The Tory party is now so horribly split that two of their heavyweight Brexiters - Bridgen and Dorries - are openly calling for a change of leadership and a general election by Christmas. The Toried are doomed. If not by this crazy EU referendum, which let's face it. Was only ever intended to pacify the back benches and keep UKIP at bay; if not by the same poisonous infighting that destroyed Major's government; then by the largely unreported (at least by the BBC and ITV) but nevertheless utterly unprecedented industrial-scale allegations of electoral fraud currently being investigated in (currently) 28 constituencies.
Interestingly, since Cameron's much trumpeted "mandate" can be said to depend on an allegedly fraudulent election result that the Tories thought they could buy with impunity, the whole EU referendum - not to mention the vast list of revolting things they've done to our country like the junior doctors' contract, all the changes to ESA, working tax credits, the whole and total destruction of our country and everything in it - could be called invalid, and reversed.
Unfortunately Labour are in almost equal disarray. Around half a million of us have come back to Labour thanks to the democratic election of Jeremy Corbyn and the return to sensible socialist policies. But crazed multi-millionaire Murdoch-loving property hoarder and widely-regarded-as-war-criminal Blair and all those who sailed in him are intent on ripping any chance we have of getting our country back out of their hands in the last gasp of a neoliberal shitstorm that's already cost us nearly everything we have.
The LibDems meanwhile are down to six MPs and the only thing stopping them being outnumbered by the lunatic even-farther-right-than-the-Tories UKIP is the most undemocratic electoral system ever invented.
Jeez what a mess. What's the answer? Corbyn for Emporer? Proper proportional representation? Jail the bankers, VIP paedophiles, expenses scroungers and tax dodgers and assemble a parliament from the hundred or so (and I feel like I'm being generous here) MPs that are left? What??
Sunday 29 May 2016
Saturday 28 May 2016
Osborne - chief accountant to Cameron the Robber Baron
So The Guardian says that the "austerity" policies of the Robber Baron Tory party do more harm than good. I'm surprised they noticed, given their record since 2010, but well done, anyway.
Finally they've noticed that everyone with half a brain has been saying "this won't work". That while the debt has soared up to £1.7 trillion, the deficit to £100bn and there's no money for anything, food bank use is over 1 million visits a year, pauper's burials, child poverty, in-work poverty and destitution are all massively increased.
Finally they've noticed that while all this was happening the richest 1,000 people in the country's wealth hoard has gone up from around £260,000,000,000 to around £570,000,000,000, and that's just the money we know about that isn't squirreled away in an offshore account in Panama.
The Guardian's experts have now realised that austerity is a political choice, not an economic necessity. In fact if there is one economic necessity that we should all heed it's that austerity is destroying the economy, destroying the country and only benefits a very, very few at the expense of very, very many.
He's Cameron the robber baron's chief accountant and he isn't "stupid", he isn't "a wanker" and he isn't "wrong". He knows EXACTLY what he's doing.
Finally they've noticed that everyone with half a brain has been saying "this won't work". That while the debt has soared up to £1.7 trillion, the deficit to £100bn and there's no money for anything, food bank use is over 1 million visits a year, pauper's burials, child poverty, in-work poverty and destitution are all massively increased.
Finally they've noticed that while all this was happening the richest 1,000 people in the country's wealth hoard has gone up from around £260,000,000,000 to around £570,000,000,000, and that's just the money we know about that isn't squirreled away in an offshore account in Panama.
The Guardian's experts have now realised that austerity is a political choice, not an economic necessity. In fact if there is one economic necessity that we should all heed it's that austerity is destroying the economy, destroying the country and only benefits a very, very few at the expense of very, very many.
The trouble is, though, that he doesn't care. His policies have absolutely nothing to do with what is good for the country, and absolutely everything to do with what is good for the banks, hedge funds, Tory party MPs and their billionaire backers with offshore investment accounts, arms manufacturers and those that invest in and profit from war, illness, insurance and bent privatisation deals.
So the experts can say what they like and the evidence can pile up to the height of Everest because he literally couldn't care less.
He's Cameron the robber baron's chief accountant and he isn't "stupid", he isn't "a wanker" and he isn't "wrong". He knows EXACTLY what he's doing.
Portillo: legalising slavery and murder-for-profit are "nothing at all".
Portillo was on one of the Tories' apologist shows the other day - Daily Politics - claiming that the government "had no ideas" and there was "literally nothing in the Queens Speech".
This has been shared all over social media and is the most brilliant whitewash I've ever witnessed. So many people bought it. "Oh there's nothing there, let's look the other way". ""Ha ha - the Tories are idiots". "Well that's nothing, let's talk about the weather".
But the fact is that the Queens Speech was a masterclass in hiding the most outrageous plans - the reintroduction of slavery through the adoption of the US model of privatised prisons (this really is no exaggeration), the final destruction of the NHS through the introduction of "home hospitalisation" and US style HMO's and the Kaiser Permanente "healthcare" of legalised murder by omission of treatment for profit - oh there was plenty in that speech, Portillo.
Nice try, but some of us are just not as stupid as you seem to think we are.
