NEXT LEFT PART FOUR. A response to the AV debate.

A nice piece but! You are making the assumption that by using AV we will get what we want as opposed to what the money men want. Labour was voted in on FPTP on a landslide and yet we still had Tories running the country. Check the last thirteen years on New Labour and what you see is a far right, (Thatcherite) government that reneged on it’s promises and gave us more ‘Free Market Economics’ than would have ever been tolerated under a  known Tory administration. It’s the political parties we need to change. It’s political choice that we need. AV within the present ‘neo-con’ structure will only mean choosing Tweedle Dee, Dum, Dumber and even more stupid than that. But the outcome will still give us ‘Neo-Cons only with more colours to the puke than the now red, blue and yellow vomit we have at present. As a Point. Under New Labour we had tuition fees, part-privatisation of Post Office, (Check who controls Post Office accounts) yes you got it the nice little American bank our Tony now advises for a million pounds a year. Part privatisation of schools and hospitals. No convinced? PFI means that we are now indebted to private enterprise for all of the new builds in both services. They have control over the land and the amount of rents they wish to charge. What a brilliant idea that was; give away public land in exchange for them building properties that they can then charge us rent on, with the ultimate tied lease agreement that even an idiot wouldn’t sign up for. So how does AV stop the continuous march of the right? It doesn’t. It’s a distraction from the real issue with politics. May be you should use your obvious intelligence to write a piece on how we take back the Labour Party and make it a representative of the people and not a nodding dog to the megalomaniacs and plutocrats of this world.

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May 3, 2011

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This is actually a live auction on ebay! Don’t believe me, here’s the link

http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/2001-FORD-FOCUS-GHIA-1-8-Zetec-Very-Clean-Interior-/220768216260?pt=Automobiles_UK&hash=item3366cfa4c4

Have a read of the description and tell me if you would seriously buy a car from this guy!

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Item: 220768216260

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2001 FORD FOCUS GHIA 1.8 Zetec Very Clean Interior Member ID pistolfeet ( Feedback score of 152 ) Item condition: Used Time left: 1 day 6 hours (16 Apr, 2011 17:01:54 BST) Bid history: 4 bids [ Refresh bidhistory ] Current bid: £860.00 Start of layer A reserve price is the minimum price the seller will accept. This price is hidden from bidders. To win, a bidder must have the highest bid and have met or exceeded the reserve price. End of layer

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Item location: Middlesbrough, Cleveland , United Kingdom

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Item specifics – Cars & Other Vehicles
Manufacturer: Ford Colour: Green Model: Focus Engine Size: 1,796 cc Type: Standard Car Power: – Mileage: – Seats: – Doors: 5 MOT Expiry: – Model Year: 2001 Drive Side: – Reg. Date: 30 Jul 2001 Road Tax: – Reg. Mark: Y*** *** Get the Vehicle Status Report Exterior: Alloy Wheels, Catalytic Converter Previous Owners: 1 V5 Document: – Transmission: Manual Manufacturer’s Warranty: – Fuel: Petrol In-Car Audio: AM/FM Stereo, CD Player Service History: – Interior/Comfort Options: Air Conditioning, Power Windows, Tilt Steering Wheel Safety Features: Alarm, Anti-Lock Brakes (ABS), Electronic Stability Program (ESP), Immobiliser, Passenger Airbag, Rear seat belts, Side Airbags

Seller’s description

Ford Focus 1.8 Zetec Ghia Mint Green (Possibly works underwater but this is unconfirmed)

If Trebor made car paint then I imagine it would look something like the colour of this car, it’s a pale minty green. I will include some green Trebor mints in the sale so that you can compare for yourself. Please specify if you would prefer Extra Strong mints instead, they are white (unlike the colour of this car) but I personally prefer them even if I do hold them partially responsible for the decay in one of my teeth.

I took this car in part exchange along with some cash for another car I was selling. I didn’t really want it but I wanted the car I had less and since I am a valeter by trade I saw potential in this.

The engine is sound as can be, the gearbox is a dream, it steers like it’s on rails and all of the features and electricals work as designed. It’s the Ghia model (what does ghia even mean?) so has a bunch of extras such as heated front windscreen, air con, electrically adjustable front seats and an upgraded dash.

Inside its quite lovely, dark and mysterious but shiny and clean. I would feel quite happy to host a business conference inside it. Refreshments could be served through one of the electrically operated windows. Drinks could be placed in 1 of the 2 available cup holders. If your business meeting was for more than 2 people then some of the participants may have to hold their drinks, they might whinge a bit because of this but just remind them that in some parts of the world they haven’t even invented drinks yet.

Nothing nasty to report about the inside of the car, no rips or scuffs, its very tidy actually. I have been driving this minty little number around for a few days now and I was surprised how nice it is to drive and have opted to drive this rather than my Mondeo. OMG I am such a liar, I just remembered that the passenger side door handle is a bit scruffy, that’s all though.

