Okay, it’s not people like me who are going to cause the death of the Tory party. They’re going to do it themselves, with a little help from splitters who are somehow even more vile than them. But it can’t come soon enough, frankly.
Their complete obliteration, a la Canada ’93, is unlikely. But wouldn’t it be nice to see them reduced to single figures of MPs.
For a while, I thought Rishi Sunak was only as useless as David Cameron- in other words, actually an improvement on the incompetents he succeeded. I’m a big enough man to admit I was wrong. He’s at least as hopeless as Truss, even if he has managed to cling on a bit longer.
Things are looking awful for the Tories after two by-election losses. Here’s hoping they get worse.
Of course, they’ll be replaced by a Starmer Labour party, who’ll be both a massive improvement and blandly useless at the same time. But we’ll deal with that problem after the Conservative party is burnt down.
Unable to cope with their constant failures being reported, Tory ministers are stoking the culture wars against the BBC again.
The BBC is far from perfect, and studies have shown it’s more likely to side with the establishment. But what the Tories want is to force it to be a propaganda machine paid for by the people it tells their lies to.
Tory attempts to destroy schemes promoting walking and cycling were heavily influenced by conspiracy theories.
At the point where they’re governing by tin foil hat, the Conservative Party needs to be destroyed. Not just voted out of power, but comprehensively dismantled, with some of them serving well deserved prison sentences.
Today is the 20th anniversary of the repeal of Section 28. Finding that out sent me to my bookshelf to see if I still have my copy of AARGH! – Artists Against Rampant Government Homophobia – the comic put together to protest it.
It’s really sad that we’re in the position where a mutated zombie version of Section 28 could be unleashed upon us. It may be time for AART! – Artists Against Rampant Transphobia.
From a throwaway tweet over lunch on Tuesday-
I came home and had a play in Inkscape, and here’s the result. If you want to tell Santa what you want, the design is available on a wide variety of products at Redbubble.
The Conservative Party needs to be so thoroughly beaten at the next election that it collapses and is never heard from again. It’s the least they deserve for policies that leaves us poorer, colder and at greater risk from climate change just so their rich friends can get a little richer.
I read the original version of this as a long tweet, and it made the bus ride to work very depressing.
Starmer’s Labour Party seem set on ruling out policies that would help them and the country long term, just to appease the right wing press that will never support them anyway. Expect more ‘make Brexit work’, and worse, as the general election approaches.
So, we’re going to have an election, because Theresa May expects things to get much worse as the Brexit debacle rolls on. She’s terrified that the incompetents she’s put in charge of negotiations will deliver a disaster, taking her down with them (and the rest of the country as well, of course, but she doesn’t really care about most of us).
I listened to her announcement of the election (twice, because I’m some sort of masochist). It was six minutes of blaming everyone else for her party’s failures. And then, on the front page of the Daily Mail this morning, the bile we’ve come to expect from the rag, labelling everyone who doesn’t do exactly what Chairman May demands a saboteur.
If that’s what she, and they, want to call sensible, decent people who have serious and well founded misgivings about this whole farce then I’m going to embrace it. I’m a proud saboteur.
The design’s available on clothes, mugs and stickers from Redbubble
Here’s a mocked up view of what it’ll look like on a T-shirt-
Update Now available in blue as well, ideal for white T-shirts etc.
They find your patriotism distasteful, your concerns about immigration parochial, your views about crime illiberal, your attachment to your job security inconvenient.
They find the fact that more than seventeen million voters decided to leave the European Union simply bewildering.
Because if you’re well off and comfortable, Britain is a different country and these concerns are not your concerns. It’s easy to dismiss them – easy to say that all you want from government is for it to get out of the way.
Now, I am neither comfortable nor well off, but I’m probably one of the people Theresa May thinks she’s attacking here. So let’s clear a few things up.
I fear the xenophobia and immigrant blaming that passes for patriotism in the Tory party and UKIP. My distaste may well be expressed in ways that could be read as sneering, but that’s because stirring up racism to hide your own failings deserves contempt.
If you want to see sneering at true patriotism, just take a look further down the Prime Minister’s speech.
But we will never again – in any future conflict – let those activist, left-wing human rights lawyers harangue and harass the bravest of the brave – the men and women of Britain’s Armed Forces.
