I now write for Byline Times in Scotland. Above all else, the Coronation celebrations on 6 May will be a welcome relief from Tory gaslighting in difficult times for some. But will it be a mixed blessing for Charles and Camilla? It’s not exactly like the works’ Christmas curry in terms of just trying to get the seating plan right and avoiding embarrassing encounters. The entire world will be watching, analysing, hypothecating and so on. Please read our latest article on the Coronation celebrations at Byline Times. Find it below by clicking on King Charles III or a chicken:
Possible PhD project title : “The phenomenology of barbed wire, culture wars and societally caged monarchs – Royalty in aspic”
Although I’m agnostic about the royalty and definitely do not want President Boris, I am having trouble swallowing my breakfast at the thought of swearing allegiance to a King who takes no view on the macro issues that affect his ‘subject’s lives and livelihoods’. The BBC are trying to suggest today that having a ‘piss up’ will heal Brexit Britain. It won’t. Just for clarity I made this mini film for Chris Mason, Mishal Husain, Martha Kearney, Amol Rajan et al.
— Reboot Britain – Rage Against The Brexit Machine (@BrexitRage) May 6, 2023
The Police were quick to move in on protestors. They even arrested people who had not actually done any protesting. This is the ultimate manifestation of 1984 Brexit thoughtcrimes. If you are thinking, it’s now possible that you will be arrested for it …
As a councillor in the @cityoflondon, I am very concerned to see @CityPolice threatening to arrest protestors exercising their right to free speech & lawful protest for “public nuisance”. Do the officers know what is legal or not? This is extremely vague?pic.twitter.com/pso0Q4OwcY
— Reboot Britain – Rage Against The Brexit Machine (@BrexitRage) May 7, 2023
Thought Crime 1984
If Charles is to prevail, he must exercise some influence upon the Brexit fascists who now run our country. Undoubtedly, it’s the least KC III can do to earn the nation’s respect. The age of deference has gone for most people in Brexit Britain. Finally, whilst we are on the subject of monarchy, here’s some more royalty:
I recently published an article on Labour’s position (or lack of it) on Brexit. You can find the article at Bylines Scotland. It provoked an angry visceral reaction from Labour ideologues on social media. Louis told me the article was incorrect and badly written. When I asked him to point out the inaccuracies and poor writing, he couldn’t. Eventually he told me that we must all keep quiet about Brexit, deliver a crushing defeat to the Tories in the local elections and then Rishi Sunak would call a General Election. I asked him to explain his logic. He refused and drifted off into the notion that the UK will be ended if a General Election does not happen in 2023.
I share your pain, but I have to disagree with most you write. A few things you seem to overlook: Starmer is NOT pro-EU anymore, nor pro-SM/CU. He is pro-FPTP/anti-PR —->anti-democratic. If GE is not happening this year, UK will be history. And so will be Starmer and his party.
Sadly Louis refused to justify his appraisal of the article. And he claims to be a scientist.
Louis’ logic from the exchange can be summarised here:
The Tories suffer a crushing defeat on May 4th.
Sunak must then call a General Election.
He does this so that he can suffer another …. crushing defeat.
Can anyone help me figure out how this works? Call me cynical, but politicians do not call elections that they intend to lose. I agree it’s not impossible but it would require significant public and political pressure. With the nurses having caved in on a pay deal yesterday, I sense that the Tories are now over the hump of public unrest, due to the passivity of the British people. We’ll have to see …
Another chap called John simply called me a silly infant. I asked him to justify his statement. He could not. I don’t mind being called an idiot, but I do mind it when the people doing it cannot justify their insults. Several people have apologised privately on behalf of John, telling me that (a) he’s a bit old (so am I) (b) he’s a bit nutty (do I have to put up with that?) and (c) he is horrible to lots of people so that’s OK (does that make it right?). Here are some of John’s tweets:
Grow up you silly infant.
— @johnandi#FBPE#GTTO#LetsTryUBI#FollowBackFriday (@johnandi) May 1, 2023
No explanation, no apology – the same behaviours as used by Brexiteers
Brexit is done. It can't now be undone. Tory Brexit bastards did that, not Starmer. What part of that don't you understand ?
— @johnandi#FBPE#GTTO#LetsTryUBI#FollowBackFriday (@johnandi) May 2, 2023
A clear demonstration of learned helplessness
I was also schooled online by Supertanskiii that ‘now is not the time to mention Brexit’. I beg to differ Tan. Airbrushing the word Brexit out of the lexicon is a one way journey, sponsored by the Tories and Labour alike. Brexit is the single most important socio-economic, political, legal and environmental disaster of our age. Denial is not a river in Egypt.
You really think now is the time to focus on this when we have an election to win?
Supertanskiii is a potent online campaigner, but I fear she is emotionally addicted to Labour
John’s views are symptomatic of what is called in the trade ‘learned helplessness’. Remainers lost two elections and a referendum through setting low expectations, accepting rules on democracy which Brexiteers ignored them, believing that we don’t deserve any better and so on. This extract from the book Reboot Britain summarises the ‘condition’:
Learned Helplessness – Click the graphic to read more
So, it seems that we are back into the binary political trap that delivered Brexit. Tony Blair was right when he said that the Labour party often suffers from the triumph of ideology over pragmatism, a disease which caused the Tory party to cannabalise itself with Brexit. Have a look at the Scottish Bylines article and let me know what is inaccurate or stupid about it in the comments or via Twitter. To my Labour chums, I repeat my usual challenging unemotional questions:
What are the differences between a red or blue Brexit? No one will explain them and I have asked many times.
