Owen Jones has written a great article here basically covering what I'm about to say: but I need a rant, so I will say it anyway.
It seems that the Tories and the shady, wealthy characters with whom they associate have begun to realise that they can pretty much get away with anything. They have most of the media onside (owned, of course, by shady characters who are well-engaged with similar practices that defraud the British public) and the public these days feel powerless to defend themselves against systemic corruption.
In some cases, this now means that instead of flat denials in the face of concrete fact, we are instead offered reasons why despicable behaviour is normal, acceptable and necessary. The top earners keep getting sickening payrises whilst leading their companies to massive losses that mean ordinary workers' pay stagnating - at best - and often redundancies. The wealthiest people keep using tax havens and using various UK-based schemes to hide their vast amounts of money from HMRC whilst the rest of us pay for the public services which keep their staff educated, fit and healthy, their produce/services/staff mobile and their homes and businesses safe.
We're told that competition means mind-boggling salaries are necessary. We're told that tax avoidance schemes are something everyone does and it's all fine.
And there's nothing we can do. Mass demonstrations are barely mentioned in the media, expect for detailed and exaggerated accounts of the minority who get a bit too angry and break something. The Tories seem untouchable and the Labour MPs who most resemble their supposed opponents across the chamber are doing all they can to prevent discredit their leader and in doing so, make it much harder to hold the government to account.
And so it is that 65 million people in Britain simply shrug and haul their dejected carcases through another day.
Thursday, 21 April 2016
Friday, 15 April 2016
The Tories will get away with this, but if they didn't?
I am certain that the Tories will spend the next couple of weeks lying in parliament and in the media, pretending that tax avoidance schemes which are now under more scrutiny are normal and that no one has done anything wrong. And the furore will die down, with the help of a complicit media (owned, in the main, by very wealthy people who also use offshore accounting to avoid tax) or once the government announce a "quick: look over there" policy that diverts attention away from it.
But what would happen if it continued? If the media picked up their game and did what they should do, which is holding the government to account, and if Corbyn and the SNP keep up the pressure in parliament on Cameron, Osborne and their chums, could Cameron resign? He might want to, but I seriously doubt it, and here's why.
Cameron is of course, the focus of this as the Prime Minister responsible for crippling austerity that is hitting the poorest and most vulnerable hardest. Lately, talk has been of only two potential Tory leaders: Osborne and Boris Johnson. Osborne certainly has his hands dirty in this too: his family business, of which he is one of the owners, uses similar tax-dodging schemes and have got away with avoiding huge amounts of tax too. Johnson has made his feelings about tax quite clear over the years (stating in 2015 that "people have a legitimate right to minimise their tax obligations if they can" and also saying that the Boots boss has "a fiduciary duty to their shareholders to minimise their obligations") and I would be astonished if he didn't also have some involvement in one or more tax avoidance schemes.
Teresa May has seemingly come out of this scandal ("what scandal?" -all Tories) squeaky clean - so far at least. I suspect recent narrowing down of the contest to a Johnson Vs Osborne battle is in no small part down to the nature of the right which is permanently clinging to the past. It struggled with gay marriage; it struggles with the idea of opening our borders to people fleeing war zones and it still struggles with women, despite (and in the case of some journalists and commentators possibly partly because of) Thatcher's success. The papers have never talked about May as seriously as the two male contenders. Her popularity may have faltered over the last year with even some conservative supporters feeling her policies on refugees and public data privacy go too far.
Any others? Bookies currently have Michael Gove ahead of Theresa May and of late, he has managed to keep himself out of the limelight in his roles as Lord Chancellor and Secretary of State for Justice. If he continues to keep a low profile, he may become a real contender although I feel where Osborne, May and even Boris Johnson have a considerable edge is with their image. Gove has the sort of smug, posh, grin that Armando Iannucci would have deemed too much of a caricature for a 'Thick of It' character. His attempts to impress with language and his fondness for very old-fashioned-sounding policies make him equally as absurd a character as Johnson but without the strangely-popular buffoonery of his scruffy colleague.
