Election fallout thoughts...

Writing duties took a backseat to campaigning for Labour in this election, so to see the result go the way it has is an unbelievable disappointment. I've read and listened to a lot of reaction since Thursday night, but though I may now be more informed, my initial reaction as the first result was announced still rings true. The addition of the people's vote is what killed any chance of winning, and was political suicide. People will and have said it was Corbyn, but 2017's results disprove that, winning a higher number of votes than even Blair. Sure, a perception of unpatriotism played its role, but I doubt it would have been much different to the affect it had in 2017.

In this election, the PV addition was a massive own goal. That result came in and it was plain to see: the Brexit Party stole a few votes from Labour, and the 'Get Brexit Done' mantra stole a few for the Tories. The lesson wasn't learned from 2017, when Labour committed to respecting the referendum, or from the MEP elections this year when the Brexit Party romped it. Like it or not, this country voted to Leave in such great numbers, that it was always going to cut through any other issues. It's frustrating that Labour had a leader who could easily have championed Lexit, but was not allowed to. If that was weakness or short-sightedness on Corbyn's part, I'm not sure, but it is evident that PV was pushed upon the policy makers, despite the evidence that it was not going to work. How Thornberry could say on TV after the MEP results came in that the evidence is clear that Labour needed to be unequivocally remain completely defeats me - it was just a complete refusal to accept the facts staring her in the face.

And if the PV champions had any braincells they would have realised that, in this election, if it was so important, they should have turned it categorically into a PV vs Brexit election and created an alliance party made up of Lab, LibDem and Green. But they couldn't even do that in Parliament between themselves when they had the balance of power. There was a point, if everyone disgruntled with Boris, had dropped their party allegiances and called a VONC, they could probably have achieved their PV. Maybe. But that's moot anyway, because PV was the whole problem anyway, and appeasing anyone on this would still have resulted in what we have today.

Years of anti-scrounger and anti-migrant rhetoric from the right-wing press have stoked up division so much that the battle was already lost. No amount of careful or considerate debate could have won them back - largely because they wouldn't be watching! Or reading! Or listening! So entrenched is it now. This is not to denigrate Leave voters, it is just fact. They're on the streets believing that austerity was a symptom of immigration and the negative aspects of benefit culture, ignoring the facts of Tory cuts. Just days after, and there are reports and videos of emboldened racists attacking minorities, similar to just after the Brexit result. It is of course incorrect to paint every leave voter with this brush, but in much the same way that right-wingers and centrists have painted Labour party members as anti-semitic, the answer is to clean your house. Labour did and do. I see very few Tories denouncing Tommy Robinson's membership, or these attacks, though perhaps it is early yet. After the video of Boris not denouncing the member of public spouting xenophobic garbage at him, though, I'm not too hopeful. After all, they are quite happy to quietly reinstate someone who was previously sanctioned, if it suits their needs.

Maybe there's something to be said for the pride of not attracting these fringe racists and bigots, but with renationalisaton on the ticket, Labour were unlikely to draw over many of the Tory waverers. So again, PV was the over-arching pivot. No PV, no need for Farage to stand any MPs, as he expressly said the only reason he did so was to stop PV. Only he will know if he'd have formed a deal with Boris to stand some MPs anyway, which would then have made things difficult for the same reason as now, but I believe Labour would still have held those who normally could never bring themselves to vote Tory.

There'll also be a portion of the population well and truly fed up with the Brexit policies, wanting to get it done as soon as possible, and seeing Boris as the path forward for that.

In the end, I feel heartbroken for Jeremy and everyone who worked so hard during this election to elect a Labour government. And to think, this was just a few short weeks of hard work, and Jeremy has spent his life championing the kinds of policies and thought put forward in the manifesto. Those still piling on with the personal attacks should show some class; you may not agree with him, but he has always been the voice for those who needed it most. (Whatever country that has been - blind nationalism is as foolish as blind faith when you set your stable upon those foundations.)

The Economy of Trickle Down

Whenever you hear that there is going to be a tax-cut, what your government is actually doing is giving you a massive middle-finger. They're telling you in no uncertain terms that they don't give a damn about you, that they exist purely to line the pockets of the powerful.

Here in the UK, and recently in the USA, we have a corporation tax so low even Mini-me would struggle to limbo beneath without risk of decapitation. Additionally, both the Tories and the Trump administration, under different guises, have put more money into the pockets of the average Joe, through personal income tax threshold raises and higher allowances. A ruse, to make it seem as though we have more money when in fact we don't. It says, we're giving these corporations a break, and you too! Everyone wins!

The UK is already socialist - duh!

There's some legitimate trolls out there that know full well we're a democratic socialist country, but there are also quite a lot of people who seem to run from the word, as though it's poison. Copy-pasted below a solid explanation for reference.

