the brilliantly leaping gazelle

I must confess to feeling a sense of political déjà vu as I read the Labour manifesto yesterday. I mean it was all going so well. There’s all these fine and noble promises to do this, solve that, how under the Conservatives the other has happened but that Labour would do the very opposite, and from this that many and wonderful benefits would transform our nation. And all this for the measly price of one – ONE! – vote per person.

Or not, if you believe the ‘Daily Mail’

But I digress. There’s a lot in the Labour manifesto to like, and whilst on some plans their ambition could be argued to stretch credulity, as least it comes from a good place. And then I came to this,

Labour will radically reform early years provision, with a two-term vision to make high-quality early years education available for every child. We will also extend paid maternity leave to 12 months.

Which seemed to me to be worryingly similar to proposals in the Liberal Democrats manifesto. It had to be me, surely! Ah, that joke never gets old! But no. It was them, not me, because they added,

Within five years, all 2, 3 and 4-yearolds will be entitled to 30 hours of free preschool education per week and access to additional hours at affordable,subsidised rates staggered with incomes. Labour will also work to extend childcare provision for 1-year-olds.

How exactly is this a good thing? In what way is state sponsored parenthood in any way compatible with some of their other lofty ideals? Here’s one,

Tackling the destruction of our planet is a question of justice – for the communities at home and abroad who are most affected by it and for our children who will bear the consequences if we don’t.

That would be the other consequences then, the one’s not to do with the planet not being able to sustain the amount of people alive right now, never mind adding to the problem. We need to be rewarding people for not having children, make it an act of altruistic on behalf of the planet, a civic duty, much more effective than adopting a vegan diet. Now there’s a thought! If people want a child that bad, let them do good instead and adopt. Because by providing free childcare, a parent who would otherwise have stayed at home and looked after the child, will now be free to re-join to world of work. And with the wage they’ll earn, the extra income will mean extra expenditure. Oh good, more consumption.

And don’t be thinking Labour’s unjoined up thinking had stopped there. Oh no,

We will recruit nearly 150,000 additional early years staff, including Special Educational Needs Co-ordinators, and introduce a national pay scale, driving up pay for the overwhelmingly female workforce.

So, let me get this straight. Their plan is to offer more childcare, that will increase the size of the labour market by freeing up parents to work. And to make this a reality, the plan is to create 150,000 new jobs. Am I missing something here? Aren’t these jobs going to be paid for out taxation? And where does tax revenue come from? In part, from us buying things. You can see the fundamental flaw here, can’t you?

This is our last chance to tackle the climate emergency.

Yeah, tell that to the rest of the manifesto.

Oh, alright since you asked, here it is,

I was getting ready for bed last night I thought, ‘I know what I need, some light reading.’, and as good fortune would have it, earlier in the day I downloaded the Liberal Democrat Little Book of Aspirational Mindfullness. It really is quite soothing. I’d say that it isn’t too taxing, but even though I’ve only skimmed it, they do talk about raising tax. Which, by the way, I think is a good thing, as no matter how efficient you want something to be, sooner or later someone, somewhere has to pay. Anyway, moving on.

Where was I? Oh light reading and children’s stories, that’s’ where.

Oh yes. Contained in their grim fairy tales is the claim that they will, if elected,

Offer free, high-quality childcare for every child aged two to four and children aged between nine and 24 months where their parents or guardians are in work: 35 hours a week, 48 weeks a year.

Hang on! How does offering people free childcare in any way help alleviate the climate emergency they so earnestly bang on  about. If anything, it makes it worse. Because a parent who would otherwise have stayed at home and looked after the child, will now be free to re-join to world of work. And with the wage they’ll earn, the extra income will mean extra expenditure. Oh good, more consumption. And that’s not the end of it. No. Because the jobs that’ll be created by this provision will create more workers, who in turn will earn more, and who in turn will spend it. Whoopie-fuckin-do!

Is it just me or is this sound in any way like a good idea?

Rather than offering rewards for successfully helping destroy the planet by breeding yet more consumers, they should offer incentives for people not to have children.

As I say, I’ve only skimmed it, but there’s a lot about ‘wellbeing’, which is best read later, possibly in the morning, ideally with a bowl of a high fibre cereal and natural yoghurt. Mmm. Yumee

The main problem for me with last night’s debate was the lack of any debate. Did we really learn anything about them, other than they stuck to the key messages they wanted to hammer home? And secondly, I doubt very much if anyone was going to change their opinion about either man, if anything it’d reinforce them. What was a revelation was the readiness of the audience to openly laugh at both leaders when they said something worthy of ridicule.