It’s a Ford Focus from 2001 which is exactly 1 year after 2000 when the world didn’t end and VCRs continued to work. I didn’t do much that New Years eve, not because I was afraid an airplane would fall out of the sky and land on me, I just fancied a quiet night in with my girlfriend of that time, I say girl’friend, she was nearly 40 but a proper sporty little thing, bit ugly but perky where it counted. I myself am no beauty box so us both being a bit ugly I never had and insecurities that she would run off with my best friend lol. But she did about a year later! He left his wife, went a bit mad, got sectioned then released, turned out to be an alcoholic and now has pancreatitis, all is well that ends well.

The alloys on this MINT GREEN (it’s not blue or black or red or any other colour, deal with the fact that its mint green to avoid disappointment. If you thought maybe it was silver but the sunshine in the photos made it look a bit green you were wrong) are in genuinely good condition. I gave them a quick tickle with an alloy cleaning brush but they need a better clean than that but since I am quite busy trying to get in to the girl next doors knickers I can’t be bothered. The plastics are all nice and black, the tyres are all insanely named cheap brands but have good tread on them. I valeted the car so it’s looking good and smells divine – you might want to lick it but I recommend against this since some of the cleaning products I use are bad for tongues.

The windows are unbroken glass, have no chips and critically are transparent unlike bricks which are not often used as a window making material, they are tinted at the back so if you take that lass from the chippy up the hills you can do what you like in the back and won’t be seen. Unless someone looks through the windscreen and then the games up and the pillar box is down.

It’s done 107K miles which is much further than I can run and I wouldn’t even attempt to run that far not even for comic relief or children in need unless there was a cash incentive then I would consider it and work out some way to cheat. It would be an elaborate cheat including most likely a helicopter and several disguises, somewhere I have a dress up banana suit which I have only used once so I would probably try to get some more use out of it since I think it cost me about £60 a few years back.

The exterior of the car is generally in pretty good condition, there is some surface rust under the rear wheel arches (not that bad) and its had a small ding on the rear which has been tarted up a bit and doesn’t look that bad. There are a couple of places (arches, rear bumper) that have been resprayed in places probably due to surface rust in the past. I say resprayed, it actually looks like it’s been done by a drunken blind clown at night hanging upside down from a moving giraffe. Honestly, Ghandi could have done a better job slapping paint on with his flip flops. Estimated cost to have this resprayed by someone that isn’t mentally incapacitated is about £150-200 but who knows, maybe you aren’t the picky type and just want a motor that runs well, is comfy and proper posh on the inside.

It’s got MOT and Tax until July and I really can’t see any reason why it won’t fly through its next MOT (apart from the fact that cars don’t fly, be cool if they did)

Aside from the couple of dodgy resprayed bits this is a very decent car that runs beautifully but is green.

Any inspection, test drive, pretend flight is more than welcome. If you don’t want to drive it you can just sit in the driver’s seat and I can make engines noises but there will be an additional fee for this. I can also make airplane noises my Airbus A380 is very impressive, helicopters are harder but I can try if that is your thing.

You can see from the pictures that overall this is a bang tidy motor and you have my word it drives well. If this doesn’t sell I really couldn’t care less, I will keep driving it around not pulling birds. I don’t need to sell it but if you want it you can buy it.

Don’t forget its fathers day soon! What do you buy the dad who has everything? Well if he has a crazy a$$ large desk you could buy him a full scale replica ford focus 1.8 zetec ghia paperweight. If you know someone like Doc Brown for the back to the future trilogy maybe they could make you a remote control lie the one he had for the DeLorean DMC-12 which would be way awesome!

Update, Tuesday 12th April: < I like this colour I just pretended to get off with myself in the back seats, I had someone confirm that they could see me. This unfortunately means the windows are only lightly tinted and it isn’t privacy glass. Also worth mentioning that this car runs on petrol which can be bought at ‘petrol stations’, if you are unfamiliar with these then ask someone for directions to a place that sells over priced cold sausage rolls. 

I can confirm that the petrol low light works, it just came on.

Also I just took delivery of a docking station for my laptop, the box it came in is surplus to requirements as I have plenty of other empty boxes. I will include this box in the sale at no extra cost. Finally for today, I think a pound coin fell out of my Bermuda shorts and has lodged itself somewhere under the drivers seat, if I don’t find it before the car sells you can have this too. Dont be disappointed if its only 50p though, it sounded like a pound but could have been a 50.

On 12-Apr-11 at 12:09:28 BST, seller added the following information:

Last night I bought a multi-pack of ready made bovril drinks, just sipping at one now. I want to share the warmth so will leave one of my bovril drinks in one of the 2 cup holders for the winning bidder. You can choose which holder, left or right, but you must supply your own hot water.

On 12-Apr-11 at 13:24:01 BST, seller added the following information:

Sorry, the free cardboard box is no longer available. I used it to make a Flux Capacitor. I have now installed this in the Mint Green Ford Focus. It is untested and not covered in anyway by Ford warranty. When I go to buy a sausage roll later I will put some more petrol in and then zip her up to 88mph. If successful I will go back in time to catch the moron that touched up the arches and paint him mint green then ask him how he likes it! I will also go to McDonalds in the early 90′s when they still served root beer and stock up. I miss their root beer.