I’d say that holding the country and its representatives to the standards we claim to stand for- standards Tories would probably tell you we invented- is the essence of patriotism. This harassment and haranguing is principled people bravely striving to stop torture and murder being done in our name. And for that, they get sneered at by a certain type of well off and comfortable politician who’s confident that they’ll never be punished for putting troops in situations where they could act like monsters.
Let’s have a grown up conversation about immigration. Let’s talk about how the arrival of new people in certain areas has exacerbated existing problems, shown up weaknesses created by cuts and poor provision of services. Or how some of these newcomers have trouble settling in and some communities are actively hostile toward them. Let’s not have that tired old refrain from politicians and commentators of “We’re not allowed to talk about immigration!” when that’s all they ever do, at length, and particularly when they want to get the subject away from the many ways the Government has failed us.
Unless May’s making a play for the ‘bring back hanging’ brigade, I haven’t a clue what she’s talking about on crime.
I worry about my job security too. But I know I’m in more danger from a Brexit and austerity fuelled depression than from being undercut by an immigrant who’ll take less than the minimum wage I’m currently on.
I’m not bewildered that a small majority of people voted for Brexit. I’m disappointed. And I’m simultaneously angry at, and sorry for, all those people who voted out. They’re not going to get what they voted for, and they shafted the rest of us just so they couldn’t get it.
Again, I’m neither well off nor comfortable. And I live in a very different Britain to the one Theresa May sees and wants to appeal to. I can agree with her on one thing. I want her government to get out of the way. The sooner they’re gone, the better.
Oh well, that’s us fucked, then.
In the short term, it’s possible I’ll be a tiny bit better off, because the largest single day drop in the value of sterling now makes my few American book sales worth more. Of course, that’s going to be a tiny consolation when the inevitable slash and burn budget does its best to take away what’s left of everything that’s good about this country.
Almost immediately, the Brexiteers were saying that they hadn’t really promised all those things they promised. Which is nice.
Some people who voted Leave are trying to tell the rest of us that they didn’t mean it, really, and they’d take it all back if they only could. It’s hard to be angry at such stupidity.
The section of the Labour Party that lost the last two elections think that this is a great time to get Jeremy Corbyn out of the way, so they can start work on losing the snap election they hope will be called for November.
If anyone wants to set up a Kickstarter or Patreon that will ensure David Cameron doesn’t go a week without getting at least one email or letter that’s just a picture of a pig, I will try to scrape together some money to back it.
And if any Brexiteer wants to sneer and call me a bad loser, I’ll know that, if the tables were turned, they would have spent the day throwing the biggest toddler tantrum ever, whilst claiming that MI5 had stolen the result in some pencil based conspiracy.
So, we’re halfway into the second week of what’s going to be a tedious and depressing EU referendum campaign. I wouldn’t be surprised if half the country has already become bored and irritated by it all.
I’ll come straight out and say that I’ll be voting to stay in. There’s a lot wrong with the EU, and the only way to fix the problems is by staying in and arguing more effectively for reform*. Also, it’s naive to think we won’t be affected by EU policies if we leave. We’ll still have to meet the standards they set if we want to trade with them, and there’ll be a load of new restrictions on travelling, living and working on the continent.
My stance puts me in the unsavoury position of being on the same side as David Cameron, George Osborne and Tony Blair. I’ll live with that. Not least because of the incredibly low quality of so many of the Brexit supporters. A short list, off the top of my head-
Nigel Farage A caricature of the worst stereotypes of England made flesh. The only good thing I can say about Farage is that, whichever way the vote goes, he’s going to be even more irrelevant after June.
Boris Johnson A man who plays the buffoon in the hope that we’ll not notice all his cheap political game playing. And the fact that he is a bit of an incompetent. It’s hard to take seriously any claims that Boris’ stance is for anything other than the chance to be leader of the Tory party and possibly PM.
Michael Gove Gormless, useless little man, who has only got as far as he has by taking advantage of the friendship he has now betrayed with the Prime Minister.
Iain Duncan-Smith Let’s face it, Duncan-Smith wants out of Europe to save his own skin. He’s scared that a European court might one day hold him to account for introducing policies that have driven thousands of the most vulnerable to early deaths and pushed people to suicide.
