The State of the Republicans: 2013

The end of the Romney campaign ushered in a new era for the Republicans…. apparently. They insisted they must change. Their appeal must broaden. Their hate-filled, politics of over-the-top Glenn Beck style fear had to go. They had to be presentable. Change or die! The old days of a Party of old, white, male, Christian, heterosexual, angry-at-everyone-who-isn’t-EXACTLY-like-them, funded by big corporations had to go. And so we were informed that a new breed of Republicans would appear. Ready to present a reformed GOP to the electorate. They were radically different from their predecessors.

So how’s that going?

Well, in November 2012, the residents of Texas’ first district re-elected Louie Gohmert for a fifth term in the House of Reps. If the Republicans are intending to break from the past, surely we’d expect Gohmert to perhaps be a little more moderate than his more radical Tea-Party-esque contemporaries. That’s what we’d expect. However, when asked about his opposition to any gun control legislation, Gohmert gave this rather odd answer:

“In fact, I had this discussion with some wonderful, caring Democrats earlier this week on the issue of, well, they said “surely you could agree to limit the number of rounds in a magazine, couldn’t you? How would that be problematic?”

And I pointed out, well, once you make it ten, then why would you draw the line at ten? What’s wrong with nine? Or eleven? And the problem is once you draw that limit ; it’s kind of like marriage when you say it’s not a man and a woman any more, then why not have three men and one woman, or four women and one man, or why not somebody has a love for an animal?

There is no clear place to draw the line once you eliminate the traditional marriage and it’s the same once you start putting limits on what guns can be used, then it’s just really easy to have laws that make them all illegal.

- You read right. In a discussion about gun control, Gohmert managed to take a shot at same-sex marriage, by employing the insufferably weak slippery slope fallacy. I cannot work out which is more impressive; his ability to link gun control and same-sex marriage… two completely separate issues that in no way overlap, or his intense lack of sensibility in recognising that there is no reason to believe a slippery slope with either of the issues he’s commenting on. I could equally say “If we let women vote, what next, letting camels vote?” or “If we ban cocaine, why not ban cough medicine? Where does it end!!” It’s absurd and it is baseless. He isn’t the only Republican to use this fallacy recently. John Cornyn, the new Senate Minority Whip said:

“It does not affect your daily life very much if your neighbor marries a box turtle. But that does not mean it is right…. Now you must raise your children up in a world where that union of man and box turtle is on the same legal footing as man and wife.”

- Yes. the Republican Senate Minority Whip has just compared a loving couple wishing to express that love via marriage, and wishing only to be considered equal under law….. to a man marrying a turtle. That’s the standard of top Republicans in 2013.

Back to Gohmert. The man who tried to link gay marriage to gun control, also claimed that the liberals are going to make Churches:

….hire whatever Satan-worshiper, whatever cross-dresser you think might be immoral, that’s against your religious belief. You are going to be forced to abandon your religious beliefs, and we’ve been seeing that with some of the requirements under Obamacare.

- Yes! Someone had to say it! Obamacare is simply a mask to make Churches hire cross-dressing Satan-Worshippers! It’s SO obvious. Wake up America!
The fact that this man gets the privilege to vote on gun legislation; a vote on the safety of your children in school, would be laughable if it weren’t so utterly terrifying.

Bobby Jindal won a 2nd term as Louisiana Governor in 2011. Since then, he’s been rather excitable at promoting misleading figures to promote an agenda of fear. Whilst one fifth of all residents of Louisiana lack health insurance, Jindal refuses to expand Medicaid expansion, claiming it would cost Louisiana $1bn over the next ten years. Quite where he gets this figure from, I’m not sure. Especially given that a Department of Health Report noted that Louisiana would actually save around $400mn over the next ten years, by expanding Medicaid. He appears to have invented his own figure, to scare people. Despite this, and despite a petition signed by…

Advocates for Louisiana Public Healthcare.

Advocacy Center.

Capitol City Family Health Center.

Capital City Alliance.

Citizens United for In-Home Support.

Coalition of HIV/AIDS Nonprofits and Governmental Entities.

Center for Health Law and Policy Innovation, Harvard Law School.

Children’s Defense Fund-Louisiana.

Children’s Bureau of New Orleans.

DEAF Louisiana.

Doctors for America.

Depression & Bipolar Support Alliance, Northeast Louisiana.

Health Law Advocates of Louisiana.

HOPE For Homeless.
Along with 30 other groups, and countless more individual signatures….. Jindal refuses to expand Medicaid.

And then there is the apparent darling of the Republicans new bid for power in 2016; Marco Rubio.

“We’re bound together by common values. That family is the most important institution in society. That almighty God is the source of all we have.”

- Here, Rubio is subtly promoting the myth that America was founded a Christian nation, and that religion must be considered part of the fabric. A subtle hint that non-belief, cannot be considered an American value. Thus, in a single, tiny quote, we see the saviour of the Republicans alienate anyone who isn’t slightly obsessed with ‘God’ being a key component to Patriotism. So that’s 15% of Americans who claim no religion. That’s a lot of people to alienate, for a man promoted as the key to solving the Republican Party’s problem of appealing to minorities. Rubio is following the conservative trend of telling people who should and shouldn’t qualify as ‘American’. This in itself, is divisive.

Rubio also still appeals to tradition when dealing with same-sex marriage, insisting that marriage cannot be redefined. Seemingly ignoring all evidence that the current definition of marriage, is just one that has evolved over time, based on modern Christian understanding of the term, and differs from other cultures entirely. So, that’s gay people alienated, as well as non-believers.

Brand new Senator for Senator for Arizona, assuming office in 2013, Jeff Flake also doesn’t like the idea of two people in love getting married. Whilst despising ‘big government’ and the intrusion of the State into people’s lives, Flake voted in favour of a Federal Marriage Amendment, Constitutionally banning same-sex marriage. For someone so obsessed for getting government out of people’s private lives, Flake seems more than happy to use government power to ban love.

Back to Rubio. As well as not particularly liking gay people, Rubio voted against the Violence Against Women Act, stating:

“I have concerns regarding the conferring of criminal jurisdiction to some Indian tribal governments over all persons in Indian country, including non-Indians.”

- Essentially, a non-Native American male being tried under the law for sexually assaulting a Native American woman, concerns Rubio, because he doesn’t trust Indian Tribal Governments. And yet, he puts his full faith in the States to fund programs properly:

“These funding decisions should be left up to the state-based coalitions that understand local needs best.”

- So trustworthy are local areas in dealing with domestic abuse cases, that due to budget cuts, the Topeka, Kansas City Council and Mayor actually repealed the Domestic Abuse law, in a bid to start a bit of a war with the County Prosecutor. This came about after Shawnee County D.A Chad Taylor, moved to stop investigating domestic violence entirely due to budget cuts. This meant that the City of Topeka would have to take up the cases, which they couldn’t afford to do either. So their Council voted to repeal the domestic abuse act. Which, forced it back into the hands of Shawnee County. Taylor said:

“My office now retains sole authority to prosecute domestic battery misdemeanors and will take on this responsibility so as to better protect and serve our community. We will do so with less staff, less resources, and severe constraints on our ability to effectively seek justice.”

Rita Smith, executive director of the National Coalition Against Domestic Violence said:

“I really do not understand this. It’s really outrageous that they’re playing with family safety to see who blinks first. People could die while they’re waiting to straighten this out.”

- All of this comes down to budget cuts. Shawnee County DA Chad Taylor refused to prosecute domestic violence cases, after facing a 10% budget cut, despite half of all cases being domestic abuse cases, which increased substantially in the past three years, without any extra funding from the County. How very trustworthy! Interestingly, Rubio voted against the Budget Control Act in 2011, and the Fiscal Cliff 2012. Rubio evidently trusts the localities to make funding decisions, which is much easier, if those localities don’t have any funds in the first place.

Rubio isn’t the only Republican with odd reasons for voting against the Violence Against Women Act. Steve Stockman, Representative of Texas’ 36th District announced his shameful reasons for voting against:

“This is a truly bad bill. This is helping the liberals, this is horrible. Unbelievable. What really bothers—it’s called a women’s act, but then they have men dressed up as women, they count that. Change-gender, or whatever. How is that—how is that a woman?”

Stockman also voted to repeal Federal laws that ban guns in schools. Why so? Well, given that among his campaign contributors are the ‘National Association for Gun Rights’ and ‘Gun Owners of America’, it perhaps isn’t that surprising that Stockman feels the need to put their interests above the safety of children. Just to make sure we all understand where his allegiances lie, here is incredibly ridiculous, almost comical campaign bumper sticker, tweeted for the World to see, by the man himself.

- I’m not sure if Stockman is calling for semi-automatic rifles to be inserted into the vaginas of every pregnant woman. I wouldn’t be surprised.

The scientifically illiterate are still abundant in the Republican Party. Marco Rubio once announced that he didn’t know if the Earth was made in 6 days or not, and that we’re never likely to know. But Georgia’s 10th District Rep. Paul Broun (planning to run for Senate in 2014) and, quite horrifyingly, serving on the House Committee on Science, Space and Technology once took Rubio’s toying with Creationism one step further:

Earth is about 9,000 years old, it was created in six days as we know them”

- Broun also said of embryology, genetics, evolution, and the Big Bang theory:

“they’re lies straight from the Pit of Hell … lies to try to keep me and all the folks who are taught that from understanding that they need a savior.”

- Broun also said of climate change:

“Scientists all over this world say that the idea of human induced global climate change is one of the greatest hoaxes perpetrated out of the scientific community. It is a hoax. There is no scientific consensus.”[

- Echoing his scientific illiteracy, Broun gives us enlightening views on politics, when brief mention of a National Security Force by President Obama, before the 2008 election:

“It may sound a bit crazy and off base, but the thing is, he’s the one who proposed this national security force, I’m just trying to bring attention to the fact that we may _ may not, I hope not _ but we may have a problem with that type of philosophy of radical socialism or Marxism. That’s exactly what Hitler did in Nazi Germany and it’s exactly what the Soviet Union did. When he’s proposing to have a national security force that’s answering to him, that is as strong as the U.S. military, he’s showing me signs of being Marxist.”

- Yes. A US Representative, thinks the Earth was made in 6 days, evolution is a lie from the pit of hell, climate change isn’t man made, and convinced President Obama was going to create his own Hitler Youth, to take over America and create a Marxist haven.

Now to move on from bat-shit crazy, to slightly less crazy, Paul Ryan. The spritely Paul Ryan. You may think he’s irrelevant as a symbol of this great new era for Republicans, given that his ticket lost the Presidential election. But let’s not forget that Ryan is the Chairman of the House Budget Committee, in 2013. A pretty important position. He’s also Wisconsin’s 1st District House Representative. He looks young, he seemed fresh, he wasn’t the grey haired typical old Republican. Nor was he the gun tottin’ Sarah Palin slightly vacant Republican. He was paraded on the networks as a hero of fiscal conservativism, brave to speak out against Obama overspending! His brand new House Republican Budget released in March this year, which the brave, fiscally conservative hero claims will:

“end cronyism, eliminate waste, fraud, and abuse and returns the federal government to its proper sphere of activity”

- So it is worthwhile to note that the anti-big government, pro-deficit reduction Paul Ryan voted for the two Bush tax cuts (both considered a great failure, and added significantly to the deficit), the $700 bailout of the banks, and the Medicare Prescription Drug Benefit, whilst voting against Dodd–Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act. Most of Paul Ryan’s economic voting record, has added significantly to the National deficit.
His House Republicans Budget, unveiled by Republicans on March 12, noted that $931 billion of the creatively accounted $4.6tn apparently savable over the next ten years, will come from counting the savings from ending the Iraq and Afghanistan wars…. wars that Paul Ryan voted for in the first place. Economically, Paul Ryan doesn’t know where he stands.
Socially, despite absolutely no evidence to back up its claims, in 2009 Paul Ryan cosponsored the ‘Sanctity of Life Act’. A very odd little Act that sought to protect fertilised eggs, stating that the eggs:

“shall have all the legal and constitutional attributes and privileges of personhood”

Ryan also believes that abortion, in all cases, including rape and incest, should be made illegal, and States given the right to criminally prosecute women who have abortions, including for rape and incest.

Before being elected as Senator for South Carolina in 2013, Tim Scott was House Representative for South Carolina’s first district. During his time in the House, Scott cosponsored a truly horrifying Bill that would deny food stamps to poorest families, if a family member was taking part in strike action. The right to strike – a key component of a democratic society – used by the weak against the powerful, used to secure freedoms and security for generations, Tim Scott voted to essentially end. Threatening the poorest people in society; you either strike, or you eat. Scott is also convinced that the private health care system in the US is the greatest in the World, and that the Health Reforms of 2010 should be repealed. This is no surprise given that one of his main campaign contributors, has been Blue Cross/Blue Shield, the health insurance company. Among other campaign contributions, he has received donations from Goldman Sachs. Tim Scott is a politician, for the wealthy, by the wealthy. The Insurance Industry Candidate.
Speaking of complete contempt for the less wealthy, Mark Meadows, a member of the January 2013 intake for The House, and Tea Party favourite, representing North Carolina’s 11th District voted against the Sandy Relief Fund.

Dean Heller, the Senator for Nevada, who will hold that position until 2019, voted against the Health Care Reform, and against Fair Minimum Wage Act. Heller has also voted against subsidising renewable energy, whilst voting to support development of oil, gas and coal…. two of his top campaign contributors, are Alliance Resource, and Murray Energy…. two coal companies.

So, gay marriage leading to marrying an animal, Church’s having to hire crossdressing Satan-worshippers, manipulating figures to suit an agenda, a refusal to expand Medicaid to help the most vulnerable, evolution a myth from the pits of hell, refusal to protect victims of domestic abuse, including transgendered people, a desire to see women who have been raped imprisoned for having an abortion, guns in schools funded by the gun lobby, Obama trying to raise an army to enforce a Marxist Utopia, anti-renewable energy, candidates wishing to disenfranchise poor people and their right to strike, and wishing to repeal health reform whilst taking campaign contributions from the wealthiest insurance companies in the country.

This new Republican breed sound, and act, and speak, eerily familiar to the old breed.

The Deafening Silence of The Taxpayers’ Alliance.

The Tax Payers’ Alliance are an interesting group of right wingers. Any sort of social program is deemed a waste of tax payers’ money, by those moral guardians over at the Alliance. Any increase in public spending, is criticised instantly as a waste of money, ineffective, and courtesy of the big bad government. They only want what’s best, apparently, for the mysterious “tax payer” God of which they pray at the alter. (Except, obviously, for Alexander Heath, the non-executive Director of the group; a man who hasn’t paid taxes in the UK for years).

I mean, they really hate anything funded by the tax payer. One of the members of the West Midlands brance of the TPA, Peter Roberts, wrote on his blog:

“And finally I hate buses because they are the symbol of a socialist society where people rely on the state to provide transport.”

- Yes. They even take their time to rant about how buses are a “symbol” of socialism, silently replacing the Hammer & Sickle and the face of Che Guevara. Remember that, every time you get on a bus. You’re basically announcing your support for Stalin.

So, given their vocal interest in any slight government funding for any project, ever…. we would expect them to remain consistent, and at least have a say over the £10m tax payer funded funeral for Margaret Thatcher. A funeral, which, according to a ComRes Poll 60% of the public do not believe the tax payer should have paid for. Great time to show that the Tax Payer’s Alliance isn’t just a Tory Party mouthpiece masked as a ‘grass roots, non-partisan’ Alliance of those concerned about misspent public funds.

Here then, is a comprehensive guide to the work of the Tax Payers’ Alliance over the course of the past month.

This a list of the items that the TPA has had an opinion on, over that month:

Business rates on empty buildings
Prison gymnasiums
Prison therapy programmes
Prisoner rehabilitation programmes
Prisoners’ access to legal aid
Prisoners’ access to air freshener
The Bedroom Tax
Rise in the tax threshold
The Health and Social Care Act
The Welfare Reform Bill
GLA staff internet browsing history
MPs expenses tribunals
Cosmetic surgery on the NHS
Working trips by the Science and Technology Facilities Council
International Development spending
Housing benefit for prisoners on remand
Sentences for benefit fraud
Compensation payments for injured children
Scrapping the development of a police computer
A grant to KPMG to set up a Glasgow office
The Cyprus bailout
Welsh councils’ spending on gifts for guests
Refreshments at meetings with Mayor Rahman
Demolition of derelict homes in Stoke
University Vice Chancellors’ pay
Medical negligence law suits
Accident at work compensation
Fitting council vehicles with GPS
The appropriate number of children for people on benefits
Gagging clauses for BBC executives
A subsidised bar in Whitehall
Charges for green waste collection
Windfarms in the South Pacific
Decisions of the Financial Services Authority
Councillors’ pensions
Advice offered by NHS Online
Headteachers attending conferences
Trainee doctors’ wages
Health support for obese children
The BBC iPlayer
The BBC’s disciplinary procedures
The Youth Police and Crime Commissioner Paris Brown
Gender realignment surgery
and…
The stuffing of William Hague’s snake

Here is a list of items the TPA has not had an opinion on, and has in fact, remained completely silent on, over the past month:

Margaret Thatcher’s £10m tax payer funded funeral.

- There must be some sort of mistake. Perhaps they’re just taking their time to write a well reasoned and eloquently presented response to the entire debacle. That must be it. Or perhaps every member of the TPA is currently on holiday without access to news. Or maybe too busy collectively weeping and mourning, their thoughts too occupied with grief to comment on the expense itself. That has to be it. I’m sure when the grief subsides, they will be vocal in their opposition to such an elaborate and overly extravagant day-long tax payer/socialist funded Tory Party Political Broadcast, of which 60% of the public they claim to represent, didn’t want to fund.

That being said, if they were in fact, too grief stricken to comment at all, we would expect their website to be bereft of any update since April 8th. And yet, oddly, we see five stories on their site since that day. A story about how shit and wasteful Owen Jones is. A story about how shit and wasteful Cardiff Council are. A story about how shit and wasteful Police and Crime Commissioners are. A story about how shit and wasteful Wales is. No story whatsoever, about the funeral expense.

So the one lesson we can all take from the TPA, and their ongoing campaign, is quite simple. Tax payers’ funding this…

…. is acceptable, and represents good value for money. Not Socialism. But tax payers’ funding this….

….. clearly a symbol of the Soviet Union of Great Britain, taking away your freedoms. It even has the nerve to be red.

The TPA are that excitable about every form of tax and spending in the UK (except extravagant socialist funerals for leading proponents of right winged, small-government dogma), that a spoof generator exists in which you too can come up with a generic ‘outraged’ TPA quote!
I typed in “England” and got this rather apt response.

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The Greatest Prime Minister of the 20th Century

“Style, is normally seen in terms of sweeping gestures, the dramatic entrance, the flair for histrionic glamour in the spotlight. But style can be equally powerful when it exploits non-style”
- Political Journalist James Margach.

The year was 1967. England was triumphant in its securing the first and only World Cup win in the summer previous. The Beatles were at the height of their studio success with the release of Sgt Pepper. London was swinging. And Temple Church near Westminster was preparing to say a final goodbye to the arguably the greatest Prime Minister the United Kingdom ever had: Clement Attlee.

The funeral was a small gathering of family and friends. No press, no Royal acknowledgement, no grand seven hour Parliamentary tribute special, and no outward display of intense hatred from half the country, for the man who shaped the country and the World following the end of World War II. A simple goodbye, for an outstanding Prime Minister, key reformer, and Statesman.

Clement Attlee was never seen as a figure that would amount to much in the political arena. He was fond of established institutions, from an upper middle class family, studied at Oxford, and was never ashamed that he came from an affluent background. He was a conservative, in all but economic principles. He was also not considered Prime Minister material.
Future Chancellor under Attlee, Hugh Dalton, on hearing that Attlee had won the Labour leadership in the ’30s remarked:

“It is a wretched, disheartening result, and a little mouse shall lead them”.

- Attlee was unimposing, quiet, shy, and considered very unimpressive. And yet this ‘little mouse’ was a man who would change the face of Britain, and shape public discourse and the role of the State and the Individual, to this day. Winning an unexpected landslide victory in 1945, and reshaping Britain for the next seven years.

It is said that after the quiet, and modest Attlee’s surprising win at the ’45 general election over a Conservative Party led by Winston Churchill, he stood in silence with the equally as shy and quiet King George VI for six whole minutes at Buckingham Palace, before Attlee finally said “I’ve won the election“, to which the King replied “I know“.

