Tridentine2013

So you’re not political, you say? But I’m not quite sure what ‘not being political’ actually means. I suppose that it is something like getting on with your life, not troubling yourself with the decisions taken by those who ‘represent you’, or act on your behalf?

But I’ll tell you what is political, even when you are not; a billion. Billions are always political. From the other 7 billion people on the planet, many of whom have good reasons to be political, if only to try to ensure we all have a planet not to be political on, to the £100 billion cost of Trident over its lifetime, billions are most definitely political.

Now £15 in your purse or wallet, doubtless gets spent where you choose to spend it. (So far as you have a choice …) Annually our government spends £11,500 per person (per capita). Married, with two kids, (which I will call a family) that’s £46,000 spent on your behalf. And to not be ‘political’ is to choose not to be involved in how it gets spent. And whenever you hear about a billion pounds being spent, or added to a budget, that equates to around £15 for each man woman and child in the UK, and that includes you and I. 

Currently around £2,200 per head is spent on the NHS each year, which is the most ‘socialist’ of expenditure; it is spent with the intention of offering free ‘cradle to grave’ medical protection for every citizen, on the basis of need. At the same time £666.00 is roughly how much is spent ‘per capita’ on ‘defence’. And that Trident figure? £1492.00 will be spent on a ‘nuclear deterrent’, on your behalf, which is intended never to be used? Is it ‘political’ to question this expenditure? Certainly. £1492.00 (almost £6000 per family) is currently projected to be spent on a ‘defence’ system which only four countries in the world feel the need to hold as an active part of their defence strategy. Are there actually good arguments as to why our existing weapons should be maintained as ‘operational’? Not even China has or feels the need for currently operational nuclear weapons.

You’re not political; but you send your children to School? £1231 per citizen is the cost of our education system. Being political is to wish to have some say over for example, spending less on the means to kill people in other countries, and more on educating our children, or looking after our sick.

Next time you hear about a billion being added or deducted from some budget or another, remember, £15 of it is being spent exclusively on your behalf. You may or may not travel on our railways, but £165 of the total cost of running a ‘private’ railway system is spent on your behalf. Mum, Dad and two kids, that’s £660 each year spent on providing a physical and administrative infrastructure for private businesses to charge you up to 50p per mile to travel on the system and network your government has financed.

The £792 billion government budget in 2018 (that’s over £11,600 spent on your behalf, in a year) is spent in a variety of ways which it is extremely unlikely matches any single citizen’s priorities exactly. Being political is basically about wanting to have a voice in how that money is spent. To be political is to understand the proper context of ‘we can’t afford it …’ Unless you agree entirely with all of the government’s spending plans, this statement always means ‘we have other priorities’.

Being political does not mean that you must have opinions about Boris Johnson which aren’t about his hair, or about Theresa May which aren’t about her dancing abilities, or her shoes. Did you choose to be born black or white, rich or poor, gay or straight? Did you choose to be born Christian, or British or whatever other way you separate your personal identity from others? Suppose that you and a group of people had to decide on the principles that would establish a new society. However, none of you know anything about who you will be in that society. Elements such as your race, income level, sex, gender, religion, and personal preferences are all unknown to you. After you decide on those principles, you will then be turned out into the society you established.

The answer to how you would choose to order that society is questioned by John Rawls, in his ‘veil of ignorance’ thought experiment. He suggests that we would all try to create a fair society with equal rights and economic security, both out of moral considerations, and as a means to secure the best possible personal ‘worst-case scenario’. If you did not know which gender you would be born into, would you order a society which favoured males?  If you did not know which race you would be born into, would you order a society which favoured one race over another?

Would your social order include 8.4 million people, including 4.5 million children meeting the current definition of ‘in poverty’ in the UK? Would it include taking vitally needed resources from the disabled, or 300,000 people living without a permanent home?

Being political is to believe that society you are a part of should better reflect the values you employed in designing a ’just’ society whilst blinds to your role or position in it. And the great thing about living in a democratic society is that it is designed to be capable of transforming itself based on the will of its members. This is the truest measure of a free society. Not being political, in a democratic society, is to disregard a valuable accident of birth. Just like all the other choices you did not make, you also did not choose to be born into a democracy; but since you were, and since this society is probably very different from the model you would have created for Rawls, is it not a missed opportunity to not at least put your tick next to the candidate for the party which shows most concern for the ideas of justice and fairness which you would personally hold to?  

There can be something of the nature of a ‘blunt instrument’ about the measurement of the economic performance of a state merely in terms of GDP. In Bhutan, for example, the measure which interests and informs the government regarding its progress, and the overall well being of its citizens, is its ‘Gross National Happiness’ index. Whatever its form, it is heart-warming to believe that there is a government anywhere which measures its performance by such an index.

Although we do not measure Gross National Happiness, we do put much stock in Gross Domestic Product, which demonstrably has no direct correlation to the happiness of a nation’s citizens.  Internationally standardising a more sophisticated and informative measure than GDP would tell us a lot more about who is benefitting from the growth, and to what extent it is impacting environmental issues which ultimately affect all nations.

The Inclusive Development Index (IDI) is billed as a measure of how countries perform on eleven dimensions of economic progress in addition to GDP. It has three pillars; growth and development; inclusion and inter-generational equity – sustainable stewardship of natural and financial resources. The IDI ‘league tables’ were reported on at the World Economic Forum held recently in Davos. The following diagram (fig 1) is a schematic of the key elements of each pillar.

Fig 1.

The actual tables derived from using IDI KPI’s make for absorbing reading; the ‘inclusion’ pillar I find particularly informative. Not to say that all measures are not important, but the quality score in the inclusion pillar, essentially measures equality (or more often inequality) between citizens, with the inherent underlying principle that equal=good. Now this only becomes particularly good news when two things are true. 1) IDI bis adopted as a standard measure, and 2) we actually care where on the performance chart we appear. The current assessments place us 21^st on this measure, with the US in 23^rd place.

Fundamentally IDI is promoting improvements in the following as positive development;

In ‘Growth and development’

·         GDP

·         Employment levels

·         GDP per capita

·         Life expectancy growth

In ‘Inclusion’

·         Median Income per household (although a banded mode might be more appropriate)

·         Poverty rate

·         Income Gini coefficient

·         Wealth Gini coefficient

(The Income and Wealth ‘Gini’ figures are statistical analyses of income and wealth distribution (and inevitably inequality))

The following chart tracks the Gini index in the UK, 1960 to 2009. It demonstrates a strong trend towards greater inequality, most dramatically from the late 1970s.

Fig 2.

In ‘Intergenerational Equity and Sustainability’

·         Public Debt (as share of GDP)

·         Adjusted (for value) net savings

·         Intergenerational ‘dependency’ (or self-sufficiency throughout lifetime)

·         Carbon intensity of GDP (will we be leaving a viable planet for future generations? Are we contributing to sustainability or to depletion of natural resources?)

