Something that I am seeing a lot of in the media and the quotes from all sides of the political spectrum is a deliberate failure to understand the reality of the situation. Or at least what I see to be the reality and I'm not alone.

People are talking about the next Labour prime minister and the next Labour government. We have the likes of Blair helpfully throwing his comments into the fire and generally stirring up trouble.

The thing is Labour are NOT electing someone to stand for the next PM. That's not going to be a consideration until 2025. What they are doing and should be doing is electing someone to actually rebuild their party into a political power that is actually relevant rather than being a failed red Tory party or Nasty lite.

Labour, as they stand now, are NOT a viable opposition or even a major political party. They are groups of people who happen to share the same rosette colour. They need to rebuilt themselves, decide what they actually stand for and then start getting that message across.

Until they mean something again they will not be able to take their place as a major party again and will probably not survive. Without a unifying meme and purpose they could very well splinter into left and right.


This is not a battle for a person to sit in No 10 in a few years, this contest is about picking someone who can rebuild and re-unify the party. That’s not going to be a quick task as Blair keeps demonstrating by attacking any movement back to the left or a return to the roots of Labour which also happens to be a place where a lot of their voters are to be found.

Blair and those like him have nothing but contempt for the traditional Labour voter on the left where as these are the very people Corbyn speaks for. But there are many in Labour who still follow Blair's advice.

As a result left and right are all too often at each other’s throats, a split that has become bloody obvious since the election. Witness the attacks by Blair or the more recent comments from the likes of Chuka Umunna and Liz Kendall. Both of whom have now clearly stated that they would refuse to serve on a shadow cabinet if led by Corbyn. Consider carefully the image that gives, two people who both stood in the leadership campaign openly refusing to work with someone or to participate in the future of their own political party just because a democratic process returned someone who was more popular than them.

Honestly is that what Umunna, Kendal or Cooper want as the future of Labour?

Something to discuss on a quiet Sunday.



One thing has become clear over the last few months since the Election and no I don’t mean how evil the Tories are, we knew that beforehand.

What I am talking about is that Labour as a political party and the opposition are effectively useless for a decade. Even if they find a new leader likely to bring back the voters it is going to take until the election after next before they are a viable force in British politics.

The incompetent party are utterly un-trusted on so many things and in so many areas that only the most diehard of supporters are still with them. Not intending to insult those who are still Labourites but you lot have got one hell of a job ahead of you trying to repair the damage that the party as a whole has done to itself this century.

Then there are the Lib Dems. Who you ask, those people with the yellow rosettes, you remember them, the lot that can get all of their MPs in the same mini bus with room to spare if it’s a 12 seater. The coalition with the Tories has left them with such a stain on their image that it will be a generation before anyone except their most diehard supports will bother voting Lib Dem.

So as I see it Labour aren’t going to be back as a viable force until 2025 and the Lib Dems may be back as an effective power in parliament somewhere around 2035 or maybe 2030. I could be wrong, things may have changed significantly by the election in 2020. Labour and the Lib Dems could be chasing the Tories out of power in five years.


Nope!


Can’t see it myself. As much as people may hate the Tories, who do they vote for?


So ten more years of the Tories. Presuming that we don’t have a rebellion or civil war as parts of the country basically decide enough is enough and outright stand against the Tyranny of the South East and its ruling Lords the Tory government.

But that’s fairly unlikely because of the slow pace of the oppression and the changes. Humans are very much designed to live in the present, the future is a fuzzy dream and the past is something the old men and women talk about down the pub. Back in my day they say, back when things were better.

For the most part as much as people complain about low salaries and no pay rises and ever increasing costs they don’t really remember how things were a decade ago when their real spending power was much higher. People become used to less as long as it’s done slowly, a take away every week becomes three times a month then twice a month then the end of month treat when you get paid.

But while you may remember it intellectually you don’t emotionally understand what you have lost unless it happens quickly. So one take away a month becomes the norm and you don’t miss the time, years ago when you could afford one a week. You change your shopping, cheaper items, less of this and more of that because that costs less or lasts longer. Less brand names and more supermarkets own.

So people forget the past other than the old folk muttering about it, they live in the present. Four years of pay caps and benefit freezes are harsh and people are rightly worried but because next year the effect will be small people will cope, then the year after its another small drop so people manage. Four years from now people will mutter about the old days but that will be it.