There is a clear business case to support the argument that Brexit has failed. Why won’t Keir Starmer move to this position?
Why will the right-wing media eat Starmer for breakfast if he states that Brexit isn’t working? Read the point on sunk costs in the article to understand this point better.
What makes people believe that Labour will reform the FPTP electoral system in a binary prisoner’s dilemma, all the while they believe that it benefits them? By the way, all the research evidence from UKICE points to the fact that Labour would benefit from electoral reform, in terms of votes, seats and number of terms in power.
If 70% of Labour members wanted to Remain, why are they so docile? What does this say about Labour’s approach to democracy?
Why do people believe that Keir Starmer will rejoin the Customs Union and Single Market when he has flatly refused to do so on many occasion? Surely this makes him a liar? The right wing media will certainly be all over this if he were to gain power.
Hard Labour – Click to read the article. Image by P Paton
To understand the various options for joining anew, please see London 4 Europe’s article on this.
Join us at our next Reboot Britain meeting on Wed May 10th May at 8 pm via Zoom. Find the link at Reboot Britain.
Recently, I took the new prospective local Tory Councillors to task over their inability to answer a simple question about the local impacts of Brexit. See this microblog on twitter for the background to this article:
"Venus" and I have not got off to a great start. Venus is the local Tory Councillor – what did I do wrong?
— Reboot Britain – Rage Against The Brexit Machine (@BrexitRage) April 19, 2023
The sorry tale of Ms Venus
In the course of my e-mail exchange with Tina Venus-Coppard, it transpired that she and her husband had become ‘angry birds’ due to my over familiarity, but most particularly because I explained that it was nothing to be proud of by supporting drowning children in the channel in order to ‘pray at the racist altar’ of Brexit. Of course, Ms Venus vigorously denied supporting Suella Braverman’s policy, although I pointed out that if they were Tory party members, then surely they supported the values and behaviours of that party? They did not answer. Mr Venus pretended that he wasn’t a Tory nor did he back Brexit and that was the end of the matter ….
Until today, when the local Tory MP, Rehman Chishti published an article in The Observer, yes, The OBSERVER, saying that he does not agree with Braverman’s racist remarks about Muslim grooming gangs. Chishti stopped short of criticising Braverman’s policy on racist abuse of people fleeing from terror and therefore her policy on migration and asylum via deportation to Rwanda. Chishti calls Ms Braverman’s comments ‘inaccurate’. Translated, that’s a LIE. Rehman is himself a Pakistani Muslim and the son of a preacher imam, He campaigns on various issues of cross faith religious co-operation, when he’s not taking consultancy fees for Saudi defence ‘consultancy’ and taking £22 000 pa salary for a US fundamentalist anti-abortion pressure group.
Nonetheless, I must welcome Chishti’s candour in this matter, particularly as his voting record shows that he votes with the Government on nearlyevery issue he is presented with. This is presumably a throwback to the time when he became a prefect at the local Grammar school. However, I am naturally suspicious that this is a carefully crafted stunt, simply designed to curry (sic) favour with the local Conservative party and the Pakistani community for the local elections on Thursday May 5th. Interestingly I am told that Mr Chishti’s daughter is also a local Tory candidate in my area. It is notable that Chishti did this almost immediately after I challenged Ms Venus on her immigration credentials. Last time Chishti opposed something was over the illegal pro-roguing of Parliament by Boris Johnson. He voted against the bill initially as it was safe to do so but then subsequently he voted it through. But to see the good in what he has done, this is a major contribution towards racial harmony in an area full of knuckle dragging white supremacists in Medway and Mr Chishti should be applauded for this. I wait to see what happens on Friday 5th May for my final analysis. I note that the Tories are now fighting like cats in a sack over this trumped up issue and look forward to the eventual climbdown. In case Rehman is looking, here is my answer to immigration and asylum in just two minutes. Having gone this far, it is time to lead Rehman. Who knows, Mr Chishti may well cross the floor to Labour again or The Lib Dems as he did many years ago in order to win the 2010 General Election in my area.
What should we learn from this? Click on the links to read more:
I am tired of Tories who pretend that local politics has nothing to do with national policies. In this context, I ask that you support my campaign to GET THE TORIES OUT. My campaign in 2019 demonstrated that if I’d campaigned seriously I’d have a fighting chance to wreak some serious damage. This time I will adopt a longer term and more serious approach to the matter.