Three others are also currently rated by bookies. Sajid Javid has come out of the steel industry crisis ("what crisis?" -all Tories) with less credibility than he had before. And I think some of those closer to the far right might struggle with a candidate whose name doesn't sound "British". Stephen Crabb, hasn't been around front-line English politics (Tories don't really care about Wales) long enough and is currently only really known as the MP involved with a company who apparently think they can "cure" gay people. The image-conscious spin-machine will have trouble with that one, even if they feel the LGBT vote isn't theirs to lose. Finally, there is Priti Patel, who as well as having the same problem Sajid Javid has in appealing to the far right of the party as someone with a non-British family history, also has the ignominy of being one of the most expensive MPs in the country. The increase in her expenses claims has been huge and as one of the loudest small-state, pro-cuts Tories, she would find it hard to come across as anything other than a massive hypocrite. She also has the smaller issue of her family connections to UKIP.
So the Conservatives find themselves in a position where, certainly at the moment, they would much rather have a leader known to be a hypocrite and a liar when it comes to matters of tax avoidance, than possibly any of the contenders.
But as I said at the beginning of this post, with most of the media on-side and Corbyn likely to move on to other important issues, the party will probably ride this out. Sadly, the next general election is so far away the Tories have plenty of time to bombard the voting public with more lies and false promises and after last year and with almost 100% of the media kicking lumps out the Labour leadership all the time, I wouldn't be surprised if they won another majority in 2020. By which point, we'll have nothing left to fight for anyway.
But what would happen if it continued? If the media picked up their game and did what they should do, which is holding the government to account, and if Corbyn and the SNP keep up the pressure in parliament on Cameron, Osborne and their chums, could Cameron resign? He might want to, but I seriously doubt it, and here's why.
Cameron is of course, the focus of this as the Prime Minister responsible for crippling austerity that is hitting the poorest and most vulnerable hardest. Lately, talk has been of only two potential Tory leaders: Osborne and Boris Johnson. Osborne certainly has his hands dirty in this too: his family business, of which he is one of the owners, uses similar tax-dodging schemes and have got away with avoiding huge amounts of tax too. Johnson has made his feelings about tax quite clear over the years (stating in 2015 that "people have a legitimate right to minimise their tax obligations if they can" and also saying that the Boots boss has "a fiduciary duty to their shareholders to minimise their obligations") and I would be astonished if he didn't also have some involvement in one or more tax avoidance schemes.
Teresa May has seemingly come out of this scandal ("what scandal?" -all Tories) squeaky clean - so far at least. I suspect recent narrowing down of the contest to a Johnson Vs Osborne battle is in no small part down to the nature of the right which is permanently clinging to the past. It struggled with gay marriage; it struggles with the idea of opening our borders to people fleeing war zones and it still struggles with women, despite (and in the case of some journalists and commentators possibly partly because of) Thatcher's success. The papers have never talked about May as seriously as the two male contenders. Her popularity may have faltered over the last year with even some conservative supporters feeling her policies on refugees and public data privacy go too far.
Any others? Bookies currently have Michael Gove ahead of Theresa May and of late, he has managed to keep himself out of the limelight in his roles as Lord Chancellor and Secretary of State for Justice. If he continues to keep a low profile, he may become a real contender although I feel where Osborne, May and even Boris Johnson have a considerable edge is with their image. Gove has the sort of smug, posh, grin that Armando Iannucci would have deemed too much of a caricature for a 'Thick of It' character. His attempts to impress with language and his fondness for very old-fashioned-sounding policies make him equally as absurd a character as Johnson but without the strangely-popular buffoonery of his scruffy colleague.