The anger needed to actually rise up and lynch the Tories simply will not be there unless the Tories are stupid enough to rush their Austerity enforced policy of a return to medieval inequalities and end up provoking people. Which I don’t see them doing unless they are absolutely confident they can crush any uprising, which they can’t, but they are both Tories and Politicians so arrogance comes as standard.

All of this means that we are left without any effective opposition in parliament for a Decade or more, in effect we will become a single party system. Our political system finally reduced to the third world level of Dictatorial repression that it has been heading towards for years.

Now people call me paranoid, and crazy, but consider how much worse the Tories have been in the few months that they have ruled alone compared to how bad things were with a stronger Labour party and a large Lib Dem presence in Coalition.

This is after a few months of the Tories not being opposed by either Labour OR the Lib Dems. Imagine how bad things will be a few years from now. Imagine all those people who have spent years without benefits because they are eighteen this year or become eighteen over the next year or two. All those people under 25 who will be struggling with wages further and further behind just because they had the misfortune to be born too late.

All those people who are managing on less every year because Austerity is transferring ever larger sums of money from the poor to the rich.


Not a pretty picture is it.


This is UKplc as a one party state, Orwell could right a sequel to 1894 simply by sitting in a random high street and asking people about their lives in 2018 or 2019.

So we need an opposition, we desperately need a power block in parliament to hold back the Tories, not only to restrain them but to roll back where possible the worst Tory policies and hopefully restore some of the rights and freedoms such as privacy that we used to enjoy.


But where do we find an opposition. The First Past the Post system is deliberately designed to prevent anyone other than the Tories or Labour getting into government and Labour are out, UKIP had a LOT of votes but the deck is so stacked against them they got one whole MP. The greens got a lot of votes but again that stacked deck was against them and they have one MP.

In fact the only coherent block of MPs standing against the government is from Scotland, the SNP.

Can the SNP become the actual opposition, right now they are doing the job but they don’t have the numbers to block the Tories alone and the tradition opposition parties are off in the wilderness so please leave a message.

Can the SNP get big enough to take over as the opposition, where would they pick up another 100 to 150 MPs from, after all they have almost all the Scottish MPs already.

Well that would be the rest of the UK.


No I’m not insane, actually I am but that’s a different problem. The Scottish Nationalist Party is almost universally called the SNP, just like banks and companies who have dropped their names and just use their initials. After all who thinks of RBS as a bunch of Scottish bankers rather than just another bunch of money grabbing city scumbags.

This may seem odd, bizarre even, but how often after the election (or before) did we hear people say they wished they could vote SNP but they were in the north of England, or the midlands or the west.

The SNP say they are not trying to tear apart the union, can anyone think of a better way to demonstrate this than by standing MPs south of the border. There are already stories about how the SNP are getting involved down here, why not make it a formal arrangement and at the same time weaken the constant Tory attacks against them about them being anti union and anti Britain.


Let’s face it, after a 20 year old stood up in Parliament and gave a speech like that can anyone who isn’t a raving Tory or Labour fanatic honestly say that the SNP don’t come across well as being where Labour used to be a few decades ago before they turned into red Tories.

So can the SNP actually stand as the opposition party in 2020, can they get enough support in the old Labour regions of the north and the midlands, can they get the votes of the people who fled Labour and the Lib Dems and instead voted Tory because they felt the Nasty party was promising to support them when the red and yellow dumped them in the political gutters.

Right now they have the charisma to try and if they build contacts and support they could give it a go at the next election.


But would they want to?

A strong union would benefit Scotland as much as the rest of Britain and SNP MPs representing the North, the Midlands or some of our largest cities would give a voice to many who feel that they have no voice anymore.

I suspect if they are willing to try they would draw back a lot of ex labour voters, IF they can overcome the massive campaign of hate directed at them by Westminster and the Media and if they do actually care about the voters rather than turn out to be just another cynical self serving political party to join the Tories, Labour and the Lib Dems.

But having listened to the maiden speech of a young woman who exemplifies the passion and courage of so many of our young people I don’t think they will. The SNP have demonstrated that they can talk to and speak for millions of people who deserve a voice but are denied one because they are too young to be of interest to the ConLabLib foggies.

