I feel a little like a 19th century maiden aunt giving a young niece advice on how to have really great dirty, sweaty sex, but in many ways that is okay because the people I'm appealing to are sometimes blinded by love and high sugar content food and drink.
The old, the disaffected, the disenfranchised and the ignorant - but mainly the old - have plunged the youth of this country into a situation at least 76% of those that voted didn't want and while, in reality, the majority of them will dismiss the vote on a minute-by-minute basis, the youth of this country with half a brain will know that there is now an even bigger hurdle in front of them than they could ever have imagined. For some young people in this country there is nothing but covert rebellion, weed, sex and the same slog their parents and grandparents suffered and regardless of the social and educational reasons, a large part of it is down to parents looking at their children like they are some kind of bizarre investment and wondering when that huge money pit is either going to pay back some of the money spent on them or bugger off the family payroll.
I've worked with some unbelievably intelligent kids whose lives are fait accomplis - their fathers have stated, quite categorically that work is the way forward, none of this going to college and bettering yourself nonsense. Trying to convince these kids they should fight for their future is a cross between trying to convince a racist they should have voted remain and a real fight - you'd have more chance donning a Moses costume and trying to convince the Red Sea to part. I have friends in Corby who can point out walking human tragedies around that town - people who, had they been looked after properly by our governments, could have become someone good - people who contribute. Yes, these people didn't want whatever opportunities were pushed their way, but on estates in Corby anything coming from Westminster is viewed with suspicion and therefore anything passed down by local government has the same stigma attached; plus the children of people with nothing are indoctrinated by the spite their parents hold for the establishment.
The problem is in these urban ghettos, of which Corby and every other town in Northants (and all over the country) also have people who simply do not believe that politicians are even aware of them and whenever they do fall on their radar it's to try and make their lives harder - and frankly, who can blame them. It simply doesn't matter what you say to some people, prove to them or give them examples of why, people think governments are there to shaft us - a necessary evil.
I've met people who have conveyed to me that they truly believe this is Purgatory; that living here and now is a punishment for a previous life's indiscretions. I've met more people who have become increasingly paranoid about everything and I'm seeing scary levels of intolerance that would have been frowned upon ten years ago. The sad truth is people are ignorant because influence exists everywhere and in austere times negative influence resonates more.
The people affected by negative influence the most are the elderly and what the elderly did last Thursday was stick a massive two fingers up at their children, their grandchildren and their future generations. They weren't influenced by the fact they could be screwing up everything they worked hard for and some of them won't care. Both parties operated Project Fear, the Leave campaign scared the OAPs more while simultaneously tweaking the nostalgia gland.
What we now need is a brighter future, because for 48% of the population it looks bleaker than a landslide UKip General Election victory and what everyone seems to have forgotten about are all those kids in schools and apprenticeships who had absolutely no say whatsoever in their futures. Every 'child' under 18 on June 22nd didn't have representation and how many of them would have been subjected to their parents' or grandparents' racist invective? Many of them, living in a completely multi-cultural world, dismiss it, but others, like the kid who was resigned to leaving school at 16 and getting a job, will perpetuate it.
Politics was something reserved for 6th form when I was at school and while schools today have some politics in their curriculum, the nature of it and the passions it stirs, especially amongst left leaning teachers means it's more like a mechanics manual than a creative writing class. This is completely wrong.
I believe that politics is something that we are exposed to every day - we simply can't avoid it, yet the majority of us systematically blank it from our minds. We try not to align the two because for some of us it really is too difficult to reconcile. But it is a fact, from your shopping to your use of parks you are using politics, you are part of politics, you are aiding the economy to allow you to relax in the park. Obviously, it is a lot more complicated than that, but that pretty much sums it up. If you lived in a world inhabited by 150,000 people on a planet the size of Northampton, it might be as simple as that. Every child from the moment they are born - the NHS - to the moment they walk out of school - and onto JSA - is, in many ways, affected by politics more than you or I and yet they have no voice, because of politics.
I'm not suggesting that any child under the age of twelve should be forced to suffer 'lessons' about politics, but once a child enters Year 9 they should get a mandatory one lesson a week, rising to two in Year 11. Before you start arguing about bias, just remember that kids are subject to political bias whenever there's an election on, whenever something happens that effects their parents. Whenever something unique like a referendum happens, so they're not going to be exposed to anything worse than they see at home; but that isn't really a starter here. My little experience in education saw something I really didn't expect - Conservative teachers; there might not be that many, but they exist. If schools have to or chose to put Politics on their curriculum then they employ politically diverse teachers and if that seems a bit radical, think of it this way - kids share everything with each other and now more than when I was at school because of electronic devices and social networks; teachers sharing personal beliefs is always something special, it forms bonds, and more importantly kids listen to 'secrets' with all ears; if they think they're sharing something it sticks and it focuses minds much better than pawing over books. Politics should be about discussion, debate and demystification as well as how and why it works and what it does for us.
I was asked once by a young guy why we paid taxes. I thought it was a weird question until he quantified it. We pay Council Tax, we pay VAT, we pay fuel tax, we pay road tax, if people die they pay inheritance tax, we pay taxes on house purchases, we have to buy a TV license, and then there's pensions and National Insurance, taxes on fags and booze, we even buy lottery tickets, where does all of this money go and then you have income tax, which is the biggest chunk of the lot. I suddenly realised that young people simply don't understand and that's because they are not educated about it. We send our kids to school and they leave and are thrown in the deep end without adequate preparation. This is a society that will allow any 16 year old to have a baby, but not vote until they're 18. If you didn't understand how society worked you'd probably wonder why we leave our kids so under-prepared and even if you do understand it...
Evil politicians might want less people to be interested, because lower turn outs mean bigger chances of winning. If compulsory voting is not on or ever likely to be on the agenda then we have to start educating our kids about politics, even if it bores the shit out of them. The daughter of an old friend recently had a lesson at school - she's Year 11 - and it was about council taxes, pension schemes, insurances and being aware that planning for the future is something school leavers should really be thinking about - not all the time, because knowledge is not necessarily power, but it does remove the huge amounts of anger and frustration exhibited by the youth when faced with such trials as benefits, rent agreements and single living. Schools are kind of gearing up kids to be at home now, focusing on careers again but not teaching kids about the perils that face them, especially if they have radical parents; and I mean 'radical' in the term they view their children as earners rather than learners.