This week’s quotes: “open goals that Labour are constantly missing … we have had uncaring people in high office before … rarely have they been as uncaring and incompetent as Priti Patel and Sue Ellen Braverman …disaster of Brexit … fake balance has corrupted TV in recent decade … Brexiters and Tory Party … to blame for everything … what does Labour think it is playing at? … Jeremy *unt knows that doctor’s pay has fallen relative to inflation since the Tories came into power … we are losing British trained doctors … go abroad where the pay and conditions are better … raw sewage pumped into English rivers on average 825 times a day …
Frack off …
What the papers say
Lawyers for the Daily Mail successfully argued in the High Court that that the names of Daily Mail journalists accused of crimes should remain secret … Graham Johnson confessed to fabricating stories for the Murdoch press … Gavin Burrows has provided contradictory witness statements to both sides in the Mail litigation … prompted chair of the UK statistics authority to write to the Tory Party to say their infographic was misleading … former Energy Minister Chris Skidmore MP … has been receiving salary of £80,000 a year as an adviser to a company … setting up a business.. Former education minister Gavin Williamson … will be paid £50,000 a year for seven hours work a month … News UK, the company that launched Talk TV lost owner Rupert Murdoch £4M in last financial year … even more than £31M lost by rival GB News…
Cost of living
Britain’s annual rate of inflation is 10% … still stubbornly high and twice that of US … populist economic model is bust … extraordinary … nightmare … reckless economic model … government has treated business with contempt … only bad options left … surging costs have kept the annual inflation rate in double figures … Britain’s post pandemic inflation rate … stubbornly higher than many of its peers … Tories will be remembered as the party who made most people poorer over 14 years and screwed up public services … there are more credible ways to count inflation … NHS is a stressful and poorly paid place … struggles to retain staff … junior doctors choose to work overseas … junior doctors left the profession a huge cost to the taxpayers for training them … something has gone badly wrong … real pay has fallen to around 14% below levels in 2010 …
The NHS
150,000 vacancies in vital jobs across the NHS … method is not working … Australia, New Zealand and Canada are only too happy to employ doctors we have paid £250,000 to 5000,000 to train … overseas recruitment is drying up because word is out NHS conditions are awful … excess deaths and waiting lists already high … UK has fewer doctors per head of population than most comparable countries and worse public health … worst public health crisis in a century … profiteering pack … profits of £78.4 M on income of £468M … extreme profits made by suppliers of PPE and testing kit … multi billion pound extent to which taxpayers were overpaying …
We’re still waiting for the £350 million EVERY week Johnson
Brexit superpowers failing
We have no chance of being the new Silicon Valley and the Tories know it … all such promises will remain hollow … Tory politicians are anti Woke, despise the left wing ‘blob’ of human rights lawyers and civil servants … they want to represent the ‘somewheres’ and not the rootless cosmopolitan ‘anywheres’ … the ‘anywheres’ can take a hint … they will go anywhere to avoid the hate speech the Tories are spouting … what are the chances of UK emulating California … Zero … UK is lagging because we de-industrialised under Thatcher … our education system produces too few teenagers with maths and science skills … EU has agreed to pour in €6.2B of subsidies into semiconductor design … our young innovators are barred …
London is an attractive place for high flyers … in banking … Australia has become a Mecca for UK qualified doctors and nurses … Brexit has seriously damaged Britain’s ability to be part of the tech innovations story … youngsters have to believe that this is a country with a future, not just a past … Richy Scumbag has always been reluctant to talk about Infosys, the Indian IT giant founded by his father in law … government’s own database has shown the company has been involved in £172 M worth of public sector contracts … Scumbag’s wife holds 38.9M shares worth around £89M in Infosys … dividends £12M a year … not liable for UK tax …
Raab C Brexit
Dominic Raas … massively unpopular … more than half his constituents do not want him or his ideology… graceless remorseless death of a desperate man … Raas wrote the least contrite resignation letter of the modern era … Raas told the BBC that civil servants were out to sabotage Brexit, parole reform and overhaul of human rights laws … Tory Peer Lord Marland said exit of Raas … a conspiracy by the civil service … if anything the opposite is true … Raas did not recognise wise counsel when offered it … Johnson claimed ‘the civil service wants to destroy me’ … remorseless attacks on Civil Servants … is deeply corrosive to good government … populist politics … premise that there are simple solutions to complex problems … when the absurdity of this becomes clear the next step is the attribution of blame: the vilification of people supposedly obstruct the popular will … Judges are enemies of the people …
Parliament is unlawfully prorogued … civil servants are plotting against popular ministers … The civil service deserves a gold plated ‘thank you’ for keeping the country running while the Tories have been preoccupied with a seven year long nervous collapse over Brexit, the economy and tribal identify … Raas was one of the worst Foreign Secretaries of modern times (a disaster during the retreat from Kabul) … Underlying this is the weakness of Richy Scumbag … looked desperately for a loophole that would allow him to keep Raas … Scumbag clings to Sue Ellen Braverman ,,, she is a human shield between him and the far right … Scumbag presides over a hung Parliament of factions … just waiting to see how bad the damage is in local government elections … Tory edifice continues to crumble and the country suffers accordingly … Raas … pathetic conspiracy theories are just another manifestation of this protracted decline … a reminder that desperate people really will say anything …
Murdoch
I wanted to see Rupert Murdoch put his hand on the bible and burst into flames … an alternative facts’ media empire … did concede that Fox News promoted 2020 election falsehoods … Murdoch has got away with it … what is $787.5M when you have another $20B to spare … Fox News broadcast of lies … the settlement is tax deductible … Murdoch thought ‘the election is a hoax’ thing ‘really crazy’ … Fox fact checkers considered the promotion of election deniers as ‘dangerous’ and ‘mind blowing nuts’ … hoodwinked outright fools … *ucker Carlson was the fountainhead…stoking ‘white hatred’ … maintaining a toxic workplace … Johnson and Thick Lizzie ludicrously turned up for the dinner at Hillsborough Castle … even he must have felt the coldness of the cold shoulders turning as they saw him loom … qualities of bad leaders ‘bitterness, jealousy and paranoia … the damage Brexit has done to the Good Friday Agreement … change of government in London cannot come a day too soon …