In a few years every person in the UK under 25 is going to flock to a party that gives them a voice in the opposition against the Tories. If the SNP can give them that voice and bring out the disfranchised voters who will not get involved when their only choice is Nasty, Incompetent or Inconsequential then we could be looking at a political landslide. A seismic shock that will change British politics for generations to come.

The SNP managed to bring out many voters who had given up on old fashioned politics just as the Yes / No campaign attracted interest and involvement in numbers completely unheard of for mainstream politics.

Could the SNP overtake Labour as the party of the people? Well the seat is empty; Labour left it and wandered off years ago so it’s up for grabs.

Would they want to, that I can’t answer, maybe if someone knows any of the SNP leaders they could ask if the SNP intends to become a party for all the people of Britain or just those north of the border.




I and I suspect many others would be interested in the answer to that question.

A good friend of mine Hoz Shafiei who was born in Iran keeps a close eye on affairs in that nation and posted about the agreement that has just been signed between Iran and the five permanent members of the UN security council.

Iran will allow inspectors into its nuclear facilities to demonstrate that it has stopped all weapons research and the sanctions that have been imposed over the years will be dropped.

The agreement is called the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action and specifies that Iran can retain most of its nuclear infrastructure, and allows it to continue to enrich uranium on its own soil. But Iran must stop any new development and dismantle some of its existing infrastructure or mothball it for ten to fifteen years. Atomic Energy Inspectors are to be allowed access to these sites to ensure Iran is complying with the agreement though this is done with the permission of Iran and inspectors must request a visit, they can’t stage surprise visits. Failure to allow a visit will start a two week negotiation and if there is no visit allowed after that the deal will be ended.

In return sanctions will be dropped once the UN inspectors determine that the Iranian regime is honouring its side of the deal, accounts and international funds totally more than $100 Billion will be released and import and export sanctions will be phased out.
 

So Hoz posted about it and asked a question: The nuclear issue is off the table I wonder where the warmongers will direct their hate now?
 

Hoz is a great  bloke with a heart as big as a car but he is simply not cynical enough for this world of ours.


The deal is done they say but nothing is set in stone. The deal involves lifting sanctions in return for access by nuclear inspectors amongst other things which should bring a reduction in tension.

But call me paranoid, people do.


Iran is still ruled by a theocracy that is fanatically opposed to the other major theocracy in the middle east, Saudi Arabia, you know, America's best mates who can do no wrong. Both hate the other with a passion and the Saudi's are already reported to have been making contacts in Pakistan to buy nuclear technology. The house of Saud has invested significant sums in Pakistani nuclear weapon projects and there have been a number of reports from senior security figures that Pakistan has either build warheads for Saudi Arabia which it is holding or will built warheads so on short notice. Saudi Arabia is a signatory of the Nuclear non proliferation agreement and cannot have nuclear warheads without violating that agreement and having the US go ballistic since Israel would be the second target for any such weapons.

But if someone else builds them and stores them no agreement has been broken and if Iran does deploy nuclear weapons the pressure on Saudi Arabia to not own nukes will drop significantly.

Of course these Chinese missiles were specifically designed for delivering unconventional warheads so accuracy wasn’t that important.

Anyone need a hint as to what I mean by unconventional warheads, yep chemical, biological or Nukes. 

So if the Saudis think Iran has nukes they may well be able to get their own fairly quickly and already have missiles to deliver them, if Iran thinks the Saudi’s have nukes this deal will be dropped so fast it will leave skid marks.

There is too much hatred here and nukes are the ultimate first world big stick, they allow a nation to play on the world stage in a way that size or numbers of soldiers do not. As long as the theocracies are in charge of these nations, as long as religious extremists hate others more than they love their own children then this deal is simply a small and fragile step toward peace.

But we can live in hope for now.

By striking this deal now the US looks like it is trying to pull Iran away from the Russo-Chinese alliance while it still can. After all the sanctions have not stopped Iran, all they have really achieved is to increase suffering amongst the population. Threats haven’t worked and as people have repeatedly pointed out over the years starting or threatening to start a war with Iran will simply create a much stronger desire for nuclear weapons and create even more fear and tyranny.

So instead of the stick we have the carrot. It remains to be seen how long the stick will remain out of sight and how long the carrot will be left to dangle but again, for now, we can hope.

 
Iran and Iraq are working together against ISIS, an alliance of Shia nations against a Sunni terror state. Saudi Arabia is bombing Shia followers in Yemen and funding money to ISIS who are following many of the same principles of fascist thought that many senior Saudi’s espouse.

