What Do You Think Today?

[peter]

Yes - there is little doubt that the government is (for reasons best known to itself) spoiling for confrontation with the unions Murrin.

That the BBC should be complicit in this - or at least skewing the news so as to attempt to influence public opinion against the unions - is almost as baffling in itself. Why would they do this? Surely not just to make the stories more impactful than they actually are? Or maybe they genuinely found that their interviewees were over-egging their stories themselves and acted to rectify this. It'd be interesting to know the background behind these edits; were they done following having been 'rumbled' as it were, or by the editor's own volition in order to tighten up the story following new information regarding the participants tellings?

If I recall correctly, Boris Johnson put some character who had previous from as a Tory Party friend in charge of the BBC. Is this man still in charge and perhaps influencing their news output in favour of a progovernment spin? Nefarious stuff from our supposedly neutral state broadcaster and main conduit of news if this is indeed the case.

In respect of just why the government should be picking this fight now, one assumes it has much to do with the optics. The Conservatives tanking in the polls and are clearly looking for any and every way possible to reverse this trend. A fight with the unions is red meat to the Tory faithful and brings back all kinds of rose-tinted memories of the 'great Thatcher era'. Perhaps they see presenting themselves as finishing the job that she started as a no-brainer for rallying the party faithful and if a few weeks/months of public disruption is required to bring the public behind the government (with the aid of the state media as outlined above) then so be it. A price well worth paying for an outcome greatly to be desired (ie winning the next election.) If they can inflict damage on Labour at the same time by a presentation of them as the union's lapdogs who will not step in to curb the activities of their evilly plotting masters, then so much the better. Neutralising the unions by breaking them in a fight and getting some additional legislation curbing their ability to mobilise effective industrial action will also pave the way for some established rights crushing changes to working practice's that being free of EU constraints now allows for, so win-win really.

And the truth is that getting some additional money out into the economy in the form of proper cost of living related wage settlements is absolutely what is required to bring the country out of recession and back into a state of growth anyway. It's bog standard economic tradecraft. You don't depress people's ability to spend in a recession; not unless you want to get into a downward spiral from which you might never pull out of. But perhaps this is actually a situation that this government is prepared to countenance if it means that they might win the next election. A good old battle with the left. Defeating the evil unions and getting some anti-strike legislation onto the books. Raising your game with the party faithful after the Brexit debacle and the Truss nightmare. And winning the next general election against all odds to boot. Is this the game? If so, it is the most cynical, most disgustingly treacherous piece of chicanery pulled off against a people since Nero burned down Rome. And the worst of it is that they would probably get away with it. With a media and state broadcaster that is able to spin these situations into whatever skein of tangled misinformation they choose - and a public so dumbed down, so battered and disorientated by years of continuous calamity that they will soak up just about anything....... what is to stop them? They will tell a completely different tale to the one I do and no doubt make it far more compelling and believable - and the public will swallow it whole.

Dear God how simultaneously enraging and depressing this whole thing is.

[peter]

Neil Oliver, a man who's credibility is perhaps rated less highly since he became an anti establishment figure during the covid pandemic, recently uploaded a podcast in which he told of a Canadian ex paralympic contestant who, upon application for state aid in converting their house to make it suitable for wheelchair access, was refused but sent a letter saying that if they wanted, they could access the 'medical assistance in dying' programme as run by the Canadian health service Health Canada.

This, said Oliver, was not the only case of its kind. The offer or assistance with dying had been sent to forces veterans disabled in the course of their duties and other individuals who had not expressed the slightest desire or interest in going down this route. It seems that the health authority had, in its desire to make sure people knew what services were available to them, been sending out information to groups or individuals to whom it thought it might be of interest.

What world are they living in? I repeat, what frikkin world are they living in?

That they cannot see the inappropriateness of this, let alone the moral questionability - the simple wrongness - beggars belief.

But, I thought, perhaps it's just Oliver taking a story and running with it. Let's just check out the facts. And sure enough - there on the Independent newspapers website for the fourth of December was the story of Christine Gauthier, an ex corporal in the Canadian military who testified in court that she had a letter from the state health authority saying if she was so desperate (she had been fighting for a stairlift to be fitted) she could be offered assisted dying.

Now this is one of my major arguments against assisted dying. Once introduced it is only a matter of time before people start to be pressured into opting for it. For the line between being offered something, and being pressured into taking it, is very thin. And further, though to apply pressure might be the very last thing in the minds of the state or even family members, the pressure might simply come from within the mind of the individual concerned themselves. They feel they should take the option. After all, who wants to be a burden upon those who they love - or damn it, even on the state in which they live? The pressure does not have to be overt in order to be working. And there will be cases where the pressure will be real, if subtle, and applied with possibly the best of intentions...... or not.

No. This story convinces me that assisted dying schemes are a can of worms that open up more problems than they solve. The state is a blunt instrument at best in the administration of services in situations that require subtlety and sensitivity - and this story simply serves to demonstrate it. My fear is however that the trend towards assisted dying is one which will not quickly or easily be stopped. I see a time, not far distant, when the same type of thing will be available via the NHS and god help us then. The NHS already has multiple lines of scope for killing us without the option of convincing us that we have a duty to do it to ourselves. (And aside - what kind of place has Canada become while our back's were turned?)

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I see from a couple of this morning's papers that Sista Space, the charity run by Ngozi Fulani, is to be investigated by the Charities Commission in respect of its funding. Fulani, you will remember, was the lady who broke the recent Buckingham Palace racism storm when she told of being repeatedly harangued by Lady Hussey at a palace event, about her country of origin.

Now why am I not surprised about this? Could it be that, having brought the august institution of monarchy into the spotlight, and revealing less than flattering aspects of its position in respect of racial equivalence in so doing, some kind of backlash - call it payback for want of a better word - was only to be expected.

This is a tangled story from start to finish, and one that became unexpectedly but somewhat timely, tied up with the Harry and Meghan affair..... but remains a difficult one to pick the bones out of. Was there a deliberate and underlying motive in Fulani's release of the story? This has been suggested - but again, it would be wouldn't it.

Or was the eighty year old Lady in Waiting hard done by the story? Well - she is eighty after all, but still one can't get around what she said and did. Reports from those who know her say that she hasn't got a racist bone in her body.....but you wouldn't expect them to come out and confirm it would you? "Yes, she's a borderline Nazi underneath the blue rinse!"

No. Motives within motives and smoke and mirrors abound in this story. The fog of war hangs over the whole thing and you can't see the wood for the trees. But one thing is for sure. You don't get to dis the career of one of the pillars of the establishment without expecting some kind of retribution for doing so. It's been remarkably fast in coming: I'd have thought that they would have left a bit more time to make it seem a bit more.....unrelated - a little less obvious as an act of petty vengeance - but there it is. Perhaps they wanted it fresh in the public mind so as to send out a message. "We are the establishment and you do not fuck with us" Who knows. But whatever, I suspect that Ms Fulani is in for a pretty rough ride in the next few months.

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And talking of smoke and mirrors, do you notice how as the strikes gather pace the PM and right wing media start shouting louder and louder about illegal immigration and the boats coming across the Channel? Yesterday we had Sunak promising all sorts to deal with the problem and saying zilch about the strikes. In today's press it's the same , "Look over here - not over there!"

When the industrial action is mentioned it's in a bad light, so today we've had urgent cancer ops to be cancelled due to the nurses strike and rats and foxes gnawing at and urinating on children's Christmas presents due to the postal service strike. No emotive imagery being used there then.

[peter]

The Perfect Christmas Dinner 2022

Get up nice and early - around say 5am - to get your can of beans out of the cupboard. (You will need to check they are properly thawed out because your kitchen is likely to be at a sub-zero temperature and beans frozen solid; if this is the case, pop the can into the fridge for a brief spell to warm up).

Scrape around in the bottom of your freezer (if you still have one) or back of your fridge to see if there are any sausages or bacon (you know - the stuff you bought the other day reduced with the yellow stickers on it) that are still conceivably edible (don't worry about a faint tang of decomposition; your digestive system will soon 'firm up' like a fox's and get used to it) as an accompaniment.

Check your bread for signs of mould and see if you have a scraping of that spread that is supposed to be like butter left. Any joy? Yes. Mmm....now we're getting somewhere!