His economic assistant at Number 10, Douglas Jay famously noted that:

“He would never use one syllable when none would do.”

Attlee’s social democratic leanings shaped his view of what was needed for the country following the terrible economic woes of the 1930s and the heavy loss of the war. Those social democratic leanings took shape following his years working in London’s East End and experiencing the horrors of extreme poverty. In 1950 Attlee remarked:

“I get rather tired when I hear that you must only appeal to the incentives of profit. What got us through the war was unselfishness and an appeal to the higher instincts of mankind.”

- This belief, that the amplification of the appeal to profit is not necessarily the fundamental trait that incentivises mankind, was the basis for his entire Prime Ministerial legacy.

On coming to power, the unimposing Attlee set about radically restructuring the entire country following the war years. His was to be a socialist government, for the people, and for the sake of equality. He was to pursue this radical aim with vigour, a clear juxtaposition to his personality, which paradoxically complemented it also. He came around at a time when the people demanded an end to austerity, and absolutely no return to the economic misery of the 1930s. Labour offered something new. Security.

To achieve his goals, Attlee appointed a pretty strong Cabinet. Towering figures like the radical Aneurin Bevan to head up Health, Herbert Morrison – grandfather of future Labour grandee Peter Mandelson, headed up the Foreign Office. Atlee Appointed Ministers louder than he, more abrupt than he, more imposing than he. And yet, he kept them in check. Attlee was a philosophical man, a man of debate. He said very little. His Cabinet were the people to turn his plans into a reality. The Labour Government set about putting the wonderful 1942 Beveridge Report, which recommended a socially secure country, as a way to break the horrors of poverty and lack of necessity, into place.
This was the birth of the modern Welfare State.

Social Security, the report said, must be achieved as a contract between the State and the Individual. The individual worked, and the State provided back up for when times got tough. No one would be left to fend for themselves. We truly were, all in it together. It was a ground breaking idea. The Attlee government used the report as the basis for one of the most comprehensive shake ups and social experiments in the history of the UK.

Social Security was not universal, nor comprehensive, and what existed of it, was dying, prior to the Attlee government. Under funded charities trying to cope with the pressures of people coming home from war, a lack of jobs, homelessness, and health issues. Some were palmed off onto other Government Departments. It was in a broken state, and people were left to rot. And so, The National Insurance Act in 1946 established the bulk of the brand new Welfare State. It insured everyone in Country, from cradle to grave, establishing Widow’s Benefits, Unemployment Benefits, Sickness Benefits, and Retirement fund, all for a small National Insurance contribution from the Nation’s workers. All workers paid a contribution, and as a result, were protected during tough periods in their life. A modern National safety net had been created.

Alongside the National Insurance Act came the Industrial Injuries Act, which provided assistance to anyone out of work due to injuries at work. The ‘Death Benefit’ gave help to widows in planning a funeral. The National Assistance Board was set up to assess those who hadn’t contributed through National Insurance, but still required help getting into work, to support them along the way. Unemployment between 1950, and 1969, averaged just 1.6% (social economics leads to idleness? Really?). Financial distress caused by long term unemployment, had been dealt with wonderfully. Secured jobs, people felt a breath of relaxation that if all failed, a safety net would protect them until they could get themselves back on their feet. Power over their own lives, was being handed back to the people who had it the least, and needed it the most. This is the legacy of Attlee.

The National Assistance Act in 1948, replaced broken and completely irrelevant “Poor Laws”, establishing a National safety net for people who didn’t pay National Insurance; the homeless, single mothers, the elderly, and the disabled, obliging local authorities to grant accommodation to those in most dire need.

After providing a Social Safety Net, the Attlee government got on with a massive house building project in order to rebuild Britain following the second World War. Between the end of the war and 1951, around 1,000,000 new homes had been built to deal with the shortage, as well as projects to rebuild those damaged during the war. 80% of the new homes, were council houses, to deal with housing the least wealthy and the most vulnerable.

And then came perhaps the greatest legacy of the Attlee government. The NHS.

Before the NHS, healthcare was largely paid for by the individual as if it were a luxury. Expensive treatments were solely the right of the wealthy. Some provisions were available, in parts of the Country, largely in London, for the poorest.
The Health Minister, Aneurin Bevin, fought a raft of opposition against the National Health Service Act from its birth in 1946, to its passage through Parliament and implementation in 1948. The point of the NHS was as beautiful as it was simple:

“free to all who want to use it.”

It didn’t quite end up as fully planned, for the very basic notion of a universal healthcare system is something ingrained into the minds of all of us who consider healthcare a right and not a luxury. The NHS is still a national treasure. The Attlee government had to backtrack slightly on free prescriptions including glasses. This caused the Health Minister Aneurin Bevan, to storm out of government. Despite the back track the framework remained intact. A universal healthcare system, free at the point of use. The NHS would also cover mental health within that framework. A section largely ignored prior to the Act.

The government nationalised 20% of the economy, as part of decisive social and economic reforms demanded by post-war voters. Whenever Conservatives insist that the Attlee regime created a Socialist economy, it is necessary to point out that 80% of the economy, was Capitalist. The very essentials that are based on need rather than consumer wants, were nationalised; coalmines, healthcare, gas and electricity. All of which had been rotting terribly, underperforming privately, and offering no safety, or decent pay for workers. Nationalisation worked to change that. This was a consensus followed for the next thirty years by both Labour and Conservative governments. Much of that consensus died in the 1970s. The strife of that decade was used as an excuse by the New Right to destroy Attlee created consensus. Other clear causes of the economic struggles, specifically, inflation, of the 1970s – the Oil crises following the OPEC trade embargo, the Iranian revolution, and the disastrous ‘Competition and Credit Control’ policy of the Tory Heath government – were ignored, and instead the system of Welfare, nationalisation and the very concept of compassion and community itself was blamed and ripped to shreds; the attempted destruction of the entire post-war consensus, was disastrous. It didn’t save Britain; it rightly identified a problem with certain aspects of the consensus, attached the blame to the wrong place, and presented a solution that has been even more disastrous than the original problem.

It is perhaps the greatest respect to Attlee, that a modern day Conservative Party, feels that it had to use left leaning rhetoric to appeal to a vast sway of the public that would not elect it, had it revealed its own intentions to reignite the flame of a much despised Thatcherism three years ago. In 2010, the Tories presented themselves in a very Attlee-esque light: “Progressives“, “Compassionate“, “Helping the poor“, “The NHS is safe with us” was their battle cry; and what a far cry that is from the Thatcherite policies that the election winning rhetoric was used to mask.

It is true that the economy struggled during the Attlee years, owing almost entirely to the pressures caused by mass unemployment and economic crises of the 1930s, the destruction of major towns and cities during the war. Though, industrial production alongside manufacturing output greatly increased under Attlee, so too did volume of exports which increased 73% between 1945 and 1951. By the time Labour’s seven years in power was up, the country was turning around. An economic boom in the 1950s and 1960s existed on a new settlement based on a Social Security system, better wages and conditions for workers, a vast improvement in quality of life, government investment, and a National Health System all carved out by the Attlee government.

He of course, made mistakes. The de-colonisation of India, whilst a great venture that almost certainly wouldn’t have taken place had the deeply Imperial minded Churchill won in 1945, was not conducted fairly, nor sensitively enough. The hastily drawn up lines carving up Hindu India, and Muslim Pakistan, lead to thousands of deaths and conflicts lasting years. Attlee took the lead in Cabinet meetings surrounding Indian independence. He had supported India’s Independence for many years, and yet failed to provide for it adequately.
It is also the case that Attlee was not too great at Cabinet meetings in general. Among other, the Minister for Fuel and Power, Hugh Gaitskell complained bitterly that:

“Sometimes Cabinet meetings horrify me because of the amount of rubbish talked by some ministers who come there after reading briefs that they do not understand…. I believe the Cabinet is too large.”

This concern plays out across government, when we note that during Chamberlain’s reign, there were just 13 committees, 8 of which were ad hoc. During the war years, a further 400 War Cabinet Committees were created. Attlee failed to get this government-by-committee under control. That being said, he was still able to hold control of Cabinet, and make swift decisions.
Also, had Attlee not reversed on his NHS promise of free prescriptions, Bevan and others may not have resigned forcing him to go to the polls.

Despite losing the election in ’51, which allowed Churchill’s Conservatives to swing back to power, it is untrue that Attlee’s government were unpopular by ’51. Their share of the vote was down just 2%, and yet the election results show that whilst the electoral system gave Churchill’s Tories a greater share of the seats in Parliament, Attlee’s Labour Party actually won more votes than the Conservative Party and the Liberal Party combined, polled 48.8% whilst the Conservatives polled 48%, and won more votes than Labour has ever won before or since. Labour won the 1951 election, the electoral system failed miserably. Gaining a majority of the popular vote is even more of an achievement, given that Attlee’s seven years were the longest uninterrupted years for a Prime Minister, since Asquith in 1908-1916. The Attlee government was not unpopular in 1951.

Christopher Soames, son in law to Winston Churchill, and sacked from Thatcher’s cabinet, once remarked on Thatcher’s government:

“Every time you have a Prime Minister who wants to take all the decisions, it mainly leads to bad results. Attlee didn’t. That’s why he was so damn good.”

- A fitting eulogy.

A million new homes, A National Insurance System that included; a National Health Service, Child Benefit, Help for the Homeless, Sick Benefits, Unemployment Benefits, Pensions, Widows Benefits, huge improvements to workers pay and conditions, the De-Colonisation of the British Empire. All of this was achieved at a time when the a third of the Nation’s wealth was lost to the war, and a practically empty treasury. The achievements of a government that lasted just seven years, and heralded in a ‘golden age’ of souring wages, minimum inflation, and low unemployment following a horrendous war and crippling austerity, are astonishing. His insistence that the State has a decisive role to play in the well being of the people, that compassion must not be drowned out by profit, and that we are not simply individuals at war with each other, is the legacy of the greatest Prime Minister the United Kingdom has ever known; Clement Attlee.

Thatcherism: A price not worth paying.

Famously, Norman Lamont, Tory Chancellor under John Major, epitomised the care-free Tory attitude to the misery inflicted by an economic shock therapy and recession drawn up in Downing Street:

“Rising unemployment and the recession have been the price that we have had to pay to get inflation down. That price is well worth paying.”

- In 1979, inflation was at 13.4%. When she left office in 1990, it was at 9.5%. For that 3.9% drop in inflation, the UK experienced a staggering 3,500,000 unemployed in 1982, from 1,400,000 only three years prior; destroyed ex-mining towns like Easington in County Durham which still hasn’t recovered and is known as the most deprived town in the North of England; the systematic destruction of communities in Britain like the ‘ghost town’ of Toxteth, and South London suburb of Brixton; suffering, according to the Scarman Report from lack of decent, affordable housing, no amenities, terrible levels of crime, no real educational opportunities, instead leaking roofed schools having to fund raise constantly for the very basics, huge unemployment rates, and the heavy handedness of the Metropolitan Police which the later MacPhearson report labelled as “institutionally racist“, along with a huge increase in poverty, child poverty, inequality, suicides, and homelessness, alongside the unleashing of dangerous financial speculators and easy credit. According to affluent Conservatives, that is all a “price worth paying” for a 3.9% drop in inflation. This tells you all you need to know about Thatcherism and its priorities.

“I know these tax measures will not be welcomed by all; ways to reduce the deficit never are. But we must show we’re all in this together. Yes, the deficit is still far too high for comfort. We cannot relax our efforts to make our economy safe. But Britain is heading in the right direction. The road is hard but we’re making progress.”

- said the Tory Chancellor George Osborne as he announced that a new round of Thatcherism forced upon the British public by a government without a mandate in 2010, was failing miserably. Austerity in Britain, he announced, would now have to last until 2018, rather than the previously predicted 2015, when everything would be wonderful again. More public sector cuts, more people forced to work stacking shelves for multi-national companies who don’t have to pay them, more disabled people told they have too many ‘spare rooms’ and must pay more, more people struggling to live, all to fill the horrendous deficit leak created by the very people who support and fund the Tory Party. We have no money, was the cry of the Chancellor, and the insistence of the Tory Party for the past, well, since time began.

So how strange it is that the Tories, insistent that there is no money to help the disabled, the most vulnerable, the unemployed that they so shamefully threw onto the scrap heap; can find enough money in the public purse to fund a £10,000,000 funeral for an ex-Prime Minister that half the country utterly despised. A woman who once said:

“The problem with socialism is that eventually you run out of other people’s money.”

…. is now, ironically being given a tremendously over indulgent Socialist funeral, including a mass of Heads of State (I’m not sure if any of Pinochet’s family are invited), the Royal Family, 2000 guests, with full military honours and 700 military personnel. It will be a private affair apparently, paid for by the taxpayer, and not by “The Honourable Sir Mark Thatcher” – himself worth over £40,000,000. A Free Market Party, and a very wealthy family, demanding a Socialist funeral. HURRAH for Thatcherism!

Not only that, but instead of waiting until Monday, when MPs would be hanging around Parliament anyway after recess, the Prime Minister broke protocol, despite the Speaker of the House raising concerns that it was inappropriate to break that protocol for a huge 7 and a half hour love fest. When James Callaghan died during a Parliamentary recess, they waited until the next time Parliament met, for tributes. When Churchill died, 45 minutes was set aside for tributes in Parliament. Not only that, but staging the Tory Tribute day in Parliament cost the taxpayer – on top of the horrendously inflated funeral costs – expenses worth £3,750 per MP. For this one day, plus the funeral, how many people could have been kept in their jobs? How many of the 7000 nurses made redundant could have been retrained?
It’s okay! Shout the Tories. Foreign Secretary William Hague insisted the funeral expense was acceptable because:

“When it comes to money, the rebate she negotiated for this country from the EU has brought us so far £75 billion.”

- Great! I’m sure those who ended up homeless after being kicked out of closed mental institutions, and left to deal with it themselves, will be delighted to hear that she saved us £75bn. Even more so given that a report by the Tax Justice Network into tax abuse, found that tax avoidance, when added together with tax evasion costs us £69bn. The very people she promoted as the great wealth creating saviours of Britain, evade and avoid taxes worth close to the amount she secured from the rebate.

It is of course all part of an illusion the Right is trying, and failing, to create in which Margaret Thatcher saved the UK… and the World, from the evils of people being nice to each other.

Compassion! Is the crying call of all Conservatives this week. What a strange week it must be for them. A Party that have attempted, for thirty years, to wipe ‘compassion‘ from the collective mind, and replace it with an ‘if you can’t help yourself, no one else should‘ attitude, now call for compassion from those who suffered the most under her disastrous reign of ‘me me me‘, demanding they help to collectively pay for the funeral. Irony at its finest right there. I stick by my original point on the day she died, that outward displays out celebration so soon after her death, can only work to upset her family. I don’t particularly care about ‘respect’ for Thatcher herself. But a part of me sees the outward displays of celebration, as an ironic product of a uncompassionate society she inspired in the first place. Another part of me however, cannot condemn the public displays of celebration.

I have seen the quote: “Some policies hurt some, but also helped others, you can’t win over everyone“. How simplistic. How empty a statement. How ignorant. It ignores the extent to which those who fall into the “hurt” category, were actually “hurt“. The deliberate underfunding of mental health institutions in order to give a reason to close them down, replacing them with the cheap and nasty “care in the community” philosophy that saw ex-patients homeless and living in boxes, whilst others simply had medication thrown at them and told to fend for themselves. Many patients were neglected because the closures didn’t coincide with expansion of mental health services by GPs and psychiatrists. So, in reality, cuts to mental health and care. This does not get to be so flippantly written off as “some policies might hurt some“.

But then, Conservatives not caring about those with mental health issues, is unsurprising, given that today we find out that those beacons of social responsibility and compassion, ATOS have declared Meena, a 30 year old with the mental age of a three year old, with celebral paulsy, who can’t walk or talk; fit for work. Atos basically believe she is scrounging disability welfare. Care in the Community Part II. Thatcherism+ . Is this the “compassion” Tories this week have been demanding? The callousness of Thatcherism, is absolutely alive today… and it is the Tory Party, and it is the Liberal Democrat Party.

In another remarkably odd and short sighted statement filled to the brim with fallacies; we’re told from commentators on our TV that people in their mid-20s cannot possibly have anything negative to say about Baroness Thatcher, because we’re too young, or that we weren’t born yet. What an extremely simplistic argument. I hope someone is on the phone to Alison Weir, making sure she was alive in the 1500s, given that she the NERVE to write negative aspects of the policies of Henry VIII. The entire study of history – if it includes negative thoughts from the historian – is illegitimate, if we are to take the ‘you’re too young‘ attitude on board.
The irony here becomes apparent when the same people, many young themselves, tell us we’re only in our mid-20s, then go on to tell us how “Britain was dying in the 1970s“. Or “She beat those pesky unions“. Turns out you are allowed to have a negative opinion about historical events and figures, as long as those negative opinions are Tory opinions.

And how short sighted to tell 20-somethings that they couldn’t possibly be affected by the policies of Thatcherism. In 1986, the mass deregulation of the financial sector, known contemporarily as “the big bang”, an attempt to make London the financial capital of the World. Long term partnerships and personal banking, replaced instantly by a short term, high risk, big bonus carrot with no stick. Partner this with her home equity withdrawal policy, (representing 104% of GDP growth during her term) and suddenly we see a financial sector allowed to get away with all kinds of dodgy gambling, whilst the public were all handed one big credit card. Easy credit, North sea oil, broken communities still not repaired, huge poverty rates, and a dysfunctional financial sector was her legacy. The right to buy, whilst I find it hard to argue with as a policy, did not go hand in hand with new house building. As noted in the Independent:

“More than 1.25 million tenants took advantage of the “Right to Buy” scheme, which raised £18bn and converted thousands of Labour voters into Conservatives – though as council-housing stock shrank, homeless beggars appeared on the streets for the first time in 30 years.”

- in 1989, her ill-thought out housing policy, led to a huge housing crash. Interest rates crippled many. It continues to be a problem today. The housing market is a mess. A cult of home ownership, whilst local authorities had no ability to invest in new developments. Which in turn, led to the exceedingly wealthy buying up old council homes cheap from tenants who made a huge profit themselves, and offer them out at prices only other exceedingly wealthy can afford.

Charles Gow, son of Ian Gow, the Housing Minister under Thatcher, brought up 40 of the 120 ex-council flats in one block in Roehampton. It was the very unsustainability of the Thatcherite revolution in housing, in finance, with regard industry, and it is the new era of ‘everyone for themselves, and fuck everyone else’ attitude amplified as ‘good’, that allows us in our 20s to be able to speak of the effect she had on us and why we do not like it. I wrote of the riots in London in 2010:

An entire generation has been told that we must own stuff. That the purpose of life is to consume. We are given easy credit to fuel the debt needed to sustain an economy and a prevailing social wisdom built around consuming. People who have very little, who are told they will always have very little, living in areas where the opportunities are bleak at best and non-existent at worst, are still encouraged to consume. The materialist mindset that has dominated all other thought processes for far too long, must not be ignored as a contributing factor to the unrest; this can be seen quite evidently with the looting of non-essential, luxury goods. We are what we buy. And that is a problem. A generation of young people have had luxuries dangled in front of their faces by incessant advertising, only to be told they would never be able to afford them; well that temptation exploded and now they can get those desirable consumer items for free.

- We have been made to think that everything policy must please the new invisible God that we call “the markets”. What are “the markets” thinking? How will “the markets” react? “The markets” are now everything and this requires uncompromising, unthinking, unquestioning consumerism fuelled entirely by debt. Those who promote this culture as good, as desirable, who tell us that the poor and the unemployed are ‘scrounging’ or ‘unwilling to help themselves’ or ‘a drain on the tax payer’ are the very same people, like Tory MP Alec Shelbrooke who think it acceptable to claim tax payer money, despite his £60,000+ a year salary, on expensive lunches, and his own personal TV licence. Or for cleaning a moat. Or for redesigning the kitchen in Downing Street. The Thatcherite revolution hailed the beginning of a something-for-nothing culture at the very top of society, that could see the trickling up of wealth come about via credit-on-tap for the rest of the Country. Concentrated wealth in the hands of very few people, is not a positive progression. It cannot be spun to be a positive progression. It is a disaster, and it is all Thatcher gave us. Those who climb the ladder on a well funded public framework, only to hoard their money away in an off-shore account, refusing to pay back into a system that afforded them the opportunity to rise in the first place. But keep consuming, to keep the tax avoiders wealthy. Here’s a Topman Store Card, courtesy of Sir Philip Green, whose company which owns Top Shop is registered to his wife’s name, in Monaco, for tax avoidance purposes.