Stop perpetuating myths, urban legends and prejudice by allowing them to view their parents' opinions with objectivity; if we continue the way we're going huge swathes of the country won't even bother to vote and less and less people will feel compelled to venture into politics and it will become like it was in the 19th century, lots of rich and privileged people screwing you down and the people feeling helpless, worthless and alienated. If you are a parent and you value your kids' futures, then you should start to encourage them to be interested. It's kind of a duty if we want fairer representation in the future, when many of us will have retired and will be worrying about pensions, houses, food and our limited futures.
Lower the voting age to 16, or raise all legal ages to 17; at 15 a kid is facing at least three years of education ahead, but 16 and 17 year-olds face four or five years of not having a say in their future and by the time they do they're not interested. Get schools to promote student councils, that have to be run to include all, and that means some of the dodgy kids and even some from SEN or the disenfranchised - give them a voice and some responsibility and watch them shine and more importantly watch them assert positive peer pressure. You don't have to radicalise students to get them interested in the future of their country, you just have to make them think (and know) they will have a voice.
It's time to engage and involve the young in tomorrow.
The Politics of ...
Thursday, 30 June 2016
Wednesday, 22 June 2016
The Last Word
Worst Case Scenario
The country decides to leave the European Union. What could happen?
The stock market could crash and there could be a massive run on Sterling, devaluing Britain by as much as £40billion over night.
This will spark an emergency budget to put safeguards in place should the arse fall out of the economy.
David Cameron - growing increasingly unpopular - resigns and triggers a leadership battle in the Conservatives, where those in favour of Leave become the leading contenders, people with an extreme right-wing leaning and who have publicly stated that the cuts to public services are not deep enough and are unlikely to channel whatever piddly amount is saved from leaving into those services and the excuse will be the fall in stock and the fiscal effect on leaving.
Not a lot else will happen during the first two years as our government attempts to negotiate trade deals and discovers that it cannot accept any existing deal without allowing the freedom of movement - just ask Norway or Switzerland. Except, some things will happen, socially.
As one political reporter (Norman Smith) said, 'Whatever happens it will change the face of the UK'. He knows, as do many others, that the extreme examples of xenophobia exhibited throughout the campaign will spill out onto the streets, probably whatever the result. The referendum has allowed prejudices to be almost acceptable, as like-minded people congregate to castigate and show extreme opinions that align them with some of the worst terrorists and this will affect foreign migrants in this country, who will be stuck in a limbo, not knowing what the immediate future holds for them.
The scary thing is if intimidation begins (continues) and starts to drive EU migrants (and others) out of the country, there is an idiot minority who will view this as a victory and once it starts 'reclaiming the country' will become something that the far right will begin to practice, because if we vote to leave then the lunatics will really be in control of the asylum. You might not care about the economy (you really should) or bureaucracy (there's probably more of it in UK law than in the EU) or even the migrant issue (depending on who you believe it's either the big issue or not really a concern), you might just feel it seems the right thing to do.
That hangnail - you know if you bite at it you'll end up making your finger bleed and sore for a few days. You know that pulling at it is the stupid thing to do, but you do it anyhow and you'll probably do it again. This isn't a hangnail, this is like cutting off your nose to spite your face. This isn't a frivolous thing; this isn't about getting one over the government, or screwing David Cameron, this is self-harm. Ask yourself this: the UK might be a better place out - that fairy tale might come true and Boris & co., will be right. It might not change much at all and you might shrug your shoulders and say 'Meh', or... it might be costing you your job, your children's jobs and futures, your pockets and purses, your civil liberties and you might wonder what the hell has happened and who can you blame for it?
If you vote Remain and nothing changes will it be that bad? But just think, for a second, put those feelings to one side and think about the future, what if it all turns to shit? What if your house devalues by 35%? What if your pension disappears either through lack of money or a corporate raider like Philip Green? What if there are no jobs, no money sloshing around the economy, no cheap goods - what if you can no longer buy what you want or at the right price? People don't want second best, but they sometimes have to accept it - but it tends to be their choice; if you never have the first choice any more and pay more for what you have to have, is that better than it is now? Do you really really want some kind of mythical independence if it is going to cost your kids their future? Can you truly live with yourself if you are one of the people responsible for the isolation and bankruptcy of our great nation?
Vote Remain.
The country decides to leave the European Union. What could happen?
The stock market could crash and there could be a massive run on Sterling, devaluing Britain by as much as £40billion over night.
This will spark an emergency budget to put safeguards in place should the arse fall out of the economy.
David Cameron - growing increasingly unpopular - resigns and triggers a leadership battle in the Conservatives, where those in favour of Leave become the leading contenders, people with an extreme right-wing leaning and who have publicly stated that the cuts to public services are not deep enough and are unlikely to channel whatever piddly amount is saved from leaving into those services and the excuse will be the fall in stock and the fiscal effect on leaving.
Not a lot else will happen during the first two years as our government attempts to negotiate trade deals and discovers that it cannot accept any existing deal without allowing the freedom of movement - just ask Norway or Switzerland. Except, some things will happen, socially.
As one political reporter (Norman Smith) said, 'Whatever happens it will change the face of the UK'. He knows, as do many others, that the extreme examples of xenophobia exhibited throughout the campaign will spill out onto the streets, probably whatever the result. The referendum has allowed prejudices to be almost acceptable, as like-minded people congregate to castigate and show extreme opinions that align them with some of the worst terrorists and this will affect foreign migrants in this country, who will be stuck in a limbo, not knowing what the immediate future holds for them.
The scary thing is if intimidation begins (continues) and starts to drive EU migrants (and others) out of the country, there is an idiot minority who will view this as a victory and once it starts 'reclaiming the country' will become something that the far right will begin to practice, because if we vote to leave then the lunatics will really be in control of the asylum. You might not care about the economy (you really should) or bureaucracy (there's probably more of it in UK law than in the EU) or even the migrant issue (depending on who you believe it's either the big issue or not really a concern), you might just feel it seems the right thing to do.
That hangnail - you know if you bite at it you'll end up making your finger bleed and sore for a few days. You know that pulling at it is the stupid thing to do, but you do it anyhow and you'll probably do it again. This isn't a hangnail, this is like cutting off your nose to spite your face. This isn't a frivolous thing; this isn't about getting one over the government, or screwing David Cameron, this is self-harm. Ask yourself this: the UK might be a better place out - that fairy tale might come true and Boris & co., will be right. It might not change much at all and you might shrug your shoulders and say 'Meh', or... it might be costing you your job, your children's jobs and futures, your pockets and purses, your civil liberties and you might wonder what the hell has happened and who can you blame for it?
