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Monthly Archives: May 2024

Hard Labour

Labour’s flawed Brexit policy

This from Paul Cawthorne in Italy, an economist, international consultant and long-term member of Reboot Britain. Image by Patricia Paton, Editor Bylines Scotland, from the related article Hard Labour, which you shoud read in conjunction with this piece.

Labour’s current “Make Brexit Work” policy is seriously flawed and, at best, will have no positive or negative impacts on their immediate electoral prospects. Labour is going to win power because the Tories are imploding after 14 damaging years (including Brexit) and Labour are now more trusted on all the key bread-and-butter issues (the NHS, the economy etc). Labour will win the general election despite, not because of, its unnecessary “no rejoining” red lines. If Starmer left the door open to rejoining the single market and customs union he would still be winning the election by a large margin.

1. Poor advice based on outdated (2019) focus groups and internal polling data.

2. Overestimation of the enduring support for a hard Tory Brexit in the so-called Red Wall. Confirmed by John Curtice.

3. Underestimation of the the impact of Brexit’s evident failure on public opinion. See also The Sun’s reaction to the £5 Billion wasted on border checks just yesterday.

4. Underestimation of the impact of demographic changes on the electorate.

5. Overblown fear of the reaction of Tory tabloids to any perceived watering down of Brexit. See The Sun yesterday and the Telegraph.

6. Misplaced belief that “Make Brexit Work” will be a convincing winning 3-word slogan in 2024.

7. Nostalgic belief that Labour is still essentially a “working class” party and needs to prioritise at all costs the views and prejudices of these traditional “core supporters”.

See also Tectonic Plates

See also Blank Canvas

See also Hard Labour

The run up to an election is a critical time to influence politicians. Make sure you tell your Labour MP or candidate that your support is conditional on a change on policy.

Share relevant articles that accord with Paul’s analysis.

Expect better. Remainers are all too often on the back foot.

Hannibal Lecter Brexit T-Shirt
A warning from the future for Keir Starmer.
Bus

On the buses

In a complete change, this article is NOT about Brexit. Instead, this is about the seemingly mundane issue of OAP bus passes!! Once a week I indulge myself and take a bus ride to Maidstone to play music in an open mic jam session. I used to travel by bicycle and train, but recently got an old git’s bus pass. I discovered that the journey is almost door to door, takes less time than the bicycle / train combo, I can get the last bus at 23.15 when the train leaves at 23.03 making it all a bit less rushed and the journey costs me nothing … or so I thought …

I have to give a bit of context for those that don’t live here first: The 101 bus runs from Gillingham in Kent to Maidstone in Kent. It is run by Arriva bus. Gillingham is part of the Medway unitary authority whereas Maidstone is part of Kent County Council. There is no border control when the bus passes from Medway to Kent and vice versa. Given what took place the other day, perhaps there should be (joke).

Medway Council’s OAP bus scheme tells me that I must not travel before 9.00 am but can travel freely all day from then on. This is the same as in London which is much busier. Kent County Council’s OAP bus scheme says that I can not travel free after 11.00 pm. You may be thinking “perhaps the buses are crowded?” NO – there were just 7 people on my bus and it is fairly empty most times that I have used it. You may also be thinking “perhaps they have a night bus scheme?” NO – as far as I can tell there are only buses after 11 pm in town centres. Only one runs to Gillingham and another to Tunbridge Wells.

On the evening in question I got on as usual and the young driver said that my pass was not valid after 11 pm. I explained that it was a Medway Bus Pass and the T&C’s indicated otherwise. I said I would find them and show him. A couple of stops later, I did so. He continued to argue, saying that the bus was in Kent and not Medway. I explained that the bus had come from Medway, is garaged in Medway and I am from Medway. I offered to get some money from a cashpoint on my return to the destination. He accepted that.

A few more stops on and he stopped the bus, got out and made a phone call (presumably to his boss). This took several minutes and I presume he hoped that this would irritate the other passengers and that they would apply social pressure to me. They did not. He got back in the bus and went through the same arguments and I in return repeated my offer to pay him at the end point. He carried on driving.

We arrived in Chatham bus station and I asked him to wait whilst I got some money. He refused to do so, so I got off and got a local bus home. The driver of the second bus thought the whole episode ridiculous given the fare lost (£2.00) and the fact that none of the buses have passengers at this time of night and so on.

