The Tory Hypocrisy

Conservative MP Alec Shelbrooke apparently isn’t satisfied with completely ripping the bottom out of the entire public support system, immediately after his Party’s social engineering project threw millions out of work and onto the benefit system. Apparently that’s not enough. He wants to go one step further. If you claim any sort of Welfare, he wants to tell you what you are allowed to spend it on. So I thought i’d make sure Shelbrooke was being consistent in his apparent moral outrage at misspent tax payer’s money. After all, if we save enough by forcing poor people to only eat bread and water, we might be able to afford to give Starbucks another wonderful Corporate tax break, on tax that they don’t actually pay anyway.

Interestingly, a quick bit of research (and this is my interpretation of the research only) brings up Mr Shelbrooke’s own expense claims (MPs in-house-socialism).
Between April 2010, to March 2011, Shelbrooke claimed: £38,914.52
Between April 2011 to March 2012, Shelbrooke claimed: £38,666.06
Between April 2012, to the present day, Shelbrooke has claimed: £14,541.57
Altogether, since winning his Seat in 2010, Alec Shelbrooke, the man who is hugely unhappy at wasting taxpayers money, has claimed a total of: £92,122.15. This is on top of his MPs salary of £65,738. a year.

Maybe you’re thinking all of those claims are necessary, for him to run his office? To an extent, you would be right. He needs to cover the cost of the running of his office, and I accept the legitimacy in that. But maybe you’re presuming that it’s perfectly acceptable for the tax payer to be funding the council tax on his second home, or maybe you think he’d be unable to perform his duties as MP-with-an-ideologically-dogmatic-hate-for-poor-people, unless the tax payer fund the £1,300.00 on his monthly flat rental? (That’s a pretty expensive flat. I’m sure he could find cheaper accommodation elsewhere?)
Here:

- Is there REALLY no cheaper flat that he could rent? Actually, yes. Here, I found a few. Saves the taxpayer a fortune. £750 a month, on the Old Kent Road. Perfect!
In fact, of Shelbrooke’s expenses since 2010, he has claimed the most for Accommodation, than he has for Office costs, travel costs, and Staffing costs. For 2010-2011, he received £14,300.00 in Accommodation.

Here’s another interesting talking point; Alec Shelbrooke has claimed a number of times, for his TV licence. Here is just this year alone:

- So, naturally, being inquisitive, I thought i’d raise this with Shelbrooke over Twitter (admittedly, I could have been a lot more diplomatic; call it heat of the moment):

Shelbrooke, to his credit, replied.

- Interesting statement, and on the surface, appears reasonable. But, if you look on the Parliamentary Standards website, you will come across a “Definitions” page, explaining the terms used on the expenses forms. Here:

Accommodation Expenses
Most MPs outside the London Area need two residences in order to conduct their parliamentary
duties at Westminster and in the constituency. IPSA will fund the costs of one of these locations.
This may include rent or the cost of hotel stays. For some MPs re-elected in 2010, mortgage interest
will continue to be reimbursed for a transitional period, ending in August 2012. Costs of council tax,
service charges, utilities and telephone/TV/internet connections are also reimbursed. Cleaning,
gardening and furniture costs are not.

Office Costs (Previously CORE & GAE)
This covers the basic costs of having an office: rent, business rates, utilities and day-to-day running
costs, including office equipment, various services, basic security, and non-political communication
costs. Constituency surgery venue hire is included here too.

- So, by Shelbrooke’s reply, it would seem that his TV licence should, if it were claimed purely to show Parliamentary proceedings for the benefit of his staff, be made out as an ‘Office Cost’. Yet, if you cast your eyes to the expense claims I posted above, you will see it classed as “Accommodation”. Just to clarify that:

- Now, I am not saying that he’s lying. It may have been falsely attributed. He might have just put it down as “Accommodation”, for no real reason. But it’s worth thinking about. If Shelbrooke has claimed for a TV licence in his home (perhaps the same home, that we’re all helping to fund by paying his council tax, and rent every so often), then I am not entirely sure where he gets the nerve to tell benefit claimants (and remember, it isn’t just the typically referred to Tory definition of a benefit claimant – sitting on the couch whilst everyone else funds their lifestyle of pissing away £50 notes – it is everyone who claims any sort of benefit) that they aren’t entitled to luxuries. Even if TV is within the rules of Accommodation costs covered by expenses, he is being hugely inconsistent in his own moral outrage.

Here is another wondrous example of his hypocritical moral outrage at wasting tax payers money. A man earning £65,000 a year, allegedly charges the tax payer for his TV licence and his rent every so often, works at a place where alcohol is subsidised by the tax payer, feels the need to fill out a Parliamentary expenses form to pay for his food and drink…. worth £15.

- That’s a pretty expensive meal. Why? Wait a while, go out, with your own fucking money, and buy a cheap meal from somewhere in London. Thereby saving the taxpayer, and not appearing like a massively hypocritical fool.

Shelbrooke isn’t the only Tory to be have been horrendously hypocritical, with a sense of “I deserve” about them. In June 2010 David Willetts referred to students as a “burden” on the tax payer. Interesting stuff from an insufferable millionaire whom allegedly claimed, according to the Telegraph, £125 from the taxpayer for lightbulbs to be changed in his mansion, and £2,191.38 for the cleaning of a shower head, £1,100 for food, and a further £5,107.25 for plumbing repairs. That’s over £8000 in total, which could pay for a University Student’s tuition fees for two full years, after which time the Student will leave university with a better understanding of his or her chosen field of expertise, and the market will gain a new professional. Or, we could have a clean bathroom complete with a brand new lightbulb in THE MILLIONAIRE, Mr Willetts house. Tough call.

David Willetts is a burden to the taxpayer.

If you happen to be a victim of the disastrous failure of far-right economics, forced by a Government of multi-millionaires, that didn’t have a mandate to do it, and you’re now unemployed through no fault of your own………. a man from that clique of the modern day Nobility, wants to make sure you are not allowed a shred of human happiness, and any dignity that you feel you are losing due to not being able to find work, he believes should be amplified. Your misery at being jobless, apparently must be enhanced by your misery to only buy things that ‘Lord’ Shelbrooke, with his tax payer funded flat, his tax payer funded TV licence, and his tax payer funded expensive meal (allegedly), thinks is appropriate. So shut up, and learn your place, you miserable unemployed pleb.

Everyone who has lost their job as a result of Tory economic mismanagement and dogmatic recession-inducing extremism, when receiving your benefit, should note that this overly privileged authoritarian Tory wishes to have the power to tell you what you should and shouldn’t buy. He wants to tell you what constitutes “luxury”. But we should not expect any different. This is what Tories do. They are not compassionate, they are not progressive, they are a Party of millionaires, for millionaires. Remember this in 2015.

Let’s give MPs a Welfare Card.
They can only stay at cheap hotels in London, when they’re in the capital – thus sparing the tax payer, rent payments, and council tax on second homes.
They can only buy lunch, up to the price of, let’s say, £3. This covers a Tesco Meal Deal. Perfect.
Let’s stop subsidising the Commons bar. They can pay for it themselves. But not with their new MP Welfare Card.
And they most certainly cannot claim for a TV licence.
I would support that. Very much so.

A Tory England

Quote of the cuts day has to go to Shadow Chancellor Alan Johnson, to Nick Clegg in the Commons directly after the Chancellor’s cuts package was announced:

Somewhere between the ballot box and your ministerial car door opening, you changed your mind on everything.

This particular brand of Conservatism is interesting. It is of course very Thatcherite. It is no different to what it was in the 1980s. Actually it is different because it is far more severe. It can easily be dressed up in lovely new inclusive phrases like ‘The Big Society’ and ‘Progressive Conservatism’ despite the fact that in less than ten seconds, the Chancellor can announce 490,000 expected job losses in the public sector, whilst his backbenches cheer gleefully. It’s easy to call it fair and necessary. But when, along with half a million job losses, we hear the Chancellor say:

“The Employment and Support Allowance, given to people unable to work due to sickness or disability, will be restricted to one year”

… it is virtually impossible for anyone who has even a fundamental understanding of the word ‘fair’ to be able to justify the madness.

Yesterday’s spending review was ideological. It does not matter how many times Cameron says it isn’t, it is. It will devastate lives. £1bn is being saved by 2013 by cutting Child Benefit, yet £2bn is being given away to companies earning £350,000 a year, also by 2013. Most Conservatives are in politics for this very reason; to role back the Welfare State for the poorer and instead enlarge the Welfare State for their friends in business. When 490,000 people are instantly made unemployed, and the entire Conservative benches in Parliament stand up smiling and screaming, their faces beaming uncontrollably, waving their Parliamentary papers in the air with overwhelming joy; one finds it difficult to accept their rhetoric that this is ‘tough’ on them. It seems this is their moment in the spotlight. They were supremely happy yesterday. They have spent years hoping this moment would come.