On 12-Apr-11 at 14:10:26 BST, seller added the following information:

The reserve is Ssssssshhh! £800 or if you prefer to look at it another way, thats 800 items from a pound shop.

On 12-Apr-11 at 23:16:56 BST, seller added the following information:

Bad news, my attempts at time travel have been brought to an ugly full stop. I just remembered that the speed limit in th UK is 70mph so I cant reach 88mph. Probably just as well, have you seen Bill and Teds Excellent Adventure? Napoleon was a bit of a handful and I dont have the time to baby sit him. Good news though, my pal was let off with a caution after his dog attempted to hump an old lady that collapsed recently. He was trying to get her in the recovery position and Floyd (the dog) thought it was a game. Someone didnt see the funny side and reported the incident to the police.

Did I mention this car has a leather steering wheel? Probably not suitable for vegetarians – not sure? I dont speak vegetarian so cant ask one.

On 13-Apr-11 at 08:27:55 BST, seller added the following information:

It is with great sadness that this morning I must inform you that the mint green ford focus has been poo’d on by a bird. I have had a quick look around the neighbourhood and there was 2-3 birds that looked a bit guilty, I have issued them with verbal warnings but on this occasion I am not prepared to perform DNA testing. 

I will remove the offending poo splash with my high power jet wash, I know its high power because I once shot my friend in his marble collection and I swear he had tears in his eyes. I once hid 2 sachets of brown sauce in his wallet and then forgot about it for at least 2 months until he called me from work saying words that would kill a nun instantly. The sachets had finally burst making it look like he had gone to the toilet in his pants, he wasn’t allowed to go home and change so spent the whole day soiled. 

Speaking of contortion-ism, I confirm I can not wrap my leg around the entire circumference of the time machine ford focus, I hope this does not affect the final auction price. 

Questions and answers about this item
Q:  Hi, I love the idea of a minty green car. What I really need to know is is it a peppermint green, spearmint green or more of an applemint green? p.s I want your babies A:  You seem very hung up on the colour green, to avoid disappointment I should tell you now I can only make pinkish colour babies. 15 Apr, 2011 Q:  i think i love you A:  I wish you could make up your mind, uncertainty makes me nervous. 15 Apr, 2011 Q:  Has anyone told you that you are first-rate writer? Get all this lot to a publishers NOW – you won’t need to sell second-hand cars, you will make a fortune (tell Stephen Fry to budge over as you are on your way to the top) As a granny, I particularly loved the bit about the dog, the humping, and the prostrate old lady….made me snort coffee out of my nose! A:  If you were my granny I would make things for you to stick on your fridge, I would make them out of recycled materials because I know mature people are concerned about the world exploding, which is ironic since they are less likely to be around when it happens. P.S I bet you can still shake it on the dance floor. 15 Apr, 2011 Q:  i want to buy the car, just to meet you! re read a million times and showed everyone on facebook hahaha A:  I really wish there was a million reread certificate. 15 Apr, 2011 Q:  I think I might be in love with you. Is this going to be a problem? A:  Only if you like to fondle gerbils 15 Apr, 2011

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April 21, 2011

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Next Left Part 3.

Employment Status

After thirteen years of New Labour we are now in the  most awful of employment situations. Blair and Brown continued to promote the Tory dogma of a ‘flexible workforce’ which may have had some merit if it worked in tandem with a flexible corporate objective. The latter did not happen. Instead we are left with an inflexible corporate regime that returns nothing in compensation for the rights its employees have lost.

Agency workers are of epidemic proportions, especially within civil society. Schools, hospitals, councils and HM Revenue and Customs are awash with ‘temporary’ labour. I highlight the ‘temorary’ because many of these posts have had agency labour in place for five years and more; the same person in the same position. How this makes economic sense I am at a loss to discover. I understand the reasoning, that’s too clear and too cynical not to see from the moon. No permanent post equals: No pensions, no employment rights and minimum wage holiday pay. As for sick leave, that’s a sick joke, with most agency staff having to go back to the benefit system. Meaning that the tax payer pay all over again.

On average, agency staff are on lower incomes than their directly employed colleagues, but that doesn’t mean the employer, (you the tax payer)  are getting a bargain. The opposite is the truth. Agencies are pariahs, robbing the employee and the employer. Usually doubling up their fee in relation to the wage paid to the employee. (If the agency worker gets £6 the Agency charges £12) How that makes economic sense to the employer is beyond me. In truth, I know it doesn’t and the reasons for it are self evident.  Keep the workers scrabbling around in the mud.

