paid for all your working life. They've taken away just about everything good people fought for you to have; are you going to let them steal and sell off the NHS the way they did with energy, the railways, phones, so someone who doesn't care one jot about you can afford to buy 25 yachts this year?

That's what a Tory vote will do. If you're happy with that then let's all hope you're an exception rather than the rule.

Common Sense is Dead

My theory about no one (with any common sense) wanting to win the next General Election seems to be gathering some credence.

For a while it seemed that Labour were beginning to take it seriously, then the press got on at Milliband.

The Tories - Dave and Gideon specifically - are telling us that the world is heading for another global crisis so we're going to have to have at least 5 more years of the poor being penalised and the rich getting richer.

UKIP are still not really being treated as anything other than a slightly popular sideshow anomaly that will go out of fashion quicker than the Penny Farthing (method of transport or monetary unit).

The Labour party then tried desperately hard to make sure no one liked them and actually failed to a certain degree - people think it's the same trick that UKIP supporters use to explain why no one likes them. And, of course, no one likes the LibDems now so they couldn't get in if they offered the electorate free sex, drugs and a working NHS.

The one slightly silver lining to this new impending globally catastrophic black cloud is Dave can't, without ridicule, blame Labour this time.

I look at the country at this moment in time and I'm struggling to see a future, let alone a bright one. Sensible people are being ignored. Sensationalist social network bollocks prevails. No one tells the truth about what is happening - not because they don't want to but because it isn't good enough copy or exciting TV - in this infotainment world - or if the press doesn't give the average viewer a massive reaction or make them horrified or disgusted or slightly offended, then no one cares. There is also a faint and really unpleasant whiff of Enoch Powell about things and the press are more concerned with other matters.

I read somewhere last week - it might have been The Guardian or Left Unity - that voter apathy is at an all-time high and the next general election could be decided with less than a 50% turnout... I don't know about you, but surely there's a fundamental problem that needs to be fixed if half the population is refusing to vote because they trust none of the candidates? I'm probably completely mathematically wrong here, but common sense suggests that any government formed next May will be doing so with something like just 20% of the population having voted for them - you get to screw up the country with just a fifth of the vote; that's democracy working for us.

Someone else also pointed out last week that considering the Tories claim the BBC is Labour-biased; how come the following people have high roles on their news team: Laura Keunesberg is called a 'Right Wing Attack Dog', Nick Robinson and James Landale are both staunch Tory voters and several high profile news editors and reporters also back blue over any other colour.

Presumably, the Tories telling us that the Beeb is left wing is similar to UKIP supporters telling non-UKIP supporters that they're just making things up about Nigel, because we're all scared of what they can do.

Someone very powerful likes the idea of UKIP in a coalition with the Tories to ensure that they and the other top 10% of earners in this country are guaranteed that income for the next 25 years - by pulling us out of Europe, destroying the social, health and welfare system, removing our statutory rights and making sure that it costs far too much money to fix it.

I wonder if people who support fascist dictatorships express regret in the intervening months?

Here's a reason why UKIP is becoming popular, especially with the working class. Their candidates aren't, on the whole, career politicians, they are or pretend to be normal people. They tick the boxes disgruntled stupid people want ticking and like people who believe the Tories are looking after their interests, the average idiot won't even realise that it's the government that is allowing all manner of people to economically rape you until you are a shell or a worthless husk with nothing to offer and no safety net except death. UKIP might have lots of 'Average Joes' in their ranks, but what happens when these disparate characters get their way with the EU and then start arguing about how to fix the problems. Remember, UKIP for all of its posturing is financed by and its two MPs are - Tories (not Labour or any working class or socialist group... but of course, if you like or support UKIP you won't believe that, you'll think I'm just scared of Nigel and making lies up about him...)

Politics is such a pariah now, the bastards can do what they want and you no longer care. The worst thing about this is those who no longer care no longer want to listen to the truth and are happy to let the lies sway every agenda there is, as long as it doesn't kill them as fast as it was.

The irony is more people care about the £1.2n in total benefits fraud per year than they care about corporations avoiding paying £120bn tax. Joe Average can't stand the idea of Fred Not-As-Disabled-As-He-Claims (or his Polish cousin Piotr) claiming £1 more than they should; they hate the fact that some bastard has screwed the country out of £1 unfairly. They will vote for whatever party says they will execute dole scroungers. Yet, as much of an anathema as it might seem, most people don't give a fig that the major corporations have avoided paying more money in one year than all the dole scroungers in the last 50 years have scrounged in total. Or that Take That successfully avoided paying tax for ages... Because it was Gary and Mark and Howard and the wookie.

If this country was to recoup just one year's worth of unpaid tax avoidance, it would be able to clear the budget deficit, all the interest, end the loans, fix the NHS, invest in new schools, hospitals, education and training programmes, build more council houses, fix things that have gone wrong and still be able to give everyone a 2p in the £ tax reduction for FIVE years.

Have you ever wondered why this isn't common knowledge, but easily verified?

Ask yourself this: if you had just £100 and someone took £10 off of you because you were poor and weak and couldn't fight back, it would be tough, you might struggle a bit, but you'd make ends meet. If you were a multi-billionaire with £100 billion and someone took £10 billion from you, how many billions would you have left?

I Have Better Things to Do

A little thing with wider implications.