Three others are also currently rated by bookies. Sajid Javid has come out of the steel industry crisis ("what crisis?" -all Tories) with less credibility than he had before. And I think some of those closer to the far right might struggle with a candidate whose name doesn't sound "British". Stephen Crabb, hasn't been around front-line English politics (Tories don't really care about Wales) long enough and is currently only really known as the MP involved with a company who apparently think they can "cure" gay people. The image-conscious spin-machine will have trouble with that one, even if they feel the LGBT vote isn't theirs to lose. Finally, there is Priti Patel, who as well as having the same problem Sajid Javid has in appealing to the far right of the party as someone with a non-British family history, also has the ignominy of being one of the most expensive MPs in the country. The increase in her expenses claims has been huge and as one of the loudest small-state, pro-cuts Tories, she would find it hard to come across as anything other than a massive hypocrite. She also has the smaller issue of her family connections to UKIP.
So the Conservatives find themselves in a position where, certainly at the moment, they would much rather have a leader known to be a hypocrite and a liar when it comes to matters of tax avoidance, than possibly any of the contenders.
But as I said at the beginning of this post, with most of the media on-side and Corbyn likely to move on to other important issues, the party will probably ride this out. Sadly, the next general election is so far away the Tories have plenty of time to bombard the voting public with more lies and false promises and after last year and with almost 100% of the media kicking lumps out the Labour leadership all the time, I wouldn't be surprised if they won another majority in 2020. By which point, we'll have nothing left to fight for anyway.
Wednesday, 13 April 2016
Having morals makes shopping tricky.
Last week I attempted to buy some trousers for work. Being under 50, M&S hasn't got much for me, so I wandered the city shopping centre past Burton (tax avoider Philip Green's Arcadia group), Next (whose Chief Exec Simon Wolfson is a Tory peer who voted for - amongst other things - tax credit cuts which will affect his own poorly-paid retail staff), Topman (Arcadia again) and then New Look (owned by super-invisible Brait SE who own chunks of a number of large companies yet don't even have a Wikipedia page - you can guarantee they're up to no good). There's no point trying H&M because they only do trousers for tall skinny men (sadly I am below-average height and stocky build....or fat, if you prefer). The department stores just sell the brands I don't approve of and other brands for older or wealthier men. And I'm not going near Primark.
I tried again a few days later, this time I did try H&M (there were none in my size) and M&S (their 'slim fit' looked ridiculously baggy on me).
Both times, I came back empty-handed and I still need new trousers for work.
Another issue is supermarkets. I don't like Tesco because of the way they led the land-grabbing, business-closing takeover of UK supermarkets and fiddle their figures to fool who everyone into thinking they were still doing great despite suffering the obvious consequences of opening massive stores too close to existing stores. I don't like Asda because they're part of Walmart and don't seem to care about fair trade or animal welfare (there are NO fair trade coffees in our local Asda and barn eggs are given much more preferential position than free-range, plus there appear to be no higher welfare meat that I've found, let alone free-range options). We used to shop at Morrisons but now they've done a deal with Amazon (tax avoider who treats warehouse staff and presumably other workers like scum) and recently their advertising agency sent out a casting call for actors "...not at all like the characters from Benefits Street....And nobody from Liverpool, please.” Presumably such instructions must have come from the client or be representative of their preferences at least. That just leaves Sainsbury's and that means travelling further and polluting the environment along the way.
I could go on to mention specific food and drink brands I've boycotted for various dirty deeds but I simply don't have the energy.
Why do so many of our retailers have to be such shitbags? And why don't more people care enough to vote with their feet?
I tried again a few days later, this time I did try H&M (there were none in my size) and M&S (their 'slim fit' looked ridiculously baggy on me).
Both times, I came back empty-handed and I still need new trousers for work.