Nigel Lawson Walnut faced former Chancellor who now makes millions of pounds conjuring up weak arguments for gullible climate change deniers to keep spouting, thus slowing down progress on fixing the greatest imminent threat to everyone’s way of life.
John Redwood Supposedly hyper-intelligent former minister, who was once known as the Vulcan, but now looks more like Dobby the house elf. Redwood’s highly intelligent and deeply considered opinion on matters of climate change and energy policy somehow always sounds like the sort of thing Nigel Lawson’s group has dreamt up for gullible climate change deniers to repeat endlessly.
David Icke Really. David Icke supporting something is the equivalent of having it stamped “100% guaranteed bullshit”.
These are the people who will be running this country if the referendum results in us leaving (well, apart from Icke, he’ll probably say something incoherent about lizards, then disappear back to wherever it is he hides). They are scum, and they’ll be even harder to escape from, because they’ll trash your chances of going to live and work in Europe.
A vote to stay could be the first part of a double whammy. First, do serious damage to the careers of the would-be leavers by rejecting their campaign. This will have a knock-on effect of destabilising, maybe even splitting, the Conservative party**, offering an opportunity for more sensible parties to sweep in and kick them out at the next election.
It might not happen, but I’m an optimist.
*And kicking out all the UKIP MEPs. Really, is there anything less useful than a UKIP MEP? They’ve been elected to something they want the country to leave, and their constant refrain is how terrible the EU is for Britain. They could use their positions to fix those problems, and make things better for thr UK. But then, that would show that the EU is capable of doing good things for Britain, making the case for staying in. So UKIP MEPs must just sit on their hands and make things worse, because it’s the only way they can achieve what they want. They’re actively making things worse for us, under the pretence that they’re working to make things, somehow, better.
**Actually, either result could have this effect. But In is the best for the majority of us.
The United Nations is carrying out an unprecedented inquiry into “systematic and grave violations” of disabled people’s human rights by the UK government, Disability News Service (DNS) can finally confirm.
DNS revealed last August that the UK appeared to have become the first country to face a high-level inquiry by the UN’s committee on the rights of persons with disabilities (CRPD).
The committee said last summer, when approached by DNS, that it was not allowed to say whether the inquiry was underway.
But DNS is now in a position to state definitively that the inquiry is taking place, and has been underway since January 2014.
I wonder what happens when the UN CRPD comes back with a conclusion that the government is a human rights abuser. Does it open the possibility that Iain Duncan Smith, Cameron and others could be prosecuted?
Source: Confirmed! UN is investigating UK’s ‘grave violations’ of disabled people’s rights
I went into town and got some photos of today’s events at the Tory conference. The slideshow includes them, and those I took on the march yesterday. I’ll keep filling it if I take any more good ones tomorrow and Wednesday.
Okay, this is from a fringe meeting, and not (yet) official Tory policy. Alex Wild, of the Taxpayer’s Alliance* thinks the Tories should slash old age payments as soon as possible.
Mr Wild, who is research director of the think tank which campaigns for lower taxes and highlights examples of Government waste, said the cuts should be made “as soon as possible after an election for two reasons”.
“The first of which will sound a little bit morbid – some of the people… won’t be around to vote against you in the next election. So that’s just a practical point, and the other point is they might have forgotten by then.
“He added: “If you did it now, chances are that in 2020 someone who has had their winter fuel cut might be thinking, ‘Oh I can’t remember, was it this government or was it the last one? I’m not quite sure.’
“So on a purely practical basis I would say do it immediately. That might be one of those things I regret saying in later life but that would be my practical advice to the government.”
Ian Duncan Smith would like that idea. He is running a department dedicated to making cuts and introducing policies that speed up the deaths of the people affected.
Source: Taxpayers’ Alliance: Cut pensioner benefits ‘immediately’ – BBC News
In the same way that the Countryside Alliance was only created to campaign to keep hunting with hounds, but pretended to care about more important countryside issues, I think the Tax Payer’s Alliance was created by people who go out of their way to pay the minimum possible tax.
Here’s a slideshow of some of the pictures I took at yesterday’s TUC march.
