A look at the Times; Monday 20th October. Finishing what the Marshall Plan started

Today’s issue is dominated by a large picture of Brad Pitt looking dashing as he adjusts his sunglasses; beneath that whopper is the main headline: Police use loophole to hack phones and email.

I don’t have too much of a problem with this; although I doubt that the government could “force telecoms and computer companies’ to hand over anything. It’s good to know that ‘Civil liberties campaigners’ are working hard to preserve my privacy, but in an age where the bad guys have all sorts of new techniques, I feel an effort must be made to keep up with them.

Next is the secondary headline: ‘Negative’ Cameron is forcing UK out of Europe.

This is almost certainly true; since 1945 the Europeans have endured tantrum after tantrum from our newly humbled island. For Britons, the end of Empire has meant the humiliation of working with other nations like an adult – just imagine! Now is the time to realise that we can’t have it all our own way; or rather 50 years ago. UKIP fails to realise that without our membership of the EU, the ‘English-speaking peoples’ wouldn’t be anywhere near as keen to trade with us.

Speaking of trade with the English-speaking peoples, surely UKIP would be revealed as the empire-nostalgics they really are when, after all their EU huffing and puffing, they failed to make so much as a squeak about TTIP? TTIP stands for the Trans-Atlantic Trade and Investment Partnership. To call it a free-trade deal would be a fallacy, because any existing trade barriers between the US and European countries were removed after the Second World War; such was a condition of the Marshall Plan. To open up our markets to an intrusive, dominating and mundane American brand of Capitalism.

This is an agreement which seeks to re-install corporate fascism in the nations of Europe. Legislation which would threaten the profits of an American corporation would be unacceptable, and the offending government liable to legal action according to the judgement of panels of corporate lawyers. This is a travesty; which until recently has been pieced together under cover of secrecy in the European Commission. George Monbiot, incredibly, was a lone voice calling for greater openness, and warning the citizens of Europe what havoc this agreement would play with their democracies.

Surely we can expect our champions – the real knights in shining armour for British interests in Brussels – to make a fuss about this? Surely we can expect to find something, at least a teeny-weeny article on UKIP’s website, protesting this obscene piece of ultra-national legislation?

Apparently UKIP views regulations on the shape of vegetables, and restrictions on life-damaging smoking habits as more of a threat to our freedoms than TTIP; which after all is something UKIP’s donors (90% of which are former Tories) would cherish. A vote for UKIP is an incredible confidence trick, perpetrated by the enemies of democracy, the enemies of the people, and the champions of international corporations which are anything but ‘proudly British’.

http://www.monbiot.com/2013/12/02/managing-transparency/

Satan announces three-pronged attack upon humanity: Ebola, Isis and Nigel Farage

DAILY MAIL ONLINE: Here’s Mr Farage, showing all kinds of muscle.

 

Speaking at a UN conference last Tuesday, Mr L Satan said: “After the end of the Iraq War, I started to realise that Tony Blair just wasn’t enough. I knew I needed something to really screw them up. Not necessarily death-camp kind of evil, but certainly the kind of evil that restores your country to the middle ages in terms of social outlook and economic activity.”

When asked whether he was worried the British people would see through such a scheme, he chuckled mildly and added: “If you think Mr Farage will be foiled by such novices in the satanic arts as David Cameron and George Osbourne, then you are sadly mistaken. Their kind of evil is okay when you’re whipping your fag at Eton, but they’re playing with the big boys now.”

Mr Farage was said to have replied: “Of course I’m delighted to have been chosen for this exciting new role, and I look forward to working closely alongside my new colleagues-Ebola and ISIS – in order to screw up humanity. We’re meeting next week to brainstorm some ideas, but I’ve got a few started already: How about we install a flat rate of income tax? Surely my new employer, the honourable Mr L Satan will be most pleased with such a transparently self-serving idea? Right, toodle-oo, I’m off to open the award ceremony for Clacton ‘village idiot’- they hold the competition every four years, don’t you know, but this year they’ve had to cut it a bit short, as the former incumbent felt his allegiances were misdirected. Thank God he’s finally come to his senses, and joined the true lunatic party!”