The actual statistics in the IDI chart (fig 3.) make interesting reading for anyone interested in objective assessment of international performance; particularly regarding the socio-economic design of the best performing countries.

Social Democracies and Democratic Socialist states perform particularly well, with Norway, Iceland, Luxembourg, Denmark, Sweden, Netherlands and Ireland all in the top ten. From 11^th place (Finland), through Germany, New Zealand and Belgium in 14^th, the high-ranking states have much in the way of social end economic policy for Jeremy Corbyn to be envious of. And yet in the USA (23^rd place) and the UK (21^st place) the mantra of free market capitalism persists. Ergo, I can’t see this government making too much of this nevertheless excellent measure anytime soon.

Ok, so you hate Jeremy Corbyn; but what if you are wrong to?

I get it. You are furious that a major political party in the UK has a leader who is an ‘IRA sympathiser’. Incensed that he is ‘weak’ on defence; a pacifist. Enraged that he didn’t sing the national anthem that time … boiling mad that he didn’t campaign effectively for ‘remain’, and that he is a Marxist puppet of the troublemaker trades unions, who cosies up to extremists and wants to borrow even more money which we ‘cannot afford’, especially since Labour already ‘crashed the economy’, and are not fiscally competent. He voted time and again against anti-terror legislation, wouldn’t push the nuclear button, isn’t a royalist, and wants to tax your home, your garden, your work and your inheritance. He’s scruffy, he’s an enemy of business, and he supports uncontrolled immigration. You know this, because everyone knows. Everyone except the barmy army of dupes and gulls who hang on his every word like brainwashed sheep. But what if you are wrong? What might you be passing up by holding to ‘your views’, because the media you trust have exposed these truths time after time?

Let’s address the issue of most concern to many, Corbyn the terrorist sympathiser and appeaser. In this context, the IRA issue is pre-eminent. I dare to suggest that most British people not living in Northern Ireland have a very limited grasp of the politics of Ireland, little understanding of the period from William of Orange to the Easter Rising, or the ‘Anglo Irish Treaty’, the establishment of the Irish Free State, or what precipitated ‘The Troubles’ from the mid-1960s to 1998. But that is not important. What is important is that you know that the IRA murdered and bombed their way around the six counties and the mainland for many years, inflicting harm on innocent civilians along the way. And that anyone who showed support for them was obviously anti-British, and by definition a terrorist sympathiser. Do you believe then, that it is ‘not the British way’ to try to find a solution to a 20-year-old guerrilla conflict, which might bring the killings to an end? Some of you may remember Margaret Thatcher proclaiming that the British Government would “… never negotiate with terrorists”. But in 2011 cabinet papers were released which showed that in 1981 she did just that, during the ‘hunger strikes’. But she was not the first; in 1969, the British Army met senior figures in the IRA. In 1971, they met again in secret talks. In 1972 Irish Labour Party politicians acted as a ‘conduit’ for talks between the IRA and Reginald Maudling of the Conservative government of the UK. Later in 1972 MI6, the UK Government, and the British Army held talks in N.I. and subsequently the IRA ‘top brass’ were flown to secret talks in London. This trip included Martin McGuiness and Gerry Adams. Willie Whitelaw represented the British Government, led by Conservative Prime Minister Edward Heath. From 1973 to 1976 many more secret talks were held. In 1977 Douglas Hurd met Gerry Adams and Danny Morrison. These secret ‘back channel’ communications were not suspended until 1982. And the it gets interesting. In 1983 Ken Livingstone met with Gerry Adams in Belfast, which led to an invitation to the Palace of Westminster in 1984, extended by Livingstone and fellow MP Jeremy Corbyn. In 1986 Gerry Adams MP, president of Sinn Féin, and Tom King MP, the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland, entered into secret correspondence, carried out by intermediaries. With the approval of prime minister Margaret Thatcher, King lays out the UK’s position for negotiations. Livingstone, Corbyn, and many other Labour and Tory politicians had come to the view that a military solution was not possible. In 1988 James M. Glover, former Commander-in-Chief of the UK Land Forces, admitted during television documentary that the Irish Republican Army cannot be defeated militarily, and the most rational period of the entire troubles followed, 1989 to 1994, known historically as the peace process period, beginning under Thatcher in which (1991 on) the British Government held regular covert talks with the IRA which ultimately led to the 1999 ceasefire, and eventually the Good Friday Agreement. Jeremy Corbyn’s role was perhaps minor, but it was, in contrast to many politicians, open and honest. It was, in keeping with Corbyn’s political beliefs, an attempt to explore the opportunities for peace.

But he definitely didn’t sing the National Anthem though …   that much is true. Jeremy Corbyn is a democrat and a republican. And definitely a man of principle. A man of peace. He sat in silent contemplation, reflecting perhaps on the horrors of war; who can actually say?

But do we prefer armies of politicians who fiddle their expenses, avoid tax, break promises, lie in court, ’employ’ family members as researchers or office managers, take money from ‘lobbyists’ or in countless ways abuse their position and privilege, so long as they sing the National Anthem? Liam Fox for example, our current Conservative Secretary of State for International Trade. Who had to repay over £22,000 of falsely claimed mortgage expenses, and claimed £19,000 in 4 years in ‘mobile phone charges’. Liam Fox who failed to declare several trips abroad paid by foreign governments, who simultaneously rented out his London home whilst claiming the cost of living in rented accommodation (£19,000) from the state. Liam Fox who took his close male friend Adam Werrity to MOD meetings with foreign dignitaries at the taxpayer’s expense, even though Werrity had no security clearance. I bet he would sing the National Anthem with gusto.

What Jeremy Corbyn did do however, apart from not sing the National Anthem, was to stay talking with ex-service veterans, while the other ‘dignitaries’ at the Remembrance Day event went off for a taxpayer funded slap up lunch. To suggest that you would rather he had simply sung the National Anthem ‘out of respect’ is to endorse the Liam Foxxes of this world. To imply that it is ok to act abominably so long as you give the appearance of having the interests your country, not naked self-interest as your primary motivation. This affair was actually an example of the kinder, fairer, more honest politics which Jeremy Corbyn seeks to encourage. You may not agree with him in this regard. You may be a ‘patriot and a royalist’. But we have the only National Anthem which conflates support for the royal family with patriotism. Which does not, if god is invoked at all, ask him to favour and protect the nation, instead suggesting he does so by proxy in favouring the monarch, and the monarch’s enduring rule. Is it unpatriotic to be a republican? Is it not possible if you are German, or French, or Irish, to be ‘patriotic’? Jeremy Corbyn is a proud Briton. But he draws that pride from how in our best selves, collectively, we treat all humanity. When we do not invade or destabilise, undermine or subvert other countries for our own economic gain. When we do not attack other nations on false pretexts, when we look after our own, be it our disabled population, or other socially disadvantaged groups … When we show global leadership in human rights. When we improve the entire world by scientific or medical breakthroughs, when we are the best we can be.