Now with the main under our belt we can move onto the pudding. If you have done your preparation properly this will have been begun yesterday with some preliminary work - say getting the 'Iceland' value ice cream tub to the top of the freezer and the can-opener readied next to the sliced peaches. Now all that remains is to scoop it out and cover liberally with the peach juice before serving (I'm saving the actual peaches for a Boxing Day surprise treat tomorrow).

And there you have it - a dinner fit for the King (who'll you will no doubt be watching in his first ever speech later, as you lie back, replete with the festive fodder exhaling plumes of mist before the telly). If it seems a bit thinner than usual, a bit less than perhaps you've had in the past, don't worry, because we're all going through it together from the top to the bottom - just like we did in the pandemic and in the war. Don't be thinking that things will be different in the Sunak household where everyone has their own particular bread type bought for them. And console yourself with the thought that things could be worse. You could be being plucked out of the freezing Channel after a harrowing overland journey from a country that wants you dead. Being sent off to the Manston asylum seekers camp to contract diphtheria before being put on a plane to Rwanda. Yes you've got it lucky and no doubt!

But just a little word of caution. Don't feel constrained in any way during the festive period from going the whole hog - that's what Christmas is all about so hang the expense and live it up to the full (but watch those credit card interest rates - they can be devils when your back is turned), but it has to be said - things may have to be tightened up in the New Year. We could be in for a bit of a bumpy ride for a year or two. But don't worry because the government has a plan. We don't quite know what it is, but we're sure that like that good Brexit idea it will be just what we need. Because we are front and centre in their thoughts. We know this because they keep telling us it is so, so it must be true.........mustn't it.........?

[peter]

It isn't that nothing has been happening in the news of late, it's just that I've been finding it difficult to motivate myself to comment on it. As I said a couple of posts ago, I find it all very depressing and am struggling to rise above it in order to make much in the way of meaningful posts.

Take the strikes situation. It is so blatantly obvious that the government are using confrontation with the unions (in a sort of Thatcheresque throwback) as a political tool to reverse their fortunes in terms of their polling, while simultaneously creating a stick to beat Labour with, that it hurts - but will you hear this on the television? Will you hell! I could spend an hour writing up the various tricks and dissembling statements they have pulled/made (like how the much vaunted "independent advisors" on public service pay awards are not independent at all), but find I simply just haven't got the energy.

Or I could describe the latest instalment of the greatest soap show in town, the royal family rupture and the back and forth commentary in the media between the pro and anti Sussex camps - but again, I simply haven't the heart to do it. I'm sad to see a family tearing itself apart in public and I simply can't think that it's going to end well for any of them. They are like leaves tossed around on a tornado of their own making and were it not that I have witnessed first hand in recent times the service that their sacrifice as royals gives this country, I'd say away with the lot of it and give this family a break and let them disappear back into obscurity like the rest of us.

Or the world cup. It might as well be "what world cup" from my point of view. Or Christmas - what Christmas? Or Ukraine - what? - another round of Russian bombing and missile attacks?

Boats in the Channel? Immigration? Weather? Cost of living? Find me a smile, a witty comment, a quirky take on that lot.

No. I don't know why, but for some reason, after pretty much years of punting it out day after day, I seem to have lost it. I can't even get motivated by the news on the breakthrough in fusion technology. First of all it was limitless clean energy for all and then the rider was added in, "but the cost of producing it is prohibitive". I'll bet it is! And it'll come down just slowly enough so that we will have to be paying through the arse for it, just as we are now. Because do you think that we the schmucks at the bottom are suddenly going to be given all the power we want for next to nothing? So that nobody gets to make gazillions of pounds which they can salt away in the Cayman islands tax free while the rest of us continue to struggle just to stay afloat? Yeah right - pull the other one! People empowered with limitless supplies of near free energy to play with at no benefit to them? That's just what our elites want for us isn't it!

So for whatever reason, I seem to have lost my mojo, and am going to pull the plug on this for a while I think. It's odd, I have often said that the reason I post is because I am in some way driven to write, and this is certainly true even as I post this. Despite not having the slightest motivation to comment on any of the crap that is in the papers, yet here I am, tapping away at my tablet anyway. It's like I'm addicted to posting, even if what is coming out is complete drivel. But enough. I'll probably find myself here again tomorrow, and the day after, and the day after that, and who knows - I might post something in a disinterested state, just as I am now. I confess - it's been difficult keeping myself at such a fever-pitch of outrage over our government shenanigans for what seems like years now: it's taken a toll, and I'm not sure it's worth it. I'm thinking that I'd be better not watching any news, reading any papers, for a while, just to get a sense of myself back. Of what I'm actually like when I'm not incensed by this outrage or that deception. It's actually quite frightening - whether there is anything left underneath all of the bluster?

But this must end. I could spend all day telling you about how I feel, but you wouldn't be interested and frankly, neither am I. It's not what it is meant to be about. So fuck it. Let's away. I might restart again in the new year. We'll see.

[peter]

Not often I find myself in agreement with Sir Graham Brady, Chairman of the Conservative 1922 Committee, but in respect of his comments on the front of this morning's Telegraph I'm in full agreement.

He's observing that the Labour policy of abolishing the charitable status of private schools will have exactly the reverse effect on social mobility than what (presumably) it is intended to, by making it harder for aspirational parents on lower incomes to squeeze and scrape their children into the higher quality establishments provided by the private sector.

The reason for this is that as non-charitable institutions, the said schools would have to charge VAT at 20 percent, immediately putting up their fees by this amount. The move would have the effect of pushing the elite educations further away from the lower income households than they are already and further driving them toward selection of students from the richer end of the income scale. There would be no problem for the schools in still filling their places - it would just be that they would have to take more foreign students or award places to kids of lower educational attainment, but whose parents could afford to stump up the extra cash.

I'm personally not in favour of abolishing the private education sector. I'd just like to see it rendered obsolete by making the public education sector so good that it equals the private sector at its best. That and instituting a selection process for university entry that completely includes no information on school of origin, gender or ethnicity. Surely this is not above the ingenuity of the people who plan such things? Say for example, all personal information was kept away from the selecting institution until the decision to offer a place had been made, the only identification feature being a code allocated to the student via the University central selection body?

But back on point, whether the thinkers in the Labour policy unit are really that stupid as to not get this, well, I can't believe that. I think it's more about the money to be honest. The 1.7 billion quid the abolition of the charitable status would raise would come in handy, and to hell with the effect on social mobility that the move would have. This is more like it I'm thinking. Besides - as Brady points out, as a sound-bite it sounds good. To anyone who simply sucks up this stuff without ever thinking for a second about it, it has the right ring, but a moments actual thought brings out the stupidity of the idea if the reason is actually thought to be what the Labour dons would have us believe it is (ie about dealing with the social iniquity of the system as it stands).

Truly this Labour leadership are not within a mile of what the party was founded for in it's first iteration, and while I accept that all things must change, there are limits to what you can pull off and still sit under the same name. Better to revert to the New Labour moniker of Tony Blair and be honest about it.

(Though in fairness, Andrew Marr (who is turning out to be of a political color much more to my liking than I ever would have expected when he was constrained by the BBC mandate) posted earlier this week about just how quietly transformational the Brown/Stamer plan on constitutional reform would actually be, so at some time I'm going to have to have a look at that. Maybe there's more going on behind the scenes than I give them credit for, and the private schools charitable status issue is after all, pretty small fry in the great scheme of things.)

But hey - despite my post yesterday, here I am posting again today. Well, don't say I didn't say it could happen. I'm changeable. Leave it at that.

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I watched a twenty five minute interview with Mick Lynch on YouTube yesterday (Double Down News posting) and he's a really impressive guy. He came across as a straight talking no-nonsence kind of individual, and more importantly, just gave the impression of being straight up. None of that kind of shiftiness you get with politicians, just plain, honest description of his role, and his take on what is going on.

That he has his members interest at the heart of all he does is plain and he makes no bones about it. But it is part and parcel of a bigger struggle against a foe that he see's as more extreme than Thatcher ever was, and more competent in pursuit of its own hidden agenda than Truss could hope to be in a million years.

And he was explicit in stating what he believes that agenda to be. Nothing less than the creation of an ultra libertarian state/society ala Singapore-on-Thames, in which free market capitalism is given full rein to operate at its maximum potency, and to the detriment of huge swathes of the populace who will be little more than collateral damage as they fail to keep up and fall behind in this winner-takes-all model of how a society should function.

