Article in TIME.com
Category: UK
Proportional Representation
For many, Labour was seen as the only viable opposition because of our First Past the Post anti-democratic voting system. It distorts voting decisions as the majority vote against instead of for and/or they feel so disenfranchised by the absolute meaninglessness of our democracy their vote is not cast.
I do not feel that the Conservatives represent my interests. I do not feel Labour do, either. A future election will perhaps deny the two largest and most divided parties an automatic mandate due to their gravity. I hope they become honest with themselves and both split off their extremists and then adopt a fair electoral system.
Politics is not just about being in the EU or not. People are suffering as a consequence of this Government and the PM’s own historic track record as a promoter of bigotry and indifference to the needs of the broader population. Her snap election strategy was all about the population investing in Labour as a path to get rid of her.
She does not even have a voice, just soundbites and meaningless equations to justify the wounding of our democratic life.
But neither does the leader of the Opposition. What he said is naturally “holding the Government to account”. But his take on Brexit confuses and he seems to be now having to support a policy he finds difficult. Surrendering to the wiser corners of the Labour party.
The way forward is to have a voting system that creates Governments that are truly representative of the views of people. The Referendum would have been that, if only it has been run honestly, instead it appealed to prejudice and made dreadful false promises.
No, the answer is to represent all views that find a majority or that form a meaningful coalition. The ConLib coalition was not a coalition but a bullying take down of the Liberal Democrat identity. It was no different except Nick Clegg sometimes said “no” but not always at the right time. A coalition is a round table of mutual interest. The UK has not seen one, not yet.
New Zealand and Germany have MMP (mixed member proportional) that keeps the best and most talented MPs in parliament, but also gives more seats to parties that get the votes. It works rather better than AV which Nick Clegg was given a referendum by Cameron so PR could be killed off. Nick Clegg damaged the UK by his poor political judgment. I hope he does better at Facebook.
Stupid People
“Stupid People” muttered Jeremy Corbyn. The Stupid People in the ranks of the Conservative Government rounded on him claimed he muttered “Stupid woman” directed at the Prime Minister Theresa May. You can read his lips, he said “Stupid People”. Yet many very convinced Right Wing believers were adamant that he said something he did not apologise for, that he pointed out that he would also have objected to, he is not a misogynist, and he said “Stupid People”. It was a moment of political clarity.
And the media frenzy was about the question of what he said rather than why he said it. Shortly after this indicative event, Gatwick Airport was closed down due to the use of drones allegedly. How were these two events related?
This Tory Government has been so focused on their core policy of austerity, and implementing an invalid referendum to break the UK away from the EU. Their negotiations have been lamentably awful. The Prime Minister took charge of the negotiations and got a deal with the EU, but will not let Parliament vote on it because it will lose. Now she is using the threat of reaching no-deal and causing economic and political collapse as a lever to ensure her deal gets approved. Under the conditions of austerity, the UK has seen a terrible catastrophe when Grenfell Tower caught fire and due to ridiculous regulations the building was clad unsafely, and 72 people died. There were no sprinklers, there was one fire exit and the fire brigade could not control the blaze. Under conditions of austerity, the Crossrail project has gone ahead, the largest most significant project but it has overrun its completion date by a year and several billion pounds. Under austerity, local councils have been decimated and local services have suffered. Under the guidance of the Transport Minister, a smug and awful Chris Grayling, there has been chaos on the railways, including strikes and an timetable train that was not planned correctly, causing billions wasted in business. Under this Government, retail has gone to the wall. There is simply no actual intelligence in the Government’s planning. China, in the meantime, has a thriving economy, so it can be done.
Jeremy Corbyn was right, this Government is comprised of Stupid People. Worse than fiddling while Rome burns, this Government is plotting with PR to actually make conditions for its citizens worse and appeasing the ultra Right Wing who gathered terrible momentum, starting with the murder of MP Jo Cox.
And now Gatwick has been buzzed by drones, so this stupid government send in the Army! Over 4 days, they have demonstrated how a lack of Government planning and spending cripples them. They can not find the person controlling these drones! They can not even shoot them down.
