The Politics of ...

The Politics of ...

Monday 15 May 2017

Supreme Leader May's Vision

I had a moment of ridiculous stupidity last week. I had this idea that Mrs May wanted a huge mandate to save the country from itself. She wanted a huge majority so she could turn round to the country in 10 weeks or so and say, "It is in the National Interest that we reluctantly take the action of not leaving the EU as it will cost the country too much. We appreciate this is not what people voted for in 2016, but you all gave me your vote to ensure the best result is for the UK and in my opinion and the opinion of many of the experts you spurn, if the UK leaves the EU we'll be competing with Mali and Chad as the world's 200th largest economy by 2020."

It, obviously, won't happen and can you imagine the amount of shit that would hit the fan if that did happen? Mrs May is probably mildly confident she can get the EU to do a deal with us and is viewing all this pre-negotiation rhetoric as chest beating which will quieten down when Europe realises they can't do without whatever it is we do now.

If that doesn't happen and things get as bad as traitors and saboteurs, such as me, have forecast, then it won't really matter who's in charge of the country because things will go from bad to worse even if Jesus was PM, Buddha his Home and Mohamed his Foreign Secretary.

What if the UK loses lots of money and foreign trade? What if the amount of money coming into the exchequer is considerably less than it is now and whatever government is in charge has to borrow even more?

Well, unemployment usually goes up around the 6 year mark of a Tory dominated government. Thatcher only really made it look as though she was getting unemployment down by changing the criteria of how it was measured and, of course, creating things like the YTS and Community Program Scheme, which would almost be considered a bit liberal by many Tories in 2017. With less trade being done and heavy tariffs applied, many companies will be looking to downsize and consolidate, so unemployment is likely to rise steadily over the first two years of Mrs May's mandate.

Inflation is already going up and is likely to rise considerably more as we get to that 2 year mark. At the moment many of the supermarkets and food manufacturers have been cutting back contents by between 10 and 25% to keep the prices as low as possible, but if you have a family you start to realise just how much is going to be shoved onto your weekly shopping bill. Even shoppers at Aldi and Lidl are noticing a visible rise in the cost of certain things. And remember, regardless of what the rate of inflation is, supermarket price rises tend to be by a minimum of 10p a time.

So, high unemployment; high food and energy prices (even with a cap - because the cap will be set by the supplier, just you wait and see). Plus, because there will be much less money and the Tories will steadfastly not raise taxes on their core vote it will mean public services will be killed off; everything that can be run by private companies will be; and the rights of the existing workers in those jobs will be simplified - accept this or get fired. Things that can't be run by private companies will be run by charities, who will be offered tax breaks to be able to earn enough money to be able to afford some staff.

There will no longer be on-the-ground workers for children and the vulnerable, there would be a 'registering' system, a bit like getting a number for insurance claims when the police admit they can't and won't find the person who broke into your car. Registering means that if something goes wrong, someone can be blamed - because blame is what the Tories do the best, it deflects attention away from their own failings.

As austerity bites even harder, more people will end up homeless as house prices devalue by a third (plunging a percentage of people into a negative equity trap); calls for more regulation of the rental market will be ignored, as will the pleas from charities and social groups for the neglect of certain areas of the UK.

There will also be a hard border between all of Ireland and the rest of the UK. As a concession, Northern Ireland's relationship with Ireland and the EU will be brushed over to allow the fragile state there to remain good, but anyone coming from the island, whether north or south, will be subject to Draconian border checks. The UK will effectively allow a 'united' Ireland to save itself money.

Two years into the Supreme Leader's mandate we'll start seeing a new blame game. The press will start by blaming the EU for not bending over and allowing us our way. Then Remainers and the 100 or so non-Tory Remain-supporting MPs will get the blame for all the woes.

Someone like Michael Gove will be given air time to suggest it is the negative attitudes of Remain voters that is dragging the UK back. Someone, probably Farage or the twat with the cap, will start suggesting that we wouldn't have so many unemployed if the remaining Europeans (maybe even others) weren't here doing it and the Mail will see this as something that should become public opinion, because it will detract the attention of people beginning to wonder what they're getting out of all of this. Even if Mrs May agrees on a deal for existing EU nationals to stay - unmolested - in this country; time and public opinion (the two things she appears to want the most) will start to shift her way of thinking. She isn't Maggie; she flip-flops far too much. This lady will turn whenever you prod her.

