Month: Dec 2019

As much as it is a story of victory for falsehood, yesterdays election is a story of how good old fashioned partisan thinking and arrogance snatched defeat from the jaws of victory.

Many of us are in shock that a man like Boris Johnson could win a landslide victory in this election. Boris is a man who was too cowardly to face Andrew Neil, too scared to allow the MI6 report on Russian support of the Conservative party be published. A man so shameless that even in his victory speech, he repeated the lies about 50,000 extra nurses and 40 new Hospitals.

But what is important to remember is that this was an election that we didn’t need to have. Under the fixed term parliament act, Boris could not call the election without the support of Labour and the Liberal Democrats. Those parties could have won a vote of no confidence again and if they had united under Corbyn, asked the queen to allow them to form a unity government. We could then have dealt with the issue of getting a second referendum so that young voters could finally have their say and not conflated the issue of Brexit with the issue of not having a government with a majority as we saw yesterday.

Instead in their arrogance, Jo Swinson and Jeremy Corbyn, pulled the trigger on an election that would be fought over Brexit and that cost them, and potentially the country, dearly. Even having called the election they could have united to get around our biased electoral system and rid the country, maybe not of the Tory party totally, but certainly some of its more unpleasant MPs such as Ian Duncan Smith.

But no, off they went, with Jo making daft statements about become Prime Minister, which even I as a Lib Dem member knew was impossible under first past the post. Meanwhile the awful Brexit party realised that what they needed to do was exactly what Labour and the Lib Dems refused to do and avoid splitting the vote by withdrawing candidates. I watched in horror as a clearly relieved IBS….sorry I meant IDS realised that the Liberal and Labour candidates had inevitably split the vote and handed the Tory party another seat and I saw this again and again throughout the night.

So thanks largely to Jo Swinson, soon to be ex leader of the Lib Dems, the possibility of a second referendum is dead.

Is there anything that can be seen as an upside to our inevitable journey to becoming ‘Little Britain’? Well, now he has a majority there is no hiding place for BoJo, he either delivers or is seen as a charleton. He is also no longer beholden to the extremes of the ERG Brexstreemists such as Jacob Reece Mogg, and when you remember that he wrote a pro remain and pro leave speech before the referendum, its possible that he is not inclined towards a hard Brexit.

In any case, large parts of the country, abandoned by successive Tory Prime Ministers and who are already seeing job losses because of Brexit decided that these same Torys where the only ones they could trust to deliver the Brexit that will finally crush any hope for the future of their young people.  Based on a dream of empire lost and the lies about E.U rules and immigration, I genuinely worry for them for, with the massive majority BoJo now commands, the storm is coming.

Not a post as such but as you go to vote I hope you will watch this first.

Stuart

So, its election eve and no doubt many people are trying to figure out which of the current crop of self interested buffoons they are going to give their vote to.

It’s a tricky decision without doubt, and the decision is yours and yours alone and you should vote with your consience and not the way your parents tell you or the way your family has always voted, or your community etc.  After watching various interviews with people in the street on TV last night, I do want to point out a few facts that seem to be either deliberately ignored or people just don’t want to accept the truth.

1. Boris Johnsons clever new ‘oven ready’  Brexit deal’ is the same as one of Teresa May’s proposed deals, a deal that was soundly rejected by the Conservatives and Boris is on record (video and in print) as saying “this is a deal that no Conservative Prime Minister could support”.
2. Boris has not cleverly solved the Irish border issue, he has put the border down the Irish sea (as in the previously rejected deal) and he is being deliberately misleading when he says there will be no customs checks between the mainland and Northern Ireland.  Think about it, N.I is now on the E.U side of a trade border.

   The E.U have stated that they will not allow goods to travel unchecked between a none E.U UK and the E.U so the only place these checks can happen is between England and Northern Ireland.  Even his Brexit minister says that this is the case yet Boris perisists with misleading everyone.

3. Brexit will NOT be done by January, we will simply enter the ‘transition phase’ described in his deal.  Let me say that again, ‘transition phase’.  We will as of January have ‘NO TRADE DEALS’ with any nation in the world….none! Please remember that Tory and former Brexit minister, David Davies PROMISED you that we would have many exciting trade deals in place when we left.  The Canada deal with the E.U took 7 years as an example of how long Brexit will continue to be part of our lives.

   No country currently trades on WTO rules because they were designed as an emergency fall back, not a first choice.  Of course the USA stands ready to do a deal and you can (and Trump has stated this is an aim of his) look forward to the removal of price controls for medicines.  Think that £8 is a lot to pay for a subscription?  Without price controls we will be like the average American who does not have private health insurance, going into debt to pay for treatments, now charged at ‘market’ value.

4. Boris is saying that they will put 20,000 more police on the streets, wonderful, this is still 2,000 less than we had before Teresa May as Home Secretary and with Johnsons support slashed police numbers.  How generous of you Boris.
5. Boris says that he will give us 50,000 extra nurses but has now been forced to admit that this number includes 18,500 nurses already in the NHS.  He justifies this propaganda by saying that they are included because he will ‘retain’ them and we would otherwise have lost them.  How stupid do you have to be to believe this nonesense?

All of the above is blatent cheating of the figures, bending the facts and in some cases just lies, and as you go to put your tick in the box remember this is not Boris Johnson’s first attempt to mislead the people of the UK.

