477. The riders of The Gravy Train are Britain’s biggest problem – not the folk on the boats…

 So much smoke and mirrors. So much obfuscation.

Last week I did a piece about how much more important it is to vote than to strike. Striking – like everything else at present - is about dealing spasmodically and piecemeal with the shitty mess that has been shovelled onto Britain by the self-interest of the wealthy over decades.

Covid taught us that no one in the ruling elite draws a line when it comes to lining their pockets. We only need observe the de-facto profiteering that was sanctioned and facilitated by this government even though they belong to the party that supported the death penalty for profiteering during WWII.

But – as has been said many times on this blog  – since 1979 and the Thatcher working class punishment beating that seems to have never ended – every hard won  post-war gain for ordinary folk in this country has been rolled back; from snatching away free higher education to selling off all the family silver.

Meanwhile – the current prime minister ‘legally’ benefitted financially from a new rule he voted for in 2016 according to his last tax returns – and that is just the tip of the iceberg.

THE wealth divide has grown exponentially since that other public school prat Tony Blair (war criminal and facilitator of the private sector in the NHS and schools’ infrastructure) and his New Labour project. Remember creepy Mandelson he of the Russian Oligarch pals who made it a mantra to be very “relaxed” about extreme wealth. And so they were. In fact the very relaxed regulation of the financial sector helped usher in the 2008 financial catastrophe.

Despite what this actively racist vile government tell us and how they try to fudge the mess of a xenophobic Brexit the fact remains, it’s not the poor wrecking Britain it’s the rich. Their pals own the infrastructure. One of their own presides over what was supposed to be an independent BBC. They voted to pour sewage into English waterways. They have allowed the NHS to wither on the vine and have overseen the exponential growth in child poverty and falling education standards.

Yes stop people traffickers profiting from human misery. The easiest way completely resisted by the government is to create safe legal protocols that can then be properly monitored.

However, make no mistake - the thing we need to stop is THE GRAVY TRAIN.

The gravy train being ridden by Britain’s wealthy is the problem. This huge locomotion has almost unstoppable momentum. Folk need to wake up to the very obvious reason the gravy train passengers are always pointing to the desperate people on boats as the problem…

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476. The striking thing about strikes is they don’t work.

Before the so-called Winter of Discontent 1978/9 which ushered in the Thatcher government – union membership in the UK stood at over 13 million but has declined since. It is approximately half that today. However, as a proportion of that decreased membership – women and black people are well represented in terms of membership. But, with a more fragmented workforce, the spread of zero hours contracts and the decline of any significant manufacturing base in the UK, overall union membership remains low compared to 1960s and 1970s. Of that reduced membership, according to TUC figures, the vast majority are over the age of 35. In the uncertainty of the post-covid, post-Brexit workplace, do we need to re-educate younger people about the benefits of unionisation or ask why they don’t see the point?

Many people will remember the decision hailed as a victory when Uber drivers were deemed by the courts to be workers and therefore entitled to basic rights. While most saw that as a positive outcome – is it not rather depressing to be fighting for something as rudimentary as the right to be considered a worker in 21st century Britain?

How do unions tackle the new online world and the challenges of shrinking workforces?  Many traditional jobs that were being lost prior to covid are now haemorrhaging. Discount supermarkets with staff-less tills. Banks where even those who will lose their jobs badger you to bank online. These things are all presented as progress – it just means more profit – less employment.

I’ve argued about this – and I mean literally – with a store manager who told me nothing would change when self-service tills were introduced. I’ve joked to you about being a Luddite – for lots of reasons – not least I don’t own a smart phone – but, of course – The Luddites were a real 19th century radical English movement centred on the textile industry who, presciently, saw mechanisation as a threat to their labour rights.

In Britain, significant numbers of black and ethnic minority workers have traditionally worked in the NHS – since the earliest days of its inception and the time of Windrush – and a tradition of NHS service runs in many families of Caribbean heritage including my own. Post covid, English NHS workers were offered 1% pay increase after so many were on the front line of covid and literally gave their lives – as against the 4% offered by the Scottish government. As recently as 2014 Operation Black Vote suggested that black and Ethnic minorities were significantly less likely to vote or be registered to vote as their white counterparts. Which leads me to a singular point - is it more important to encourage people to vote than it is to get them to join a union?

Also, can union membership skew priorities? In the 1990s I was a city councillor in the NE of England. It was a time when Thatcherite cuts were biting hard. One of the sectors suffering terribly were council run homes for the elderly – all since privatised of course which led – in my view – to so many early covid deaths in that poorly regulated, uncoordinated sector. I recall an odd situation occurred because those employed in the Works department were predominantly men and unionised – those jobs were protected. Many homes where mainly non-unionised low-paid women worked – were closed. So there was a lot of trauma for elderly people while the grass verges were still getting cut. Is this one of the downsides of union influence?