If you vote Remain and nothing changes will it be that bad? But just think, for a second, put those feelings to one side and think about the future, what if it all turns to shit? What if your house devalues by 35%? What if your pension disappears either through lack of money or a corporate raider like Philip Green? What if there are no jobs, no money sloshing around the economy, no cheap goods - what if you can no longer buy what you want or at the right price? People don't want second best, but they sometimes have to accept it - but it tends to be their choice; if you never have the first choice any more and pay more for what you have to have, is that better than it is now? Do you really really want some kind of mythical independence if it is going to cost your kids their future? Can you truly live with yourself if you are one of the people responsible for the isolation and bankruptcy of our great nation?
Vote Remain.
Monday, 20 June 2016
More Than A Feeling
You are 14. You have just met the most fantastic boy/girl. Inside 24 hours you are in love; smitten and wrapped in a warm fuzzy sensation no drug can really truly replicate. When you profess your love for this other new and brilliant person in your life, you are looked at in the same way you were looked at when you were six and farted at the dinner table. "It's how I feel!" You plead with your mum, who knows, all too well, what you are experiencing.
You are 21. It's Grand National weekend and you like a flutter on the Grand National. It's a national pastime, innit? You saw the runners and riders a week ago and you had this sneaky feeling about Bold Future. You think it is going to win. It's 25/1. All week you convince yourself that the odd feeling - that may well have been wind - when you first saw the horses' names is the feeling; the one that is lined with gold.
You are in your 50s - not quite in the baby boomer generation, but old enough to remember the world of three TV channels, ringing telephones that were simply just ... telephones and men with leather patches on their elbows and shoulders of their brown corduroy jackets. You have been 'a European' for 4/5ths of your life and the other fifth you were so young you had no real comprehension of the world around you. Contrary to popular belief most kids that wander around the world up to the age of about 10 do so with an awe-inspired open-mouthed acceptance. You are influenced by what you hear more than what you see because people don't have a tendency to shove pictures in people's faces to continually emphasise a point the way they do with words. Words stick, just ask the mum who inadvertently mutters the word 'fuck' almost under her breath and now has a child running around the house shouting FUCK at the top of its voice.
You are in your 50s and that means you're not too far away from something that seems almost ridiculous - retirement. What you are looking at is your pension, your security and your family (not necessarily in that order, but politics has a tendency to re-prioritise peoples lives) and whether or not you're going to get NHS treatment in the future, because if you haven't started going wrong, it's sitting around the corner waiting to pounce. For the first time in your life you are actually actively thinking about the future, because you've flushed 50-odd years down the toilet and you ain't got that much time left to replay it all again. Tell a 16-year-old he should stop smoking because they will suffer for it when they're 50, they will, almost quite rightly, point out that that's over 30 years away and you didn't listen to the people who told you the same thing.
You might be younger and be reading this thinking carpe diem or death and glory, but trust me, it's like death and taxes, it is something you will do and when you do it's usually with worst case scenarios just to ratchet up the fear factor. You will slow down. You will see time pass without real comprehension.
Now, I'm gobsmacked that we've had 16 years of the 21st Century already. I mean, where did that go? It's like my world has been encased in a select bubble that because it is ageing with me I'm only aware of the numbers. So with that in mind you realise without ever realising it while it is happening that your life becomes reasonably ordered and steady and staid and even a bit boring, but usually it is comfortable and bollocks to going clubbing this weekend, my legs are aching from doing the gardening... It. Just. Happens.
Therefore what you want from the future is that unconscious security you've been experiencing since whenever it started. At least that is my feeling. I'd like that unconscious security to be in Wigtownshire and involve as little work as possible and I'm sure everyone else also has their idyll knocking around in their heads. I'd like to make one last adventure in a life that, compared to my father, has been relatively conservative (SMALL C) despite my belief that it's been more cosmopolitan than many people I've met. I feel that a move will be the best thing I can do with whatever life I have left; the idea of something new doesn't, in the slightest, fill me with dread, but an electric current-like frisson of possibilities and positives.
But, you know, I have COPD, which isn't going away and a history of back and shoulder problems and no private pension to speak of. The wife has family she needs to be around because of her mum's ill health and moving to Scotland would be a massive movement of everything away from everything we know. Still, it's a feeling I think needs to be tried, even if it goes extraordinarily tits up.
What I've just been talking about is what an enormous amount of people I have met on my travels think about the EU Referendum. Obviously not that exactly, but because it is a feeling they have and it doesn't matter how much you can prove to them that the most sensible thing is to RemaIN/Leave, they have a feeling, goddammit! You can't argue with feelings. Look what happens when you question feelings: "Boss, having spoken to that Jimmy Savile fella I've got a nasty feeling he's a wrong'un." And feelings, especially when they've been precognitive, tend to stick in your mind. The 50,000 other feelings that were so wide of the mark they're exiting the known universe next week are always forgotten about. Benign feelings tend to mutate into rose-tinted nostalgia. Feelings are what are likely to drive even the most responsible of people and of course if everyone with feelings were exempt from voting that would leave the psychopaths...
It doesn't matter what you see that suggests what you do is going to essentially butt-fuck you for the rest of your life, because if you remember that girl/boy you fell in love with when you were 14, you know that you would have walked 30 miles over broken glass in bare feet just to put matchsticks in her shit and that is what this is like. Yes, so I sank my life savings on Bold Future and it broke its neck at the first, I have the rest of my life in front of me. I feel that voting out is the best thing and even if that means my life will become one long continuous nightmare of poverty, alienation and hate...
The 14 year old boy/girl is now 54; he/she is 100lbs overweight, has umpteen children, varicose veins and piles. She/he lives in a housing association shed and thinks having the new iphone is more important than feeding the kids healthily. The words 'sausages', 'Mersey' and 'tunnel' are often used in connection with her. Do I need to carry on?
Ask yourself this, especially if you have a feeling about this referendum. Are you really prepared to risk everything you have and everything your kids might have on the basis of feeling it might be the right thing to do?
You are 21. It's Grand National weekend and you like a flutter on the Grand National. It's a national pastime, innit? You saw the runners and riders a week ago and you had this sneaky feeling about Bold Future. You think it is going to win. It's 25/1. All week you convince yourself that the odd feeling - that may well have been wind - when you first saw the horses' names is the feeling; the one that is lined with gold.
You are in your 50s - not quite in the baby boomer generation, but old enough to remember the world of three TV channels, ringing telephones that were simply just ... telephones and men with leather patches on their elbows and shoulders of their brown corduroy jackets. You have been 'a European' for 4/5ths of your life and the other fifth you were so young you had no real comprehension of the world around you. Contrary to popular belief most kids that wander around the world up to the age of about 10 do so with an awe-inspired open-mouthed acceptance. You are influenced by what you hear more than what you see because people don't have a tendency to shove pictures in people's faces to continually emphasise a point the way they do with words. Words stick, just ask the mum who inadvertently mutters the word 'fuck' almost under her breath and now has a child running around the house shouting FUCK at the top of its voice.