But he is a Marxist, and that is reason enough to hate the man with a passion. Except that he isn’t. He just isn’t. I hope that we are agreed he does stand by his principles, whether we agree with them or not? In his over 30 years in politics, he has presented himself as a democratic socialist. The wealth of ‘Marxist and Marxist-Leninist’ groups have never had Corbyn on their membership list. But it’s his policies that mark him out as a Marxist? I cannot go into the technical reasons that Corbyn cannot credibly be argued to be a Marxist, but it is worth remembering that what motivated Marx and Engels was the interests of the working man, and the establishment of a system of economics which offered an alternative to capitalism. Marx believed the capitalist system bore insoluble contradictions, and contained within itself the seeds of its own destruction. In 2008 the inherent flaws of free market economics were laid bare. Marx was in many respects visionary. His ideas about the exploitation of Labour, the primacy, within the system, of those owning the means of production, the problems created by overproduction have become manifest. But that is a separate discussion. The fact is that Jeremy Corbyn is somewhere between a democratic socialist and a social democrat. This should not describe a position on the political spectrum which troubles or scares you unless you are someone who has become hugely wealthy, largely by paying workers considerably less than their labour value. Jeremy Corbyn is a pragmatic socialist, with an objective of progressive, achievable change to a more equitable and rewarding system for the individual worker. He is broadly in line with the theories of Keynesian economics, and fundamentally opposed to the idea that ‘austerity’ is or was a necessary response to the circumstances of the 2008 global crash. Whilst we are on the subject, we might look at some evidence from the Office of National Statistics, regarding the immediate post-crash growth. 

The graphic above charts the actual GDP growth over the period shown. The post-crash trough which bottomed out in 2009 demonstrates that in less than a year from the trough, GDP growth had returned to positive, from a low of -2.4%. From shrinking 2.4%, to shrinking less, (relative growth) to actual positive growth for 3 quarters before the 2010 election. Since then, we see a very stagnant period, with virtually no growth, which looks set to continue into the foreseeable future, due to lack of investment. Yes Corbyn, and Labour would borrow more money, which at historically low interest rates, would be spent in areas of the economy, including infrastructure … building etc., to stimulate economic activity and growth, which (the theory goes) would be more than capable of creating the wealth to meet the increased interest costs, providing a faster paydown of international loans than to meet interest payments by continuing to impoverish the public sector including schools, the NHS, and social care. Corbyn’s Labour seek to create better wages, and a better standard of living for all working people. Even the 5%, or 1 in 20 people who would pay higher taxes will actually earn more collectively, in a better performing economy.

But are Labour not demonstrably, historically worse at running the economy that the Conservatives? You may be surprised, since this is a claim made daily, usually by more than one Tory politician, that it simply does not bear scrutiny. It isn’t true. (1) The Conservatives have been the biggest borrowers over 70 years. (2) Labour have borrowed less and paid back more debt than the Tories even during the ‘Neo-Liberal era’ since 1979. (3) 130 leading economists endorsed Labour’s spending plans as detailed in their 2017 manifesto. Many issues are misrepresented regarding their ‘cost’ to the state of course; the ‘huge’ cost of renationalising key industries such as the railways is a case in point. In this case the systemic change would occur in stages, as the existing franchises expired, the lines will become state owned and operated. In other nationalisations, the principle which applies is that the industry is bought, effectively, with government bonds sold on the debt market providing the funds to purchase the shareholding, either majority or total, and take control thereby of future profits. The obsession with selling off the public sector to private interests, for profit, has been enduring and extensive. And value is extracted from the water, power, and transport sectors, from refuse, prisons, NHS, parts of the Courts System, Police, Care Homes, collection of business rates, Army recruitment, TV licensing, custodial and immigration services, and disability assessment. Do we want or need private companies extracting value (private sector profit) from these services? In many cases nationalised or part nationalised businesses in other states are the ultimate beneficiary.

But he has voted against ‘anti-terror’ legislation time and again, that is true. Does he want terrorists on our streets or something? No. Jeremy Corbyn voted in the main, against anti-terror legislation which was frequently framed to permit definitions of terrorism which impinged on our own rights or civil liberties, against 14 day detention, (so did May), against Control Orders, (so did May), against ID cards, (so did May), against 90 day detention, (so did May), against the Counter Terrorism Act 2008, another attempt to extend detention without charge (to 42 days on this occasion) ,a vote from which May was absent, against TPIMs, which May supported. Do we want our politicians to speak out if they see legislation being proposed which whist having a specific claimed purpose, creates the possibility of loose interpretation or wanton misuse, against our own interests? It is right that our civil rights are front and centre of such debates, and this is the reason why so much ‘anti-terror legislation has been either defeated or considerably amended between readings. Corbyn wants the public to be safe, but from the abuse of process by the state, as well as from terrorism.

But the Unions though, bunch of leftie troublemakers! Maggie sorted them out.  The relationship between Labour and Trade Unions is as old as the Party itself. Trade Unions were once just about the only organised resistance to the systematic abuse of British workers. The Labour Party, originally the Labour Representation Committee, was formed to increase workers’ representation in Parliament, a Parliament made up almost exclusively of the historical ‘powers that be’, the Tories (Conservatives) and the Whigs (Liberals). The function of a trade union is to look after the interests of its members, and that is as true today as it has ever been. The fact that Thatcher era propaganda ‘demonised’ Unions has been entirely to the advantage of business. The Labour Party and the Trade Unions of today, (although stripped of much of the power they once had) are a bulwark against the worst excesses of the exploitation of Labour. If you hold to the Thatcherite view of unions, and are not leading a large corporation, you would do well to study the reality behind the rhetoric.

But the nuclear button. How could we have a Prime Minister who wouldn’t defend us against our enemies? Corbyn doesn’t even want us to have a nuclear capability. He wants to scrap the Trident replacement programme. Jeremy Corbyn has stated, on record, “We want a secure and peaceful world. We achieve that by promoting peace, but also by promoting security”. What he has also said, (in paraphrase) whilst holding to the opinion that all wars are a failure of diplomacy, is that there are circumstances in which he would support military action. But reluctant to send our soldiers to foreign lands to pursue political objectives? Unpersuaded that we have not in the past been too quick to adopt the military option, on occasion embarking on wars which were illegal in international law? Yes, without doubt. So he is someone committed to defending our interests, but in search always of a nonviolent, peaceful, negotiated solution to potential conflict, who approaches military options as a ‘last resort’? I would hope that this approach to defence would be popular with most reasonably minded people.