It has been a successful attack by the Tories and they have, I will admit, been amazing at getting their side of events across and gaining mass support for their plans. They have achieved this, as far as I can tell, in four ways:

1) Absolutely 100% blame Labour for everything.
It is clear that the Coalition has been told to mention the debt left by Labour as much as possible. It is perfect justification. Every Minister interviewed will refer to Labour’s legacy within about five seconds of being questioned. It is largely illogical because the debt left by Labour was firstly, very much needed, and secondly, is not actually dire.
The problem with this view is that up until recession hit, the Tories pledged to back Labour’s spending pound for pound. So, by suggesting that Labour spent thirteen years on a spending spree, the Tories backed it fully. Then when the banks collapsed, and people’s homes and lives were put at risk, spending rose to keep people safe. This had to happen to offset the problems suddenly caused by huge unemployment. This isn’t the State’s fault. It isn’t the Government’s fault. Spending had to rise. What use is it cutting unemployment benefit during a time when unemployment is at an all time high? That is Tory logic. Allow the recession to run its course. Allow people to lose their homes and their jobs and to worry about how they are going to feed their kids. So next time when you complain about Labour’s debt, actually consider why we are in debt.

2) Make sure the faults of the Private Sector are ignored.
It was the financial sector that failed miserably. They risked everyone’s savings to enrich themselves further. But it isn’t just the banks that messed up. Since the early 1980s wages for workers have stagnated. They have hardly risen at all on average. Yet, the wages of the very wealthy; the owners, have increased ten fold. Take Sir Philip Green, the new Tory Party investigator of Civil Service pay; he owns a company called Taveta investments, which is registered in his wife’s name who happens to live in a tax haven. He has successfully avoided paying tax worth up to £285mn. At the same time, he awarded himself £1.2bn in a single year personally, whilst telling his work force (the people who actually make that money for him) that they must now increase contributions to their final pension scheme by half and work up to five years longer to receive it. He also uses sweatshops in India. BUT WE’RE ALL IN THIS TOGETHER. Now, you can only sustain unjustifiably large wages, like that of Mr Green if profit remains high. If your workers are being squeezed as much as possible, and have less disposable income to spend consuming and so enriching the very few, how do you do that? The solution was easy. You offer them easy credit, like a Topman Store Card. They then pay more than they usually would but over a longer period of time. Thus, the little man is squeezed further, but the guy at the top makes more. But apparently this is perfectly fine. The Public Sector, the sector that bailed out the Financial sector, is apparently entirely to blame.

The problem as I see it, is that surplus profit was not being recapitalised in beneficial causes. Instead of expanding and looking into new forms of production, the owners of capital were buying up assets on the stock market. When this is amplified by million and millions of people, we suddenly have a problem. You buy assets on the stock market, hoping you will get a pretty handsome return in the future. But you understand that might not happen. You are gambling. The City of London and New York recklessly gambled our money away, they are entirely to blame.

Whilst David Cameron likes to suggest that National debt is like household debt; he’s wrong. Not only is household debt nothing like National debt (I can’t suddenly raise taxes, if i go into the red, nor can I print my own money), but this neoliberal experiment, that the Tories kick started in the 1980s, actively encouraged us all to get into debt. This is why the banking sector collapsed. Because debt was encouraged. Secondly, personal debt is not always a bad thing if it helps improve the future. I am in debt, to pay for my education, which I hope will allow me to get a better job and be able to provide a better life for my future family, than I would had I gone straight into a job I did not want to do. This debt is an investment. Public debt is also an investment, especially if it keeps as many people in their homes and jobs as possible; which Labour understood (bare in mind, I am not a Labour voter), and which the Lib Dems understood before they were offered a bit of power. Public debt is not always a bad thing. It is often needed. It provides investment and a safety net.

The Tories, with help from their friends in the Media (Conservative Director of Communications: Andy Coulson, used to be editor of News of the World) have shaped political discourse in this country to an apathetic and largely moronic population, beautifully. The Sun (owned by Murdoch, who also owns News of the World) ran a double page spread last Monday entitled “Britain’s benefit blackspots”. A guide to the worst areas of Britain for benefit fraud. Altogether, they noted that Benefit cheating costs the UK taxpayer £900mn. You may think that is a lot. But according to research by the TUC and Tax Research UK, Corporate Tax avoidance, and personal tax evasion (i.e – Lord Ashcroft and his non-dom status) costs the UK taxpayer close to £25bn. That’s about 30 times more in lost revenue. Enough to wipe out the deficit in about eight years, without the need for a mass of public service cuts.

It is also suggested that public service workers are over paid. Now, given that wages have stagnated for most workers in the Private sector, i’d suggest that this is the fault of the Private sector. These bastards should pay more, not attack the public sector.

The Tories ran the 2010 campaign on the idea that a rise in National Insurance was an evil ‘tax on jobs’. Today, they just killed off 50,000 jobs in 20 seconds. But, it’s the public sector, so apparently it’s okay. The massive consequences on communities and small private businesses, will become apparent very soon. The Tories will try to claim it is all Labour’s fault. It isn’t.

The public sector, furthermore, is not inflated. Public spending during the 1960s was far higher than at any time during the 00s. Wages were rising beautifully during the 1960s too.

3) Make sure the public believes, whether true or not, that this is the only way.
The cuts that have been made, did not have to be so severe. They are overly harsh. We are a Triple A credit Country. 80% of our debt matures in 14 years, not a couple of years. We have the 5th largest economy in the World still. And we have the 3rd largest currency reserve in the World. And a very strong currency actually. So whilst you may believe everything the Tories tell you about how awful Labour were; it suggests to me that if the Tories were in power when recession struck, they’d have offered no help, spent absolutely no extra to keep people in homes and jobs, and then most probably blamed Unions.

The current debt in the UK stands at 64% of GDP. After World War II, it was 180%. More than double now. Japan has a debt of 194%. The USA has a debt close to 73% of GDP. In fact, between 1920 and 1960, for that forty or so year period, UK government debt did not fall below 100%.

4) Gain support from sources that apparently are credible.
George Osbourne yesterday listed the people who agreed with him. We’ll take them one by one now. Firstly, he listed the IMF. The IMF is a neoliberal organisation that only ever proscribes harsh economic treatment to solve problems. They destroyed Ghana beyond recognition. Malaysia refused to accept anything the IMF demanded, and now Malaysia is doing just great. The IMF can also be blamed for half fucking up Ireland. Last week the IMF said that bank regulations were failing – We all fucking knew that two years ago. Nice of them to join us. Great source George. Secondly, he mentioned the CBI – the Confederation of British Industry. The business owners union. The same people who told us all that introducing minimum wage would destroy business in Britain. The same people who suggested that students are a drain on society, and yet they all went to university when it was free. They are businesses, looking to enrich themselves further, they have no sense of social responsibility, nor do they care if you cannot afford to eat. They would like to see no Welfare State and the NHS privatised. The CBI attempted to justify a huge amount of Corporate tax avoidance (discussed earlier) with….

Legitimate tax planning – undertaken by companies that operate globally – should not be confused with so-called tax avoidance

Thirdly, he mentioned the Bank of England. The institution responsible for the welfare of the economy. The institution that failed to see the biggest financial crises ever from taking place, even though that is its specific job. The same institution whose Deputy Governor Sir John Gieve admitted that they knew that the financial sector was out of control, and had no idea what to do about it. Another great choice for a source.
And lastly, he mentioned the 35 businessmen who signed a letter and sent it to the press advocating everything they are doing. These businessmen are not economists. They do not know how to run an economy. They are under the impression that a business haven is ideal for all of us. Contrary to that opinion, i’d say otherwise. Nevertheless, they signed the letter. Who are these businesses? Well, one of them is Paul Walsh of Diageo, who I shall mention shortly. He has been given a role as an advisor to David Cameron. Vested interest number 1. Another is Nick Prest, Chairman of AVEVA. AVEVA has just been awarded a contract to supply Babcocks, who are to build the two new aircraft carriers unveiled by the Tories. Vested interest 2. Another, is John Nelson of Hammerson Investors. Massive tax avoiders, and are quite happy to even tell us that’s what they do, on their website. Perhaps I will refuse to pay any tax ever again and refer to it as ‘tax efficient’. Vested interest 3. Another is Moni Varma, Chairman of Veetee who admitted that Conservative HQ asked him to sign the letter. Not a vested interest, but an idiot nonetheless. Another is Philip Dilley, Chairman of Arup, who has just been given a place as an advisor to David Cameron. Vested interest 4
The letter itself was drawn up by Next Chief Exec. Lord Wolfson. Wolfson has donated close to £300,000 to the Tory Party and is now a Tory Lord. Vested interest 5. Another is Sir Christopher Gent, non-executive chairman of GlaxoSmithKline. Gent has donated around £113,000 to the Tory Party. Vested interest 5. Isn’t it amazing? Why are we taking them seriously? Why aren’t their vested interests mentioned? I think I will email my logic Tory MP and let you know what his response is.
Next, David Cameron has created a sort of business council. This includes Paul Walsh; the CEO of Diageo PLC, who has moved ownership of British alcohol brands offshore to avoid tax. Martin Sorrell, whose company WPP has moved entirely offshore to avoid tax. And CEO of Glaxosmithkline, Andrew Witty who avoids paying million in tax due to offshore accounting.
None of these sources are credible. None have the Country’s best interest at heart. None care if a few hundred thousand lose their jobs, and their homes. This is Tory bullshit.

