the brilliantly leaping gazelle

Last night, on BBC1, the bi-annual fun packed fundraising entertainment extravaganza that is ‘Children In Need’ took place. One question though – who and where are these ‘children’ and what are they in ‘need’ of?

Whoever it was that said ‘to be born an Englishman is to win first prize in the lottery of life.’, was spot on! We live in a time of unbridled happiness, in one of wealthiest economies in the world, in a country that has the wherewithal to take care of those who can’t take care of themselves, a country moreover, that places greater store in the health and well-being of all it’s citizens, regardless of any perceived difference. A country that doesn’t see any weakness in compassion, nor virtue in greed, one that prioritizes people over profits, as evidenced by a generously resourced and accurately staffed benefits system. One that caters for every need, indeed one that future-proofs itself by welcoming critical analysis as a tool that helps maintain excellence and constant innovation.

Indeed, from my own experience, all my dealings with the benefits agency have been so life affirming that it puzzles me why they don’t run them as weekend retreats. Probably it’s out of a laudable desire to ensure that benefit agency staff maintain a healthy work/life balance?

So why on earth the ‘Children In Need’ telethon is needed is quite frankly beyond me. Aren’t all the needs of all children in this land being met? Quite what these charities are up to is a matter of great concern. They should all be investigated for fraud and embezzlement immediately to establish exactly where the money going?

Writing about charity I am always reminded of this rather excellent clip from ‘The Day Today’ from the demented wrongcock that is Chris Morris.

As if any more proof were needed that our species is not just incapable, but is actively hindering, our diminishing chances of survival, I draw your attention to these news stories that I found on the BBC website this morning. And as the BBC news website is my homepage, I didn’t have to search for them. They were just there, damning evidence of our culpability in our own inevitable extinction.

Thousands of homes to be built in flood zones

Almost 10,000 new homes could be built on some of the most flood-prone areas of England, a Greenpeace investigation has found.

They include hundreds of new-builds in Sheffield and Doncaster, the towns hit hardest by the latest floods. The Environment Agency told the BBC that virtually all planning applications last year followed its advice on flood risk.

But it predicts the flooding risk will increase because of climate change. The Greenpeace study comes as hundreds of flood-hit homes in South Yorkshire and Derbyshire are still evacuated. It identifies plans to build a total of 9,688 new homes in high-risk areas. More than 5,000 homes have been proposed in high-risk zones of Lincolnshire, where roads and thousands of acres of farmland have been flooded in the last few days.

Exactly how does this make any sense whatsoever?

China’s largest dump is already full – 25 years ahead of schedule.

The Jiangcungou landfill in Shaanxi Province, which is the size of around 100 football fields, was designed to take 2,500 tonnes of rubbish per day.

But instead it received 10,000 tonnes of waste per day – the most of any landfill site in China.

It’s not that humanity is fucked, more that we’re bringing strap ons to make sure we’re well and truly fucked!

Yesterday the personal and the political crashed into each other for me, with, it must be written, a surprisingly unexpected outcome. Admittedly the day had stated well, in fact the day hadn’t started for me until mid-day, when I’d reluctantly got out of bed and wished I hadn’t. But I don’t want to write about that. Neither do I want to write about the incredibly bad news the Conservative election campaign got when it was revealed that a slew of performance indicators for the N.H.S – waiting times in A&E, waiting times for operations, waiting times for some cancer treatments, waiting times for, well you get the gist – had completely banjaxed any notion of the N.H.S being safe with them. Besides it was all over news.

No, what I want to write about is my visit to my consultant neurologist. In the way of these things, it was his registrar I saw – and it was jolly lucky for me that I did! The initial signs did not augur well. After getting to the waiting room, I was informed by my glamourous assistant that it was too hot. I ruminated on the fact that just supposing that the Garden of Eden was more than arrant nonsense, and just supposing she was in there, she would’ve made suggestions – not complaints – about improvements may have been made, leading God to wonder ‘What might I have got for two ribs? Although being God, and being how the world was only a few days old, he could simply have stated again. But I digress.