On the NHS his warning was stark. He thinks that the current strikes are in a sense grist to the government mill (and hence the reason they will not be negotiated away in talks held with in good faith) in that they will be used to run the service down yet further (as have the last ten years of Tory starvation of funds been), such that it simply cannot operate in the manner in which it is intended. At this point, the mantra will be, "Well, you see that the service simply isn't functioning: the only answer is to privatise large sections of the service in order that it be run more efficiently." At this point the private health care providers will step in and scoop up the profitable areas of the service, caring nothing for the loss making, but vital areas of chronic disease treatment and care, which will simply fester and run down further ala the US model, and to the detriment of huge swathes of the poorer population.

On the forthcoming, and much vaunted legislation in respect of making it yet harder for unions to mobilise workforces for effective industrial action, he said that the proposals put forward are so extreme as to go far beyond anything that Thatcher and Tebbit ever conceived of in their wildest dreams. Even during the general strike of the 1920's, legislation that made it illegal for workers to withdraw their labour was not contemplated, yet this is what Sunak and co have in mind. Minimum service orders that require any operators to maintain a percentage of service (set at levels decided upon by the minister in charge of the relevant area), increasing advance warnings of industrial action to four weeks notice, making it a legal requirement that every increase in offer, no matter how small, be put by vote to the membership - these things will make effective industrial action almost impossible to mount and bring about a level of worker emasculation unmatched anywhere else in the Western world. (The first alone amounts to a virtual 'conscription' of labour where it becomes illegal to withdraw your labour in support of any claim, unless it be decided upon as being acceptable to do so by the government of the day. This is a thing not seen outside the worst of the totalitarian regimes of the twentieth century, and it beggars belief that any modern democracy should conceive of such thinking let alone actually have a chance of getting it onto the statute books.)

This, said Lynch, is a government with a very clear and unspoken agenda, cynical and sinister in equal measure - and competent and confident in the means and measures by which it will achieve its aims. He explained in clear terms what he sees as the bigger picture and his words had the very ring of truth about them. This is not the stuff you are hearing on the mainstream media - it's not in the papers or on the TV, where all efforts are being made to set the public against the unions by a concentration upon the disruption of the actions rather than an in depth analysis of their causes. And it's not the stuff of conspiracy either. Setting worker against worker, people against the unions is absolute playbook stuff for governments who want to get their way at the expense of collectivised labour forces, and it's just what is happening here. But we'd better get our act together, get out the message of what is really going on here, or as a society we are headed back to the dark ages in terms of the bulk of us.

But don't take my word for it. Go search out the DDN Mick Lynch interview for yourself and see if this man doesn't convince you.

[peter]

A few days ago my wife and I had to go into town quite early - around 10 am - and parking in our local Tesco car park, we took a small path around the side of the store which leads to a subway into the town proper.

A small congregation of individuals were standing and squatting halfway down the path by a utility stairwell into the store - about four tough looking lads who were drinking and listening to the heavy and fast beating music you sometimes hear coming from the speakers of passing cars and beat-boxes.

I'm not going to pretend that it wasn't fairly intimidating. We had to pass quite close to them and although they did nothing to in any way threaten or interfere with us, it just wasn't very nice. We are in our mid sixties, our town is fairly small and rural, and to be honest, it just isn't what we are used to. The group had all the look of a sort of 'gopnik' gathering - the slavic equivalent of what we would call chavs - and though I can't be absolutely sure of it, I believe I heard Polish or Romanian being spoken and that they were members of the fairly recently arrived (say the last decade) eastern European migrant community which our small town now boasts.

Now I regard myself as a pretty liberal thinking individual in respect of immigration. I see the importation of new cultures and people of different ethnicities as a good thing. But tell me this; how am I to balance this against the sensation that I don't want to see this kind of thing, the experience I have related, in our town? That I don't want to feel intimidated walking down a path that I have used without fear for the past thirty years, or however long it has been since the supermarket was built?

Am I being irrational if I feel that we have enough on our plate dealing with our own borderline delinquent youth (which a recent survey suggested that one in ten of never expects to have work of any kind in their lives) without importation of yet more problems of social deprivation? I genuinely don't want to become one of those who view the immigrant communities in our midst as a problem, but tell me how I am to process the kind of experience I had partaking of the simple practice of walking to my own town the other day?

Tell me that this isn't difficult.

Edit; But I guess it's just part of a wider problem of antisocial behaviour in our society.

Not that antisocial behaviour has not always existed and been a problem here, but for some reason it just seems to be worse now than it did in the past. This could be the rose-tinted glasses problem of the past in fairness, but there just seems to be less thought given to other people right across the board in our society of today. People don't worry about things like consideration of their neighbours, consideration of how their behaviour is affecting the other people around them in the same way as they did in earlier times of my life. Respect (not just for your elders, but right across the board) seems simply less than it was in years gone by. For all our so called and much vaunted movement of inclusion without question of any and every other type of living,of identity, we seem to be singularly bad at the business of real respect. It's like it's all a bit shallow in reality - it all sounds good on the surface, hits the right note as long as someone else is watching, deciding whether to hit the 'like button' or not, but when it comes down to whether you listen to your music late at night at the expense of your neighbours peaceful sleep, none of it matters a shit.

And it doesn't even stop with behaviour does it; it reaches further down to the level of the sense of social responsibility that we have. In times gone by people believed (without it having to be iterated or even thought about) that it was part and parcel of life that you did your bit. You had a responsibility to contribute, even though again, you never thought about it or questioned it. It just was. The idea that you could just coast through life accepting a minimum level of existence (as long as it included a Netflix account and a mobile phone) and let somebody else do all the work to pay for it, just didn't exist. In fact, I'm not sure it even does now, because I don't believe that the people I encounter every day that live like this even think about it. I don't believe it ever crosses their minds, the thought of "how do I live - who pays for the money that comes into my account?" They just consume without thought, often simply following a pattern set for them by their own upbringing. This sounds terrible for me to say, but I experience it across the counter of the shop every day. I'm sixty five, have worked all of my life, and still do, serving lads and lasses who buy fags and scratch cards, takeaways and phone top-ups, and who have never worked a day in the years I have known them. And they are unlikely ever to do so - and they never seem to question it. Their expectations are minimal, their requirements of life satisfied and their understanding of social responsibility, of the so-called 'social contract' nonexistent. And throw in an increasing level of unthinking antisocial behaviour and what kind of society do you except to result?

Seems terribly pessimistic but this is what I experience in the reality of my encounters every day. And how you go about reversing this decline I haven't the faintest idea, unless it be via the schools. Where in the past perhaps, these ideas of responsibility were inculcated into a child almost unthinkingly by the parents, now the opposite is true. If the parents have lost the ability to care, then what chance the children?

Anyway, these are just musings in the absence of any decent news stories to report. Food for thought.

[peter]

So Jeremy Clarkson is "horrified to have caused such hurt" following his column in the Sun in which he said he lay awake at night relishing the day that Meghan, Duchess of Sussex would be made to parade naked through every town in the UK, while the crowds chanted 'Shame!', and pelted her with excrement. He continued that his hatred of her was different from that of say, the notorious child killer Rose West, in that it was at a cellular level (what the fuck is that? Is that worse? It sounds it).

I don't know - I'm just struggling with this whole story and don't know where to begin.

I haven't read the offending article and was first made aware of it on the James O'Brien show yesterday on LBC Radio. More interesting to me was O'Brien's pillorying of BBC political editor and interviewer Laura Kuenssberg, who had the Sun's editor on her Sunday show, yet failed to even bring up the subject which was by this time already causing a stir.

No surprise there and I note that O'Brien was far less interested when Kuenssberg and other BBC journalists absolutely failed to ask the pertinent questions during the covid pandemic and lickdowns (edit; love that typo - leaving it in), but let that rest - I was just glad to see this government trained lapdog journalist called out for once in a fairly mainstream media show. Kuenssberg's journalistic failings have been noted on other less well known outlets (not to mention being referred to many times by me) for a long, long, time. (Aside; it is the job of a political interviewer and journalist to play devil's advocate in whatever situation they find themselves. More - their responsibility. To fail to ask the hard questions, on the basis of securing your continued stream of interviews, or because of future revolving door jobs in politics, or whatever - is to render yourself unfit for the responsibility incumbent with the job you hold. Kuenssberg did this long ago.)