Both nations, Iran and Saudi Arabia have taken opposite religious beliefs to extremes and give the impression they would happily wipe out the other given half a chance. This is not a recipe for peace and Iran's apparent willingness to stop nuclear weapon development will last about five minutes after they find out the Saudi's are trying to get nukes.

The proxy wars that are widespread across the Middle East and that are spreading across Africa and have even reached Russia (a group of Chechen Jihadists have recently sworn allegiance to ISIS). This fighting is all to often beyond the control of the supporting nations and can escalate or spread quickly and surprisingly. After all Iran is now supporting Iraq in fighting against an enemy that was formed to fight against Assad in Syria but broke free and now threatens more and more nations with terrorism. The possibility of one of these proxy wars turning into a conflagration that drags in other nations and creates the war everyone claims not to want is too high to ignore.


Then of course we have the only known nuclear power in the region, rumour has it Obama stopped the Israeli's bombing Iran's nuclear reactors several times. They are going to be agitating like mad if they even think Iran is hesitant in following the rules of the deal. Given that the Theocratic regime in Ira has declared that they intend to wipe out the nation of Israel you can be sure that every resource Mossad and other such intelligence agencies has will be focused on Iran and working hard to make sure there is no possibility of Iran getting the bomb.

But we can be sure nothing will go wrong with this, can’t we.


Then we have the defence industrial complex and the massive profits to be made in war. At present we have a huge money sink, ISIS, the barbarians that everyone hates because of what they do to the innocent people tortured and murdered every day. 

Plenty of profit to be made bombing them. Then of course we have the constant jingle of sabres and the hyping of the Russian threat and the Chinese threat. The reds are coming, Russian bombers threatening our airspace, Russian warships in the channel. Lots of enemies to justify that huge military budget so Iran can be ignored.

Of course if peace breaks out elsewhere Iran will quickly be back on the target list.
 

This is a step, a good one to be sure but still just one step in a long road to peace. The tyrannical leaders are still in charge, the hatred is still there, and religion still justifies oppression and cruelty. The reasons why people wanted nuclear weapons haven’t gone away, just put on hold for the present.

This is another example of geopolitics in action, it is working for now but hope for the best while preparing the worst.




21st century geopolitics, they look a lot like 19th century geopolitics and how many wars did we have as a result of the mess our 19th century leaders created.

We have waited for the budget to arrive so we could see the bad news, well it’s here and the news is generally as bad as feared.

I’m going to cover some points that I think are important to the people I know, since I don’t know many people in £1,000,000 houses I’ll focus on the bad news.


Restricting Child benefit to the first two children only. A clear response to the ongoing media campaign to highlight the benefit families with ten or more children.  Over the years I have met and spoken to a number of women who were happy to use and abuse child benefit by simply having another child and another, not caring in some cases who the father was. Stopping child benefit at two children moves having children to a matter of personal choice which must be budgeted for rather than a lifestyle thing that the state pays for.

It does mean that only the rich can afford large families unless we reinstate child labour and get the youngsters into sweatshops and cleaning chimneys but my thinking here is that having children is a massive commitment that should be done after very careful consideration. It does means that well off families that have more than two children who then become unemployed will be in greater difficulty since any child above the second will not receive benefits but these days anyone who is out of a job suffers.

Of course this does mean we need to actually teach people in schools about contraception and actually punish people who are too stupid to realise having sex means getting pregnant unless they use contraceptives. 


Tax threshold raised from £10,800, to £11,000 next April. What will we do with the extra £1 a week, a pint of beer, no beer is too expensive for that, maybe a bag of crisps. Now sarcasm aside this is a tiny but welcome move but it’s not enough. The tax threshold should be set to only hit people who are working full time at the real living wage. As it stands people who are struggling on low wages, part time jobs, zero hours exploitation and the like are unlikely to even notice this change and the loss of tax credits over the next few years will be higher than the gain from this even with the minimum wage increase for people on less than full time jobs.


Student grants become loans. The student Grant system was to support poorer students and allow them to attend universities where they couldn’t afford to travel away from home to do so. Now it’s a loan NOT a grant, meaning the government wants it back once the student gets a well paying job which at present is £17,335 a year.  This means that with university fees of £9,000 a year and now the student loan of £3,387 together come to £12,387 a year. A three year degree would leave a student from a less well off household £37,161 in debt before they even start work. A four year degree will leave a student with debts of at least £49,548 and probably more given that Universities are now allowed to increase what they charge in line with inflation.