You are in your 50s and that means you're not too far away from something that seems almost ridiculous - retirement. What you are looking at is your pension, your security and your family (not necessarily in that order, but politics has a tendency to re-prioritise peoples lives) and whether or not you're going to get NHS treatment in the future, because if you haven't started going wrong, it's sitting around the corner waiting to pounce. For the first time in your life you are actually actively thinking about the future, because you've flushed 50-odd years down the toilet and you ain't got that much time left to replay it all again. Tell a 16-year-old he should stop smoking because they will suffer for it when they're 50, they will, almost quite rightly, point out that that's over 30 years away and you didn't listen to the people who told you the same thing.
You might be younger and be reading this thinking carpe diem or death and glory, but trust me, it's like death and taxes, it is something you will do and when you do it's usually with worst case scenarios just to ratchet up the fear factor. You will slow down. You will see time pass without real comprehension.
Now, I'm gobsmacked that we've had 16 years of the 21st Century already. I mean, where did that go? It's like my world has been encased in a select bubble that because it is ageing with me I'm only aware of the numbers. So with that in mind you realise without ever realising it while it is happening that your life becomes reasonably ordered and steady and staid and even a bit boring, but usually it is comfortable and bollocks to going clubbing this weekend, my legs are aching from doing the gardening... It. Just. Happens.
Therefore what you want from the future is that unconscious security you've been experiencing since whenever it started. At least that is my feeling. I'd like that unconscious security to be in Wigtownshire and involve as little work as possible and I'm sure everyone else also has their idyll knocking around in their heads. I'd like to make one last adventure in a life that, compared to my father, has been relatively conservative (SMALL C) despite my belief that it's been more cosmopolitan than many people I've met. I feel that a move will be the best thing I can do with whatever life I have left; the idea of something new doesn't, in the slightest, fill me with dread, but an electric current-like frisson of possibilities and positives.
But, you know, I have COPD, which isn't going away and a history of back and shoulder problems and no private pension to speak of. The wife has family she needs to be around because of her mum's ill health and moving to Scotland would be a massive movement of everything away from everything we know. Still, it's a feeling I think needs to be tried, even if it goes extraordinarily tits up.
What I've just been talking about is what an enormous amount of people I have met on my travels think about the EU Referendum. Obviously not that exactly, but because it is a feeling they have and it doesn't matter how much you can prove to them that the most sensible thing is to RemaIN/Leave, they have a feeling, goddammit! You can't argue with feelings. Look what happens when you question feelings: "Boss, having spoken to that Jimmy Savile fella I've got a nasty feeling he's a wrong'un." And feelings, especially when they've been precognitive, tend to stick in your mind. The 50,000 other feelings that were so wide of the mark they're exiting the known universe next week are always forgotten about. Benign feelings tend to mutate into rose-tinted nostalgia. Feelings are what are likely to drive even the most responsible of people and of course if everyone with feelings were exempt from voting that would leave the psychopaths...
It doesn't matter what you see that suggests what you do is going to essentially butt-fuck you for the rest of your life, because if you remember that girl/boy you fell in love with when you were 14, you know that you would have walked 30 miles over broken glass in bare feet just to put matchsticks in her shit and that is what this is like. Yes, so I sank my life savings on Bold Future and it broke its neck at the first, I have the rest of my life in front of me. I feel that voting out is the best thing and even if that means my life will become one long continuous nightmare of poverty, alienation and hate...
The 14 year old boy/girl is now 54; he/she is 100lbs overweight, has umpteen children, varicose veins and piles. She/he lives in a housing association shed and thinks having the new iphone is more important than feeding the kids healthily. The words 'sausages', 'Mersey' and 'tunnel' are often used in connection with her. Do I need to carry on?
Ask yourself this, especially if you have a feeling about this referendum. Are you really prepared to risk everything you have and everything your kids might have on the basis of feeling it might be the right thing to do?
Thursday, 16 June 2016
Little Britain versus Great Britain
As we hurtle towards June 23, I can't help wonder if this is no longer a referendum about staying in the EU and a referendum on just how racist this country is. Of course, I'm always utterly bamboozled when I see Indians or Chinese or West Indians being racist and yet I have been reliably informed that the Indians and the Chinese have loathed each other for a damned sight longer than there's been English speaking people in this country. Racism isn't simply a reserve of the British, but something that is remarkably parochial, colloquial and regional as well as being focused on simply colour, culture or religion.
I grew up with English people telling Irish jokes and before that most Canadians making jokes about 'Newfies' or people from Newfoundland: if there was an Irish joke doing the rounds, it became a Newfie joke. Argentinians take the mickey out of Patagonians who in turn take the piss out of those crazy native indigenous Welsh speaking locals. Sometimes it's just a bit of a lark, other times it causes wars and even genocide - racism, whether casual or intended, is something pretty much every person on the planet has had a thought about and whether this xenophobia is inherent or something we've developed as more of the world becomes known to us is a subject for an anthropologist or a archaeologist...
In general terms, for anyone who really wants to know the 'facts', there are umpteen reputable places they can seek them. Both sides of the argument can state their cases, claim 'facts' and extrapolate on these 'facts' and build their own project fear (if ever this government's agenda of putting fear at the head of the table was ever more apparent...). Today a man called Anand Menon, who works for a company that process actual facts and was answering questions based on the information his company has gathered as opposed to being loaded with any political rhetoric or personal bias, pretty much answered the question that people who care about this referendum are probably more interested in. No One Knows! He said that if we remain very little should change and evidence will back up that the economy will re-stabilise and that it will be business as usual. He then said that no one can possibly give anyone an actuality after June 23 because no one knows whether the current government, in its form, will be in charge and, more importantly, no one apart from the people in charge will know what they will do given whatever scenario they eventually settle on.
I'd like to think that's what I've been saying all along and in one or two cases people have accepted this and said they would look at more details to understand things more; however as we draw closer to the day the subject is fast becoming a vote to decide just how racist a country we are, because, quite simply, migration and migrant workers is the subject that the ignorant only care about. They are basing their decisions on 'feelings' rather than common sense. You can categorically prove Remain is the best way, but for them, this isn't the case and they'll come up with the same reason, worded differently, when all they really need to say is 'you can prove to me the sun is a donkey's cock and I'll still believe what I think because it suits me' and when it comes to people who don't speak English there's a lot of people out there who offer up hundreds of reasons why they're not racists and yet can't help sounding like a Nazi party member. The referendum has stirred up fervent and unpleasant xenophobia and a strange kind of neo-nationalism.