But back to the Clarkson affair, my immediate thinking was, what a ***t this bloke is. Meghan, for all the rights and wrongs of what she has done (and take your own position on that - I'm standing above it on the argument that they are all victims, the whole damn lot of them) does not deserve this kind of offensive abuse. There was some suggestion from O'Brien that it might be some kind of Game of Thrones reference - mimicking some scene perhaps, of that show? - but he discounted that as any kind of justification and I agree.

But then there's the "it was clearly a satirical piece" (followed by "where's your sense of humour?") defence. Well, okay. But if it was intended satirically, then does that somehow render its offensiveness less, its downright wrongness? Why should it ever be okay to pillory the Duchess in this way, or anybody else for that matter. It's cruel and unusual punishment - and I don't mean just the action, I refer to the simple description of the act - of its own type.

And O'Brien was asking the question, " What is wrong with this man, why has he done this?", and I was answering "Nothing!" Because this is what Clarkson does. His whole persona has been built upon being controversial - it's the fuel that keeps the fire of his career burning. Without it he would be no more than a dull workaday hack. He is always going to have to be more and more offensive, more and more out on a limb, purely to maintain it. He cares little about Markle, or the royal family; his interest is in Clarkson and the Clarkson bank balance. And whatever acts to increase it.

And now he is horrified at the hurt he has caused? How does that work? Hurt to who? Meghan? His readership? (They are hurt beyond help already by the simple act of reading his column and the Sun paper itself.) Meghan is the only one who could be conceivably 'hurt' by this - and I doubt even that. Offended. Disgusted. Nauseated. Yes - all of these things, but hurt? Clarkson, I think, overestimates his importance in people's minds, the importance they give to his words. Besides which its rubbish. You write an article that is egregiously and deliberately offensive (in comedic vein or otherwise) and then you are horrified that people are hurt by it? It's bollocks. He's neither sorry nor horrified. He's just doing the calculation between the profit that the story is giving in terms of maintenance of his bad-boy image and the loss that a serious public backlash could cause him. He's had the profit and now he's trying to mitigate the loss. One day he will do what all such tacticians do and push it too far. Then his career will be over (as is possibly that of David Walliams who plays a similar game) - but not, I suspect, today. I think he'll get away with this one because there is a fantastic level of hatred against Meghan out there. On this score at least Harry and Meghan have it right. We are a racist bunch us Brits and it's in our media, our institutions, our very souls. That little bit of darkness in Meghan's background, and the fact that she is calling out our beloved monarchy is enough. You can call for her to be paraded naked and pelted with shit and get away with it because the people already have their excuse to hate her.

And it's such a distraction from the real shit that is going down - and here I am, pandering to it. Because it's interesting as a piece of media theatre. Because I find it fascinating in the face of dull stories about strikes and stuff. But also, truly because I believe that the Duchess of Sussex is wronged by it, and my sorrow that she should be treated this way.... and that it should be okay that she is.

[peter]

Rishi Sunak is on the front of today's Mail saying that he won't back down in the face of the nurses industrial action and was ready to "hold out indefinitely."

James O'Brien had an interesting take on this - and I believe entirely justified - that it was a ploy who's cynical nature plumbed the depths of any political strategy that we as yet seen - and given the record of this government, the field is a pretty crowded one.

Every death, said O'Brien, every missed operation, every ambulance not arriving at an emergency, was a calculated strike in the government's favour in their war against the nurses in particular, and the unions in general. Because every one of those cynical strikes represented a chip away from the public support of the nurses, and a chip away at the nurses morale in their struggle to continue in their fight.

Is this not a despicable strategy for a government to pursue? The calculated use of death, pain and suffering to break down an adversary - and an adversary to boot, that less than two years ago you had relied upon as the front line troops in a battle against what they told us was the biggest threat to life in our generation. An adversary that they had led us in clapping from our doorsteps in the height of the pandemic (while of course, significant numbers of them carried on partying like it was 1999).

And as I heard these things, I thought to myself, "how did we come to this - to a place where my own country sickens me, where I see our supposed brightest and best behaving like contemptible animals - no, no animal would stoop so low in the pursuit of victory.

And then I wondered if all generations come to this point as they get old? Are they all disgusted by their leadership and the tricks they will stoop to in order to win the day, get their foot across the line, come out on top.

My God I hope not, or our decline is a foregone conclusion from which nothing can save us!

[peter]

All sorts of stuff to get you up and tub-thumping in today's papers.

The first day of the ambulance strikes and the advice from the Health Ministry is, "don't do anything risky." Like walk to work, or take a drink, or play any sport. In fact anything either necessary or unnecessary to pursuing a normal life.

Okay. Got that.

The licencing authority is in the process of arranging an extension of drinking hours in public houses on the day of King Charles' coronation from their normal time of 11pm until 1am. They are doing this "to mark His Majesty the King's coronation, not least to support people to drink responsibly."

Errrr....not quite so sure about that one?

PM Sunak is warning about Iran representing a major threat going forward - in fact one of the chief threats we have to worry about. That would be alongside the new era of non friendly relationships with China (the old one of close cooperation being over) and our continuing worsening relationship with Russia on account of it's expansionist policies in Ukraine. Seems that fracture line in the world dividing it into two clear camps that I spoke about years ago is actually gaining momentum.

And I'm not actually very happy about that!

And Michelle Mone, the peer of the realm who got paid 29 million pounds in a dodgy PPE deal after lobbying for a company in Michael Gove's ear gets to spend Christmas in a six thousand pounds a night hotel in the Alps while the nurses fight on the streets for a cost of living pay rise.

Which doesn't surprise me in the slightest.

So all in all it's a pretty standard day in down-on-its-arse Britain, and for saying which, if I recall correctly, Rishi Sunak during his campaign trail for the Tory Party leadership, said he would criminalise me for pointing out on the basis that I was "doing the country down" with pessimistic and critical commentary. But which he fails roundly to understand is not unpatriotic talk as he would have it, but in fact quite the opposite. Because to say these things, to point them out and rail against them is to exhibit the patriotism of actually believing that we can do better!

That we don't have to give corruption in our leading class a free rein. That the world might be a better place if we try and build bridges with other countries rather than knock them down. That maybe everything in the country does not have to revolve around whether it can be squeezed into another drinking session. That it is the government role to ensure that the essential services in this country continue to to run to the acceptable levels of performance both to the people that use them and the people who work in them. And that perhaps when this is understood they will get of their arises and get this situation sorted out, rather than spending their time issuing fatuous advice about what we should and shouldn't be doing......

(Tub away into the cupboard)

Have a good day.

[peter]

"Total Disgrace vs National Treasure....The double standards surrounding free speech" reads the line of blurb across the top of the Telegraph this morning. With accompanying pictures of Jeremy Clarkson on the one side and feminist comedian Jo Brand on the other we are left with little question as to which is which.

I must say I'm a little surprised that the Telegraph has taken this stance (one doesn't assume that support for the feelings of Meghan Markle (as was) is running at the top of their priorities at the moment, but there it is.

But the immediate thing that struck me about the line was just the extent to which the paper was buying into the idea that these were two people.

They are not.

They're 'stage personas'. The fronts that are project to the public in the course of what are effectively showbusiness careers; created entities just as much as Sister Maria from The Sound of Music or Hannibal Lector from The Silence of the Lambs. Certainly it is done with more legerdemain - fiction presented as reality - but the truth is that behind both characters there are real calculating people who decide upon what their character would say, do, write, in any given situation - and they do it with a view to ensuring that someone else will keep paying for the character and that it will be kept before the public on as much of a daily basis as possible, presenting itself as reality.

Okay, these people are not presenters or actors in the ordinary sense, but one gets the idea. One does not imagine for a minute that Bruce Forsythe was actually like that at home with his family, that Alexander Armstrong actually speaks like that (all that tonal up and down stuff) when in the pub with his friends. Well no less Jeremy Clarkson or Jo Brand.

And most of the time these people get their calculations right - they say and do and write the things that their personas would if they were real people, but occasionally (as, seemingly, in Clarkson's case last weekend) they get it wrong. Sometimes they accidentally let the mantle slip or, if their creation is one that feeds on controversy, push the limits too far.