I don’t know how many of you have visited the cheap eateries that have popped up all over the country, but I bet you’re unaware of the working conditions and working practices of such places. These companies take the term ‘flexible’ to another level all together. The majority of the staff will be on minimum wage and supposedly full time hours. The reality is stark by comparison. An individual may be told they are on a ten hour shift, not an uncommon one at that, only to find that the ‘custom isn’t coming through the door’ and are sent home within four hours, without any pay. That may seem a reasonable response to some of you. The argument being that there is no work so the employer can’t afford to pay for people to sit around. Quid Pro Quo. When the place is heaving and the worker doesn’t even have time for a break, the employer, who is raking in the loot, doesn’t turn around and say: “business was good today and I know you didn’t stop, but don’t worry, even though we contravened all employment legislation by working you straight through for 12 hours, (again not uncommon), There will be a nice bonus in your wage slip.

There lies the problem. In the above example, one I know from experience, there is no flexibility in the employer, that onus falls on the underpaid employee. Remember I’m not talking about the local curry house here; institutions with dubious employment records, but large and supper large corporations. New Labour was a party to this practice.  The irony is, in the long term society as a whole suffers because of this type of ‘flexible’ working practices. If people can’t earn a consistent wage, a regular wage and can’t invest into a pension, we the tax payer foot the bill. If someone is contracted to work 40 hours then they should work them. It is not their responsibility to compensate for the marketing failings of the company they work for. In the long-term, if companies can punish its workers for its own failings then the company, over time will lose out. Being competitive in a ‘competitive market’ is about targeting your customers and increasing revenue accordingly, not by reducing the wages of your potential customers, because if you’re doing it the company down the road is also doing it, and contrary to popular belief, it’s the workers that shop at your eateries, factories, shops and not the super rich.

Still not convinced? Simple acid test. Since 1979 we have had laissez faire economics, with a flexible approach to employment and employment law. Don’t believe our Ken’s rants about red tape and Health and Safety stifling business. The majority of red tape and Health and Safety were implemented by companies to protect themselves against lawsuits by placing responsibility, ( the onus) on the employee. The majority of Health and Safety practices within organisations have no basis in legislation and more to do with companies falling over each other to protect their own backs by deferring culpability onto the donkey at the bottom who risks his life for a daily wage. So if this flexible working shite worked why have we dropped down the league of economic activity?

Germany, which has a more restrictive working practice ideology than ourselves has strengthened its position, whilst we have dropped down the places to 6th on GDP and 12th on economic activity. Where’s the logic in flexiblity? Which in real terms means slavery. If economically it’s detrimental. Greed causes need. And New Labour were and are one of the most greedy group of individuals to have ever entered power; and that takes some going. There has to be a Next-Left, but this can’t be through ‘Think Tanks like the Fabian Society, who nurtured and educated the New Labour pilgrims. We were sold a lemon and until left thinkers remove any hope of converting New Labour to Old Labour, the Right will win again and again.

Gordon Brown, Monetarism and Capitalism, The Fabian Society

1930's depression, Authority, blair, Budget, Cuts, Depression, economic recovery, history, Maynard Keynes, Millbank, Milton Friedman, Monetarism, Next Left, roosevelt, Tax avoidance, The Fabian Society, Tony Blair, upper crust

April 11, 2011

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Violence!? March 26 Rally.

 

UKUncut; Black Bloc; TUC and March 26 Protesters.

 

 

Violence: The quality of being violent. Violent: using or tending to use aggressive physical force. Involving physical force. Vehement, passionate, extreme. Vivid, intense.

 

All the media hype seems to revolve around the splinter groups of anarchist and UK Uncut members. The fact that there was anything over 500,000 other demonstrators seems of little importance to the media and government ministers. Vince Cable, interviewed on the Politics Show, gave one of the greatest displays of dictatorial governance seen since the times of Tony Blair. I quote: “The fact that people are demonstrating against government policy will not alter it in the slightest.” How queer that people demonstrating in Libya not only have our government’s but the entire membership of NATO’s support. He seems to believe in the right of foreign citizens to oust their government but doesn’t like the idea of unarmed democrats telling his government that they don’t agree with and don’t believe their policies to be fair, reasonable, or economically viable.

We must bear in mind that no member of the electorate voted for the policies now being forced upon them. At no time within the election campaign were: Tuition fees mooted with regards to an increase. (On the contrary. His own party garnered votes on the complete opposite. As their manifesto stated: No to tuition fees) Swathes of cuts to the Public Sector jobs, the re-design and ultimate privatisation of the NHS and the sell off of the Post Office and the rape of its pension scheme.

 

Now we come to the violence. Running battles between 10,000 heavily armed and armoured police officers and a few hundred casually dressed running marauders. There is no debate needed with regards to the vandalism of property, whether that constitutes genuine violence in the way we envisage it is a matter for one’s own cognitive processing. But even if we are to agree that they were violent it seems to me to be a brave tactic against such well organised and heavily equipped police force. To quote from War of the Worlds: ‘Bows and arrows against the lightning.’ UK Uncut were the individuals responsible for occupying Fortnum and Mason and not as was reported by the BBC and other media outlets, Black Bloc. This is where I get to the other sides violence. UK Uncut undertook their usual tactic of demonstration by reading poetry, playing guitars and having a picnic. A demonstration that stayed peaceful throughout the occupation. The police, ultimately exposing the naivety of UK Uncut members, promised them that there would be no interrogation if they left peaceably, which they did. On the outside the police fell back into type and kettled, then arrested everyone on nonsense public order offences.