But the format was the main problem and the audience’s laughter only served to highlight it. Two men, each stood on a stage in front of a lectern, facing the audience, answering questions asked by a host with her back to the audience, what century are we living in? She’d ask the question and then they’d parrot off their clearly very well rehearsed answers. Interventions were far to few for my liking and I wished that John Humphreys had been in charge. But therein lies the problem. It was no good telling us how important this election was, how this was our chance to get answers from the two candidates, if they weren’t challenged, robustly if need be. They politicians who want to be the next P.M, for Darwin’s sake! However, a journalist who knows how the system works and plays the game, isn’t going to be as forceful as a member of the public, who, when confronted with a politician who they think is lying to them, pulls them up on it. Conversely, the politician, no matter how angry or irritated by this they are, can’t show it, because, after all, it’s a member of the public

And of course, only a cynic of the very highest order would suggest that one reason politicians are nervous about meeting or having any interaction with the general public is because of this their irritating propensity to ask unhelpful questions. One’s that don’t allow for carefully scripted and on-message answers to be given, and with presentation and social media being an ever present factor in elections, this presents a problem for politicians. Of course they say they like to meet to the public. It’s not just because they can’t control what they say or they don’t play the game, but they are not dependent on access to boost their journalistic career, and therefore don’t have anything to lose. I think of course of Diana Gould’s famous questioning of Mrs. Thatcher over the sinking of the Argentine battleship ‘The Belgrano’ on the BBC’s ‘Election Call’. Thatcher was visibly frustrated by being challenged on this, but couldn’t be rude to a member of the public, not in an election campaign. Unfortunately, the sinking of ‘The Belgrano’ happened during the Falklands War and I can remember being in a shop, when someone burst in, shouting, “We’ve taken Port Stanley” and everyone, including me, cheered.

My main takeaway from tonight’s leaders debate on shITV ‘was why on earth didn’t the host have a cut off switch for their mics, so that when they droned on or their answers rambled on, she could cut them off and move on?’

Jo Swindle is wrong.. Her much publicized and widely reported claim that her exclusion from the ITV debates tonight was sexist is utter nonsense/ If she was treated differently to a man in the same or similar position, there might be a case to answer here. The only person who thinks Jo Swindle has a chance of becoming the next Prime Minister is Jo Swindle.

Unpalatable as it may be for many voters, it is only Jeremy Corbinned or Boris’s Johnson that have a realistic prospect of being our next Prime Minister. It isn’t sexist to suggest this.  Because the facts don’t support this preposterous assertion..

In the 2015 General Election they got 7.9% of the vote, and in 2017, this went down, DOWN!, to 7.4%. Granted they got 20.3% in the recent European elections, but they use proportional representation and I’ve written a post all about the Iliberal Democrats abject failure to push for electoral reform, a reform that benefit them massively.

But under our electoral system as it is, at no recent general election have they ever won than 8% of the vote. If the Liberal Democrats had gotten 26% of the vote in 2015, and 31% of the vote in 2017, then she could with some justification make the argument that a decision to exclude her from the debates was sexist, as their share of the vote was increasing and that would they treat a man that way? But there share of a vote at a general election hasn’t increased. They only reason  had more MP’s before this election was called than after the last one was because of defections. They may have had an appeal, but not to voters at a general election they didn’t.

But that’s the thing with facts. Whilst they tell a story, it may not always be the story one wants to hear!

I know that my earlier post today concerning political leaders not just talking about fighting for our votes, but actually fighting to the death for it, may have seemed not their sort of thing for some readers. I get that. I really do.

But then I see this headline on the BBC website:

Boris Johnson to step into the ring with Jeremy Corbyn

Accompanied by a link to a Twitter post by the one of the BBC’s political correspondents, who followed Boris’s Johnson into a boxing club, where this carefully stage-managed  ‘photo op, showing BJ wearing boxing gloves emblazoned with ‘Get Brexit Done”

Two hundred years ago, the prominent German military theorist Carl von Clausewitz proposed his famous definition of war as “the continuation of politics by other means.” And given that at election time the language used to describe the processes by which politicians try to persuade people to vote is – to my mind at least – warlike. They talk about fighting for the vote. The election is a campaign. They face a battle to get the voters out. They need to combat fatigue. Positions are retreated from. Or they’re making ground. I could go on, but you get the point.

Which leads me neatly onto an idea I’ve long held, namely that politicians who want our vote should fight for it. Literally.