Another issue is supermarkets. I don't like Tesco because of the way they led the land-grabbing, business-closing takeover of UK supermarkets and fiddle their figures to fool who everyone into thinking they were still doing great despite suffering the obvious consequences of opening massive stores too close to existing stores. I don't like Asda because they're part of Walmart and don't seem to care about fair trade or animal welfare (there are NO fair trade coffees in our local Asda and barn eggs are given much more preferential position than free-range, plus there appear to be no higher welfare meat that I've found, let alone free-range options). We used to shop at Morrisons but now they've done a deal with Amazon (tax avoider who treats warehouse staff and presumably other workers like scum) and recently their advertising agency sent out a casting call for actors "...not at all like the characters from Benefits Street....And nobody from Liverpool, please.” Presumably such instructions must have come from the client or be representative of their preferences at least. That just leaves Sainsbury's and that means travelling further and polluting the environment along the way.
I could go on to mention specific food and drink brands I've boycotted for various dirty deeds but I simply don't have the energy.
Why do so many of our retailers have to be such shitbags? And why don't more people care enough to vote with their feet?
Wednesday, 23 March 2016
You're not paid enough (probably)
In this country (and many others), it is widely accepted that we should all work longer hours than we're paid to. I'm not sure where it came from, maybe it's always been around but I know that employers now more than ever take advantage of their workers' commitment or, in some cases, fear.
Most people in full-time employment are contracted to work between 35 and 40 hours but most people I know do more work than that in one way or another and I've done it myself in the past. For example: a friend of mine says he works 50 hours a week. Let's say he's paid for 40: that's 25% extra free he's giving his employers. If another three of his colleagues do the same, that's a whole free member of staff their employers aren't paying for. A whole person not being employed. Extrapolate that out across the working population and that's........a shitload of jobs that should be created but for people working longer hours than they should.
Why do we* do it? Are we so grateful to our employers for using us to make themselves more money? Do we feel a sense of duty to burn ourselves out for the good of the corporation? Or has the idea of the hard-working, striving, successful person become so ingrained in our society that we would feel like we don't deserve a job if we only worked the hours we were paid for?
And then there's 'acting up'. How many of us do work above our paygrade? And how many of us feel that 20 years ago and even 10 years ago (in my case, even 5 years ago), our jobs would have been valued at a higher salary? These days the salary gap between the bottom and the top and even the middle and the top is absurd. The people at the top reward themselves for making everyone below them work harder for less.
Another concern was highlighted by a conversation I had with a junior colleague just this week: she felt that more senior staff could be expected to work more hours. I disagreed: the higher salary is a reward for experience and an acknowledgement of the higher level of responsibility you have. It's not a bonus for doing more hours - yet I know that most people do make that assumption too and I have myself in the past.
We are all in a difficult position. For every worker there is someone unemployed or in a more junior position waiting for their chance. But the fact is that there would be less unemployment if workers refused to do more than they were paid to do. Unemployment and a lack of career progression for many seems to be a good way to make us all work harder: those who want to take the first or next step on their career ladder will work hard to prove themselves and those in their way will work hard to keep their jobs. I'm not a conspiracy theorist but some people would suggest that full employment would not be in the interest of those wealthy people and large corporations that our government serves.
I work very hard: I'm actually doing what is effectively two full-time jobs (if you don't believe me, I have concrete evidence of this fact!) but I, for one, refuse to do more hours than I am paid to. If something cannot be done, then it does not get done. And perhaps eventually my employers will realise this and employ an additional person.
*I don't do it any more. I used to and it didn't stop me being made redundant when my employers were bought out by a larger company who simply wanted their clients. I did it again when I had a whole new different career to get a foot-hold in and continued to do so until I felt I had proven myself. I was then in the situation where I was about to start a new role and had a baby on the way, so I started that new position as I intended to continue: doing my 35 hours and nothing more (unless absolutely necessary and then only the very minimum extra). I wanted to be there for my son and my wife. I don't want to miss important milestones. I don't want to miss his bathtimes and bedtimes or playing new games because I'm on a train back from London or I'm in another room buried in spreadsheets or something. I work to live, not the other way around.
Most people in full-time employment are contracted to work between 35 and 40 hours but most people I know do more work than that in one way or another and I've done it myself in the past. For example: a friend of mine says he works 50 hours a week. Let's say he's paid for 40: that's 25% extra free he's giving his employers. If another three of his colleagues do the same, that's a whole free member of staff their employers aren't paying for. A whole person not being employed. Extrapolate that out across the working population and that's........a shitload of jobs that should be created but for people working longer hours than they should.