Almost 100 years ago – the iconic 1926 General Strike in support of miners, while a triumph of solidarity – ended in defeat and division.

Closer to the present day, unions were – at best naïve about Brexit?  Ronnie Draper of The Bakers, Food and Allied Workers Union, Mick Whelan of ASLEF, Mick Cash of the RMT were pro Leave and Jeremy Corby – who was popular with the many union leaders, barely left London during the EU referendum and, clearly anti-EU, sat on the fence while Johnson was parading the big red bus of lies about and promising xenophobic nirvana. As a group Farmers and Fishermen were broadly pro Brexit and to say they’ve been shafted is a bit of an understatement...

So, what is the point of a strike?  Workers have the right to withdraw labour. These rights have ebbed and flowed since the formation of unions. It is broadly accepted that as well as being remunerated for work, the right to withdraw labour is fundamental and separates the worker from the slave, the indentured labourer, the surf, the mediaeval peasant.

But…

From The General Strike 1926 to the miners’ strike 1984 have strikes ever been genuinely successful? Strikers and their families suffer hardship as many did during The Miners’ strike. Strikes seem to have had little effect on – for example – the privatised railways. Poor service and huge hikes in prices are accompanied by massive government subsidies sucked up by shareholders and chairmen while strikes seem to cause misery only to travellers, commuters and their families.

Currently, unprecedented strikes in the NHS from nurses to junior doctors have not lead to increases that come even near to matching the damage to incomes done by Brexit, government mismanagement and, for example, the catastrophic 49 day premiership of Liz Truss which left a dent in UK economics to the tune of an estimated £30bn

Part of the decline in union membership is down to the fragmentation of the work force and a greater emphasis on small scale businesses in a febrile service driven sector. But how much of the decline is the sense that Unions have just one arrow in their quiver - its blunt and lacking flight…

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475. Arsonists spitting on their own fires expecting a round of applause!

This UK Conservative government may be out of ideas, talent, energy and decency but like an old circus freak show it can still make you goggle.

The current state of play is ineffectual firefighting of fires they started – and expecting credit and/or gratitude from a weary public.

Listening to weekend reports of the holiday backlog on the Dover to Calais route you could be forgiven for imagining that many folk and even more ‘news’ readers have never heard of Brexit. You could be further forgiven for assuming that Remainers didn’t warn that exactly these scenes would follow from the madness of leaving our largest/closest trading partner. It may be comforting to forget that the rampant rabid xenophobes and those powerful entities sweating in anticipation of regulation-free UK where anything went, didn’t deny in the most barefaced fashion that all these problems would be minor and fade away like mist. Instead its a permanent smog.

But this is just one of the self-harms Britain has inflicted on itself and just one of many coming home to roost.

I could site the state of the rail network which has become unaffordable for many while sucking up more in public subsidy than when it belonged to the nation – while acceptable standards of service and reliability are things of the past.

Or more recently I could point to the ridiculous and cruel Rwanda policy still defended by lunatic Suella Braverman. Rarely is it mentioned that part of the issue with the over-crowded and unsafe-for-children hotels the government has resorted to – which exorcise many gobby right wingers – is caused by the governments lack of a grip on asylum processing procedures. Plus – having no plan or policy for those arriving in boats seems to be the plan.

The privatised utility companies are a disaster. Scottish Power now owned by a Spanish conglomerate – is one of the least well performing and expensive to domestic customers but reported an increase in profits of 3.6% in 2022.

Privatisation of the utility companies and all the predictable/predicted failings that follow when profit trumps investment, is nowhere more clearly born out than with England’s water companies. 

Whether you choose to join up all the dots i.e. the inevitable deterioration of water infrastructure as chairmen and shareholders bag millions - or whether you look at very recent history and Boris Johnson's government voting to allow raw sewage dumps into England's waterways, it's a mess.

The pre-local election panic Sunak announcement that the privatised water companies in England may be subject to unlimited fines (if the under-funded Environment Agency can find the staff to follow the stench) is proof we are now in an age where almost all of government is about shaping turds of their own making. Both figuratively and literally...

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474. The world is like old knicker elastic…

… and the idea we’ll keep returning to the way things were is dangerously delusional.

Anyone who has not sunk themselves into protective oblivion from the truth that the lunatics took over the asylum some time ago, will have given up waiting for ‘normal’ to return after the COVID pandemic.