I appreciate that, because of our politicians, we live in a less safe world and security is now a big business defending our heads of government from errant joggers; but has anyone else noticed the almost unreal stance taken by the media over 'Joggergate'?

Let's put this into perspective. There's a hipster guy running to his gym; he's decked out like a runner, he has an ipod playing and he, like many runners, is having his own tunnel vision moment. He accidentally happens upon a prime ministerial visit and bumps into the entourage. It was an accident, it could have been anyone.

Right, let's put some different perspective on it. Whether you like Cameron or not, he's the prime minister and he's got to be protected. What his security team did was no more than you would expect and the safety of our #1 has to be guaranteed. Except...

What happened after? We had a couple of hours of 'terrorist attack' on the news, then as the real story came to light there was a definite hardening of the media, the government and all the security advisors Sky, the BBC and Al Jazeera could rope in at short notice. Even though this was an accident, a mistake, a bit of mistimed fortune, suddenly it's all about ensuring our politicians are protected better; about enhanced security and yet there was nothing at all about the poor sod who got bundled to the floor, arrested on terrorism charges and had to spend two hours trying to explain to, I'd hazard a guess, rather unsympathetic or unrepentant MI5 and Special Branch officers, while trying to come to terms with how his life had suddenly taken an 'Enemy of the State' turn for the worst.

I can't understand why no one has bothered to even offer an apology to the guy. The police issued a statement saying he had been 'dearrested' [sic] and when it was suggested to a junior Home Office minister that this may well have been an over reaction and perhaps someone should seek out the hipster and offer some solace, this was dismissed with a subtle dig at the guy's appearance. He's a hipster and a young person, he won't vote for the Tories, why bother trying to make things right with him?

Yet this is endemic of our press and media at the moment. Do you know what the funniest thing I hear trundled out year after year by Tories? That the BBC is left biased and doesn't like the Conservatives. Take this EU budget debacle. All it needed was for Sky news and the BBC to donate 15 seconds of air time to the fact the 1.7bn euros it has to pay extra is something that happens every year and sometimes we've got a rebate. This has never been mentioned once; instead what we have is Cameron posturing and becoming more and more resigned to the fact that if he wants to hold onto power he's got to start sounding like Farage on European issues, so this is reflected in the media. All because he's crap scared of losing the next by election to the sweepingly popular Adolf Farage.

How come none of the news suppliers - TV or print - have bothered to spell out the real pros and cons of pulling out of Europe. The simple fact is economic analysts have said if we pull out of Europe it could take us 5 to 10 years to get to a situation where we can compete and negotiate with the rest of Europe without it penalising us in some way - in other words, we pull out, it takes 10 years to get back to where we are currently in terms of negotiating powers.

Also, why has UKIP suddenly become as important as the major parties? The media bias towards these halfwits wouldn't be so bad if they were being portrayed for what they are, but there's almost a sense of glorification. People with consciences will post things on Facebook and other social media highlighting the true nature of this new party; the fact they court fascism; have no real policies, have MEPs who do nothing and sound like they're making things up as they go along and yet citizens of this country dismiss this as fear, of people like me running scared of this steamroller. Because the media seems to think of Farage and co as media darlings now, the average idiot who will vote UKIP is obviously being lied to and mislead, but no one is actually questioning UKIP like a proper party - where is the discussion of their non-existent policies outside of pulling out of the EU? Surely that should be the purpose of the BBC if nothing else; to explain to the plebs how things work rather than having loads of time donated to what some bloke in Hemel Hempstead thinks about 'Joggergate'.

UKIP has got where it is because no one took them seriously. Now, no one is still taking them seriously yet their rise is just like the Nazis in the 1930s - fuelled by the middle aged and the middle class. The militants, the shipbuilders, the young never embraced Hitler, so he targeted national pride and stirred up passions in those who survived the First World War; those who believed Germany should be great and free from the shackles of the rest of Europe. Sound familiar?

Where have Labour been? There's barely a peep out of Millidee and co., and that's frightening because a real opposition leader would be chomping at every bit possible, but Labour are acting more and more like a party that doesn't want power because there are dark days ahead and I'm beginning to think the power behind Labour knows that if it gets in it won't be able to do what has needs to do to restore some balance to society because it costs too much money and they can't be seen to be frivolous again, what with all that infrastructure rebuilding to stop the country from decaying from the inside out.

The frightening thing is the Scottish referendum was supposed to encourage debate and reinvigorate the people to talk about and understand politics more, the problem is everyone has better things to do, in a lot of cases struggling to exist and when politicians come on the TV, most want to switch off because none of them ever say what we really want to hear. I said years ago we need a new politics, something that appeals to the people; maybe even a new way of electing our officials - some kind of scrutiny test. We need to stop corporate lobbying; tax fairly and evenly; support and look after the people who run the country on a daily basis not keep them in a constant fear. Fear doesn't help productivity in the long run - workers should be happy because happiness is key to productivity. Yet we live in this unwavering climate of fear (and loathing), stoked by a media that is almost isolated from the real world and is run the same way as every other cohort is run.

The world is getting better! The world is getting worse!

Franklin D. Roosevelt said, immortally, "The only thing we have to fear is fear itself" - he meant it in a different way, but his words ring so true today. we live in a world where you are scared into doing things, accepting things, obliging things because you're being told we have much to fear.

We do. We're just mistaking the thing we need to be fearful of.