Divisions will actually get worse because as the jingoistic Leave voters start relaxing their morals for the benefit of fitting their agendas, the horrified and terrified Remain voters will be viewed as weak and traitorous, even more than they currently are. The Us and Them mentality that is so apparent if you pick up a newspaper will become an actual reality. This isn't me scaremongering, it's me extrapolating on something that is happening already - verbal fights between the 'morally-superior' Remain voters and the idiots who voted as turkeys for Christmas will, as they did in the days before the referendum, spill into the streets, the pubs, the lives of everybody.

The Tories have for so long used BLAME as the reason to hate others it will eventually unleash a wave of disorder - of discord - throughout the nation, but by then we won't have an NHS; we won't have public services; we'll barely have police on the streets to marshal the huge amounts of dissatisfied unemployed who will blame whoever the Sun or the Mail tells them to. This is what happens when more than 50% of a country loses its mind and forgets why it wipes its arse.

Yet, I listen to people telling reporters on the TV or radio that they trust the Conservatives. I'm sure there were Jews or Gypsies, some gay or black people who trusted the more benevolent guards in Belsen or Auschwitz...

There is one ray of hope for the planet. World War 3 is coming and once mankind is wiped off this planet, perhaps what is left will heal and a new species will evolve, one not intent on being a bunch of worthless cunts.

Monday 8 May 2017

The Pointlessness of Preaching to the Converted

"It's a question of which narrative you believe, and the narrative put out by the Left, that the Tories want to dismantle the NHS, hate the disabled and the poor, want to 'steal' money from the poor to give to their rich mates etc. is actually beyond parody to a great many people. They simply don't believe it, it's 'nonsense' as there is absolutely no evidence to back up those claims..."
The man who wrote this was a normal guy who lives his life the same way as many of us; he, to my knowledge, isn't a politician nor has he a vested interest in any specific political party, yet his statement, plucked from a much longer thread on why people vote Tory, says far more about the whys than any political analyst.

For me the key point in this pull quote is: They simply don't believe it, it's 'nonsense' as there is absolutely no evidence to back up those claims. The fact that there is evidence out there that the NHS is in crisis and has been escalating towards this crisis since one Jeremy Hunt has been in charge means nothing to him or other voters who believe the way he believes. The fact that Hunt, on TV yesterday, said 'big decisions' will need to be made about how the NHS continues to operate means nothing. It means nothing because the mainstream media don't cover it and the majority of voters believe that left wing propaganda is more prevalent than right wing. It's like a lot of voters are inwardly thinking 'thou dost protest too much'.

We can bang on about the press and most medias being heavily weighted in favour of the Tories, but that's pretty much been the case since the 1960s; The Sun was really the only Tory tabloid to back Blair and people tend to forget the Daily Mail was forecasting the end of the UK by 2001 under a New Labour government. Since Thatcher and the fall of the socialist Labour party, the only way to beat them is to be a bit like them, perhaps a little less odious or oleaginous. John Smith's Labour party probably would have won in 1997, but by nowhere near the amount Blair managed, because Tories identified Blair as someone who would look after them.

If any lesson was learned from the EU referendum it was that people are not interested in 'the truth' because they don't believe 'the truth' and, guess what, many still don't believe it despite things beginning to slide towards the inescapable fact that life is going to be considerably harder once we've finally lost everything we had under the EU. Yet, there will be a large percentage of people who will look at that sentence and call me a traitor or deluded or not optimistic enough. There are people out there who, despite the EU never having adversely affected them ever, who would rather see the country burning than see us 'ruled' by Europe... And you want to despair; you want to grab these people by the collars and shout at them to stop being so stupid and you know if you presented them with 500 positive facts about being in the EU, they'd dismiss them all and throw 'sovereignty' in your face, like they have seriously believed our own politicians have done bugger all for 45 years (which is a case you could argue, to be fair...).

I know that a large majority of the people who will read this blog will not be voting Tory; very few of them would be prepared to sit down with a Tory to discuss the merits and benefits of voting Tory. It's anathema to them, yet people have consistently done it far more than vote Labour. Perhaps what offends people more than anything else is that 'Tory equates to selfishness' in the eyes of Pinko Liberals like myself who believe everyone has the right to a good life, even if the government has to subsidise that life for the few who truly can't do it for themselves. I mean, we're all selfish in our own ways, but some of us like to think we're better people than someone who can turn their back on a homeless person or someone struggling.