Why do we* do it? Are we so grateful to our employers for using us to make themselves more money? Do we feel a sense of duty to burn ourselves out for the good of the corporation? Or has the idea of the hard-working, striving, successful person become so ingrained in our society that we would feel like we don't deserve a job if we only worked the hours we were paid for?
And then there's 'acting up'. How many of us do work above our paygrade? And how many of us feel that 20 years ago and even 10 years ago (in my case, even 5 years ago), our jobs would have been valued at a higher salary? These days the salary gap between the bottom and the top and even the middle and the top is absurd. The people at the top reward themselves for making everyone below them work harder for less.
Another concern was highlighted by a conversation I had with a junior colleague just this week: she felt that more senior staff could be expected to work more hours. I disagreed: the higher salary is a reward for experience and an acknowledgement of the higher level of responsibility you have. It's not a bonus for doing more hours - yet I know that most people do make that assumption too and I have myself in the past.
We are all in a difficult position. For every worker there is someone unemployed or in a more junior position waiting for their chance. But the fact is that there would be less unemployment if workers refused to do more than they were paid to do. Unemployment and a lack of career progression for many seems to be a good way to make us all work harder: those who want to take the first or next step on their career ladder will work hard to prove themselves and those in their way will work hard to keep their jobs. I'm not a conspiracy theorist but some people would suggest that full employment would not be in the interest of those wealthy people and large corporations that our government serves.
I work very hard: I'm actually doing what is effectively two full-time jobs (if you don't believe me, I have concrete evidence of this fact!) but I, for one, refuse to do more hours than I am paid to. If something cannot be done, then it does not get done. And perhaps eventually my employers will realise this and employ an additional person.
*I don't do it any more. I used to and it didn't stop me being made redundant when my employers were bought out by a larger company who simply wanted their clients. I did it again when I had a whole new different career to get a foot-hold in and continued to do so until I felt I had proven myself. I was then in the situation where I was about to start a new role and had a baby on the way, so I started that new position as I intended to continue: doing my 35 hours and nothing more (unless absolutely necessary and then only the very minimum extra). I wanted to be there for my son and my wife. I don't want to miss important milestones. I don't want to miss his bathtimes and bedtimes or playing new games because I'm on a train back from London or I'm in another room buried in spreadsheets or something. I work to live, not the other way around.
Wednesday, 2 March 2016
A gentle reminder about our economic woes
We are currently experiencing the longest period of economic stagnation since long before a Tory ever displayed the human trait known to many as compassion.
Thank heaven the brilliant Gideon Osborne has seen us through these tough times. His ingenious austerity measures have made poor people poorer and disabled people destitute, hassled the terminally ill and harassed the mentally ill, and have made the richest in the country much richer, so let's celebrate that. It's odd that he's given a really easy ride by the media because his policies have massively failed: if they had worked, he wouldn't be needing to announce yet more cuts like a disorientated miner digging deeper in an attempt to reach the surface.
But let's remind ourselves why we are in this position in the first place.
The Labour government inherited what the Tories like to call a structural deficit when they came to power in 1997. By the end of 2006, after a little boom in the early 00s, the deficit was back to a similar position, albeit slightly better than the last Tory chancellor had left. At this time the Tories agreed that it was a good position to be in and pledged to match or possibly even increase Labour's spending if they came to power in 2010. Then came the 'credit crunch', as warnings spread of an impending global economic crisis. This gave everyone the jitters and as lending, borrowing and spending stuttered, the economy slowed, meaning that 2007 saw a bit of an increase in the deficit.