Covid fall-out is just one element in what is wrong with us; what is wrong with the world.

From the endemic casual use of regular non-prescription drugs (and some prescription drugs) to the increase in problem drinking to careless all day gambling – those seeking ways of by-passing reality are just one large collective symptom.

And yet – try as people might – it doesn’t work. You’ll notice it when you’re out on the street. Fear fuelled anger and short tempers due to the uncertainty that even those not paying attention can sense.

Last week the Bank of England decided to raise interest rates. Those already struggling with the combined effects of broken crumbling privatised infrastructure here in the UK coupled with the more recent appalling self-harm of Brexit will be staring into the financial abys especially as government help for huge fuel bills ends just as this new horror bites.

Ordinary folk have seen their mortgages increase by hundreds of pounds while they strike to desperately force a rise in wages.

Some have spoken about similarities to the 2008 crisis. Well – maybe.

I don’t see it.

In 2008 there was an expectation, born out to some extent that we would ‘bounce back’ as we had before. There was a sense that we had a god given right to spring back to the comfortable ground where we could have it all, shop, ignore the environmental catastrophes happening ‘somewhere else’ and like new knicker-elastic our world would hold up, keeping everything in place  and decent.

This time I think not.

Add into the mix that globally little has been done of any significance to mitigate the destabilising effects of exponentially growing climate and pollution crises. The notion that you can just batten down the hatches – metaphorically or in reality – is utter fantasy.

At the start of the pandemic I whistled into the wind about the numbers dying from pollution every single year and asked why that was never as shocking.

But as many struggle to stay afloat financially, mentally and emotionally what did our government serve up last week – the spectacle of Boris Johnson getting another opportunity to clown about and lie at public expense before the cameras.

You could be forgiven for thinking there were no real problems for real people. Especially as that was followed a few days later with a sting by the group ‘Led by Donkeys’ netting several failed Tory MPs offering their wisdom to an unknown (and fake) Korean business for many thousands of pounds. Delusion clearly has no limits.

Rishi Sunak we learnt the day of Johnsons select committee hearing, benefitted through a tax break to the tune of £300,000 due to a rule he voted for in 2016.

But while the rich and powerful are looking after and focusing on themselves and as the media desperately screams at us to pay attention to the latest royal soap opera and the ridiculous coronation – Britain’s knickers are sagging. We are going to be caught with our pants around our ankles fairly soon. There is no reclaiming our dignity – there is no going back to the way things were.

At the weekend, the OBR (Office for Budget Responsibilities) stated that the economic harm of Brexit would equal covid. But even as the Tories try to blame everything on the war in Ukraine and the truth battles for space in between competing narratives, one thing is clear – people are struggling. 

A country that had the chance to have all things a civilised nation needed to call itself that, has squandered much of the post WWII legacy. Its position in the world is vastly weakened. Some (me) would argue Britain’s credibility and its essential core never recovered its balance after the illegal invasion of Iraq.

My sense is - and you must make of that what you will, I am not an economist –the world itself is tired and drooping. This world in which we have that diminished, battered, belittled position will not bounce back and neither will the UK.

I do not believe the knickers will pull up one more time and stay.

We have worn everything out.

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473. Suella Braverman thinks her random Rwanda illegal migration policy ‘is about compassion’.

Does she also think that kicking puppies would help daisies grow?

Does the current Home Secretary think that mugging old ladies would make the sun shine?

Is she cruel or just as deeply deeply deeply stupid as she seems?

The only thing I know for sure is that there is one person we could usefully fly to a far away place on a one way ticket and it’s not a destitute, desperate migrant…

472. Weapons of mass delusion are still with us…

…and as dangerous as ever as we mark the dark 20^th anniversary of the illegal invasion of Iraq, a country still disabled by that catastrophe.

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We watch in horror as the predictable and predicted results of the lies of Brexit stifle this country’s future. Similarly, we who have paid attention over the decades, sink in the stultifying inevitability of the madness of having sold off anything and everything of worth as the privatisation chickens come home to roost. We see a wasteland of corruption and dysfunction in our infrastructure as everything that was put in place post WWII for ordinary folk in Britain is now in private hands and fuelling the offshore accounts of the wealthy instead of making life better for ordinary people.

Lineker-gate rocks the already shaky foundations of the public broadcaster - see my letter in The Independent

As the BBC plummets further in credibility, our so-called public broadcaster is currently led by a Tory donor who was advisor to both Johnson and Sunak before being gifted the role of BBC chairman after helping Johnson secure a private loan. There is no better (or worse) example of the power of mass delusion than the illegal invasion of Iraq – orchestrated for Britain by Tony Blair. However, in the wake of the BBC nonsense we should remember the destructive power of wilful delusion and there is no surer symptom of constructed mass delusion than the attempt by weak politicians to control the media.