A notice board informed us that the wait would be 70 minutes. It has always baffled me, how that when you have an appointment at 9.30a.m, there can be a long delay. What could they be possibly be doing, I wonder? But I was due to seen at 4pm, and upon enquiring, came the news that I was next.

The registrar, a very pleasant woman, young enough not have had all the humanity drudged out of her, but old enough to inspire confidence, whom I’d never seen before, started asking me about the medical issue that had bought me to her door, but which had been so long ago, I had no recollection of. Helpfully, she gave no clues as to what it might be, but fortunately – in this instance anyway – I have a rather ‘unique’ medical history, so I picked one and hoped for the best.

Then I explained about a forthcoming review by anti-social services into my funding. I explained why I needed imy funding not be drastically reduced, and that a letter in support of continued levels of funding by her would be most helpful. I added that they were usually overly bureaucratic and obsessed with cost cutting. To which she said, “Well, you know why that is, don’t you?” Thinking there was going to be some earnestly liberal denunciation, I was taken aback by her answer, which was as succinct as it was borne out of her experience.

“Because they’re bastards”, she said, not with anger or frustration but in the resigned tone of someone imparting a self-evident truth. She explained it cogently, how everything was connected to everything else, an increasing workload, lots of patients with complex needs, some more social than medical, with unrealistic expectations and a social care system unable to cope with them, only exacerbating the problems.

She then asked me lots of detailed questions about my condition, so as to better understand my needs and therefore what her letter should say. Ah, the letter! And it was all going so well! Too well, in fact. Yes, granted she had to dictate the letter, I expected that, but what I didn’t expect was that in this new market driven N.H.S, it would then be sent to India, typed up, sent back to the hospital before being sent to me.

See, that’s what happens if you take the Lords name in vain truly, the Lord giveth and the Lord taketh away!

The most unfathomably inexplicable thing about this election is that both the main parties are fighting this election thinking that what worked for them in the past –making promises to increase spending to do this and that, whilst simultaneously being able to cut taxes to boost the economy and rubbishing the other lots plans to do the same – are no longer sustainable.

I mean, the collapse of our fragile eco-system has already started to happen, as I see it. Others do not. The people still having children for one, and much more important, the leaders of the United States, China, India, Brazil, Indonesia could all implement immediate and effective policies to mitigate the worst effects of a climate collapse. Indeed, had they done so thirty or even twenty years ago, we might as a species been able to avoid extinction. But we’re human and as such, we don’t have the capacity think long term, which has allowed vested interest groups and major polluting countries to claimed that more research was needed.

On what exactly? There have countless reports advocating doing things to mitigate the worst effects of catastrophic climate change, plenty of conferences where politicians all agree something must be done – but by someone else first -but nothing demonstrably effective.

I know it’s not scientifically valid, but when I was a child we never got mosquitoes in London, the tree’s had always shed their leaves by Guy Fawkes Night, only an insane person would wear shorts outside after October unless they were doing something sporty and even then – track-suit bottoms? There was a re-assuring rhythm to the seasons to mark the passing year by, whereas now we – well other parts of the world mainly – have extreme weather events, once in a lifetime disasters that are now happening with increasing frequency. I don’t have to provide any links to these, or to grim predictions, or to some report, because if your reading this blog, then you’ll grasp both the irrefutability of the evidence proving man made climate collapse and the desirability of the inevitable extinction of human life on this planet.

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.’

Yes, I’m angry, but nowhere near as angry as I would be if I were a young person, facing an increasing uncertain future because of the inability of political leaders to confront and deal with the elephant in the room. Although the way things are going, soon there won’t be any elephants at all.

The thing that has amazed me about all of the politician’s responses to the flooding in Doncaster is that whilst they are quite happy to blame other politicians for cutting this and that or not doing the other, no one is – and I might be wrong here – calling out the guilty party. Us. All of us. Collectively, we as a society have presumed that whatever consequences might arise from a globalised, just in time, low cost, low wage, market place would happen somewhere else. If the flooding happened in Bangladesh or somewhere far enough away for Orla Guerin to report on it, then yes, we’d feel bad, but it’d have no tangible effect on us whatsoever.