Then the crash happened. Huge banks and other financial organisations started hopping frantically from foot to foot like a four-year old who didn't need the toilet half an hour ago. They urgently needed a huge helping hand from the public purse or everyone's money that only existed as the promise of some numbers on a computer screen anyway would end up vanishing into a black hole they'd only just discovered and couldn't have predicted and wasn't their fault whatsoever. Massive bailouts to the tune of around £1 trillion ensued over the next couple of years, creating a budget deficit almost as big as David Cameron's dark blue polo shirt mountain.
This deficit was unheard of, apparently, although most people had forgotten that the second world war left a much worse one which was dealt with by investing in things the country needs to be a nice, modern, productive place people could live healthily and work and spend money in. But never mind that. This terrible situation allowed the Tories to decide that spending money on schools, hospitals, helping people in dire circumstances to live a vaguely dignified sufferance etc was, after all that talk of matching Labour's spending, completely laughable and the opposite of what was needed. This despite being in a great position financially to borrow and invest what with having rock bottom interest rates.
So they started taking money off the disabled, the unemployed, the mentally ill, councils - especially those in poor areas (some have now had their budgets cut by around 60%) - children, pensioners (well, just women and public sector workers) and selling off everything they could think of including the Royal Mail, definitely not the NHS at all, forests and other green spaces, schools, justice (yes, like courts and stuff), prisons and even some police services. And that's just the things they've thought of so far. Just wait til they find out that MPs salaries are paid out of our taxes too. Oh no, hang on, they increased those by 11%. At least we can be safe in the knowledge that most of these things were gobbled up by ghostly island-based ethereal conglomerates and respectable companies like Serco and G4S.
Again, it is a bit surprising that the media just goes along with this. It's taken as read that we can't afford for everyone to exist and that all of this is necessary. People have either forgotten or don't believe that this is private debt, created by greed and dire lack of regulation. The Tories LOVE the City of London. If you believe what they say (and why wouldn't you?) it's the biggest and most important financial hub in the world and we need to protect it like a nursery for supremely gifted, yet horribly vulnerable corporate babies. If the City is as awesome as the government and the media would have you believe, then they are mostly responsible for the global recession and they led us into it, knowing that we would bail them out.
The last three governments (yes, one of them was with the Lib Dems - remember them?!) have made this private debt public and the Tories have taught us we don't deserve to be treated with dignity because of the mess Labour made of the economy. It's probably not relevant that the Tories are bankrolled by the City and that's where most of their friends work and where most of them will end up with cushy jobs once they leave politics. That probably isn't connected in any way.
Oh, and one last thing: we also need to consider the national debt as well as the deficit. It's only with those two things that we get the full picture. According to the Office for National Statistics, when Cameron and Osborne took over our economy in 2010, the national debt was £960 billion and now stands at over £1.5 trillion. That's an increase of more than 50%.
And the public elected the Tories in 2015 because they trusted them with the economy.
Thank heaven the brilliant Gideon Osborne has seen us through these tough times. His ingenious austerity measures have made poor people poorer and disabled people destitute, hassled the terminally ill and harassed the mentally ill, and have made the richest in the country much richer, so let's celebrate that. It's odd that he's given a really easy ride by the media because his policies have massively failed: if they had worked, he wouldn't be needing to announce yet more cuts like a disorientated miner digging deeper in an attempt to reach the surface.
But let's remind ourselves why we are in this position in the first place.
The Labour government inherited what the Tories like to call a structural deficit when they came to power in 1997. By the end of 2006, after a little boom in the early 00s, the deficit was back to a similar position, albeit slightly better than the last Tory chancellor had left. At this time the Tories agreed that it was a good position to be in and pledged to match or possibly even increase Labour's spending if they came to power in 2010. Then came the 'credit crunch', as warnings spread of an impending global economic crisis. This gave everyone the jitters and as lending, borrowing and spending stuttered, the economy slowed, meaning that 2007 saw a bit of an increase in the deficit.