It has been a very clever four pronged attack to win support for a program that would usually take months and years to thrash out the details of. The proposal yesterday was horrific. It is not Progressive or fair in any way. The Liberal Democrats should be utterly ashamed. They are finished. Out of protest, I will not vote in favour of AV, even though I once would.

At the moment, the public is suffering from political apathy. They assume this is all necessary. It isn’t. It is dangerous and it is a complete attack on a decent, caring Nation in an attempt to turn us all into bitches of the business World. Labour are not all that much difference, hence the lack of credible opposition. They are not progressives. By moving to the centre, and even the centre-right, they have backed themselves into a corner. They no longer represent the Progressives. Their needs to be vast civil action. Unions need to step up, students need to step up, everyone needs to step up and let these people know that we should no longer be controlled or live in a society entirely shaped by a very select few old grey rich businessmen. I hold out hope and I have faith in this generation of anti-Tory opposition.

The complexity of immigration

The Daily Mail, a few weeks ago, had this as a headline:

“Labour’s betrayal of British workers: Nearly every one of 1.67m jobs created since 1997 has gone to a foreigner.”

So I wanted to investigate the claim further, because I’ve never fully accepted the simplistic mainstream attacks on immigration, especially when migration is such a complex issue that links to international development, economic principles, social ideologies, Nation States, and out of control inequality, not just in Britain but across the World. It never seemed like an easy subject, as per the BNP, Tory, Labour, and media line.

The story itself, explains:

The ONS figures show the total number of people in work in both the private and the public sector has risen from around 25.7million in 1997 to 27.4million at the end of last year, an increase of 1.67million.
But the number of workers born abroad has increased dramatically by 1.64million, from 1.9million to 3.5million.

It is a slightly misleading quote, because it also includes immigrants who have lived here for decades. For example, if a man is born in Albania in 1955, and moved to England in 1956, these figures class him as an immigrant, and the Daily Mail classes him as stealing a job from a Brit. The numbers also don’t take into account anyone over 64. Older workers are excluded from this number.

The ONS shows that whilst total employment in the UK since 1997, has actually risen by over 2million, employment for people born in the UK has risen by over 800,000. Which means that since Labour took power, and in the midst of one of the worst recessions ever, 2million more people are in work than before 1997, and 800,000 of them were born in the UK, another 1.2 million jobs being created for UK citizens.

The media are key players in creating this us VS them atmosphere
Julian Petley, professor of Screen Media and Journalism at Brunel University said:

“….. the majority of Britain’s newspapers have certainly been highly active in amplifying and attempting to legitimate such fears at every possible opportunity. This is nothing new – right-wing British newspapers were extremely hostile to immigration from eastern Europe in the early part of the twentieth century, and the anti-Semitism of papers like the Mail in the 1930s was one reason why the British government placed such strict limits on the number of Jewish refugees which it was prepared to let into this country in the 1930s.”

When it comes to immigrants and housing, the right winged tendency is to blame the lack of housing for British people, on the government housing immigrants first. Yet, according to the Empty Homes agency, there are 762,000 empty properties lying derelict in England alone. There are national targets for home building, yet no national targets for bringing these empty homes into use, that would potential home an extra 1,000,000 people. In fact, there are economic advantages to keeping a home empty. Local authorities give you a discount on your council tax, if the property is empty. Funnily enough, both the BNP and UKIP fail to even mention those extra empty homes or the economic advantages that come with empty homes, instead choosing to tell the UK electorate, that there are no more homes for anyone.

The Daily Mail failed to even mention a recent survey based on empirical evidence by the Great London Authority in 2007, who telephoned 1005 Londoners, including 500 Muslim Londoners at random.
The reason the Daily Mail would not comment or even mention this survey, was because it produced the following results:

When asked about the law in Britain, 96% of Muslims surveyed said that everyone should respect the law in Britain. 97% of Brits said the same.
89% of Muslims surveyed and 90% of Londoners in general surveyed said that people living in Britain should be free to live their lives as they want so long as they do not prevent others from doing the same And 86% of Muslims and 91% of Londoners in general said that it is important that the Metropolitan Police work closely with communities such as the Muslim community to deter terrorist attacks. This, despite the fact that Muslim Londoners are amongst the poorest socio-economic group in England.

The irony is, the Daily Mail serves an ideological function as a paper of the right wing. Right wing economics demands cheap labour. It is Capitalism. National borders, and immigration policies are massively contradictory to the right winged economic policy. If capital, and goods can flow freely between Nation States, then logically, for the sake of Capitalism, so must labour. Nation States in that respect, are a left-over from the Colonial days and entirely at odds with Capitalism. When power is multinational; local national elections are pointless. The economic decisions made in the U.S or the UK or the EU have profound affects on poorer countries. It affects everything, and mass migration is a product of that affect.

The traditional parties of the left, such as Labour are massively to blame for two reasons. When they embraced centre-right economics, and a rather Thatcherite take on the market system, they allowed the idea of insecurity and consumerism to take control. Jobs were always at risk, wages were kept low and a market for easy credit built to fill in that gap, whilst a constant stream of advertisements tell us we all quickly have to own shit we don’t particularly need. That is what Western economies are based on. Growth for the benefit of growth. With it, comes quick intakes of happiness, and large periods of uncertainty and insecurity. Immigration, is not to blame for that.

According to an ippr report, lack of social cohesion and security are the main reasons people turn to Nazis like the BNP. Fear is then used meticulously by the BNP, to further the needs of it’s agenda, which seeks to promote the idea that White “indigenous” British people are under attack constantly from the evil liberal media, crazed scrounging immigrants, and Marxist political correctness. Everything that political parties do, from minimum wage, to speed cameras, the BNP will somehow link to an attack on white people. And people fall for it. The BNP can then claim to be the only party dedicated to defending British values. The majority of our values, ironically, do not resemble the values of the BNP in the slightest. “Reintroduce capital punishment for drug dealers”. Killing anyone who sells a bit of cannabis is ludicrous, and not even slightly British. Neither is “Ensure National Lottery funding spent on projects enhancing British culture“, which in fact sounds far more like George Orwell’s vision of Ingsoc, than anything New Labour has created. The BNP is essentially a group that can offer over simplified explanations for a breakdown of social cohesion in certain areas. They tend to ignore the economic factors across the World, of very concentrated wealth and resources to explain migration (which has always happened), and instead choose to point to religious, cultural and Nationalist explanation.

Burnley for example, is often used by the BNP to show how immigration has caused mass social unrest, lack of housing, lack of community services, violence, and further economic troubles. As if Burnley’s British and White past marked an era of strong society and economy. It didn’t. Burnley had deep social problems long before New Labour came to power. Muslims who wear burka’s are an easy excuse.

James Rhodes, a researcher for the Department of Sociology at the University of Manchester wrote:

“There is a need for different accounts of social change, and of notions of `community’ that don’t pander to divisive, nativist sentiments – both at national and local levels. It is vital to promote and encourage new stories and narratives that incorporate the experiences of migrants and the contributions they have made to UK society, moving beyond the host/immigrant binary that remains entrenched in contemporary media and political discourses. ”

Labour, and the Tories, and the Lib Dems can also be blamed for legitimising “concerns” over immigration. Traditionally, the Labour movement was fully international, and focused on the rights of all workers across the World rather than boxing workers in according to Nationality. That no longer exists. New Labour has no concerns for the welfare of workers in Countries that are exploited by British companies. And so when New Labour uses language that seems to suggest there is a problem, that there is such thing as “Britishness” and that people from war torn and poverty stricken nations whom British companies like Primark further impoverish, aren’t welcome here – it simply adds fuel to the fire that eventually burnt New Labour quite badly and gave false credence to the BNP cause. They should have been arguing the case for immigration. They should have humanised people individually, rather than demonising them collectively that has lead to anyone who isn’t English, being viewed as an entirely different species of human. They didn’t. They should have been true progressives and noted that economic inequality across the World drives migration, and that economic inequality and mass migration will never be kept under control, if right winged economics remains the universal norm. They haven’t. The vast majority of the World, live in economic hardship.

