Tag: Tory Party

A Second Chance

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Lockdown 2.0 is coming. France and German signed up last week. Athens will this week. England will be joining the club in the coming days. Scotland is persevering with it’s tier system instead with no regions currently in tier four and lockdown but it’s likely a watch this space thing. Politically if Scotland’s approach doesn’t work it will have a lasting effect on the Scottish elections in May next year but equally that is a long time in politics. As this most remarkable of years has shown; a lot of the unexpected can happen in a short space of time. Nicola Sturgeon, the Scottish First Minister, met with Micheal Gove the other day, along with the leaders of Wales and Northern Ireland to discuss the differing approaches and the potential financial aid necessary. He suggesting the government were listening and would give it some thought. Gove the ultimate in parodies, giving the perfect non-committal politician response. Issues have started to arise as it appears funding to prop up jobs UK-wide only seems to be on offer when the English in the south-east start to find themselves in need. The Tory government propping up their heartlands. It is an easy accusation to make but equally a very believable one on which they have form.

How then are people planning on experiencing these lockdowns. Boris Johnson says it’ll be only for four weeks but the previous one was only supposed to be three weeks and it ended up being three months. If people living in the Arctic circle can not just endure but actively enjoy a few months of winter darkness then surely we in the UK can survive some bleak skies for a bit. Apparently one method they have for remaining happy in these long winters is to find excitement in the things they can do instead which they can’t in summer months. They ski, they make fires, they go for night walks, they do indoor things. In Scotland because the weather can be so volatile it has always felt necessary to make the most of good weather and complete outdoor tasks, or even just enjoy the outdoors. When it’s raining and cold we do the jobs we have put off inside the house. It may not be the most exciting prospect but it creates a wealth of opportunities. With many having already experienced one lockdown in Spring they will be either daunted and fatigued by the prospect of a second or excited at being even better at their second attempt. What didn’t we get to learn in the first one, what didn’t we manage to watch on Netflix, what books didn’t we manage to get through and so on. Modern life has meant people rarely get to spend lengthy periods of time with themselves but it is crucial in our self-development as people. Aren’t we lucky we get a second roll of the dice. A hard six perhaps? What a glorious opportunity we have.

Subsidised Injustice

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Marcus Rashford is kicking arse again. Well Tory arse. And sort of. They don’t seem to be doing as his star appeal demands which was inevitable, they couldn’t be seen to bow to him or anyone in his position too many times. While that was inevitable, it was also always going to be the case in doing so they would be shamed in the process. It isn’t even him shaming them though, he’s just making a series of valid points, it’s their reaction, they’re shaming themselves.

They’re shaming themselves because they deny children food, they let innocent children go hungry when they spend and waste not just millions but billions of pounds. The money wasted during the pandemic on them being ill prepared and then on them continuing to behave in a manner which could only be described as incompetent. The twelve billion pounds wasted on a failed test and trace system. The contracts given out to friends, associates and Tory donors, many of whom had none or little experience in what they were being paid to do. We could discuss Brexit and the utter bankrupting shambles that it has inevitably shown itself to be. We could discuss the HS2 vanity and cronyism project that does nothing to improve the infrastructure of another failed privatisation experiment. We could go on and on but this isn’t a dissertation, I haven’t enough words.

Rashford is simply stating the obvious and the Tories are doing everything else to themselves. There have been photos going around social media this week of the menu for the restaurant in The House of Commons. Whether this menu is accurate is not important, the truth is that this is a subsidised restaurant, a restaurant taken advantage of by millionaires who happily allow their lunch to be subsidised by the tax payers. This is a link to a website with a long list of the Tory MPs who voted against feeding hungry children. There are three MPs who claimed over eighty thousand pounds in expenses this last year. That is the equivalent of over four people on the minimum wage and doesn’t include the basic eighty-one thousand pound salary MPs are paid. What on earth do they need to claim that much on. Interestingly my local MP The Right Honourable John Lamont claimed seventy-six thousand pounds. He may just be due a letter from one of his constituency. I wonder why he doesn’t feel the need to feed hungry children. Interestingly Jacob Rees Mogg claimed nothing. Doesn’t change anything though, he still thinks kids should go hungry.