This is where our celebrity culture has led us, a theatre of falsity and glamour (in the original sense of the word - fake glitz, mountebankery) to which we look and see it as real. The individual behind Clarkson will be talking with his agent this morning and will not be displeased with the notoriety that the weekend and subsequent shenanigans have engendered. It all adds to the myth and with nothing actually going to be done about it, it's actually a high wire stunt that has successfully been pulled off. Like Evel Knievel (remember him) jumping over an ever longer queue of busses, the Clarkson character has once again sailed even closer to the fires of destruction than the time before, and lived to walk away to the adulation of the cheering crowds. And I assure you that they are out there - I encountered no small number of them over the shop counter last night. But even those of us who find nothing but contempt for the article he wrote - if it can be taken as a serious piece of even satirical journalism (and I do not even discount the possibility that it is written actually to ridicule the very kind of people who will slaver over the words and actually agree with them...) - are buying into the theatre aren't we. We're taking part in the show, buying into the deception and dancing to the music of the Clarkson creator just as much as the fools who were applauding his words to me last night.

But by now it's all getting a bit meta isn't it? You have a creative talent putting words into the mouth of his creation that are possibly meant (in the creation's mind) to be a deceptive parody of the idiots who will agree with the words written by the character as apparent satire.....and we suck it all up as reality.

Makes you think........

---------------0-----------

President Zelensky arm in arm with President Biden on the former's flying visit to Washington, shown in a big picture on the Telegraph front page.

Can't help but notice that Zelensky is still wearing his combat greens, though they look a bit designer based to have actually stepped straight from the front line of the fighting as it were.

Is he wearing them (rather than say the traditional suit one might be expected to don when meeting with the most powerful leader in the world) as a statement of protest - a sort of, "I will wear nothing but green combat gear until the Russians have left my home soil!" style of thing......or is it just that he thinks it strikes the right note in pictures sent back for home consumption?

Either way, he's certainly putting himself out there and more power to his elbow. Let's hope the new year brings some movement towards peace for his battered nation.

-------0--------

King Charles has apparently made it known that he is unhappy with the idea of a 'cut price' coronation - a sort of bargain-basement Primark affair as opposed to the Harrod's style one, one might have expected.

He accepts that the service should be shorter than the marathon three hour event his mother was subjected to (and in fairness, she was a strip of a girl and he is an old man by any standards), but does not think that this means it should not be a spectacular showstopper despite this. He sees it as a chance for the UK to present itself to the world in all its glorious historical pomp.

I absolutely agree with him. In the new post-brexit world we find ourselves, we need to muster all of the guns we have to make the world remember that we are here. At present, the last thing the world remembers about us is that we nearly threw the world economy into chaos as a result of the Truss debacle (how is that poor woman ever going to live that down) and we need something else to go out with in order to rescue our reputation. A good old blowout coronation with all the world leaders and a full on bunfight afterward is just the ticket. Nothing would be worse, would say that we are a busted flush more certainly, than if we skimp on this one occasion to show the world the thing that we do best of all. Pageantry.

[peter]

I'm aware that this is a subject I know little about, but I struggle to see how the Scottish parliament sees that we should deal with its new law on gender self assessment.

Surely the only involvement that the state has in our gender is for purposes occurring when, for whatever reason, it has to involve itself in an individuals life? People have to go to hospital, they get sent to prison, they need to be identifiable for the purposes of court appearances and any number of issues, and sometimes it is practical that they be separated by what used to be known as their sex.

But now that we have multiple genders encompassing every conceivable variation between a standard male and a standard female (and some no doubt, that sit somewhere else entirely) how is the state to reconcile this with the new law that the Scottish parliament has passed.

If I understand it, there is no longer a requirement for a medical diagnosis of gender dysphoria, or any input from a third party into the assessment of an individuals gender, but the individual simply has to satisfy the relevant authorities issuing the birth certificate that they have lived as the stated gender of their preference for three months prior to the application to have their recognised gender changed.

I may not be the sharpest pencil in the box, but aren't there going to be multiple opportunities for mischievous claims of changed gender, let alone endless arguments about how to deal with the absolute plethora of different genders that will be claimed, such that administration of such a system will become all but impossible?

Word has it that Westminster might veto the Scottish decision, which will throw all kinds of new problems into the arena (how will Scotts who oppose the new laws but dislike the intervention of the UK parliament into their domestic business react) but there you have it.

Simpler surely to throw out all reference to gender from state documentation and institutions and return to the simpler area of two well defined sexes. It might not be ideal from the point of satisfying people's desire for recognition of who and what they are - but damn, it's going to make life simpler for the state.

-----------0-------------

Who but a person that actively wanted shot of their partner would ever allow them to take part in the popular annual television event that is Strictly Come Dancing.

Every year without fail we have a tabloid revelation that this minor celebrity has been snogging with that sequinned and Lycra clad dancer and that their former relationships are now on the rocks.

And my God is it any wonder. These contestants are put together with their professionals, many of them young and attractive on both sides, and for weeks on end are required to spend hours a day with their bodies pressed up against each other...... well come on - what do you think is going to happen?

I've often heard it said that arranged marriages are as successful statistically in the long term as ones where the pairings are at the choice of the participants and I don't know - perhaps this is a manifestation of this in miniature. I guess it's just life. The same thing as happens between bosses and their secretaries, actors and their opposite numbers in the theatre, and in multiple other areas of life where people find themselves in close prolonged contact with members of the opposite sex other than their spouse or partner.

I'm not a Strictly watcher, but for those who are, I'm guessing that watching the pairings to spot which ones are going to get messy is part of the appeal. It must be built in to the programme makers format really; never publicly acknowledged but simmering away underneath it all. Each to their own I guess.

[peter]

Today I'm just going to start by giving a rundown of what the papers are focusing on and see if I'm motivated to comment about anything therein.

The i leads with a likely forthcoming clash between Downing Street and the devolved Scottish government over the latter's new law allowing 16 yo's to change their legal gender - a subject that the Telegraph tries to gain a little bit of political capital out of in respect of the Tories by claiming that Kier Stamer wants a similar change of the law in England.

Also in the latter we have a bit of additional bolstering of the government with news that a billion pounds will be found for a boost in defence spending, to offset the effects of inflation. No such money can be found of course for a similar purpose in respect of nurses wages, or indeed the millions of other public service employees currently fighting for a respectable wage increase after years of sub-inflationary rises. Also the paper tells us that people are so happy with the job that the army did in replacing striking border force workers at airports, that they wish they could do it all the time. Never mind the fact of course that the soldiers are only trained to the minimum level in respect of spotting drugs, bombs, people entering the country illegally, and that sure as night follows day, sooner or later this fact will be brought home with a no doubt disastrous bang.

The Express leads on the King's intention to build on his mother's legacy, as outlined in his first Christmas message. Charles is, according to one commentator I saw, currently enjoying a honeymoon period, and it is likely that the media will turn on him sooner rather than later. The Mail, in particular, if you remember, never wanted for him to accede to the throne, and lobbied for years for it to jump over him and pass straight to William. There is also fear for his safety when he carries out the frequent walkabouts he likes to do. There is much residual anger in a small section of the population - nut jobs that essentially believe he was part and parcel of orchestrating the death of his ex wife in the tunnel in Paris - and fear that one of these loonies might attempt to do more than throw an egg at him. I hasten to add that the larger part of the population seems, despite the efforts of the Mail, very happy to have him as their monarch.

The Mirror runs with the King's speech angle and the Sun, keeping with the royal theme but going for a different angle, tells us that Charles is chucking his errant brother Andrew out of Buckingham Palace. No more office and use of its facilities for the disgraced second son of the late Queen then, a move that will undoubtedly piss him off big time. He is apparently desperately keen to reestablish his role to its pre-scandal levels (I guess it comes with significant benefits and access to royal facilities etc), but the King shows no sign of being keen for him to do so.

Covid is apparently raging through China again according to the FT and the Times tells us that the Sunak government will begin a drive to get the 50+ year olds who have never returned to work post pandemic (mostly affluent professionals who can afford to retire early) to do so in the new year. Desperation to fill the gaps in our ailing workforce is no doubt behind this campaign - numbers of workers never having recovered since we threw out all of the EU migrant labour following Brexit. Of course this retired grouping of workers is absolutely not of the type that we actually require, being as I say mostly of the professional class, where the lost labour is essentially blue collar in nature. Still, I don't suppose a retired doctor or banker would mind doing a few hours a week cleaning out public lavatories or sweeping up in the local 7-11 (as I do). Might actually give them a new angle to look at life from - and not necessarily an altogether bad one. Still - can't see it happening. In this society you are valued at the level of the job you do and I can't see many ex professionals looking to downsize their societal kudos to the extent that would make a difference here, but this seems to have passed over the PM's head.

