the brilliantly leaping gazelle

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?

I was going to write about the recent plea by N.HS. bosses not to it weaponise for narrow political gain during this election campaign – playing the blame game, or making extravagant spending promises etc – but that will have to wait – like many patients have to do to see a doctor – because this irresistible story caught my eye in ‘The Guardian’ and it neatly highlighted the encapsulated the rampant inequality of income in our society, much more than segregated playgrounds for social housing children in private developments or the Queen being forced to slum it yet again this Christmas enduring the harshness of warmth, plenty and ease.

Harrods limits Christmas grotto to £2,000-plus spenders

Customers complain London store’s restrictive policy ‘steals Christmas’ from their children

Rupert Neate Wealth correspondent

It carried on,

Father Christmas promises to visit every well-behaved child on 24 December but it turns out that only the children of high-rolling parents are able to visit him in his Swarovski crystal-encrusted grotto in Harrods.

The Knightsbridge department store has been accused of “behaving like the Grinch who stole Christmas” by restricting access to its Father Christmas to customers who have spent at least £2,000 in the 170-year-old shop.

Hang on, lets just rewind a bit here, because yes, you did read that right. ‘The Guardian’, which always wants to appear ironically, for a centre left leaning newspaper, wants to appear right on, has a ‘Wealth Correspondent’. Now I understand that as newspaper print sales plummet, so their online version needs to begin making up the shortfall in lost print revenue. And the only way a newspaper can do that is by selling its readers to advertisers. They may well be adverts for ethical this, organic that, biodegradable the other, but they’re still adverts and they still want you to buy something you weren’t previously aware of. No matter how ethical a consumer, one is still a consumer.

And as newspapers begin to face the financial realities and challenges of existing in a fast changing media landscape, so they need to readers reading to attract the advertisers with the big bucks. Why is a company going to advertise in a newspaper hardly anyone reads’, and those that do read it wouldn’t buy their product anyway? Possibly that’s why ‘The Guardian’ has become more tabloid in tone, and whilst it reports some celebrity news, it does so rather sniffily, so its readers can feel both current and superior. It has moved away over the last thirty years, with increasing speed, from being a newspaper of integrity to being one of questionable probity. If it were a person, it would be a formerly upstanding member of society, with a good job, stable personal life and a nice house, but who is now living in a tiny bedsit, their former life gone through a combination of bad choices, mixing with the wrong crowd and trying to be cool.

And as for the story about Harrods and the Christmas grotto? I could care less, but only if I really, really tried.

Well that was a shock to absolutely no-one! ‘The Daily Telegraph’ yesterday running a front-page exclusive on Boris Johnson’s election manifesto. That would be the same Boris Johnson who the ‘Telegraph’ paid £275,000 a year to write a weekly column – which he gave up when he became PM – but since 2001 he trousered a measly £2.7 million. That ‘Daily Telegraph’. The one that’s been put up for sale, amid reports that it’s losing it’s owners – the funster Barclay Brothers £900,000 a year? That one!

What would’ve been an exclusive, a proper scoop, was if ‘The Sun’ had run it. The ‘Telegraphs’ readers – of the print version anyhow – are older, white, well educated, retired, affluent and basically more likely to vote Tory anyway. If the election pundits are to be believed – and that’s a big if – then the sort of people who read ‘The Sun’ – sweeping generalization here – are more likely to be kind blue-collar workers that the Tories need to vote for them if they’re to have any chance of taking traditionally Labour voting northern constituency’s that voted ‘Leave’, and help win them a majority.

Right on cue, both Labour and Conservative bullshitters have been busy promising everything to everyone in the north, much like divorcing parents desperate to buy their child’s affection. ‘I love you more than them, because I’m going to give you all this great stuff, more than they are, much more, that I know I should’ve given you sooner but I’m giving it to you now and all I want in return is a tiny little x on the ballot paper. It’s not too much to ask, is it?’

According to the BBC, there was all manner of bullshitters spewing bullshit yesterday. They were all at it. The cleaning bill – for the halls and they’re fumigation, for the clothes – and for the counselling – must’ve been enough to fund a food bank for a month. Pity those unfortunates seated near the front. As Doug Stanhope puts it ‘they were spraying shit about like it was confetti at a wedding.’

The Tories have also vowed to borrow to fund more spending, rewriting their current financial rules.