For migration to start to decrease, you need to stop the problem at it’s core. You need to truly be committed to eradicating poverty. You have to work internationally to force working standards across the World based on human rights. You have to allow smaller producers a better chance at survival against huge Western Corporations. You have to spread democracy that isn’t just about creating puppet governments who will open native markets to America business interests. There has to be a joint effect across the World, to fight global inequality. Then, migration will fall. Guaranteed.

We are extremely lucky to have been born in the UK. We can afford to sit at a computer on a Saturday afternoon, writing a blog. We are not suffering. Others across the World suffer for our benefit. Our foreign policy, is similar in that respect to America’s. We expect the heads of poorer nations to look after their people better, and yet when that begins to happen in poverty stricken nations and the leaders start to reject Western influence and start to build local communities, we remove our support for them, and start funding right winged guerrilla armies, as in Nicaragua and El Salvador, and the people remain trapped. But we don’t want them here. We want to remain economically powerful and superior, but to do that requires certain other nations to remain weak and inferior. Britain over the years has used illiberal and vicious regimes in Saudi Arabia and Pakistan simply for our own benefit, regardless of the affects on the populations of those countries. We did not care about their human rights records, and in some instances preferred the regimes with awful human rights records, because they benefited us at the time. It is an foreign economic policy left over from the Imperialist days. Britain now only agrees to give debt relief, if the Nations in question adhere to IMF and World Bank economic policies, that just so happen to be neoliberal in principle, which further promotes inequality across the World.
Unequal economic, social, and foreign policies perpetuate the problem.

Gary Young writing in the Guardian made this point by saying that if you build a ten foot wall around food, those without any food will always build an eleven foot ladder.

Mass immigration cannot be stopped simply by building a wall around Britain. You HAVE to address economic issues that the UK have been partly responsible for perpetuating over the years, that has lead to such a division between those at the absolute top, and those at the absolute bottom.

It is successive governments who have failed to invest adequately (both white British tax money, and immigrant tax money) in social housing and their local communities. It is the West’s fault for creating an economic system that does nothing but favour the West and propping up evil dictatorial regimes like Pinochet’s in Chile, and so creates social and economic problems that will always lead to migration. We have to counter the concerns from people that immigration somehow threatens their livelihood and their homes and jobs. Simply referring to the BNP as nazis is easy, because they’re such a ridiculous group of people. But the social and economic and even political problems that create insecurity and fear, should be tackled head on.

For a Capitalist economy to flourish, migrant workers are essential. White Brits would be far worse off, in a World run by Capitalism, if we cut off our borders. However, when recession hits, Brits suddenly do not like immigrants. We want it both ways. We want them here when it’s beneficial, and we want them gone immediately when times are tough.

To deal with population growth across the World, you have to address economic inequality internationally. You have to re-examine the balance of power across the planet. You have to educate people away from the agenda of both the right and left wing media outlets. You have to expect the governments and oppositions of the World, to over simplify everything. You have to expect companies to manipulate and exploit regardless of who they hurt.

You….have….to….question…..everything.

The real benefit cheats

“Education must provide the opportunities for self-fulfillment; it can at best provide a rich and challenging environment for the individual to explore, in his own way.“
- Noam Chomsky

Daily, we see adverts on the Television encouraging all of us to tell the Nazi’s authorities if you know a Jew benefit cheat. Suspect everyone. Don’t talk to your neighbours unless you’re questioning them, under an intense light, around a table, with a one sided window. Hide in your attic, writing a diary, if you happen to be Anne Frank a single mum obtaining a few extra pounds in benefits to help feed your kids, because you’re apparently an evil stain on the fabric of British society. The papers are talking about it, the Tories are constantly talking about it, the Welfare state is coming under attack from everywhere. And yet, we’re conveniently encouraged to ignore, just forget, put to the back of our minds, as if it isn’t important, the issue of Corporate tax evasion and avoidance, that cost us all an absolute fortune in lost revenue, but happily enrich those at the top. I wonder who’s behind this little Media scam.

The leader of the Conservative Party, David Cameron, today told the BBC that he intends to force those who are out of work, back into work. Whilst the sentiment is indeed welcomed, I cannot help but feel it’s a little short sighted. Firstly, it is my (perhaps flawed) understanding of Conservatism, that only the elites, the wealthy and the well educated deserve jobs they actually desire. It speaks to my anti-Tory side when I hear such simplistic statements from Right Wing stating that they wish to get people back into work as quickly as possible. What these sort of statements suggest, is that a bunch of people who are currently claiming benefits, will be shoved into jobs that completely disintegrate any form of individuality they had left. Forced into largely fatuous jobs in Tesco, or McDonalds, to further enrich the guys at the top, seems to me to be nothing more than transferring dependency from the State, to hugely influential Execs. It is hardly ideal. It certainly isn’t the answer.

Surely a system that allows those at the top to reap massive wealth, hide their taxable wealth in offshore accounts, and keep wages low whilst they themselves reward themselves with huge salaries and bonuses, which in turn seemingly fails to “trickle down” as promised, is merely perpetuating the need for a strong welfare state? If we are truly to tackle unemployment and a State dependency, it would be my (perhaps flawed) suggestion that we start at the top, and revamp the entire system. It may be a great place to start, from a non-Tory perspective (given that they appear to have completely ignored this issue, choosing instead to focus on a full out attack – designed to please those voters who have a home and a car and a safe job – on those on benefits) to bring up the subject of the most costly benefit and tax abuses to the UK economy – Corporate tax avoidance.

According to his interview in The Sun, David Cameron has set out his ten goals for a new Tory Britain. The “Progressive Conservative” (as he previously described himself), has set out plans to drastically cut public spending, give tax breaks to the rich, Corporate tax cuts, and force people to work for whomever the Tories wish them to work for. I’m not sure a Tory politician could be any more regressive than that. So that’s the “progressive Conservative” label dead and buried. It also strikes me as rather punitive, that a man who along with progressive, labelled the Tories “the party for the Environment” has not once mentioned an environmental policy as one of his main policies. Apparently, tax breaks for Corporations is far more important.

He also fails to mention that whilst benefit claimants certainly do impact our economy, it is such a minuscule level in comparison to Corporate tax avoidance schemes. The Commons public accounts committee estimated that Corporate tax loopholes cost the UK up to £13bn a year in lost revenues. The National Audit Office, in 2006 released a document showing that of Britain’s top 700 Companies, 60% paid far less than £10m in Tax, which accounts for less than 2% of what they actually owe. If I started to do the same, I guarantee middle class England would demand I be put straight into prison for cheating the system.
According to The Guardian:
“The UK-based drinks giant Diageo plc has transferred ownership of brands worth billions of pounds, including Johnnie Walker, J&B and Gilbey’s gin, to a subsidiary in the Netherlands where profits accrued virtually tax-free. Despite average profits of £2bn a year, it paid an average of £43m a year in UK tax – little more than 2% of its overall profits.“

Meanwhile, bailed out British Bank, Lloyds Group, after receiving £17bn of taxpayer money, is being investigated for encouraging tax avoidance with an undercover Panorama investigator posing as a wealthy customer. The Lloyds banker refers to income that is paid through Hong Kong, to clients in order to “get around the European Savings Tax Directive” is caught on film saying:
“It’s of no interest to us whether you tell the taxman or not. It is not our business.” It stands to reason then, that when Lloyds (who I bank with) tell me they’re committed to responsible banking, they’re lying, quite pathetically too. Whilst Lloyds Group cut wages, cut jobs, forcing more onto the benefit system in the process; their execs are enjoying hugely inflated salaries and bonuses. The……system…..is……wrong!

Surely if you’re going to punish those who cost the system relatively nothing, you also have to seriously punish those who cost the system an absolute fortune, as is the case with Corporate tax avoidance. Yet, The Tories haven’t said a word on the subject. Not only that, but the end product of extreme tax avoidance across the UK economy, works only to pour extra fuel on the fire of dependency. The more a firm profits and the little it gives back, or “trickles down” the less wealth there is in circulation, the more unemployment rises. Corporate Stalinism, as I like to refer to it as, is the real stain on the fabric of British society. No politician will address it though, because our wondrous democracy relies on these Corporations, to fund it.