Anyway, happy Christmas to all you guys (assuming that anyone actually ever reads any of this stuff). Have a great festive season.

[Avatar]

And merry Christmas to you too.

--A

[peter]

Indeed Av! You have a great day and (hopefully) enjoy some decent r&r over the festive season.



Christmas day not seeing any newspapers being published, I'd like to make a brief foray into what we might expect over the forthcoming year, as outlined on YouTube by the excellent Michael Lambert, and with a little additional input of my own.

I'm in agreement with Michael that the country is in deep, deep trouble and by my reckoning will be so for many years to come - possibly as much as three decades needing to pass before we begin to see any kind of light. Needless to say, I'll be long gone by then, but it may come in time for the younger members of my family.

As well as going into a period of extensive industrial unrest which the government seems to have no interest in averting, I think that before the year is out the effects of Brexit upon our food security will be far more apparent. Many products have already simply disappeared from our shelves and this will only get worse. The effects of diminished agricultural production at home together with the lack of interest of many European exporters in shipping food to the UK will result quite possibly in real food shortages as opposed to simple reduction in choice. How the public will respond to this remains to be seen.

On the economy, things can only get worse.

It is growth that drives an economy forward and we are, even at the best of estimates, facing a period of extended recession. There are two drivers of growth. Firstly it can be achieved via trade. You sell to foreign markets and deliver profit back into your own country in the process. As we know, we have closed off trade with our biggest neighbours to all but the largest companies, small and medium sized businesses which make up the bulk of our trading sector being simply unable to deal with the additional costs that greatly increased red-tape in trading with Europe has led to. On the reverse, many European companies simply cannot be doing with the hassle of dealing with the UK when the huge bulk of their market is sitting on their doorstep and available with no let or hindrance in terms of administration of any kind whatever.

As for the great trade deals that we were going to do in the wider world, they simply have not materialised. We have made a token few deals, none to our great advantage, with Australia, New Zealand and Japan (the latter considerably worse in fact, than we could have got from inside the EU), but nothing of significant size in terms of boosting growth and the truth is that neither will we. America has it's own problems and shows no sign of setting up the much vaunted deal that the value of Brexit was pretty much based on, and as for the rest of the world, we have no manufacturing base of which to speak of and service deals are notoriously difficult to set up, often taking decades of planning and negotiation.

So no hope of growth anywhere here.

The second way of achieving growth is to do it domestically via pouring money into the public sector. This feeds down into people's pockets and also stimulates increased activity within the economy as the state calls upon goods and services to develop its infrastructure. But we are all aware that there is no inclination on the government part to engage in any wage settlements even approaching the rate of inflation, and the steady and incremental starving of the state institutions of cash for maintenance and development has been part of the Conservative modus operandi for a decade plus. And there simply is no money available now even if the government wanted to change course in this respect. And following our recent debacle on the world stage in respect of our economic competence, borrowing money has become increasingly expensive for the country, even if we could afford to do so. We are simply not seen as a good economic risk in terms of lending money to, and thus it becomes much more expensive.

So no growth from punching up our domestic activity.

And that's about it. There is simply nothing left in our armoury to get us out of this downward economic spiral, that will not take decades of planning and development in order to get into place.

And the government know this. As everything comes to a head - the industrial unrest, the food shortages, the mass closure of businesses and ever decreasing economic prospects - the movers and shakers behind the Conservative Party are going to want out. They know that the next election is lost. Better, they will think, to sit this one out for a parliamentary term and let Labour take the heat. The public has a short memory and the clever money is to let the current opposition carry the burden of the mess that their own policies have created, while they get their house into order.

So my prediction is a general election sooner rather than later. January 2025 is the actual latest time it can be held, but I believe that the Tory grandees will want out long before then. Things are going to get worse rapidly and they are going to want to run for the hills long before that happens

So goodbye Rishi, hello Kier. That's my prediction for 2023. And Kier Stamer, in his desperation to be PM, will probably walk, eyes wide open, into the trap.

[peter]

Kenneth Clarke said it the other day

The Tony Blair Labour government, he said, was essentially a left wing Conservative administration, and I would add that there is no indication that the soon to be arriving Kier Stamer one will be any different. Conservatism has become so entrenched in our society, in our system, that it is all but permanent, irrespective of the particular flavour which any election might throw up.

There isn't much point in me beating the drum about us having had our chance to change things (by electing Jeremy Corbyn) and blowing it on the back of the failed Brexit experiment, but suffice to say that the invisible forces within our society that pull the strings above the level of the political charade that is presented for public consumption, must be entirely happy with the situation. There is no threat to the established order of entrenched interest, of anything but token power passing into the hands of the people of this country, and thus no way of effecting real change that would benefit the many rather than the few.

That the real movers and shakers have delivered us into a place of bewildered decline cannot be argued against. Despite what the political manikins of the front bench would have us believe, any rational assessment is going to conclude that we are deep in the clag (in fact even they do not deny it) and it is not simply the consequence of events outside our control. We have been governed badly, lead badly, advised badly. Twelve years of mismanagement and infighting within the Tory Party (or more correctly, a war between opposing factions of capitalism above it) have reduced the country to a shell, a bombsite, with no perceivable light at the end of the tunnel.

And this is now the real fight - the one that the smoke and mirrors theatre of our political show is designed to keep from the public consciousness - the battle to claw back to a position where our politicians are governing for us, the people, rather than for an invisible elite, who make all of the gains but shoulder none of the losses.

There is no political force within the Westminster system that is going to take up this fight on our behalf - certainly not Kier Stamer's Labour Party - and that fight, if it is going to occur anywhere, is going to rest with the unions in their coming battle with the government.

What they are fighting for, above the level of their individual members interests, is a much bigger thing: no less than the survival of the post war consensus, the idea of a state that has at its base a bedrock of services that are provided for all, in the interest of all, and providing a safety-net of protection against life's vicissitudes, should one be unfortunate enough to need one. It is a worthy fight, and one that they have found themselves in through no fault of their own. A concentrated attack upon the social democratic principles of post war governments along with the coopting of the process of true political representation within Parliament have left the unions as the only true place via which the public has a voice with which to speak.

If we are to stop this country from becoming a libertarian paradise, a 'Singapore on Thames' of dog-eat-dog ruthless free-market feudalism, of the Liz Truss inspired vision of winner-takes-all capitalism that would make the American right fall salivating to the floor, then we must not fall prey to the propaganda that will be heaped on us in the coming weeks. Because the right- wing press (which is essentially all of it) and the state controlled BBC will do everything in their power to convince us that it is the unions that are the villains in this show. And it is essential that we seek out the places where the union chiefs are able to tell their side of the story without interruption or selective editing to distort the facts. No less than the very soul of the nation that I grew up in is at stake here, and the battle due to be fought is an uneven one in the extreme. Who controls the media controls the mind of the people - and media control in this country has fallen into the hands of a small number of very nasty and self- interested individuals indeed.

We have two choices here. We are at a fork in the road. One leads to the kind of hard uncaring society in which the greasy pole is all that matters. No trickle down - it doesn't exist and never did. You make it or you fall. And no-one is going to pick you up. The other leads to a place where we contribute to the welfare of each other, where if illness strikes or unemployment falls, the safety net is there. The unions are battling for the latter, but against a wily opponent that hides its true intention (as well it might) and seeks to undermine its opponent by half-truths and distortion. Do not fall for the tricks that will be played, do not have the wool pulled over your eyes by a media bent on presenting a one-sided picture of good vs bad, with the unions cast as the villains.

Our country really does need us at this time, and it needs us to see beyond the propaganda that will be fed to us, the behavioural nudging and psychological tricks that will be pulled in order to direct our thinking.

So get out there and do the footwork; search out and listen to the alternative versions of the truth, the ones that those who stand to loose do not want you to see. And once you have the measure of it, explain it to others. Every time someone complains about the disruption of the strikes, explain that it is being done for them. Not just the members, not just for the few, but for each and every one of us that has some skin in the game of what kind of country we want to live in.

And when or if the call for a general strike comes, then be prepared to get out alongside your brothers and sisters, your neighbours and friends. Get out and say to those who would take all and leave us with nothing, that you will not stand for it. That it is time to really take back control, to put political power into the hands of people who understand that they are there to govern in the interest of all society, not just a sliver of affluent and powerful individuals at the top.