This steady increase in the cost of education threatens to stop the poor from going to university, a return to the old days when only the wealthy would send their children to university and the poor families went to work in the fields and the factories.

Oh and good luck getting a mortgage and moving onto the housing ladder with fifty grand in debts hanging over your head before you even look at a deposit.


Public sector pay restricted to 1% for the next four years. Coming as this does on the back of years of pay freezes for the public sector workers this is going to hurt. While inflation is low at present the cost of living still goes up meaning that this represents a pay cut over the years.

This means that the nurse working long hours to care for you in hospital, the fireman who risks his life to put out fires (and is already facing being sacked and losing his pension because of the age changes meaning he must work till 60 but still take compulsory fitness tests that he cannot pass at that age and so loses his job AND pension) and save you or your family, the police who risk themselves to keep the streets more or less safe and even the pen pushers that we all hate to deal with. They are looking at the amount of money they have to spend each year falling steadily in real terms.

At some point a sense of duty is replaced by a 'my job isn’t worth this' attitude and the nurses stop caring, the firemen are slow to respond and no longer risk themselves to save property and the police step aside from the nutter with the knife or just shoot him rather than trying to stop him.

All of the emergency services have faced cutbacks, budgets slashed, large numbers of layoffs, now they are looking at another four years of their effective pay going down year on year.

At some point this is going to reach the point where the public sector says enough is enough, then we call the police and get G4S or call for an ambulance / fire engine and get the lowest bidder private sector responder (eventually).

There is going to come a point where people get angry enough at the inequality and the Dickensian way that the majority of the population is treated, when the lynch mobs come for the government Osborne may come to regret this as the police decide they have far more in common with the mob and no loyalty to the people who have cut their pay year after year and so step aside and wave the mob in.

But as long as it happens slowly, drip by drip, the Tories hope people never get that angry because each year is only slightly worse than the year before and people forget back in the good old days when they could afford a few luxuries or that holiday.


Finally the highlight of the budget and the thing that has the Tory friendly media crowing in triumph, the new National Living Wage. This will come into effect at the beginning of the next financial year, April 2016 and it starts at £7.20 rising to £9.00 in 2020.

Wow, a new, legally compulsory, National Living Wage, be still my beating heart.

Firstly and most importantly THIS IS NOT A LIVING WAGE!

It’s a rebrand of the national minimum wage which has been increased a little with a promise of further increases in the future. Today the ‘Living Wage’, that is the wage considered the lowest required for a person to live rather than exist is outside of London is set at £7.85 (in London its £9.15). This figure does NOT include benefits, tax credits, child support and a host of other things that can be and are claimed by people.

But coming as it does alongside a freeze on some benefits and a cut on others the actual living wage is going to be higher still and this new National Living Wage is going to be some way below what is actually needed to live rather than survive.

Note that the £7.20 next April is fixed but the £9.00 in 2020 is a government objective and did not seem to be guaranteed. Osborne said the Low Pay Commission will recommend future rises that achieve the government’s objective of £9.00 an hour in 2020. Objective, as in subject to changes, something they are aiming for not guaranteeing.

An increase in the minimum wage is welcome, it will help several million people by giving them a pay rise and if this does rise steadily it will continue to help people but over the next few years as the benefit freeze takes effect and people start to feel the cut backs is it enough to leave the poorest better off or worse off? People using the Better / Worse calculators are not looking happy when they look at their income over the next five years.

If IDS is this happy about the new National Living Wage we should all be worried.

Why re brand the minimum wage as the national living wage except to cover up the lack of a 'living wage'. £7.20 is below the living wage as it is considered today and no mention of London workers so it's basically a name change and a small increase in the minimum wage but is being hyped as a massive thing, which it doesn't seem to be.


Now the government sets the living wage and at £7.20 it's below what is considered the wage required to live on. But by calling it the living wage they have stolen the name and released the pressure on all those corporations who were refusing to pay more than the absolute minimum or play games with zero hours contracts.


Still there is some good news for the under 25s. If you live at home with your mum and don’t even dream about going to university or bettering yourself you are going to find yourself very popular with employers.