Little Brexit Britain
Britain has been diminished by Brexit …People in France remain baffled why a once powerful partner in the European project has been stricken low by an act of elective impoverishment … Claims that Rejoiners are lying about the true cost of leaving the EU are more absurd than ever … Lord Adonis said in 2016 that the vote caused a nervous breakdown in Whitehall … it is a jump to suggest that this proves the existence of a dastardly plot …. Remainer propagandists like nothing better than to use ‘official figures’ to suggest things are not working …
In Tombsland if figures do not show that Brexit is a triumph they must be the work of a dark conspiracy that supposedly pro Brexit ministers have been deplorably slow to disavow ‘misleading’ statistics … attacks on what he calls ‘dodgy figures’ … make no sense at all … The UK would see income losses of about £57B annually … in fact we are losing £40B annually so the cost of leaving is four to five times higher than the cost of membership and that is only if you count the cost of leaving the single market; just one small part of the EU … Swathes of the UK political and columnist class have lost their sanity over the visit by Biden to UK and Ireland … UK’s strange neediness towards America … “
From a friend … This tells the story of the reality of Tory Brexit cuts in graphic detail …
Hi everyone, just want to explain to you all why I have been quiet since before Christmas. Also to those of you that may be a bit cynical that the A&E is not in as bad a crisis as it seems. I can tell you the images that are shown on TV are the easy on the eye images. This is my experience please read to the end … Before Christmas I had the flu virus. I made two attempts to get a doctor’s appointment. Both failed and I ended up needing antibiotics for what took place subsequently. On Christmas Day I was in so much pain was taken to Medway hospital by ambulance had intravenous antibiotics sent home to come back Wednesday On Wednesday attended SDEC (Same Day Emergency Care) after X-rays and bloods I was told I had severe pneumonia and pleurisy with infected fluid around my lung. As no bed available I was sat in a recliner chair in SDEC treatment room 1. There I stayed for 5 days. There were 14 patients waiting for beds in an area that is not set up for long term patients hence SDEC. in the day the general public and A&E patients were coming in for treatment next to us. I was having constant iv painkillers antibiotics saline oxygen and nebuliser with all this going on around me. As not a ward there were no washing facilities we had to use a public toilet which was often filthy NHS is short of cleaners. I was left sitting in my own urine and diarrhoea as was too weak to walk out to the toilet. I vomited all down myself but no nurse was available to help me . The other patients were trying to help each other. I honestly thought I would die in there. The nurses were writing notes on paper towels as they had no paper. Took 3 days to get a pillow and blanket. I do not blame the nurses and other staff at all. They are so over worked and kept apologising for the situation. They are not equipped in that area for long term patients. They had to search for breakfast and meals for us. On the 6th day I was moved to a ward normally I hate going in to a ward but when I got there it felt as if I had stepped in to heaven it was clean, calm and quiet and when the nurse said would I like a wash (I had not had a wash for 6 days and had sores on my bottom). I broke down sobbing. I had been so traumatised by what I experienced the nurse sat and held my hand to calm me. I was in that ward for 2 days it felt like heaven. I am now home with a 6 week recovery. I do not blame the staff at the hospital. I blame the Government. “To get Brexit done“ they promised. “To put £350 million EVERY WEEK into The NHS”. “To build 40 new hospitals”. “To fund and train 50,000 nurses”. 40, 000 have left the profession. They have not delivered any of the above. Our NHS is broken, A&E is in crisis and we need another A&E hospital towards Swale to cope with the amount of houses being built in Kent. I am totally traumatised by what I experienced. No one should go to hospital and have to go through that. Fuck The Tories. This is their doing. They need to make it good.
From Don Adamson, Brexorcist in Chief from Yorkshire.
This week’s quotes: “government has been so stupid that it has gone from multibillion pound giveaway but only for those paid more than £150,000 a year … record austerity … soaring taxes … how much worse it can get will reveal itself in the next year … government’s declared policies … almost certainly impossibly optimistic, frankly unsustainable and nothing short of self harm … absurd and very damaging … energy bills to soar … Treasury will be force to borrow even more to fund a U-turn when the economic damage will already have been done … no sign that British economy will boom … house prices will fall … huge hit to growth … spending power of consumers is melting away … the coming storm … further disincentives from Brexit … government’s inane plan to tear up EU regulations … nobody will have any idea what the rules will be … recession will hurt millions of people in ways that we have not seen since before WW2 … welfare state has been eviscerated … government has run out of money … does not care enough to heal the pain … Tory MPs now boast about food banks in their constituencies as if the desperate need for charity is something to be applauded .. people will die this year for want of basic essentials … we are aging, cold, poor, badly governed and appallingly led by a selfish and uncaring, divisive elite pursuing damaging fantasy policies … post Brexit trading arrangements have complicated purchase and delivery … a part that would have arrived in no time takes nine months to arrive … one more buggeration to add to the long list of Brexit buggeration … Andrew Bridgen lied under oath … abusive, arrogant and aggressive … Tory MP for West Leicestershire … Richy Scumbag updated the ministerial code but has yet to publish interests held by his cabinet … it would mean disclosing his wife’s his wife’s £700M stake in Infosys … Tim Shipman;, Sunday Times chief political commentator, was a major cheerleader for Brexit … now appears to have recanted …. brought down the wrath of the Tory hard right … he managed to commit the ultimate blasphemy for the Brexit extremists … ‘just as Brexit was the consequence of just a few people … so 2022 is a story where people searched for greatness and fell painfully short ‘ …Richard North, Telegraph man’s contention that Brexit was always a people’s movement is undermined … latest polls indicate that people are no longer behind it … it was always about personalities … without Cameron’s weakness and Johnson’s opportunism, it would never have happened … Tories appointed … Egyptian billionaire Mohamed Mansur as party treasurer … former transport minister Egyptian government … Mansur has donated £500,000 to the Tory Party since 2015 … Government’s Test & Trace was the most indulgent of payers … Perkin Elmer (LAS)UK made profits of £79 M on income of £142M … PCR Bio systems bagged £32.4M … profit of £20M … few questions have been asked … Health chiefs cannot guarantee patient safety … demand for health and social care outstrips our capacity to deliver … managed decline of NHS and Social Care over 15 years is a far greater threat to patient safety and striking nurses … it is the mother of downward spirals … Dysfunctional Health and Social Care Act of 2012 … sudden injections of cash after years of austerity seldom get results … a government that loses the support of NHS staff has no chance of improving the health service … Politicians only ever think and plan for the short term … Fox News was always bad but under Lachlan Murdoch it has degenerated into a sewer of misinformation and prejudice … James Murdoch … FT interview … those outlets that propagate lies have unleashed uncontrollable forces that will be with us for years … Lachlan Murdoch does not understand and will not stop …A decade of turmoil in British politics … 2016 Brexit vote exacerbated the British malaise … a destructive strain of magical thinking … Brexiters have been high on Pixie dust from the start … growing numbers of Brits regard to vote to leave as a mistake … Brexit depressed investment by over 25% over five years … the economy would be more than 5% bigger if Britain had stayed in the EU … Among Brexit faithful truth telling is heresy … pointless disruption … Labour must watch its own tendency to magical thinking … scenario of Britain becoming a dynamic Singapore on Thames is remote … the reality of Brexit is hitting home … leaving the EU has inflicted a lot of damage … GDP 5% smaller … investment down by 11% … Brexit made a bad situation worse … dream of a ‘sovereign global Britain’ has fizzled … 60% of Brits think leaving the EU was an error … false dawns … Johnson and Thick Lizzie left behind ticking time bombs … things can quickly fall apart … a big chance squandered … here we go again – cherry picking … political damage is immense … 50 years ago the EU began enlargement. It is the secret of its success … Like Denmark; Ireland’s membership has been a triumph… Fascism is flourishing in many places and we need to appreciate its many guises or we may find our heads under its foot … If Keith Starmer thinks the localised control agenda is a powerful weapon for Labour he is right. If he thinks it is easily delivered he is wrong … our ability to do the politics of control has been eroded over the 40 year free market revolution … How long can Richy Scumbag survive … what is he actually trying to do … what is the goal of his government. What does he want? … Promises quickly disintegrated … deal with the acute NHS crisis by simply denying it … promised to cut the national debt … in 2010 national debt stood at £1,200 Billion … in 2022 national debt stood at £2,400 Billion … cut NHS waiting lists … tin eared promise … NHS is on the brink of collapse … years of neglect … 500 excess deaths a week … ignoring daily tales of devastation in British hospitals … as surreal as it is horrifying … Scumbag refuses to call it a crisis … stupid promises … sounds callous … even the people to whom the message was delivered do not believe it can be done … delivered nothing … vague promises … no vision, no clear ideology … Scumbag is trying to cast himself as an efficient manager … one key component mission … you have to be an effective manager … UK is having one of the worst economic downturns in the developed world … economic hard times … collapse in public services … saying noting and hoping it gets better feels like the panic reaction of a hedgehog … he needs to display some kind of competence … looks increasingly more like a hollow man … it used to be possible to read a news page and discern genuine news in there, as opposed to the news bias fusion than masquerades as news in most of the press … Sunday Times Editor Allister Heath, backer of Brexit, former colleague of Johnson, truly, madly, deeply lover of Thick Lizzie in her brief and catastrophic premiership now says ‘Nobody wants to confront the truth: Britain is becoming a poor country … even people like Heath are forced to accept that the decline in real … in the extensive right wing bollocksphere the wronger you are the higher you fly … debate is dominated by the right wingers who got us into this mess … it is not just the Tories but the ghastly army of cheerleading hacks who have twisted and turned to back every manifestation over the last decade that has done incalculable harm … Michael Heseltine does not accept for one moment that Brexit irreversible … Brexit has made fishing industry’s plight even worse … swallowed the lie … promised the earth but found it was deceived … many in the fishing industry ignored the facts during the referendum … hopes turned out to be fantasy … industry was promised it would get more … it was not true government claims the whole sordid mess is a success … industry is being hit … the government is not listening … Britain is in recession … failure … it is a stark reminder in the reduction of negotiating power since Brexit … majority of the industry is worse off … it was lie … once the photo opportunities were over the truth hit home … after being the poster boys of Leave … the fishing industry has been betrayed by Brexit … Dido Harding’s underlying loyalties to money spinning private healthcare now clear … Harding has kept a low profile since she presided over the £37 Billion test and trace fiasco … has accepted a consultancy role at Vitrifi … a company that donates to the Tory Party … history of failing upwards … test and trace was an eye watering waste of money … Harding pins her hopes on Johnson returning as PM … Johnson is not too discreetly laying the groundwork for a return … Mail on Sunday obediently carried a piece that Starmer’s chances of being PM would harmed if Johnson returned … Johnson charged the taxpayer for a Remembrance Day wreath … Jacob Rees Mogg’s ambitions to be Tory leader … quietly abandoned … his firm up for sale … no buyer … having to get buy on £500,000 a year .. lower than the £9.7 Million that he banked a year earlier … in 2011 a group of newly elected Tory MPs … forgotten book ‘After the Coalition’ … Britain’s unique strengths … including membership of the EU … they were Priti Patel, Dominic Raas, Toilet Kwarteng, Thick Lizzie … loathsome characters we must thank for the 2016 referendum result … resulted in so much damage … Rees Mogg deserves a large share of the responsibility … Rees Mogg is a fake … his persona is a parody … preposterous … clownocracy … political manipulators … Brits used to see the |National Health Service as a source of pride … in December over 5,000 sick people in England waited more than 12 hours to be admitted to hospital from A & E departments … one in four excess deaths recently attributable to delays in emergency care … the system is buckling … “
From Adrian Ekins-Daukes, Brexorcist in Chief and ex-Conservative from Tunbridge Wells.