They should be made to compete in a televised, live and uninterrupted, as long as it takes, last one standing amidst the dead bodies of their former rivals, fight to the death. No weapons, no time limit, no adverts, no time-outs and of course, no rules. Then we’d see how much people wanted it to be Prime Minister, I mean really wanted it. It’d be ratings gold, I’d watch it and so would you, don’t make out you wouldn’t, because you would. Of course you would. We all secretly want to see Boris and Jeremy go head to head. And if you think harks back to ancient Rome and gladiators fighting to the death as entertainment for the crowds in the coliseums, then your bang on! And if politicians bottled it, then electorate could draw their own conclusions.

And this would also focus the minds on those voting for a new party leader. Which candidate, instead of going to the right school, university, or having the right connections in high places, they’d be looking at who they thought was the most handy.

Not handsy that’s another thing altogether, although if some of the allegations against Boris’s Johnson are to be believed,…

Jeremy Corbyn, well they do say the wiry one’s are quite tasty, but does he have the killer instinct? Jo Swindle, well she is known to be a slippery customer, but this is one televised contest she’d have to take part in, although given her readiness to challenge such things in court, she’d try and wriggle out of it. My money would be on the leader of Plaid Cymru, Adam Price, who looks the business. And, of course, Nicola Sturgeon. she’d be in there, although would she be in at the kill. Writing of kill, I’m not going to mention the leader of the D.U.P., Arlene Foster, not because the D.U.P’s historical links to the paramilitary U.V.F, but because of her opposition to abortion. If she’s opposed to killing the unborn, I doubt if she’d kill someone very much alive. Mind you, she is a politician after all….

I am not ignoring the Green Party co-leaders, because no doubt they are pacifists and wouldn’t want to take part, but would instead want give a talk on the evils of violence, because it doesn’t solve anything.

Had this been enacted years ago, this may have helped David Davies, until recently Minister for Exiting the European Union, but before that, a Tory leadership candidate and long before that, a member of the Territorial S.A.S. Paddy Ashdown, the former leader of the Liberal Democrats because before politics, Ashdown was a soldier who served in the Royal Marines and the S.B.S – the navy’s S.A.S – and as an officer he saw active service in Borneo and Northern Ireland. But for me, it’d be Dan Jarvis, until recently a Labour MP before being elected Mayor of Sheffield. He joined the Parachute Regiment in 1997, becoming a Major in 2003, and saw active service in Northern Island, Kosovo, Iraq, and Afghanistan.

It would certainly strengthen Britain’s standing on the world stage, when at any moment during tough negotiations at a leaders summit, our PM could suddenly stand up, kicking the chair back as they did so, and in their best Ray Winstone voice say, “C’mon then, your giving it all that, but you’re all mouth and trousers. Come and have a go if you think your hard enough. “

Maybe not to Vladimir Putin thought. He’s ex-K.G.B, a black belt in judo and has the eyes of a killer.

If the Liberal Democrats were in the least bit serious about being democrats, they would’ve demonstrated their commitment to the ideals of democracy by having vigorously campaigned for a change the present electoral system with the Brexit party. Had this bizarre sounding but eminently sensible alliance been effective, democracy could have been the winner on December 13^th. If, the morning after the 2015 election, the Lib Dem leader, Vince Unable had launched the campaign for reform by highlighting the discrepancy between share of the votes versus number of seats in parliament of all main parties.

He could’ve made the point that voting reform was well overdue because whilst the Liberal Democrats had won of 7.9% of the vote, that this had translated into 8 MP’s, whereas the S.N.P had got of the 4.7% of the vote but 56 MP’s. The S.N.P., like democracy when it works to their advantage, but here’s the thing – democracy doesn’t have options, you can’t chose which bits you like or don’t like of the democratic process, either your in or your out. Yes, it’s all well and good wanting another referendum on independence, but when they had one, they chose to stay part of the UK. If you choose not to fight in English, Northern Ireland or Welsh constituency’s, fine. It’s your choice. You chose to be here. Suck it up like everyone else has to.

After the 2017 election, this would have even greater consequences, as we know only too well. The Liberal Democrats had won of 7.4% of the vote in that one that this had resulted in only 12 MP’s, whereas the S.N.P ‘s 3% became 36 MP’s. Had the made this an issue one of fundamental importance of democracy that the method of electing a government had to be if so it was to have any legitimacy in the eyes of the governed. Had they done so, there is every possibility that a vote on reforming the voting system to make it truly democratic could have taken place in the recent European elections which, if successful, would have had a far more beneficial effect on our democracy than overturning the referendum result and ignoring 17.4 million people.