ON A MORE SERIOUS NOTE:

UKIP causes mixed feelings to bubble up. Hope; that they might split a Conservative majority, handing a barely deserved victory to the Labour Party. The next is disgust, at their people, their ethics and their everything. If you had brought the parliament of 1600 into the 21st century, you’d have a collection of far more open-minded and sensible men than you’d have at a UKIP conference.

One thing that’s really interesting about their rise is the extent to which Tory donors have swung round to the right, effectively giving Cameron a kick up the ass for bringing his dirty, “modernising” ideas to a party still firmly under the grip of the aristocracy. Don’t get me wrong; I far prefer the rural gentry to some jumped up ‘entrepreneur’, but my opinion doesn’t decide the matter. Whether the Tory party is permanently broken, it remains to be seen. A part of me dares to hope that Osborne will end his days as a secretary, but the more cynical part of me can’t believe that a party which has stood for 4 centuries as a bulwark of vested interests and reactionism should be so easily dislodged from power.

 

The Heroic John Baron

When Robert Aske agreed to lead the northern peasants who had risen in protest at Henry VIII’s self-absorbed tyranny, he did so knowing full well the risk to his own life. The former soldier John Baron is in no such danger, but I believe his motive is of the same caliber. We need a military that is fit for purpose, the government’s foolish, meaningless and object-defeating cuts have sliced our country bloody, and it must stop here.

The Cold War is something that my generation have little comprehension of, we struggle to understand the lurking threat of nuclear devastation that was so work-a-day to our parents. Stalinism was the main threat to democracy, then. Now we are told that the danger has shifted to Islamic terror. Whether we agree on that or not, there are very few sober people who would advocate entirely getting rid of the military. It is generally respected that a deterrent is needed. Western society might prefer not to dwell too long on the practicalities of that, but most agree that we need defense. Which is why the recent government decision to restructure the army has left me puzzled, rattled and strangely emotive.

To the superficial eye, the government’s program of spending cuts could be seen as necessary, and even decent. A pleasing return to monetary restraint and decorum, so at odds with the lavish hypocrisy of New Labour. David Cameron could be seen as ‘making the hard choices’, sacrificing temporary public image for his country’s future. A real statesman. Finally. Needless to say, this view is not one I share. There are simply too many alternate ways to be recouping public funds than through brutal cuts to the living standards of people who work hardest in Britain. The minimum wage workers are those responsible for keeping our economic system on the tracks, not the millionaires who fund and control the Tory party. Rather than a selfless statesman, I view David Cameron as a puppet of the capitalist class that owns his arse.

Scrapping Trident is one of the most obvious ways to recoup our funds. We will never use our nuclear weapons, and their upkeep undermines our ability to properly fund our health system and our  state school system. Not to mention our conventional defense; ordinary soldiers, ships and aircraft will defend us now. Outside of the Cold War arms-race paradigm, nuclear weapons are redundant rather than imperative.

David Cameron plans to reduce the size of the regular army from 102,000 to 82,000:

This diagram, taken from the BBC website, shows how the army will be reduced by 2020 to a state where it can no longer fight on multiple fronts. We will have to pick and choose our wars more carefully than we are accustomed. The soldier-turned-Tory MP John Baron organized a rebellion against Cameron in an effort to delay the bill. It was defeated by 54 votes, after the government attempted to buy-off several rebels.

Baron’s politics are everything I despise about the Tory party, but I think we agree on this.

Much better qualified to write about these changes are the several hundred ex-marines that I’ve asked to write my next post, including my father. This will be the first time I’ve posted a guest column, and I hope it will be educational for us all.

There is International shock as hated government does NOT go to war to quell its problems

 

International commentators of all shapes and sizes waited with anticipation for David Cameron to go to war in Algeria.

Said one onlooker: ‘Throughout history this has been the pattern, hated leaders, just like David Cameron, have gone to war to gather support from their own people. We see no reason why this jumped-up Old Etonian should break the trend.’