Tories open the door to gerrymandering
When the Elections ID Act comes into force this April, there will be controversial changes. One will be that voters will have to prove their identity (ID), for the first time in local elections this May, or be refused a voting slip and be turned away.
The range of ID forms qualifying to the government’s rules is limited. They include: passports and driving licences, bus and other passes for older and disabled persons and an ID ‘PASS’ card currently available. The procedure for obtaining this PASS card is not straightforward, requiring photos, birth certificates and some form of attestation and registration.
Was there a need for this ? Does electoral fraud really threaten our democracy ? The Electoral Commission produces annual reports on this subject :-
In 2021 there were local council elections across Britain in May – many postponed from 2020 – as well as six Parliamentary by-elections. The police investigated 315 cases of alleged electoral fraud, none of which led to a court conviction. In 60% of the cases there were no grounds for taking any further action and 30% further cases were locally resolved. In just one case, a caution was issued.
In 2019 there was a general election, local elections and a European Parliamentary election as well as seven Parliamentary by-elections. The police investigated 595 cases, on which over 60% no further action was taken and a further third were locally resolved. In that year there were four convictions for electoral fraud and two cautions were issued … from 68 MILLION people.
Overall. more than half reported cases concerned campaigning breaches – failure to include required information on campaign literature or making false statements about a candidate.
The figures for 2019 and 2021 are typical of those produced by the Electoral Commission for the whole period 2017-21. They bear out the Commission’s own conclusion that there is no evidence of large-scale electoral fraud in Britain.
As there is no clear need for ID legislation for elections, the government must other reasons for giving it priority at this time of emergency. The choice of acceptable ID proof other than driving licences and passports provides a clear indication, There are numerous free passes for the elderly, who are deemed more likely to vote Conservative,. The disabled are also looked after. But there are almost none suited for younger people, who are less likely to be Torie.. Efforts to widen the choice to include, for example, student ID cards and rail cards were voted down by the Tory majority in the House of Commons. Labour MP Russell Moyle who worked on the legislation at the committee stage has said that “ young people will be discriminated against much worse than older voters,” and that “there is clearly an element of voter discrimination. “ A New York City Councillor has advised that the level of discrimination in this Act is worse than that practiced in any US state.
The estimated cost of implementing this legislation over the next 10 years is £180m – this at a time of austerity and hardship caused to a considerable degree by Tory dogma and incompetence. But for today’s Tories, power by any means is the overwhelming priority. In comparison, the interests of our country, the health of our businesses, the well-being of people are of little. consequence. Respect for democracy counts for even less.
As well as legalised voter suppression, the same legislation will remove the independence of the Electoral Commission, placing it under Government control. This opens the door to all forms of malpractice. It is our own Government, not a handful of minor offenders, who are the real enemies to our democracy. We need to fight if we want to keep it.
By Don Adamson, Brexorcist and Saboteur First Class
This week’s homework: 1930s Japan has been described as a period of ‘Brainless Patriotism’ An out of control government embarked on mad, bad and dangerous policies. This led to a terrible war with tragic consequences for millions of people. In this country we have an out of control government that is full of ‘Brainless Patriotism’ and which carries out mad, bad and dangerous policies. The Labour Party has nothing to say about this except vague assurances about ‘making Brexit work.’ If you are going to steal ideas from other people (Japanese or anybody else) would make sense to steal ideas that are otherwise than mad, bad and dangerous.
Therese Coffey has been dumping infected gammon into supermarkets. In other news, she was seen with a wooden leg … Cannabalism is suspected after Iain Duncan Smith was seen running away from the scene.
This week’s quotes: “What Gary Lineker taught us about taking a stand… The BBC, its board stuffed by Tory culture warriors caved in … Lineker has a history of anti racist statements … Tory decision to wage a culture war has left no middle ground … progressive people were dismayed by Labour’s stand on the ‘Illegal immigration bill’ … ‘it would not work’ rather than its cruelty … beyond awful … unfairness and hypocrisy behind the BBC response … Lineker spoke for all of us … Tories bereft of answers … Lineker activated a mass of discontent among BBC journalists … who are clearly sick of the Tory appointed managers … Hunt’s budget proves that Brexit is only paying off in a parallel universe … Britain is living in an alternate reality … surreal world where the government lives … the rest of us can see the damage that Brexit is doing … Office of Budget Responsibility … showing how Brexit is wrecking everything, everywhere, all at once … economy is 4% small than if we had stayed in the EU& .. the only opportunities from Brexit are lost opportunities … costing the government a fortune … without Brexit we could have increased NHS and social spending by from around £184B to about 327B… government is still borrowing lots of money … the largest tax burden ever … hard to get debt on a downward path … disastrous fall in living standards … slashed long term growth and little sign of it improving … good news for the very rich … huge tax breaks for the wealthy …
Pip Pip Medway Delta (Retired) Brexorcist and Saboteur First Class
Check out Private Eyelines – Perfect for April Brexit Fools’ Day
Denis MacShane is a former Labour MEP who has written several books on the folly of Brexit. Denis is a British former politician, author and commentator who served as Minister of State for Europe from 2002 to 2005. He joined the Labour Party in 1970 and has held most party offices. He was MP for Rotherham from 1994 to 2012. In the interview, MacShane treads a careful line as a Labour party member, but does point out that there is a new realism in politics with the presence of adults in the room and the fact that the culture carriers of Brexit are now wholly discredited. He points out that Starmer’s slogan “Make Brexit Work” is an empty promise.