He is as is well known, a unilateralist. Which means that Britain under Corbyn would be seeking to take the lead in international efforts to bring about an end to nuclear weapons globally. We would pass legislation to dismantle our own nuclear arsenal, and seek to do so whilst leading an international initiative aimed at achieving, by negotiation, a nuclear free world. There is a credible roadmap to nuclear disarmament, and there are options, when such a process is complete, to see that no country develops such a capability again. I would hope that all our descendants are born into a world in which the threat of total annihilation is no longer ever present. Could any of us claim, in circumstances where Jeremy Corbyn is asked to consider authorising the killing of hundreds of thousands of innocent civilians, that as a civilisation we have achieved anything worthwhile? The dogma of mutually assured destruction is outdated. There are simply so many ‘battlefield weapons’, also known as ‘tactical nuclear weapons’, for the M.A.D. logic to remain credible. When generals in the field have access to small, strategic warheads, designed to create tactical advantage by eliminating mere thousands of troops, (and any civilians in the very localised blast zone) we have a recipe for a disastrous escalation.

Jeremy Corbyn is a peacemaker, a military ‘dove’, who wishes to use the position of Leader of the Labour Party and Prime Minister to improve the circumstances of the British people, whilst seeking also to take initiatives to stabilise, and make more peaceful the wider world. Those who seek to convince us that this is ideological and unachievable are frequently those who are in some form benefiting from the huge sums spent each year around the world, on ‘things to kill people with’.  

What you could be passing up, with your determination to not rationally reassess your view of Jeremy Corbyn, is everything you ever dreamed of. For you, your children and your children’s children. This is not hyperbole, this is about the future not just of the UK, but the world. You and I share a world where $1.6 trillion is spent on ‘defence’. The collective means to harm one another. One point six thousand BILLION dollars, at immense cost to the mere seven billion inhabitants of the planet. A stack of dollars, every year, which piled up would stretch over 80,000 miles. Yes, we spend annually, as a civilisation, a pile of money eighty thousand miles high, on stuff to harm one another. Or if stacked on their side, more than three times around the circumference of the earth.I don’t want that to continue, Jeremy Corbyn doesn’t want that to continue, and we neither of us could imagine that you want this to continue. The spend on the collective means to harm one another equates to $240 per head for every living being; 3 billion of whom currently live on less than $2.50 per day. Jeremy Corbyn’s call for talk, diplomacy, consensus, agreement, rather than war, is informed by many things. The most powerful is the idea that we really shouldn’t be killing one another. (378,000 deaths per year attributed to wars during the relatively peaceful 1985 to 1994.) It isn’t a civilised way to behave. But another important factor is the 1.6 thousand billion dollars could be used in so many more humane and socially beneficial ways. In the UK we spend forty five thousand million pounds a year on ‘defence’. And Jeremy Corbyn is not even suggesting a reduction to the ‘defence’ budget. In fact, since the war the Tories have on average reduced the defence budget by 0.5% during each year in power. Labour in power, over the same period, have increased defence spending by 2.4% per year. We can talk later about other ways to spend that money, but for the moment I would like to explain why I am talking in largely global terms, about one party leader, in one country, the UK. It is because a better WORLD is possible.

Jeremy Corbyn is not a figure without parallel in global politics. There are, and have always been leaders of parties or even countries, whose objective has been the best possible future for their people. Senator Bernie Sanders ran a campaign in the US Presidential ‘primaries’ which enjoyed huge (yuge) popular support, for an agenda which promised to give greater power to individual Americans in the process and management of the US political system. He faced seemingly insurmountable odds, not least because of the enormous amount of money needed to even campaign effectively. That he did not win the Democratic Party nomination is largely due to a particularly undemocratic structure within the party’s nomination system. He ran Hilary Clinton almost to the wire, and in the end, it was power and money in the hands of an elite which prevented his election as the Democratic Party Presidential nominee. Sanders also represented a fairer, kinder politics. For the many, not the few, to borrow a phrase.  

Instead, Trump triumphed against Clinton, in a contest which could easily have produced a very different result had the race been between Sanders and Trump. But in a little over 3 years, Americans will return to the polling booths. Were that to coincide with a Jeremy Corbyn Labour Party in power in the UK, the impulse toward real change could become irresistible. If you can begin to imagine a world where the most powerful leaders, of the most powerful countries, were genuinely committed to a peaceful world in which the living and working conditions, the health and fortune of the average person was of primary importance, things could change for the better very quickly.

(1)    http://www.taxresearch.org.uk/Blog/2016/03/13/the-conservatives-have-been-the-biggest-borrowers-over-the-last-70-years/

(2)    http://www.taxresearch.org.uk/Blog/2016/03/14/labour-have-borrowed-less-and-repaid-more-than-the-conservatives-since-1979/

(3)     http://www.primeeconomics.org/articles/guws3cyv3ctq9g7vg754p2zyymvc2f/

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 Before all the Little Englanders get out of shape about ‘remoaners’, I voted leave. I voted leave for very specific reasons, none of which were ‘national sovereignty’ or ‘immigration’. The balance was tipped by my lack of confidence in the long-term EU project; I remain inclined to believe that it will ultimately flounder. I foresaw the potential of huge amounts of money from the major members, including the UK, being thrown at a failing union which would ultimately fall apart. I may be wrong, but that, more than £350 million a week for the NHS, or any other nonsense, informed my vote.

But the game has changed. It is clear, from the negotiations, that we will end up, at best, with a fudge of an ‘exit’, designed to meet the ‘technical’ definition of our leaving the EU, years of ‘transitional arrangements’, a substantial divorce bill, and in many areas a situation once outside, looking in, almost identical to the view from inside, looking out. Leaving the single market but entering a bipartisan agreement which looks a lot like being in the single market. Not actually leaving the EEA is favoured by many. However these elements resolve, Theresa May’s ‘Hard Brexit’ is thankfully dead in the water, and the difference between a ‘Soft Brexit’ and no Brexit at all, is becoming harder to distinguish after each round of talks.

In many ways the whole issue has been mismanaged from the start. Cameron’s referendum promise had more to do with internal Conservative Party politics than with the national interest.The EU offered scope for just one more convenient lie, as to why the ‘immigration down to the tens of thousands’ promise was empty, just like all the other KPI’s on which the PM suggested his performance should be measured.  

Today there appears to be no substantive argument confidently or credibly predicting an economic benefit. Certainly not within the timeframe in which any ‘prediction’ can be plausible. The continued support for leave is little more than the jingoism and obstinate petty nationalism which generates nothing but hollow rhetoric. The huge cost of leaving, and the huge risks to the UK economy for many years, offer far more tangible reasons to remain, and to get behind a reformist agenda such as proposed by DiEM25, than to out of pride, arrogance, or misplaced nationalistic ideals, blunder on into the unknown.

Most people understand the economic benefit of the free movement of labour, and accept that immigrant workers create more in GDP than they cost in state services. The Kippers may well not like hearing this, but their arguments, even their successful ones, were either dog whistle racism, or outright lies. Many people have had time to repent their referendum decision. Pre-Brexit, the most commonly heard statement was ‘we don’t have the information we need to make an informed decision’. Post-Brexit, the sentiment I hear most often described is that ‘If I had known then what I know now, I would have voted to remain’.  I suspect, in fact am strongly convinced that a vote taken today would reflect a national preference to abandon Brexit as a bad job.      