This month the world had a minor stroke as David Cameron did not use the Mali crisis as a chance for war. After the mayhem of that particular incident all were expecting him to make his move now.

*What’s this?*

News just in folks, apparently David Cameron will not go to war to gain popularity. This won’t go down well with Niall Ferguson, I can tell you.

Well, its hard to tell when the international community will recover from this shock, readers, but it won’t be soon.

All around me there is panic and confusion, is this the sort of rebellious attitude we can expect from Cameron in months to come?

I certainly hope not.

MarxistMax

 

 

Tory Cuts, Now and Then

As those of you who read ‘David Cameron is a fool and Nick Clegg is just pathetic’, you will know that I belong to the majority of people in this country who don’t support the current government. And this is mainly because of ther austere economic policies. They claim to be free-market, which is bad enough, but what I don’t understand is, if they are economic libertarians then why do they think that the government saving money should be a priority, if government is  supposed to be as small as possible?

Besides, free market policies have been proven wrong again and again throughout time, there is no way that any rational person could still believe in them if they have been living in Britain for the last thirty years. If you haven’t, then I’ll brief you:

• Margaret Thatcher and her government sold off British civil property in the name of Free Market ideals. The Railways and other basic utilities, that were the property of the British people, were sold off to the highest bidder.
• Markets of all kinds were deregulated, stopping the state from protecting the citizens that elected it from the constant profit drive of the multi nationals.
• Due to the deregulation of finance, Britain is now completely at the mercy of international financial markets, who will upsticks and leave at the slightest sign of an elected government reclaiming power from them.
• Wages have plateaued, whilst the profits of CEOs and major shareholders have skyrocketed, even during a financial crisis.
• And now, you have to really strain your eyes in the Commons to find a political movement with the balls to take back powers from unelected financiers.

The current government is yet again cutting what little civic property we have left in the name of deficit reduction. Which is of course ridiculous, our entire national debt would be wiped out by even the smallest of taxes upon the top earners, the most sensible of which, The Tobin Tax.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/business/2012/jun/24/financial-transaction-tax-rebalance-economy

Which as understand it, would also help slow down capital flows between countries, which is indeed a major problem. The ability of banks to withdraw their short term investment within seconds places elected governments in the palms of the financiers.

MarxistMax

Stop Being Horrible to Posh People

It’s very interesting how in today’s society we victimise people for speaking English properly. Annoying people who use this as an argument against the current government should realise that the ruling classes no longer speak ‘Posh’, how you speak no longer has anything to do with it. There are some members of the elite who sound as if they come from the 1950s East End.

There is nothing wrong with speaking correctly, time ago such a thing was praised. That is absolutely no reason to be intolerant of a person.

David Cameron is a fool, and Nick Clegg is just pathetic

I’m in favour usually of increasing the time gap between the elections, to change the short-term nature of our political system, whereby everything is about getting re-elected and not doing useful things. But I find myself yearning for an end to the ridiculous pantomime that we now see in parliament. We are lead by two elitist neo-liberal idiots and a pathetic, whining liberal who is powerless to stop them. From this point of view the only way I can see of getting out of this mess is for Vince Cable to challenge Nick Clegg for leadership of the liberals, and forge some sort of alliance with the Green Party. And we must ban the myth in this country that the only vehicle for progressive thinking in Great Britain is the Labour Party. For that is lead by the unthinkably laughable Ed Miliband, or ‘Milibean’ as he is jokingly referred to in Private Eye. The Labour Party has been as Tory as the Tories ever since Tony Blair screwed things up. The rise of UKIP is worrying, although it could be worse, the Conservative Party could be losing its right-wing to the BNP. At least UKIP isn’t openly racist. They are, as David Cameron brilliantly called them, ‘closet racists’.

Ever since Margaret Thatcher this country has been obsessed with neo-liberalism, even though it has actually slowed growth down, and any growth that we did get was uneven and increased inequality to unacceptable levels.

Now is the time to……OCCUPY CUPBOARD!!!!!