_______________________________________

It seems in general people do not understand that they have Democratic Socialist principles.

1.) Sending your child to a non-private school is Socialist.
2.) Paying for healthcare via National Insurance and using the NHS is Socialist.
3.) Having free access to the legal system is Socialist.
4.) Being paid a wage that covers your costs, a fair wage is Socialist.
5.) Expecting a state pension, paying into one, and being paid one is Socialist.
6.) Having access to Social Security, the welfare state is Socialist.
7.) Having an affordable transport system is Socialist.
8.) Having protected areas like National Parks and Areas of Outstanding Natural Beauty is Socialist.
9.) Going for your Sunday walk.....being able to have the right to freely roam across broad swathes of this land via footpaths and bridle ways is Socialist.
10.) Believing that there should be affordable housing built by the State is Socialist.

Now talking to people, it seems that most people expect these things, and take them for granted. But they say that they are not Socialist, as if it's a dirty word. I say, but if you believe in these things, if you want them, then you are Socialist! It certainly makes them think. When I explain that Labour now at last has a true Democratic Socialist leader again, and tell them that Clement Attlee, officially Britain's greatest Prime Minister, created most of the above, and is much like Jeremy Corbyn, it certainly makes them think.

95 percent of people under Labours manifesto will see NO TAX RISES!!
Atos, G4S paid no corporation tax last year despite carrying out £2 billion of taxpayer-funded work

If anyone wants to pay me £150,000 a year, I'll happily give up £5425 a year extra for a better society. If you disagree with that idea, you may know the price of everything but you know the value of nothing.

Let's Talk Tax

This is how taxable income for someone earning over £80k pa is broken down in real terms. Is an extra £62.50 per month too much to ask to help the NHS and education of our children? (Example figures based on 95K a year salary).

Feel free to copy and paste to your status if you agree.

[ Anne Callaghan ]

Rise, like lions after slumber
In unvanquishable number!
Shake your chains to earth like dew
Which in sleep had fallen on you:
Ye are many—they are few!

[ Percy Bysshe Shelley ]

It's not me they fear... it's you...

There's a turning point on the horizon, it's hard to deny. The election has awoken people, young and old, or those in the middle like me. It was the first election in my lifetime that felt like I was voting for something different, and I'm sure it felt that way for many, not the few.

But it's not over yet. The Tories could miraculously pass their Queen's Speech next week, meaning the words debated this week and the pomp and ceremony were not just the hollow sentiments of people clinging to power. I don't know. It's such a desperate moment for May, and the Tories, and their Queen's speech is a gamble. They gambled before and lost. Hopefully we'll get the same result again.

Even if they win, good luck getting anything through Parliament. Unfortunately, one of the biggest concerns, the asset-stripping of the NHS, seems to be going on behind the scenes. The Queen's Speech needs to fail for the good of it.

Join the Labour Party.

Stop patronising the youth - GE2017

Let's talk about the youth. Undoubtedly they (and do I include myself in that, a 34 year old?) came out in force to support the Labour leader. Let's make that clear. The leader. Not some unelectable hopeful. He is a leader. He is the reason many people, young and old, came out to vote. For everything he represents. Yes it was an exciting manifesto, but that was a reflection of Jeremy Corbyn.

The reason we talk about media bias is often not even about the content. It's the tone. Corbyn just inspired hundreds of thousands of young people to vote, and what's the explanation? Freebies, in the form of tuition fees, scrapping car parking fees, free nursery hours, and so on. NO. How dare you be so patronising: praising the campaign on one hand, then going on to grossly misunderstand the cause.

Social media exploded this election open. We searched for the truth and we found it, and we shared it. We got angry, and we engaged with friends, who engaged with their friends. We forced our information on others and got kicked from groups for doing so. Feeds were awash with politics like never before. Even my Nottingham Forest Supporters Page was rammed. "Not Forest Related - but make sure you vote Labour." The amount of 'fuck yous' was depressing, but once that door was open, we flooded in. I doubt the negative commentators were turned, maybe some, but it's the silent ones, who never say anything, who maybe saw one sourced link or meme and it got them to think.

We saw injustices and wanted to fight against it. We spread the word about how new labour and now the Tories, worse than ever, have been systematically asset-stripping this country. We don't want our pipelines owned by Qater. We don't want Virgin Care. We don't want to pay £30 to skip the queue. We woke up to what kind of world and country we were heading towards: an insular, capitalist, money making, money keeping, money hoarding machine.

And we didn't like it.

Tuition fee promise or no tuition fee promise, we'd have been there all the same, marking the the cross by Labour.