For me, the only way to really solve this mess of unemployment, would first be to refuse to cut public spending, until the economy picks up (which it is doing, but would not be doing, if the Tories had their way and just did nothing). Secondly, I would insist on strong penalties toward Companies dedicated to tax avoidance. Close loopholes. Once loopholes are closed, i’d cut our Trident fleet from four Nuclear Subs, to one Nuclear sub. The money saved, would then be used to to slowly ween claimants off such dependency and onto a ladder they actually wish to be climbing, to train them and put them into work they wish to be doing, work they are enthusiastic about, which the state funds for a certain amount of time until they’re employable in the sector they wish to be employed, rather than saying “okay, your benefits are gone, go get a job shovelling shit for the rest of your life”. Eighteen years of Thatcherite economics, “forcing” people back into work, did little but force the homeless rate to triple, whilst suicide rates reached their ultimate peak. It didn’t work. You cannot perpetuate the myth in people’s minds, that they are largely worthless, and only useful when Burger King toilets need cleaning. It will never work. Educating people away from the desire to consume, to out-do your neighbour, or to be a good little Corporate bitch, and toward the desire to be individual, to realise what it is you’re good at, what it is you want to do, how you wish to achieve it, is the course that education needs to take. Educating generation after generation to think the same, act the same, talk the same, like grooming them before a race where the finish line is covered in an illusion of “wants“, is a complete failure. Moreover, it will never solve the debt crises, which will continue to loom over us for decade after decade. It is never going to solve the issue of those who can work, not working. We then get a Tory government who slash benefits, and the homeless rate mysteriously doubles, suicide rates shoot up, riots take place. We then get a Labour government and unemployment sky rockets. No one thinks outside the box. The same tired policies, over and over again. Failed ideologies. We need something new.

Let’s also be clear, it isn’t the public sector that failed us all, it was the private sector. This idea of course, is unheard of, if you’re a Tory.

Expenses Day

One can only imagine the tempestuous scenes in Downing Street this morning, following the Telegraph getting it’s hands on a much sought after fully untouched list of expenses claimed by MPs. The list itself was due to be published in July this year, after the House lost a legal battle to keep expenses secret. The July publication however, would not have revealed addresses, and so we’d have no way of knowing who claimed what and for which of their homes, much would have remained a secret.

“If this was received by unauthorised means, it is disgraceful that a national newspaper should stoop so low as to buy information which will be in the public domain in July.
It undermines the very basis of our democracy and is against all the rules of fair play, rewards thieves or leakers of information who may be in breach of contract and does no service to our democracy.” said Stuart Bell, member of the House of Commons Commission.

I’d have to disagree with Mr Bell on this one; the fact that The International Development Secretary Douglas Alexander doesn’t seem to have a problem with claiming £1,340 for food, £830 for a carpet, £230 for a CD player amongst other expenses claims, whilst at the same time on a salary of £141,000 and then votes to keep MPs expenses away from the public eye, is what undermines democracy.
The fact that Hazel Blears was able to claim improvements to her Salford home after declaring it her second home, and then just decide to change her second to her flat in Kennington, South London, and claim further expenses of £850 toward mortgage payments, only to then sell the flat for £200,000, making her a tidy profit of £45,000, is what undermines democracy.
The fact that former Defence Secretary Geoff Hoon has assumed it is perfectly acceptable to refurbish a £300 a month mortgaged home in Derbyshire, claiming expenses of the maximum allowed £20,902… only to sell the property for £135,000. Not only that, but claimed for his London Flat, which he rented out, and didn’t actually live in himself, selling it in the end for £315,000 more than he’d actually paid for it. Suddenly, the taxpayer spending £800 cleaning his carpet and curtains, doesn’t seem that excessive. Although, i’d still quite like my money back on that one.
Hoon released a statement, in which he calls his expenses “not unreasonable” and goes on to stress: “I was told by the House of Commons fees office that this was entirely within the rules“. Firstly, in that case, the rules are so horribly wrong it’s unthinkable. Secondly, the rules are there to provide help to MPs who actually need it. It’s a safety net. Much like the welfare state. If I were to claim £750 for a new TV, whilst in a job paying me in excess of £145,000 i’d be in court, wouldn’t I? The rules are not there for the Defence Secretary to kickstart an international property empire.
The rules are not there, to help the wealthiest member of the cabinet, Shaun Woodward pay £100,000 toward his mortgage, whilst he rents out property in the West Indies and New York.
This is what undermines democracy. The fact that the Prime Minister issued a three lined whip vote in the Commons, to block full disclosure of MPs Expenses, is what undermines Democracy. The Telegraph, and whomever leaked the documents to the Telegraph are actually supporting Democracy, because without these kinds of leaks, the Commons would not have suddenly gained a moral conscience about their excesses. Expenses have became more of a free bonus (a banking bonus, as I now refer to them). Margaret Beckett tried to claim £600 for hanging baskets and plants. Why couldn’t her immense salary deal with that? Why expenses? How are those plants and hanging baskets essential to her survival outside of London? How was a stay in one of the most luxurious hotels in Britain, essential for Hazel Blears? Why not a simple cheap hotel?

Predictably, the Tories are keeping quiet. The expenses claimed by backbench Labour MPs along with the Tory frontbench and backbenchers is due to be published by the Telegraph in the next few days. The Tories have had a bit of a head start with this, giving that today’s Telegraph dealt entirely with the Labour Government, and so the Tories will most probably be planning their list of responses for the coming days, emphasising that most ridiculous of excuses “it’s within the rules!”. I’m perplexed by the Tory Policy website, which tells me they plan to pretty much dismantle – whilst punishing harshly anyone who even slightly breaks the rules – the Welfare system designed to help the poor, and yet the £60,000 Tory MPs have their own little Welfare State that they couldn’t be exploiting more right now. So it’s no surprise that the Tories aren’t saying much. However, Tory Kettering MP Philip Hollobone is the least expensive member of the House of Commons. I may not agree with his voting record on some issues, such as his vote against a Bill that makes it illegal to dock a dogs tail for anything other than medical reasons, but I must applaud Hollobone for not flaunting the rules on expenses.

Labour’s Deputy Leader Harriet Harman told The Today Programme on Radio 4: “I know this looks bad and people are angry….We have recognised that the allowances system needs to change, but people have claimed in good faith under the old system – we’ve already changed the old system and we’re going to change it further.“
It looks bad for two reasons. Firstly, you didn’t “claim in good faith under the old system”, certain MPs claimed to fuel their extravagances and to profit off the back of the tax payer. That isn’t claiming in good faith. Secondly, You’re only changing the old system, because you were found out. If this mess hadn’t come to light, they’d still have their little pink noses in the troth. Her comments proved quite beyond reasoning, that she is way out of her depth, and way out of touch with the public thought process.

The report in July would not have published the differing homes claimed for, we would not have known about the switching of official second homes Blears undertook, or the systematic abuse of the system committed by Geoff Hoon. We would not have known just how much the taxpayer subsidises the apparently extravagant lifestyles of MPs and Ministers. The Telegraph report, I commend. Something has to change, and it has to be drastic. And during the worst recession in over a life time, the timing of the release of these receipts could not be worse for MPs across the Commons. Happy Expenses day, everyone.

A new World

Here’s to Warren Buffet, the Richest man on the Planet, who once said, when asked about the inequalities of the tax system….
“It’s class warfare, my class is winning, but they shouldn’t be.“

The World has entered a new chapter, full of blank pages. What used to be market truth, has become greedy nonsense. The noise made by the laissez faire wealth jamboree embraced by the rich as “true freedom” is slowly dying down. There are still those who insist that tax hikes and Social transfers kill productivity (despite that fact that Sweden spends around 30% of it’s GDP on Social projects compared to 13% in the USA – and the growth rate of GDP per person in Sweden was as high through the mid-2000s as that of the USA – according to Jonas Pontusson) and insist on screaming about how big Government is part of the problem rather than the driving force behind emancipation, civil rights and other aspects of life that the market has literally no control over. Between 1948 and 1970 social spending shot through the roof – Medicaid, the war on poverty, added investment in schools etc. In fact, it rose from 16.5% to 27.5% and with that, GDP and Productivity grew more than any other time (even during Reagan’s years…. although he cut income tax and shifted the burden to payroll tax like an increase in Social Security and Medicare taxes), the next time huge advances in productivity appeared, was in 1996….. after the Clinton tax increases. Big government isn’t the problem at all. Selfishness is the problem. Lack of compassion is the problem.

Big government in the USA, extended social security to ten million more workers during President Eisenhower’s term. It spread to farmers, teachers and dentists among others. Under Eisenhower, the government financed the National highways system. Before that, under Truman, the government passed the G.I Bill of Rights, to provide aid to War veterans for homes and college. It benefited 8 million returning Soldiers, who now went to college and had their mortgages guaranteed; and America benefited economically over the next sixty five years. Anti-polio vaccines, National Institutes of Health and it’s Research and Development, National Defence Education Act, the Internet with it’s origins in the Defence Department, Medicare, integrated school system, Civil rights, and food Administration – none of that is the result of a wondrous market system. Government provides the framework for a market to run successfully; Government works to cope with the change in the mentality of the people and nothing Obama does, is going to kill the superiority of the American market system. Even Churchill, the most famous Tory in British History, supported a strong Welfare system, having remarked years before his eventually primacy “It seems clumsy to let people starve…” he then went on to support the Beveridge report on much needed Welfare action.