Then the crash happened. Huge banks and other financial organisations started hopping frantically from foot to foot like a four-year old who didn't need the toilet half an hour ago. They urgently needed a huge helping hand from the public purse or everyone's money that only existed as the promise of some numbers on a computer screen anyway would end up vanishing into a black hole they'd only just discovered and couldn't have predicted and wasn't their fault whatsoever. Massive bailouts to the tune of around £1 trillion ensued over the next couple of years, creating a budget deficit almost as big as David Cameron's dark blue polo shirt mountain.
This deficit was unheard of, apparently, although most people had forgotten that the second world war left a much worse one which was dealt with by investing in things the country needs to be a nice, modern, productive place people could live healthily and work and spend money in. But never mind that. This terrible situation allowed the Tories to decide that spending money on schools, hospitals, helping people in dire circumstances to live a vaguely dignified sufferance etc was, after all that talk of matching Labour's spending, completely laughable and the opposite of what was needed. This despite being in a great position financially to borrow and invest what with having rock bottom interest rates.
So they started taking money off the disabled, the unemployed, the mentally ill, councils - especially those in poor areas (some have now had their budgets cut by around 60%) - children, pensioners (well, just women and public sector workers) and selling off everything they could think of including the Royal Mail, definitely not the NHS at all, forests and other green spaces, schools, justice (yes, like courts and stuff), prisons and even some police services. And that's just the things they've thought of so far. Just wait til they find out that MPs salaries are paid out of our taxes too. Oh no, hang on, they increased those by 11%. At least we can be safe in the knowledge that most of these things were gobbled up by ghostly island-based ethereal conglomerates and respectable companies like Serco and G4S.
Again, it is a bit surprising that the media just goes along with this. It's taken as read that we can't afford for everyone to exist and that all of this is necessary. People have either forgotten or don't believe that this is private debt, created by greed and dire lack of regulation. The Tories LOVE the City of London. If you believe what they say (and why wouldn't you?) it's the biggest and most important financial hub in the world and we need to protect it like a nursery for supremely gifted, yet horribly vulnerable corporate babies. If the City is as awesome as the government and the media would have you believe, then they are mostly responsible for the global recession and they led us into it, knowing that we would bail them out.
The last three governments (yes, one of them was with the Lib Dems - remember them?!) have made this private debt public and the Tories have taught us we don't deserve to be treated with dignity because of the mess Labour made of the economy. It's probably not relevant that the Tories are bankrolled by the City and that's where most of their friends work and where most of them will end up with cushy jobs once they leave politics. That probably isn't connected in any way.
Oh, and one last thing: we also need to consider the national debt as well as the deficit. It's only with those two things that we get the full picture. According to the Office for National Statistics, when Cameron and Osborne took over our economy in 2010, the national debt was £960 billion and now stands at over £1.5 trillion. That's an increase of more than 50%.
And the public elected the Tories in 2015 because they trusted them with the economy.
Wednesday, 17 February 2016
Benefits are bad? So pay people more, then (bit of a reprise).
I've gone over this topic before but after recently seeing comments about people 'struggling' to pay the "living wage (ha)" (I will from now on - or until I forget - be calling it that in full, in bold italics) it rattled my inner angry person again.
Sweeping statement alert: employers vote Tory. I know that's not wholly true but big businesses and wealthy individuals who employ lots of people tend to not only vote Tory but also throw money at them. And as we know, the Tory way is to get rid of all benefits, or at least as much as humanly (or inhumanely; they're not fussy) as possible. Their donors want that too, because they want it to be fine to pay very little tax and they don't want poor and disabled people around who might not pay much tax themselves and might even need some support so they can have a roof over their heads and three meals a day. These Tory business folk also want rock-bottom wages for their staff too, and that means big benefits to supplement incomes which aren't enough to live off.
Those two things don't go together. You can't have an economy in the developed world where everything except a workforce is expensive.
If you're a small business and you're struggling, then that's probably because customers and potential customers haven't got enough spare cash to spend on your products and services.
When you're in big business, you can either pay your staff more, or you pay more tax to pay for benefits to top them up.
And when the Tories are in power, it literally is your choice.
