Writing's a fight and this boy needs a battle
Tom D. Rogers for Evolve Politics reports “if Theresa May’s Brexit deal is voted down for a third time tomorrow, the government will call a General Election in an attempt to break the current Parliamentary deadlock”.
Is the threat of a general election an attempt to scare reluctant Tories into complying? Is Theresa May making the same calculation she made before she called the last general election, and trying to out flank Labour?
Ian Dunt for Politics.co.uk offers a great analysis of psychopaths making deals. “They are shaking hands with knives held behind their back.” He’s right when he says “not one person in this rabble believes a single thing they are saying. It is a godawful mixture of religious zeal, personal ambition and tribal lunacy”.
It demonstrates what Gabi Zimmer asserts the “Tory elite has continued toying with the lives of millions across the continent in a boorish parlour game that demonstrates yet again the blatant disregard held by the UK ruling class towards working people”.
No good will come from this.
Gabi Zimmer for Left Foot Forward is right, the Tories are “toying with the lives of millions across the continent”.
The key point to note, and the circle that will never be squared, is the Good Friday Agreement. An internationally recognised peace agreement that is dependant on the United Kingdom being part of the European Union.
The Tory elite will be responsible for the troubles that come.
I agree with Dawn Foster in Jacobin that the “British media have turned the Labour Party’s alleged antisemitism problem into a national crusade. Meanwhile, leading Tories this week openly associated themselves with the Ku Klux Klan and the ideas of Anders Breivik — and the media shrugged”. It’s more than just a double standard, it’s an attempt to undermine any opposition.
Aditya Chakrabortty’s article in The Guardian doesn’t go far enough. Amoral and venal doesn’t even come close.
The idea Iain Duncan Smith or Jacob Rees-Mogg or Boris Johnson or any of them could find anything close to a sense of duty is laughable, about as likely as you shitting in your own mouth. They’re psychopaths with their dicks shoved through a glory-hole of chaos, waiting for a toothless corpse to nosh them off.
Their disdain for everyone but those they see in the mirror will be their undoing. I’d like to think they’ll be castrated by the teeth of history, but who’ll be left to write a history after these lot are done.
Christopher Wylie on Twitter. Why is this fact, that leave cheated during the referendum, not part of the discussion around the British Exit of the European Union? Why is this not put forward as the reason we need another vote by those arguing for a people’s vote?
Nico Hines reports in The Daily Beast, the “High Court in London heard on Monday that Cambridge Analytica was up to its old tricks from beyond the grave—by surreptitiously trying to halt investigations that could expose allegedly nefarious tactics before the company was shut down for good”.
There is a lot of talk from Leave claiming lies, betrayal, bias, even treason. I would argue every aspect of the thing Cambridge Analytica do, or did, is designed to serve individual interests against the will of the people.
To me Cambridge Analytica and its subsidiaries are the ones guilty of treason.
I agree with Neal Lawson in his Labour List article, that “the aftermath of Brexit must be the creation of a 21st-century system of social security with BI at its beating heart”.
But Universal Basic Income is not the entire solution. There are two key areas that need attention if basic income is to work. The first is housing. The second is transport.
Housing in this country is an expensive mess. If private landlords are the model we use to house those unable to buy, then we need controls on the renting market. We need a register of landlords, so unscrupulous landlords can be identified and barred from letting property. We need long term leases, five or ten year, so tenants have the security they need to plan a future. Finally, and most importantly, we need a ceiling on how much rent a tenant can be charged. We need to move away from a “market” led system, that has turned average incomes into poverty wages, we need a system based on incomes. Rents should be capped, set at say thirty per cent of a tenants take-home. Policies like this are the only way to make rents affordable.
The second issue that needs attention is transport. Public transport is expensive. The price of a season ticket rises as fast as service standards fall. Bus services are streamlined as sure as fares go up. Public transport needs to be cheap, and plentiful. That way it would become the affordable choice for most people.
A secondary benefit of cheaper housing and transport is spending power. If people weren’t made poor by housing and transport costs, they’d have more money to spend in the wider economy.
Finally, we shouldn’t see Universal Basic Income as an expense, it should be seen as an investment, a way to stimulate the entrepreneurial spirit in people. The reason many people do not start their own business is the crippling consequences of failure. If you mitigate the consequences with a basic income, people would be much more likely to make creative choices.
The idea of a basic income isn’t new, the richest families have been using the system for centuries. Rich parents routinely fund their children, at the very least offering a cushion that breaks the fall of failure. You’re much more likely to take a risk if your failure is mitigated by family wealth.
A basic income would offer a cushion to the many not just the few. It would free people to be creative, entrepreneurial, and much more productive.
“Leading Brexiteer and Conservative MP Jacob Rees-Mogg is estimated to have earnt £7m from one of his investments since the referendum according to an investigation by Channel 4 Dispatches.”
Jacob Rees-Mogg’s smug denials “the amount I receive is not for public disclosure” simply isn’t good enough. I’m always being told how corrupt politicians are, “they’re all in it to line their own pockets”. From this brief insight I’m inclined to agree.
Jess Phillips is right, playing politics with a child’s life shames us all.
Shamima Begum is not a sympathetic character. Who was when they were her age? When I was nineteen I was as forthright in my opinions as anyone who knew nothing. What’s the difference between her and say Stephen Christopher Yaxley-Lennon, aka Tommy Robinson?
The problem this case highlights is a warning. If Sajid Javid, and politician like him, get to choose who and who is not a British citizen, based on their whims, then we may all at some point be facing deportation.
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