Should Kent County Council operate a border post between Medway and Kent to collect the £2.00? OR

Should Kent County Council bring Esther McVey down, the so called Minister for Lanyards to declare the night time charges void? OR

Should I stay at home, drink Ovaltine, empty my bed pan and colostomy bag (joke) in the evenings instead of going out? Is this the end game?

I called Arriva and they confirmed that my pass was valid until midnight in Kent and Medway. The driver was wrong as is the person who has commented on this article. See Arriva. The chap at Arriva was very nice and told me that they recently recruited a number of young drivers. He promised to make sure that the driver understood the policy.

None of the other bus drivers have charged me since I have been using the service of late.

I called Kent County Council and they are officially confused, despite my pointing out that they have virtually no buses after 23.00 and virtually no passengers !!! Arriva have a different rule for Kent / Medway compared with Kent / Surrey, not that one could get to Surrey from Kent at 23.00 !!

Some people on a bus forum think I simply don’t want to pay the £2.00 and think I’m lucky to have a bus service at all. I don’t care if it’s £2.00 or £200 – I expect things to be right. It’s utterly ridiculous – for 30 years I have heard the term ‘joined-up thinking’ in public services. We need joined up doing.

I was reminded to write this post about buses the other day by some chap on Facebook who thought that I ascribed everything bad in the world as being down to Brexit. I don’t. I had replied to a post by the Labour party that many of our problems had their roots partly or wholly in Brexit. Richard Carbyn had replied below suggesting that a lack of flowers, parking price rises, disappearing road sweepers and a bad bus service were all the products of Brexit. They are not and yet Brexit induced austerity and lack of people who wish to work will have contributed to England’s decline now I think about it! Back to Brexit tomorrow !!

I imagine Richard will enjoy this clip from On The Buses. Presumably he wants things moved back to the 1950’s? Watneys’ Red Barrel, Ricketts, Thalidomide, faggots, straight glasses, pints, pecks and stones … that sort of thing.

Posted in Britain, Education | Tagged , | 6 Replies
Blank Canvas

Blank Canvas

The Labour Party knocked on my door at the weekend. An extremely pleasant man began the canvassing by introducing himself and then asked me if I had any local issues that were troubling me. I replied with one word : BREXIT. I also apologised later on for telling him things he probably did not want to hear. He seemed fine with that and our conversation was cordial. Some of the hoops we jumped through are here for the record.

I began by explaining that I was finding it hard to vote for a Brexit party and revealed that I knew some senior Labour people who had told me that they would commence Rejoining in 2032. I explained that nobody would know what Brexit was by then and, in any case, the damage wreaked by Brexit would be mostly complete and much of it irreversible. I went through my usual argument that growth was for the birds, with a 4.5% resilience knock from Brexit, akin to trying to swim the English Channel with a 4.5 kg block of concrete around one’s neck.

Brexit resilence concrete
Brexit resilence concrete

He listened carefully and then tried a few gentle pieces of pushback:

Well the Conservatives won’t reverse Brexit” … I replied that I was not so sure, citing the fact that there was evidence of incremental movement to undo some of the worst elements of Johnson’s Brexit deal via the Windsor framework and our rejoining the Horizon science scheme. I went to point out that David Cameron had not come back to politics for a game of tennis and that one scenario would see Cameron pivoting towards the centre leaving the ERG loons in a boat on the Channel. I pointed him towards our articles Tectonic Plates and Cameron.

Read Tectonic Plates

He went on to say “But the Tories will pivot towards the far right” … Again, I had to disagree, citing my appearance on James ‘O Brien, where I said that the votes were in the centre and that whilst it may appear that the far right are in ascendancy, this was only due to the loudest voices on MSM, such as Braverman and was not supported by the numbers. He nodded. I went on to say that Labour now have a major PR problem, having decided to partner with someone who supports sex pests and who relishes the thought of drowning children in the English Channel.

He found it very hard to argue against this recent development with Nathalie Elf Thick, but did ask me “What was Keir Starmer supposed to do?” … I replied that he should have simply thanked her for her kind offer and politely declined. Elphicke’s arrival in Labour offers them few advantages but also may cause them significant problems. I have wondered if she has actually been sent in under a false flag. We shall see. It seems rather fishy that the Tories instantly denounced her. Smells like a double bluff to me.