We have allowed ourselves to become so judgemental, largely because of social networks, that we're not even modest about our dislike of bloody foreigners and if there isn't a mass brawl or riot (or another vile murder) before the 23rd I will be surprised, because tensions are building so much now that I borrowed a friend's description of it being like a 21st century English Civil War.
If immigration, migration and foreigners honestly mean nothing to you at all in this debate, then you deserve a seat at the table and your beliefs should be respected, unequivocally. If you're not prepared to look at the facts; the completely verifiable facts that currently, based on the proposed points system UKIP are promoting MORE NON-EUROPEAN PEOPLE COME TO THIS COUNTRY THAN EU MEMBERS. Sorry for shouting, but we are not being flooded out by unwelcome foreigners, we invite in over 60% of the ones who don't have access to ... er... free access.
The press and the government have made such a mess of the entire EU PR that Cameron and co are now backtracking on a lot of what they said publicly and in the Commons about the positives of migrant workers, possibly showing that perhaps the respect I afford politicians is misplaced and perhaps they only ever look like they're playing a long game when all they're doing is muddling along. The damage they are doing to the country could be irreparable.
I grew up with English people telling Irish jokes and before that most Canadians making jokes about 'Newfies' or people from Newfoundland: if there was an Irish joke doing the rounds, it became a Newfie joke. Argentinians take the mickey out of Patagonians who in turn take the piss out of those crazy native indigenous Welsh speaking locals. Sometimes it's just a bit of a lark, other times it causes wars and even genocide - racism, whether casual or intended, is something pretty much every person on the planet has had a thought about and whether this xenophobia is inherent or something we've developed as more of the world becomes known to us is a subject for an anthropologist or a archaeologist...
In general terms, for anyone who really wants to know the 'facts', there are umpteen reputable places they can seek them. Both sides of the argument can state their cases, claim 'facts' and extrapolate on these 'facts' and build their own project fear (if ever this government's agenda of putting fear at the head of the table was ever more apparent...). Today a man called Anand Menon, who works for a company that process actual facts and was answering questions based on the information his company has gathered as opposed to being loaded with any political rhetoric or personal bias, pretty much answered the question that people who care about this referendum are probably more interested in. No One Knows! He said that if we remain very little should change and evidence will back up that the economy will re-stabilise and that it will be business as usual. He then said that no one can possibly give anyone an actuality after June 23 because no one knows whether the current government, in its form, will be in charge and, more importantly, no one apart from the people in charge will know what they will do given whatever scenario they eventually settle on.
I'd like to think that's what I've been saying all along and in one or two cases people have accepted this and said they would look at more details to understand things more; however as we draw closer to the day the subject is fast becoming a vote to decide just how racist a country we are, because, quite simply, migration and migrant workers is the subject that the ignorant only care about. They are basing their decisions on 'feelings' rather than common sense. You can categorically prove Remain is the best way, but for them, this isn't the case and they'll come up with the same reason, worded differently, when all they really need to say is 'you can prove to me the sun is a donkey's cock and I'll still believe what I think because it suits me' and when it comes to people who don't speak English there's a lot of people out there who offer up hundreds of reasons why they're not racists and yet can't help sounding like a Nazi party member. The referendum has stirred up fervent and unpleasant xenophobia and a strange kind of neo-nationalism.
We have allowed ourselves to become so judgemental, largely because of social networks, that we're not even modest about our dislike of bloody foreigners and if there isn't a mass brawl or riot (or another vile murder) before the 23rd I will be surprised, because tensions are building so much now that I borrowed a friend's description of it being like a 21st century English Civil War.
If immigration, migration and foreigners honestly mean nothing to you at all in this debate, then you deserve a seat at the table and your beliefs should be respected, unequivocally. If you're not prepared to look at the facts; the completely verifiable facts that currently, based on the proposed points system UKIP are promoting MORE NON-EUROPEAN PEOPLE COME TO THIS COUNTRY THAN EU MEMBERS. Sorry for shouting, but we are not being flooded out by unwelcome foreigners, we invite in over 60% of the ones who don't have access to ... er... free access.
The press and the government have made such a mess of the entire EU PR that Cameron and co are now backtracking on a lot of what they said publicly and in the Commons about the positives of migrant workers, possibly showing that perhaps the respect I afford politicians is misplaced and perhaps they only ever look like they're playing a long game when all they're doing is muddling along. The damage they are doing to the country could be irreparable.
Sunday, 29 May 2016
The Death of the Conservatives
Someone I know made an astute comment in response to a political argument. It was that the Conservative government voted to accept the last George Osborne budget (despite the fallout, the resignations and the almost-rebellion), it sailed through parliament and yet now nearly half of them are calling Gideon O, amongst other things, an incompetent charlatan. If we can draw any conclusions about this EU referendum it is quite clear - there is massive division in the Tory party, one that has existed for years simmering away in the background, but now has come to a angry and pus-filled head.
I've said before that the left's worst enemy is its ability to fracture and split into factions, thus ultimately diluting their vote; while the Tories disagree with each other over the same amount of things, but money keeps them united and I really don't mean that in a nasty way; political parties need unity and a strong bond to keep them together - Labour should have social justice at its core; the Tories should have money, it's why people, misguidedly, trust them with the economy and why a lot of people vote for them; people think they will be better off under a Tory government and are more likely to trust them if measures such as austerity happen. They are, after all, the elite of British society and are moneyed people.
Take the EU referendum as a yardstick: half the Tory party are calling the other half liars and vice versa; both of them know pretty much the real cost of leaving the EU - they're in government and have access to every expert, bit of data and economic forecast imaginable; so one of them is deliberately lying, or both of them are, but one thing is certain, both of them are not telling the truth.
So how can you trust them to run your country whether we're in the EU or not?
Forget what you're voting for, who you're voting against and whatever flimsy or concrete reason you have for not voting, the noisy backbench Tories, the ones there to keep schtum and nod and patronise and vote for whatever they're told to are now getting noisier and Cameron's future is being called into question (and, honestly, if I could forecast this 6 months ago, just how politically astute are our media's political reporters?) and this is a man who led them to their first majority government since 1992. We all know politicians, in general, are self-serving bastards where principles are no longer a pre-requisite for the job, but look at it at the moment: Tory eating Tory over Europe; never-say-die Blairites constantly stirring up unhelpful background noise for Jeremy Corbyn; the press which is so right wing that it'll pursue any agenda that it thinks will keep readers happy; there are even rumblings in Scotland that the SNP are facing a tough time because they are having to implement a Scots-lite version of austerity, because they're overspending (which I also find amazing didn't make it into English papers in any great way).
