Keeping up with the increasingly ridiculous Tory government is doing my head in.
It's the end of week 4 ffs and the whole President's Club scandal of entrenched privilege has broken. Carillion was last week's news.
That said, it's a clear indication of the failings of neoliberal capitalism: even the building to house the company's administrators is supposed to be built...by Carillion!
Our very lives are entangled in a concrete spiderweb of nested and entrenched corporate privilege. We are squatters inside our own infrastructure. Our homes belong to people who can decide they don't want us because we don't have the rent they want more of. Our streets are named after slave owners, amusing innuendos (Bell End!), or owned by oligarchs. The places where we do business are owned by people we'd rather not do business with. It's a permanent state of disenfranchisement. We are the ghosts that haunt our homes.
It is clear that the government, under the sinister rat faced slack-eyed mantle of Chris Grayling, another Tory chameleon shifting from one brief to the next like a hungry snake, gave them contracts and money to keep them afloat. They knew full well, because Terrible Theresa was profiting from them, that they were falling apart in the manner most accustomed to capitalism: the top taking the money, spreading it around like STD's at an orgy, while the foundation crumbled financially.
It won't matter, the corporate elite will move on to something else. They will find another host to feed on. They are vampires. Their boss previously had a seat at the government table writing letters to warn people not to vote for Labour because...WE WANT MONEY!
With the benefit of hindsight that appeal couldn't be more obvious: this is OUR racket and you can all fuck off if you think we're going to stop.
Now we're bailing out yet another corporate gangbang - and make no mistake that's what will happen because that's what's been happening. Give these greedy scumbags contracts while begrudging the poor a girocheque in case they spend it on Xbox Strength Lagercider or the Daily Mirror. Let them eat cake while we snort coke.
You can't spell Carillion without Carrion!
Thursday 25 January 2018
Monday 15 January 2018
Week 2
Well, er, actually it's week 3 technically. I just needed the time to get over the shock of...
PROMOTING ESTHER MC-FUCKING-VEY
to the head of the DWP.
What in god's name?
Her illustrious career last time culminated in being booted out of the Wirral constituency she'd been in charge of since 2010 (iirc). During that period she'd managed to offend any right thinking individual who cares about the poor and the social fabric of this society. Her comments during the infamous foodbank debate (the one where IDS walked out, presumably to change his burning pants, and the one where the rest of them brayed and jeered at stories of poverty) were inflammatory and inaccurate. She seems clinically incapable of giving a shit about people, other than her own self promotion.
And now she has power.
Parachuted in to Gideon Osborne's former constituency, the Tory safe seat of Tatton, she's now the head ofone of the the most contentious government department in existence. How on earth has this happened?
Well, in a word, Brexit. This entire reshuffle wasn't chosen by Theresa May, a zombie PM with the authority of an empty crisp packet (and a remainer), but by the hard right Brexiteers she's trying to appease. Why else was David Gauke, a remainer who'd only held the brief for five minutes, removed? It's not as if he wasn't 'on message', not giving a shit about the disastrous effects of Universal Credit (effects Esther, given her previous position in the DWP, is aware of). McVey is a leave supporter and so she's now safely ensconced to narcissistically self aggrandise and continue the government's insane repudiation of the growing apocalypse of evidence against this ridiculous system.
I doubt she's remotely qualified given her tenuous relationship with the truth either.
What more evidence do people need that government does not, cannot, and is not remotely obliged to give a shit about the poor?
I'm sure some other stuff happened, Trump offending people probably, but this has overshadowed all.
PROMOTING ESTHER MC-FUCKING-VEY
to the head of the DWP.
What in god's name?
Her illustrious career last time culminated in being booted out of the Wirral constituency she'd been in charge of since 2010 (iirc). During that period she'd managed to offend any right thinking individual who cares about the poor and the social fabric of this society. Her comments during the infamous foodbank debate (the one where IDS walked out, presumably to change his burning pants, and the one where the rest of them brayed and jeered at stories of poverty) were inflammatory and inaccurate. She seems clinically incapable of giving a shit about people, other than her own self promotion.
And now she has power.
Parachuted in to Gideon Osborne's former constituency, the Tory safe seat of Tatton, she's now the head of
Well, in a word, Brexit. This entire reshuffle wasn't chosen by Theresa May, a zombie PM with the authority of an empty crisp packet (and a remainer), but by the hard right Brexiteers she's trying to appease. Why else was David Gauke, a remainer who'd only held the brief for five minutes, removed? It's not as if he wasn't 'on message', not giving a shit about the disastrous effects of Universal Credit (effects Esther, given her previous position in the DWP, is aware of). McVey is a leave supporter and so she's now safely ensconced to narcissistically self aggrandise and continue the government's insane repudiation of the growing apocalypse of evidence against this ridiculous system.
I doubt she's remotely qualified given her tenuous relationship with the truth either.