I foresee lots and lots of jobs for the under 25s. Of course you are going to be paid a terrible wage and exploited at every turn since the new National Living Wage doesn’t apply to the under 25s making you very cheap to employ. It’s bad enough now with hidden ageism in the job market but next April, Oi Vey, the over forties who don’t have some unique or in demand skill should make plans to kill themselves and remove the expense from society because there will be sod all jobs for them and no benefits if they are out of work and out of luck.


We have lived through five years of Austerity where the poor have been punished for being poor, the sick have been punished for being sick and the needy have been treated like criminals. What this budget says is that the next four years are going to be more of the same, the less well off suffering while the better off are barely touched or actually benefit from the changes.

Four more years of benefit freeze combined with four more years of wage freeze along with all the little tricks such as calculating benefits and wages against the the consumer price index rather than against the consistently higher retail price index mean and the way in which the poor, unemployed and disabled are still being treated means that the next four years are going to as harsh as the last four.


Of course everyone will get a few trinkets and shinnies just before the next election to get them to vote Tory but between now and then it's not going to be good for those who aren't well off.


Oh and as for the restrictions on Tax avoidance, riiiight, lets see that happen then. Non Doms, damn, they are going to have to call in the accountants and transfer everything into an off shore company so they can LEGALLY avoid the tax rather than just use their non domiciled status.

Landlords and buy to let, yep, only rich people are allowed to be landlords. can't have the poor people becoming property magnets or getting ideas above their station.

Overall, its a pure Tory budget, I didn't expect it to be kind or help the poor but it could have been worse.





Which sums up the Tories really, the best you can say about them is: No matter how bad it is, it could have been worse!

Budget day today. A lot of leaks telling us what to expect but at 12:30 today we will learn just how bad things are going to be. TV news is already talking about slowing the rate of cuts to benefits, maybe there has been a bit of a panic and the Ministry of Truth has been having words with the Ministry of Plenty about just how much can be covered up by propaganda before the proles get uppity.

We are hearing about cuts to working tax credits, a lower outside of London benefit cap and children, teenagers and the under 25s taking it in the neck. The truth will be revealed this afternoon.


In the mean time I want to talk about a scheme that is being used here in the UK and to a greater degree in Greece in order to effect a massive wealth transfer from the poor to the rich, they call this AUSTERITY and it is one of the most cruel economic policies I have ever seen. It is a cruel and utterly vindictive policy.

To support Austerity you are either a self servicing, heartless bastard, determined to fund your corporate and banking masters regardless of the consequences to the poor, scum sucking bottom feeder OR you are unbelievably naive fool, blinkered to the demonstrated results, dedicated to the party politics regardless of the suffering caused and stupid.

I know which one I think the Tories are.


A healthy economy is one in which wealth is active and mobile across the entire population. Without the constant flow of wealth internally an economy becomes stagnant and if this is allowed to continue it becomes toxic and lethal to the people within it.


Suppose one thousand people had £1,000 each. They use it to pay rent or mortgages, buy food and clothing, buy a DVD or two, buy a book, go to the cinema and otherwise keep that money flowing across all sectors.

The shops are selling goods so can afford to pay staff, these staff then have money that they can use to pay bills and buy stuff. The shops can also buy new things to sell. The suppliers and manufacturers are having things bought by the shops so they can afford to pay staff who then have money to go out and use to pay bills and buy things with. Raw materials providers are producing stuff that the manufacturers want so they can pay their staff and on and on it goes.

The wealth of the economy is active and mobile, being used again and again by many people.

Now consider that 999 people had £1 each and one person had £999,001. The people with £1 each can’t pay the bills or go shopping so they spend as little as they can survive on and put whatever change they have left in the mattress.

The one person with all the money pays his bills, maybe he has a big house and his bills are ten times what the little people pay, he buys clothing and food, again he spends more because he goes in the expensive shop and pays more, he buys 10 expensive DVDs and three expensive books and goes to the cinema three times.

The shop selling DVDs sells 10 expensive DVDs instead of a 1,000 cheap ones, so they can’t pay their staff and let them go, more people with no money to spend. The shop can’t afford to buy more DVDs so the film makers run into problems because they can’t afford to make more film, they get rid of the actors and the camera and sound people who become more people with no money. The cinema has to stop putting on shows except when the rich person will visit because one rich person isn’t the same as a 1,000 regular visitors, more staff laid off, more people with no money to spend.