If any statement ever made by Sun Tzu could be said to contain the essence of his philosophy of battle, it is this; “If you know the enemy and know yourself, you need not fear the result of a hundred battles. If you know yourself but not the enemy, for every victory gained you will also suffer a defeat. If you know neither the enemy nor yourself, you will succumb in every battle.”

It is all too easy to stereotype the working class/lower middle class rump on whom the modern Conservative Party rely. As a group they appear persuaded that not only (conveniently) their own best interests, but also broader societal advancement, is best served by the modern Conservative Party. They perceive an authority in matters of the management of state and in fiscal competence, and display a deference to class and privilege, as if such advantages naturally imbued those so endowed with an unquestionable superiority. These are ideas which, whilst in no way borne out be historical facts, are none the less stubbornly embedded in the psyche of the Tory supporting ‘middle and lower orders’.

Two centuries ago, it was exclusively the landed and titled few who dominated the politics of the day. Whether they were Whigs or Tories, it mattered little; they exercised a social hegemony which appeared impervious. The ruling elite was a simple matter of fact. Working people did not have a vote, and any attempt to create mass movements for social change was met with savage opposition. Jeremy Corbyn is known to often quote the last verse of Shelley’s 'Masque of Anarchy’, which was written in response to the 'Peterloo Massacre’, when protestors in Manchester, seeking parliamentary representation,  were cavalry charged,  killing or injuring hundreds of men, women and children. At the time, working people had for over 450 years been statutorily denied representation, collective bargaining, or union membership by the 'Ordinance of Labourers’, enacted in the mid 14^th century. Trade Unions themselves were only decriminalised in 1867. The Second Reform Act, and the right to legally become a member of a trade union, led directly to the necessary idea of 'One Nation Conservatism’.

From Disraeli on, Tory administrations were bound to at least pretend that they were prepared to serve the interests of those to whom the franchise had been extended. It is a matter of historical fact that only such social groups as could influence parliamentary outcomes interested the thoughts of the now 'Conservative Party’.  If workers deaths were too expensive to prevent, they would likely continue. As one of countless examples, white phosphorous, used for matches, was much cheaper than red phosphorus, but also much less safe. Consequently, the cost saving saw generations of working class women and girls in the East End of London suffer horrific health problems. The Bryant and May match factory workers who became of the 'Union of Women Matchworkers’, thirty years before the Suffragettes, were fundamentally significant in the early development of both trades unions, and the Labour movement as a whole.

Women only became truly relevant to the Conservative Party once the Suffragettes finally achieved their aims. So around 100 years ago, after many centuries of struggle, and the sacrifices of both life and liberty, most men, and women over 30, finally had an effective voice in their own circumstances and futures. Yet at this seminal moment in British social history, also arose the hivemind of the 'Twopenny Tories’. Working people, men and women, persuaded that it was the natural order for 'the state’ (which for hundreds of years had been Tories (Conservatives) or Whigs (Liberals), to govern, were if not suspicious of the motives of the Labour Party, at least unconvinced of their abilities, absent any track record. They felt that the 'aspirational’ rhetoric of the Conservative Party best suited their personal desire to stop being poor, and start being rich, blind to, or regardless of, the degree to which the deck was stacked against them. Several generations on now, and particularly amongst the lower middle classes, there is a belief that there is a historical vindication; that indeed the Tories create more employment, more wealth, and are more competent in government. These claims are of course endlessly repeated by Conservative politicians, usually without challenge. Which sadly tends to reinforce the belief that they are incontestable fact.

So we arrive today, at a situation where perhaps 1% of the electorate represent the interests of those who for many hundreds of years dominated the politics of the UK, but a far larger cohort believe that the Labour movement is one of the politics of envy, and which seeks, through the demon 'socialism’, to see that indolence is rewarded, and that we are all equally poor.  It is these Twopenny Tories who are the enemies of socialism today. The 1% traditionally relied on power and inherited position, and are not sufficiently numerous to retain power in our modern democracy, except by the consent of a supportive, if misinformed rump.

The real challenge for socialists is to at every opportunity dispel the myths which inform the decision to lend support to an elite which they (Twopenny Tories) genuinely believe seek to perpetuate a 'trickle down’ system that benefits them to a greater degree than would a Labour Government. They will cite the extent to which their personal circumstances are so much better than those into which they were born, believing this to be a direct result of the various periods of Tory Government in their lifetimes. Quite whether they would have achieved their own ambitions without the many key social advancements under Labour Governments; The NHS, The networks established by nationalised transport infrastructures, the many broad improvements to working conditions and rights negotiated by once strong unions, sick pay, maternity pay, working hours, training, equality acts, health and safety, social housing and many other factors were not Tory initiatives. But there is an even greater misunderstanding when we analyse specifically the relative wealth of the lower middle classes and for example large business owners. In 1918 the richest 1% in the UK received over 20% of all UK generated wealth. The period from the end of the first world war through to 1979 saw this figure fall to around 6%. Just 6%, not 20%, or 1/5th of created wealth, was accumulated by the top 1%. This was a period of growing strength in both trade unions and the wider labour movement. (The influence of the Labour Party on the figures, even when in opposition during this time, should not be underestimated.)

The great catastrophe of the 20^th century however, was the government lead by Margaret Thatcher. The much lauded first female Prime Minister presided over an administration which demonised and all but destroyed Trade Union power, Privatised many state industries, and sold off (without replacing) social housing stock. These policies reinforced the mistaken belief that the Conservative Party best catalysed the aspirations of the middle earners, many of whom by the 1980s were happily ensconced in 'their own homes’. But for considerably more than 95% of the UK population, from the 1980s onwards, even in a period of relative affluence (which in large part was fuelled by lending secured against the new assets of ex council house occupants, now ‘homeowners’) things reversed trajectory. Now once again the top 1% appropriate around 20% of all earned wealth, average real wages in 2017 are lower than they were in 2000, and for the foreseeable future, Conservative policies offer nothing to suggest a general above inflation wages trend. But we still have the persistent idea that such a situation is a necessary outcome of the required and delivered, Conservative 'fiscal responsibility’; and a consequence of the dire situation inherited in 2010. The extent to which the so called 'Labour’ governments of Blair and Brown were responsible for the state of the UK economy in 2010 is in itself overstated. In fact what is often overlooked is the real progress made in 2009/2010 towards producing a trajectory of growing the economy out of recession, quickly replaced by Tory austerity, which led to a double dip recession in all but technical definition.