Police estimated 60,000 turned up, the organisers said up to 100,000. The true number’s usually halfway between the two. I was quite near the front, so I got to see Billy Bragg perform before we set off, and got a seat in Castlefield Arena before the Police started claiming it was full up (it was nowhere near full up, don’t know why they’d make such nonsense claims). After getting the word out, several thousand more folk got in.
The event had a positive vibe, overall. Sure, there’s a lot of anger at the disastrous and callous shower currently in Government, but the turnout showed there’s a strong, and growing opposition to their plans to destroy the country for profit. And some of the pig related signs were excellent.
80,000 people marched, and there were only 6 arrests. The Police themselves put out a release saying the event was peaceful. However, most of the media coverage dwelt on those arrests, the one Tory hit by an egg and the journalists hassled by anarchists. Stuff that shouldn’t have happened, sure, but a tiny, unrepresentative part of the march as a whole. The Press have their narrative, and it’s that we’re a bunch of disrespectful yobs, because heaven forbid they show their viewers and readers the validity and wide base of support there is for opposition to austerity. It just shows that the premise for Kettled was valid. (Yes, I did just plug one of my books. :-P)
So, if you were there, tell friends, family and colleagues how much fun it was. Show them photos like these that depict what it was really like. Undermine their belief in the negative spin they’re getting from the papers and TV. We don’t have the media on our side, but we do have the power of word of mouth- from sources more easily trusted than the papers. Spread the word.
A coup d’état is an anachronistic and violent method of political engineering that happens only in one-party fascist, totalitarian and despotic states, it’s not an event you would expect to see used as a threat in a so-called first world liberal democracy. Regardless of how far-fetched the threats may seem, that a general feels it’s okay to threaten a coup or “mutiny” against a future left-wing government using the mainstream right-wing press as a mouthpiece is a cause for some concern.
Kettled is published on October 2nd. Pre-order your copy now.
The Tories are in Manchester, and thousands have turned out to protest their presence.
In the midst of the peaceful protest, a small group of hired troublemakers are planning to cause trouble. They want to start a riot, to distract from the demo’s message, and usher in new laws.
Irwin has been working with an MI5 agent to track them down before they can do any damage. But now, she has been stabbed, and he is trapped in a big crowd being held on a square by Police. Just the right place to start a fight.
With the reluctant help of Kay Wood, Irwin must track down the troublemakers before it’s too late, and find out who stabbed the MI5 agent.
Now, the 1980’s generation who served in Margaret Thatcher’s Cabinet was not exactly the epitome of political talent, but the Labour Party of the time would have seen today’s successors to Norman Tebbitt, Nigel Lawson, Geoffrey Howe et al as dream opponents by contrast. Yes, the modern Tory Party is as mediocre as it has ever been, not only intellectually, but also in terms of moral fibre. With the odd exception here and there, today’s Tories are neither intelligent, nor ethical, nor courageous. Defeating them therefore, for anyone with a half-decent brain, really should just be a matter of holding one’s nerve.
For what it is worth, I do think there are some half-decent minds in the higher echelons of the current Labour Party. I would probably not accuse the likes of Harriet Harman, their fill-in leader, or Andrew Burnham, their present ‘pin-up boy’, of being dim-witted. But I do seriously question their nerve. We need only examine their public behaviour during the run-up to the forthcoming leadership contest to see their shortcomings.
Source: Why Are Labour So Scared, When Their Opponents Seem Permanently Terrified? | TheCritique Archives
Today’s right-wing newspapers commit sins both of commission and omission. What they do and don’t say about economics today is very revealing. First, the omission. As Left Foot Forward reported yesterday, along with the Guardian, the Economist and others, the International Monetary Fund has published a report arguing that focus on cutting national debt rather than investment can do more harm than good. It said a bit of debt won’t actually hurt your economy, and will naturally be swallowed up by investment-led growth. Predictably, since this strikes to the root of the Tory government’s rationale for its economic policies over the past five years, (and for the five to come), the paper has been ignored by today’s right-wing print newspapers.
I’m shocked, shocked, I tell you, that most of the press in the UK is so obviously biased. Did the supposedly leftwing BBC mention this? I bet it didn’t.
Source: Tory press cheers on £3bn cuts… but ignores anti-austerity IMF report | Left Foot Forward