My canvasser’s parting shot was that he’d put me down as a floating voter, after I said that I may even have to hold my nose and vote Tory if Labour would not change its position on Brexit. I explained that Brexit was at the heart of many of the things he was hoping I might talk about (cost of living, NHS, migration etc.) and showed him my Brexit iceberg in the window of my house. It was a bit like doing a slightly nerdy keynote address with a poster in my window instead of a PowerPoint visual !!

Brexit Iceberg
The Brexit Iceberg.

I am hoping that he’ll report all of this back up the channels to Labour strategists. I was really impressed at our dialogue and how well he listened and constructively challenged me.

On the other hand, I heard from one of our group that Labour are banning posts on their Facebook groups that mention words like Erasmus, Horizon, ULEZ, Brexit etc. Labour are just as bad as the Tories in terms of censorship. I’m pleased to say that this has not extended to my local fb group, although the levels of misinformation are beyond comparison in the group. Some examples are below:

There are still industrial levels of misinformation out there. Don’t be like Steve.

Never give your voting intention away as you lose power to influence policy by doing so. I am still contemplating standing a candidate for the Rejoin party or possibly a cat again.

Buy us a coffee

NHS

Septic Shock

Whilst I was working as Gina Miller’s campaign manager I was asked to handle an enquiry from Dean Gwilliam. Dean had seen Gina’s TV appearance on Sky with Sophy Ridge and was fatally impressed by her sense of purpose in seeking truth, justice, transparency and fairness. Dean freely admitted that he voted for Brexit in 2016 but wondered if we could help. Having heard his story, I felt that we should do something, especially as he had been so honest about his views. Dean was very patient with me and explained his long campaign of seeking justice for this mother. It also happened to coincide with another similar matter from someone living in Gina’s chosen constituency of Epsom and Ewell, so I decided to seek some ways forward. In the event, Gina decided that she did not wish to act in either case for reasons that I am not at liberty to write here. But, having spent some considerable time speaking and meeting with these people I felt an obligation to see if there was some way that I could amplify their cases, if only to attract further interest or to shame some people into conducting a proper review. I have been very moved by the Mr Bates vs The Post Office cases and realise that people feel isolated and alone in such circumstances. Here is Dean’s story, as he explained it to me. I understand that he has a very large body of evidence to support his assertions. He merely seeks the truth for his mother. It is quite technical and this short paper covers seven years of advocacy, so please read carefully. I have reported summary as written by Dean and clearly there are also many pieces of documentation that support his assertions. Nonetheless, what is now needed is a proper inquiry so that the various allegations can be addressed.

Dean believes that doctors and nurses on London’s St Thomas’ Hospital’s (GSTT) Sarah Swift Ward unlawfully killed 84 year old Maureen Gwilliam, on 1/6/22, They concealed her leg interventions’ triggering of septic shock and denied her 10 days of antibiotics and intensive care. This, against her medical history, son’s reports of her sepsis 6 symptoms, from 21/5/22, and their own research, confirming sepsis survivors’ serious risk of death, for up to 5 years.

The cover-up began on 24/5/17, when University Hospitals Birmingham (UHB) and Sandwell and West Birmingham (SWBH) NHS Trusts conspired to subject Maureen to a non-consensual Right CFA-to-PTA bypass graft, to outwardly conceal her lower right legs’ critical limb ischaemia (CLI), from 10/9/14, her right big toe’s wet gangrene and required amputation, from 9/12/14, her lower right leg arteries’ occlusion, in turn, noted 5/2/15, 31/3/16 and 12/8/16 and, more particularly, her lower right leg’s resultant fixed mottling and required amputation, from 20/6/16.

Maureen’s CLI, gangrene and fixed mottling were allowed and concealed, to deny their underlying PVD or atherosclerosis, noted 23/12/13, that had caused Maureen’s 20/11/13 subtotally occluded LAD-based NSTEMI/heart attack. UHB and Maureen’s Wychall Lane Surgery GPs had caused it, by hiding her family history for ischaemic heart disease (atherosclerosis) record from 1977 and the US ARIC study’s suggestion of a related heart attack at around 72, and concealed it, by misportraying it as a sudden, blameless inferior STEMI.