They say the existing benefits system is in place to compensate for and cover these costs and to feed the children. That would be fair enough if the current benefits system hadn’t been obliterated in the last ten years of Tory rule, resulting in over four million children finding themselves in poverty. That is between a quarter and a third of all British children which is just remarkable for a country that prides itself on being at the forefront the developed world. You may not see things with your own eyes but the numbers are staggering. It’s not supposed to be this way. Steaks should not be subsidised when young bellies remain empty. They certainly shouldn’t be subsidised for the ones actively keeping those bellies empty. This, this is an injustice and it’s subsidised by us.

Boris Johnson’s Dystopian New Jerusalem

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As Boris Johnson talks about building a ‘New Jerusalem’ I remind myself of any dystopian story I have ever read. I’m not sure I want to be part of his New Jerusalem. Anyone professing to be the architect of a new society makes me instinctively cautious. Someone with his track record for incompetence and general indifference to the wellbeing of the populace is someone whose Jerusalem reeks of inevitable failure. These are the type of people who will hoard the lifejackets as the ship sinks, or who in actuality are already hoarding the lifejackets as the system sinks.

I haven’t been getting caught up in cries of fascism and autocracy by the state but this lot in power at the moment are not playing by the rules of old. If they were anarchists decentralising and creating community I would be fine with it but when they’re right wing wannabe despots in the making it is more concerning. Teachers can’t teach about anti-capitalism anymore. The police have been given draconian powers to enforce their will on the people. Powers are rarely given up once they’ve been received. The opposition exists in name only. There are real and concerning things going on in the UK at present. Once we leave the EU this power grab will only be intensified.

Talking of the ‘opposition’, only twenty of them, one of whom was Jeremy Corbyn, voted against the Covert Human Intelligence Sources Bill. Officially this “authorise(s) conduct by officials and agents of the security and intelligence services, law enforcement, and certain other public authorities, which would otherwise constitute criminality”. In layman’s terms the state and it’s enforcers are now above the law. Effectively this allows the government a license to kill whoever it deems a danger to it’s existence. The US and Canada have similar laws but they specifically exclude certain crimes like murder and torture. This one rushed through Parliament omits such exclusions. Remarkably the bill extends these powers to various government bodies such as The Competition and Markets Authority, The Environment Agency, The Financial Conduct Authority, The Food Standards Agency and The Gambling Commission.

The bill allows for state actors to break the law in three scenarios – in the interests of national security, for the purpose of preventing or detecting crime or of preventing disorder and in the interests of the economic well-being of the United Kingdom. What is clear from this though is the ambiguity involved. ‘Preventing disorder’ seems as all encompassing as ‘breach of the peace’, what exactly is classed as disorder? And someone can be killed to protect the economic interests of the UK. Does this mean I can sign up for the police and kill the leaders of Brexit? But seriously if we think of the new teaching rules on sugar coating capitalism and then this, it’s clear who and what this mob represent.

Former Tory leader and Brexit Minister David Davis and former Tory Chief Whip Andrew Mitchell have even called the government out on there being a “whole series of weaknesses in (the bill), which at the end of the day will impinge on innocent people” and on the dangers of “granting such powers in a free society” respectively. Human rights groups such as Amnesty International and Unions such as Unite have also heavily cautioned about the dangers involved with passing such legislation. As ever the media have been silent. Not even a mention of Keir Starmer whipping his MPs into abstaining against the vote. Love or loath Corbyn, at least he was a man of integrity and one who actually acted as a real opposition. Like I said, I don’t usually get caught up in genuine despotic outcries but this is concerning and this is a system looking increasingly less capable of maintaining and standing up for itself by the day.

The Law Breaker Part Two

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If only I was in a position to go out and party this weekend I know I would be tempted. With new laws coming into force on Monday on there being no more than six people in one group at the same time, the media are reporting a police union’s fear that those reckless and irresponsible young people previously deemed wholly responsible for the spread of the virus, might take advantage of one last weekend of relative freedom. With the threat of all fun being put on hold until the spring can people really be forgiven. I know I would. And if there is such a fear of this happening then why have this new law start on Monday, why not Friday. Let’s all blame bureaucracy of course, but who’s willing to put a little cash on the Daily Mail, Daily Express and Daily Telegraph writing a piece on these devilish party folk and referencing this weekend if the government continue to fuck up at every opportunity and numbers increase. Scapegoat anyone? Ready made excuse. They’ll probably find a way to blame these revellers on the fact people had to drive hundreds of miles for a test. Or that Matt Hancock is still bizarrely in a position of power despite, well, everything he has done for the last six months. Saying that Boris, Dom and Mikey Gove are still the bouncing around full of beans. What’s that phrase about bad smells?