Interview with Denis at UK in a Changing Europe
For a rounded appraisal of Labour’s position on Brexit, click on the image to read the article on Scottish Bylines.
Don Adamson writes from the leafy dales of Yorkshire … well actually Barnsley but never mind.
This week’s homework:
1. Q Why does Lord David Pannick KC wear silly spectacles? A Because it requires very bad eyesight to view Johnson as innocent … Q Is Johnson innocent? A Don’t be silly … 2. Cocaine makes a person manipulative and vindictive. Most of the politicians who inflicted Brexit on us are manipulative and vindictive. Are they all on cocaine or are some of them naturally like that? 3. In the dim and distant past comedians (if that is the right word) like Boardman, Davidson and Manning used to tell crass and offensive jokes about ethnic minorities. Such jokes are seldom heard on TV and radio these days. All over the world people telling anti Brexit jokes that depict the British as being rather dim. Are these anti-Brexit jokes as crass and offensive as the ethnic minority jokes used to be?
This week’s quotes:
“USA generated more electricity from renewable energy than coal for the first time last year … ideological fanaticism, economic restlessness and a predilection for alternative facts … Brexit’s poisonous aftermath … a recipe for gridlock and fragility … good government rather than slogans is the way … Britain’s nutty megaprojects … we never learn from past mistakes and let politics trump prudence … haste, hubris, political deadlines and ignoring the experts all played their part … another crackdown on anti-social behaviour … serious crimes like rape go unpunished, critics ask why the government is launching a push against anti social behaviour … People of Somalia have emitted roughly as much carbon dioxide since 1960 as Americans have done in the past two and half days … well connected people and ‘ruling elites’ play by different rules … Rich Chinese favour Singapore as a destination for their wealth … its political stability is a bonus for those wary of the roller coasters of American and British politics … (COMMENT: Interesting contrast to that Singapore on Thames that Gammons say so much about) … the reckless mendacity of Johnson and the self harming intransigence of the Democratic Unionist Party have done more for the prospects of a united Ireland than IRA Bombing ever did … The vindictive ecstasy of Braverman’s theatre of cruelty … Tory Refugee policy … they lie, we know they lie, they know we know … they persist in lying to rub our noses into the realisation that evidence no longer matters … cruel people get off on cruelty … when confronted with a video of migrants fleeing though Kigali during a massacre, Braverman remained deadpan and trotted out her lines …
Vote for the Tories on May 6th if you support killing children fleeing from terror …
Tories play to an audience that takes vicarious pleasure from seeing ministers dead bat all facts and evidence … the dead end that Tories have created for themselves … having achieved hard Brexit they can no longer blame Brussels for everything … presides over economic stagflation and a debt to GDP ratio of 100% … after the disaster of the Thick Lizzie experiment … there is no way out … all it has left are enemies … the horrible truth is that cocktail of joyous anger can work for a while … but it cannot lead to Conservatism in the future … it is obvious to most people that we are heading for climate chaos … Scumbag’s government cannot beat doctors, teachers, nurses because the economics are flowing the other way … it fails to revive the Tories in the polls … will leave its stain … the wonderful Mandela quote: ‘Everything is impossible until you make it happen … Richy Scumbag is conscious how toxic the word ‘Conservative’ has become … May, Thick Lizzie, Johnson, Dominic Raas, Amok Sharma, Said Avid, Tom Tugendhat and a large number of other Tories have dropped ‘Conservative’ from their Social Media bios … UK has handed over £175 million to the French to put a halt to small boats crossing the Channel … rumour that Paul Dacre’s name had disappeared from Johnson’s long delayed resignation honours list … connected to phone hacking and intrusion case that Prince Harry, Elton John and others are bringing against Rothermere newspapers … Richy Scumbag appears reconciled to losing 1,000 seats in next month’s local elections … Johnson is grimly reconciled to the fact that he is a busted flush … Tories face problems finding candidates for local and general elections … The Tories’ future is Rejoin … the Tories exist only to win elections – they will soon twig that one path to doing that involves dumping Brexit … Tories have no permanent friends only permanent interests. That interest is to get into power and stay there … Tories will lose the next election … their one and only priority will be getting back into power … if the Tories find that backing Brexit is the road to political oblivion they will drop it like a hot potato … newly elected leader will denounce the ‘impossible dreams of Brexit’ … ‘rigid dogma’ … ‘misplaced irrelevance to real needs’ … current leadership will not do that yet … their attacks on ‘wokeism’ and ‘lefty lawyers’ are pathetic attempts to snatch victory from the jaws of victory … the reality is becoming all too clear: one day, sooner than you think, the Tories will come out in favour of rejoining the EU. They will have to if they want to win further elections… Latest survey of issues that matters to voters has immigration fifth on the list behind the economy, cost of living, National Health Service … and a lack of faith in politicians…
Have I got Fake Brexit News for EU