What more evidence do people need that government does not, cannot, and is not remotely obliged to give a shit about the poor?
I'm sure some other stuff happened, Trump offending people probably, but this has overshadowed all.
Monday 8 January 2018
Week 1
Toby Young, another product of the misogynist hateful class system of 'Great' Britain, is appointed to a position he merits only by virtue of being a vocal advocate of that misogynist hateful class system. Your children's educational futures will be regulated by a man who thinks that, unless they are as deserving and correctly bred as he, they aren't deserving of one.
Welcome to 2018. It is cold, it is only going to get colder: capitalism allows for seemingly unfettered and eye watering price hikes to desperate users of vital infrastructure. In order to continue doing jobs that, allegedly, propagate what passes for our economy, you now have to pay increasingly more of your increasingly lower wage just to do so. Often have I wondered just how ridiculous it is that people, who need work to live (thanks capitalism!), have to arbitrarily pay to do their job. We are told people need to work, but do nothing to facilitate that. What better example of the iniquity of capitalism than this reality: that people (very rich people with knighthoods) are encouraged to step in and profit from this.
Meanwhile the city streets, slowly devolving back to a tinsel-free state, are increasingly resembling festival campsites the day after. An apocalypse of human life reduced to litter and detritus; people with possibilities all wrapped, inadequately, in dirty sleeping bags and blankets. They age quicker as the weather gets colder, and the Tories grow more callous. It is, apparently, a victory for our mummified PM that, despite the reality of life beyond a normal, ordinary, home, at least kids aren't sleeping on the cold of the pavement. Except for those that are. So that makes it seemingly acceptable to abandon those, such as the appallingly treated Grenfell survivors, to the twilight zone of temporary accommodation. A realm rife with Tory exploitation. No wonder May thinks this is a victory, as she slouches over the dispatch box like it was the only thing keeping her withered bereft skeleton alive.
Across the sea Trump, with his trademark expression of 'I simply don't give a fuck about you' continues to govern via tweet. Apparently he spends increasing amounts of executive ('me' time) watching TV and playing word pinball with social media, hammering out childish streams of insanity like the Twitter equivalent of Howard Hughes. A man increasingly at war with reality desperate to ensure his legacy through his virulent, almost cloned, offspring. Meanwhile millions look set to lose what meagre health care they have, while he turns his sights to the Palestinians, a group of people he seems genetically incapable of sympathy for, while enabling their historic oppressors. The world looks on while Trump's lieutenants stamp their feet and whine in the UN, offering hopefully empty threats to a gallery of people as perplexed as the rest of us.
This week threatens us with the political lottery of a reshuffle. Place your bets, but remember the house always wins. Whoever steers the ship, the course will not change. These people are mere figureheads. While I despise each and every one of them the way Gollum despises hobbitses the truth is they are useless. The reason we here such brazen and stupid proclamations from these people, such as 'Universal Credit is working' is because they will have reality shielded from them. Their underlings will obfuscate the facts with a fog of misrepresentation, statistical miasma, and misdirection. Of course you think Universal Credit is working: you aren't hearing the problems. Not that they would care if they did - except a few, weaker, members of the pride, who of course will be ignored if not excised. All in the name of ideological purity and Tory evolution. We can't show weakness when we are killing the poor.
Who will stay? Who will go? Who cares. Even if the biggest scalp of them all, Jeremy Hunt the administrator of the NHS's continued demise, gets 'reshuffled' there is absolutely no guarantee his successor will reverse the legislation or undo the damage done. At best they might throw out a sop, make a few pining overtures to the increasingly desperate and angry medical community; it will mean nothing. That reality: a medical community beaten down by stress, fermenting in anger and frustration - is that what we want? It is insanity.
As for the support for us plebs on the ground? I await, though not by choice, that dreaded letter telling me my next attempt for a WCA. This will be attempt number three, not that they are keeping score; nor do they care. If it takes three hundred times, that will be what happens. I don't get a free pass because of their incompetence - no matter how it affects me. That just about sums up this whole system: they can screw around people with mental health issues and face no consequence nor any need to feel remotely bad about how they treat people. It's just a clerical error, no worse than forgetting to dot an I or cross a T. That's all you are to them; mere punctuation in the flow of society.
In the meantime the social enterprise I signed up to lat last summer is increasingly looking more and more useless. These people simply have nothing to offer. What seems to be the norm for agencies like these is that you are meant to provide all the answers. You are to be the author of your own solutions and they merely facilitators - up to a point (or cost). There was talk of a 'wellbeing' course, which would be turning up with a couple of other people to listen to cheap self help platitudes from someone who doesn't recognise the reality of the situation: that the cause of a lack of wellbeing in our society is systemic. So what solutions can they offer other than mere 'think positive'? Instead what should be happening is that they discuss and recognise this reality while linking up with similar agencies and groups across the country. That won't happen because it would be seem to be partisan. That is why these groups fail: we need partisan intervention because we face a partisan problem. This isn't just bad luck or feeling the blues, it is the enforced outcome of a deliberate system propagated by a driven few at our expense. If you can't address that then how can you expect to help anyone?