I appear to have digressed. Back to Sweden for a second. As suggested earlier, Sweden spends around 30% of it’s GDP on Social products. Significantly higher than the USA (Whose Conservatives seem to believe any public spending, is a big evil). Not only that, but Sweden is listed as sixth in the Human Development Index whereas the USA, is a measly fifteenth. For all the attacks on Europe I hear from Conservative Americans, when it comes to the Human Development Index, ten European countries rank above the USA. This of course, is without mentioning that Sweden ranks top of the Economist Democracy Index whilst the USA ranks at 17th, below thirteen European Nations. All this from a Nation that has been run by Social Democrats from 1994 to 2007. Much closer to Socialists than President Obama could ever be. Don’t seem to be doing too badly for themselves. Big Government is not the problem. Small government is not the problem. Inefficient government whether large or small, is the problem.

A study by Sven Steinmo met up with a Swedish Volvo Executive, who was asked…
“Why don’t you leave (Sweden)? Certainly, you would pay a lot lower taxes and probably also have a higher salary in the U.S.”
His response……..
“Yes, of course, I would have a lot more money in my pocket. But I would also almost never get home before 7 o’clock and I certainly would not have the vacations everyone has a right to here… and you know what else, I would have to spend a lot more money on insurance, college for my kids, and travel back home to my family. In the end, I’m not really sure I would be any better off.“

That way of thinking, is the way those of us who do not have a deep fetish for money, and who do not have a deep resentment for those less fortunate think. Unfortunately, the Thatcher years over here in England provided us with a new breed of young Conservatives who take the opposite view, coupled with the Republicans in America who profess to be strongly “Pro-life” unless that life needs urgent healthcare and can’t afford it; the Swedish state of mind was slowly losing ground since the Thatcher/Reagan days. Now however, it’s finding itself again.

For decades we’ve been told that the Government cannot afford the extra million pounds to give our public servants, like the Police force, the pay rise they were promised. Or that we could only afford to pay our fire fighters an extra 11% pay, to protect us from burning to death. Or that the coal mines needed closing because they weren’t profitable, meaning thousands of people lost their jobs and weren’t retrained; whilst the UK now imports more coal than we have in years. Cuts to the NHS, because it was “wasteful spending” and produced a “dependency culture” emerged. We were all told that smaller government is better. We were all told that we didn’t have the money to pay the firemen, the NHS, the police, to fund better public education and make sure the poverty rate fell rapidly. For years we’ve been told that buying your house is the best investment you’ll ever make. When did a house cease being a home and become a money making venture?

But then, all of a sudden, we have £400bn to bail out the rich. Not only do they take that £400bn of public money, the bosses take six figure pensions whilst their employees lose their jobs and face losing their houses, the same houses that Conservatives get touchy about saving with tax payers money. I cannot help but echo John Stewart’s sentiments to the Conservative brigade who have no problem funding an illegal war, who have no problem funding the plight of the rich, who have no problem with corporate tax loopholes but who have severe issues with helping those less fortunate – “fuck you“.

Here’s to Warren Buffett, the richest man on the planet, who once said when asked about inequality in society…….
“If you’re in the luckiest 1 per cent of humanity, you owe it to the rest of humanity to think about the other 99 per cent.“

Written off as trash…

“The poverty of our century is unlike that of any other. It is not, as poverty was before, the result of natural scarcity, but of a set of priorities imposed upon the rest of the world by the rich. Consequently, the modern poor are not pitied…but written off as trash.” – John Berger

There is a Conservative concensus that says a Liberal is merely out to steal from those who work the hardest, to subsidise the laziness of those who don’t.

When a person is starving to death, and we have the food to feed that person, nothing else matters. Business does not matter. Men in suits at the Wharf in London do not matter. Money does not matter. Debate does not matter. Profit does not matter. Religion does not matter. Keeping that person fed and alive is what matters.

The moral vacuum that is poverty is not a question of free markets or economics. It should never be that question. The fact remains for me, and for many like me, that if we can take a portion of a rich mans wealth, to feed a starving child, there is no moral out come superior to doing just that. It is not stealing. There is merely no term in the English language, that can describe it, other than completely necessary.

If it upsets you that you might be a few pounds or dollars short this month, or this year, then perhaps you should take a moment to look at the the Unicef stats published in 2005, that say the USA has a Child poverty rate of over 20%. How wrong the Free Marketeers really are, when they say that wealth creation is the single most important aspect of ending poverty becomes evident when you look at these figures. And it isn’t because people are lazy. It’s because those in poverty are stuck in a cycle that cannot be broken.
The UK, under the Labour government, pledged to cut child poverty. Since 1997, the Child Poverty rate in the UK has dropped significantly, due to ‘Socialist’ acts like The Minimum Wage and Education Maintenance Allowance, but is still one of the higest in developed nations. 15.4% of the child population in 2005 in the UK was in Poverty. This was much much higher during the Conservative Government who continually preached the moral virtues of the free market.

The U.S has an above 20% rate of Child Povert. According to United Nations University, 2% of the the population of the adult World, owns more than 50% of the wealth. The riches 10% of the population, owns more than 80% of the wealth of the World. Is this truly the fairest way to distribute Wealth across the World, as Free marketeers would have me believe? Does it not make sense to give some of that to those who cannot afford to live, first before massive profit is allowed to take place?
Again, if it upsets you that you might be taxed a bit harder, to pay for a better life for those who need it the most, perhaps you should be questioning exactly what date in history, compassion was lost.

“Solving the world AIDS crisis will require something that governments, international lending institutions and multinational companies often lack: compassion and the ability to see beyond profit. ” – Tamara Straus

We cannot possibly emphasise the mistreatment of the word ‘Freedom’ in the debate about Poverty. ‘Freedom’ is the most misleading word in recent history. ‘Freedom’ has come to mean the right to profit at the expense of others, as in the case of the Pharmaceutical company ‘Pfizer’, who when hearing about the news that Cholera had broken out across Kano in 1996, decided to use the children suffering, as drug testers for their new Cholera drugs, even though the parents of those children were never informed that the drugs had not been tested. The results were devastating. The same drug, was never tested in America. They waited until a developing Nation was in trouble.
‘Freedom’ has also come to mean ‘America’. Iraq was accused of hating the freedom of America, by George Bush in 2002, and ever since. Perhaps he was referring to the Freedom of Defence contractors, who netted a hefty $647bn in 2007 and 2008, because he surely cannot be referring to the plight of the 655,000 innocent dead Iraqis that the Washington Post reported, back in 2006. Not to mention the families of those 655,000 whose lives are now destroyed. ‘Freedom’ is a very ugly word.

A Nation should not be judged ‘developed’ on the richest in society. A Nation should be judged by how many people it has forgotten and left to rot.

Pro-Capitalism defenders seem to be unable to understand that when a system they claim to be a World Wide success, has left 90% of the population of the adult World with less than 20% of the Wealth of the World to distribute between them, the system has not worked, it hasn’t even slightly worked. It’s a disgustingly huge failure of catastrophic proportion.

Conservatism, tells us that it’s just the way the World works. That you cannot feed the World by giving money. That there is little we can do about it. We’ve almost come to accept it. Even I, who has a deep passion for ending poverty, cannot fully comprehend the evil of Poverty, whilst i’m sitting comfortably in my chair sipping a glass of orange juice. It seems a World away, and so not as important as perhaps it should be. It doesn’t figure highly in most peoples assumption, often flawed assumption, of what is important. Why should we accept that it’s the way the World works? Why shouldn’t there be those who wish to change it for the better?

If I were in control of the economy, I would add a company charity tax to expensive products. So for example, a brand new Yacht, which costs for example £400,000, would have an extra £100,000 added to it, which would subsequently be put into a Poverty Fund. New £1000 HDTVs would suddenly cost an extra £500. If you have this great wealth, and you feel robbed whenever the government takes a few extra pounds off of you, you will be charged extra for such great luxury, a brand new luxury goods tax, for the most expensive of luxury goods.

In 1994, the picture you see on the right, won the Pulitzer prize. It was taken by a Photographer named Kevin Carter. After taking the photo of a child crawling, unable to stand, to a UN Food Camp over 1km away whilst a vulture waits for the child to die, Carter walked away. He did not help the child. A few months later, Carter committed suicide. His suicide note read…. “I am haunted by the vivid memories of killings & corpses & anger & pain … of starving or wounded children, of trigger-happy madmen, often police, of killer executioners…“. This is the reality of a policy geared toward making the rich richer, whilst the poor are reduced to rats in the street. It can never be right to let it happen, under the moral assumption that it is much more unfair to see a businessman lose a little bit of his million dollar fortune to help those who need it most.

Morally, I cannot accept the position that it is much fairer to allow a CEO who already owns two yahts and a holiday home in Spain to gain more, than it is to take a portion of his wealth and give it to those who will die without it. There is something fundamentally wrong with Humanity and our sense of compassion, when it is widely accepted that the rich have the right to profit more, whilst the poor only have the right to an undignified, horrible death.