 

Black Bloc, showing more cynicism than their anti-tax-avoidance counterparts, kept a dodge and weave tactic going for the best part of the day and night.

 

So what if there was violence, although as I mentioned above, fighting helmeted, shield carrying, baton wielding police, is going to cause a lot more violence to oneself than to them.

 

This violence is incomparable with the violence being meted out on the British public. We are living under the sword of Damocles, those lucky enough to have a job, waiting for it to fall and impale us leaving our world shattered and our stomachs empty. This is where the real violence is coming from. A populace, from doctor to street cleaner all destined for the same limbo existence. Communities are and will continue to be decimated by the measures undertaken by this unelected government. (Yes it is unelected) These policies were not voted for, they did not stand on these policies and therefore, we the electorate, were duped into unelecting New Labour; a worthy cause I must emphasise, to be delivered into the furthest right-wing government in western Europe since the Nazi Party.

 

How do we know that they are that Right-Wing? Because they are intent to privatise or remove as many parts of civil society as they can in the shortest amount of time possible. By this time next year, the NHS will be under EU Competition Law and there will be no turning back the clock. They will be removing hard fought employment rights including, Health and Safety, right to tribunal and the right to compensation. If these aren’t violent acts then I am at a loss to know what is.

 

Child poverty, lack of opportunity, one of the least mobile societies in Western Europe, high unemployment, welfare cuts, housing cuts, elderly care cuts are just a small sample of a very long list. This is the real violence and as usual our representatives, those that are supposed to protect the public, line up in their hi-vis’s and helmets, batons, CS gas and shields at the ready to do their unconstitutional best and attack the innocent while the fascists, boots polished at the ready trample over a society that was ours. Now it will become a wasteland of missed opportunity and the playground for the rich and perverted.

THAT’S THE REAL VIOLENCE.

 

Human Disease?, Monetarism and Capitalism, The Human Disease?

#UKUncut, 26 march demonstartion, BBC, Black Bloc, blair, Cuts, Fortnum & Mason, Fortnum and Mason, history, Media, Milton Friedman, Monetarism, Next Left, Osborne, Poverty, Recession, Sit-in, Tax avoidance, Tony Blair, UK Uncut, upper crust, Vince Cable, Violence, ~BlackBloc

March 28, 2011

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Next Left Part Two.

Next Left? (Part Two)

 

 

It isn’t difficult to find the contradictions and down-right hypocrisy that is and was New Labour – so called Socialists lining their own and pals pockets. What this party showed was its lack of respect for the electorate and the electoral process. If one takes a step back towards the inception of postal ballots, we can see how gerrymandering and gross electoral fraud was pushed to the sidelines. It may be argued that there were racial issues which made it a subject too hot to handle, yet this can not be a valid perspective. New Labour, along with the Lib-dems, made good electoral advantage from, what is without a doubt, improper and illegal electoral jiggery-pokery. The press had a sniff of it and felt that the racial aspect or the political disadvantage made it a story that was worthy of dumping. We know that Birmingham, Blackburn and certain boroughs of London were exposed to this fraud. What we aren’t privy to, is exactly how far this fraud went and who knew the truth.

 

I once heard a quote from a member of the secret services when quizzed about the chances of ‘rigging’ an election. To paraphrase: the interviewer made a statement to the effect that it was an impossible task. The agent’s response was to infer that his perspective wasn’t true. This made me think. If it were possible to ‘rig’ an election how would this be done? The first answer was very simple: Voting is a private matter. The election officer is unaware as to who has voted for whom or for what. This allows the interception of ballot boxes and replacing them with ‘rigged’ ballot papers. Implausible maybe, impossible surely not. As a ‘democracy’, a term I use warily, less than 50% of eligible voters actually bother. As those of you who have voted know, one does not need a polling card to vote. It is merely a matter of giving one’s name and address to the returning officer and he/she will tick you off the list and allocate you a ballot paper. What this shows is, regardless to how private your vote may be, the fact that you vote is public knowledge, or at least the state knows that you vote. So the state know you vote what difference does that make? The difference lies in who it knows doesn’t vote. If someone hasn’t voted and doesn’t vote, as a rule, the chances are that they aren’t ever going to vote. To send a confederate into numerous polling stations within a given constituency and vote for non-voters isn’t such a flight of fancy I fear.

 

If we take the last election and the unprecedented turnout, moreover the unprecedented refusal of votes, there may be some basis of truth in my hypothesis. There were stories, not greatly reported, where individuals who turned up to vote were refused. Other weren’t able to make it into polling stations at all. Surely, a ‘democracy’ as we are reported to be, could handle 100% turnout? If it isn’t designed that way, which the last elections shows it wasn’t. Why isn’t it? When I was a child my father always said: ‘if it rained on election day, the Tories would be elected.’ I have not researched the data but what he was implying was that Labour voters were less likely to to venture out to the polling station if the weather was wretched. Where as Tory voters, individuals who perceived themselves to be Middle-Class, whether they were or not, would vote come rain or shine. In general, as in the 70′s when my father first mooted this theory, Tory voters were more likely than Labour voters to have transport. My point is this. Whether the hypothesis is correct or not, it does show that there will be patterns regarding voter behaviours and these can be interpreted as well as acted upon. This last election, I feel, demonstrates some form of Gerrymandering. To end up with the percentage of Lib-Dems to Conservatives that eventually gave us this horrendous form of government.