The 2003 invasion was not just a totally caustic and still corrosive historical madness perpetrated against the people of Iraq knowingly done under blatantly false pretences (like Brexit) – it has deeply, permanently harmed Britain – also like Brexit.

After the slightly saccharine up-beat early Blair years the rot of his ‘rightness’ set in. His own politicians sensed he was leading them down a wrong path. The country certainly knew with one of the biggest mass anti-war demonstrations Britain has ever seen. People like Diane Abbot threatened to resign but then shamefully did not and the madness entered our collective veins leaving its political poison.

 It was a kind of sickness a person might feel when they know they have done something deeply harmful, reprehensible and irreversible. In fact – there is only one thing to do and that is to continue with the delusion. I wonder if that is why Blair is still feted in the media; still interviewed by mainstream papers and on our news. It’s as if no one has read of even heard of the Chilcot Report.

One or two outliers did point out the obvious similarities when Putin invaded Ukraine under false pretences – but – that is them not us.

One of my very early blogs concerned the distortions of  false wars known and felt to be entirely wrong and how it ensnared an American soldier called Lynndie England – in that I outlined the disconnect between wrong doing by the soldiers on the ground and the worse wrong doing by those who knowingly instigated the war.

Abu Grahib was – as was admitted years later – a fertile breeding ground for what we came to fear as global terrorism – and for the UK that had not that long banished Irish terrorism – it should have sickened us more than it did.

Then came fear of migrants and some would argue –me include – as I have often on this blog – the attitude that led us to a racism/jingoism fuelled Brexit with all its xenophobic nonsense and now to the very migrant bashing that brought Lineker out to criticise the vile and idiotic Suella Braverman.

Weapons of mass destruction would have been monstrous if they had existed and let us not forget that Saddam DID use disgusting weapons against the Kurds. This is no defence of his regime.

However – in the long run – it is the insidious weapon of mass delusion that will do for us if not reigned in…

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471. Hell is here...

Sunak is trying to placate the swivel eyed loons after patching up Johnson’s Irish Protocol. His go-to is terrorising the desperate, in this case those crossing the channel in small boats. It’s behaviour now so common and so ugly we might look the other way.

I don’t mean look the other way as we sometimes inadvertently do when passing the increasing number of homeless and desperate prostrate in empty shop doorways in once prosperous towns. I don’t mean the brain tumbling ‘where can I look’ as we try to make that spur of the moment decision about dipping into our pockets, however pathetic our offering may be and however ultimately useless and even while we have the admonishments of homeless charities ringing in our ears about why we shouldn’t hand over money.

I mean we should REALLY look the other way. Away from Westminster – away from the racist posturing by a defunct, deluded and disastrous government well past it sell-by date.

I suggest start with a certain railway bridge in Glasgow.

On Friday night I was out – something that happens so rarely these days I already felt disoriented. But my youngest daughter was taking me to a comedy club for a belated c’mas present. And a lovely time we had too.

However, en route we had to get from Glasgow central and across to the nearest subway which meant going under a long dark, dirty, noisy railway bridge at that time of night which is neither late or early – the twilight zone when the workers are pretty much home but the real party folk are still putting on make-up and aftershave and tanking up on supermarket drink so they don’t have to spend too much in the clubs and bars to achieve oblivion.

The scene which greeted us was something that could equally have been a slum on the outskirts of Mumbai.

Destitution on a scale that is a scandal all of its own.

One of the main homeless charities were setting up hot food stations for the evening with tables stretching from one end of the tunnel to the other. Cordoned off very professionally with food trucks on one side of the road and trestle tables with the food prep on the other and an already forming queue at one end, well before prep was done.

The damk greyness of it was soul-sucking.

It was not a particularly cold night for February in Scotland but somehow the temperature under that tunnel seemed several degrees down on everywhere else despite the heat under the food pots.

And the faces of those early to the queue was one Munch silent scream after another – one emaciated desperate sunken ashen face after the next. Cheekbones and hollow eyes and dirty clothes and the uncared look of the long destitute.

And the only thing you could think is – dear god these are not Auschwitz inmates – this is not Ethiopia - this is Britain – one of the wealthiest countries in the world - 2023. And that contradiction always somehow makes things worse.

I’ve written many times on this blog about what has been taken from ordinary folk since the abomination that was Thatcher. The hard fought gains of post WWII Britain where it was finally accepted that even those at the bottom were entitle to a piece of the pie – however small.

No more.

Hell is HERE.

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