Unity in politics no longer exists.
Let me really generalise and give you a silly, but relevant, example: when I were a lad there was maybe seven or eight genres of music; soul, rock, c&w, pop, classical, jazz and folk - there were subdivisions of these, but they were grouped under one label. Forty years later there are maybe the same amount of 'genres' but the music that exists within them is far more diverse and unusual than you could have imagined; some of those sub-genres are extremely popular and might even be, at a certain point, more popular than the genre they exist under, while others mix and match, mash-up and flirt and could be labelled many rather than one. This is politics now - different versions of the original ideology existing under an umbrella that isn't big enough to contain them.
The man in charge of the Commons, John Bercow, MP for Buckingham is regarded by some (in his own Tory party) to be more left of centre than a third of all Labour MPs. I've heard apocryphal stories that he was put forward for the Speaker's job because the Tory party didn't like their own version of Dennis Skinner speaking his mind rather than the party line. Michael Gove used to be a shop steward for the NUT and is now considered to be on the hard right of the party (hard right in my language equates to 'scary').
There is apparently this kind of division within the Tory party: Pro Europe 15%, Ambivalent Europe 35% and Anti-Europe 50% - this is a fundamental schism within the party because whatever the outcome of the referendum there could be 50% of a 'united' party in total disagreement with the other, still.
Just to balance this out, even without the media, old New Labour still finds a way, almost weekly, to stick the knife into current Labour, with the vile and dislikeable Tony Blair seemingly believing someone in the country gives a hoot what he thinks any more. It pains me to know that arguably the most successful Labour PM since Atlee is also as responsible for some of the nastiest, most corrupt and neo-Conservative decisions since Margaret Thatcher.
It's becoming obvious to those that notice - politicians like each other about as much as we like them.
Let's also get one thing very straight and clear - voter apathy is a boon in our current first-past-the-post voting system; the more you think governments do nothing for you the more likely you are to stay at home and watch Corrie. We can be governed by a party, which will claim to have 'the mandate of the people' despite only getting 32% of the vote share from a total turn out of 58% - my maths isn't brilliant, but that's something like 16 million out of 46 million eligible voters giving that mandate.
Think about that for a bit. My figures do stack up.
Two-thirds of the country hate politics. Our politicians disagree on more than they agree on. No one is right, no one is wrong. One thing is becoming obvious - we should elect officials to represent the good of the ENTIRE country, not the interests of their political party, personal wealth or to help their mates. The problem there is if you're one of those rare things, a politician with ethics and principles, you become a target for the right and they're only really supported by about a third of the country and you see my tail fast disappearing down my own throat?
I've said before that the left's worst enemy is its ability to fracture and split into factions, thus ultimately diluting their vote; while the Tories disagree with each other over the same amount of things, but money keeps them united and I really don't mean that in a nasty way; political parties need unity and a strong bond to keep them together - Labour should have social justice at its core; the Tories should have money, it's why people, misguidedly, trust them with the economy and why a lot of people vote for them; people think they will be better off under a Tory government and are more likely to trust them if measures such as austerity happen. They are, after all, the elite of British society and are moneyed people.
Take the EU referendum as a yardstick: half the Tory party are calling the other half liars and vice versa; both of them know pretty much the real cost of leaving the EU - they're in government and have access to every expert, bit of data and economic forecast imaginable; so one of them is deliberately lying, or both of them are, but one thing is certain, both of them are not telling the truth.
So how can you trust them to run your country whether we're in the EU or not?
Forget what you're voting for, who you're voting against and whatever flimsy or concrete reason you have for not voting, the noisy backbench Tories, the ones there to keep schtum and nod and patronise and vote for whatever they're told to are now getting noisier and Cameron's future is being called into question (and, honestly, if I could forecast this 6 months ago, just how politically astute are our media's political reporters?) and this is a man who led them to their first majority government since 1992. We all know politicians, in general, are self-serving bastards where principles are no longer a pre-requisite for the job, but look at it at the moment: Tory eating Tory over Europe; never-say-die Blairites constantly stirring up unhelpful background noise for Jeremy Corbyn; the press which is so right wing that it'll pursue any agenda that it thinks will keep readers happy; there are even rumblings in Scotland that the SNP are facing a tough time because they are having to implement a Scots-lite version of austerity, because they're overspending (which I also find amazing didn't make it into English papers in any great way).
Unity in politics no longer exists.
Let me really generalise and give you a silly, but relevant, example: when I were a lad there was maybe seven or eight genres of music; soul, rock, c&w, pop, classical, jazz and folk - there were subdivisions of these, but they were grouped under one label. Forty years later there are maybe the same amount of 'genres' but the music that exists within them is far more diverse and unusual than you could have imagined; some of those sub-genres are extremely popular and might even be, at a certain point, more popular than the genre they exist under, while others mix and match, mash-up and flirt and could be labelled many rather than one. This is politics now - different versions of the original ideology existing under an umbrella that isn't big enough to contain them.
The man in charge of the Commons, John Bercow, MP for Buckingham is regarded by some (in his own Tory party) to be more left of centre than a third of all Labour MPs. I've heard apocryphal stories that he was put forward for the Speaker's job because the Tory party didn't like their own version of Dennis Skinner speaking his mind rather than the party line. Michael Gove used to be a shop steward for the NUT and is now considered to be on the hard right of the party (hard right in my language equates to 'scary').
There is apparently this kind of division within the Tory party: Pro Europe 15%, Ambivalent Europe 35% and Anti-Europe 50% - this is a fundamental schism within the party because whatever the outcome of the referendum there could be 50% of a 'united' party in total disagreement with the other, still.
Just to balance this out, even without the media, old New Labour still finds a way, almost weekly, to stick the knife into current Labour, with the vile and dislikeable Tony Blair seemingly believing someone in the country gives a hoot what he thinks any more. It pains me to know that arguably the most successful Labour PM since Atlee is also as responsible for some of the nastiest, most corrupt and neo-Conservative decisions since Margaret Thatcher.
It's becoming obvious to those that notice - politicians like each other about as much as we like them.
Let's also get one thing very straight and clear - voter apathy is a boon in our current first-past-the-post voting system; the more you think governments do nothing for you the more likely you are to stay at home and watch Corrie. We can be governed by a party, which will claim to have 'the mandate of the people' despite only getting 32% of the vote share from a total turn out of 58% - my maths isn't brilliant, but that's something like 16 million out of 46 million eligible voters giving that mandate.