We, in our 20s can have a say on Thatcherism, because we live in a Country shaped by Thatcherism. It is where we grew up. Eighteen years of Conservative rampant-individualist rhetoric and policy shaped the Country, the schools, the opportunities, the way of thinking, that my generation grew up on. The recession caused by the housing boom, alongside huge interest rates, and poll tax caused my family to lose our business and our home. I am certain this qualifies me to have some sort of opinion on the Thatcher years.

North Sea oil revenues, that account for over 15% of the increase in GDP from the Thatcher years was a stroke of luck, not policy. Market liberalisation policies have nothing to do with the oil revenues, but everything to do how they were used to fund tax cuts for the wealthiest.

Breaking the horrendous abuses of power by self-indulgent trade union bosses is one thing; creating a job market in which job security is a thing of the past, wages stagnate for decades, and a future Tory government is freely able to push young people into unpaid work for any sort of Welfare, using to to show “improvements” in employment figures, suggests that Thatcherism didn’t just kill the unions… it killed the labour movement in general. It killed labour, whilst empowering finance capital, which is just as, if not far more destructive than the unions ever were.

Away from the economy, we’re presented with social conservatism at its most heinous, with that nasty little ‘Section 28′ offering which stated:

“A local authority shall not intentionally promote homosexuality or publish material with the intention of promoting homosexuality”

- Section 28, I’ve heard referred to as simply “a product of its time” by Thatcher apologists attempting to act as if they can’t be held responsible for the horrid homophobia this bill promoted. As if the context of its time is important. Well, no it isn’t.
Section 28 was not a product of its time. What an oddly selective view of history. It was supported by the church, the Mail, and the Tories. What a vast selection of the population! And the exact same section of the population, who still have massive issues with homosexuality. It was a product of Conservative party homophobia. Practically every other notable political party campaigned heavily against it, it had many big named celebrities raising the profile of the issue, it had certain Tories even arguing against it, one of which resigned from the party and joined Labour, a vast proportion of the press at the time actively worked against it. It was contentious even at the time.

A product of its time, also suggests that they’ve since progressed. Let’s not forget that Cameron finally abandoned his support for S28 after winning the leadership, eerily coinciding with his new PR “Progressive Conservative” narrative, that has sinced failed to materialise. Prior to that, in 2000 he’d called Labour “anti family” for wishing to repeal it, and as late as 2003, he openly support Section 28. The cynic inside me, conversing with the rampant anti-Tory inside me, may question Cameron’s sincerity in his apparent new found love of homosexuality. It seems oddly timed to appeal to a more progressive social public, a way to detoxify the Tory party if you like.
Let’s not try to soften the inherent homophobia in the rank and file of the Tory party behind a creative rewriting of history. Product of its time? Yes, if that “time” has lasted about 60 years, still ongoing, and belonged exclusively to one particular homophobic section of society.

Quick side note: Pinochet – wondrous. Mandela – terrorist.

There is curious paradox to Tory rhetoric on the impact that Margaret Thatcher had on the country. In one breath they tell us she had a the greatest impact on the country of any Prime Minister in the 20th Century; which of course requires long term effects. But if you mention just one of the endless list of negative long term effects of her policies, we are told “oh you can’t blame her for that, afterall, she left power 23 years ago!” if you mention unemployment, homelessness and poverty, they say “oh you can’t blame her for that, that was from the 70s“…. which seems to suggest, she didn’t have such a big impact after all. They can’t have it both ways.
I fully accept that she had a huge impact on this country. Far more so than perhaps any since Atlee. But unlike Atlee, I find the impact that she had to be poisonous.

Perhaps one glaring example of the long term effects of Thatcherism, come from the lips of the Chancellor himself:

“our generation’s inspiration”

- That goes some way to explain what a complete failure he has been.

Long term effects aside, we are now daily made to hear how incredibly popular and wondrous she was, from not only those much loved heroes of the Right Kelvin MacKenzie and Jeffrey Archer, but also the very people in her own Party who conspired to backstab and bring her down. The very people who had her standing on the steps of Downing Street in tears as she left for good. There is no compassion in the Tory Party. Let’s never forget that. Norman Tebbit slyly took a dig at the Tories who conspired behind her back to bring about her downfall, now turning out to praise her on every TV and radio show they can get to, when in the Lords, he said this:

‘My regrets? I think I do regret that because of the commitments I had made to my own wife that I did not feel able either to continue in Government after 1987 or to return to Government when she later asked me to do and I left her, I fear, at the mercy of her friends. That I do regret.’

- Left to the mercy of her friends. What a sad indictment of the Tory Party.

The major effect Thatcher has had on the country, it seems to me, is that a vast sway of the population are quite unnervingly willing to ignore the terrible suffering caused by her neo-liberal politics. Willing to ignore the fact that poverty rose from 13% in 1979, to 22% in 1990. They are willing to ignore that the suicide rate under Thatcher hit 121 per million, only once more, briefly had it reached a higher point… under MacMillan, another Tory. They are willing to ignore that just under 2 million children were in poverty in 1979, compared with just under 4 million by 1990; the ability to shrug off the fact that homelessness rose from 57,000 households in 1979, to 127,000 in 1990; all of that is completely ignored and replaced by a ‘Thatcher Saved Britain’ narrative in which she rode in on a horse, defeated the big bad unions, and made Britain great again! The amplification of the prevailing idea that we don’t need to take note of how a society treats and protects its most vulnerable, is a strictly Conservative amplification. That willingness to ignore such horrific suffering, is a legacy in itself. The 1970s were not working. But Thatcherism was not the answer. It never will be. None of it, was a price worth paying.

The Ultimate Daily Mail Story:

Constructing the perfect Daily Mail article is an art form. Many have tried it. They’ve included homophobic rants by Richard Littlejohn, they’ve included attempts to subtly hint that all benefit claimants may be capable of killing children. The ingredients that go into the Daily Mail mixing bowl of bullshit news, include familiar topics like the evils of immigration, the evils of the NHS, the evils of scroungers, the evils of unions, the evils of Labour, how Thatcher saved the entire Milky Way, the evils of socialists, which celebrity looks fat today, kids in danger from the evils of teachers; but it’s rare to see so many ingredients that go into so many different Mail stories, rolled into just one story. It’s almost impressive. Which is why when it does happen, we should sit back, and appreciate it.

Enter Martin Robinson, a Daily Mail columnist, who has already written six Thatcher related articles today alone. One of which, is as close to the perfect Daily Mail article as you’re ever likely to find. It starts with this catchy little headline:

- Note the ingredients used, in just one headling: The NHS, Breasts, Thatcher, Hitler, and Teachers. Heroic, I’m sure you’ll agree.

Underneath the headline, we are presented with this little gem:

- So, that’s: The NHS, Breasts, Thatcher, Hitler, Teachers, and Ed Miliband.

The story was presented with this completely irrelevant picture:

- The NHS, Breasts, Thatcher, Hitler, Teachers, Ed Miliband, and a half naked lady.

The second picture of the Story was this:

- The NHS, Breasts, Thatcher, Hitler, Teachers, Ed Miliband, a half naked lady, The Soviet Union.

The story included the following:

“Craig Parr is employed at Labour leader Ed Miliband’s old school and has worked with the youngest and most impressionable pupils there, while the other teaches troubled and vulnerable children. ”

- The NHS, Breasts, Thatcher, Hitler, Teachers, Ed Miliband, a half naked lady, The Soviet Union, Kids in danger.

And it goes on, to link one man and one woman to the entire Labour Party:

“The teacher at Haverstock School in north London – nicknamed ‘Labour’s Eton’ – was pictured parading with a sick placard which read: ‘Rejoice. Thatcher is dead.’ “

“The school, situated in the fashionable London district of Camden, has been described as a finishing school for the Labour politicians of the future.”

- This is about as relevant as saying… “…the teacher, who once walked past a man who looked a bit like Ed Miliband, but has no other relevant connection whatsoever to the Labour leader….“

- The NHS, Breasts, Thatcher, Hitler, Teachers, Ed Miliband, a half naked lady The Soviet Union, Kids in danger, The Labour Party.

“On Facebook she appears in photographs holding a hammer and sickle flag and posing alongside the former Cabinet Minister Tony Benn.”

- The NHS, Breasts, Thatcher, Hitler, Teachers, Ed Miliband, a half naked lady The Soviet Union, Kids in danger, The Labour Party, Tony Benn.

And it goes on even more:

“The 27-year-old special needs teacher and union activist…”

“Mr Parr is a member of the Lambeth branch of the National Union of Teachers and has previously urged fellow teachers to strike.”

- The NHS, Breasts, Thatcher, Hitler, Teachers, Ed Miliband, a half naked lady, The Soviet Union, kids in danger, The Labour Party, Tony Benn, Unions.

Douglas Carswell, Tory MP for Clacton in Essex, said: ‘We must not have teachers working in schools with young people at the public’s expense who think it’s acceptable to behave like this. Such behaviour is wrong.’

- The NHS, Breasts, Thatcher, Hitler, Teachers, Ed Miliband, a half naked lady, The Soviet Union, kids in danger, The Labour Party, Tony Benn Unions, the taxpaying public.

And on….

Mr Parr, a member of the Socialist Workers Party, joined Haverstock School in September last year and was given the sensitive role of teaching children with special needs.

- The NHS, Breasts, Thatcher, Hitler, Teachers, Ed Miliband, a half naked lady, The Soviet Union, kids in danger, The Labour Party, Tony Benn, Unions, the taxpaying public, dangerous Socialists.

And on….

“Mr Parr, a member of Schools OUT, an association for gay and lesbian teachers, said pupils should be given a ‘balanced view’ of the world.”

- The NHS, Breasts, Thatcher, Hitler, Teachers, Ed Miliband, a half naked lady, The Soviet Union, kids in danger, The Labour Party, Tony Benn, Unions, the taxpaying public, dangerous Socialists, Homosexuality.

Finishing off, with a nice bit of angry far-right commentators, commenting about how Hitler was actually a Socialist (he wasn’t), and how deluded, dangerous, physically unnattractive Marxists with slightly bigger taxpayer funded breasts are targeting YOUR children!:

- The NHS, Breasts, Thatcher, Hitler, Teachers, Ed Miliband, a half naked lady, The Soviet Union, kids in danger, The Labour Party, Tony Benn, Unions, the taxpaying public, dangerous Socialists, Homosexuality, angry, paranoid right wingers.

So there you have it. The quintessential guide to writing the perfect Daily Mail article, courtesy of Martin Robinson, managing to mix all the ingredients into one story. An artist maybe. Or like a right winged modern day Buddha reaching the heights of Daily Mail Nirvana. Though, I have to say, I’m supremely disappointed that there is no mention of illegal immigrants or the EU. Perhaps it’s not the perfect Daily Mail article afterall, but it’s certainly as close as one is ever likely to find. Until tomorrow’s edition.

Re-Righting History.

- The Brixton Riots.

Roars of disapproval echoed through the Tory filled chambers of the House of Commons today, as Glenda Jackson spoke out in beautifully crafted language against the social evils of Thatcherism. The Tory benches were not happy. And yet, they are the ones who insisted on firing up the debate upon her legacy, by referring to her as the “Saviour of Britain”. If you are going to bring politics into a eulogy, and present it in such a positive, and clearly manipulated way, then you must accept that not everyone is going to be happy with your summation, and their right to provide a dissenting voice. Thatcherism is now the point of debate.

This has already been covered by Liberal Conspiracy but it’s certainly worth pointing out in as many places as possible, because as predicted, any sort of mention of negativity toward Margaret Thatcher is being used to suggest some sort of vitriolic left wing hate campaign toward a recently deceased, frail woman. Her death is being intensely politicised by the right wing, who are insisting on using it to lecture us all on how she ‘saved‘ a broken country. One sided comments on how awful the unions were, how Thatcher rode to the rescue, how she was a hero of freedom, seem to be blocking out all negative opinions and the voices of the suffering Thatcherism caused, which are simply written off as lunatic left wing hate. The BBC is being painted as a Left Wing anti-Thatcher beacon of hate, simply for even suggesting she might have been a bit divisive, or, for simply not starting every broadcast with the phrase: “Our beloved Goddess, whom ascended to heaven on a carriage made out of the concept of the love of ALL the people….“. Any suggestion contradicting the policies and the outcome of the policies of the Thatcher era, is deemed ‘disrespectful’ to the woman, rather than the policies and her mindset, from the right. Maggie’s death is being used, quite transparently, by the Right to promote an agenda.

And so naturally, they’re consistent with this demands of ‘respect’, right? Well no.

The Guido Fawkes blog in 2010 announced the death of Michael Foot, with just a few words. The comments that followed, are telling:

And of course, the guardians of all morality and respect over at the Mail wouldn’t dare be hypocrites, right? Today, commenting on the public celebrations in Brixton (is anyone surprised they celebrated in Brixton?) The Mail ran with this rather ironic sentiment, given the nature of their paper as a whole:

Funny then, that they lead with this when ex-Labour leader Michael Foot died, three years ago:

And Littlejohn continued with this:

Charles Moore over at the Telegraph is just as vitriolic on the death of Michael Foot as the Mail:

Moore starts his article with this:

“We have a habit in this country of turning certain people into “national treasures”. If they go on long enough, and have enough charm, we tend to forget what we once disliked about them.”

- Clearly he has a dislike of turning those who were once hated (even by their own party?) into some sort of ‘National Treasure’. Seems reasonable enough. Strange then, that yesterday’s article from Moore is this:

Spot the rhetorical false framework the Daily Mail is attempting to create. If you mention her politics in a positive light, you are “leading the tributes”:

- But if you note something negative about her politics, you are “crude”.

- They dislike crude! They don’t want you to speak ill of the right-winged dead. No one must mention Thatcher’s undying support for Pinochet, whilst insisting that Mandela was a terrorist. Crude!

And yet, when the Marxist Historian Eric Hobsbawm died on October 1st at the age of 95, the Daily Mail, that beacon of respecting those recently deceased, ran with this on October 2nd:

Glenda Jackson, the Oscar winning actress, turned Labour MP today told the Commons:

“But by far the most dramatic and heinous demonstration of Thatcherism was certainly not only in London, but across the whole country in metropolitan areas, where every single shop doorway, every single night, became the bedroom, the living room, the bathroom for the homeless.

They grew in their thousands. And many of those homeless people had been thrown out onto the streets from the closure of the long-term mental hospitals.”

- It is absolutely right to be pointing out the suffering that was caused by Thatcherism. This is not some sort of lunatic left wing vitriolic attack. This is pointing out the causes of the celebrations, the reasons she was despised across the Country. It is providing a balance, to the horrendously disrespectful right winged line, which ignores all of the social consequences of her ideology, and focuses on how rich a few of them became because of her. If we are going to be forced to hear the right winged “tributes” (which are nothing but tributes to Thatcherism, not Thatcher) we must hear the opposite side.

Let’s not fall for the right winged game (and it is a game), that any criticism of Margaret Thatcher must be due to some crazed leftie hateful bitter pill still not swallowed since the 1980s. Her death is being used to promote her agenda. Her funeral will be another chance to promote an agenda.

All sides of the political spectrum are guilty of projecting vitriol onto public figures and especially politicians. The right is no better. She quite obviously, judging by both the outpouring of love and the outpouring of hate, divided the country. In Brixton, she closed her eyes to the problems, and blamed the people in Brixton. Despite all reports to the contrary. She ignored it all, she ignored mass youth unemployment, institutional metropolitan police racism that still exists, refused to invest in poorer cities like Brixton, and she told them all it was their own fault. She let Liverpool slide into a “managed decline”. She destroyed lives in such a cruel way and promoting that cruelty as not only acceptable, but preferable.

There is a narrative being woven by the Right that is empty of substance. We hear the words “Saved Britain”, “put the great back into Great Britain”, “made us all believe in Britain again!”; all a mask to hide the social consequences of her policies; policies that are failing again today, and if we mention them at all, there is a tendency to dismiss it as left wing lunacy. As if those who suffered, as if the thousands thrown onto the streets, just aren’t relevant. By dismissing the voices that suffered heavily, and pumping the media full of “she saved Britain” lines of sycophantic nonsense, we are allowing history to be completely rewritten by the winners, for the sake of promoting an agenda that is being repeated today. Except for her socialist funeral, obviously.

The Ironic Nature of The “Global Peace & Unity” Event.

There is a growing incapability of Western ‘liberals‘ to criticise anything to do in any way, with Islam, or any of those who preach hate in such open forums, if they happen to be Muslim. It is taboo. We register our “disgust” with those who make “offensive” cartoons of the Prophet, and attempt to defend those who burn down embassies simply because they are “offended“. It is treated akin to racism, to criticise, mock, satirise Islam, in a way that isn’t present when speaking of Christianity, for example.
We will for example see countless ‘Unite Against Fascism‘ counter-demonstrations against the Fascist EDL or BNP. We wont see the same anti-fascist sentiment from the UAF aimed at preachers of Islamic hate at the ‘Global Peace and Unity‘ Event. Excuses are made; we are told it’s our fault in the West, for the behaviour of Islamic extremists, rather than taking any sort of critical analysis of the Qur’an, Hadith, the history of Islamism, the autonomous nature of its ideology, or Scholarly works. It is a curious form of liberalism, an extreme form of cultural relativism. A form in which we see ‘Respect‘ councillor Salma Yaqoob tell us that any attack on the ‘Global Peace and Unity Event‘ must come from ultra-zionists. She doesn’t mention the countless vile hate preachers that speak at the event, nor does she speak out against the vile rhetoric employed by some at this event. Instead, she used her time to lecture us, predictably, on how terrible the West is, and how anyone who says otherwise, is Islamophobic. She goes on to say:

“The kind of politics motivating these attacks on the GPU and IslamExpo events is highly dangerous. If, inside the Muslim community, the public space to even discuss concerns and distress over foreign policy gets squeezed, a dangerous vacuum is created….

…We should also challenge and seek to eradicate hateful ideologies which seek to divide us, whether this is Islamophobia, anti-Semitism or any other form of racism. ”

- I will demonstrate in this article, what those “concerns and distress” amounts to. It amounts to Salma herself, referring to 7/7 as a “reprisal attack“. It includes promoting terrorism, killing those who insult Islam, and insisting that society should not tolerate homosexuality in any way.
She unreasonably suggests that those of us criticising the GPU events, wish to silence discussion on foreign policy. Which is utterly ridiculous.

Notice also that her only inclusion of what constitutes ‘hateful ideologies‘ are based on religion. She mentions racism, but in the same context as religion. This follows the Islamophobia line, that to criticise or satirise the concept of Islam, is inherently racist. This is a supremely effective way of silencing criticism from a liberal perspective, making sure criticism of Islam in any form is regarded as the realm of the far right only. This has to change.
She does not include homophobia, hate for “the West” (which i’m now calling Kuffarophobic), or calling for the death of anyone deemed to have “insulted” Islam. Her position, is indicative of a Muslim superiority complex. Her sentiment, that we should all love each other, be one, fight those who seek to divide; is a beautiful sentiment. Yet when applied to the event that she is defending here, it is completely devoid of reality.

When you hear that an event entitled ‘Global Peace and Unity‘ will again be staged in London, and that it is usually attended by many tens of thousands of people, it inspires a sense of hope for humanity. That perhaps, people are able to put aside their religious, social, and economic differences and call for a time of unity for humanity based not on silly little prejudices, but on our common connections. Unfortunately, that is not what the annual ‘Global Peace and Unity’ event promotes, when we take a look at who is asked to attend and speak at these events. The conclusion is far more sinister.

One of the stalls selling merchandise at the 2010 event, was a group calling themselves “Wearaloud“. The stall sold tshirts (one of which the Telegraph brought, at the event) with the logo of al-Qassam Brigade, the militant wing of Hamas, responsible for countless terrorist attacks. Shirts showing militants holding rifles, and others with the flag of Hezbollah. This isn’t surprising when we see who organises the event that Yaqoob thinks is a symbol of peace and unity.

The event is organised by the ‘Islam Channel‘, for the sake of promoting dialogue within Islam.
This, from a channel in which Islamist propaganda is spewed daily, whilst also, rather curiously, playing the victim card with constant references to “Islamophobia“. Mehdi Hasan similarly uses the victim mentality, shouting “Isamophobia” at anyone slightly critical of his faith, or satirising his Prophet, whilst at the same time insisting that it’s perfectly reasonable to refer to non-believers as “animals” and that we are a “people of no intelligence“, see here for my article on the hypocrisy of Mehdi Hasan, and the right and responsibility of all to be free to question and offend ideas that demand authority over the lives of others.