I've always argued that Margaret Thatcher hated the idea of communities and social(ist) help, always saying that if a person can fend for themselves then that is what they should do; the state should be there for temporary emergency help, not a lifestyle choice. This was something that appealed to a lot of people, especially isolated middle Englanders whose contact with lesser individuals was pretty much something they saw on Channel 5. The country has managed to unleash its inner selfishness to the point where people won't vote for a fairer society when they can vote for a wealthier personal life.

But... But... what about the young? How can Tories argue that the young are being given a chance, what with housing in crisis and the rise of zero hour contract jobs and no job security? Well, the same as any previous generation has done, work harder, save more, it's what their parents would have done... But what about the circumstances; the rogue landlords, the penalties imposed by the government? Suck it up; some of your ancestors fought in wars for you.

You can't win with a Tory because they usually have an answer for anything even if that answer isn't anything more than a comparison with a different age. but its ingrained on their psyches; the mantras of the right have been repeated so often, so cleverly, so insidiously, that we all believe it. I'm just as bad; I've accused some of my left wing friends for deserting Jeremy Corbyn because of media influence only to do it myself. No one is exempt from clever 21st century propaganda.

So now every morning I turn on my computer and look at social media and see my left wing friends sharing memes with each other and I wonder, 'Who are they trying to convince?' At the last GE a cousin of mine said, 'I don't care about that, I vote for what's best for me and my child' and while we, left wing doubters, can sneer and laugh at that statement, it's what she believed in. It doesn't matter that she was the victim of a right wing media conspiracy to destroy the left and social fairness... Rationally, do you know how fucking paranoid that sounds to most people who don't live their lives ruled by politics?

I've always said the best way to make people think is to hit them with things that affect them, but even if we can spell the truth out to them, they will look at it sceptically and wonder if it's really true. Equally, because the right wing media has soured the left in most peoples eyes, a Tory poster claiming Labour are rubbish with the economy, despite evidence suggesting the contrary will be believed, because people will remember the crash of 2009 and will blame Labour even if they actually did sensible things to prevent it. People blamed the Tories in 1997 for high inflation, high mortgages, loss of share values and attacks on public services; but in reality all they did was elect a less-blue Tory party with a belief in rebuilding and social tolerance.

How do we stop it? How do we make leftish politics acceptable again? We don't. The odds are stacked increasingly against it. As left wing supporters we need to ensure we don't lose our jobs, fall behind on the rent or mortgage, stay free from illness (don't drink, don't smoke, don't take drugs), maybe avoid having kids and remain normal and quiet and let the government get on with it; it's how most people do it.

We have to be patient and wait for the moment when the Tories' policies start to bite Tory voters on the arse, like they did in the early 1990s. Remember, the Tories should never really have got back into power in 1992, everybody was fed up with them; high rates, council tax, boom and bust economics had grown to a point where people would have welcomed a strong Labour party, but Neil Kinnock refused to court the press; he refused to be seen schmoozing and networking; he became ridiculed and when push came to shove John Major walked back into #10 probably as bewildered as Cameron did in 2015. They won because the people didn't trust the opposition regardless of how much they were promising.

The same applies today. Any rational person would have looked at the council election results and said Corbyn needs to go, now. Labour called it an 'expected setback' and blamed everything apart from the fact that in the majority of the nation the feeling is they are ... unelectable.

Because people are not really interested in politics any more, they are influenced by soundbites and what they see on the news or read in the papers - mainstream media is still massively important to the majority of people living here and if you have a media that is, in my eyes, heavily influenced by the party in power by virtue of the threat of privatisation, then you are unlikely to see any parity of coverage. UKIP now has ONE councillor and no MPs yet they get disproportionately greater coverage on the BBC than the Green Party with over 40 councillors and an actual MP; but UKIP gets more coverage than the LibDems and that has to be because the Tory's allow them to speak because it makes their own policies seem tame.

Yet, here's the craziness... I accept this is how it is and I know that me and many others are going to have to bide our time and wait for slim and futile opportunities to get a point across, yet, in the eyes of some people that statement alone is full of paranoia and suggests we're all taking on a needless bunker mentality. Raging against the machine isn't viewed by the masses as an act of freedom, it's an act of treason.