The Conservatives tend not to seek to offer any evidence for their claims of fiscal acumen. It is usually presented as a truism, and sadly, usually left unchallenged. Tory Governments borrow more than Labour administrations, and have done so at a rate of 15-20% more over the last 70 years. Labour Governments pay down more debt than Conservative Governments, and have done so consistently over the last 70 years. There are many measures by which Labour Governments outperform the Conservatives, both in broad and specific areas. Labour averagely increase defence budgets, Tories averagely reduce them. It is generally accepted however that Labour are more supportive of the NHS, but even this fact is usually broached as some kind of inefficient profligacy. I cannot of course expect the preceding assertions to simply pass without supporting evidence, so please feel free to analyse, even deconstruct the data from the following sources;

http://www.primeeconomics.org/articles/taq30tk04ljnvpyfos059pp0w7gnpe

http://www.taxresearch.org.uk/Blog/2016/03/14/labour-have-borrowed-less-and-repaid-more-than-the-conservatives-since-1979/

http://www.taxresearch.org.uk/Blog/2016/03/13/the-conservatives-have-been-the-biggest-borrowers-over-the-last-70-years/

So it is possible to confirm that indeed the Twopenny Tories are misguided. And it would be easy to simply bathe in the self indulgent 'warm waters’ of a superior knowledge and understanding of our political economy. But this achieves little or nothing. The real challenge is to earn their vote. It takes two 'new voters’, or previous 'non voters’, to achieve the same result as converting a single Tory voter to the Labour cause. The only way that Labour will achieve this objective to a meaningful extent, will be to enthuse these inadvertent and unwitting facilitators of Tory dispensed misery and social breakdown, that the Labour Party is their natural ally, not simply the champion of the oppressed, or feckless, or disabled. The relatively affluent but more statistically 'average earning’ Tory voter must believe that the Labour  Party stands for their aspirations, as well as a more general equality. The next manifesto needs all the positive and well received content of the last, but in addition, policies and objectives which speak to the needs and desires of the Twopenny Tories. The reversal of the Tory acceleration to the pension age changes would be a useful starting point. The re-emphasis that Labour taxation plans protect the current contribution of all but 95% of the population is also desirable and necessary. These and other initiatives will greatly help the cause. But returning to Sun Tzu, perhaps the more 'moderate’ wing of the party could have a real role to play … many of the target Tory voters were persuaded by Blair and Brown. We need real dialogue between the various factions of our 'broad church’, focussed not on in fighting, but on winning the next election, whenever it comes. There are sections of the electorate which are better understood by the Yvette Cooper’s, the Chuka Amunna’s, the Hilary Benn’s and the Stephen Kinnock’s of the Labour Party. The Labour Party in opposition should not be a party riven with disharmony, deselection and division. If it can achieve this one thing, unity, it can at last be a truly transformative force.  

The Conservative party is arguably the oldest political party in the world. Way back in 1678, ‘Tory’ supporters of James Stuart, Duke of York were against his exclusion from the order of succession to the British throne on the basis that he was a Roman Catholic. The Tories opposed such exclusion, which was supported by the 'Whigs’. Throughout the 17^th, 18^th and 19^th centuries, the 'Tories’, (who in the 19^th century became known as the 'Conservative Party’,)  represented one side of divide within the ruling 'establishment’, the other side being the Whigs. Initially divided along sectarian lines, these two parties constituted a parliament which for hundreds of years represented the interests of a de facto 'ruling elite’, made up exclusively of very wealthy landowners, who had over centuries  been 'granted’ land, great wealth and privilege by the crown. Their priority was their own continued wealth and power. The overwhelming majority of the British population during this period had no right to vote in parliamentary elections, and no effective representation. The first and second reform acts (1832 and 1867) each brought in a degree of social change, but this was limited, and largely based on the minimum possible concession to avoid Britain 'going the way of the French’, who had earlier rejected the dominion of Kings and aristocracy, who were executed in a bloody revolution which brought about the first French Republic, and subsequently the French Empire, under Napoleon I.

Both Tories (Conservatives) and Whigs (Liberals) thoroughly rejected the idea that anyone but the ruling elite should have a voice in parliament, but recognised the danger which mass movements posed, of catalysing revolutionary change. In 1817, in St Peter’s Field, Manchester, an initially peaceful mass protest, calling for parliamentary representation, was cavalry charged by order of the local authorities. Men, women and one child were killed, either by sabre or by being trampled to death under the horses. Many hundreds were injured. This became known as the 'Peterloo Massacre’. The ruling Tory Party sent official congratulatory letters to the local officials for their handling of the protest. Subsequently, gatherings of more than 50 people for the purposes of public political meetings were criminalised, and newspapers were taxed out of the reach of the working population.

Throughout the Industrial Revolution, the gross exploitation of workers by industrialists, without the constraints of protective legislation, commonly led to the death or disability of workers in large numbers. The Conservatives and the Whigs, taking a very familiar position, refused to effectively legislate to protect workers’ rights for decades … throughout the 18^th and 19^th centuries, concerned only with the interests of landowners and industrialists.

The Chartists, almost two decades after Peterloo, formed to demand a vote for all working men over the age of 21, secret ballots, and the removal of the landowning qualification for MPs as well as payment for MPs, which was intended to enable working people to participate. Other demands of the People’s Charter included annual elections, and equal constituencies. The political establishment   were having none of this, and by the mid 1840’s, under successive Tory and Whig governments, many Chartists had been imprisoned or transported. However slowly but surely, pressure from the working and middle class led to a pragmatic expansion of the franchise, always only barely sufficient to quell mass revolt, but enough to gradually change the face of British politics. It was a change which created a number of problems for the elite interests, still represented by the Conservatives and the Whigs. It became necessary to at least pay lip service to the interests of the working and middle classes, and under Disraeli, the notion of 'one nation conservatism’ was born. It was a paternalistic pragmatic response to the expanding franchise. Workers were appeased with legislation for factory and health acts premised on the idea that the needs of the many could be met by the benevolence and altruism of the wealthy and privileged, whilst they in fact simultaneously prioritised the interests of power and social position. This manifested in policies which gave a little, but were in modern corporate speak, cost v benefit analysed … basically if industrial deaths were too expensive to prevent, they would likely continue. As one of countless examples, white phosphorous, used for matches, was much cheaper than red phosphorus, but also much less safe. Consequently, the cost saving saw generations of working class women and girls in the East End of London suffer horrific health problems.

The idea of the 'natural authority’ of the powerful, (power which itself in most cases was hereditary, not meritocratic) and their primacy with regard to decisions to balance profit against social responsibility, was the stock in trade of the Conservatives throughout the latter part of the 19^th century. The need to protect the interests of workers was seen by most of the elite as a 'necessary evil’, with concessions usually made only to the extent required to maintain order in society. By the late 19^th century in was very clear that the only political organisation which would truly champion the interests of working people would be an outgrowth of the trades unions, into which many workers in various occupations had organised themselves. (On several occasions trades unions were outlawed, and membership criminalised, however by the late 19^th century they were legal)

The Labour Representation Committee was formed in 1900, to put forward as prospective MPs, representatives who promised to work in parliament for the rights and interests of workers. It was not until the early 20^th century that ordinary citizens, those who in any form needed to work to live, were fully represented in Parliament, and even then it was some years before a full Labour government came to power. The most significant period under Labour, was of course the post war government under Clement Atlee, an administration which produced the NHS, and most of the foundations of the welfare state we have today.