On a law breaking note, apparently Boris’s plans to avoid anymore of the “miserable squabbling” over Brexit, in other words do as he says or he’ll continue to squabble. He only plans on breaking international law in a “specific and limited way” as opposed to randomly and completely which presumably would be the bad way. The rumour is that the rebels in his party seem to be inconveniently perturbed by their own party damaging the integrity of the UK by “protecting the integrity of the UK” as Gove called it. It appears not even a stonking majority will allow this lot to completely do as they feel and in total disregard for the recognised ways of law abiding. The miserable squabbling appears to be returning as the rest of the country rejoices that not everything is going as planned. Is this the first step in a slight rebellion against a still perplexing government. The government has already had to make numerous u-turns since coming to power. If they are seen to be defeated by their own MPs then it quite significantly makes it clear to those in the party who don’t enjoy seeing their leader behaving in a less than legal and democratic way as being capable of crumbling. It may take time but once something can be seen as possible it inevitably becomes real. Time to get that deck chair out and prepare for the show.

Brexit Anyone?

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Another government u-turn. There have been more, I know there have, but for the love of me right now I can’t remember what they were. Perhaps they’ll come to me. I wonder what it is that leads politicians into u-turns because they’re renowned for only doing so when forced. Perhaps that is what it was. The government were forced into it. There has been one hell of a public outcry this last week so it was coming. Perhaps one of the reasons they don’t like doing it too often is that it leads to suggestions they don’t quite know what they’re doing. Surely they should be making well researched and thought out proposal, ones which have survived the scrutiny of experts. It does suggest they may be incompetent, although I’ve suggested in the past I’m cautious of giving them that excuse. But they do seem to act either on a whim or in a rather morally repellent way that looks more like an ideological whim. They are arguably a one cause government though so it’s no surprise they are incapable of doing much else. A government for crisis they are not. Saying that they don’t even seem like a government capable of fulfilling their one cause either.

Ah Brexit. Have we forgotten about Brexit as we all die of the sniffles. It does feel a little like it’s been brushed under the carpet and while that may not always be such a bad thing, when it’s something so potentially devastating and something which has a deadline, it’s probably time we started focusing on it again. The ostrich in the sand trick once again won’t work here. It is only slightly over four months away. Only four months I repeat. Renowned negotiators they are not. Shall we just prepare to crash out on World Trade Organisation terms and stumble dazed into the arms of the Americans. It does look suspiciously as if that was the plan all along and they seem to be doing little about preventing it. They have Covid-19 as an excuse for not getting a trade deal, although it’s not an excuse. They’ll also have the virus as an excuse for an economy that will be the ashes Jacob Rees Mogg’s father always dreamt of. To rebuild society in their image. Begone hard fought for rights. The twentieth century never happened. Long live Queen Victoria and the poor house. Now get back to work peasant, know your place, my lawn won’t cut itself.

Educating Irony

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Although the exact wording now alludes me, and with my lack of desire to look back over previous posts, I shall paraphrase myself. “The Scottish government made a total tits up of the exam results, surely the Tory government will see their mistake and avoid doing the same thing”. There was more, I mentioned the imbalance between affects on those attending state schools and those attending private schools, and how this was the perfect opportunity for the Tories to twist an easily insertable knife into the SNP. Well it looks like they couldn’t find the knife, or perhaps they didn’t quite understand what went wrong with the SNP. Gavin Williamson, the Education Secretary, has exposed another Member of Parliament for not having a clue what they’re doing and having absolutely no understanding of their area of ‘expertise’. He only went and lowered loads of English students grades, the very thing the SNP went and did a week early with dramatic failure. Not only that but it appears he hasn’t exactly lowered many grades of students going to private schools only the poor kids who have less opportunity for recourse.

Admittedly Gavin Williamson wouldn’t have made this decision. This is a political one and he simply does what he is told to do by someone higher up than him. He is the face of this department though so it’ll be his head on the chopping block. The day before the results came out the government released news of some triple lock that would secure kids from having anything lower than their mock exam results. Unfortunately the next day it appeared the lock was non-existent and thousand of kids have now had their futures inexplicably altered. But it is explicable lets be honest. For political purposes they couldn’t be seen to be having much higher grades than normal across the board, so they devised a formula and lowered some. In the process they undermined the teachers and called into question their professionalism and abilities. What is the point of taking months to devise a system if at the last minute you change it because it doesn’t suit your narrative.