Yes, of course, the flooding in Doncaster is on an individual level a devastating tragedy, but it’s the price we pay for wanting things like unseasonal fruit an exotic vegetables –  like strawberries in March, avocado’s in November  – cheaper food, cheaper everything, things that’s grown or made using elsewhere and flown here, in part they’re the reason for the floods. People having children, producing more consumers who themselves will have children, endlessly creating unsustainable population levels. We have to fundamentally re-orientate our notion capitalism, and realise that our planet is our capital and we’re letting it slip through our fingers. Possibly, it’s already too late and possibly that’s a good thing. As I’ve consistently argued on this blog, humanity has had a wholly detrimental effect to life on this planet, we’ve known this, and when we could’ve done something about it, we didn’t. Well not you and me, the people with the power to make the necessary changes. Change is going to come anyway and the price will have to be paid.

But enough of this nay-saying doom-mongerism! Lets just think of what a wonderful Christmas we’re going to have instead and fiddle while Rome burns. Well, not Rome, at least not yet anyway but parts of Australia, but that’s very far away, isn’t it?

Now where did I put my huge happy hat? If only I could put it on, to celebrate the good news that, according to ‘The Guardian’ and others yesterday,

More than 210,000 workers in Britain are to receive a pay rise after the charity behind the living wage increased the national minimum hourly rate by 30p to £9.30.

Except that they’re not, well all of them anyway. Because the Living Wage Foundation is an ‘advisory’ body only, and employers are free to ignore their advice, without any legal sanction if they don’t, as they themselves make clear on their FAQ page,

The Living Wage is a voluntary higher rate of base pay.

But that’s all right because we have voluntary rises in our energy and food bills. We can choose whether to pay them or not. All the cost increases we face are voluntary, aren’t they? It’s not like we’d have our utilities cut off – which isn’t a euphemism – or have the bailiff’s visit is it, or have our homes repossessed now is it? But wait, there’s more guff

It provides a benchmark for responsible employers who choose to pay their employees a rate that meets the basic cost of living in the UK and London.

Ah yes, those ‘responsible employers’ we hear so much about, which rather conveniently overlooks the fact that a company directors primary responsibility is to maximize shareholders returns. As the Companies House website explains, that under the 2006 Companies Act,

The second major duty of a company director is to promote the success of the company. This is probably the most well-known of the 7 duties.

The duty states a director must act in a way that they consider, in good faith, would be most likely to promote the success of the company for the benefit of its members (shareholders) as a whole.

The single most cost that an employer has control over is staff wages, and paying them more than they have to is incompatible with their legal obligation to ‘promote the success of the company for the benefit of its members (shareholders)’

We could be forgiven for thinking that zero hour contracts, and the ‘gig’ economy, job insecurity and low wages, food banks and ‘survival sex’ are realities for countless millions in the seventh largest economy in the world.

But they are, and a newly elected Conservative government on Friday 13^th, keen to implement their Brexit bill, will only exacerbate these social ills.

I know its juvenile, but as I always say, I’m emotionally a 14 year old boy trapped in the body of an older man, but the news that Mr Farrago has decided not to stand Brexit party candidates in 317 seats against Conservative candidates, so as not to split a pro-Brexit vote, despite him saying a week ago they’d contest them all, makes me think of the Grand Old Duke of York. He’s talked the threat to the Conservatives by the Brexit party up, but now he’s retreated on that.

Welcome to politics, 21st Century style!

So this general election is well underway, one which will in all probability result in a resounding victory for the notion that our current electoral system is quite profoundly undemocratic. And before we get too excited about how this election will be all different and will do something, let us pause and consider the words of Emma Goldman, who said ‘If voting changed anything, they’d make it illegal ’

As evidence of this, I make the observation that no party that has gone on to form a government has won more than 50% of votes in that election, meaning that more votes were cast against them than for them. In fact the last time a party got more than 50% of the vote in a general election was in 1931!