Watch him here doing his very best to convince us there was nothing of note in the Queen's Speech this year.
Watch the video on Nye Bevan News
This has been shared all over social media and is the most brilliant whitewash I've ever witnessed. So many people bought it. "Oh there's nothing there, let's look the other way". ""Ha ha - the Tories are idiots". "Well that's nothing, let's talk about the weather".
But the fact is that the Queens Speech was a masterclass in hiding the most outrageous plans - the reintroduction of slavery through the adoption of the US model of privatised prisons (this really is no exaggeration), the final destruction of the NHS through the introduction of "home hospitalisation" and US style HMO's and the Kaiser Permanente "healthcare" of legalised murder by omission of treatment for profit - oh there was plenty in that speech, Portillo.
Nice try, but some of us are just not as stupid as you seem to think we are.
Watch him here doing his very best to convince us there was nothing of note in the Queen's Speech this year.
Watch the video on Nye Bevan News
Save the Land Registry
Why am I not surprised?
If further proof were needed - which it isn't - that far from "paying down the debt" (around £1.7tn far from it) - so-called austerity and the fire sale of the UK's few remaining assets is all about the Tories and their mates banking our cash offshore in their accounts.
The Land Registry should under no circumstances be "privatised". It is successful, profitable and a national asset in every sense.
If further proof were needed - which it isn't - that far from "paying down the debt" (around £1.7tn far from it) - so-called austerity and the fire sale of the UK's few remaining assets is all about the Tories and their mates banking our cash offshore in their accounts.
The Land Registry should under no circumstances be "privatised". It is successful, profitable and a national asset in every sense.
If you thought the undervaluation of the post office was scandalous feast your eyes on this.
Friday 27 May 2016
Channel 4 this evening reported that the Tory party overspent fighting the marginal Thanet South seat by "tens of thousands of pounds which was never declared".
They even sent their lawyers down there this week - including top QC James Laddie - to fight the local police application for a time extension to allow a proper investigation to take place. The court will announce its decision next Wednesday.
UKIP candidate Nigel Farage was defeated by just 2,800 votes.
I'm no UKIP supporter. But there's such a thing as democracy and like the right to free speech, it must be defended at all costs.
They even sent their lawyers down there this week - including top QC James Laddie - to fight the local police application for a time extension to allow a proper investigation to take place. The court will announce its decision next Wednesday.
UKIP candidate Nigel Farage was defeated by just 2,800 votes.
I'm no UKIP supporter. But there's such a thing as democracy and like the right to free speech, it must be defended at all costs.
Thursday 26 May 2016
The Guardian - trying to look balanced while only standing on their right leg.
Several things emerge from this slightly hysterical article in the Grauniad today.
One is that the paper is still right wing enough to think that the current labour leadership are "far left", which only looks true from where they stand, not from the viewpoint of our beleaguered population.
Another is that this aligns well with the remaining right wing of the PLP who see "their" party as being taken over by Class War. If they haven't noticed that the Tories are already waging the most abhorrent class war on 99% of the country they are blinkered indeed. The Tories in my opinion pose the greatest threat to this country since 1939, and it's way past time we fought back.
To that end its good to see a strengthened leadership preparing itself for a more outward facing fight than it has had to cope with up until now.
There are still fifth-columnists within the PLP fighting dirty to bring the leadership down, for instance by trying to tarnish John McDonnell with the Tory party's deliberate electoral fraud brush:
"One party source briefed the Times that [economics adviser] Meadway was paid by the Transport Salaried Staffs Association union while working for the shadow chancellor but this was not declared as a donation to McDonnell."
Those seeking to destroy the party from within by damaging their own must either join a party more closely aligned with their ambitions or begin to work in the interests of those they are supposed to be serving - the poor, the weak, the disadvantaged, the politically criminalised, the helpless and innocent victims of Tory misrule and neoliberal policy.
But it's good to see a genuinely thoughtful, intelligent and centrist left wing leadership gearing itself up. They need to address the 5 billionaires' media machine rather better than this, though!
jeremy-corbyn-labour-review-ready-snap-election
One is that the paper is still right wing enough to think that the current labour leadership are "far left", which only looks true from where they stand, not from the viewpoint of our beleaguered population.
Another is that this aligns well with the remaining right wing of the PLP who see "their" party as being taken over by Class War. If they haven't noticed that the Tories are already waging the most abhorrent class war on 99% of the country they are blinkered indeed. The Tories in my opinion pose the greatest threat to this country since 1939, and it's way past time we fought back.
To that end its good to see a strengthened leadership preparing itself for a more outward facing fight than it has had to cope with up until now.
There are still fifth-columnists within the PLP fighting dirty to bring the leadership down, for instance by trying to tarnish John McDonnell with the Tory party's deliberate electoral fraud brush:
"One party source briefed the Times that [economics adviser] Meadway was paid by the Transport Salaried Staffs Association union while working for the shadow chancellor but this was not declared as a donation to McDonnell."
Those seeking to destroy the party from within by damaging their own must either join a party more closely aligned with their ambitions or begin to work in the interests of those they are supposed to be serving - the poor, the weak, the disadvantaged, the politically criminalised, the helpless and innocent victims of Tory misrule and neoliberal policy.