In short, that Enough is Enough!

[peter]

In a small paragraph tucked low down on the front page of the Telegraph is a warning of the shape of things to come.

Rishi Sunak is being urged, we are told, to 'fast track' the legislation introducing minimum service levels into multiple areas of the public sector, which will effectively make striking illegal at anything approaching effective levels and equates to conscription of labour in an equivalent way to that which soldiers are conscripted into the army during wartime.

Certain types of job it is true, already have proscriptions on their right to strike - prison officers and policemen to name two - but the extension of this removal of a fundamental right, that of taking industrial action in support of claims relating to wages and conditions at work, across large swaths of the working public is a measure unseen in any other country the world over (unless perhaps we think of North Korea) and has only been used historically in the two extreme socialist experiments (Nazi Germany and Communist Russia) of the twentieth century. Even Margret Thatcher in her wildest dreams sought not to go so far. Such legislation was not passed during or following the general strike of 1926.

That the government is ashamed of what it is doing is almost acknowledged by the fact that it is releasing no details on the scope or extent of the legislation it is preparing, a fact which the paper notes is causing some disquiet even among the Tory backbenches.

I am of the opinion that any government that is prepared to go so far in pursuit of its agenda is undemocratic to the point of totalitarian and not a government that we want anything to do with.

Be absolutely certain, this level of authoritarianism should be met with nothing less than the total and complete resistance of people of all political persuasions in this country - indeed is reason enough for the calling of a general strike of itself. Be equally assured, should such a call be put out in response to this iniquitous behaviour of the Sunak administration, I for one will be answering it.

--------------0-------------

Juicy story leading the front page of the Times today, warning that the behaviour of our politicians and peers when away on overseas jollies at the expense of the taxpayer, could be leaving them open to blackmail and extortion by hostile states or criminal individuals.

Many cross-party interest groups exist within Westminster and it is very common for them to take overseas trips as fact-finding exercises at the public expense. But our representatives, it is suggested, might not be always on their best behaviour while away from home. On one occasion, the report tells us, MPs were met by prostitutes in their rooms on arrival in the hotel at which they were staying, but no assessment was made as to whether the services on offer were retained or otherwise.

Well who would have thought that our MPs would behave in anything other than exemplary fashion when on parliamentary business trips overseas? That bacchanalian excess and subsequent four legged (or more ) shenanigans might be the order of the day when the safety screen of distance and shared purpose was in place? It's almost too much to believe.

It hurts. That's all one can say. The abuse of trust and expectations of the highest standards when away representing the country. It hurts.



-------------0---------------

And I think that there is a nasty little clue that things might be about to bet a whole lot worse on the energy/economic front in the coming weeks.

The FT has a small side piece that tells us that Putin is seeking to impose a ban on all oil sales that comply with the G7's sixty dollar maximum ceiling price. Tell me that this is not going to push up the cost of energy yet further in the very near future - energy costs that have already rocked the world economy back on its heels and the effects of which we are feeling every day as we speak.

But perhaps on a more positive note, I wonder if Putin can survive the year out? There are signs of increasing resistance to the war in Ukraine and even some slippage of his hold within the Duma. One recent posting from a large grouping therein was critical of the policy, but oddly was almost immediately pulled and replaced by a message of support for the President and his war. All very interesting.

-----------0-----------

And finally, spare a thought for the residents of the seaside resort of Silloth near Carlisle, who are according to the Star, being terrified by a horde of escaped giant pigs from a local breeding farm. There have been a number of aggressive encounters, says the paper, not to mention damage and disruption caused by the "Porky Blinders" digging and rooting in local gardens and waste tips (not unlike our MPs on field trips really).

I have a degree of sympathy for the residents; an aggressive pig is a frightening beast indeed and I sure as hell wouldn't be confronting the mothers!

Chow for now!

[peter]

Let's see.

There's a new head of the TUC coming in in January and it looks as though he's getting his oar in early by warning that he expects a more coordinated response by unions to government intransigence in respect of their wage and conditions demands in the coming year. Paul Novak is accusing the government of deliberately sabotaging negotiations (there is some evidence to support this) and has indicated that simultaneous walkouts in different sectors may well be seen in response. This would bring us one step closer to a general strike and will add urgency for their perceived need to need to get legislation through the House to prevent such activities by the Sunak administration.

Sunak is also going for the "I pledge to make the streets safer" chestnut - always a vote winner with the Tory faithful and so great because it sounds so good without your having to actually do anything. His comments come after a "wave of murder and violence" (The Mail) apparently rocked the nation over Christmas. Well there were certainly two nasty ones (murders that is - and I suppose you could ask if there is any other kind), the killing of a young lass in a pub in a gun attack on Christmas Eve, and a footballer killed in a knifing in a nightclub on Boxing Day. Not sure that this constitutes a wave as such, but it certainly isn't nice. But readers of The Mail like to be kept in a state of anxiety about law and order - it makes it easier for them to swallow whatever particular scheme for cracking down on the public that their government comes up with without complaint. (Also keeps them distracted from the real problems that the Conservative Party have led this country into, and God knows, they don't want to have to think about them.)

Odd story in the Telegraph about how the government anti-radicalisation programme 'Prevent' funnelled money into organisations that actually promoted the very kind of thinking that it was supposed to be preventing. Further to this it suggests that the programme might have done this knowingly, or even deliberately. Can't see for the life of me why they would do this; perhaps it's explained on the inner pages of the report that I can't access. But the Prevent scheme has traditionally come in for flack from the right wing media, who consider it far too sympathetic to those who are at risk of being radicalised. The press do not like the suggestion that these individuals might be looked on as victims rather than guilty criminals against whom the toughest of treatment can be meted out with impunity.

The picture of tennis star Andy Murray with former Iranian prisoner Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe on a couple of the papers amused me. I was tempted to say the old line, "Is that a mobile phone in your pocket or are you just made like that?"

And finally, the BBC is apparently pursuing a one institution agenda to rewrite British history with Britain cast in the role as villain. Well, we did some pretty bad stuff it has to be conceded, but we can't all have been bad all of the time. I mean, we must have done something good along the way mustn't we? The corporation seems desperate in fairness, to include all races and ethnicities in every historical production it produces, and I'm okay with this. Much of the historical stuff it makes is just entertainment rather than truly educational and so I can't see much harm in it. If anybody is interested in the ethnic makeup of England in the seventeenth, eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, let them go hunt out the known statistics. From my point I'm not that bothered. Patti Smith once said, "I don't fuck much for the past, but I fuck plenty for the future!" This about sums it up for me as well. As Ed Morrow would have said,

Good Morning and Good Luck.

[peter]

I saw a silly old man on YouTube the other day essentially saying that we, the UK, brought civilisation and increased living standards to much of the rest of the world - particularly Africa where he said the population were living for the most part in a state of barbarous wretchedness - as a result of our imperial and colonising activities.

I posted in the comments that while it was unarguable that we had brought change, the word civilisation was going too far. One only had to look at the conditions of our working poor at home in order to dispel this idea, the wretchedness of which would have matched anything to be found on the 'dark continent'.

On the latter, the conditions of the poor in the industrial cities of Britain were in the main atrocious, and in the east of London in particular fell to a standard below which even animals were expected to survive. Overcrowding and malnutrition brought longevity down to almost mediaeval levels and the rate of infant mortality and early death can almost be seen as a mercy in the light of the future expectations of any child born into this hell. Disease and lack of space, lack of food and regular work, all worked together to concoct a brew of suffering and depredation unmatched in the annals of history up to this point.

So what changed it?

A growing realisation of the cost of rapid industrialisation to the individuals who fell through the gaps and cracks of the system began to percolate through to the higher levels of Victorian society. It was realised that no society with aspirations to call itself Christian, could tolerate such a base degradation to become the lot of any of its members - that and the nascent development of organised collectives demanding better conditions for workers, from which the unions and the Labour Party were born.

And of course the two world wars.

Having realised that the quality of individuals being produced by the shocking conditions of the working poor was not of a standard sufficient to provide for its armies in times of war, and that once sent to the front of battle there had to be some means of patching them up to send them back when they were injured, the ideas for the cleaning up of the cities, installment of sanitation and minimum standards of occupancy and that of a state run health service began to develop. And finally in between the wars, in the realisation that if the population were to be kept onside with the status quo, and not go down the route of revolutionary change that was being seen across much of Europe, then conditions for the bulk of the population would have to be much improved, the ideas of a welfare state and the development of proper public services begin to be fleshed out.