In the past, the Islam Channel has openly advertised DVDs for the sermons of al-Awlaki; a regional commander of Al Qaeda, a preacher of hate including to 9/11 hijackers, himself involved in the failed Christmas day airplane bombing, and in contact with the Fort Hood shooter Nidal Malik Hasan. A terrorism expert referred to al-Awlaki, the hero of the ‘Islam Channel‘ as:

“one of the principal jihadi luminaries for would-be homegrown terrorists.”

In 2010, Nazreen Nawaz, a reporter for the channel, and member of Hizb ut-Tahrir; a group that wishes to impose a resurrected Islamic Caliphate upon non-Muslims across the World, by destroying Secularism, and feels the need to insult everything – including the concept of Democracy – that doesn’t conform to Islamist standards as “kufr” (an abusive term for non-muslims) said this:

“The idea that a woman cannot refuse her husband’s relations…. this is not strange to a Muslim because it is part of maintaining that strong marriage. But it shouldn’t be such a big problem where the man feels he has to force himself upon the woman.”

- So keep that in mind, when these kuffarophobic, extremist, sycophants attempt to mould the words “peace” and “unity” to their horrific cause, whilst referring to anyone who disagrees as “Islamophobic“.

One of the speakers at a past ‘Global Peace and Unity‘ event was Sheikh Shady Al-Suleiman. He is active with the “Muslim Youth” (also known as, indoctrinating impressionable minds). On his website, his group gleefully announces that they have invited al-Awlaki to speak in front of thousands of young people. The forum is full of excited extremists. According to Lakemba mosque, which put on the event, Al-Suleiman was the man in charge of booking the speakers at the time. Of all the people he could have chosen, why one of the most extreme, violent, and deadly men on the planet, linked to practically every major terrorist incident in decades? Sheik Shady Al-Suleiman is advertised here on the ‘Global Peace‘ website.

It isn’t only Al-Awlaki promoters invited to speak on ‘Global Peace & Unity‘. Here they are advertising the Pakistani Muslim fanatical politician Mohammad Ijaz ul-Haq. They describe his previous statements rather flippantly with:

“Ijaz is famous for his comments supporting nuclear engineer Abdul Qadeer Khan as well as his public denunciation of the knighthood of Salman Rushdie.”

- “Public denunciation” it was not. Public incitement to terrorism and suicide attacks, it was. On the subject of Sir Salman Rushdie receiving a Knighthood, ul-Haq (invited to the Global PEACE and UNITY event) said this:

“If someone exploded a bomb on his body he would be right to do so unless the British government apologises and withdraws the ‘sir’ title.”

- Here, he presumes he has a right to threaten the UK, and the life of a man who simply wrote a book that he and others found “offensive“, unless the government does as he wants, and conforms to his ideals on ‘blasphemy‘; ideals that the rest of us grew out of centuries ago. Ijaz is a member of the Pakistani Government, whose delegation to the UN demanded their role extend to finding and publicly shaming:

“abuses of free expression including defamation of religions and prophets”.

- Defamation of a religion, consider an ‘abuse of free speech‘? Can we similarly search out and publicly shame those who constantly defame the “kuffar“, or “The West“? or homosexuality? Do those Islamist ideals fall under ‘abuses of free expression‘? I suspect not. We are all entitled to defame, criticise, satirise, and mock, ideas that demand authority over the lives of others. It is a right, and it is essential. It is horrendous for any liberal minded person, to defend these illiberal, totalitarian, Theocrats. It isn’t just offensive to Western values, it is offensive to liberal values. He is entitled to his views, he is entitled to say what he thinks, we cannot, and should not silence him. But the moment he starts inciting violence, he should no longer be tolerated.
This is a violent man, advocating the World conform to his standards, by threat of violence, based on an extreme interpretation of Islam, which places it above all forms of criticism or satire. A civilised, liberal society is no place for a man like that.

Muhammad Alshareef, a speaker at the 2012 ‘Global Peace & Unity‘ festival, is a big fan of attacking, and Jews, as much as possible. Here he says:

“When a Prophet came to them, if what he taught did not appeal to them they either rejected that truth or slit the throat of the Prophet and followed what was to them appealing.
[We had already taken the covenant of the Children of Israel and had sent to them messengers. Whenever there came to them a messenger with what their souls did not desire, a groups (of the Messengers) they denied and another party they killed.] – al-Maa’idah 5/70
And we must remember here that this is not the commentary of some human journalist who claims to be neutral. This is the Lord of the Universe telling us – in verses to be read till the final day – the deepest secrets that lie in the pits of Judaism.”

- The “deepest secrets that lie in the pits of Judaism“. The Islamic superiority complex; one that feels it can insult whomever it wishes, whilst condemning to death anyone who “insults” Islam.
Alshareef’s Islamic superiority complex continues:

“The Qur’ân tells us of snakes in the grass that bit the Jews. Allâh tells us this so that we may take warning of what led them to evoke Allâh’s anger and not be bitten by the same snake………. A Muslim may never marry a Jewish or Christian man that remains in his beliefs.”

- The Jews are presented as wicked, in need of saving, by a vicious God that Jews don’t believe in, in the first place.
That Muslims are not supposed to keep their faith private, but instead, must get in the face of innocent Jewish people, minding their own business, to parrot the line that they’re wicked and in need of saving. This has nothing to do with Israel. We are lead to believe that Islamists simply dislike the violent nature of Israel. It just isn’t true. One look at the Constitutions of Hamas and Fatah, will show you that Islamists dislike Jews, because they are not Muslim. Hamas are currently teaching Hebrew to children in Gaza, not to advance a peaceful resolution through dialogue, but to “understand the language of the enemy”. Here, watch this rather harrowing clip. Those who preach anti-Jewish hatred, are given a platform in what Yaqoob describes as “uniting all in favour of peace and unity“.
Notice as well, a Muslim may never marry a Jewish or Christian “man“. It doesn’t matter who the woman falls in love with, according to alshareef. She’s a woman. And therefore must do as the patriarchal Islamists demand. Horrendous. Illiberal.

It’s not just Jews that Alshareef hates, and tells others to hate. It’s also gay people. Homosexuality is only stigmatised, because of the bile that people like alshareef spew. The bullying continues, because of religious hatred. There is no logical reason to stigmatise homosexuality. Nothing. It is just religion.
Religious people, who insist we are intolerant of their beliefs, then spew hate like this:

“Whenever there is a gay rally – isn’t it interesting that they call them gay, they’re happy people, right? – there are a type of people who go to these rallies and stand up for the truth. They have signs that tell them to stop what they’re doing or they will go to hellfire. Do you think they are Muslims? No, they are not Muslims, they are Christians. They are Christians who stand up for this. … I pray to Allah that you will join the ranks and start to stand up and speak against things like this.”

- “Stand up for the truth“. Muslims are most definitely a group of people that do not quite understand the word “truth“.
He doesn’t quantify what he means by “truth“, but he argues that the Christian aggression against homosexuality, is correct, and so we must look at the “truth” of the Christian arguments. It usually falls into three rather ridiculous arguments. Firstly “It’s unnatural“. In fact, there is not one reputable scientific source that will in any way, suggest that sexuality is merely a choice. There is not one reputable scientific source that will say: “You know, turns out Leviticus and homophobic Muslim were right. TRUTH!”. None. This includes:The American Psychiatric Association, The World Health Organisation, The American Psychological Association, The American Medical Association, The Academy of Pediatrics, The UK Royal College of Psychiatrists, Council on Child and Adolescent Health, The British Psychological Society,The British Association for Counselling and Psychotherapy…. all of these intensely reputable sources, with a wealth of research and evidence, will all tell you that sexuality, is part of a natural spectrum. There is no debate here. We could also point to homosexuality spotted in over 1000 species. Do you know what isn’t natural? Do you know what isn’t noticed in over 1000 species? A Prophet claiming ‘divine‘ revelation from a God that spends an eerily convenient amount of time proscribing a large array of women the Prophet is allowed to marry or have sex with, whilst murdering his way across the World. I could go on, but I cover the silly religious arguments against same-sex marriage here. We must be intolerant of religious intolerance. It is based on nothing but ‘belief‘ in absurdities, obscure teachings, and 7th century ‘morality‘. And yet, this man is given a platform to announce his hate to even more people, at an event manipulatively entitled “Global Peace and Unity”. It should come with the subtitle: “Unless you’re gay. Or Jewish. Or a dirty Kuffar“.

Here’s another horrid little Islamic Preacher invited to the 2010 ‘Peace and Unity‘ event. Yasir Qadhi. A man who has spoken and written on “Islamophobia“, also seems to enjoy propagating his disturbingly vicious views on Homosexuality. He speaks of living in the ’80s, when names were given to “these people“, when the “average” person viewed gay people with disdain. With apparent nostalgia, and admiration for that period of time, that led to such vitriol, and uninformed hatred, Yasir Qadhi suggests we have now “regressed” out of that ’80s mindset, because it is unacceptable to present weak and dangerous arguments that promote the further stigmatising of homosexuality. Here, is presents a hugely illiberal and curiously uninformed idea, as acceptable.
He is a typical religious extremist, fighting tooth and nail against any evidence that contradicts his position. It isn’t that he’s banned from speaking out, he can be as hate filled as he wishes. It is simply that Western, liberal society does not accept his arguments are legitimate any more. They are baseless. They are vicious, and they have been crushed by reason along with a huge amount of verified research pointing the fact that sexuality, is just as natural as eye colour or skin colour, and that to stigmatise based on something so natural, is just not right. This is what Qadhi doesn’t like. He wants to be free to be a homophobe, without being called a homophobe. His freedom to abuse people, he feels is under threat. Good.

He then, rather amusingly, states that its unfair to call anti-homosexual remarks “hatred” or “homophobia“…. he follows this by telling us a story about his mythical fairy sky man lifting up a city of gays into the air, turning it upside down, and smashing it into the ground, to punish them for being gay; that the Dead Sea is full of “evil waters” because of gay people, hinting to us, that gay people should be punished for being gay…. but then insisting that its not hateful for saying so. Given that it is a fact that homosexuality has a genetic element, it would seem that his God created gay people, only to kill them all for being gay. What a nasty little game.
He then argues that our Western values ‘change day to day‘. This is of course what all Islamists like to suggest, when arguing a case for religious “objective morality“. What they mean is, Western values are based on reason, and evidence, which progresses over time. We change based on the information we have available to us, and according to humanist principles. Some times we get it wrong. But we learn and we move on.

Perhaps he’s right. Perhaps we should base our entire system of morals on the life of a Prophet who married a 6 year old girl, sold women captives into slavery, and waged war on anyone who disagreed, along with his band of thugs. Maybe we should find it acceptable to demand death for apostasy. Maybe, instead of employing actual thought, we should look at the suspicious ‘revelations‘ given to one man, whenever he or his friends had an idea and take it as the quite obvious word of God. For example, It seems from the Qur’an that Allah didn’t actually wish women to be veiled originally. But Muhammad’s friend Umar ‘wishes’ it, and suddenly Muhammad gets a conveniently timed call from Allah, and women are to be veiled from then on, for the most mundane reason:

And as regards the (verse of) the veiling of the women, I said, “O Allah’s Apostle! I wish you ordered your wives to cover themselves from the men because good and bad ones talk to them.” So the verse of the veiling of the women was revealed. (Qur’an 24:31)

How dare we suggest that it is not reasoning to include the ‘wishes’ of a friend of a suspiciously ambiguous historical figure, or the remarks of a suspiciously ambiguous 7th Century Middle Eastern book into consideration when framing out system of values. How silly of us. Maybe we should all kill people for land that we claim divine right over. Maybe we should suspend all of our faculties of reason, and critical abilities, and just unquestioningly accept the authority of one religion. Maybe that’s the way forward. And in the meantime, we’ll slay all gay people, demand death for anyone who wrote a book we didn’t like, and belittle Jews. Global Peace and Unity!

This isn’t an event that cares too much for peace and unity. It certainly doesn’t conform to Salma Yaqoob’s grotesque manipulations residing in the shadows of all the straw men she employs. It is an Islamic exercise and showcase in superiority, another chance to call “Islamophobia” against any criticism, whilst affording the opportunity for bigots, racists, extremists, violent people who wish to silence all criticism of their faith through threats, stall owners profiting from selling terrorist merchandise, and regressive ignorant homophobes to shout down any hint of Western ideals and liberal values. It is the show case of the Kuffarophobes. It is dangerous, it is divisive, and it offers a huge platform for fascists and thugs. Do not be deceived into believing it is a liberal event, calling for peace, unity, and an end to divisions. It isn’t. Quite the opposite.

Those, like myself, who consider ourselves truly liberal, must be prepared to speak out against illiberal, and vastly destabilising and divisive rhetoric and actions, regardless of where they come from. We must accept that within a secular, and liberal framework, far-right Muslims have just as much right to express their views as the rest of us. But to be tolerant of diversity, is to be suspicious of, and speak out against those preaching intolerance, and hate as unfalsifiable dogma, rather than points that can be argued rationally against and confined to the history bin of bad ideas. Islam is an idea. Like Conservatism. Like Democracy. Like Liberalism. Like Christianity. As such, it is open to all the satire, criticism, and mocking that comes with every idea; especially those that seek authority over others. We must not consider those ideas freee from criticism, ridicule, satire, or any form of questioning simply because the illiberal nature of the view is cloaked in “faith“.

The Philpott Case, and the Media.

There is a theme running through the right winged commentators on the horrendous Mick Philpott case. There has been a tendency to attach a political element to the case. It is a rather curious deviation for the Right. A section of the population that likes to insist on personal responsibility for our actions, now insists on linking the entire collectivity of those on any sort of state assistance, with the Philpott murders. We are all aware that Welfare is under relentless attacks from the Right, mainly based on invented statistics, silly little “strivers and shirkers” slogans, and constant demonisation of anyone claiming anything. But the Philpott case marked a new low for the Right Winged media. Notoriously, The Mail ran with:

The children are mentioned simply as “being bred“, as if comparable to animals. Perhaps the Mail’s most disgusting headline to date. Though great exposure for their advertisers, which I suspect was their motive.

They subtly hinted that the Philpott case could also lead to thousands more just like him:

“Michael Philpott is a perfect parable for our age: His story shows the pervasiveness of evil born of welfare dependency. The trial spoke volumes about the sheer nastiness of the individuals involved. But it also lifted the lid on the bleak and often grotesque world of the welfare benefit scroungers — of whom there are not dozens, not hundreds, but tens of thousands in our country.“

Apparently Tory Councillors concur entirely with the Daily Mail.

As does the Chancellor:

- Interesting, from a Party that agreed to let Sir Philip Green of ‘my-wealth-is-in-Monaco-for-Tax-avoidance-purposes‘ fame have a government position working on ‘efficiency savings‘ within Whitehall departments. When the mega wealthy do not wish to pay back into a system that has afforded them the opportunity to rise to a privileged position, when they cost the taxpayer billions, when they actively seek to pay nothing back into our schools, our hospitals, our fire departments, offering no help on the current crises from their end; the Chancellor rewards them, with government positions and lovely big tax breaks. His buddies. When one or two (0.8% of the Welfare budget is lost to fraud, according to the Government’s own figures; less than a penny in every pound) Welfare claimants do something similar, the entire system is presented as broken and linked to child murders. This is right winged Britain. The people who think the taxpayer owes them something, are the ones who use a public system to work their way up, and then kick away the ladder when they reach the top by claiming their wealth is theirs only, to be locked away in a tax haven. These are the “society owes me something” scroungers.

As Left Foot Forward pointed out, the same treatment is not afforded to those who murder their families, when they come from wealthier backgrounds. When the Shropshire millionaire Hugh McFall murdered his wife and daughter, the Mail said:

“Detectives believe the mild-mannered family man snapped as he struggled to cope with spiralling debts…..Last night his sister Claire Rheade said: ‘It’s unbelievable – he doted on his family, he would never harm them. ‘He was a gentle man who wouldn’t hurt a fly.’ ”

- Note the rhetorical differences. “evil“, “sheer nastiness“, “grotesque“, “scroungers“, “bleak” ……. in the Philpott case, contrasted with…….. “mild-mannered“, “family man“, “doted on his family“, “never harm them“, “gentle man“, “wouldn’t hurt a fly“. They mention his “personal spiralling debts” as a catalyst. Here, they limit responsibility to he alone. They could call the McFall murders a “vile product of Capitalism“. They don’t.

Similarly, when Stephen Seddon murdered his parents for his £230,000 inheritance, the Mail did not suggest this was the ‘vile product‘ of the concept of inheritance. When the Mail editors got hold of the Philpott story, their main objective was to further the demonisation of Welfare. Nothing more. Any tenuous link was going to be drawn.

Mick Philpott himself was himself a man who, by all accounts, treated women like sex objects. He stabbed his ex-partner numerous times when she threatened to leave him. Each of his ex-partners describe his need to control women, and to use women for his sex games. He beat an ex-girlfriend for not giving him a baby boy. He told he that she “wasn’t a real woman“. To Mick Philpott, women were a sex object, to be used, and abused by men. This fact didn’t escape Judge Thirwall, who, at the sentencing, said:

“”Before I turn to what you did next, it is necessary to look at the history of your relationships with other women.
“The first with which I am concerned was a relationship with a girl in her teens. You were in your 20s. The relationship was characterised by violence – there were repeated beatings.
“On one occasion you broke her arm, on another you dislocated her knee with a sledgehammer. You were sure that she was having affairs and would come back from your posting in the army to check on her, repeatedly. Eventually she summoned the courage to bring your relationship to an end. You did not accept her decision.
….it is clear from the evidence that I excluded from the trial that you have used that conviction as a means of controlling women, terrifying them in what you might do.”

- Mick Philpotts attitude and treatment of women, therefore, is an important aspect to the story.
And so, using the logic thrown out by right winged commentators like The Daily Mail, what social ‘institution’, other than Welfare, can be linked to Mick Philpott’s way of thinking when it comes to women? The Sun, and the Mail make up a huge section of the readership of news in this country, so their influence cannot be overlooked when it comes to social issues, including the representation of women.

Here is the Daily Mail website home page this morning:

- Under the stories of Philpott, is a story about kim kardashian’s breasts. This is one of many stories in today’s Mail focusing on half naked women. In fact, in any edition of the Mail. In 2009, the Mail revealed a poll of the World’s most beautiful female politicians. Their male political counterparts, are covered with stories relating to politics, ideas, statements, World affairs; men, are getting on with trying to fix the World. Female politicians; how attractive they are. Daily Mail commentator Quentin Letts speaks of the “youthful” look of some of the female politicians who made the pointless list. Harriet Harman, Letts refers to as “very butch” simply for wearing a suit. He also goes to great lengths to hide the obvious misogyny and his delusions of patriarchy behind more creative language, but the effect is still the same.

“Miss Harman, while undoubtedly feminine, goes to great lengths to appear non-sexy. She would regard it as fatal to play up that side of things – it would undermine her credibility. That is true of many of our Westminster women. They have drunk deep at the feminist well. Most of them used to read Spare Rib long before they looked at Hansard.
Theresa May, Tory pensions spokesman, does have her kittenish moments. She has made something of a name for herself not only as a bright parliamentarian but also as a buyer of leopard-print shoes. They are not necessarily the most practical of footwear, but they helped to create a public persona for Mrs May. ”

- The whole piece is accompanied by half naked women. But it isn’t just misogyny that Letts propagates so flippantly, it is a sense of the “masculine” as a whole. He says of gay MP Alan Duncan:

“easily the poutiest, most fragrant figure on the Tory benches”

Today’s Mail online also contains the following stories:

As noted in a previous article on a similar subject, a couple of days back:
The overtly misogynistic approach to tabloid journalism cannot possibly be spun to suggest a positive outcome. Go to the Sun’s website and count the amount of times it refers to female body image, or presents candid and intrusive photos of a female celebrity. Here, i’ll help:

“Spanks a lot wind!” – A story showing an upskirt shot of Khloe Kardashian. The story also includes a close up shot, zoomed into her crotch. The story is about how she tried to pull her dress back down. News!

“There’s no-thin flabby about fabby Abbey Clancy” – Apart from crimes against headlines, this is a story about how Abbey Clancy isn’t fat. News!

“Jessie J has a body to match The Voice” – A story about how Jessie J looks relaxed in a bikini, leaning against a tree. News!