Welcome to 2018. It is cold, it is only going to get colder: capitalism allows for seemingly unfettered and eye watering price hikes to desperate users of vital infrastructure. In order to continue doing jobs that, allegedly, propagate what passes for our economy, you now have to pay increasingly more of your increasingly lower wage just to do so. Often have I wondered just how ridiculous it is that people, who need work to live (thanks capitalism!), have to arbitrarily pay to do their job. We are told people need to work, but do nothing to facilitate that. What better example of the iniquity of capitalism than this reality: that people (very rich people with knighthoods) are encouraged to step in and profit from this.
Meanwhile the city streets, slowly devolving back to a tinsel-free state, are increasingly resembling festival campsites the day after. An apocalypse of human life reduced to litter and detritus; people with possibilities all wrapped, inadequately, in dirty sleeping bags and blankets. They age quicker as the weather gets colder, and the Tories grow more callous. It is, apparently, a victory for our mummified PM that, despite the reality of life beyond a normal, ordinary, home, at least kids aren't sleeping on the cold of the pavement. Except for those that are. So that makes it seemingly acceptable to abandon those, such as the appallingly treated Grenfell survivors, to the twilight zone of temporary accommodation. A realm rife with Tory exploitation. No wonder May thinks this is a victory, as she slouches over the dispatch box like it was the only thing keeping her withered bereft skeleton alive.
Across the sea Trump, with his trademark expression of 'I simply don't give a fuck about you' continues to govern via tweet. Apparently he spends increasing amounts of executive ('me' time) watching TV and playing word pinball with social media, hammering out childish streams of insanity like the Twitter equivalent of Howard Hughes. A man increasingly at war with reality desperate to ensure his legacy through his virulent, almost cloned, offspring. Meanwhile millions look set to lose what meagre health care they have, while he turns his sights to the Palestinians, a group of people he seems genetically incapable of sympathy for, while enabling their historic oppressors. The world looks on while Trump's lieutenants stamp their feet and whine in the UN, offering hopefully empty threats to a gallery of people as perplexed as the rest of us.
This week threatens us with the political lottery of a reshuffle. Place your bets, but remember the house always wins. Whoever steers the ship, the course will not change. These people are mere figureheads. While I despise each and every one of them the way Gollum despises hobbitses the truth is they are useless. The reason we here such brazen and stupid proclamations from these people, such as 'Universal Credit is working' is because they will have reality shielded from them. Their underlings will obfuscate the facts with a fog of misrepresentation, statistical miasma, and misdirection. Of course you think Universal Credit is working: you aren't hearing the problems. Not that they would care if they did - except a few, weaker, members of the pride, who of course will be ignored if not excised. All in the name of ideological purity and Tory evolution. We can't show weakness when we are killing the poor.
Who will stay? Who will go? Who cares. Even if the biggest scalp of them all, Jeremy Hunt the administrator of the NHS's continued demise, gets 'reshuffled' there is absolutely no guarantee his successor will reverse the legislation or undo the damage done. At best they might throw out a sop, make a few pining overtures to the increasingly desperate and angry medical community; it will mean nothing. That reality: a medical community beaten down by stress, fermenting in anger and frustration - is that what we want? It is insanity.
As for the support for us plebs on the ground? I await, though not by choice, that dreaded letter telling me my next attempt for a WCA. This will be attempt number three, not that they are keeping score; nor do they care. If it takes three hundred times, that will be what happens. I don't get a free pass because of their incompetence - no matter how it affects me. That just about sums up this whole system: they can screw around people with mental health issues and face no consequence nor any need to feel remotely bad about how they treat people. It's just a clerical error, no worse than forgetting to dot an I or cross a T. That's all you are to them; mere punctuation in the flow of society.
In the meantime the social enterprise I signed up to lat last summer is increasingly looking more and more useless. These people simply have nothing to offer. What seems to be the norm for agencies like these is that you are meant to provide all the answers. You are to be the author of your own solutions and they merely facilitators - up to a point (or cost). There was talk of a 'wellbeing' course, which would be turning up with a couple of other people to listen to cheap self help platitudes from someone who doesn't recognise the reality of the situation: that the cause of a lack of wellbeing in our society is systemic. So what solutions can they offer other than mere 'think positive'? Instead what should be happening is that they discuss and recognise this reality while linking up with similar agencies and groups across the country. That won't happen because it would be seem to be partisan. That is why these groups fail: we need partisan intervention because we face a partisan problem. This isn't just bad luck or feeling the blues, it is the enforced outcome of a deliberate system propagated by a driven few at our expense. If you can't address that then how can you expect to help anyone?
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