During the 20^th century the Conservative Party presented themselves as authoritative, experienced and a party of 'natural leaders’, who due to their history and experience were safer hands to run the many branches of state.  But it was not until the election of Margaret Thatcher as leader that the Conservative Party, who came to power in 1979, made serious claims to be a party who’s aspirations and objectives could truly also embrace those of working men and women. The dream which Thatcher, and neo-liberalism in general sought to sell, was a meritocratic, inclusive society of home owners and shareholders, in their own modest way acquiring capital not only from their labour, but also from interest on shareholdings, (mostly in newly privatised businesses which had until that time been in collective (state) ownership). Many middle age Britons still subscribe to the view that they are now 'middle class’, having elevated their social position as property owners, courtesy of Thatcher and the Right to Buy’ Act. However this was in many respects a ruse, cost shifting property maintenance to the now mortgaged purchaser, and providing an asset against which further borrowing (debt) was secured. Some years later many found themselves in negative equity and unable to pay mortgage interest which peaked at almost 14% in 1982, and was still over 9% in 1988. Nor did successive governments use the income raised from council house sales to build new social housing. The Conservative Party continued after Thatcher, with a Thatcherite 'business as usual period under John Major.  (During which the claim of Conservative primacy in matters of fiscal policy was severely tested. In 1992 Major presided over ‘Black Wednesday’, and the UK’s ignominious ejection from the Exchange Rate Mechanism.) 

Subsequently, in  1997, Tony Blair 'stole the Conservatives’ clothes’. The Tories did not regain power until 2010. However since 1979 the prevailing ideology of unfettered 'laissez-faire capitalism, and the idea of 'trickle down economics’ has been pursued by the Thatcher, Major, Blair and Brown Governments, as well as the Conservative led coalition of 2010, the Cameron Government of 2015, and into the current administration. The 'same 'trickle down theory’ which has led to 85 people owning as much wealth as the poorest 3.5bn people on the planet. It can be demonstrated that this economic theory is flawed to the point of being groundless. It does not lead to economic growth, wage growth, income growth, or to job creation. But what it does do is provide huge wealth for a shrinkingly small elite. That elite, rich beyond the dreams of avarice, have acquired control of every lever to manipulate states; that elite controls almost all of the media in the major developed economies, utility corporations, the arms industry … the entire 'military industrial complex.. For all practical purposes, that same elite controls the Conservative Party. 

The Labour Party, branded 'New Labour’ under Blair, operated in the thrall of the same interests. Since 2010, the austerity agenda pursued by the Conservative or Conservative led governments has served to illustrate that the Tory ideology which so repressed living standards and social mobility for hundreds of years is alive and well. The reversion to type is obvious and stark. The same Tory Party which fought tooth and nail against extending the franchise on consecutive occasions, and under who’s administrations troops and cavalry have been deployed on the streets of the UK, is alive and well under a paper thin veneer of social concern. The Tories used military and tanks in Wales, Liverpool, and Glasgow against strikers or protestors. The Police were used as a paramilitary force against striking miners, not least at Orgreave. On each occasion, the use of force has been the extent to which Conservative governments have been prepared to suppress the demands of working people. Many of these events are almost lost to history, airbrushed out by establishment revisionists.

What has happened in recent times is the opening up of a fault line in the power holding superstructure. 'The Establishment’ in the UK has a fatal flaw. That flaw, is that the entire edifice is not, as conspiracy theorists would have us believe, a nefarious fine tuned, elaborate, integrated architecture. It is actually largely reliant on a convoluted mosaic of elements with no individual overall management or managers. It simply relies on many disparate component parts tending to naturally harmonise and integrate through a common cause and common interests.

The fault line arose from a simple error of judgement. Ed Miliband (a claimed ‘leftie’ with barely more genuine left wing ideas than Blair himself, had intended to significantly weaken the power of trade unions, with sweeping reforms to Labour’s internal voting system. It involved requiring union members to individually 'opt in’ to Labour Party membership, as a disrupter to the union block vote. It also allowed for a 'supporter’ membership, open to anyone, at just £3. No-one at the time imagined that it would bring about the circumstances in which anyone from the left of a party which was still mired in 'Blairite’ 'New Labour’ centre right praxis, could become the Labour Party leader. But then Jeremy Corbyn happened. The existential risk which anyone with a socialist agenda posed to the controlling elites was so glaringly obvious, that long before Corbyn was elected, the tsunami of slurs, smears and misrepresentations overwhelmed the objectivity of much of the population. A relentless barrage of anti-Corbyn rhetoric did much to form the majority view of Corbyn. Criticism repeated so often, by all media, at every opportunity, as to be believed by many purely on the basis of endless repetition. The Tories led the barrage, aided and abetted by the so called Labour 'moderates’, and every other party and authority which feared a Labour Party truly committed to fairness and social justice. 

The abundance of anti-Corbyn rhetoric was undirected, unleashed in a scattergun approach, since it was impossible to particularly target Corbyn’s potential constituency. In some respects directing criticism, whether justified or not, into the consciousness of the body politic achieved a short term advantage, but in no way sufficient to disrupt the election of Corbyn as Labour leader. It should not be forgotten that the unintended consequence of a socialist Labour Party leader arose with not only the approbation and dissent of the man on the Clapham omnibus, by the means under discussion, but also the active disruption and interference with process of much of the Labour Party in parliament, as well as the general secretary and much of the party heirarchy. This happened for one simple reason. Corbyn’s core message had not been heard for more than a generation, and was inspirational.

Every time you hear about the impracticality or dangers of current Labour Party policy, it will originate from a source fearful that their interests and influence may be compromised. But it is an argument which is losing traction. It is true that there is a huge swathe of the population of the UK, particularly amongst the now middle aged, being somewhat comfortable, perhaps particularly by comparison with their own parents or roots, which still clings to the notion that they are middle class, and as such natural Conservative voters. Managers, small business owners, white collar workers, who fundamentally misunderstand both the Tory Party and their own best interests. The Labour Party is not 'the party of the feckless, the lazy and the unemployed’ it is not even in any limited sense, the party of the working class. It is, and is especially under Jeremy Corbyn’s leadership, a socialist party. It aspires to a more equal distribution of wealth, and as evidenced by the recent party manifesto, to do this without the smallest disadvantage to 95% of the population. The problem with such a suggestion is the vast middle and moderately high income earners who believe that they would be personally disadvantaged by a Labour government. This is to misunderstand the gargantuan step change in the assets of 95% of the population compared with the top 5%, the even greater disparity between the top 5% and the top 1%, and the gigantic, almost inconceivable disparity between the top 1% and the top 0.1%. According to the Institute for Fiscal Studies, the top 5% own 40% of the disposable wealth in the UK. The top 1% own 24% of disposable wealth. The top 0.1% earn an average of £1m annual income, and the top 3000 taxpayers pay more tax than the bottom 9 million … (more than 35% of all income tax payers in the UK), whilst the wealth gap continues to grow. The Tory claims about cutting tax for the very highest earners to incentivise their further economic activity, seem somewhat hollow given these circumstances. Tax increases which had no more effect than maintaining, not growing the wealth gap would be socially beneficial, and in real terms, victimless. Labour is about making people more equally rich, not more equally poor.