 

There was going to be a backlash against New Labour, that was as inevitable as the Liberal-Democrats showing their true blue colours. New Labour needed a bashing, sadly the bashing wasn’t sufficient to change its direction. Yet, if one had vested interests in how Britain was governed and one wanted to make sure that the policies needed to support those interests would be best suited with a Hobson’s Choice of governance then to ‘rig’ the votes would make sense. The election appears to show that the electorate had no great interest in a Tory Government, nor did it see the Lib-Dems as a genuine alternative. Whether other parties, in the last election, were sidelined we will never know for sure. But, what I feel we can say with certainty is, that we did not vote for what we have now and probably had less to do with the outcome than we previously thought.

 

It may be argued that I am making leaps of fancy to connect up disparate perspectives, but bear with me. The point I’m trying to deliver here is that a real Left alternative can not come to the political fore within this structure. The option of Alternative Vote cannot give the kind of fundamental government that is needed to change our political and economic deep-think. What is needed is an act of parliament that makes it a prerequisite of citizenship that everyone has to vote. If my above hypothesis is correct, this move would reduce the probability of an election being ‘rigged’. It doesn’t negate the threat entirely but it does remove a very simple and effective way of stealing votes. It also affords representation from a larger field of political alternatives.

 

Whether our elections are being ‘rigged’ or not may seem to be an academic point with regards to a genuine Left alternative – my argument is: that without understanding our electoral system and the ways it can be manipulated we can never truly have the government we need and deserve. To a degree, until we can see a more open and accountable election process, whether we can find a Left alternative or not becomes a mute point. Without real open and fair elections the status quo remains the same. There are parties out there that give us a socialist opportunity, yet they appear to be making limited gains on the three major parties. This may be due more to my above hypothesis than we are comfortable to accept, but from casual conversations with individuals that voted in last years elections there seems to be an imbalance with what they reported to have voted and the result.

 

Gordon Brown, Human Disease?, Humour and History, Monetarism and Capitalism, The Human Disease?

1930's depression, Authority, blair, Depression, history, Maynard Keynes, Millbank, Milton Friedman, Next Left, Osborne, Poverty, Recession, Tax avoidance, upper crust

March 13, 2011

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Where is the next left? Part 1

What seems apparent to anyone with half a brain, and those of us who have barely the faculty to cogitate, is that whatever constituted ‘Left’ values and reasoning has been replaced by spin and Right-Wing ideology. The New Labour hijack of the Labour Party took any true representation of working peoples values and politics. Instead, the majority, we the electorate, were left with an unrepresentative and undemocratic Parliament.  Government by finance was the new order of business. It can be argued, quite validly, that the ‘great bastion of democracy’ was always open to a bit of financial coercion.  I am not going to debate what is an evident fact. The difference now from then, is the degree that those with money have been allowed access  the UK’s populous. We saw the rise in non-elected Ministers: Lord Adonis and Mandelson for instance.  (Men of Money or men connected to men with money). For Mandelson see:  http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/newstopics/mandrake/3141550/Peter-Mandelson-and-George-Osborne-the-Russian-link.html a point I will return to.

With the increase in data storage and transference, for the first time in history, government had information on almost every aspect of its population.  The constant of civil liberty  and privacy had been destroyed and replaced with a woolly alternative of civil privacy in the form of the Data Protection Act  http://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/1998/29/contents.  What at first seemed a positive, libertarian piece of legislation, was soon to show its true intent. Any of those amongst you that have fallen foul of this act will realise that it protects no one’s privacy and is usually used to inhibit or prohibit an individual’s access to their own life and how it is being portrayed by corporate interests.  To be fair to New Labour, the act was a Tory design that they watered down to suit their own corporate pals. The first irony of New Labour was how they damped down the true intent of the act,  by reducing many of the protections for civil life that the Right-Wing Tories had installed into the original draft.  This should have triggered alarm bells throughout British society, but we were all too pleased to see the end of the ‘Corrupt’ Tories. Little did we know what was to come.

David Blunkett as Education Secretary allowed for the introduction of tuition fees within months of New Labour coming to office. Although it has been argued that New Labour hadn’t promised to remove the threat of tuition fees, what was evident was, that they weren’t that eager to mention that they were keen to introduce them either. The British public were, without a shadow of a doubt, duped and deceived.  In typical Right-Wing fashion, New labour adopted the punitive aspects of the Dearing Report and avoided the more liberal ideals. Where Dearing had suggested keeping grants, Blunkett ignored this part of the report and went straight for the ‘pain’ being transferred onto the student.   http://www.guardian.co.uk/education/2004/jan/27/tuitionfees.students

This was typical New Labour behaviour. When it came to choices to be made it always erred on the side of punitive damages onto the populace. Whether the great ideal of increasing access to higher education was valid or not. What was for certain was that Labour was going to follow the American model as closely as the British Public would allow it to.