Both of these economies have exactly the same wealth and the same number of people.

Which one do you think is healthy and which one is stagnant?


Yes I know this is a simplification, get over it, I'm not writing for people with economy degrees!


In terms of the situation in Greece and to a lesser degree in the UK. Austerity is being used to make the tax payers and the non tax payers pay for the risks that the banks took with the economies of those nations.

The thing with a risk is, it’s a risk. Your money can go up or go down, that’s why they call it a risk. But our system has changed to one where governments jump in to cover the risk and any loss that a bank may make while leaving the bank to reap the gains. In fact since we have banks putting forward the money to pay off the losses of other banks THEN charging interest on that money that the population is forced to pay, all the banks win and all the populations lose.

The IMF is making a profit from the suffering and Austerity in Greece just as UK banks that were bailed out and then paid for by the population profited from the deal.

Governments are removing all of the risk from banks taking risks, so in an entirely expected move, banks take more risks, because they know governments will bail them out and the populations of countries will be forced to pay for those bail outs. Either from tax money or cuts in benefits through Austerity the population pays.

The Greek PM said just this this morning when he was speaking to the European vultures, sorry leaders. The vast majority of the bail out the Greeks are being forced through years of austerity to pay off never went anywhere near the actual Greek people.


What Austerity does is deliberately stagnates an economy. Call it Trickle down, call it Austerity, call it rob the poor to pay the rich, it’s all the same thing. Money is concentrated and becomes stagnant, banks and corporations moving trillions around as magic money, digital cash, photons on a screen that never tough the real economy and do nothing other than sit on a screen. Government tax incomes fall because the people paying tax earn less so pay less tax while those earning more don’t pay tax anyway.

An economy can grow only if it’s healthy and that means the wealth is active and mobile at every level, the entire population has some money and spends it while earning more, shops and businesses have customers so they can pay staff who then have money. On and on it goes, a never ending cycle of earn and spend. Trickle UP, money flowing in all directions, rich people still being rich but they are making money because it is coming up from below rather than catching the money that falls from above and holding all of the wealth.


Osbourne has already announced that he is changing how the self employed and categorised so working tax credits will be denied to hundreds of thousands of self employed people, rumours are that he is going to reduce it or restrict it to the fully employed as well.

Currently five million people claim working tax credits, this number was three million when the Tories came to power in 2010, an increase of 2 million people, by coincidence 2 million is how many jobs the Tories claim to have created over the last five years they have been in power!

So more people will have less money. Yes Carl that means the government will be spending less money.

But that money while active goes through a lot of hands and every time it does the government get their share in taxes and levies.

Earn a wage or get a benefit. Spend that and pay VAT, buy alcohol, petrol or cigarettes, pay the levy, the places you spend that money pay tax, they pay their staff who go out and buy stuff while paying VAT and tax and levies. The shops buy new stock from suppliers who pay tax and pay staff who buy things while paying VAT and taxes.

If the population as a whole is spending less money and making less money then less tax is being paid and more people are out of work and needing benefits which are cut more and more leaving the poor even poorer and spending less. The cycle goes on.


Tokens like increasing the tax threshold at the bottom mean nothing when so many millions don’t earn anywhere near enough to even reach the £10 or £12 thousand pounds it is set at. Tax breaks for the rich people so they can hold more wealth and stagnate the economy even faster don’t help much either. 

Statements about living wages ring hollow when so few companies will pay it and that includes government departments that don’t pay it either.

Solving the problem of a stagnant economy is difficult but it must involve making the wealth move and flow, further restricting the wealth by making the poor poorer will lead to a toxic economy that will become fatal to far too many people within it.

Austerity isn’t a way of making an economy healthy, it is almost purpose built to create a stagnant economy by transferring wealth from those who spend it to those who do not spend it. 




Which is why I think you need to be a bastard or an idiot to support Austerity.

Yet again my life as one of the benefit parasites, the unemployed scum that through fraud and bone idleness cost those ‘Hard working Tax Payers’ so much money has walked up and kicked me in the face.

I’ve been told I am going to be sanctioned. I was told this morning as I went in to sign on, or more correctly I had signed on and walked out of the Jobcentre when my phone rang and it was the lady I had just spoken to telling me I was to be sanctioned.