150,000 citizens with a ruined holiday and countless business losses is the cost. This Government has wasted billions and cost the UK many thousands of lives by their negligence to pursue a policy to turn the UK into a subsidiary of Trump’s America with ultra low-taxes. All so the UK is not subject to tax haven regulations to be brought in by the EU just after the date that Britain is set to crash out of the EU.
Stupid People in Government. Stupid People who voted for them.
The End of Empire
It seems inevitable that a once too proud empire would shed its client states like old skin. The UK is the rump of a spent empire that is trying to protect its old-money rather than using it to make new wealth. What it is not noticing is that its fear of the other will continue to extend to whatever it at its event horizon or boundary of its awareness. It seems that Brexit is designed to continue this process of self-destruction.
The reason it has to be like this is the drives inherent in the conservation of wealth and domination. The lesson of literature is that leaders with too much power corrupt into wraiths frail and afraid as the anyone that they are. The media writes “how history will remember” a world leader as a future judgement, the last word, the dying insult. Which side of history will a leader end up on? Will it be to have their likeness carved into a mountain, or to be forgotten or reviled?
Not that history matters. Except if we can learn from it. And if the riches of the powerful may fuel corruption, the ravages of poverty do not grant inherent grace. The person at the centre of a myth is not necessary the main protagonist but the one with the best story.
Brazil – the film by Terry Gilliam should have been the salutary lesson. As a fiefdom of the great consumer America, we will become their administration, their slaves in civic obscurity as they enforce a red tape emporium of wonder upon our hapless souls.
Big mistake, Mrs May. Big mistake.
The EU is more liberal than the States. Exporting our souls may make us the cheapest source of quality labour to an overheating economy, but there are other things to consider.
We would have been wise to allow more generations of integration with our brilliant neighbours, instead we do not know the thousand year headache of administrative compliance that awaits us!
Or, we could do the wise thing, and let the people decide their fate.
Continued Brexit – the EU accept whatever deal the Government can agree on with a 100% risk of the firestorm that would be hard Brexit if the EU will not agree to it.
or
Continued EU Membership: Cancel the Article 50 letter and agree to remain in the EU being at the top table in actively demanding new rules to benefit all, so that while people’s rights are more universally respected an emphasis on building the wealth of each region by shared efficiencies of the whole commercial effort.
Brexit is just the beginning
The Government, led by a woman who really can not dance, is making sure that Brexit goes ahead, come what may. Why?
It is not good for the EU, it is bound to break the United part of the UK.
Meantime, Trump lies to his power-base. He belittles women and there they are in the audience applauding him. He could be saying anything and they would support him, in fact, the more outrageous he is, the more they applaud.
And it is the same in the ranks of the Conservative party. Theresa May throws scraps to the power hungry and they lap it up while plotting to take power. Her razor thin grasp of power perversely protects her grip. But her deal with the DUP threatens to undo it, so watch out for more compromised positioning that can only mean a united Ireland in the EU. And the DUP are beginning to
What the UK really faces is becoming a branch of Trump-land. After Brexit, the UK will have to replace the international trade agreements of the EU with the rest of the world, with their own. This will logically cause a recession as businesses relocate to the EU. Japan has already said that they see the UK as their gateway to Europe. No more. Notwithstanding the fact that the UK has proven itself an unreliable business partner, it has demonstrated how awful they are at negotiating.
Brexit is the start of something far worse. It will enable the Tories to indulge themselves in their awful, rotten and detrimental “solutions” like their treatment of the Windrush generation, the Grenfell tower calamity, the hostile environment policy May invented, the weak and ridiculous environmental policies of culling badgers and increasing the price of plastic bags instead of removing plastic (there is far more in food packaging than bags).
This is nothing short of a Right Wing revolution. People, it is time to rise up!
Russian Spy poisonings
It is hard to trust the word of either government.
Britain has a government that pursues an extreme agenda saying it is the “will of the people” when that is clearly untrue. The accusation against Russia, in this case, does appear logical but the photos of two men
Putin’s statement that they are civilians is not very well supported by the two men’s story, which sounds rather silly, especially their statement that men would not carry women’s perfume on a plane without arousing suspicion. Who else would target enemies of the Russian state?