There are many things we could discuss in this, there are most likely details I don’t know and have overlooked, but ultimately these things are simply affirming details. Despite the Scottish warning signs these idiots have shown themselves up once more for being utterly inept at doing their job. Or maybe they did there job perfectly, perhaps it was no accident that there was a clear bias in favour of privately educated kids. He’s hardly going to downgrade his mates kids results now is he. But as he said, he doesn’t want to “overpromote” anyone beyond their abilities. Clearly the irony was lost on some.

A Fine Mob

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Our current version of a government in the UK are a concerning bunch. I have spent these last six months largely unsurprised by their bumbling attempt at government. While it is possible to give them some slack over the coronavirus handling, their response has been slow, inept and ultimately a failure. It is not just Covid-19 though, having taken us out of the EU they seem reasonably content to do absolutely nothing about creating a smooth departure and transition. Apparently negotiations are non-existent to obstinately deadlocked. Of course the EU bares some responsibility for this but you do get the feeling that this is exactly what the government wants and this is playing out perfectly for them. We crash out, become an international tax haven for the wealthy and sell our arse to the Yanks. In that case my accusation of bumbling is inaccurate, they are clearly doing a great job from their perspective.

What grabbed my eye today though and what led to this piece was that they announced there would be fines for parents whose children didn’t return to school in September when they reopen. This is a remarkably aggressive approach to something which should be handled with far more care and which exposes the underlying approach to governance they feel to be right. If you’re unable to persuade people with your argument then bully them into doing it. Telling parents they will be fined for acting potentially against their own health interests is nothing less than bullying and will have disproportionate ramifications for financially poorer sections of society. Headteachers have called them out on it as have elements of the media. This is one more step on their road to handling the return to school issue so terribly. Was it the first of June, or maybe earlier, that schools were supposed to return and teachers unions who were demonised by some, forced the government into a rethink. It’s not impossible to see another Marcus Rashford style u-turn even though governments hate to be seen doing so.

A government which seems incapable of persuading people their arguments are right will eventually have to try a new approach, aggression in the form of fines being the form this time. Whatever happened to us working together. They are merely slipping deeper into their bunker and adopting an ever more aggressive siege mentality. Whether you agree with them ideologically, it is without doubt not a way to run government and while it may help short term survival, if it carries on like this it won’t be another four years until the next election. The problem is by then they can and most likely will have done enough damage that it’ll take decades to reverse it. This is a long war. Perhaps even an indefinite one.

Marcus The Man

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Footballers have a reasonably well known reputation for being a bit thick. This is probably a little unfair and is as much down to being constantly under a media fuelled microscope. At any opportunity they’re straight on the front page; from Gazza being a drunkard, Rooney sleeping with prostitutes who happen to be grandmas, Raheem Sterling getting a misunderstood tattoo, Cantona fighting xenophobic racists and David Beckham’s new haircut. There are an infinite number of examples but these are the ones which spring to mind immediately and which also probably show my age. If you take any spectrum of society and put it in the spotlight for long enough you’ll get exciting stories you can smuggly judge them over while feeling morally superior. It just so appears though that one of them has gone and reversed the trend.

Marcus Rashford, the Manchester United and England striker, has used his fame to pressure the government into fulfilling their end of the social contract and feeding the 1.3 million children on free school meal vouchers. Ordinarily they would stop as term time ended but with the unprecedented events relating to the coronavirus this year there have been calls for the scheme to extend throughout the six weeks of summer holiday too, as will be happening in Scotland and Wales. The government initially rejected his call, with some MPs putting their rather callous foot in it, but with widespread coverage of his request over the last twenty four hours they’ve been forced to back down and make a u-turn. There’s nothing politicians like less than admitting they were wrong and being forced to change their mind.

They claimed they had already put aside £63 million to help poor families and that this would be sufficient. Providing free school meals over the summer will cost another £120 million, at £15 per week per child, which dwarfs the previously allotted money. Now either they’ve drastically underestimated the number of children living in poverty or the £63 million was insufficient and nothing more than a token gesture for appearances sake. Why they were willing to take on a hero in the eyes of many on this is anyone’s guess, but they did and they lost. This isn’t the first time a footballer has used his position to try and achieve something positive but it is the first time I can think of that the end result has been so positive and will help so many people. I can imagine there’ll be a few more kids wanting to play as Rashford in the park from now on.