Thus was born the Beveridge Report of 1942 in which the development of the NHS was outlined, and from which the post war consensus of public services and welfare state was subsequently developed.

Such was the long route between the slums and rookeries of Dickensian London and the world which I was born into. And the point is that there was nothing inevitable in it. Left to its own devices free-market capitalism does nothing to prevent such conditions as those experienced by the urban poor in London arising - in fact it leads inexorably to it, and it is only via the interventionist policies of Keynesian involvement that we do not slide back into them again.

And this was what Margret Thatcher overturned in her rise to power in 1979. From this point onward, Conservatism in the UK has been pulling ever more backwards on the idea of interventionist policies and moving inexorably toward the goal of free-market liberalism.

And why wouldn't it - that is after all, where the true money is to be made. If via Private Finance Initiatives, outsourcing and straight forward privatisation, monied interests can get their hands on the lucrative assets of the state coffers, well, the sky's the limit. To the business interests that fund the Conservative Party, this represents an Eldorado of gold that holds them in saucer eyed enthrallment, incognizant or uncaring about the consequences of where their plans would lead us. It's not that they want the depredations of Victorian London to return (I don't believe) - they simply don't think about it, or rationalise it away if they do. Blinded by the lure of the prize they seek, they see not the cost it would bring.

And I'm betting it's already on it's way. If you were to go into the immigrant quarter's of our inner cities, or the places where the agricultural piece workers live, I'm betting that conditions for the workers therein would be moving at pace toward those we fought and worked so hard to make a thing of the past. This is what happens when everyone becomes a piece worker, an agency employed unit to be pulled out or put away at need. This is the gig economy that is sold to us under the euphemism of 'freedom of choice'. This is where it leads.

And this is the battle that is being fought today by the unions.

It'll be denigrated as disruption, as greed, as politically motivated in the press and media that serves the government interests (and the Conservative and business interests behind them); all the propaganda and nudging techniques in the book will be brought out to turn public opinion against the unions in this fight. Worker will be turned against worker. The police and army will be used to bring them to book if they are not starved of money and support first. But this is the fight that they are fighting. To hold the last line between us and the inexorable slip back into those Victorian slums and rookeries. Sure, they will look different this time around - there'll be mobile phones and i-pads, Netflix and cheap vodka - but the effect will be the same; to produce a dumbed down society of maleable workers, complacent and vacant, stripped of its will and vigour, and unable to understand and conceptualise to a degree capable of realising what has been done to it. A machine for the production of wealth for a tiny proportion of society to enjoy, while the bulk live lives of ever increasing meanness and squalor.

[Avatar]

L
And finally, the BBC is apparently pursuing a one institution agenda to rewrite British history with Britain cast in the role as villain. Well, we did some pretty bad stuff it has to be conceded, but we can't all have been bad all of the time. I mean, we must have done something good along the way mustn't we?

Well yes but you have to concede that British actors make the best villains, so why mess with a winning formula?

I was going to make a comment about the famous "And what have the Romans ever done for us" bit, but I see your last post neatly addresses the issue.

--A

[peter]

As ever Av, I'm indebted to anyone with the patience to read any of my posts, and especially the long political ones as per yesterday's. We Brits are such a pompous load of gits that we lend ourselves to caricature as the villains of the piece, but it's true that the more you look into our 'contributions' to the world, the more you realise what a double edged sword they have been.

Prince Harry and his wife Meghan have come into some horrific flak over their Netflix series, but I think that they have made some valuable points.

The late Queen was noted for her commitment to the commonwealth, but I'm wondering if it would not be better styled as a 'survivors club' for countries who suffered under the tender mercies of our bid to rule the world/civilise the brute peoples/spread the word of God/steal the wealth of every other land and ship it back to good old Blighty (strike out as you see fit).

Harry was roundly criticised for pointing out that there was no small element of wanting to continue to exercise control over our former colonies in all of the commonwealth stuff, combined with a face or pride saving aspect, but there is much truth in it. The Queen was born into the world of Imperial Britain and quite probably expected to be an empress after the fashion of Victoria. But it wasn't to happen and instead she found herself monarch of a nation of diminishing stature and relevance in a world that was moving away from it. People took Harry's comments as being some kind of personal attack on the Queen - bordering on sacrilege - but there is truth in what he said, despite people's anger that he had the temerity to say it.

In my own household, I found myself the other night, on one side of a divide on the backlash against Meghan, Duchess of Sussex. As the Clarkson affair threw into the spotlight, there is a reservoir of deep anger and hatred toward her in this country (Harry often being seen as the victim of her manipulation by the same people who despise her) not unrelated to her mixed ethnicity and our racism. I take the position that she in particular and he more generally, are not being fairly treated by either the media or indeed the people, in being castigated so. Other family members feel that the couple are entirely deserving of the opprobrium that is being heaped upon them. Such will often be the case if you have the gall to tell the truth, and ain't that a fact!

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I note that the covid beast is rising its head again, with our government scrambling to reinstate pre-departure testing for people coming in from China in the face of what they say are "unreliable figure's" put out by that country on it's disease levels.

I can't help but wonder if there isn't a political dimension to this as well as (or perhaps even greater than) the health one. Sunak has made a point of playing up to the Tory membership hatred of China (due in no small part to reading a constant diet of anti-Chinese media coverage in the Telegraph and Mail) by saying that the days of our cooperation with that nation are over. Is this but his way of demonstrating the seriousness of his intent in the face of his collapsing popularity (if he ever had any popularity) among the party faithful?

But on a pandemic related note, I'm far more interested in the mounting toll of excess death and strain on the health service resulting from the policies enacted themselves. Reports are coming in daily of a huge increases in hospital admissions due to regular flu, immunity against which has fallen significantly as a result of the limited mixing and contact between people during the covid years. And now in the Times today we have the story that thousands are dying as a result of not getting treatment for heart conditions during the period. The figures, running at around 800 per week above the expected levels, are sufficiently bad that the chief medical officer, Chris Whittey (of all people) has become worried and has flagged it as a situation of concern. He was, you will remember, the one who stood like the grim reaper telling us all to stay away from our GP surgeries unless it was vitally important during the bad days of the pandemic; now he is concerned that people actually did this, and are dying as a result in their droves.

Add these figures to the increased loss of life due to failed cancer diagnosis and treatment, increased loss of life due to non covid respiratory disease, and increased mortality due to the bad lifestyle habits that people developed during the lockdowns (increased sedentary behaviour and tobacco and alcohol consumption) and you have a potential bombshell of excess death waiting in the wings to enter stage right. Not that anybody warned that this might be the result of course, and not that any kind of a running total of excess deaths due to the pandemic policies will be broadcast on the BBC each night. Oddly enough, there seems to be no appetite for these figures to be front and centre of our minds. No appetite at all.

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Vivienne Westwood, fashion designer par excellence has died at the ripe old age of 81 after a life at the top of the fashion industry. I was surprised to hear of her being described as a rebel and anti establishment figure in the panegyric pieces on last night's news broadcasts. To me, influential designer as she no doubt was, she seems just another in a long list of names who built their careers on being 'shocking' ( !), but actually slipped seamlessly right into the mainstream establishment along with all of the rest of them once their success and wealth was assured (think Johnny Rotton, Ben Elton, Alexi Sayle and Jo Brand as other examples).

Nothing wrong with that - it's as much a feature of ordinary life as it is public. My father in law was a top union officer in our local hospital and told me that upon taking office, he had immediately been sort of 'brought into the management club' in a way that was very persuasive and difficult to reject. But it's always slightly irritated me with celebrities. I remember comedian Jasper Carrot playing a round of golf with that interviewer Peter Allis. He (Carrot) said that he'd been brought up in a very socialist household by a father that was a staunch Labour supporter, but that as he'd "got older" his own views had begun to lean more towards the Conservative party. He didn't seem to realise that this might be being influenced by the amount of money he had in the bank - either that or he didn't want to admit as much, but nevertheless it's always surprising how the most revolutionary of individuals can become suddenly more mellow in their thinking when they have hit the big time.

No. For me, if you want to find the true anti establishment figures you have to go back to the bands like Crass and UK Decay and the like. Fashionable they weren't - but anti establishment... Definitely!

(Edit: Jeremy Corbyn. Now there's an anti establishment figure worthy of the title!)