British
Values was a phrase regularly thrown around by ex Tory PM
David Cameron but never clearly defined. If a nation’s values can be
extrapolated from the prevailing behaviour and accepted social norms – heaven
help us.
28 years to get justice for the 96 victims of the Hillsborough
disaster. 24 hours for a de-facto change in archaic Irish abortion provision to
keep Theresa May in power…
Sir Philip Green (see blog 185) got less than a slap
on the wrist for robbing thousands of his employees of jobs and pensions while
the vicious degradation and vilification of the poor is now a perpetual dull
throb in our social background.
Tories cheered in Parliament last week at
successfully keeping a 1% cap on public pay while the Queen was awarded an 8%
income rise, and a billion pounds was found down the back of the sofa to pay
for DUP votes (see last week’s post). Redundancies are piling up; prices in
shops are increasing, house prices are falling, personal debt is at titanic proportions.
Do we need an inquiry into this strange duality which is an entrenched part of
British life?
But here is more inequity…
Disturbingly, when it comes to inquiries, far from
bringing those responsible to book – they often just results in further enriching
other establishment figures. (Hillsborough may be the exception as there is
talk of possible criminal prosecution but only after 3 decades of pressure from
the surviving family members).
Bloody Sunday 1972 – cost of Saville inquiry £195m
Hillsborough – cost of inquiry £70m
The Chilcot inquiry into the Iraq war (illegal
invasion) told us nothing new, changed nothing and led to no one being held to
account. It cost £13million
Rather tastelessly the ex-judge appointed to head up
an inquiry into The Grenfell Tower disaster is infamous for supporting
Westminster Council in rehousing a single mother, 50 miles away from home,
friends, children’s school etc. etc. Fortunately the decision was overturned
unanimously by a higher court. Plus, the council, who many feel badly failed
the residents, will be consulted regarding the inquiry’s scope while residents
will not.
None of these awful things happen without the
combination of gross incompetence and or bad people and or bad circumstances.
The subsequent delays and cover ups are entirely due to the willingness of The
Establishment to do what is best for themselves.
What makes no sense is the way The Majority – or
‘Ordinary People’ as politicians of all persuasions like to call everyone-who-isn’t-the
establishment, are bamboozled. Folk are cajoled into acceptance, anesthetised
into not caring. They are led by the nose by people who a. have nothing in
common with them b. do not have their best interests at heart.
During the EU referendum, the Leave campaign
orchestrated the mob in ranting against Polish plumbers and vulnerable migrants
while cold calculating corporate bastards were quietly shipping British jobs
overseas by the thousands. British
Airways – it was revealed a few weeks ago – sacked their British IT staff and reallocated those jobs abroad. This would not
have been in the news if it hadn’t been for the IT crash that led to 72 hours of
fiasco and flight mayhem.
Our previously world-standard universities are cutting
staff right and left as students, paying through the nose to keep themselves out
of the unemployment figures for 3 – 4 years (thanks to private school boy, ex
Liberal leader and now, thankfully, ex-MP Clegg) are being taught by staff
lower and lower down the food chain in huge groups with almost no one-to-one
time as used to be the norm.
As more large companies, making eye watering UK profits,
sack staff by the thousands (Tesco last week sacked another 1,200 at their head
office) and others de-staff their outlets with self-service tills (see blog 218 Lidl – 0 Barrack Obama – 1) we see
clearly that the large corporations making money out of ‘Ordinary British People’
do not care about ordinary British people.
The British public give generously to aid charities,
like the ones working in Yemen – meanwhile Saudi Arabia is bombing and
brutalising Yemen with British weaponry. Basic help cannot get through for
those now suffering cholera. Our racist foreign secretary (and would-be PM?)
has no plans to stop the sale of arms to the Saudis.
As America celebrates this 4th of July
with Trump preparing to throw 22 million poor Americans off health care
provision to give billions of dollars in tax cuts to the wealthiest – we, here
in the UK, have nothing to feel complacent about.
As other EU countries surge ahead with cheap, clean,
green energy, Britain is mired in controversy over a possible future of
Chinese-owned nuclear power, fracking and even environmentally devastating open
cast coal mining (Druridge Bay).
On a more personal level, I am deeply angered by the
growing opportunities chasm between youngsters with connections and position
and those without; it is a crevasse growing wider daily. Surely basic equality
is the sign of a truly civilised society. Global publishing house Random House
just released a coffee table book – retailing at £16.99 - of laughable
“Instagram quality” photographs taken by the teenaged son of two British celebrities.
According to critics, its fifty shades of shite echoing that other piece of
crap, also courtesy of Random House – Fifty Shades of Grey. The young and
talented artist who created artwork for the covers of my dragon adventure
series (see below) was just a teenager when she produced that work. She
subsequently won a place at the prestigious Glasgow School of Art based on her talent and hard work. She is currently waitressing.
I wonder – I mean I really wonder – when the great
British public – the soap-opera watching, processed food consuming, Daily Mail
/ Sun reading, reality TV addicted masses are going to wake up to the fact that
the people who pull the strings, some of the people they idolise, the people
who take their money or deny them enough to live on, squander their labour, crush
their dignity commandeer their time and anything else they can take - the
British establishment
DO NOT GIVE A SHIT ABOUT THEM…
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