But it's good to see a genuinely thoughtful, intelligent and centrist left wing leadership gearing itself up. They need to address the 5 billionaires' media machine rather better than this, though!
jeremy-corbyn-labour-review-ready-snap-election
Democracy? Moi?
We don't, really, have much of a democracy, do we? Over 70% of the country is unrepresented in Westminster. 12.6% share of vote for ukip, for example, who I don't support by the way, and they have one mp o/o 650. Tories 36.9% (only 3 times the votes) but have a 12 seat majority. This is not really democracy, it is the appearance of one if you squint with one eye firmly shut. Deim and others are starting to address this in Europe and not before time.
Far from "the left wing" being "increasingly rejected", it is the authoritarian right wing, becoming increasingly desperate in their attempts to discredit the ever more resonant and supported opposition to the neoliberal narrative, whom the public have rumbled. Every big gun has been brought to bear in the last year: the combined might of the BBC news and politics departments, the Murdoch, Barclay Bros and Rothermere press machine, half of the guardian and some of the independent who were the first to go broke peddling the establishment line and have now seen the error of that and have started to print something approaching balance (and thank heavens for Jon snow and Michael crick at C4); but still people aren't fooled. Despite all of this the public are still overwhelmingly supportive of the doctors and the NHS, and implacably opposed to the privatisation of all schools and the notion that Google et al paying 3% tax when the rest of us pay 25%-odd is fair.
Any edition of question time will show you the deep unpopularity of the ruling class and their horrible attitudes and assault on ordinary people that has produced an endless succession of Teary Tories and lords, generals and former establishment figures rushing to distance themselves from the racist Islamophobia of the modern right wing, and the longest and loudest applause from every audience every week is always against the latest government moron to try sitting there trotting out their tired old neoliberal cliches and discredited lies dressed up as research. Every week.
It is Osborne that has no economic credibility with the public, with academia, and with any economist they are not paying off.
The so-called austerity with which the "debt is being paid down" is so obviously nothing of the sort that only the most simple minded buffoon could now regard it as such. In the 6 years since this lie started the debt has more than doubled to 1.7 trillion, the deficit is now £100 billion a year, they have borrowed more money than every other uk government combined and he has missed every single target he has ever set himself bar none in what has to be the most outstanding display of incompetence in the history of the world.
Astonishingly while there is apparently no money for working tax credits, supporting the disabled, protecting women from domestic violence, making the law accessible to all but the rich, developing sustainable energy, funding the NHS, schools, universities, supporting industry or keeping 400,000 children out of poverty, 1,000,000+ people from needing to use food banks and suffering from in-work poverty (thus used to be called slavery but we dress it up nice now) or doing something about the return of rickets, destitution and a 30% rise in pauper's burials, the richest 1,000 have seen their personal wealth increase from 247billion to over 570 billion in those same six years. Fancy that.
Tbh it doesn't take a left winger to either think that this is sick beyond belief or to realise that far from simply not caring about the 5th richest nation on earth sinking into poverty it is wealth hoarding that is actually causing it.
The neoliberal ideal and the wealth hoarding are increasingly being recognised as a cancer and when Ian Duncan Smith can appear to be left wing compared to a government that calls itself centre moderate then you know that the world really has gone mad.
1984 was supposed to be a warning not a fucking blueprint.
Anyway, we can't really be said to be living in a democracy when the election was won by fraudulent means. 24 constituencies under reported their expenditure, 14 I think it is are being investigated by the police so far, as is Cameron himself… until their names are whitewashed, sorry, cleared, the issue of whether we are currently represented by the will of the people is moot.
Tuesday 24 May 2016
Ken Loach on austerity - and a stinging rebuke for Sarah Montague and r4today.
Radio 4 excerpt Today Programme 23rd May 2016
Ken Loach - national treasure - delivers an epic smackdown to Sarah Montague and the Today Programme. Listen using the above link - while it lasts.
Sarah Montague:
"Of course, there is huge public support for what the government has done. The polls suggest that there is very strong popular support not least for the benefit cap."
Ken Loach:
"Maybe because people listen to the Today programme too much. If you had to get out amongst the people who are in the food banks who are supporting those who are there - people who would not eat unless there were people providing charity - who have to choose between their heating and their food - I think you'd find that there's a great disgust and despair that we live like that in this country now."
50 years after Cathy Come Home and he is still having to make films like this.
Ken Loach - national treasure - delivers an epic smackdown to Sarah Montague and the Today Programme. Listen using the above link - while it lasts.
Sarah Montague:
"Of course, there is huge public support for what the government has done. The polls suggest that there is very strong popular support not least for the benefit cap."
Ken Loach:
"Maybe because people listen to the Today programme too much. If you had to get out amongst the people who are in the food banks who are supporting those who are there - people who would not eat unless there were people providing charity - who have to choose between their heating and their food - I think you'd find that there's a great disgust and despair that we live like that in this country now."
50 years after Cathy Come Home and he is still having to make films like this.
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