The 24/5/17 bypass was performed to deny Maureen’s lower right leg’s fixed mottling, from 20/6/16, and similarly misportray its associated amputation requirement, as a sudden, blameless one. This was effected by misrepresenting Maureen’s exposed PTA’s foreseeable causation of a bloodstream infection, septic shock, above the knee amputation and kidney failure, as a chance infection, just after her supposedly successful bypass. The concealment continued by discharging Maureen, under the aftereffects of antibiotics (<=2wks), to ward 307, on 1/6/17, then to Birmingham Community Healthcare NHS Trust’s (BCH) Moseley Hall Hospital (MHH), on 20/6/17, having covered up her sepsis’ delirium, spiking temperature and underlying infected groin graft remnant, that maintained it.

The cover-up caused further right leg AKA, on 5/7/17, and C.diff, by overexposing Maureen to antibiotics. Maureen’s C.diff was diagnosed on 21/8/17 but deliberately prolonged, by ignoring our appeals for FMT referral and confining Maureen to Fidaxomicin’s around 70% failure rate, considering Vancomyin’s failure, that would have killed her, on 30/1/17, as her SAE might have, had her son not intervened on both occassions, resulting in 999s to A&E, with life-threateningly low blood pressure, a well known septic shock symptom.

In fact, Maureen’s C.diff was maintained, until St Thomas’ relented to Dean’s appeals for FMT and cured her in 30 minutes on 3/5/18. After returning home Maureen changed GP surgery to Cofton Medical Practice, who similarly denied her emergency vascular referrals, with BHC’s community podiatrists’ help, as Wychall Lane Surgery had done and Worcestershire Royal Hospital’s A&E department proved no better, denying Maureen duplex imaging and claiming that her absent PTA pulse was inconclusive, despite her medical history. We asked for an urgent referral to GSTT, but they obstructed imaging and treatment permitting gangrene to develop in Maureen’s remaining leg, hid its underlying occluded ATA/shin artery, that was responsible for her right leg’s gangrene, discharged her when her treatment was obviously insufficient, and outwardly concealed her interventions’ causation of sepsis/septic shock.

Maureen’s clinicians did not unlawfully kill her and cover it up, alone. They were aided and abetted, from 29/6/17, by the wilful blindness and intellectual dishonesty of other pillars of our establishment. Pillars, including:

a) The IOPC, the HMICFRS, West Midlands Police, its PSD and commissioners, David Jamieson and Simon Foster, who destroyed and denied our contact and evidence, of Anthony Collins’ Solicitors (AC) and expert Professor Linda Hands’ (LH) conspiracy to pervert the course of justice and concealment of Maureen’s family history for ischamic heart disease, subtotally occluded LAD, 897 days of critical limb ischaemia, 292 days of wet gangrene, fixed mottling, 42 days of sepsis and 255 days of C.diff, in the latter’s report, whilst misportraying them as an unrelated heart attack and a couple of weeks of acute limb ischaemia. mfg Solicitors and The Wilkes Partnership also supported the two’s perjury, along with the SRA.

b) Maureen’s MPs, Richard Burden and Gary Sambrook who, along with Jeremy Hunt, Sajid Javid, Priti Patel, Suella Braverman, Victoria Atkins, Sir Keir Starmer and Rishi Sunak, refused to challenge the deceit behind Maureen’s destruction.

c) Birmingham County Court judges Leong, Fentiman and Murch, who supported AC and LH’s perjurious cover-up, facilitating Maureen’s ongoing destruction and unlawful killing.

d) The Met, its PSD, Sir Mark Rowley, Sadiq Khan, Susan Hall, The IOPC, Victoria Prentis, Southwark Council, other County Court judges, Southwark Coroner’s Court, the High Court, the Court of Appeal, the Supreme Court, the Lady Chief Justice Sue Carr and the Justice Select Committee who have, all, since Maureen’s death, avoided AC’s, LH’s and Southwark’s lead medical examiner Dr Luke Smith’s perjury, that disclaims Maureen’s 10 day denial of antibiotics and an ICU, by denying her one per day sepsis 6 symptoms, between 20-23/5/22, and by fabricating her need of only an HDU, initially, on 30/5/22, and her transfer to one, complete with imaginary heroic doctors, who supposedly treated her.

Editor’s note : Dean has many letter exchanges with the people listed. These would constitute the basis of an inquiry to seek the truth. At this point they are merely allegations that need resolution.