Something else too. We don't want to be at war. We never asked for it. It was thrust upon us by our foreign policy. As much as you can blame religious fanaticism, you cannot underestimate what dropping a few bombs or being complicit in it will do. And worse, leaving broken areas as breeding grounds for hate. The messes we have left behind smack of incompetence, and that's being kind - if we can't do it right, don't do it all. Or just don't do it period. We don't want to think ill of our own country. We don't wan tto consider that we are complicit in arming those who seek to harm us in turn. But some facts are hard to ignore. Things have to change.

We didn't vote because tuition fees may be abolished, as amazing for equality as that could be. We voted for a new kind of politics, so stop patronising us.

DailyFlash: Hope

A man stood tall against the tide on sand of stone.
Garbage spewed from sewer pipes and floated all around.
Piranhas nipped at knee and thigh,
clamoured for chin as he held it high.
Rags of paper dripping bile swirled in a hurricane.
Acid poured down as rain.
But the sand rose,
it rose up,
it rose around,
it lifted the man into the air,
out of the tide into the storm,
out of the storm and into the clouds,
out of the clouds and into the sun.

Click here for more of my Daily Flash Fiction

Countering Tory logic

Just noting some counterlogic I've attempted in debate(s) with pro-Tories, (for myself more than anyone else's benefit). It's difficult for either side when there is such a basic ideological divide, and when, both left and right, you have been exposed to pro-left or pro-right media and pretty much nothing else.

“Say goodbye to Gilbraltar, the Falklands, Northern Ireland and Scotland.”

 - Couldn’t find this in the manifesto. At this point the Scots could go whether Labour or the Tories are in, and considering that many of SNP’s core beliefs mirror the Labour manifesto, I would say the chance of retaining the UK as it is, is higher with Labour being in. The Scots are pissed off about austerity measures being imposed on them from Westminster – THIS will be the main reason they choose to leave, given the chance again, should they do so.

“The top wealthy moving their money out of the U.K. Small Buisnesses collapsing when their tax rises. Corporations moving their head offices away from London to Poland due to being hit with huge tax rises, which Germany would love as they want to end Londons supremasy on this”

- The idea that corporations or the mega-rich will just leave the country if taxes are raised is a constant fearmongering tactic in the hard-right propaganda rags against progressive taxation. The rate of corporation tax is not the sole determining factor in where a corporation locates itself, or they’d all be in the Bahamas at 0%. Oh wait, that’s where the tax dodgers are.

- Anyone who thinks it would be easy and costless for a major corporation like Rolls Royce or Unilever to just shut down production in the UK and shift it overseas isn’t seeing the bigger picture.

- Constantly cutting corporation tax rates will only result in a "race to the bottom" scenario.

- Corporations have a responsibility to contribute towards stuff like the infrastructure that they and their customers use, the existence of the legal system and the emergency services, the in-work benefits that are paid to their employees, and the education of their workforce.

- Corporations aren’t going to abandon Britain just because Labour puts the Corporation Tax rate up to 26% (still the lowest in the G7).

- Anyone who thinks a billionaire who is so self-serving that they would just up sticks and leave the country over a slight change in tax rate is not already stashing their cash in tax havens (and therefore unaffected by such a change) is narrow minded

“Russia, North Korea seeing us as a great target due to our nuclear arms not being renewed. Such a stupid thing to be doing in such an unstable world. Security under this idiot will change Regardless of what he says.”

The Labour party is a democracy – the Trident deterrent will be renewed. North Korea are not the aggressors now  – they were decimated in the 50s and are now more concerned about protecting themselves rather than being aggressive. Nuclear war is not the threat that we face, it’s guerrilla tactics on the street. We need more police officers. We need to look at why it’s unstable and perhaps not be the ones destabilising it.

“People will end up having to sell their family homes due to the garden tax that this idiot thinks he is going to bring in.”

Labour have explicitly stated that there is not going to be a garden tax. There’ll be a CT review to make it fairer (I’d like more details too). But they have said they’ll not be introducing a separate Land Value Tax on residential property. Maybe if you have a commercial business there’ll be some impact.

“Borrow billions from the world bank To fund his wild array of manifesto promises which will yet again cause us to go back into the red for yet another Tory government in four years time to come along and cut services in order to repair the damage.”

The manifesto is costed – it would be funded by a raise in the top 5%. “Borrow billions from the world bank” is empty rhetoric in real-world terms. 97% of the economy is electronic cash, most of which is created out of nothing at the moment a private bank makes a loan. The electronic money is then destroyed when the loan is repaid. Lastly, Tory cuts haven’t repaired jack, it’s worse than ever.