“Pussycat Ashley’s got the cream” – A story about a woman’s tanned legs. News!
And here’s some more. (Remember, there are all from the Sun website’s first page):

In 2011, the Daily Mail asked:

- They could have answered it with simply “editorial policies of papers like this”:

Here is an article about how great Britney looks.

Here is an article about how fat Britney looks.

Here is an article about how great Megan Fox looks.

Here is an article about how ‘unkempt’ and ‘skeletel’ Megan Fox looks.

Why not take a break, by looking up Venus Williams skirt?

Or maybe an upskirt frontpage shot of Kate?

Interestingly, the Star recently ran with this:

- Man kills his children (for new house? really?). But mainly, look at these breasts. Advertising a Channel 5 show. A channel, coincidentally, owned by the same man who owns the Star.

Or maybe you wish to salivate at the posing, half naked body, of a dead woman:

Or looking at the ‘womanly curves’ of a 14 year old girl:

Or let’s just look on in disgust at Leona Lewis’s ‘chubby’ arms:

- The Right Winged tabloid media creates that culture, sometimes subtly, sometimes quite obviously. It is a part of the model of the tabloid media, it is in its fabric. Women are to be viewed primarily as sexual objects. Feminists are to be made out to be prudes, unattractive, too manly. Gay people are to be made out to be too feminine. It creates this atmosphere, and then it blames everything and everyone else for the resulting product.
Leveson noted that the representation of women in the tabloid press raised:

“important and sensitive issues which merit further consideration by any new regulator.”

For what it’s worth, I don’t think Mick Philpott is the result of Welfare dependency (do we really believe ripping apart the foundation of the Welfare State, underfunding mental health services, and stripping child services to their minimum, is going to help anyone at all?), nor the horrifically misogynistic tabloid press. His crimes show a clear lack of compassion, lack of empathy, lack of every trait of common human decency, especially toward children and women. Whether he was on Welfare, or a successful businessman, I cannot imagine it would make much difference. It is too simple to claim one aspect of the social, economic or media culture in the UK is wholly responsible for the psychology of one man willing to set fire to the home of his children. His case is completely non-representative of those who are on Welfare, as well as those who read the Mail.

The point is, if the Right Winged media is going to attempt to divert all eyes toward the Welfare State, by making a terribly weak link between those who commit horrendous crimes like the crimes committed by Mick Philpott, and the Welfare system; then by using a similar formula, we can also link Philpott’s apparent use of women as sex objects to be owned, and controlled by men; to the inherently misogynistic right winged media constantly bombarding the country with its regressive machine of female denigration, patriarchal view of the World.

The Sun: Inspiring vitriol, for your entertainment.

It was late on the evening of the 9th December 2012, that the Tory Party changed their website to reflect the broken pledge that the NHS would be protected from cuts. Since changes to the NHS were made, the number of patients having to wait more than half an hour in an ambulance outside A&E has risen from 11,000 in 2010, to 14,000 in 2011, to 20,000 in 2012. The BMA among other medical unions have expressed anger at the Government’s NHS policy. 7,000 nursing jobs have been lost. 16% of Hospitals now claim to be woefully understaffed. Every day, we hear new stories of the problems within the NHS.
The chair of the UK Statistics Authority said:

“expenditure on the NHS in real terms was lower in 2011-12 than it was in 2009-10″.

NHS staff are having to be forced to find £20bn in NHS ‘efficiency savings’ as part of the rules set out by Sir David Nicholson (collectively known as the Nicholson challenge) whilst at the same time dealing with such a huge reform of the health service. A draft version of the NHS risk register suggested that patient care would suffer as a result of the mass of changes, would lead to waiting time increases, and a less well managed system. The Mental Health Charity “MIND” published a report in which it said mental health services were severely overstretched and underfunded.
So, thousands of jobs lost, an NHS in management crises mode, people having to wait more than half an hour to leave an ambulance, pretty much non-existent mental health services, and real terms cuts to health funding. All of this is largely ignored, whilst a girl having a boob job causes apparent outrage. Well done Britain.

We are told never to fully believe or just accept what we read in a paper like The Sun. We should rightfully investigate for ourselves and challenge the piece, taking into account commercial interest and agenda, understanding class biases, its approach to female issues in general, and taking in multiple sources based on multi pieces of evidence, before passing judgement on a story. But, if the story in The Sun plays on our prejudice already, people tend to take it at face value. Or look to another equally as disreputable source (The Mail? A few angry comments on a forum?) for back up.
Maybe your prejudices saw this Headline back in April ’89 four days after Hillsborough, and took it at face value:

- After all, it took two decades, inquiries, whilst a silent public carried on buying this publication, without question, before the Sun were forced to apologise for such an horrific mistake.

Perhaps you saw this article, and felt a sense of “he did it!” down your spine as you saw a man who looks a little different, paraded on the front of a national newspaper, alluding to the notion that he was guilty of a murder, simply for not looking how the The Sun and it’s readers deem to be acceptable (usually, blonde, big breasts, and naked):

- Perhaps you’re sat thinking “no, I definitely didn’t believe those stories, but I believe this one, no questions asked!“

Perhaps you burned with outrage at the state of ‘Broken Britain’ that would allow a celebrity to take drugs live on TV, after seeing this:

- And you’d have been right to be horrified. What a terrible idea, a horrific and illegal idea, and clearly something about Broken Britain blah blah. I mean, it must be true, right? Well….

Perhaps you saw this, and was horrified that a bird had flew away with a baby!!

- Perhaps this saddened you enough to research for yourself and realise the footage is a digital fake. Which the Sun knew, by printing that a ‘fierce debate’ raged whether the footage was real or not, somewhere in an obscure paragraph on the story. This is not reflected in the headline of terror.

But no, whilst all of those stories are clearly manipulative, invented, and lazy in journalistic quality…… we must all take the Josie Cunningham story on face value.

The Sun are an interesting bunch. “Look at boobs, look at these boobs, no don’t look at her, look at her boobs, aren’t they great *vote conservative* boobs? Keep looking at *immigrants are taking your money* her boobs, don’t take your eyes off the boobs, look at *scroungers, scroungers everywhere* her boobs. Keep looking…“, but this week, they are angry. They are angry that a woman has had breast enlargement surgery, despite their constant attempts to let the Country know what sort of female body is acceptable, whenever possible. Apparently then, morality, in Sun land does not include blatant misogyny, or constant promotion of a culture of policing how people should look. When Harriet Harman attempted to get The Sun to remove it’s topless models from Page 3, the Sun responded by calling her a “feminist fanatic“. Completely degrading her arguments, and resorting to weak ad-hom attacks. So, misogyny…fine. Misogyny that they apparently feel the need to defend, with gems like this….

I do of course find it a little ironic for right winged papers, and their readers to be complaining of poor NHS services, given the Party that they support wilfully undermine and underfund the NHS at every possible opportunity. They should surely be directing their anger, if their worry was adequate funding for patient care, toward those who have worked to make 7000 nurse jobs redundant…. surely this is far more significant, than one girl having a breast enlargement procedure?

Josie Cunningham, is of course, an easy target – a symbol, if you like – for people who see an NHS failing miserably, aren’t interested in wider context, and need someone to blame. This is especially true if the girl can be presented as a bit of a ‘chav’, somehow and as vaguely as possible they manage to compare her case to an unrelated case, in a separate region of the country, with separate budgets that in no way relate to each other, that includes a child, some awful disease, or a war hero. The usual manipulations.

I do not wish to get into the details of the story itself, I admit to not knowing enough about it, because I have not followed her story for the past 8 years, nor am I her doctor, nor have I sat in on her psych evaluations, nor do I know anything about the case beyond what is presented by the right winged media. There is a lot of guess work being presented as fact all across Twitter and The Sun’s website. A lot of exhausting the object, and a lot of fallacy employing: “She clearly conned the doctors“, “She is taking money away from kids with cancer“, “I have small boobs and I don’t care!!! Why is she not EXACTLY like me?” “She had two slight bumps, so couldn’t possibly have had 0% breast tissue“, “Something terrible about tax payers money and immigrants and scroungers…..or something like that“. We then get told that we shouldn’t blame her. It’s the NHS’s fault, and the doctors. But then, we are told that we should blame her because she in fact, not at all worried about her self image, and just wants to be a model, and so managed to pull off a sophisticated con trick in which she deceived medical professionals with the cunning use of…. crying, probably, maybe, they’re not sure, but they guess that must be the case. Maybe.

But, perhaps they are right. I accept that is a possibility, that the Sun may have done the unthinkable, and printed a story based on fact. It’s a possibility. I don’t deny that. The story itself, I don’t think any of us have the facts on, and so it would be equally as absurd for me to claim it to be based on manipulations, or completely wrong. However, if the story is correct in every aspect, that still does not permit the backlash that unfolded.

So, following on from the above, this article will loosely be based on Josie’s case (though not on the specifics), by using her case as an example to show the intense vitriol that is borne out of feigned right winged media outrage, misplaced, uninformed, and aimed at the wrong person or institution, and the witch hunt it provokes. When, last week, we learnt of the tragic and entirely preventable death of Lucy Meadows, we all knew that it was in part, caused by the fire storm brewed up by a sensationalist right winged media that aims its dirty rhetoric at one insecure, and vulnerable person, and then sits back as the fire spreads, bullying commences, and it doesn’t stop until someone’s head is on a spike. This story is no different. It is a result of weak and horrifying journalism that is wrong on so many levels. The person is of course a different person, with a different mental outlook, different circumstances, and different experiences, but the fundamental reason for The Sun to take such a keen interest in the story, is the same. It is purposely inflammatory sensationalism, with a hint of misogyny, aimed at one vulnerable person, to create an atmosphere of anger for its readership.

So, I will reserve judgement on the actual strength of the case against her or the NHS. I will neither say she did or did not deceive her doctors, nor will I say the doctors were simply bad at their jobs by not sticking to NHS guidelines on cosmetic procedures, I am not going to comment on the philosophy of the NHS, nor what it should and shouldn’t be providing, I am happy to say that perhaps further investigation into the case may prove the Sun to have been absolutely correct, that’s a possibility, I am also not going to claim to understand Josie’s motives or her mental state, she may well be a devious con artist, but she may well also have had serious confidence issues personal to her, surrounding her 0% breast tissue and the psychological effect that will obviously have. I couldn’t claim to know. I am not going to comment on the validity of the specifics of the case, because I, like everyone else commenting on this, have no real clue. It is the result of the reporting of sensationalism and its culture, that I wish to explore.

When I search “Josie Cunningham” on twitter, this is what I get:

- You may be tricked into thinking she’d committed some horrendous crime to deserve such detestable abuse. But no. She has new breasts. This is tabloid Britain. This is what national ‘news’ outlets, with an agenda, and with a very one sided slant on stories, create. A disproportionate sense of outrage. People do not question. They believe it must be true, and the damage that attitude leads to is irreparable.
Chase her!!! With a pitchfork!! Get the Witch!!!! Why? …. erm…. because she now feels better about herself, using YOUR hard earned money that could have been spent on covering the cost of the massive corporate tax break? The slut!

The underlying issues are barely discussed. More people will have read this story, than have even glanced at the Health and Social Care Act. And that’s a massive problem.

Most irritatingly of all, is Katie Price’s piece in the Sun today. A woman who perpetuated a culture that reveres people with the ‘ideal body’, who made a career simply out of being topless every so often, and selling intimite details of her sex life, in a paper that speaks of “boobs of the year“, and splashes candid photos of young celebrities from revealing angles all over its “news” website, apparently doesn’t see the irony in their outrage, that it might lead to impressionable young people having body image issues in the future. Their argument tends to be “Well, other people don’t have issues, why should you? Be quiet and look at this half naked girl with the perfect body… and then turn over the page to see how fat Britney looks on the beach“. Contrast this with studies into body image, and mental health alongside underfunded mental health services, and you quickly see where the misplaced outrage should be aimed.
And ….. Katie Price; a woman who sold as many stories about her split with Peter Andre as possible. A woman who cashes in on every marriage she’s had, during it, and once it’s over, selling a humiliating ‘statement’ after her break up with Alex Reid, in which she needlessly went on a character assassination rant against him. And also, quite ironically said: “Our difficulties were also not helped by Alex becoming more fascinated by life in the media eye“. A woman who goes public, to announce she thinks Kelly brook is a “heffer” and sparks as many feuds as possible with other “celebrities“. What a wonderful representation of “hard working” celebrities. There you go Josie, if you want to be like Jordan; marry a few times, sell needless sex stories, humiliate your ex, publicly call other women fat, and the Sun will then give you a job in which you write on the morality of NHS boob jobs. Are you fucking kidding me?

Like everything The Sun says and does, hypocrisy is at the apex of any story it presents upon the emotions of “the taxpayer“. News International owns The Sun. When its CEO Rupert Murdoch is not defending allegations of hacking the voicemail of a dead school girl, or bribing police for stories, or showing uninvited paparazzi shots of a celebrity with a bit of breast showing, it used to spend its time losing legal battles over unpaid taxes. In 2009 the Australian capital territory won its battle to reclaim $77 million in taxes and penalties owed by News Corporation. When News Corp moved its headquarters to the US, through tax loopholes, it deprived Australia of millions of $ in unpaid capital gains taxes. Praying to the alter of the “Taxpayer” God when it suits their commercial interests; squeezing the life out of the “the taxpayer” otherwise.

The boob job apparently cost ‘the taxpayer’ £4800. So that’s about £5,999,995,200 less than Vodaphone were allowed to write off their tax bill… no outrage? No? Okay then. That’s also only a couple hundred pounds more of taxpayers money than former Conservative deputy leader Michael Ancram spent on cleaning and gardening for his £1.5m, five-bedroom house. Or a couple of grand less than Conservative Schools Minister Michael Gove spent furnishing his luxury London pad, before switching his second home. Or about a grand less than Tory MP and former Shadow Home Secretary David Davis spent on a lovely new £5,700 portico for his Yorkshire home. But those people are Tories. And they wear suits. So it’s fine. Keep voting Tory, and keep aiming your anger at one young girl with new boobs. Because you hate misspent public funds.

So “infuriated” were the Sun with Josie, they invited her to a topless shoot, and splashed it inside their papers, along with all over their website. This is a way to sell papers, by appealing to a very ill-thought out sense of outrage. Photos enhance the story. But remember! They’re outraged! Their photographers must have been crying with disgust and a sense of moral indignation as they were taking the photos. I can imagine the editor was weeping with anguish as the paper went to print. They didn’t want to do this. But they felt the duty *at this point, put the National Anthem on as you read this*… they had to, for the sake of the Great British Public and the hard working tax payers of this here great nation. Of course that must be it.

The Sun absolutely played both Josie and its readership, by appealing to her dream of modelling and offering a job shooting with a national paper after so many years of (alleged) insecurity – and remember, she doesn’t have a PR team, or a media guru to tell her it might be the wrong move, and The Sun played the readership, not affording them a full, comprehensive narrative from many different perspectives, that is necessary for decisions to be made, and judgements reached. It is under that framework, that it was of course inevitably accompanied by manipulative rhetoric, and nasty public comments:

“Single mum-of-two Josie, 22 — a £9,000-a-year telesales girl — hopes to be the next Jordan. Critics have nicknamed her Katie Cut-Price.”

- For what purpose does including she’s a single mum, and on a meagre salary have? There is no reason to include that whatsoever. It plays simply on an ‘undeserving’ underclass that The Sun is famed for inventing.

“The wannabe model excitedly flaunted her 36DD bust, which was boosted after she wept to her GP about being a 32A.”

- The “wannabe” model. Negative connotations of someone not quite cut out for it. Someone to laugh at. And the comments about the GP; This suggests she shed one tear, and a doctor said “oh okay, have new boobs, we won’t evaluate you any more“. This line of reasoning is reflected in the comments from people all over social media, who seem to be parroting whatever the Sun says.

And then we see the comments underneath the piece:

Then there is the Youtube clip of her on Daybreak discussing her personal issues with having 0% breast tissue (which, I know, the Sun readers don’t believe to be true). The commentators on there display an equal amount of vitriol and outright bullying:

- This is the desired affect the Sun was after. It presents one side of a story, in a very demeaning manner, exploits the insecurities and ambitions of the girl (the photographers would have made her feel like a model), and then presents the negative article to the readership as fact, having spent the previous two days building up the story to appeal to outrage, because it is now a story that has potential follow up stories.

But it also has a deeper affect on the culture of not only what is acceptable within the realm of tabloid journalism, but wider society as a whole. The culture that promotes Katie Price as some sort of hero of modern morality, a culture that leads to people having such intense body image issues, is most certainly a culture that surrounds The Sun. Whether the girl in question had serious body image issues or not, is irrelevant. The overtly misogynistic approach to tabloid journalism cannot possibly be spun to suggest a positive outcome. Go to the Sun’s website and count the amount of times it refers to female body image, or presents candid and intrusive photos of a female celebrity. Here, i’ll help:

“Spanks a lot wind!” – A story showing an upskirt shot of Khloe Kardashian. The story also includes a close up shot, zoomed into her crotch. The story is about how she tried to pull her dress back down. News!

“There’s no-thin flabby about fabby Abbey Clancy” – Apart from crimes against headlines, this is a story about how Abbey Clancy isn’t fat. News!

“Jessie J has a body to match The Voice” – A story about how Jessie J looks relaxed in a bikini, leaning against a tree. News!

“Pussycat Ashley’s got the cream” – A story about a woman’s tanned legs. News!
And here’s some more. (Remember, there are all from the Sun website’s first page):

Here is a piece from The Daily Mail website a couple of months back, highlighting my point, that the tabloid media is inherently misogynistic, polices what is “right” with the female body image, and thus creates an atmosphere for people “wanting to be like Jordan” to flourish:

- The Right Winged tabloid media creates that culture, sometimes subtly, sometimes quite obviously. It is a part of the model of the tabloid media, it is in its fabric. The media is responsible for it, and then The Sun shakes its head in disgust when the product of that culture emerges among people who aren’t celebrities.
The feminist activist and journalist, Laurie Penny at the Guardian writes:

“It is vital that we understand that sexism is not just one more naughty thing that the tabloids do. Sexism is the dirty oil in the engine, the juice that makes the whole shuddering sleaze-machine run smoothly. The eyes that are drawn to the topless teenager on page three skim lightly over page two, where propagandists on the Murdoch dollar peddle torrid justifications for the waging of wars and the slashing of public sector jobs and call it news.”

The “End Violence Against Women Coalition” argued in front of Leveson, that Page 3 was part of a tabloid culture rooted in the 1970s that objectified women, sexualised women, and helped to promote a body conscious society. Leveson noted that the representation of women in the tabloid press raised:

“important and sensitive issues which merit further consideration by any new regulator.”

- Misogyny in the press, and the culture of the policing of the bodies of female celebrities whether they welcome it or not, creates wider issues. Especially when mixed with sensationalism, and outrage. That is obvious. It is therefore hugely hypocritical of the Sun to have fanned the flames of a body-conscious culture for decades, and then to so viciously attack the inevitable product of it. They set the fire, and then they run to the rescue with a bucket of petrol, and everyone stands around cheering them as saviours.

The Age of Hysteria

“….the identification of Muslims, migrants, asylum seekers and gypsies/travellers as the targets of press hostility and/or xenophobia in the press, was supported by the evidence seen by the Inquiry.“
- The Leveson Report.

It is quite true that misinformation, and outright lying has been used as a political tool for centuries. Today, we have a paradox. The hysterically inaccurate information that we are sometimes presented with so quickly and so easily due entirely to the speed of communication via the internet; can just as quickly and easily be discredited and dismissed. The worrying aspect of the paradox is that the misinformation is presented in such an hysterical manner, so as to appeal to people who already have preconceived prejudices about the given topic, and so don’t tend to then spend time proving the claims wrong. I have wrote previously on The Sun’s manipulations, misinformation, and potently devious, divisive rhetoric, when it comes to perpetuating the myth of ‘benefit scrounging’. And so with this article, I thought i’d attempt to point out the inaccuracy that exists in a particular piece of complete fabrication that appears to be doing the rounds on twitter and on facebook, and only goes to further misinform the population. The misinformation in question is this:

Sometimes it is accompanied by a picture of a poor old white lady counting 1p coins with a melancholy look strewn across her impoverished face. Impoverished, due apparently, to the rich benefit cheating brown skinned family seeking asylum, pictured next to her. The pictures are added manipulations, but the key to the nonsense are the claims themselves. So let’s examine the claims. I’m going to take the asylum/illegal claim first, because it flows nicely into the pensioner claim.