Big Business rules the World

“We are not hostile to Corporations; we are merely determined that they shall be so handled as to subserve the public good.” – Theodore Roosevelt

I’m 1902, President Teddy Roosevelt and his Attorney General at the time, shocked both the Republican Party and the Country on the whole by announcing it’s intention to sue J.P.Morgan’s Northern Securities Company for breaching the Sherman Anti-Trust act. President Roosevelt did not particularly care about the actual breaching of a largely pointless act, he wanted instead to show the Country that the office of President was more powerful than the Office of a banker. He wanted to show that power of the public could not be bought or sold. It was a symbol against the power of private companies, even more so because Morgan ha contributed to campaigns Roosevelt had run in the past. It was an ingenious way of letting big business know “You can contribute all you want, but you do not own power over the public.”

Lately, whenever I turn the TV on, I see an advert, warning people that “we’re coming to get to you”. This is aimed at benefit cheats, it features a neighbour of a lady cheating benefits, calling the office. My instant reaction was “wow, much like when the Nazis asked people to inform them if they lived next door to a Jew.” I simply do not get upset and annoyed by benefit cheats. It doesn’t affect me. In fact, whenever I hear of a single mum struggling on the income she has, to feed her family, I would advise her to cheat the system a bit. Perhaps it’s a little controversial. My stance on this will also annoy people. But I refuse to let any take the moral high ground on the issue of scrounging a little extra cash to feed a poor family, when the tax payer has paid for a mass of Corporate bonuses over the past year, through Governments that metaphorically masturbate the big business men.

John Thain, the last Chairman of Merrill Lynch, who after destroying the company, begged for a $10million bonus, managed to secure $15million from the Bank of America bail out fund; taxpayers money. Within a month, he had offered employees of Merrill Lynch bonuses as much as $4million. He then spent $1.2million of tax payers money on redecorating his office. Thain is working at The Bank of America. Why aren’t the Governments of the World “coming to get” Thain? Surely using $1.2million of public money is a hell of lot worse than a single mum needing the extra £20 she’s “stolen” to feed her kids? Businessmen are exempt from the law.

Fox News, in particular Bill O’Reilly in 2005 began a campaign for America to boycott France, for no other reason than the fact that France are not America’s bitches. O’Reilly claimed that France had damaged America a considerable amount. And so all Americans should boycott French products. In comparison, O’Reilly doesn’t seem to have a problem with America’s destructive relationship with those great proponents of Democracy, the Saudi Royal Family. Could this be anything to do with business deals? If France had a decent supply of Oil reserves, O’Reilly would be inviting us all to his French themed birthday party in celebration of how wonderful France is.

The UK Government has strong ties to the aviation industry. They are, in essence, in the pockets of BAA and Virgin. Misleading figures and the decrediting of leading scientists who disagree and have the evidence to back it up, in order to advance their own agenda, aviation gets billions of pounds of taxpayers money, to keep prices low. BA has claimed to be taking steps to be pro-green in the future, and yet it keeps demanding extra terminals and runways. The BA website claims “Introducing a third runway at Heathrow won’t increase the overall level of carbon emissions in the atmosphere.” Clearly, that’s a lie, and impossible. There is no way that they are helping the environment rather than maximising profits. And the Government gave into them on Heathrow’s third runway.

Recently, the house of Lords has been the subject of much publicity. Four Labour Lords are accused of agreeing to accept £120,000 in exchange for changing to law to suit the person paying the money. Public policy influenced by the money of outside “donors”? No shit! The only difference between the four Lords at the centre of this scandal, and most other politicians, is that these four happened to get caught.

David Cameron, leader of the Conservative Party claimed that Lords who misbehaved should be punished. Cameron himself refused to criticise the bosses of Bradford and Bingley after they systematically destroyed the company and can be partly held accountable for the mess our finance system is in today. Cameron told the BBC… “What you won’t hear from me this week is the sort of easy cheap lines beating up on the market system, bashing financiers.” So he’s quite happy to cycle to work, to prove he’s dedicated to climate change whilst his work suit is chauffeur driven in the Mercedes behind him for cheap publicity, but he wont criticise people who have destroyed the banking system? There must be a reason….. ah yes…. The bosses over at Bradford and Bingley are among the chief contributors to the Conservative Party since Cameron took over as leader. What a beautiful coincidence.

The BBC reported a story in 2003 regarding Coca Cola, poisoning a water supply in India. Coca Cola have not been prosecuted for human rights violations, which they should be. Nor has anything been made out of the story that Coke have been draining a water supply from a village in India to fuel their prosperity, whilst living hundreds of local villagers without water. Coke tried to make up for it by sending a truck to the village with the bare minimum amount of water. To me, that’s a disgrace. Local farming had to be abandoned, even though it was thriving up until Coca Cola decided it would impose it’s will and steal the water. Coca Cola is accused of even more…. dumping it’s waste in riverbed, containing lead and cadmium, which can cause cancer, and attacks the nervous system of children. When will someone stand up and say that the disgusting chase for profit, is not worth this? When will a Politician stand up to these disgusting people? They wont…. because big business like Coca Cola are much more powerful than the Governments of our Countries.

I have a deep problem with the Party funding system itself. No body donates a huge amount of money to a political party, out of the good will of their heart. More often than not, they want something in return. The government should not be privately run. It inevitably leads to scandals like the Cash for honours debaucle that plagued the end of the Blair administration.

Where have the Roosevelts of the World disappeared? Why have our governments been hijacked by weak men dedicated to the promotion of Big Business. Big Business runs the World.
Nobody seems to care that business is allowed to profit from war. Shouldn’t that be regulated? No one should be allowed to make money out of death and misery in the perverse way that Halliburton and KBR have. Dick Cheney received $36million in compensation when he left Halliburton in 2000. An extra $1million in deferred compensation followed. In 2004, he’d been awarded an extra $398,000 from Halliburton. KBR, affiliated with Halliburton, has made over $33million from the war on terror, and built Guantanamo Bay detention centre. It all stinks horribly corrupt. Both companies, have strong ties to Dick Cheney, the Vice President in the Bush Administration. Conflict of interest, between an Oil company, and the American public, during a war with a nation rife with Oil rich lands? It isn’t a conspiracy, it’s Modern Politics. It’s just how it is.

It will be of no shock to you, that I believe those like Dick Cheney and John Thain among others, should have a very long prison sentence ahead of them, not a lovely big pay packet to see them through the rest of their lives. They are criminals. Nothing more.

If Capitalists truly want the Government to keep out of Private affairs, then big business should take it’s own advice and stay out of public affairs. Big business, as we’ve seen with the War for Oil in Iraq, seeks only to maximise profit at the expense of animals, the environment, the future of the planet, and humanity. It should be Governments job to stop the trial of destruction big business leaves, before it gets out of hand. This cannot happen whilst those who need to destroy the planet in order to be able to afford a new yaht at the end of the quarter, pay for candidates to be elected officials on their behalf. The government is private.

“Wherever in any business the prosperity of the businessman is obtained by lowering the wages of his workmen and charging an excessive price to the consumers we wish to interfere and stop such practices. We will not submit to that kind of prosperity.” – Theodore Roosevelt

We already know!

So it would seem, that last week in British Politics became decidedly boring. This in turn, meant the BBC had very little to report. Which meant, it’s editors were forced to submit articles to the Politics section of the BBC News website, that appear to have been posted by Captain Obvious.

Take this article, referring to the leader of the Liberal Democrat’s Nick Clegg’s claims on the Andrew Marr show, that The Tories offer nothing different to pull Britain through tough economic change.
Clegg is quoted as saying … “I don’t believe for a moment that a Conservative government will take radical action to make the tax system fairer.” … As if we didn’t already know this. Firstly, they aren’t called Conservatives for no reason. Radical isn’t really in their vocabulary. Secondly, when the word “Radical” does breach Conservative Security, the Country ends up with a Thatcher. I cannot imagine anyone in the Country other than the greedy bankers she spawned, would want to see radical Conservatives again.
Clegg wasn’t finished with the obvious statements. He went on to suggest that a Tory Government would not help those on middle or lower incomes. Again, did he really need to make that point? Does anyone seriously believe a Conservative Government who have pledged to simply do nothing productive for the less advantaged in Society during this long horrible recession, are the best choice for those struggling the most?
The Conservative Party Website says… “Our welfare programme will be delivered by private and voluntary providers, who will only be paid when someone gets and keeps a job.
Combined with our commitment to end the couple penalty in the tax credits system, our radical welfare plans will help lift almost half a million children out of poverty.”…. Private Welfare? Delivered by those out for profit? Not only can I see that pushing more people into poverty given that they pledge to not raise minimum wage, but I foresee that parents will feel forced to work longer hours, meaning that work becomes more important than family. The Tories will never help poor families. We do not need Mr Clegg to point that out.