“Also even under Labour the richer get richer and the poorer get poorer. As sad as it is this is the way of the world and very country is the same. It's just we have been more generous in giving tax payers money to people. It is also fact that giving benedits to,people does not help the children out of poverty as in many of our large inner cities where these problems are rife the many single parent families take the money for themselves and spend it on drink and drugs. The answer is to lower benefits and make people get a part time job to make up the short fall. By doing this people start to have a sense of pride in themselves and attitudes would change.”

True: the rich tend to hold on to their riches no matter the government – does that show that under Labour they can therefore afford to pay a bit more tax? Or that they are unaffected by tax rate changes as they hold their money in offshore accounts? Sure with lower tax under Tory they’d get a bit more money for investment, but you then have to trust that they invest and not simply take a larger slice of the pie for their CEOs. I think I’d rather bank it with the current Labour to invest in public services. I agree in some regards with the benefits and children in poverty, but we differ ideologically. I don’t let those who take advantage of the system cloud my vision for a greater overall society where the public services are all funded as much as they need to be. And I would do whatever I could to ensure the children don’t suffer, be it free school meals, no rich/poor divide with universities, greater investment in youth projects, and so on.

Do the Tories want power?

1. Didn't have to call a general election - did so anyway.
2. Said they wouldn't - did so anyway (flip-flop).
3. Brexit negotiations begin just a few days after. If these are so important then surely the last thing the government needed in the build up was turmoil.
4. What would be one of the most universally hated policies to bring back? Fox hunting.
5. Who gives the Tories most votes? The elderly? Hitting them as hard as they reasonably can.
6. Go on and on about negotiating Brexit - won't even debate one on one with Corbyn. Weak perception, or arrogant?
7. No calls to register to vote on their social media.
8. Attacking what was a logical, reasonable, and widely accepted view from Corbyn and Labour RE the Manchester attack and foreign policy influence.
9. Not costing their manifesto. Open for attack/easy target.
10. Positive comments about Corbyn filtering through from Tories and Tory-sympathisers.
11. Corbyn receiving a fairer share of media attention on the likes of the BBC and Sky, even showing him in a positive light for once.
12. Corbyn v May v Paxman - the perfect social media clip of that guy mouthing absolutely bollocks. Other cuts to the audience weren't as long. This guy wasn't cut when he began mouthing and shaking his head.
13. Leaks of images of May at 'rallies' devoid of attendees. Again perfect for social media. Many examples of these which when added up has a widespread effect.

My thoughts on the EU and the UK government

It's been two and a half weeks since the EU referendum, and we've seen a lot of change (what an understatement). Most of us would not have watched BBC News 24 or Sky News so much in our lives before. (How many of us have wished for an alternate, exasperated by the continuing propagandising - have we not learned anything from the referendum result?!) I think first and foremost that it's great that so many people are actively involved in politics, in discussions, in debate. That's why it's taken me this long to even contemplate writing anything down. There's been so much talk and upheaval I'm not even completely sure what I think of it all.

When it was announced that Leave had won, I do remember that my first thought was of this video:

Scrounger Danger!

It's becoming something of a dirty word; scrounger: countless times it's reared its head in discussions over the country's economy, and so often in tones of anger. So often it's the voice of the moderate, turned vexed by the thought of someone getting something they're not entitled to, while they themselves are losing out (so hungry and emaciated, so homeless and destitute, with bleeding gums no doubt).

Friendly debate part 2

Questions from a UKIP supporter.

The more I offer replies to disputes put forward, the more it feels like I'm reaching out to some intangible ideal - but what is politics if it's not about aspiration?

"Immigration will always be detrimental in my view," he says. "Either you have to give them a job (if there are any available) so they can support themselves, which means taking a job off a British citizen, or cause more strain on the housing market to give them somewhere to live. Australia is the best place to live; based on a points system and without benefits."

Friendly debate

How do you debate with a UKIP supporter who says Corbyn is an extremist? 

"You can't give what you don't have." It's the same old excuse. I'm sure if we wanted another war we could find the funds for that. Enough with the breaks to the rich already!

"Labour left us with a country that was bankrupt." That one. Not directly Labour's fault, as previously mentioned in my earlier blog.

Jeremy Corbyn: renewed interest and media weirdness

I'm a 32-year-old male, and for my entire adult life I have wanted to feel engaged with politics. We grow, we get decent jobs, we start families - this is the norm and I am no exception. Throughout, I have wanted to want to vote. I have wanted to make a mark on the ballot with conviction, but whenever I have voted, and it's not as often as it should have been, I've barely been impressed by anyone, or any party. I have never felt as though a single individual, much less a party, has reflected any of my political values. Some have come close, I think. I look back at pre-coalition Nick Clegg and remember that he seemed to stand for something, and I think I've always leaned towards Lib Dem anyway. But it became clear there was no real voice there; the coalition was just a lighter shade of blue than the government today.