Chancellor Sajid Javid denied copying Labour’s plans, saying he would practise “sensible stewardship”.

But Liberal Democrat Treasury spokesman Ed Davey warned that both parties were “writing promises on cheques that will bounce”.

Labour and the Conservatives say they want to take advantage of historically low interest rates to spend more on transport, hospitals and other infrastructure projects.

With ‘The Guardian’ adding that the Labour bullshitter, hoping that people would forget the other bullshit they’d heard too many other times to believe it now. If he had promised that if they voted Labour, they’d get a free orgasm once a month for life, I wouldn’t be surprised. But then by the same token, neither would I be too surprised if after the general election the new Labour government had reluctantly concluded that the possibility of deaths caused by strenuous sexual activity amongst the elderly, infirm or otherwise deemed at risk, had made them reverse the promise. Thats the thing with preventable deaths. They’re preventable. Anyway, back in the real world, this is what he said.

He said much of the planning for investment would be devolved, that part of the Treasury would be moved to the north of England and that his ministerial meetings would be held in other places as well as London.

“What does this mean?” he said. “It means that the centre of political gravity is shifting away from London. It’s coming back home to the north.”

Speaking soon after the chancellor, Sajid Javid, had announced that the Conservatives would revise their own fiscal rules to be able to spend an extra £20bn a year on infrastructure, McDonnell said far greater ambition was needed.

As well as £250bn in investment over 10 years for a green transformation fund to invest in areas such as clean energy and home insulation, Labour also pledged £150bn over five years for what it billed as a new social transformation fund.

As I wrote yesterday, this isn’t my first rodeo so I know from experience that what politicians promise before an election is rarely what they deliver if elected and I strongly suspect those with a long memory will recall the years of broken promises and social devastation wrought by politicians of all kinds – well Labour and Conservative – will be a skeptical as me about all this. I mean who do you trust more, or rather who do you think’ll break fewer campaign promises? It’s a tough one, I know.

It’s now 1.02am, and I only came to add three words to this. I just want to say that the idea of a a free orgasm a month for life is a great idea, a sure fire vote winner. I’ve just thought….actually, you really don’t want to know what I’ve just thought. You really, really don’t.

Ah, the illiberal demagogues, bless! Lead – I mean the heavy metal thick used on roofs sense, not in charting a sensible course – by the unillustrious Jo Swindle, she is political proof of Joseph Goebbel’s famous dictum, namely, that if you tell a big lie often enough, eventually people will start to believe. I mean, one almost has to applaud the sheer audacity of a political party calling itself the Liberal Democrats, when it’s main appeal to voters is that its going to repeal Article 50. Regardless of the legality or not of that, what is more concerning is the incomprehensible arrogance needed to ignore the wishes of 17.4 million people who voted ‘Leave’. How is that either Liberal or Democratic?

She was challenged on this, on how was ignoring the wishes of 17.4million people the start needed to heal the divisions in this disUnited Kingdom by holding a second referendum,a peoples vote or revoking Article 50, at her press conference on Monday by the BBBC’s Laura Kuenssberg. Her response was essentially ‘We’ve been upfront about what we’ll do, we think Brexit is a bad idea, we want to stop it, we’ve made no secret of it and if I’m the next Prime Minister , that’s what I’ll do.’ (You can hear it on the BBC’s excellent ‘Electioncast’ here, at 11min

I mean they are aware that we have a first past the post electoral system for general elections aren’t they? And that the only reason they enjoyed the success they did in the recent European elections was because they use proportional representation? Only in my nightmares is she going to be the next Prime Minister

And just because they proclaim to be something doesn’t mean they are, unless of course they’re channelling the spirit of the ‘Red Queen’ in ‘Alice in Wonderland’, in which case it means what she says it means. Otherwise could someone please tell me exactly how are the ‘Liberal Democrats’ either liberal or democratic? How is ignoring the result of  democratic vote, compatible with that. Being in a democracy means accepting things you don’t like when the result isn’t the one you wanted. I voted for to remain like a lot of people but more people didn’t. It sucked cocks in hell for few days but after that I got over it. Unlike people who put (lack of) virtue-signalling above the more pressing domestic challenges our country faces. It’s a simple choice, thankfully made easier by Jo Swindle, for people who like simple choices.

Because they’re known for keeping any pre-election pledges, aren’t they? Oh…….