Part One:
Illegal immigrants and Asylum Seekers pocket £29,900 a year in benefits. This suggests one of two things. Firstly, that illegal immigrants and asylum seekers are the same thing, and given the same benefits. And secondly, and I cannot stress the stupidity of this point enough… that illegal immigrants are actually entitled to benefits anyway. If you are illegally in the country, by definition, you cannot call up the Home Office and say: “Hi, erm, so i’m here illegally, snook in through Calais, my documents are fake, totally here illegally…..so do I get my twenty-nine grand in a lump sum, or every month? How does my illegal immigrant benefit work?” They have no legal status, including within the Welfare system.
Asylum seekers are different. To qualify for asylum, the guideline is quite clear:

Asylum is protection given by a country to someone who is fleeing persecution in their own country. It is given under the 1951 United Nations Convention Relating to the Status of Refugees. To be recognised as a refugee, you must have left your country and be unable to go back because you have a well-founded fear of persecution.

The UK also adheres to the European Convention on Human Rights, which prevents us sending someone to a country where there is a real risk that they will be exposed to torture, or inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment.

- I am proud to live in a country that provides a safe haven for people who are persecuted, tortured, or threatened with degrading treatment in their home country. This is the mark of a civilised nation.

Here’s the cash sums that the Home Office says asylum seekers are entitled to:

Qualifying couple (married or in a civil partnership): £72.52

Lone parent aged 18 or over: £43.94

Single person aged 18 or over, excluding lone parent: £36.62

Person aged at least 16, but under 18 (except a member of a qualifying couple): £39.80

Person aged under 16: £52.96.

The top point by the way, the mention of “civil partnerships”, so outraged the right winged press that the Express printed this little gem the next day:

- Apparently gay asylum seekers (perhaps fleeing persecution from the horrifying Ugandan anti-gay laws, which is slowly leading to a genocide of gay people in the country) is a step TOO far for a Daily Express audience who dislike not only asylum seekers, but gay people too. Imagine if they were gay, asylum seekers, that didn’t like Princess Diana. The Express would implode with rage.

Back to the entitlements set out above. If we are to compare, as the original email does, a single pensioner, with a single asylum seeker, we see that the asylum seeker is entitled to £36.62 a week. That is £1904.24 a year. That amounts to £5.22 a day. Asylum seekers, are entitled to a cash benefit of a little over £5 a day. That’s less than minimum wage for one hour’s work. So let’s have a bit of perspective.
A Parliamentary briefing paper states:

“People who require leave to enter or remain in the UK, but who do not have it, are ‘persons subject to immigration control’ within the meaning of section 115 of the Immigration and Asylum Act 1999 and as such are not eligible for social security benefits, except those which depend on National Insurance contributions, such as contribution-based JSA. However, it is highly unlikely that a person in the UK without legal status will have a sufficient NI contribution record to gain entitlement to contributory benefits.”

“Asylum seekers – i.e. persons waiting for a decision on an asylum application – are not entitled to mainstream non-contributory social security benefits including income-based Jobseeker’s Allowance, Income Support and Housing Benefit. Instead, they may be eligible for accommodation and/or financial support from the UK Border Agency. Cash support for asylum seekers is less generous than social security benefits; for example, a single person.”

- I am therefore, unable to find anything close to the £29,900 that the above print claims those seeking asylum in the UK are entitled to. It is simply a fabrication. Much like the idea that illegal immigrants are entitled to benefits. The daily allowance for asylum seekers is pittance, that most of us would be outraged if we even had it per hour. It is also worth point out that the number of people claiming asylum in the UK has dropped hugely since 2003. In 2003, the numbers were 80,123. At the end of 2012, the number was 20,182. A huge drop.

Point Two:
British old age pensioners yearly entitlement comes to just £6000. This is completely untrue. The minimum state pension credit guarantee, will top up your weekly income £145.40 for a single pensioner. This is £7560.80 a year. We should all agree, that this is far too low. However, it is £5656.56 more than an asylum seeker. But, the statement made speaks not simply of pension, but all benefits. So, we must also include the Fuel Allowance.
If you are over 80, and you live alone, you also qualify for the Winter Fuel Allowance, worth £300 between November and December. Asylum seekers are not entitled to this. So that brings pensioner total to £7860.80 a year. This is now £5956.36 more than asylum seeker. We could also add council tax benefit and housing benefit to that list of benefits afforded to pensioners too. The point being, asylum seekers are entitled to next to nothing. They must have reason to be entitled to anything in the first place; meaning their lives are filled with fear, and they’ve fled their home to get away from the prospect of torture, degradation, or murder. £5 a day, does not qualify as ‘milking the system’.

I am disheartened by the amount of people willing to simply accept such intensely misleading and so glaringly wrong claims, and to further perpetuate it. Inaccuracies over asylum and immigration are more subtly presented in the press because they seem to come with deeper information. Though, two seconds of research will note, just as misleading. Take this January headline from The Daily Mail:
- Obviously this sort of headline gets the angry white, slightly racist, unable to investigate-for-themselves right wingers steaming with anger. There’s also the by-line to throw in a bit of anti-EU rhetoric. The problem is, practically every word of this headline is wholly misleading.
It is a written answer to a Parliamentary Question posed by Priti Patel MP and answered by Mark Harper at the Home Office. The Home Office say:

“3,980 foreign nationals in the UK subject to deportation action living in the community.
We continue to pursue removal in all these cases. The principal barriers to removal are non-compliance on the part of individuals which means we have insufficient evidence of nationality and identity to obtain a travel document, ongoing legal challenges and the situations in countries of return.””

- What this means is, firstly, the suggestion that we “can’t throw out” is completely misleading, as these foreign nationals are currently under deportation action, and may very well be ‘thrown out’, they are just under investigation. It is true that the Daily Mail can’t, right this second, throw them into the English Channel with cannons levelled at them if they attempt to swim back. And secondly, no where in the Home Office answer does it mention the crimes that these foreign nationals have committed. There is no break down of their crimes, anywhere. Therefore, The Daily Mail added “murderers and rapists” to affect. When presented with the fact that they’d blatantly just invented a non-story, for shock value, the Mail issued this apology:

- You might just be able to see it, underneath the other completely misleading anti-immigrant story, and the enticing Asda ad. Or maybe not. Because instead of being an apology on the front page, where the original misleading story was, it is instead printed, in small at the very bottom of the fourth page. The correction reads:

“The headline of an article on 3 January suggested that there are 4,000 foreign murderers and rapists in the UK who cannot be deported.
We are happy to clarify that, as the article stated, the figure in fact refers to 3,980 foreign criminals, including murderers and rapists, who are currently subject to deportation orders.”

I am unsure who is to blame for this age of hysteria. Is it the people, for providing a market place for publications like the Mail to flourish? There is obviously a market for hysteria. Sensationalism sells. Weak conjecture, presented in a couple of hundred words, that require no real thought on the part of the reader, sells. People must surely shoulder some of the blame, if they are to read statements like the pensioner/asylum statements without actually questioning it. Perhaps the education system is failing to cultivate curious minds, and instead works to produce minds that accept. Or maybe the people rely on the press for information within a democratic framework; perhaps we put our trust in the news media; perhaps we delegate our responsibility to understand and to question, to those we feel are qualified to do so, without actually knowing who those people are….. which in turn is played upon by certain media outlets that both create and shape the discourse of the time. Perhaps it is a mixture of both. The papers promote, and the readers perpetuate hostility based on distortions and nonsense. Either way, it is then no surprise to me, that the UK currently has such a vicious right winged government that relies on such a manipulated right winged press to push its message and its goals.

Secularism and Religion clash at UCL.

March 8th saw the World celebrate International Women’s day. The empowerment of women worldwide, battling both religious and political, as well as patently institutional misogyny and oppression for centuries, honoured with a day of remembrance for those who fought, and a day of thoughtfulness for the reasons why the battles for empowerment were fought and continue to be fought. It’s a battle that has been waged for centuries and is still a key issue. Over the course of the 21st Century, women in Parliament has been a major issue. John Stuart Mill’s wonderful essays on women’s rights paved the way for women in Parliament. There are currently 143 female MPs in the Commons. That means, of the 650 MPs, 507 of them are men. There is still a way to go, but our society is moving in the right direction, and has been for decades, albeit, too slowly. We must support the forward direction of equality, we must not succumb, or accommodate pointless gender inequality in public life.

During a debate between Hamza Tortzis and Lawrence Krauss at University College London, the people putting on the event – Islamic Education and Research Academy – enforced a policy of gender segregation for the seating in the theatre, based on Islamic ‘values’. A male section, a female section, and a mixed section. Krauss got up and refused to debate until the segregation policy was dropped. Male students sitting in the female only section in protest, were forcibly removed. One of the students said:

“It was clear that the segregation was still in effect as when I sat in the same aisle as female attendees I was immediately instructed by security to exit the theatre. I was taken to a small room with IERA security staff and an organiser named Mohammad who told me that the policy was actually given to IERA by UCL. Shocked, I said that I would like to return to my seat but was told that security would now remove me from the premises for refusing to comply with the gender segregation.”

Mohammad Ansar, of “Muslims found America, and interbred with the Natives, before the Europeans got there… there are ancient Mosques in Texas to prove it!!” fame, told twitter, that to deny the right of Muslims to segregate according to gender, was an attack on the rights of Muslim women. Here:

- Yes. The right of Muslims to walk into a secular lecture theatre, in UCL, a beacon of secular thought, and demand special treatment by refusing access for others to certain areas based on their particular brand of ‘faith’, regardless of whether or not a person is Muslim (apparently, non-muslims must succumb to the ‘rights’ of Muslims to tell them to sit where they’re told, or leave), areas that aren’t their’s to decide who gets to sit within in the first place. I’m not sure why we must put Islamic values ahead of any others. Why not ask the room if there’s anyone who wishes to segregate based on shoe size? Or race? Or eye colour? Why must Islam be given the distinct pleasure of enforcing who may sit where in a public space? Why weren’t non-believers given the apparent ‘right’ to choose how the room should be segregated?

Contrary to what Ansar seems to be suggesting, UCL did not tell Muslim women that they MUST sit next to men. There was no “dictating” to Muslims at all. It was Muslims attempting to dictate to everyone else, and then complaining when people weren’t going to stand for that nonsense. UCL simply have a free seating policy. Sit where ever you wish. They do not base seating, or any other policy, on religious demands. There is no infringement of any right going on here. if UCL were forcibly telling Muslim women that they must sit next to a man, that they have no choice, then yes, rights would be abused. That wasn’t the case. Ansar is manipulating the situation, to appeal to the victim mentality espoused by the faithful when they don’t get to force their principles upon the rest of us.

The outward display of faith; the public enforcement of inner faith, is dangerous, anti-secular by definition, and must be rejected in a free and secular society.
A Muslim man or woman should be allowed to choose where they wish to sit, in a public theatre. They cannot enforce it on others,

Other arguments for accepting gender segregation came thick and fast from those defending systems of apartheid:

- The issue is quite simple. Firstly, who gave Muslims the special right to decide how seating should be arranged, in a secular university, in a public space? The rules of the institution, and the rules of secular, liberal democracy dictate that you cannot take over the setting, and create a little Theocratic haven for your faithful.

Enforcing religiously motivated apartheid, does not fit in with the society in which it is attempting – unsuccessfully – to place itself. Regardless of the completely backward and immoral sentiment of segregation based on gender; the policy of gender segregation is not permitted in our society, it is something we have grown out of. Deal with it. The argument was that Muslim women may feel uncomfortable sitting next to a man. As if that’s an acceptable argument. We would be rightly shocked if a white man declares he wishes an enforced policy where by he doesn’t have to sit next to a black man, because he feels uncomfortable around him, and that if a black man does sit next to him, he be removed. We should say, either deal with it, or leave. If a woman feels uncomfortable merely sitting next to a man, then shouldn’t we be addressing that issue sensibly rather than giving in to it as a fact of life? Isn’t giving into that feeling of ‘uncomfortable’ as a fact of life that should be appeased rather than educated against, anti-gender equality in itself?

You have no right to impose your religious ‘beliefs’ on others, nor do others have any necessity to accommodate your religious ‘beliefs’. They are personal to you, and you alone. And secondly, by accommodating outdated and irrational ‘fears’ or dogma without questioning it, or protesting it, we perpetuate it. If you feel you might be too uncomfortable sitting next to a male in a public setting; where it’s likely that there will be males, freely sitting where ever they wish, because, you know, this isn’t Saudi Arabia, then you’re going to struggle leaving the house at all. Should buses be segregated in case a Muslim woman feels uncomfortable? Should we have Muslim and non-Muslim shop entrances? Should we consult Mo Ansar and other apparent ‘moderates’ whenever the government makes policy, to ensure it is agreeable to the doctrines of Islam? We are told it is just a ‘small group of extremists’ who demand such special treatment. It isn’t. It is the faith. Like Catholicism, Islam is not a private system of spirituality. It demands public intervention and special treatment. Ansar agrees:

When your “public” faith demands special treatment within a society that is built on not allowing any special treatment to religion, and it imposes itself on a public space, and forces those who do not belief in your horrid little myths to comply by your standards, with the threat of removal…. you simply act to knock down an important factor within a liberal secular democracy; that of gender equality. Must you comply by those standards? Yes. This is a secular nation. In public, your faith has no right to impose itself.

It doesn’t matter if you provide a “mixed” section. The idea of a “mixed” section itself, is abhorrent. There should be no need for it. The fact that you have segregated areas perpetuates the notion that men and women are fundamentally to be treated differently, even within a public arena, for the most absurd reasons. This is a notion that has been fought against, and at great loss to those fighting for it over the centuries. It is a Western tradition we should be proud of, and suspicious of any sect that wishes to dismantle it. Gender equality has been a central theme in the fight for equal rights within our system. And so to have a dictatorial, misogynistic cult demand special treatment, shouting “you’re attacking our rights!” (usually this translates to; you’re attacking our perceived right to impose our public display of faith on the rest of you) at not getting their way, is a slap in the face of everything a decent, free and equal society strives to fight for. It is a step backward. A regressive move.

A second issue, is that it really does not do Islam any favours in its attempts to integrate into a Western, liberal society. We are already tremendously suspicious of the treatment of women in Islamic nations, that any sort of replication of those policies in a liberalised Britain, greatly increase those suspicions and I think we absolutely have a right to feel completely offended by such attacks on the fabric of a secular and liberal democracy that finds gender discrimination to be totally unacceptable.

Another grave problem is that there is no room for argument. The fight for female equality has been one based on reason. We progress when we engage in reason and when those points of reason are stronger, and more self evident than previous. With Islamic segregation based on gender; it is absolute. The is no willingness to accept they may be wrong. And so we must always give in to gender segregation, regardless of how irrational it is. This is totalitarianism and it has no place.

Up until 1979s, the Mormon Church preached and taught that being black meant that you were Satan’s representatives on Earth. This stems back to the 2nd President of the Mormon Church, Brigham Young saying of mixed race marriages:

“Shall I tell you the law of God in regard to the African race? If the white man who belongs to the chosen seed mixes his blood with the seed of Cain” (Black people were considered the descendants of Cain), “the penalty, under the law of God, is death on the spot. This will always be so”

- If we are to be consistent in our requirement to suspend secularism in favour of religious bigotry, we must argue that if the Mormon Church had not changed their position (they did so, only to accommodate mixed-race converts in South America), it would be acceptable, in a debate between a Mormon and an Atheist, to split the room between black seating, white seating and mixed seating. The problem is obvious. We further perpetuate the racial divide, if only psychologically, by ensuring that in a public space, in a nation that does not base its politics or its institutions on race, there is a clear divide based on race. If we were to put on, in a public space, an event that whites could only sit with whites, and black with black, along with a mixed area, because a few white supremacists do not feel comfortable with the possibility that they may have to sit next to a black person, we would tell them to grow up, modernise their horrendously regressive views, and either accept it, or stay at home. It is absolutely no different with gender.

Everyone, in public life, in a public arena has a right to sit where ever they wish. The imposing of unchallengeable dogmas on public spaces, is the absolute antithesis of a free and open society.

A public forum, in a secular institution, should not give special attention to any system of belief. As an Atheist, I am under no obligation to bend to the rules of Islam, in a public place. I am not under any obligation to be told where I can and cannot sit. It is wrong. In the same way that as an Atheist, I have no right to go into a private place of worship, and start reciting The Origin of Species.

Ansar continued:

- “Inalienable human right”. A bit of a play on Jefferson there. And yet, sadly, about 1500 years behind even the 18th century. I am not sure if Ansar is commenting on privately segregating yourself, or it being enforced through public policy, as was the case at UCL. How is it anyone’s human right, to enforce human segregation based on gender, in a public space, in a nation that is not built on gender equality? And what is immodest about sitting next to a man during a debate? It is your right, to sit where ever you wish, based on your private decision. Not on enforced Theocratic values. And it’s always something to behold, that the ‘modesty’ really only ever seems to apply to the treatment of women. And how modest it is, for a person of faith to hijack secular institutions and enforce policies based on their faith alone. How very modest.

And why is it just the idea of faith that is allowed to segregate? Why not other ideas? In a debate between Socialists and Capitalists, why not split the room in two between them? In a debate in which one of the participants is ginger, the other auburn, split the room according to that? Why is it only one ‘idea’ we must all capitulate to? If, during a debate between Nationalism and Liberalism, the Nationalists wish to split the room along what they weakly consider to be “homogeneous British” lines, we would rightfully call it unacceptable, racist, xenophobic, and fascist. But they base it on their ‘faith’ in their ideology. So what is the difference?

Mo Ansar is not as moderate as he likes to think. His vision of a society is one that permits Islam a special dispensation from secular notions, is incredibly dangerous. He does not understand, that not getting his way; not getting his principles installed within a religious-free environment, is not an attack on his rights. This should be opposed by every right thinking person.

But it isn’t just Islam.
Students and parents at Sullivan High School in Sullivan, Indiana have decided they wish to have a prom in which gay couples are not allowed. One of the special education teachers Diana Medley, said:

“We don’t agree with it (homosexuality), and it’s offensive to us.”

- This bigotry and a belief in apartheid based on faith alone, should be offensive to us all. It should be fought at every opportunity. They then tend to tell us that by stopping this sort of apartheid-in-practice, we are trampling on their rights as Christians. It is of course, nonsense. The slow and methodical imposing of Theocratic principles, on everyone other than themselves, is totalitarian, and represents the epitome of the denial of rights, and imperialism. What for the rights of gay men and women not to be bullied, or viewed as different, and somehow unequal, stigmatised and told they are unnatural? What about those rights? The only reason gay people have been so badly mistreated, and continue to be, is religion. Sexuality, as pointed out in a previous entry, has many genetic elements. So, exchange the word “homosexuality” for “black” or “people with brown hair” or “women” (not a problem for Islam) and you will notice just how bigoted it becomes. For a school to say “We don’t want anyone with blue eyes coming to the Prom, they offend us” would have no place in a decent society because it perpetuates such a vicious notion, that they are different and should be viewed as such, simply for whom they choose to love. We must be be afraid to say that we find systems of social structures based on race, gender or sexuality (genetic) apartheid to be wholly wrong. Cloaking your bigotry behind outdated myths that have no basis in reality, and are refuted by genetics, does not make you any less wrong, nor your beliefs any less wrong.

The problem is the difference between private spirituality, and an outward public enforcement of religious belief. The latter, being completely unacceptable. The religious have uncompromising, unquestionable faith that transcends the ages and is rooted firmly in ancient myths and ideals which they believe to be unchallengeable. Islam is an ideology as well as a faith, as Ansar makes clear; it is public, private, and defines their lives entirely. There is no room for questioning. We apparently must accept that Islam deserves a special place in a secular society. Hamza Tortzis refers to this as his “objective” anchor for morality. Mehdi Hasan thinks any slight criticism to be “Islamophobic” yet he himself has no worry referring to non-believers as unintelligent cattle, who live like animals. It is his right to think and to say such insulting things, and I accept that. And I have always accepted, It is your right to be as bigoted as you wish, in your own personal space. You may debate in open, your bigotry, you may argue your point. You have the freedom of expression to allow that. The moment you start to force it upon others in the public arena; taking over public spaces in secular societies and institutions and imposing your fundamentalist anti-humanist principles like telling people where they can’t sit based on your myths, then you become a Theocratic danger. You do not have an inherent right to do that. And if you think we therefore trample on your rights for that, fine, i’m happy to accept that.
Gender segregation cannot and should not be tolerated, and applying the phrase “But it’s my religion” is not an acceptable excuse for perpetuating an inequality that has been, and is being fought against.