Think about that for a bit. My figures do stack up.
Two-thirds of the country hate politics. Our politicians disagree on more than they agree on. No one is right, no one is wrong. One thing is becoming obvious - we should elect officials to represent the good of the ENTIRE country, not the interests of their political party, personal wealth or to help their mates. The problem there is if you're one of those rare things, a politician with ethics and principles, you become a target for the right and they're only really supported by about a third of the country and you see my tail fast disappearing down my own throat?
Monday, 23 May 2016
It's Not A Party Politics Thing (Much)
As hard as I try I cannot separate the EU referendum from a specific party's politics, therefore I can only draw the conclusion that if you don't take party politics as a given in this you are allowing the future of this nation(s) to be severely jeopardised.
To view the EU debate as an alien you would not think that the most vehement on both sides of the argument are not in the same political party, especially now the Brexiteers are targeting the Chancellor as [reading between the lines] incompetent; yet they vote for his budget and his policies and then criticise them as part of another enclave within the same party. It's a weird juxtaposition of 'you're with us or you're against us, but we're all in it together'.
Lose and leave and Cameron's position should be untenable; in fact the odds are the entire cabinet of Remainers will eventually fall by the way in favour of people who will fight to see someone else lead the Tories. Narrowly win and his position is severely weakened and the Brexiteers, like the SNP, will still have a rag to cling onto and a threat to stability in the future. Even a massive win for Remain places Cameron in a position where he has to attempt to unify a party that's deep divisions are on show every day and, if we had a more balanced press, would be scrutinised more.
The question now isn't In or Out, it's what happens afterwards?
I believe that a Tory coup would be inevitable in two of the three scenarios I offered and that will probably lead to a unification by means of a new leader, chancellor, home and foreign secretaries and a far more hard-hitting belt-tightening than half the population could possibly imagine. The excuse will be 'we're on our own now, we have to watch the pennies' and more cuts, less services, higher prices and less wages will make most but the most hard-nosed racists wonder what the hell they've done. The right wing of the Tory party wants more savage cuts, more targeting of the poor and disenfranchised and with their 'mandate' they can swap the top dogs around and attack the parts left untouched with gusto. The people who want us out want the government to be harder, more rigid and divisive towards the disenfranchised; it has been the second biggest argument after the EU, welfare and how to abolish it.
Voting out, gives the hard right a way to move in and yes, they might screw up so royally they get voted out in 2020, but whoever comes in, whether it's Labour, or Labour in a coalition, there is going to be nothing they can do to reverse changes without bankrupting the country and there won't be an EU to regulate the things we don't think about but affect us - positively - every day. We can't just go back in 2020 and ask to be let back in and even if we could, I'll ask the same question I'm asking if we come out now - how will it be cheaper for us? If we fail on our own, we're on our own and the rich will look after themselves first and foremost, regardless of the detriment to the rest.
People are saying, "I can't vote for Cameron because he's the enemy." Boris Johnson or Michael Gove aren't? Nigel Farage says nothing and appeals to aged racists, bigots and xenophobes and yet he's been living off MEP money and stymieing every directive, whether it's in our interests or not and probably making more out of Europe than he will being Out of it. Plus, if you're saying you can't vote with Cameron and Osborne then you are making it about party politics and you have to remember you're saying you're not voting for a Staffie and a Dobermann, but you'd gladly vote for a Pit Bull and a Rottweiller.
A protest vote this time could seriously damage the country. You will not be protesting about the government, you'll be giving the right wing of the government permission to change the face of Conservatism and that could have dire consequences for everyone. I don't like the idea of saving Dave's bacon any more than other people, but it's a bit like the EU referendum: you know what you've got at the moment, to wish for something else might just come back and bite you on the arse.
To view the EU debate as an alien you would not think that the most vehement on both sides of the argument are not in the same political party, especially now the Brexiteers are targeting the Chancellor as [reading between the lines] incompetent; yet they vote for his budget and his policies and then criticise them as part of another enclave within the same party. It's a weird juxtaposition of 'you're with us or you're against us, but we're all in it together'.
Lose and leave and Cameron's position should be untenable; in fact the odds are the entire cabinet of Remainers will eventually fall by the way in favour of people who will fight to see someone else lead the Tories. Narrowly win and his position is severely weakened and the Brexiteers, like the SNP, will still have a rag to cling onto and a threat to stability in the future. Even a massive win for Remain places Cameron in a position where he has to attempt to unify a party that's deep divisions are on show every day and, if we had a more balanced press, would be scrutinised more.
The question now isn't In or Out, it's what happens afterwards?
I believe that a Tory coup would be inevitable in two of the three scenarios I offered and that will probably lead to a unification by means of a new leader, chancellor, home and foreign secretaries and a far more hard-hitting belt-tightening than half the population could possibly imagine. The excuse will be 'we're on our own now, we have to watch the pennies' and more cuts, less services, higher prices and less wages will make most but the most hard-nosed racists wonder what the hell they've done. The right wing of the Tory party wants more savage cuts, more targeting of the poor and disenfranchised and with their 'mandate' they can swap the top dogs around and attack the parts left untouched with gusto. The people who want us out want the government to be harder, more rigid and divisive towards the disenfranchised; it has been the second biggest argument after the EU, welfare and how to abolish it.
Voting out, gives the hard right a way to move in and yes, they might screw up so royally they get voted out in 2020, but whoever comes in, whether it's Labour, or Labour in a coalition, there is going to be nothing they can do to reverse changes without bankrupting the country and there won't be an EU to regulate the things we don't think about but affect us - positively - every day. We can't just go back in 2020 and ask to be let back in and even if we could, I'll ask the same question I'm asking if we come out now - how will it be cheaper for us? If we fail on our own, we're on our own and the rich will look after themselves first and foremost, regardless of the detriment to the rest.
People are saying, "I can't vote for Cameron because he's the enemy." Boris Johnson or Michael Gove aren't? Nigel Farage says nothing and appeals to aged racists, bigots and xenophobes and yet he's been living off MEP money and stymieing every directive, whether it's in our interests or not and probably making more out of Europe than he will being Out of it. Plus, if you're saying you can't vote with Cameron and Osborne then you are making it about party politics and you have to remember you're saying you're not voting for a Staffie and a Dobermann, but you'd gladly vote for a Pit Bull and a Rottweiller.