Sweeping statement alert: employers vote Tory. I know that's not wholly true but big businesses and wealthy individuals who employ lots of people tend to not only vote Tory but also throw money at them. And as we know, the Tory way is to get rid of all benefits, or at least as much as humanly (or inhumanely; they're not fussy) as possible. Their donors want that too, because they want it to be fine to pay very little tax and they don't want poor and disabled people around who might not pay much tax themselves and might even need some support so they can have a roof over their heads and three meals a day. These Tory business folk also want rock-bottom wages for their staff too, and that means big benefits to supplement incomes which aren't enough to live off.
Those two things don't go together. You can't have an economy in the developed world where everything except a workforce is expensive.
If you're a small business and you're struggling, then that's probably because customers and potential customers haven't got enough spare cash to spend on your products and services.
When you're in big business, you can either pay your staff more, or you pay more tax to pay for benefits to top them up.
And when the Tories are in power, it literally is your choice.
Thursday, 10 December 2015
Not trusting Labour is not a good reason for voting Tory
Voting is not just important because you might get the party you'd prefer in power. Many of us can go for long periods without having a good option on the ballot paper.
I have a strong suspicion that many people vote Conservative not because they want to see the poor repeatedly kicked and trampled on by Tory policies, or because they want to see our assets sold off to the private sector, or because they want the rich to get richer, or because they want to bomb Syria or somewhere else, or because they think the Saudi Arabian rulers are great and we should suck up to them. I think some people vote Conservative because they think the country is in safer hands with them than with Labour. Whist I think you'd have to be a total moron to believe that (regardless of the current perceived state of the Labour party, they'd still do a better job than the Tories), I can understand why people do when virtually all media outlets tell them that is the case and hound the opposition whilst letting the government completely off the hook.
However, there is another reason to vote against the Tories, regardless of whether you think the country is in safer hands with those born to and schooled in how to rule and that is the moveable political mood.
With the Tories in power, they can do what they want. And we all know what that is: to feather their nests and the nests of their chums and associates. Conservative policies breed divisions and distrust and fear and loathing. They breed selfishness and greed and promote money over everything else. And the longer they are in power, the longer the media report everything they do and say as gospel, the more people will become used to living in a country where the poor are made to pay a huge price for the mistakes of the rich and to keep making them richer. The longer the Tories rule, the more people will become brainwashed that the way to peace is war and become convinced that value can only be measured by it's financial cost and benefit.
Most people don't want to live like this but recent decades have allowed them to believe there is no other way and many keep on voting Conservative like turkeys voting for Christmas.
I have a strong suspicion that many people vote Conservative not because they want to see the poor repeatedly kicked and trampled on by Tory policies, or because they want to see our assets sold off to the private sector, or because they want the rich to get richer, or because they want to bomb Syria or somewhere else, or because they think the Saudi Arabian rulers are great and we should suck up to them. I think some people vote Conservative because they think the country is in safer hands with them than with Labour. Whist I think you'd have to be a total moron to believe that (regardless of the current perceived state of the Labour party, they'd still do a better job than the Tories), I can understand why people do when virtually all media outlets tell them that is the case and hound the opposition whilst letting the government completely off the hook.
However, there is another reason to vote against the Tories, regardless of whether you think the country is in safer hands with those born to and schooled in how to rule and that is the moveable political mood.
With the Tories in power, they can do what they want. And we all know what that is: to feather their nests and the nests of their chums and associates. Conservative policies breed divisions and distrust and fear and loathing. They breed selfishness and greed and promote money over everything else. And the longer they are in power, the longer the media report everything they do and say as gospel, the more people will become used to living in a country where the poor are made to pay a huge price for the mistakes of the rich and to keep making them richer. The longer the Tories rule, the more people will become brainwashed that the way to peace is war and become convinced that value can only be measured by it's financial cost and benefit.
Most people don't want to live like this but recent decades have allowed them to believe there is no other way and many keep on voting Conservative like turkeys voting for Christmas.
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