The World Health Organisation defines Gender as:

“the socially constructed roles, behaviours, activities, and attributes that a given society considers appropriate for men and women.”

- We know that Islam is far more distinct with gender roles, in far more ways than the Western World, based entirely on their horrific notions of ‘modesty’. We know that women are not equal to men, in Islamic societies. But that is not the ‘given society’ that they inhabit, in the UK. The ‘given society’ in this case, is secular, with no preference in a public space given to a religion, nor to gender inequality based on archaic religious texts. We inhabit a society based, among other qualities, on equality of gender (though it still has its flaws in that department). That equality is built into the framework that all cultures must adhere to, and not try to break down. We are not an Islamic society. Public space in a secular setting is not given over to Islamic demands, nor special treatment of that sort, nor should it be. If you think this attacks your rights to privately practice your faith, and that you do not like an institution within that ‘given society’ telling you that you do not have any inherent right to disregard that system at the behest of your particular faith; then you really do not belong in a secular society. You are attempting to pervert it, for Theocratic principles. We only defeat outdated and irrational views on race, or gender, or sexuality, by not giving into them and openly debating them. The fight for gender equality has a long and tremendous history. Religious regression and bigotry is just another obstacle that it must over come.

When a show of public faith so firmly contradicts the basis of secular, liberal society; then it must not be tolerated nor accepted.

From Jefferson to the Tea Party

I am not an advocate for frequent changes in laws and constitutions. But laws and institutions must go hand in hand with the progress of the human mind. As that becomes more developed, more enlightened, as new discoveries are made, new truths discovered and manners and opinions change, with the change of circumstances, institutions must advance also to keep pace with the times. We might as well require a man to wear still the coat which fitted him when a boy as civilized society to remain ever under the regimen of their barbarous ancestors.
- Thomas Jefferson

If the Tea Party section of the Republican Party wish to cling onto ‘small government’ advocates from the Founding days of the Republic, then perhaps Virginian Congressman and later, Minister to Russia, John Randolph of Roanoke would be a better candidate for their hero worship. Randolph lead the House of Representative fight against Jefferson, despite being of the same Party; later leaving the Democratic-Republican base that he shared with Jefferson, because he perceived Jefferson’s Presidency as overstepping Constitutional power several times over.
Randolph saw Jefferson’s Presidential first term as vastly exceeding Constitutional power, especially when it came to purchasing the Louisiana territory. Randolph again gets angry when Jefferson attempted to buy Florida from Napoleon. In fact, practically everything President Jefferson did, was opposed by the extreme small government, States-Rights advocate, John Randolph. With regard the Presidency of John Quincy Adams, Randolph refers to him as a traitor, and insists – like the drama queens of the Tea Party movement’s references to President Obama today – that the Government had been overtaken and he wished to ‘take it back’. Any form of economic equality, he opposed. It is Randolph that the Tea Party Republicans of today should call their own. But if you’re in Florida, or the Louisiana territory…. your very existence as an American citizen, was opposed by those small government advocates. Thomas Jefferson can most certainly not be held up as a hero of the Tea Party.

It is apparently without parody nor any sort of critical thought process, that often we hear the Tea Party sect of the Republicans refer to their party as “The Party of Jefferson!”. Tea Party fanatics hold up placards demanding a return to the principles of long lost ‘Republican Party’ icons. They insist that government has become too tyrannical! Alex Jones insisted on Jefferson’s libertarian credentials a couple of times. These are big claims. Most notably, they don’t appear to appeal to Jefferson’s thoughts nor actions, except in a very limited sense of what the man said and achieved.

The simplistic tendency to hold Jefferson up as a model of small government. The rewriting of history to attempt to appeal to a modern narrative – as when those still insistent on flying the Confederate flag tell us it’s a flag that represents State’s Rights – should be taken for the pitifully weak interpretation that it is. The dogmatism of free market liberalism, and anti-government interference in any way, is a relatively new phenomena.

Thomas Jefferson can very thinly be linked to the 21st Century Tea Party Republican Party ideals, if we play loose with history and just claim a common link between the Third President, and the Tea Party in regard ‘small government’. Or we could accept that the Republican Party’s Tea Party incarnation as it exists today is not in any way to be reconciled with any incarnation of the Republican Party of the 18th Century; that the Tea Party would most certainly reject Jefferson if he were alive today, and that whisking Jefferson away from the context of his time, and understanding of America, achieves nothing.

The opening line of the Republican Party’s website states:

“We believe in the power and opportunity of America’s free-market economy.”

- We should then measure Thomas Jefferson’s thoughts on Capitalism alongside this unwavering dogmatic commitment of the 21st Century Republicans to free market Capitalism.

We know that Jefferson romantically wished for a Republic based primarily on agriculture. He was a product of 18th Century Virginia. A Southern Plantation owner, who mistrusted commerce and industry in the North. He worried that the growth of industry would eventually take over; an industrial Capitalist class would emerge, and people would be reliant on low wages, unable to pursue other means of self fulfilment which would inevitably be the intrigue of a wealthy few; a new Aristocracy. According to Clay Jenkinson, in his book, “Becoming Jefferson’s People” Jefferson supported:

“a graduated income tax that would serve as a disincentive to vast accumulations of wealth and would make funds available for some sort of benign redistribution downward.”

- Jefferson’s worry about an agrarian American being over taken by wage labour within an industrialised and commercial context goes further. He worried that commerce would lead to an economy based on want (which, is what we have):

“And with the laborers of England generally, does not the moral coercion of want subject their will as despotically to that of their employer, as the physical constraint does the soldier, the seaman, or the slave?”

In the wake of moneyed interests beginning to take hold in the new Nation at the beginning of the 19th Century, Jefferson seems just as skeptical of their power to engage politically, as he does of Monarchical power:

“I hope we shall crush… in its birth the aristocracy of our moneyed corporations, which dare already to challenge our government to a trial of strength and bid defiance to the laws of our country.”

I wonder then, if Jefferson would ever have identified himself with an apparent ‘grass roots’ political movement funded largely by the Koch empire and perpetuated by the Murdoch News Empire. How would he have reacted, to a right winged Judiciary, who, in 2010 declared that it was unconstitutional to limit the amount a Corporate entity can spend endorsing a candidate for office, claiming that to limit it, would be to undermine the Corporations 1st Amendment right to free expression; essentially making a citizen out of a corporation. I will accept that premise, the moment a law enforcement body imprisons Exxon for shipping oil to the Nazis after Pearl Harbour and happily funding Himmler’s personal bank account.

American Petroleum Institute, whose members include Exxon, financed mainly Republican candidates in the 2010 mid-terms. Martin Durbin, API’s executive vice president for government affairs quite openly said:

“At the end of the day, our mission is trying to influence the policy debate.”

Koch Industries Inc (those wonderful funders of the Tea Party – giving power back to the people!), gave $1.79mn to candidates. 90% of those candidates were Republicans. This of course comes as President Obama proposed ending subsidies for Gas and Electric companies by 2012. Apparently those companies aren’t happy that their Welfare cheque is about to be scrapped. A Welfare cheque that adds up to over $45bn. I wonder how Jefferson might have reacted to that little gem.

Jefferson is somewhat of an enigma for those of us who claim his opening line of the 2nd paragraph of the Declaration, that he penned at such a young age, to be the very definition of Enlightenment thinking applied politically:

We hold these truths to be self-evident that all men are created equal; that they are endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable rights; that among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.

- This sentence, whilst beautifully crafted, and the first port of call for those of us who happily claim liberal secular democracy to be the most superior framework of governance thus conceived by man, is not wholly Jefferson’s making. He is paraphrasing Locke. In his second treatise, Locke writes:

“man hath by nature a power …. to preserve his property – that is, his life, liberty, and estate – against the injuries and attempts of other men.”

- Jefferson omits property, and estate from his own rewriting of the quote. Locke is convinced that property, is a natural right. Jefferson is not. The very first measure of Capitalism; the right to private property, Jefferson does not see fit to protect. In his private writings, he expands:

“It is agreed by those who have seriously considered the subject, that no individual has, of natural right, a separate property in an acre of land. By an universal law, whatever, whether fixed or movable, belongs to all men equally and in common.”

His views on property extends to his views on taxation. We all know that the Republicans of 2013 are quite adverse to raising any sort of tax on the wealthiest few, insisting as they do, that those. I have written previously on the Myth of the Wealth Creators. Jefferson however, most certainly takes a bit of a different view to modern Republicans. Writing to the great Polish and American General, Thaddeus Kosciusko in 1811, Jefferson says:

“The rich alone use imported articles, and on these alone the whole taxes of the General Government are levied… Our revenues liberated by the discharge of the public debt, and its surplus applied to canals, roads, schools, the farmer will see his government supported, his children educated, and the face of his country made a paradise by the contributions of the rich alone – without his being called on to spend a cent from his earnings.”

- Jefferson’s views on tax, are similar to his views on Government. That, less is better, but it is necessary, it must be progressive, and it can be used for government funded projects (including healthcare, as we shall see later in this article). He certainly was no Libertarian as Alex Jones suggests. Likewise, he was no fan of economic inequality, nor did he base Republican philosophy on a refusal to tax the wealthy, nor did he accept Corporate power as legitimate in the political sphere, nor did he believe that wealth is individually created, free from a government funded framework; he believed much the opposite, that the wealthy must bare the heaviest tax burden, and that the government can and should provide for the general well being of the public, especially against, as we have already noted, the growth of commerce and industry.

He is no friend of the wealthy either:

E”xperience declares that man is the only animal which devours his own kind; for I can apply no milder term to the governments of Europe, and to the general prey of the rich on the poor.”

- He has as much contempt for the prey of the wealthy on the poor, as he does for the Monarchs of Europe. Though we must point out the inconsistency in this quote, given that Jefferson was a rather wealthy man, who used slave labour to build, and rebuild, and maintain his place at Monticello. If that isn’t preying on the poor, I’m not sure what is.

The claim that Jefferson was a strict Constitutionalist is, much like every other claim on Jefferson’s character and actions; both true and untrue depending on the situation. At one point, he rejects the idea of funding a National Museum, claiming it to be beyond the power for government set out in the Constitution. He also argued against a National Bank put fourth by Alexander Hamilton, noting that the Constitution did not give that specific power. And yet, he’s quite happy to double the size of the Nation with the purchase of the Louisiana territory, using money not appropriated by Congress; this is a hugely unconstitutional show of executive central power. Let us also not forget the quote posted at the top of this article. Jefferson was not a strict constitutionalist. He was a pragmatist and an advocate for well reasoned public policy.

The right winged writers such as Thomas DiLorenzo; famed for positioning Lincoln as an awful tyrant, whom claim Jefferson stood against government funded infrastructure projects, standing opposite the big bad centralised Government proposals of the Hamiltonians. This is of course, untrue. During Jefferson’s administration, as Dumas Malone’s most wonderful six volume biography (of which, I am still making my way through) of Jefferson points out,

“The congressional session was nearing its end when the President transmitted to the Senate (April 6, 1808) a report on roads and canals, drafted by the Secretary of the Treasury, which comprised the most comprehensive and constructive domestic program that emanated from this administration.”

- He notes that the programme was not put into affect, because the threat of being drawn into the conflict in Europe at the time, loomed heavy. Whilst Jefferson stood against debt-financing of any sort, including government debt-financed programmes (though, as most things in his life, his principles and his private life seem to contradict each other), he most certainly wasn’t against State intervention for infrastructure spending. Speaking of government spending on roads, railways, canals, and public education He says:

“By these operations, new channels of communication will be opened between the States; the lines of separation will disappear, their interests will be identified, and their union cemented by new and indissoluble ties.”

He was however, in theory (less so in practice) dedicated first to the Constitution. He made his worries known that the Constitution may not give adequate power for great government funded improvement projects, and may require an amendment further down the line, to make those powers possible. And yet, Jefferson then authorises the biggest nationalised road building project, with the Cumberland Road, with an extension of the road granted under the Presidency of Republican James Monroe in 1820.

He also notes that publicly funded education, is as important to the defence of a free people, as any other (guns etc):

“The tax which will be paid for education is not more than the thousandth part of what will be paid to kings, priests and nobles who will rise up if we leave the people to ignorance.”

Further, it wasn’t just the Federalists of John Adam’s Presidency that supported government run healthcare. The Congress of 1798 passed “An Act for the Relief of Sick and Disabled Seaman”. This meant that the government ran a series of hospitals that were paid for by labour merchant marine sailors via a tax. Whilst we may expect this from the Adam’s administration, we wouldn’t expect it from the hero of the Tea Party movement, Thomas Jefferson. Government run healthcare, according to these people, is the worst of the worst. You must be a socialist if you support it! Well, according to Adam Rothman, a Georgetown University history professor:

“…Jefferson (Hamilton’s strict constructionist nemesis) also supported federal marine hospitals, and along with his own Treasury Secretary, Albert Gallatin, took steps to improve them during his presidency. So I guess you could say it had bipartisan support.”

We should also note the vast difference in Republican rhetoric on the use of religion in the public sphere. Jefferson did not believe that religion could be used to define an American citizen. In his own words:

“But it does me no injury for my neighbour to say there are twenty gods or no God. It neither picks my pocket nor breaks my leg.”

- For this, and other such quotes, he angered the Christian Right of the day, many during the 1796 election campaign insisting that he was an Atheist, unworthy of public office. Pamphlets and newspapers denounced him as a heretic, whilst Church sermons were conducted insisting that if elected, Jefferson would work to destroy Christianity. Even as late as 1830, the Philadelphia public library refused to shelve any works by Jefferson, for being anti-religious. New York minister John Mitchell Mason’s “Voice of Warning to Christians,” states openly, before going on to explain why Jefferson is an ‘infidel’:

I dread the election of Mr. Jefferson, because I believe him to be a confirmed infidel: you desire it, because, while he is politically acceptable, you either doubt this fact, or do not consider it essential. Let us, like brethren, reason this matter.

- In essence, if he were alive today, the Christian Right – the Tea Party Republicans – would undoubtedly be comparing Jefferson to Hitler at some point.

Republicans today have no such problem, because they have spent the past fifty years slowly eroding secular rights, in favour of theocratic Christian ‘morality’. Reagan was the ideal candidate to play on this anti-Constitutional religious dogmatic approach to politics. He was quite willing to break down the wall that was so brilliantly erected between Church and State some 200 years previous.
In 1988 Reagan completely destroyed any trace of Enlightenment thinking within the Republican Party, that brought around the creation of the secular United States of America with his State of the Union address, in which he states:

Well now, we come to a family issue that we must have the courage to confront. Tonight, I call America — a good nation, a moral people — to charitable but realistic consideration of the terrible cost of abortion on demand. To those who say this violates a woman’s right to control of her own body — can they deny that now medical evidence confirms the unborn child is a living human being entitled to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness? Let us unite as a nation and protect the unborn with legislation that would stop all federal funding for abortion — and with a human life amendment making, of course, an exception where the unborn child threatens the life of the mother. Our Judeo-Christian tradition recognizes the right of taking a life in self-defense.”

- By linking “good and moral people” to “Judeo-Christian tradition” and ensuring that public policy be not only influenced, but entirely informed by “Judeo-Christian tradition”, Reagan severs the link between the Republican Party of today, and the so-called Republican Party of Jefferson. This continues to the present day. Jefferson is insistent that belief in ‘God’ is not a requirement to be bound together as Americans. The new hope of the Republican Party, Marco Rubio seemingly doesn’t agree:

“We’re bound together by common values. That family is the most important institution in society. That almighty God is the source of all we have.”

- Jefferson therefore, is not bound to the common values that Rubio insists make up the collective “we”. Jefferson, for Rubio, is unAmerican.

The ideological hero of the Tea Party Right disagrees with their principles in most ways.

We cannot claim that Jefferson was a free market Capitalist, nor that he was pro-government spending. We cannot claim he was an Atheist, nor that he was religious. He seems to transcend rivalry between many two opposite ideals, and instead chooses a course of pragmatism. A great commitment to the absolutely necessity of secularism for the sake of human rights. Modern day Republicans are still at war with the Soviet Union, claiming Socialism and ‘War on Christianity’ at every turn.
He was a pragmatist. He was neither on the Tea Party Right, nor the Democrat Centre-Left of today’s political spectrum.

Jefferson was a man who believed that small government was the best government; and yet he doubled the size of the nation with the Louisiana Purchase. He was a man who wrote that all men are created equal; and yet he owned over 200 slaves. He was a man who was deeply committed to Republican values of equality; And yet, when asked to promote women to Federal offices insisted that the Republic wasn’t ready for such an “innovation”. He was a man who often retreated back to Monticello claiming to be done with public life, only to find his way back soon after. He was a man of many contradictions, but many brilliances. He was supremely gifted at the art of the written word, but lacking in putting into practice many of the principles he so eloquently professed. His contribution to posterity is timeless, and brilliant.

He must be remembered in the context of his time, and for aiding in the creation of a spectacular new way of running governments; based on reason, the right for people to govern themselves, and equality. He wasn’t perfect, he didn’t take his Republican principles to their rightful conclusions with regard slavery and women’s rights. But he understood that eventually, slaves would be emancipated, that rights would be extended beyond white, male land owners and that government would have a future role to play in providing for improvements, and general well being, and that the founding documents that frame the new Nation provide for such updates when the people demand it to be so. This is where Jefferson and his undeniable genius can be placed; not within a curiously narrow framework of revised history by a 21st Century Christian Right Winged funded-by-billionaires incoherent Tea Party movement that reshapes history to suit its ends.

The Callous Smile of Cardinal Turkson

As the white smoke billows out from the chimney of the Sistine Chapel, the World will be waiting to know who will be the man (not woman, that apparently, would be wrong) to take on the enormous challenges the Catholic Church currently faces.

One of the leading candidate to replace Pope Benedict, as the new Pontiff, is Cardinal Peter Turkson of Ghana. The media outlets love him on account of him not being European, or white. He may very well be the first black Pope, given that the Church will be under a lot of pressure to outwardly appear as if it is modernising in any way, and the election of another old, white, European is not likely to help that cause. However, the news media appears to be ignoring Turkson as a person, instead choosing to focus almost all of its attention on his ethnicity. His ethnicity must be noted, is irrelevant. The content of his character, and the beliefs he will bring with him to such a powerful position during a time of immense crises, are the key factors. And so this leaves the question, who is Peter Turkson?

Standing in front of the African Union Summit in January of 2012, Ban Ki-Moon asked all African Nations to stop prosecuting people for homosexuality, and to repeal all laws criminalising it, in accordance with the UN Declaration of Human Rights. Cardinal Peter Turkson of Ghana was not happy with this, and gave his response, not so subtly insisting that he does not believe that gay people should be afforded the same human rights as straight people:

We push for the rights of prisoners, the rights of others, and the last thing we want to do is infringe upon the rights of anyone. But when you’re talking about what’s called ‘an alternative lifestyle,’ are those human rights? Ban Ki-moon needs to recognize there’s a subtle distinction between morality and human rights, and that’s what needs to be clarified.

- He is quick to tell us that the Catholic Church defends ‘the rights of others’, but this does not extend to gay people, and those apparently aren’t worthy of the human rights his Church believes in. And so, instead of outright condemning the horrifying anti-gay laws which includes the death penalty, and even extradition back to Uganda for Ugandans known to be gay, outside of Uganda. This stigmatising (with ridiculous terms like “an alternative lifestyle” – alternative to what? I consider Catholicism to be an ‘alternative lifestyle’ to mine) has lead to newspapers and magazines in Uganda (wishing to win favour with the government) publishing the names and addresses of gay people in the country next to the headline “Hang them”. In other words, if you are Ugandan, you are trapped, in perpetual fear for your life. The Catholic Church itself opposes the anti-gay bill, and condemned it. Cardinal Peter Turkson suggested that the law that basically calls for a genocide against gay people, must be weighed against the rights of straight Ugandans to express their ‘culture’. As if the right to oppress, is a legitimate right that must be respected:

“Just as there’s a sense of a call for rights, there’s also a call to respect culture.”

His defence of violent African laws against homosexuality continues. His most bizarre rant came when asked about the child sex scandal that has engulfed the Catholic Church over the past few years. He doesn’t think the maybe blame the sexually repressed framework on which the Catholic Church operates, or anything else that might be considered a legitimate critique of the crises, instead, he decides it’s the fault of homosexuality is what leads to paedophilia:

“…African traditional systems kind of protect or have protected its population against this tendency (child abuse) a little bit. Because in several communities, in several cultures in Africa homosexuality or for that matter any affair between two sexes of the same kind are not countenanced in our society, so that cultural, if you want, the taboo that traditionally has been there, has served to keep this out.”