We see evidence of a growing intolerance in society; more hate, more inequality, more xenophobes trying to defend their position and if we spotlight it, it's us that gets pilloried; it's us that is accused of being a conspirator, a saboteur, a traitor. If Bernstein and Woodward were brought forward 40 years and discovered the same things about Trump as they did Nixon, the words 'Fake News' would be bandied about so much that no one would ever believe it and those that do would be as mad as any other conspiracy theory nut job.

A friend likes to call people 'sheep' and 'sheeple' and I love it. He does the cause no good at all. I get incandescent with rage at unbelievably ignorant Brexiteers and its like trying to convince a Born again Christian that God not only doesn't exist, but he was originally a psychotic chipmunk in a banned Disney movie before the Catholics adopted him, changed his image (based on Robert Powell) and dropped truth-obscuring LSD in the entire world's water supply, apart from Muslim countries where they don't drink water, they just eat sand...

We live in a post-truth world. We are out of step with it. Really and truly, we are no longer people who think the right way, we're people out of touch with 2017's reality; one where the president of the USA is a former Reality TV star; the UK became a turkey voting for Christmas; the media is focused on a largely manufactured war in Syria while the Saudi's (everybody's friend) commits genocide in Yemen and you get one of two mentions on slow news days, usually buried at the foot of World News. A reality where being tolerant is frowned upon; where being disabled is your own fault; where being out of step with common belief is traitorous.

You also need to remember that people will always remember what Labour did to people in the '70s and yet conveniently forget what the Tories did to many people during the '80s and early '90s; how much debt they forced on people; how much they took away from hardworking people and how they almost bankrupted the country; but this is far less important than anything Labour did 20 years earlier, when most have got over it or forgotten it or weren't even alive, but like to quote it.

That's why it's pointless to even bother trying to dissuade these people from voting for their own failure, because even if it fails they'll probably believe the Daily Mail when it blames everyone else but us for our soon-to-be-acquired Third World status. It's also pointless trying to change their minds because they will look at that previous sentence and call me a 'nutter' or much worse.

And how many of us can honestly say we're affected that deeply by whatever government is in power? This is an argument that many use, but many derided when it was wheeled out during the EU referendum debate. Most people really and truly think governments are there to help everyone and even when a politician admits they only help people who voted for them, many of those Tory voters probably nodded in approval and there's no reliable outlet to register dismay and anger towards this unjust statement; or any unjust government for that matter.

So perhaps it is best if we give up? Maybe we can feel happier with our heads buried in the sand, going la-la-la at the plight of others? Stay off the government's radar and we'll be fine, just you watch...

Is there a glimmer of hope?

Well, I think there is. Many Tory voters can become floating voters especially if their own livelihoods are threatened and there's an alternative that doesn't appear to be too radical (or soft). There is also the fact that most ordinary Tory voters don't like to engage in politics, is something that needs to be exploited. I've got a couple of good friends who also vote Tory, I know how shocking and traitorous that might sound, but, hey, get over it. These friends have a default setting: They don't talk about politics. Now, why do you think that is? Is it because they don't know enough about it? Is it because they are frightened they might get ridiculed? Is it because they feel slightly bad about it, like it doesn't really sit well with them but they feel there is no true alternative? I've always felt that some people, when admitting they voted Tory, look as though they've just admitted to being a transvestite, publicly.

If people, deep down, know that a Tory vote might be morally objectionable, that is the route to changing their minds about voting for them.

Forget the vile and adamant xenophobes; the relentless ignorants and the press; concentrate on the people who don't look comfortable with their choices; don't like talking about politics or show a hint of compassion - these are the people you need to convince and sadly, we're going to need a slicker opposition to be able to do this with any conviction.

Wednesday 3 May 2017

WCS

If you believe everything you read and hear then the Tories, despite pretty much dismantling parts of the country's remaining crown jewels and raising the debt far higher than Labour would ever have done, will get in with a 100 majority and a mandate to pretty much do whatever they want to whatever they choose, because YOU chose them.

Our slow descent into more Victorian politics and ideals will rupture the country, but because there will be no opposition, they will be allowed to do it and with the right wing media supporting them and NOT reporting on the more heinous things they will do, a large percentage of Middle England will just think everything is the same as before.

I say 'Victorian' ideals because to suggest we'll be in an authoritarian country with zero tolerance of what is right and massive intolerance of anyone who doesn't agree with the ideology is more likely the scenario. The disenfranchised will be at the mercy of rich benefactors and philanthropists.