She didn’t know if it would be in effect for next week or when it would start, nor did she know how long it would last. All she knew was that I was to be sanctioned and it was because the back to work company I am required to attend meeting with, Prospects, had sent in a form saying I was not meeting my requirement to apply for jobs.

To say I was angry, and still am, doesn’t begin to cover it. I walked into the Prospects offices and spoke at some length and with some swearing to my assigned Prospects adviser. Who didn’t know anything about it.

He checked my records and files. Nothing. No reason for the sanction, no notice that Prospects had asked for me to be sanctioned. Nothing. Not a single thing.



NOT ONE BLOODY THING!


Every meeting they tell me to attend, every training course, every CV review, every interview techniques or job searching course. I attend them all. Every hoop, I have jumped through it. Not one single reason why I was being sanctioned.

So he called the Jobcentre and they came back with some more details.

And the whole Situation FUCKING WELL STINKS !

Excuse my language.


A few weeks ago I was told there were job interviews being held for a company called The Range and that Prospects were short of people to attend, they had empty interview spots. So I asked what the job was, I was told they were recruiting Admin, tech support, management and supervisors, helpdesk, sales and security.

I WAS TOLD to attend the interview and to ask about specific rolls there as Prospects didn’t have any other information. So that’s what I did.


The interview was the following day, I arrived, shirt and tie and clean shoes. I sat in the waiting area till I was called.

The first thing I was asked was what I could bring to the job. So I explained that I didn’t know what the roll was and had been told to ask the interviewer which I duly did. His response what that his sheet of questions was a bit useless then. Instead he asked did I have a CV as he hadn’t seen one for me.

I gave him a CV and we went through it, I gave more details on a few jobs and when he asked about the period where I was undergoing physiotherapy I explained about my injury and how it restricted what I could do.

Then he went back to questions on his sheet and I apologised because I couldn’t give him specific details without knowing what the job was. Finally he said the only jobs they were recruiting for were shop floor jobs so I asked what they involved, when he explained the four plus hours of standing on the shop floor and the shelf stacking, lifting of boxes and other things that I couldn’t do without pain or risking further injury I explained again what I could and could not do.

We talked a bit more about things that I could do but in the end it came down to the unavoidable fact that I was physically unable to do the job. I even apologised for wasting his time because I couldn’t do the job. Because I’m like that. Polite and helpful.

He agreed the job wasn’t for me and I left.

He filled in his form and called over the next person to be interviewed.

I heard nothing more and didn’t expect to, I couldn’t do the job, told him so and he agreed.


Then today arrived and after my Prospects rep pushed for information as to why Prospects had filed in a form WP10 to have me sanctioned I got an explanation.

It seems that when he filled in his form after I left he ticked a box about how enthusiastic I had been about the job and he ticked not enthusiastic.


NOT ENTHUSIASTIC.


About a job I was physically unable to do, about a roll that he wouldn’t explain to me until more than five minutes into the interview. About an interview where I was honest about my limitations but otherwise answered his questions as well as I could with all the information he asked for.


NOT ENTHUSIASTIC.


This single box tick went through the Jobcentre system and was sent back to prospects who had sent me to the interview with a notice that I had been ‘NOT ENTHUSIASTIC’ and requesting that Prospects submit a form WP10 . The form was duly filled in reporting me as being in violation of my requirement to apply for work and that was it.



SANCTIONED !

 

No one spoke to me at any stage, no one asked me anything or questioned the situation. A box was ticked, the system went through the motions and now I’m waiting to find out if my Prospects rep can get this whole thing stopped. If not then it’s how long the sanction is for and me having to appeal against it.

I have just come from the Prospects office, my rep is going to chase and has phoned and sent an email explaining my side of the situation. He will do what he can but if I don’t hear from him this afternoon I am going back in tomorrow morning when I am, hopefully, in a better state of mine and not swearing or suffering from the urge to punch someone.


So now I wait.


Having been through the threat of sanctioning before because of cycling wearing hi viz I am now back in the same situation. My life out of my control. Stress piled on stress. The black dog sniffing round my legs.

My life turned upside down, torn from my control and thrown into the bin. Because someone ticked a box that said I was NOT ENTHUSIASTIC about I job I was physically unable to perform.



That’s it, this is the system. This is the way we are treated.


Us benefit grabbing scum, the new criminal class that is so hated by our political class and media.





Unemployed and condemned by ticking a box!