Don’t forget the Brexit campaign when he talked about E.U rules that varifiably never existed such as straight bananas, remember that he had to admit that there would not be £350m per week for the NHS.  Remember that he was forced to admit that we are Nett beneficiaries of the E.U, meaning that we get more back than we put in, and finally remember that the E.U has never set rules about none E.U migration, the Tory’s failed to bring this down all by themselves .

As you bounce over the pot holes in your streets, as you stand on a train, crammed in like a refugee train in the third world and as you watch yet another stabbing reported on our ‘police free’ streets, just remember that the Torys have already been in power for just under 9 years.  All of our current woes are their fault and no one elses.

Now do you still trust Boris?

So, for the first time in my adult life I have joined a political party.  In this case the Liberal Democrats, however because of our archaic electoral system, I will be unable to give the local candidate my vote, at least, not if I want to avoid 5 more years of the Conservative Party and the chaos and destruction that will come with it.  I suspect that I was like most people when I first got the vote, and followed my parents lead.  This meant that for the first few elections of my life I voted Tory.

In reality I don’t want any party, I want all of them. It’s true that I would rather not have the current Tory front bench as it is pretty poor quality but in principle the Conservatives have a place in my ideal.

I want the Tory party for its financial instincts, the Labour party for it’s for inbuilt desire for social justice. I want the Liberal Democrats who believe in true fairness in society (I’ve yet to fully forgive them for the betrayals committed during the coalition) and the green party for thier passion for the environment.

Our ‘first past the post’ system cannot deliver what I want, and yet this would give us the government that we need, one of balance and common sense. I support any party that believes in electoral reform and I think the younger generation of voters are moving in that direction and away from the devisive left or right politics that we have had my whole life.

I actually do not believe in party based politics at all and if it was my choice, all politicians would be independent and the house, once elected, would then elect a prime minister from amongst their ranks. The house of commons would be kept for ceremony and tradition only but the actual chamber would be replaced with a modern style chamber like the Scottish parliament.

Has anyone else noticed the distinct absence of previously vocal characters in the run up to the election.  Victorian throwback, Jacob Reece-Mogg, a constant fixture of the Brexit Broadcasting Corporations news output is nowhere to be seen.  Chris Grayling, that expert in organising piss ups in breweries, gone.  David Davis, negotiator of many and exciting deals, ready for Brexit day, vanished.  Has there been some kind of mass abduction?

Its seems far more likely that the truth is that Prime Minister Cummings has decreed that these people, famed for alienating normal human beings, should neither be seen nor heard in order to prevent them ballsing things up for the Conservative and Union Party at the last minute with some rediculas statement or promise, or risking them undermining puppet PM, Boris Johnson with some uncomfortable reminder of the many contradictions and misinformation used both in the Brexit campaign and now the election.

One can only hope that by reminding as many people as possible exactly how incompetent these people are, and how much power these berks will wield should the Conservatives win, traditional Tory voters might realise that this is not the party of Margaret Thatcher nor even John Major.

Cummings et al. have managed to remove the decent and moderate members of the party, that I have supported in the past, and are attempting to replace them with ‘Z‘ list yes men (for they are mainly men) to make a post Brexit Britain an ultra right wing Tory hell-hole which takes us back to the old traditions of the wealthy and powerful in control and the ordinary man and woman knowing their place and not trying to exert any control over their lives.

 

 

 

British citizens have been left reeling in confusion after the news that France is potentially to be targeted with sanctions by the USA after it passed a law that will ensure the American Tech Giants like Google, Amazon et al, pay their fair share of corporate taxes.

Why are Brits so shocked?  Simple, it’s because for the last three years they have been told by the Brexit Party and the Conservative Party that EU members could not make their own laws and were legal slaves of the unelected bureaucrats of Brussels.  Of course, remainers have been saying all along that this was a total lie and so it is!

‘Take Back Control‘ shout the Brexiteers, Boris repeated this mantra on Andrew Marrs‘ BBC show only last Sunday.  The trouble is, it’s nonsense.  This law and the law passed by France banning the wearing of the Burqa in public is proof, and yet still this lie is pushed at the British public and still they seem to believe it despite the evidence. Wake up Britain, you are being played for fools!

As the 2019 election rumbles on it seems that there is no trick or scam that Boris Johnson and his party will not try in order to cling to power.  It seems to come very easily to Boris and his gang, from lies on a bus, creating fake Labour Party manifesto websites to spread misinformation through to re branding their twitter feed to deceive people in to thinking that the bullshit they have been spouting is based on any kind of facts.

The so called debate on ITV was a farce from start to finish, with Boris responding to every question, no matter what the subject, with “whats important is getting Brexit done”.  To add to this we now hear that 20,000 of the promised 50,000 new nursing positions are in fact ALREADY WORKING IN THE NHS!  Yes the Tory party are including nurses that they will RETAIN rather than recruit.  You would have to be as thick as a whale omlette to not see that this is more manipulation and lies from Prime Minister Cummings and his glove puppet, Boris.  Do you really trust your future to liars like these?

The BBC have shown themselves to be utter cowards in backing down and allowing Boris to go for the soft option of an Andrew Marr interview rather than face Andrew Neil as the other main party leaders have done.

As a side issue, when you look at the once mighty BBC news machines cowardice and the hopless predicatble programming for Christmas day TV, is it any wonder that viewers (especially younger ones) are ditching BBC for Netflix and other streaming services!

I’ve said many times that I am no Corbyn fan, and I wouldn’t trust Dianne Abbot to run a McDonalds birthday party but at this time of political ineptitude surely ‘well meaning but naive’ is better than self service, lying, and clearly corrupt elites?