The Conservatives have repeatedly proven that they aren't actually that good with the economy; if you could be bothered to look at the history of financial problems in this country, the Tories pretty much urinate over Labour from a great height and with the country teetering on the brink of a financial disaster of our own making, do you really think the Tories will create jobs - proper jobs and careers? Do you think public services will be safe? Do you think you'll be witnessing the dismantling of the NHS?

I framed that last question not with a definitive but with a suggestion, because most Tory voters I've spoken to really don't believe that the party they will vote for will do anything harmful to the NHS. They actually believe the NHS is safer in Tory hands than anyone else and one wonders if they are paying any attention to it and what is happening in it? You see while the NHS (and Brexit) are the two key issues in this apparent one-horse-race, most people who have benefited from it, but don't need it any longer will switch to 'out of sight out of mind' mode; the default setting for many floating, slightly right-leaning voters. Yes, for some it will be important and they might vote accordingly, but for others it will be something they use when they need and frankly they don't need it now, at this minute.

Of course, there will be outrage when it switches initially to a semi-pay as you go, with only specific groups being expected to pay - those who some faceless bureaucrat will decide caused the health problem themselves - the obese, smokers, people now disabled through no fault of anyone but the person who is disabled, maybe even those who are deemed 'not worth saving' and that outrage will be smacked down and people will be told straight - if you live healthy lives and can prove it, you will only pay a small amount towards your treatment, the majority of the costs will be placed on those who abuse the system because of their ill health...

With no functioning NHS and the likelihood of services such as Children's, Social, Community, Welfare and Probation handed over to private companies who decimate existing workers' rights and deals, just so they can stay in a job where there is no money to do anything but monitor and report back to a central office that will then determine how much future help will be given. The blame for everything will be aimed squarely at the disenfranchised and if some of them die, it will be a price worth paying (to quote David 'I'm out of there now' Cameron).

If the government doesn't raise taxes and continues to give breaks to the richest, who do you think will ultimately pay the price? Amazon, Google, Vodafone? No, be honest with yourself - when this government can target the £2bn welfare bill like it was the be-all-and-end-all problem facing society today, but can allow massive corporations to pay piddly percentages of what they truly owe, while 'employing' most of their staff on zero hour or minimum wage contracts, who won't earn enough to plough any of it back into the economy; can you really trust them not to screw you over, even if you think you're safe earning more than £100k a year?

Once the squeeze has succeeded with the poorest and most vulnerable - who do you think they will target next? Come on; ask yourself this and try and come up with an answer. If the Tories eradicate the welfare bills, cut everything to the bone, make you pay for things you once got as part of a package deal (refuse collection for starters) and can no longer squeeze anything else out of it, where will they target next? Go on, answer it honestly.

Do you also really think that Treeza's 'damned if we'll acquiesce to the EU even if we damn ourselves' strategy is really the way forward, then you either have loads of money or are a deluded racist, because you don't piss on your private members club and then expect them to allow you access to everything you gave up for the same rate or even less. If you think that's how it works, try negotiating with Tesco over your clubcard.

And then there's the elephant in the room; a big bright red elephant with 'amateurs' written large on its side. It doesn't matter how you look at Labour at the moment, they look like an anachronism and this is down to the extremely one-sided depiction of the election from the mainstream media. The fact they have great policies is immaterial, most people look at Labour and see a shambles and that doesn't auger well for a party that wants to be in power so it can sort out some of the mess.

Whether Labour's imminent destruction at the hands of the weakest, most right wing Tory mob in decades is as big as feared or isn't, it should spell the end of the decent man of politics, but would Corbyn go with so much support from members in the country? He should, especially given his age, but he talks about a long term plan like he expects to be PM just before he's 90...

I like the man. I like what he says and how honest he is. But he's onto a hiding to nothing. The Tories could rape children, exterminate the disabled and piss on the flag at the Cenotaph and if it made the news it would be spun positively - that is the extreme lunacy we're facing in this country; where people don't care how much they suffer just so long as they think they have some say in the control of our country. That is where we are at the moment - great isn't it?

Can you imagine the country waking up on June 9th feeling elated about another five years of austerity, cuts and trying to come up with some way to ensure we can feed people without them needing a mortgage when they go to the shops. There is little feel good factor among many people in this country and electing the Tories again will only compound the misery for many. If you're voting Tory just remember you have to share this country with people who will become third class citizens and if you are ever in trouble or ill health, you'll become third class faster than you can write the cheque for seeing your GP or appeal against a benefits decision...