In case you are finding this incredulous by now, Dean points out that Dr Smith’s perjury is exposed by tape recordings and his cover-up of Maureen’s similar septic decline, after her 7/12/21 leg intervention, that was obscured by faking her discharge on 9/12/14 and then stopping her leaving, denying her IV antibiotics for 5 days, that Dean made an email record of when Maureen called him to explain her new cannula’s purpose but that were later denied, giving her the 9/12/21 discharge letter on her 21/12/21 discharge and postponing her intervention, in her 21/12/21 POPS letter, until after her sepsis-related tachycardia, which happened on both occasions, had been observed – Dean has the letters requesting their correction that were never responded to. Amanda Pritchard and Dr Ian Abbs were behind Maureen’s mistreatment at GSTT.

Dean now seeks the truth and some fairness. Whilst it is obvious that he has been extremely persistent and stoic in pursuing this matter, the absence of any sense of closure on the matter is troubling. A proper inquiry would restore some sense of equity. I am not a medical expert, but what looks like a continuing case of concealment does need to be addressed. Whilst medical people are not magicians, and can confuse symptoms with causes, it is also true to say that if there’s nothing to hide then there is nothing to fear in responding to Dean’s request for an inquiry.

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Rejoin EU

London Calling

With your help, the Rejoin Party retained their deposit and came 6th overall in the London Assembly elections.  Support also fell away from UKIP and the far right with Britain First and The Heritage party losing their deposits  This is a wonderful result and your votes and shares of the campaign undoubtedly contributed to this result.  A big thank you !!! 

See the note below from the leader of the Rejoin Party.   Why not join Rejoin for the next battle aka the General Election?

Rejoin Party

Hey Peter,

Just wanted to say a big “thank you” for all your help and support during the election campaign.

You may have heard we managed to keep our deposit for the first time ever (🥳) – by just 611 votes!

What you may not have heard is that this forces the BBC to redesignate us a “party with significant support” in London (one of just 6 parties! Us and the “usual suspects”). This in turn means over the next 4 years we should be able to force the BBC to have “reverse Brexit” commentator on in London at least (in theory!)

Anyway, thanks once again for all your help and support – those 611 crucial votes only came out of our very low budget campaign!

Best regards,

Rich  

Join us next Monday 13 May on ZOOM at 8 pm

p.s. Our leaflets are ready to order to finish the job on the Tory party btw.

Mont St Michel

Vive La France

I took a rare holiday in Normandy last week. The stark differences between Brexit Britain and France were plain. The border crossing was uneventful until we returned to British customs on the way back, with an amount of petty bureaucracy. We had chosen to go by Le Shuttle to avoid potential delays on the M20 / M2 which forced the cost up, but it was more relaxed overall.

On the first evening, we went shopping to get some provisions. I was struck by the price of cheese (inexpensive) and bought a bottle of Malbec for €1.99 !!! It was surprisingly good and would retail from £9 upwards here, probably more after Brexit border checks are introduced which may add 60% to the price of imported goods. Oh well, it’s what they wanted.

But what really struck me was the sense of community and state of high streets in French towns and villages. More so because I watched a film of “English Patriots” saying that they had no identity, because we have no nursery rhymes, have to drink coffee and are no longer allowed to eat fish and chips or meat and two veg. Painfully funny reportage by Max Robespierre below:

By contrast, I noted that entire families dine out in the towns I visited, including children, who ate real food, not fast food. I hardly saw any children playing computer games in cafes with their parents. Instead they had family conversations. A common complaint of the English Patriots is that the high street has been taken away from them. It’s no wonder when many of them shop at Tesco etc. In the high streets of Normandy, it was not a constant stream of kebab joints, vaping huts and coffee outlets. Whilst the butcher, baker and candlestick maker are absent from most English towns, there was a rich diversity of shops in the French towns. Although there are supermarkets, they are not of the massive size that are allowed in Britain. I sense a very different approach to town planning and culture. The very culture that the English patriots crave is present … in France!! Perhaps Margaret Thatcher was right when she said that “there is no such thing as (English) society”.

Britain seems to have invested in the industrialisation of high streets / consumption and much of what these people feel they have lost is the product of this process. The faux nostalgia of the English Brexit patriots is painfully summed up by Billy Bragg in his epic song “Full English Brexit”.