- Here, he is suggesting three things. Firstly, the ridiculous and totally unfounded idea that homosexuality is linked to paedophilia, perpetuation an even deeper stigmatisation of homosexuality, that the Catholic Church has been intrinsic in defining over the decades. And secondly, he weaves in another defence of African anti-gay laws, as if they are beneficial to society. And lastly, that the child abuse scandal, could not possibly happen in Africa, because the anti-gay laws prevent such a thing. Here, he is building on remarks already made by Yoweri Museveni, the Ugandan President. Museveni said:

“Before we came in touch with the Europeans, we had some few homosexuals…. Africans are by nature discreet people… We never exhibit our sexual acts in public. I have for instance never kissed my wife in public… The problem is exhibitionism… The second problem is trying to lure young children into homosexuality.”

- The ignorance is shocking. Museveni and Turkson are of the same belief that homosexuality, is the cause of child abuse. And apparently, that any show of affection, is a ‘problem’. Both of which (not being completely heterosexual, and showing affection in public), he believes are imported from European colonisation; the white man. The Cardinal, and the President of Uganda, believe that child abuse is caused by gay white people from Europe. Is it possible to be more absurd?

They appear to conveniently ignore the fact that one of the main causes of the spread of AIDs in young girls and women in African nations, is rape. By men. With girls. In fact, in 2007 Amnesty International reported that the Ugandan government was both covering up and supporting systematic rape of young girls. The report notes:

“Violence against women is endemic throughout Uganda”

- The Lord’s Resistance Army in the north of Uganda at the time, were responsible for kidnapped and forcing young girls into sexual slavery. Victims claim that Ugandan government officials, members of the police, and members of the judiciary in Uganda had abused them. One in four women, the report notes, say their first sexual encounter, was forced. All of this is glossed over as the President of Uganda, and the horrendous Cardinal Turkson stand atop their self-made moral ground, working tirelessly to keep up their ‘cultural tradition’ of stigmatising an innocent, and harmless section of the population they so instinctively hate.

He then turns his attention goes on to providing us with his reasons for why he isn’t a fan of reproductive rights for women, meaning contraception and abortion:

“There will be a racist agenda behind all of this”

“….The program being pushed does not reflect the true situation of women in the Third World, It derives from a certain thinking that you deal with poverty by eliminating the poor.”

- Cardinal Turkson believes those outside of Africa whom support condom use and are pro-choice, simply wish to de-populate the black population of Africa. Perhaps so we can take over, open the gates to all the gay, white child molesters.

So, that’s homophobic, racist, and anti-women’s rights. If this is the modernisation of the Catholic Church, it looks eerily similar to the pre-modernised Catholic Church.

When one of the most senior Cardinals in the Catholic Church, and one of the favourites for the Papacy spreads such vicious and bigoted senseless deceptions, further stigmatising a section of humanity who already face such oppressive measures that the Cardinal just wishes we’d all ‘respect’, it is little wonder that the Church, as an institution, is so widely disliked. View the grin on his face, whilst imagining the horror that a person in Uganda faces simply for being a sexuality that the Cardinal does not like; the violence he or she must face, and possible death. The smile suddenly becomes chilling, and callous and built on bigotry, and that is exactly how this awful man should be viewed. Electing this man to the Papacy would be an intolerable step backward, for an Institution already so far back, we need a telescope to see it.

George Osborne’s Credit Rating Words of Wisdom:

“We will safeguard Britain’s credit rating with a credible plan to eliminate the bulk of the structural deficit over a Parliament…”
- The Conservative Party Manifesto 2010.

This evening – a day after it was noted that Osborne will embarrassingly reveal that borrowing this year will go up – Moody’s Ratings Agency has downgraded the UK’s credit rating from AAA to AA1. Moody’s stated the reason for the downgrade was:

The key interrelated drivers of today’s action are:

1. The continuing weakness in the UK’s medium-term growth outlook, with a period of sluggish growth which Moody’s now expects will extend into the second half of the decade;

2. The challenges that subdued medium-term growth prospects pose to the government’s fiscal consolidation programme, which will now extend well into the next parliament;

3. And, as a consequence of the UK’s high and rising debt burden, a deterioration in the shock-absorption capacity of the government’s balance sheet, which is unlikely to reverse before 2016.

The problem Moody’s sees, is lack of growth. The government have relied too heavily on austerity, and not on growth in any meaningful way. And austerity, without growth, is a failure. Austerity may work at times of prosperity, but when wages are worthless, when growth is stagnant or receding, it simply fails. It has failed again. Therefore, the Chancellor has failed. Moody’s continues:

When Moody’s changed the outlook on the UK’s rating to negative in February 2012, the rating agency cited concerns over the increased uncertainty regarding the pace of fiscal consolidation due to materially weaker growth prospects, which contributed to higher than previously expected projections for the deficit, and consequently also an expected rise in the debt burden.

- Here, they are clear. Moody’s is concerned that continued austerity, despite “weaker” (a euphemism, for no growth, stagnation, and recession) growth than ‘expected’, has led to rising debts. It failed miserably. The statement from Moody’s is one long winded way of saying, the Tory plan A failed. It will continue to fail.

So what was the Chancellor’s response to the news that his plan has failed? Well, he seems to be under the impression that the downgrade simply means he’s doing a wonderful job, his plan is working, and will continue without any changes to it whatsoever:

Far from weakening our resolve to deliver our economic recovery plan, this decision redoubles it.

We will go on delivering the plan that has cut the deficit by a quarter, and given us record low interest rates and record numbers of jobs.

- Let’s be clear, ‘record number of jobs’ simply means, people working, regardless of whether they are paid or not. Unpaid work, to me, is not “employment”. Nor is anyone “employing” you if your jobseekers allowance is only being paid under the condition that you stack shelves for multinational companies using free labour. There are still 2,500,000 unemployed, chasing 500,000 jobs. That’s not a record number. Of the 500,000 jobs the Government claimed to have created, 1 in 5 of those are on unpaid work schemes, and most still claim jobseekers allowance. You know, the people forced to work for multinational Companies, who apparently do not have to rent their labour (this is reprehensible Capitalism, but not unexpected from the Tory Party), because the government claims to be paying their wage, through unemployment benefit. People on ‘job hunt workshops’ receiving no pay or training are also counted. So let’s be clear; the Chancellor just invents whatever he feels comfortable with at the time, to make himself sound impressive. The problem is, sometimes those invented comforts come back to bite you.

The Chancellor is missing the point and completely ignoring what Moody’s actually said. They do not believe that austerity, at a time when growth is slow or regressing has worked. In fact, it has made matters work. That has been the legacy of the past three years of Tory government. Osborne insisting he will continue on this path, suggests he thinks his policy has worked; that a downgrade simply confirms his plan is the right one. So let’s take a look at his thoughts on the Credit Rating over the past few years:

George Osborne’s Words of Wisdom

When Standard and Poor’s first put the UK on a watch list for our Credit Rating, the then Opposition Chancellor George Osborne made his feelings known about what should happen, even for being on the list, to the Labour Government:

“It’s now clear that Britain’s economic reputation is on the line at the next general election, another reason for bringing the date forward and having that election now… For the first time since these ratings began in 1978, the outlook for British debt has been downgraded from stable to negative.”

- Please note, that before today’s Downgrade, Moody’s put the UK back on negative outlook in February 2012. On Osborne’s watch.

Also when in opposition, the Chancellor told us just what losing the AAA Credit Rating would mean for the entire nation, and particularly the Government:

“….now Britain faces the humiliating possibility of losing its international credit rating.”

Also pre-election, Osborne lets us know that investment into the UK would be very difficult if the Credit Rating was downgraded:

“What investor is going to come to the UK when they fear a downgrade of our credit-rating and a collapse of confidence?”

It seems in opposition, the Chancellor could not keep quiet about just how important it was to keep our AAA Credit Rating, at the risk of the destruction of the entire Nation! And how only he could stop the doom!

one of the things I’m very keen on doing, and that’s putting it mildly, is to preserve Britain’s international credit rating. You know it’s absolutely essential we don’t have the downgrade that hangs over the country at the moment.”

In 2011, the Chancellor was keen to tell us how great his policies are, and how safe they have made us! HURRAH!

“Our credit rating had been put on negative watch. Now, however, thanks to the policies of this coalition Government, Britain has economic stability again.”

- That was mid-2011. By early 2012, we were back on negative watch again. Thanks Coalition!

in 2010, he gave us a benchmark by which to judge him as a Chancellor. He also gave us strong assurances of what the Coalition “WILL” do.

“Our first benchmark is to cut the deficit more quickly to safeguard Britain’s credit rating. I know that we are taking a political gamble to set this up as a measure of success. Protecting the credit rating will not be easy… The pace of fiscal consolidation will be co-ordinated with monetary policy. And we WILL protect Britain’s credit rating and international reputation.”

July 2012, Osborne tells us just how important retaining the AAA Credit Rating is:

“A reminder that despite the economic problems we face, the world has confidence that we are dealing with them”.

Moody’s is of course, untrustworthy and rather awful at what they do, given that a couple of weeks before its predictable death, AIG was rated AAA by Moody’s. That however, misses the point. George Osborne is the man who held the judgements of Credit Ratings Agencies up to be important references on how well a Government is performing economically, using them to continuously attack the Labour Government. He must face his own words. His own words, that simply add to his loss of all credibility this evening.

We must add ‘Downgraded Credit Rating’ to the list of Osborne’s failures as Chancellor. And the list is pretty long for a Chancellor who hasn’t yet been in the job for three years. The failure stems from the fallacy, that by cutting the public sector, the private sector would sweep up all those lost jobs. By taking money away from the poorest, and giving tax breaks to the wealthiest, we’d see new businesses everywhere, and job creation in abundance! Of course, none of that actually happened, or anything like it. Instead we have recessions, falling wages, people kicked out of their homes for having a spare room, banks not lending, the unemployed in payless jobs for multinationals, rising child poverty, borrowing and the deficit rising, and now a downgraded Credit Rating.

The Chancellor has to be sacked. His list of failings is immense. By contrast, Andrew Lansley was sacked as Health Minister, simply for not ‘explaining’ the NHS reforms adequately enough. The problem the Prime Minister has with Osborne, is that sacking the Chancellor, is an admission that the economic plan set forth from the moment they were elected, has failed.

If the Tories and Lib Dems thought they had inherited a mess in 2010, it is going to be a hell of a lot worse for those elected in 2015.

- So, given that over the past four years he has insisted that our Country is doomed if we lose Triple A, that it’s a complete embarrassment, that the Government of the time should call an election due to the economic failure they preside over simply for being ‘watched’ and not downgraded, that his policies saved the credit rating, and then as that rating is downgraded today, insists its just proof that his plan has worked……. how on earth is this man still the Chancellor of the Exchequer? Surely by his own standards, he has failed miserably?

The Cruelty of the Bedroom Tax

It is my understanding, that civilised society should be judged on how it looks after its most vulnerable, rather than how big a tax break it can offer its wealthiest. Apparently the Liberal Democrats and the Conservative Party take the opposite view. As the Bedroom Tax takes vitally needed money out of the pockets of 400,000 families with disabled children; our wondrous government will at the same time be handing a tax cut to 8,000 millionaires, giving them an average £107,000 more. This, alongside the Welfare Uprating Bill; essentially a huge cut to Jobseeker’s Allowance, Maternity Pay, Child Benefit and Income Support; all to pay for huge tax breaks for the wealthiest, means that whilst parents of disabled children will miss meals, and be unable to heat their homes; the millionaire Cabinet will be able to go shopping for new Yachts.

Where was the moral outrage from Tory supporters who now yell “Putting your kids in two separate rooms is an insult to the tax payer!!!” before the Tory Party actually mentioned it? Feigned outrage again.

Kicking people out of their homes seems like an easy solution, to rich men pacing the corridors of Whitehall, or maybe it isn’t even a thought whilst the millionaire Prime Minister spends £680,000 of taxpayers money making Downing Street look a bit nicer inside, including refurbishing the kitchen. But to the people who are settled, who are part of the community, whose children play on the street with their friends (i’m fully aware that children leading happy lives, is not something Liberal Democrats or Tories are really too concerned about, given the horrifically increasing rates of child poverty they have created). They are destroying homes, and applying unnecessary pressure to families already struggling to cope. The Bedroom Tax can be described as nothing more than heartless.

The IFS estimated that 3.5 million children in the UK live in poverty. The also estimate that this is set to rise steeply. 14% of children in poverty go without a warm coat during winter. 26% of parents whose children are in poverty, skip meals through lack of money even though 61% of parents of children in poverty, have at least one person in work. And now, if those people also claim housing benefit to help make life even a little more bearable, they will lose more money, or be forced to move home.

As we know, the ‘Bedroom Tax’ refers to the reduction in housing benefits for anyone who has a spare room in their council house. The idea is, people will downsize to a smaller house, or have their housing benefit cut by 14 per cent for people seen to have one spare room and 25 per cent for those with two or more. The cruelty is intense.

Whilst the most vulnerable, with very little money, and living every day wondering if they’ll eat stand to lose their home or even more money, the Chancellor will be reflecting on his “tough decisions” from his 215 acre estate, given to him to live in, free of charge, in Dorneywood….. here:

Then there is ‘Baron’ Freud (I know what you’re thinking, he’s sure to be in touch with common folk). He is Parliamentary Under Secretary of State for Work and Pensions. Freud is in control of Welfare Reform. All of this, is his doing. Here is where ‘Baron Freud’ lives:

- I wonder how many rooms in this massive mansion are underused. Or, how much land accompanies it, on which homes, blocks of flats, shops, businesses could be built if ‘Baron’ (seriously, he’s a Baron) Freud downsized to a property that wasn’t too big for his needs.

These are the people who run your lives. Multi-millionaires, in mansions, unsurprisingly cutting taxes for multi-millionaires, in mansions. This is Versailles. The Court of King Louis XIV Cameron.

According to the Government’s figures, 660,000 households will be affected by the changes, and of that, 420,000 are households including someone with a disability. Low income households, who have faced a plethora of cuts since the start of this monstrous Coalition, now facing a huge cut to their welfare payments.

The point of this article is to get the Bedroom Tax down from numbers (Clegg justifies his support for this idea, with numbers), and back to individual cases. People.

ITV broadcast the story of Tony, Diann, their three year old daughter Shanice, and their 15 year old daughter Stephanie. Stephanie has 1p36 deletion syndrome, and a mental age of four. She struggles with words, and mobility. All three bedrooms in their house are currently occupied. Stephanie requires her own room, because she wakes up around 5am and can become loud and violent due to her illness. But under the rules of the ‘Bedroom Tax’, the two daughters will be required to share a bedroom, because they’re both under 16. That, or face a huge cut to their Housing benefit payment. They will be deemed to have a spare room. Tony and Diann say the cut would mean cutting down on meals.

Maria Brabiner has lived in her home since 1978. It is indescribably cruel of the Conservatives and the Liberal Democrats to wish to see her kicked out of the security of the house she has made a home, all because of a spare room. Do you know why she now has a spare room? It is because her mother, whom lived in the room, died recently. Miss Brabiner said:

“I’m scared of what’s going to happen to me, I’m worried about whether my electric will be cut off, whether my gas will be cut off.

- This economic violence, by perhaps the two nastiest Parties we have seen in the UK, is being forced upon a woman whose mother has recently died, and whose house is more than just a house; it is a home. Worse still, it is being forced on her, by a Cabinet of multi-millionaires, with multiple houses that remain unoccupied and included acres of land that could be used to build new houses on.

Terry Avery is unable to use the left side of his body, after a severe stroke left him needing a wheelchair. He sleeps in a separate room from his wife, because of his situation. Under the ‘Bedroom Tax’, the room Terry sleeps in, is considered ‘spare’. Which means, he and his wife either move out, or not eat. Or a third choice; Karen, Terry’s wife would have to sleep on the floor, in absolutely no room. Karen says:

“With the hospital bed, lift, chest of drawers and turning space for his wheelchair there is no space for a wardrobe which is kept in my bedroom. There is not even room for me to sleep on the floor comfortably, which I would have to do as there is no room for a second bed or mattress.”

Julia Jones is 59, and has worked since she was 15. Her husband David contracted bowel cancer four years ago. Six months after having a irreversible colostomy he returned to work. Two years later, he contracted brain cancer and sadly passed away seven weeks later. Julia is now alone. During David’s illness, Julia rejected care allowance, and spent all of her time and money looking after him. They were given the home she now lives in, because it was easy for David to get around in. David’s ashes are buried in the garden, under a rose bush planted especially for his. Here is Julia’s plea to the millionaire Prime Minister:

“The most powerful men in the country imply we are scum so we must be scum.
Do you not consider that I would give everything for my husband to be alive, me to not have incapacitating pain and we could both be the hard workers we once were? I live in small 1 1/2 bed bungalow that was built for older people. It is supported elderly living so I feel safe. It could not house a family as under 55s are not allowed.
You now want to take my home from me. The home that literally made my fingers bleed cleaning as it had been neglected for 20 years when we moved here. You want me to leave my husband’s ashes, my neighbours who take me shopping and give me some form of social life? I have no family, we could not have children.
I am living without heating at present so how can I pay what I do not have to stay in my home?”

- This is the cost, when we bring it down to a human level, of the Tory and Lib Dem Bedroom Tax. The entire debate should be framed around the most vulnerable cases, those who stand to lose the most, not just in terms of money, but in living standard, and the brutality of stripping someone, a family, children away from the home that they call their own, and the community that they love.

In the Chancellor’s own Constituency, Tim Pinder, chief executive at Cheshire Peaks and Plains Housing Trust – a housing association said:

“Many of our customers are determined to stay in their homes despite the changes, but we fear this may lead to significant financial hardship. For some households this could mean having to choose between feeding their families and heating their homes.”

- It is just another ill thought out, nasty policy, from an incompetent and nasty government.

Over two thirds of those affected, have a household income of less than £150 a week. Apparently The Liberal Democrats feel that’s too much money. They should have less. 72% of those affected, have a member of the household with a disability of major health concern. 5% of those affected, have a spare bedroom for the carer who occasionally has to stay over. 9% use the spare room to store equipment for a disability. These people are all affected by the cruelty of the Bedroom Tax.

The human cost of cruel Conservative and Liberal Democrat policies, is heart breaking. It follows the narrative that has sprung to the front of political discourse since 2010; that the poor, the most vulnerable, the disabled must be stigmatised and demonised. It is a horrid tactic that takes the focus away from the people who caused the economic mess in the first place; very very wealthy individuals and friends of the Tory Party. We note this week, that Anthony Jenkins, the boss of Barclays, was paid more than 80 times the salary of the lowest paid. Whilst Jenkins makes £1,100,000 basic salary, alongside £4,400,000 share award, and £363,000 pension contribution, the lowest paid makes just £13,500 a year. Couple that, with the announcement that Barclays intends to cut 3700 jobs, and you start to see a bit of a problem.

This is what Tories do. We shouldn’t be surprised. They are a modern day nobility. The most vulnerable will always suffer under the nobility. When we elect a Conservative government, we must expect heartless policies, rising child poverty, a distinct lack of empathy, and a woefully underfunded NHS. That’s just what Conservatives do. So Progressives must focus their anger at the Liberal Democrats. It is shameful for a ‘progressive’ party to have so utterly abused the votes of those who voted Lib Dem in 2010 by supporting policies that I would take a confident bet that less than 1% of Lib Dem voters would ever have supported. They cannot be allowed to forget the scale of the betrayal they have inflicted. This week really does sum up exactly what the Liberal Democrat Party has become, the moment Nick Clegg showed vigorous support for the Bedroom Tax.

For a party that apparently bases itself on getting government out of the lives of the individual; in a few months we’ve had Conservative MP Alec Shelbrooke wishing to tell Welfare claimants where they can spend their money (whilst himself, claiming tax payer funded expenses to pay for his licence fee, a bunch of Tory MPs telling you that you don’t deserve the same Rights as them if you happen to be gay and now a Tory coming into your home, checking who’s in the bedrooms, forcing your disabled partner with all his/her equipment to move back to one room with you, and telling you to pack up and move out if you dislike it. These people thrive on government interference. These are very wealthy, very privileged people and with that, has come the most cruel government the UK has seen in a very long time. When we speak of the nasty party, we must include the Liberal Democrats in that.