However, as I wrote in 2017 ”the situation could have been changed in 2011, when a Liberal Democrat manifesto promise became a reality upon entering into a coalition government with the Conservatives, namely a referendum on proportional representation – whereby the overall total of votes is translated into seats in parliament; essentially every vote counts. However, the Conservatives, sensing a sudden reversal in their electoral chances, chose a complicated method of proportional representation to put to the public vote. Their friends in the press did the rest. A vote for change to the electoral system was a vote for chaos, it was suggested. They also decided for added apathy to have it on the same day as European elections, notorious for their low turn out and those that did turn out to vote, voted against any change.”

So will anything be markedly different after this election, I mean will the new parliament be any more effective than the one it will replace? That by the power of Castle Greyskull, democracy will work for us all? Sure, it’ll give voters the illusion of choice, but if it’s only a choice between who is going to lie to us and about what, in what universe is that democratic? How is it that the party who loses by the least, ends up the winner? Will the gamble spectacularly backfire, as it did in 2017 for Teresa May? Or will prove to be a defining moment in our democratic history, a positive one, I mean? One that we look back on fondly as the election that started to heal the anger, our sense of betrayal by the political class, the sense that somehow others know best? Or will it further re-enforce those beliefs? I hope for the former, but I won’t be surprised if the latter happens.

Well, that was shock, in a not really kind of way, like the fool this week who thought ‘I know, I’ll use my bum cheeks to launch a rocket from, because what could possibly go wrong with that idea?’ And I’ll get someone to film it, because there’s no way it’ll end up on You Tube.’ That kind of wholly expected event, that somehow becomes news, despite it being nothing of the sort.

Earlier today, one bullshitter made headlines today by claiming that another bullshitter’s claims were bullshit. From here on in, I think I’ll call them Tweedle Dumb and Tweedle Dumber, so as to avoid the swearing. Anyways Tweedle Dumb suggested that promises and pledges made by Tweedle Dumber were madness and would result in their being no cakes or sandwiches at the Mad Hatters Tea Party. It would be a bring your own affair, except everyone would be too poor to have their own and besides, under Tweedle Dumbers economic madness, no-one would have the time to go to tea parties, because they’d be too busy working and keeping their heads down, so as not to lose them.

Proof, if any were needed that we desperately need a Brexit deal – that unlike the one proposed by Boris’s Johnson – actually strengthens workers rights came earlier this week in the form of the news that workers on one of Britain’s biggest commuter networks, South Western Railway, are set to go on strike for almost all of December. Right on time, unlike most of South Western trains, was the usual bleating from the right wing press, who condemned the strike for causing misery for passengers. As the Daily Mail put it “Christmas travel chaos for millions as unions announce month of strikes AND South Western Railway says stations will shut during getaway.”

What people don’t realise about a strike is that its very purpose is to inconvenience and to disrupt, because if a worker can’t withdraw their labour in pursuit of a grievance, what can they do? Apart from none at all, what is the point of going on strike and not to cause inconvenience? The people who’ll be inconvenienced by this and will complain bitterly about it, will be some of the very same people who will go strike because of a works related dispute of their own. It could be teachers striking at exam time over salary and pension changes, low paid N.H.S staff striking over hours and additional duties, whatever it is, if people don’t support the strikers, then when they’re on strike, why should anyone support them?

We hear all about ‘zero hour contracts’ and the misery they cause, but they only exist because employment laws give the employer the whip hand. But after being conditioned by years of needless austerity for some – I haven’t heard about Eton having to sell off school playing fields. Maybe you have? – workers rights being protected, enhanced even, by a Brexit deal, is a matter of trust. And who is one more likely to trust on protecting workers rights, a party that is pro-business, pro-de-regulation and anti-union or a political party that was created to give a political voice to the working classes and to promote their interests in parliament?