The UK has already spent millions on this. Due process is expensive. Russia has lost far more due to sanctions.
You got to ask, who benefits? Who are enemies of both states?
British Human Rights Abuses
The UK government has not done enough to prevent another Grenfell style disaster. They appear to leave this in the not as important as Brexit basket, and unfortunately for the citizens of this once proud country can expect the same kind of disregard for Human Rights in all (in)actions by this horribly ineffective Government. They have demonstrated how they have no concern for the citizens they rule over, except where it comes to removing human rights by not only departure from the executive functions of the EU (the British contribution is a
The commission said it was concerned that the consultation omits any reference to the government’s duty to protect lives under article 2 of the European convention on human rights and schedule 1 to the Human Rights Act 1998. “This paramount duty requires the state to take appropriate steps within its power to effectively protect the lives of individuals and groups in situations where there is a known real risk to life, or where the authorities ought to have known that,” the commision said in its response to the consultation, shared with the Observer. The response continues: “Unfortunately, over a year after the catastrophic loss of more than 70 residents’ lives, many of the very systemic failings that led to the Grenfell Tower fire still exist now, giving rise, in our view, to an ongoing violation of article 2 ECHR/HRA by the state.”
The Fall of Great Britain
The Government is failing. There seem to be two types of Government: overactive or inactive. The UK Government is inactive, devoid of progress and it is not evolving a better world but one that has progressively been failing.
The increase of violence in London, the increase of the homeless, the treatment of the victims of Grenfell, the Windrush scandal. The continuous nonsense of discussing how to inflict damage that could undo the Union that they want to protect, the complex degradation of Brexit.
The dull mediation of outrageous statements followed by calls for the resignation of front bench ministers for failure or ignorance – this government appears to teeter between mild offense and mild rebukes rather than create any real waves. Their own negotiations about Brexit seem to swim in ever decreasing circles, and then suddenly bad decisions pop up and the public is sick of the ineffective bickering so ignore the carefully worded statement of progress. Over time the tide turning appears incidental. This is mass mesmerism hiding the dysfunctional democracy.
Syria Strike
Trump, Macron and May strike targets in Syria and avoid hitting Russian targets. The fog of war instantly rises, the Russians say the majority of missiles were shot down and the Americans say each one hit their targets.
If they degrade Bashir al Assad’s ability to use chemical weapons, then they have achieved a goal. If they hit any Russian targets, they have achieved something else.
In an excellent analysis, Andrew Adonis has this to say about it. He sees Theresa May’s action as avoiding an embarrassing vote in the Parliament which may not agree that taking non-effective action is a priority. Alignment with Trump may demonstrate to Putin that the UK is to be taken seriously however laughable the net balance of actions by this government are.
Green MP, Caroline Lucas points out that acting before the OCWP can inspect is ridiculous.
The problem with this kind of military gesture is that the powers that order it have no real idea of the consequential effect. Right-Wing Tories keep trying to point out that a vote in Parliament got David Cameron a defeat but is not the scrutiny of the parliament desirable before we run into accidental war with Russia? Our lack of preparedness for war is obvious enough. Is the Government expressing a fear that protection by Trump is entirely necessary
Theresa May
Why did the UK choose to be governed into an inevitable compromise instead of taking up the gauntlet and reforming the EU? The trouble with her leadership is that the negotiations are a waste of time. Of course, Britain has to pay its dues before it departs. Of course, the rights of citizens cannot be removed. Inevitably, common sense will resist Trump’s reactive and manipulative form of protectionism as it is simply not us.
We holiday in Spain rather than Texas, Italy rather than California. For exactly the same reasons. A compromise is the only result of weak leadership, the bullock in a china shop negotiations waste valuable time.
I am afraid that “very difficult woman” may or may not steer Britain into Brexitland, but that is a minor problem compared with the lack of sustained policy success against the debt. It is not vision but fear that drives the Conservative leadership. What new ideas from the Tories during all these years? Austerity? It’s golden goose slaughter. I see a crumbling society that has forgotten Grenfell too quickly. Sure, the very very rich have taken your wage growth and poured it into the stock market, overheating it while the economy is stalling?
No. I would prefer a leader with vision and clarity.