At the same time as the New Labour Government were punishing the populous in general, with tuition fees, it was also very happy to reduce the tax burden on the wealthiest of society.  Reducing Corporation Tax to 31% from the Tories previous 33%. A strange quirk of ideology rises from this attempt, as Labour believed, to increase entrepreneurial endeavour. What actually happened was:  tax payments actually decreased in real terms. Individuals, using tax loopholes, jumped between self-employed and incorporation depending on which declaration afforded greater tax avoidance.  Larger companies chose to avoid British taxes by registering themselves abroad. Therefore, although Labour believed in the American dream of a low tax society, regardless as to how low they put tax rates avoidance increased.  http://www.ifs.org.uk/budgets/gb2008/08chap11.pdf What is also significant is the rise in ‘incorporations’ where employee levels were low or non-existent.

This seemed to be a factor that New labour were unaware of or unwilling to see.  Onward went the march of the Jack Boots over every aspect of British society. I could wax  lyrical about the tyranny that has oppressed genuine political thought but we all know that it’s true. Instead I want to see if there’s a way of bringing the majority into a real understanding of what it means to be a Lefty.

The labour party stole the ‘left’ almost at the point of their inception, although within the movement there were individuals with genuine socialist ideals. Sadly politics being the beast that it is those more interested in self-advancement soon weaselled their way into the party and stymied genuine socialist progress. A telling example of this was the National Health Service (NHS).  Although the super-structure (Hospitals and bureaucracy) were taken over by the state General Practitioners  (GPs) were left to be self-employed. This has, historically, caused conflict within the service.  Bevan, either through a lack of resolve or through ideological prejudice, was the beginning and continued direction of low funding within the NHS.  ’We shall never have all we need,’ he said. ‘Expectations will always exceed capacity.’ He reported to the the Royal College of Nursing. http://www.nhshistory.net/shorthistory.htm Whether this is a truism or not we will never know for sure. What is certain is that this set in stone the political will for the NHS.  Therefore, free at the point of use health care was always seen as a service that would never be sufficiently funded, which may also have led to a professional and political belief in a failing system.

Instead of a will to push onwards and forwards for better ‘societal’ health, the NHS became a ‘just-in-time’ provision. This led to under funding in health education and a disjointed approach to health care in general. If funding had been sufficient from the onset and the political thought could have been more focused, the increases in expenditure and the raised expectations of the populous with regards to health behaviour may well have been different. The fact that research was, predominantly, undertaken within the public sphere, yet pharmaceuticals were kept with the private sphere, could not have benefited the NHS in any form. What should have been pushed was not.  That is, to have connected the NHS up to it’s research facilities and then to have further developed the infra-structure for drug development and production. This was never seen as an option by Bevan initially and any respective Labour government.  A sure sign, I fear, of Labour’s lack of true socialist commitment.

I WILL CONTINUE TOMORROW>>

 

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January 13, 2011

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MPs and Their Expenses!

MPs and Their Expenses!.

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January 6, 2011

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Next Left (The Fabian Society)

Next Left: Neologism – Which means: embarrassed to admit I like the gains of capitalism although I should be ashamed at the cost to others?  Next Left is a front name for the Fabian Society, a Think Tank, (yes where people sit and think about how best to fuck up the rest of our lives) They see themselves as: centre Left. (I have no idea what that means either) I was always under the impression, or delusion, that that was what the Lib-Dems were about. Obviously we all knew they were Tories in yellow jackets, but I assumed that they were the ones who pretended to be ‘centre left’ at election times.

Instead it seems that the Labour party, of which the Fabian Society is the nursery for, is Centre Left. News to me. May be I was living in another Britain, but the past 13 years were nowhere near the centre, and as for left only if they were facing the mirror and raising their right hands.  We have seen right-wing Friedman policies foisted, (not sufficient), imposed, impressed and sledge-hammered  into British society.  We have seen some frighteningly Orwellian legislation flashed through Parliament, civil liberties trampled under the boot of  ’free-market economics’ and a tightening of the noose around the throat of democracy and free determination.

Centre-left Labour, would have, and there is no doubt about this, brought ID cards and all their cost and ineffectuality down to bear on the British Public. That, surely, isn’t centre left by anyone’s definition. This same party, allowed the privatisation of education and health, through the much lauded but never applauded Private Finance Initiative (PFI); something, we and our children will be paying for,  for the rest of our days.