Mail, Sun, Express and Telegraph see it as a badge of honour that efforts to curb immigration ‘human rights to the limit’ … fact checking ministerial pronouncements is not a priority for the Mail … we are not the automatic country of choice for refugees … there is no evidence to support ministerial assertions … GB New … retoxifying public discourse … Mail’s ‘infamous’ flirtation with Fascism in the 1930s … we need young people to work and pay taxes yet we are busting a gut to exclude healthy young people who are willing to do both … Tories are tilting the electoral odds in their favour by making it difficult for groups likely to vote against them … unfolding economic crisis and string of bad news stories led to soul search and Bregret … UK falls significantly behind other European countries in adoption of new technology … antiquated British production lines … Britain is on course for a £62B investment gap … per capita income in the EU grew by 8.5% from 2016 to 2022 … Britain saw 3.8% growth … we are on track to fall behind. Consequent effect on British living standards could be grave … erosion of infrastructural base … We face a post Brexit world without the tools to make it alone … we need high quality education … for competitiveness UK slid 7 places … the sunlit uplands are a long way off … country is barely limping … Brexit has been a disaster for the economy … we sink into obscurity with only memories of a golden past … Brexit cost me £290 per month … I cannot identify a Brexit dividend … biggest con trick since the Trojan Horse but with far more negative consequences … witless denials of Brexit impacts … the majority in favour of Rejoin can only increase … let Johnson rot … proven liar and disgrace … Brexit relegated English football … When England left the EU rules on transfers changed … when talented Irish player Kevin Zefi signed for Inter Milan the headline ran ‘Grazie alla Brexit … we are disadvantaged … it is just another bureaucratic nightmare created by Brexit and the diminution of one of the few industries where we still lead the world … Britain’s tax system is flawed … infested with complications … incentives chicanery …beneficial for the rich … bad for the public purse … property taxes poorly designed … encourages tweaking and gimmicks rather than coherent strategy … the losses from eliminating exemptions would be concentrated on just a handful of groups, benefits of simplification and efficiency would be diffuse …British voters have developed a taste for technocracy after years of chaos … 61% of Brits said ‘having experts not government make decisions would be good … Brexit was one system of Tory estrangement from modern British capitalism … Richy Scumbag is styled as a ‘fixer’ … shows an appetite for gimmicks … in many areas Scumbag offers no fixes at all because they are politically ‘off limits’ … fixing an imbalance between anticipated revenues and outlays can be solved in two ways: raising taxes or reducing benefits … there is a magical third solution of increasing immigration to make the ratio between retirees and workers more manageable … why do billionaires get a free ride? … Truss was wrong … IMF is predicting that UK will shrink by 0.3% -the worst performing economy in the developed world … Truss was always going to spook the markets … We have a country in stagnation … a workforce permanently reduced by Covid … our trade and potential are being hammered by Brexit … the only realistic chance is to grow the economy … we need politicians prepared to defeat Alice in Wonderland arguments … Brexit has brought chaos to the education sector … If you cannot get students to come to the home of English to study English then something has gone very wrong … Brexit shambles … Bad decision in 2016 with disastrous consequences … Kafkaesque … devastating effect … put red tape and confusion into a system that had worked well for years … education contributed over £1b every year and supported 17,200 jobs … Brexit killed this … many previous customers taking their business to other destinations … The best place to learn English is now Ireland … hardly surprising … plagued with problems … worst is yet to come … research done by UK universities is most at risk … decline was driven by Brexit … Johnson and Princess Nut Nuts have given occasional glimpses into their Gatsbyesque lifestyle … Lady Carole Bamford, wife of JCB heir, provides luxurious free accommodation … visited the Heathrow VIP suite an astonishing 20 times since he left office … £40,000 worth of free hospitality … Richy Scumbag disclosed that Murdoch was the only individual who wined and dined him … it is not the electorate but the likes of Murdoch who decide what happens … Times has a new columnist from the Telegraph … puerile tosh, dull, appallingly badly written … I know they publish rubbish but this is a work of art even for them … forlorn hope of Paul Dacre acquiring an honour … blame Brexit for wrecking the UK … if we are looking for an elite to blame we need look no further than the privileged gang that brought us Brexit … almost entirely the work of opportunistic privately educated boys from Oxford … working class Brits and pensioners worst hit … pitiful record … shameful … repulsive … bigotry … deeply unpatriotic … new elite leading the country to perdition … Brexit is going badly; by June 2041 we will be hard pressed to find anybody who admitted voting for it … history will not be kind … Ireland is looking confident, vibrant, energetic and at ease with itself, membership of the EU is a large part of that … It is easier for the Brextremists to indulge in anti Irish tropes than to confront reality … there has been little coherence in anything that has followed Brexit … a government that is trying to run one of the world’s largest economies with fag end idea formulated in the 1970s … It is obvious that the UK has run out of ideas … Brexit is stupid …inexplicable decisions, bloody mindedness and entirely foreseeable problems … self sabotaging … Kafkaesque … significantly higher costs … incredibly frustrating process … so much wasted time … tortuous red tape … extra cost … blizzard of paperwork … no short term wins … self defeating isolation … “
Pip Pip Don Adamson Medway Delta (Retired) Brexorcist and Saboteur First Class