Late 2008, Goldman Sachs asked for a $7,000,000,000 bail out. They put $6,000,000,000 aside for bonuses, according to The Guardian. It defended it’s bonuses by suggesting bonuses are needed to attract the best people. The best people, who seemingly lost £1.4bn for the fourth-quarter of 2008. I’m quite happy to lose that much money for a company, if it means a hefty bonus at the end. Bring it on.
Similarly, according to The Daily Mail, between 2003 and 2007, Sir Fred Goodwin, boss of Rbos received £15.5million in pay and bonuses, and Eric Daniels of Lloyds TSB received £10.2million.
The housing market boom, seeing prices pushed for modest properties, way beyond the £1million mark, is estimated to have been worth an incredible £5.5bn according to Savills, in London, by City Bonus buyers alone. Greed. Nothing more than pure Greed. So why has it taken so long for an MP to stand up and critise this greed culture. Lord Myners told The Times, that “The golden days of huge bonuses are over” and that “grossly over-rewarded” executives must shoulder some of the blame for the global recession. In short, right winged economic policy, the concept that deregulated… “the markets will save the World!!” is so horribly overestimating the power of the greedy minority who rule the World. Lord Myners went on to uncover himself as Captain Obvious, with this “Let us be quite clear: there has been mismanagement of our banks.” No shit.

Whenever I watch Parliament, in particular Prime Minister’s Questions, it strikes me as inconceivable how little Parliament is actually allowed to scrutinise Whitehall. It does not matter how many time the Prime Minister is asked a question, he will never answer it truthfully, and he will try his very hardest to sneak around the question. And yet, The BBC seems to think it’s a story worth telling that the Prime Minister wont answer MPs questions adequately. As if it’s shocking. As if we didn’t already know they do this. According to the BBC citing The Ministerial Code, Members of the Government should be…….” as open as possible with Parliament and the public, refusing to provide information only when disclosure would not be in the public interest“…. and yet quite evidently, they aren’t, in fact, they couldn’t be further from that rule if they tried.
We know that Labour is incredibly out of touch, we know that they have very little support, we know they do themselves very little favours when they try to block calls for more transparency and scrutiny, like the full disclosure of MPs allowances under the Freedom of Information act, which Harriet Harman has been using the most ridiculous legal jargon to postpone quite tragically for Democracy, as long as possible. But it goes even deeper into the realms of the hypocritical and ridiculous when Labour’s Deputy commons leader Chris Bryant tells the BBC that openness is vital in Parliament.
Norman Baker goes on to, according to the BBC “accuse Mr Brown of using stock excuses to avoid answering questions“. Is this really a story? The entire country knows just how slimey Politicians are when it comes to the truth. You just have to sit watching Prime Ministers questions to know this.

Captain Obvious has been busy, neatly suggesting that the title of this blog “futile Democracy” isn’t as radical a claim as first may seem.

Immigrants: We need them!!

This blog will argue that immigration is much needed. I’d appreciate genuine arguments against my blog instead of the usual “fucking muzzies coming to our country with their fucking burkas, fuck off, you terrorist scum”.

INTRO:
I’m becoming increasingly uneasy about the level of animosity toward anyone who happens to have an Asian skin complexion in this country, particularly in the City I live, Leicester. Whenever someone says “I’m not racist but….” you can guarantee they’ve been reading the Daily Mail, and are about to spew some disgusting out of date bile.

I’ve said before, the majority of British Nationalists, who insist that they love our Country and see immigration eroding our culture, have absolutely no knowledge of our ‘culture’ other than the fact that they like to drink a lot, fight a bit, and be a bit racist. Our culture consists of historical events like the Protestant Reformation during Henry VIII, Edward and Elizabeth’s reigns, the Civil War of the 17th Century, art movements like Gothic, Renaissance Realism, pop art and post-modernism, the horrors of the Great War that saw the deaths of millions of people for less than a square foot of land. The fight for liberalism, as Churchill’s army of warriors defeated the destructive force of Fascism. This is our culture, and the Nationalists are the ones responsible for trying destroying it.

We have a large Asian community in Leicester. One of my friends tried to suggest that the white man is in the minority in Leicester now. He went on to suggest over 70% of the City must now be foreign. I disagreed. He laughed and decided to insult my intelligence some more. It annoyed me quite deeply. He suggested that if I look around, it’s like “spot the white man”.
Firstly, even if that was the case, why is that a problem? If I were the only white guy living on my street, what’s the problem? As long as they don’t treat me like shit, why should I care? It’s a skin colour. It does not go deeper than that.
And secondly, I was fucking right. According to Leicester City Council, the White race accounts for 63% of the population of Leicester. So to sum that up, I was right, he was wrong.

I’d now like to argue against those who believe Immigration should be cut off, and we should “keep Britain White”.

AGE:
During the 1950s, after the War, we in Britain had what is described as the “baby boom”. Soldiers coming home and starting families. Between the 1980s and today, we have a “baby slump”. Hundreds of thousands of more women are starting careers early and not having children. Which means, we have an ageing population. The baby boom generation is getting old. The younger generation need to support the pensions of those ageing majority. This is known as the “dependency ratio”. Given that there aren’t enough younger people to deal with this, if we took the BNP line and stopped immigration completely, we’d have the worst pensions crises ever. If this extended to Europe, according to the author Philippe Legrain, the population of Europe would fall by 60 million by 2050. This creates a worker shortage, meaning businesses close, deflation sky rockets. An economic disaster. You need immigration.

The Welfare State:
I refuse to give a response to the awful “they come over here, taking all our benefits” whilst in the same breathe muttering “they come over here, taking all our jobs”, it’s an old outdated argument that no one has been able to prove.
The majority of immigrant workers come to Britain (according to Home Office Stats) in their 20s. They then start to work, they pay taxes.
Those workers have not been to British schools and so they have cost the tax payer nothing, whilst they pay back into the tax system. Which means more investment into public services like The NHS. So actually, we benefit, not them.
Many then start up a business, paying more into the tax system. Perhaps they’ll then have children, who will go to British schools, on the money pumped into the tax system by their parents, which is fair and just. All the time contributing to an ageing British population.

“GO HOME!!”
Many immigrants come here for a better life. If you lived in a Country where you feared for the life of you and your family every day, wouldn’t you jump at the opportunity for a better life elsewhere?
The Phillipines has began calling those people who leave the country, to work abroad “heroes”. This is because the workers, after paying tax in America for example, then send some of their earnings home, which boosts the local economies, allowing the National economy of these countries to grow, lifting millions out of poverty. It has no damaging affect on America. It’s a boost to the poor nation’s economy, and it’s much needed. Otherwise we get rich, whilst the poor get worse and worse, and that’s simply wrong. It also then means the poor countries are able to create new opportunities, new jobs, new exports, which benefit us directly.

Job Creation:
“Stealing all our jobs” seems to be suggesting that there is a static number of jobs, limited in presence, and that immigrants are fighting the British born Whites for those jobs. This is simply ignorance.
When an immigrant comes to live here, he’s going to need a house, a car, a bed, a bath, a towel, a mug, a photograph frame, sugar, a carpet, and every other luxury you can possibly imagine. When 200,000 come here, there is a sharp rise in demand for such objects, which means production needs to increase, which means new jobs need to be created for supplies to meet demand, which means instead of stealing all our jobs, immigration create jobs. It’s basic economics. If we denied these people access to our country, demand would fall sharply, prices would deflate, wages would dramatically decrease because the pool of unemployed would get bigger and bigger as businesses everywhere shut up shop.
We’d all be worse off.

“This Country is a mess!!”
To suggest the country is now a mess, is to compare it to a previous time when it wasn’t a mess. I’m not sure that this has ever been the case. Was it the 1900s during a needless war in which parents watched as their children were sent to their deaths for no good reason? Or the 1920s during the Great Depression? Or the 1940s and World War, when kids were sent away from cities and their parents? Or the 1950s/60s when women were treated as 2nd class, gay people were imprisoned simply for their sexuality and racial prejudice was rife? Or the 1970s when our binmen went on strike leading to the winter of discontent? Or the 1980s when the miners went on strike and 60% of Liverpool was unemployed? Or the 1990s when The Spice Girls topped the charts?
When was the World and in particular Britain, perfect? It wasn’t.

My conclusion:
A Nation is simply a line on a map. A meaningless flag. A place where those who have deep Patriotic feelings can get together and proclaim just how wonderful their Country is compared to the rest of the World.
We are all citizens of the same Planet. We all benefit each other economically. We all bring with us knowledge and cultural awareness that can benefit each other both socially and for our own mental strength. Only by mixing and interacting, sharing and understanding, can there ever be anything near to peace.