My point is this: We need to take back the term Left. Remove it from the deluded Right. It may help to get to sleep to pretend to be left when you’re are so evidently right, but that distracts real thinkers of the left from getting the genuine point across. Intelligentsia may have been the original spark for Left thinking, but again this may be due to them being allowed a public voice, but they can not be the conclusion for a real Left party and government. Socialism must be taken back by genuine socialists and workers and not cosseted, life ignorant toffs, that feel a little bit better about their cosy lives if they can pretend they are thinking about the poor and subjugated. Where they can ignore the dissonance of their lifestyle in contrast to their reported political views, by joining a Think Tank and calling it ‘centre-left!’, then lead the populace down their cul-de-sac of inevitable self-advancement, whilst making sure the poor are poorer and the middle-classes end up with bigger tax bills than they started with.

New Labour anyone? Centre-left – only in a perverse parallel universe.

I will return to this matter sooner rather than later. We will find true and original Left thinkers, but sadly I fear, not in New Labour and not in its Grow Bag, The Fabian Society.

Gordon Brown, Human Disease?, Humour and History, Monetarism and Capitalism

1930's depression, amusing, Authority, blair, Book Signing, Brown, David Miliband, Depression, economic recovery, Ed Miliband, Fabian Society, Maynard Keynes, Millbank, Milton Friedman, New Labour, Next Left, roosevelt, Sir Philip Green, The Fabians, upper crust

January 1, 2011

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Read my life

Read my life.

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December 28, 2010

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Deficit

Your first point starts you off in the wrong direction. The idea that the recession was caused by something other than government policy is misleading and false. Exposing the Tories and Liberals support for the policies does not detract from the fact that it was a Labour government that left us bare and vulnerable to the financial services. While the perpetual motion machine was racing along throwing out money Labour were more than happy to lord it and declare that there would ‘be no more boom and bust.’ The economic collapse was inevitable. So to somehow pretend that it was an anomaly of economics is nonsense. Brown followed the Tory model, who had followed the Friedman doctrine and we ended up with much of the same with a bit more poison to boot. The ‘deficit reduction’ budget is nothing of the sort. It’s more about reducing living standards and employment rights. Rights that were so blatantly abused by the New Labour Project. In the long term, as Thatcher found to her own detriment, the deficit will eventually grow larger as benefit payments and compensations to industries begin. At the same time taxes will reduce, due to lapse taxation laws and insufficient staff to collect and investigate taxes and tax ‘avoidance’ schemes.

This will, inevitably, lead to a reduction in healthcare provision, education support and training allowances. Which, in turn, will reduce employees skills, undermine professional apprenticeships and aid in the dumbing down of the workforce. The banks will be back at the door and demanding more tax money to bail them out, due to defaults in mortgages and their exposure to debt from CDS’s and CDO’s two lovely financial tools that are yet to come home to roost.

As for Social Democrats, ( a term that seems as meaningless as New Labour) questioning each cut as it comes, seems as irrelevant a task as I can think of. There is  no point in questioning which benefit or service is being cut and whether it is necessary. This leads to the wrong perspective. The entire concept of deficit reduction should be the starting and finishing post for the debate. 1)Why do we need to reduce the deficit? 2)Is there an alternative to it? 3)What genuinely does it mean? 4)Should we pull up politicians and commentators when they try to compare a country’s budget to a household budget?

1) We only need to if one believes that real money is being loaned to us by an individual. If, as we know, the monies are promised through funds and bonds then we don’t need to pare down the deficit.

2) In fact, bearing in mind that the money is coming from pension funds and insurance premiums, working from a capitalistic perspective, keeping the deficit increases pension fund pots and reduces Insurance premiums to the majority.

3) It’s a meaningless statement and is being used to push through an agenda based on the greed concept of ‘free market economics. (Yes. I am talking about the same economics that allowed industry to die because it couldn’t get government support, because it’s not allowed. Yet the same support was allowed when it came to the banks. Banks that owe us as much as the deficit and are still not paying back their debt. In truth, the majority of that debt is now ‘ring fenced’ which means that tax payers are the ‘sole beneficiaries’ of it.

4) We should pull them up about it; we should shake them that hard that they faint and crack their necks. A country’s economics aren’t in the remotest like a household and any comparison therein is futile and misleading.

To conclude: Labour run by Miliband, either would have been the same, will not change its position on the economic model it believes in. (Gordon Brown showed us that) They are not an alternative to the Condem-all government. They, like the brothers Miliband are the same. New Labour, because that’s what they are, have no counter argument for they believe in the same economic model. A cut of £40 billion or £80 billion means the same when you have lost your job and home. Not one of them are willing to bite the hand that feeds them, (Corporations and the filthy rich) even though that very same hand will eventually drag them by the collar down the corridor for the ‘long walk.’

Brown sold his soul for the Blairite dream but didn’t realise he wasn’t part of the club and would be left outside in the cold, exposed to the ridicule and lambast of the public and the press. Miliband thinks they’ll let him join, but again he is deluded. Education can only give you knowledge. Schooling is what will give you power and protection.

 

Gordon Brown, Humour and History, Monetarism and Capitalism

1930's depression, blair, deficit, economic recovery, Gordon brown, history, Maynard Keynes, Milton Friedman, Osborne, Poverty, Recession, roosevelt, Sir Philip Green, Tax avoidance, The Daily Politics, Tony Blair, upper crust, Will Straw

December 2, 2010

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