A protest vote this time could seriously damage the country. You will not be protesting about the government, you'll be giving the right wing of the government permission to change the face of Conservatism and that could have dire consequences for everyone. I don't like the idea of saving Dave's bacon any more than other people, but it's a bit like the EU referendum: you know what you've got at the moment, to wish for something else might just come back and bite you on the arse.
Monday, 18 April 2016
Conspiracy Theories
"As Naomi Klein documents in The Shock Doctrine, neoliberal theorists advocated the use of crises to impose unpopular policies while people were distracted" From a George Monbiot column in The Guardian.Ask yourself this: when a government releases information about plans or policy changes, buried beneath some major news story dominating the headlines and reducing other news to minor status - is that any different than a conspiracy theory turned inside out?
We are currently living in an era of fear and because fear is all around is we allow things we would normally question without hesitation to ensure that fear doesn't get us, personally. The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse arrived ages ago given the amount of Famine, Pestilence, War and Death (disguised as Poverty) we get subjected to on a weekly basis. Since 2001, it's like the news has to be like a Die Hard film or people will switch off. Sometimes life almost seems to be orchestrated and not by some omnipotent god, but probably some multi-billionaire with media interests and a cold dead heart.
Sometimes the world seems a little like a massive soap opera and at other times like the lunatics have been running the asylum, for a while. The concept of the 'conspiracy theory' has always been more attractive when the world is more crisis prone and, of course, in the 21st century even having a conspiracy theory is either madness or, if you have any evidence, not really a conspiracy theory at all. Some conspiracy theories are quite benign and highly plausible, others are as desperate as a 1996 post-match Kevin Keegan interview; most depend on a chain of information, a string of people and an unfathomable amount of probability that, if it's true then, someone will at some point talk. The biggest problem with a conspiracy theory is the longer it exists without a whistleblower or someone to throw something to give it credence, the more likely it's not going to have anything more than a grain of truth - if that. Wishful thinking mixed with the need for plausible (even if implausible) answers.
However, how about something that on the surface seems unlikely, doesn't have a big chain of potentially loose-lipped co-conspirators, but could ultimately reap the goal that is desired. Confused? Good.
I want you, if you can be bothered or even remember, to cast your mind back to when David Cameron was 'negotiating' the deal with the EU that he was going to use as the main reason for us staying in the EU, when he calls the much-heralded referendum. The man looked destroyed and beaten; like a leader who had lost. He hasn't looked even remotely in control of things since then and while he comes across business-as-usual in PMQs, he's uncertain and a bit dithering when confronted with unscripted questions and situations. He's also been the target of some interesting attacks, which have led to even more interesting public solidarity scenes within the Tory party which, behind closed doors, appears to be tearing itself apart.
Then look at George Osborne and how his star has descended like it was actually a housebrick. Look how he has gone from Dave's logical successor to being almost toxic. Now Theresa May is under scrutiny and even if Nick Clegg's allegations come to nothing; that's another one of Team Cameron who is seeing leadership chances dwindle.
How better to ruin the Remain vote than show those in favour of it on the ropes? But that's just a wee bit too obvious and quite see-through. It could, however, be made to look like this because there has to be a post mortem. I've said for years that Tories play the long game and in this instance maybe a strong faction within the party is playing that game, one that looks beyond the increasingly unpopular leader team?
The reason I mentioned Cameron's late night negotiations is because he went into that meeting asking for not a lot and he was given next to nothing. One of the leading nations in the EU and he couldn't change it how his party wanted it - which was essentially to opt out of anything we didn't agree 100% with - and that meant things were going to go badly wrong for him. You see (and this is the only part of this theory I'm in two minds about), I think Dave's election win was a bit unexpected for the party. I think, as did many others, it was going to be a hung parliament and they would be the party to form another coalition. It would also trigger a leadership contest and it would give the party the opportunity to either big up Boris or find go the other way and find someone less charismatic, but more pragmatic for the coalition to come. Contrary to some popular conspiracy theories, the voters occasionally surprise people. There are some who believe the Tories weren't really prepared for power in 1992, despite having been in for 13 previous years. John Major was not seen as a valiant and fearless leader and almost from the beginning of that government's reign it was plagued by scandals that Thatcher's team would have shrugged off. Parallels have been drawn.
Dave is elected and makes his own plans to go leaving his own legacy in the shape of Osborne or May, but this isn't fast enough for the party or even what it really wants. Things are not going as planned and something has to be done. Except, the only wrinkle in this is an unexpected opportunity and that is the EU referendum. The Tory Party - not necessarily all their MPs and members, but the Party is probably anti-EU. It throws up too many obstacles to prevent them from having the country they believe we should have and while many are pro-EU, the old school have a very narrow view of it, possibly skewered by a sense of empire or entitlement - we are British after all. What if the current government don't care what way you vote? Vote in and nothing changes, vote out and they benefit even more.
The Tories aren't exactly setting the world on fire with their pro-Europe campaigning. It seems to be down to MPs of other persuasions, celebrities and business to make the case. Dave is doing his bit, but he's being constantly distracted and implicated to the point where Jeremy Corbyn is more trusted on Europe and Corbyn is a bit of a sceptic. But what if Dave has no real reason to fight? What if he knew back in January that his days were numbered? The MPs can talk him up and give him public backing, but it all seems a little false when the next minute the Out campaign are criticising their own party/government because of some Euro tragedy. It all seems to be stage managed to give subtly different appearances to whoever interprets it and all slightly negative.
The Out call the In campaign 'Project Fear' when in actual reality it is 'Project Fact'. The Out campaign seem to be basing their campaign on the fact that people will still trade with us wherever we are and that they'd be cutting off their noses to spite their faces. Um... France? They'll be the first in the queue to renegotiate and they'll be setting the price high or go away. Not one single Out campaigner has said categorically that prices won't rise. Ask your neighbour this - if you're £20 a week worse off for leaving the EU and there's just as many foreigners here, will voting out be worth it?
I can't reiterate this point enough (because it seems to be neglected in the coverage) - we have no guarantees whatsoever we're even going to be able to renegotiate the same terms we currently have, so to expect us to get stuff cheaper is ludicrous. Plus, consider this - we give Europe two fingers, how desperate are they going to be to deal with us at all? How confident are you that nothing will change, things will get cheaper and everyone will be happy again? Do you really believe Michael Gove when he says that £50billion of the money we won't be paying the EU will go to the NHS? Or will it go to the private companies who have taken over parts of the NHS?
The way the Tories are dividing up the country and selling off what's left; it won't matter if we're in or out for them. They will still clean up; so it could be they're doing what they hoped to do last May, but now with added incentives. That's a conspiracy theory that could have some weight.
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