When There Is No Choice

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It seems like everything is coming one after another at the moment. We’ve been obsessing about virus’ and pandemics for the last few months and now America is burning. I’m sure there was another crisis facing our health, happiness and prosperity before coronavirus came along too and not just another Tory election victory. Although that may just be a physical representation of the British peoples misdirected anger. I see the riots in America as quite a good thing although I am not entirely sure how I feel about the approach. I remember a few years ago getting involved in a little ‘comments’ argument with someone on a friends social media post about achieving things through violence. I took the stand that people always have the choice, they can choose to be peaceful and they can choose to be violent, violence just leads to further violence as well as giving the mainstream media the chance to take away any moral high ground you may have. I was told I was viewing this from a very privileged position and that if my own existence was constantly under attack and my life was in danger then it’s unlikely I would still have the same opinion or see it as a choice. I think that was the crux of the argument at least but it was a few years ago and memories change events.

I had no argument when I was challenged with that and really I still don’t. I still stand by people having a choice but I am painfully aware I come at it from an incredibly privileged position. I also imagine that constantly being attacked violently leads you to not really see non-violence as an option, it just becomes about defence. If we’re attacked we can defend ourselves. Ultimately I have no idea what is going on in black communities in Britain let alone in America, I don’t live with the daily institutional attacks upon my own self-determination and life. How can I possibly cast judgment on people for either being violent or not being violent. Like I said though I think it’s a good thing to see the state get a little back. It’s good to see them burn. Whether it’ll change anything is anyone guess but it’s interesting so many people around the world are uniting over this, even footballers are getting in on the act and they’re dangerously neutral to anything. I would be curious to see their responses had the police officer not been charged with murder though, had it been the same outcome but also the same old cover-up. I’m an ex-naive idealist who now sees the world through skeptical and slightly deflated eyes, but it’s always nice to get a little hope that something may come from all of this. I imagine at the very least a little less racism in the police force. What a sentence to still need to write in the twenty-first century.

The Fall Of The Puppet Master

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If it feels like the word hypocrisy should originate with a character from Greek antiquity, I wonder what word will be born out of Dominic Cummings and used freely two thousand years from now. Traveling two hundred and sixty miles from London to Durham while the country was in Lockdown. Traveling during Lockdown when suspected of having the actual virus. Ignoring the guidelines he himself helped draw up. Shining a light on people not following the very rules they are so content for fining others for. A fine for sitting alone in the park while not displaying any symptoms, but according to Tory HQ his actions were ‘in line’ with the guidelines. Apparently his trip was ‘essential’ as he needed to be nearer family for the purposes of childcare were he to get ill. The dates given for the trip and statements from the Tory party at the time suggest he already had it when he traveled. Official guidelines state that if you display any symptoms you should self-isolate for seven days and not even leave the house for essential supplies. Well he left the house alright. According to the official party statement too he was at no point spoken to by police as is being reported. It’s just unfortunate that the reports are from official statements made by the Durham police Commissioner.

The party spin machine will be going into full overdrive with this. Under no circumstances can Dominic Cummings be forced to quit. This isn’t just some dispensible advisor, this is the man seen by many to be pulling the strings. Let’s be honest right now and agree Boris Johnson is no leader, he is running diddly squat. For Cummings to quit would bring down this government ultimately. Not immediately in the next month but very possibly by the end of the year. He is that important. That is why the likelihood of him falling on his sword is so slim. That is in comparison the former Scottish Chief Medical Officer Catherine Calderwood who fell on hers after twice visiting her family home in Fife just over the Firth of Forth from Edinburgh. That is also in comparison to leading scientist and government advisor Professor Neil Ferguson who also fell on his after a woman he was having an affair with came around to his house for a visit. There is clearly precedent. Precedent the Tory Party gleefully called for when it suited them but one they seem determined to ignore this time around. If there’s anything we’ve seen so far from this lot is their usual tactic is to try and ride anything and everything out. I suspect this may be the same, the consequences being just too large. It’ll at least be nice to watch them squirm for a bit. and if anything it will make a great Greek tragedy a few years down the line.