Of course such an alliance would require the support of Nigel’s Farrago. if it was to truly cross the political divide, and not simply be a case of centre-left complainers complaining, they’d need his support to have any chance of success. Now leader of the Brexit party, but in 2015, he was leader of UKIP, remember them? With him, well, they’d be pushing at an open door. In 2015 UKIP won 12.6% of the vote which got them all of er….1 MP. Had the Liberal Democrats and the Brexit Party together campaigned for a fairer voting system then possibly. If Vince Unable had said in 2014, in 2017, or her election as Liberal Democrat Leader Jo Swindle had said, upon being elected Lib Dem leader, ‘I may disagree with the Brexit Party – in fact, I vehemently oppose everything they stand for – but being Liberal Democrat, I believe that if you voted for the Brexit Party, your vote should count for something. As a Liberal Democrat, but a democrat first and foremost I don’t believe that any vote should be a wasted vote. ’

But no. He didn’t. She didn’t and the mess she could so have prevented has come to pass. Great work. Well done you. The only other country in Europe to have a ‘First Past The Post’ system is that other fine example of democratic norms and governance that is Azerbaijan! Sure take ITV to court about not being included in the main leaders debates because that is somehow more of an ‘affront to democracy’?

The news that police are investigating alleged electoral fraud by the Conservative Party in offering peerages and employment to Brexit Party candidates in return for standing down is, I think, misguided at best, and itself fraudulent. As the BBC reported

Calls are growing for an investigation into claims the Tories offered peerages to Brexit Party election candidates to persuade them to stand down.

Police say they are assessing two allegations of electoral fraud.

The way I see it, if anyone is guilty of election fraud, it is any politician who doesn’t admit the harsh truth of catastrophic climate change, namely that it is already too late to reverse the changes that are happening all around us.

For some reason this makes me think of the film ‘Fight Club’ specifically the scene on the airplane where Brad Pitt is explaining to Edward Norton why oxygen masks are dropped from the overhead lockers in the event of an impending plane crash. This, he explains, is because taking pure oxygen gets you high, and so taking large deep breaths of it will make you very high, very quickly. The evidence for this is contained in all the safety cards, which depicts the passengers are as having calm faces, calm, as he says “as Hindu cows.”, not panicked in the slightest. As no doubt you would be if you were off your tits on drugs, and not focused on being ripped limb from limb or being engulfed in a fireball, burnt alive, identifiable only by dental records! It gives the comforting illusion of safety, that there is some order among the chaos, that there is always something that can prevent the inevitable.

In much the same way, politicians who still peddle the lie that something can be done to slow down catastrophic climate change by either changing our ways of being that contribute to this man made disaster technologies or by some other incremental change are the ones committing electoral fraud. Its as I wrote a few days ago,

“If one of the party leaders was brave and honest enough to say to the electorate ‘Look, I could lie to you and tell you we can halt this, that actions by individuals can make a difference, but only if those individuals had been the leaders of major polluting countries and they’d acted long ago. But they didn’t and no matter how much you re-cycle, install solar panels to heat your home or eat less meat, the sad truth is that in China and America they’re not. Basically we’re fucked, and not in a tender, loving way either.’”

Then more power to them or probably not, as they’d never get elected, well not into a position of real power, one that could effect change anyways. This raises the thorny question of who is bullshitting who? Are they the politicians bullshitting to us or are does the bullshitter need someone to believe that bullshit? In which case, where does the blame lie? Because especially at election time, there are plenty of lies about catastrophic climate change,

So “Children In Need’ raised £47.9 millions last night. Fuck-a doodle-do!

We live in one of the wealthiest economies in the world, so can someone please explain why there is for charities to fund and provide what the state should be. We pay our tax, well not all of us, obviously – if your wealthy enough to have a clever accountant, or a big multi-national you don’t have to – and if there’s enough tax to fritter away on escalating costs on H.S.2 , now £56 billions up from it’s original estimate of £32 billions – we can use that money to restore the funding cuts imposed on local authorities by Conservative governments and their austerity obsession.

Funnily enough, their desire to curb public spending didn’t extend to the money hoover that is Crossrail. That’s massively late – it should be running by now – but it isn’t but is massively over budget. When it comes to spending our taxes, this government wants us to believe that constantly injecting cash into such infra-structure projects is worthwhile because of some advantage to business, a nebulous benefit to us and besides, they’ve started. Ultimately, it’s about priorities, about what a government prioritizes and this therefore this election is about what sort of government we want and what it prioritizes to spend our taxes on. Our taxes.

Originally, I was only make a comparison between the amount raised by ‘CiN’ and the amount the royal fleecers fleece us for. Or the interest we pay weekly on the national debt.