We do not have to look far for examples of the type of economy which Labour proposes; contrary to the hyperbolic scaremongering which is a natural manifestation of the fear of various vested interests, many western economies function broadly in the way which Labour proposes for the UK. Denmark, Finland, Canada, Netherlands, Sweden, Norway, Ireland, New Zealand all subscribe to some, even many of the democratic socialist principles advocated by the Labour Party in the UK. Canada, Finland, Norway and Ireland are in the top ten countries to live in the world, as determined by the UN. Others, including Belgium, France and Germany have successful and popular state ownership of utilities, often through state run businesses which also have major investments in foreign countries. Many of the countries listed above have excellent welfare provision alongside an affluent and contented middle class, and nothing which is current Labour Party policy would be controversial in many already successful economies.

Returning to the Conservative Party, it is today, and has always been serving the interest of an already hugely wealthy elite. It’s reinvention, first under Disraeli and again under Thatcher, was necessary to retain power. Policy needed to maintain a degree of credibility for the premise that the interests of the many, and particularly the middle classes were of genuine concern, have of necessity been implemented, but only ever with the greatest of care to protect, at the same time, the 1%, and most importantly, the 0.1%. If you are reading this, it is almost inconceivable that you are anything but one of the 99%. When Jeremy Corbyn speaks of 'the many’, he is speaking of you and I. Consider this. Consider the possibility that 99%, or even 95% of the population, including yourself, would be advantaged by a democratic socialist model, as successfully implemented in many Nordic states. Now if you do not have enough personal assets and resources to test the hypothesis for fear that it might fail, then you are without doubt a member of the social group which Labour seeks to advantage with it’s policies. If you do have the resources to comfortably undertake such an experiment, then you have little to lose. To deny millions of hard working people the hope that a fairer, more equal society is possible, is frankly crass, selfish, and worthy only of the Harmsworth’s, Desmond’s, Barclay’s, and Murdoch’s of this world. I will end with a challenge. If you remain convinced that you are a Tory; by all means, read and digest the pro Tory, or anti Labour, or anti Corbyn news or opinion pieces. You are free of course also to agree with them. Just check, as an academic exercise, who actually owns the organisation which originated the article.

I want to steal this book. I wanna stir it up.

I wanna be anarchy.

I wanna be Rosa. I wanna be King.

My being here now to mean everything.

I wanna be Ali.

I wanna be ‘Du’ champ

I want Warhol and Marley to throw me a party.

! wanna be Jonathan Seagull

I wanna be Richard Bach.

I want to die in the trenches and live in the past

I want to be Buddha.

I wanna be Man Ray.

I want to fly through Dali’s with Marquez and Hesse.

With Blake and with Whitman as wingmen.

With Hoffman. And Dylan.

With Guthrie and Cash flying with me

I wanna be Sedated.

I wanna be created;

Anew.

And understand everything, future and past.

And everything tiny, and everything vast.

The black in the tyrant, the white in the God.

I want a song of myself.

I want to be anonymous, eternal. 

Be frightened, enlightened.

I want to be dancing with tears in my eyes.

And everything I am I want you to be. And for all that I want I want nothing for me.

I’ll tell you what I want, what I really, really want.

Just this.

Now.

H;���v7�N

I am sitting less than 30 miles from the birthplace of Thomas Paine, one of history’s most important social theorists, activists and thinkers. Paine understood the true nature of individual birthright. His view was that all men inherit at birth an equal right to the uncultivated earth. That it is naturally common property. Proudhon’s famous and often misrepresented maxim that all property is theft, is actually rooted in precisely the same understanding of the rights of man. Thomas Paine advocated that there are means by which those who cultivated the earth were entitled to the fruits of their labour, but that since it was difficult, or impossible to separate the ‘added value’ of cultivation from the earth itself, a system of granting the very land itself evolved, but that such a system enjoyed no natural justice, nor did any man truly possess the right to own or assign ownership of land. Now the agrarian model upon which Paine based his argument may be easier to understand than more complex ‘ownership’ models, but his basic position does not change. Any legal person or corporation occupying any part of the earth to the exclusion of all others (the concept of private property)  at least owes the rest of society a ‘ground rent’. This ground rent Paine saw as a compensation, in lieu of the natural inheritance denied everyone else, by the occupation of land upon which the legal person or corporation derive profits. Paine also saw the appropriate use of that ground rent as capital to be provided annually to every citizen at aged 21 onwards. The current value of such a payment as imagined by Paine in the US system, is around £14,000 per annum. Paine saw the appropriate time to collect the ‘ground rent’ as being at the death of the ‘owner’ of the land; he saw the iniquity of land ownership in perpetuity, as did the doyen of the capitalist, Adam Smith, who said: 

“ A power to dispose of estates for ever is manifestly absurd. The earth and the fulness of it belongs to every generation, and the preceding one can have no right to bind it up from posterity. Such extension of property is quite unnatural.“

And it is, is it not? Billionaires such as Warren Buffet and Bill Gates are on board with the idea of an end to inherited wealth.Gates has said that his children will receive a fabulous education, but nothing else. Buffet muses that he will leave his children “enough to do anything but not enough to do nothing”.

So if this notion is shared by the left and the right, why do we not have a 100% inheritance tax,(and as a concession maybe above a threshold) alongside a fund distributing the proceeds to the people? The win win is that capital accumulated before death would be redistributed only when the person paying it has no further need of it, and any effort to spend it before ones inevitable demise is similarly good for society. Similarly if one desired to gift capital whilst still alive, there should be no tax implication on the giver, but the receiver should pay tax on the income. By this means, the problem of hereditary wealth is solved in that it is a choice to disitribute it before death, but your right of ownership ends when you do. Any residual asset value over a person’s lifetime is thus returned to the use of the society in which it was accumulated.

What a strange country we live in. Here is an extract from the Crown Prosecution Service guidelines. It’s pretty much cps 101.

’… There must be enough evidence to provide a ‘realistic prospect of conviction’ against the defendant. A realistic prospect of conviction is an objective test. It means that a jury or bench of magistrates, or judge hearing a case alone, properly directed and acting in accordance with the law, is more likely than not to convict the defendant of the alleged charge…’

So in a court of law, before making any statement whatever, the default claim involves being 'sworn in’ with the assertion 'before god’ that the evidence given shall be the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth. Yet were CPS guidelines followed they would never prosecute a god on the charge of actually existing; Such a claim would not even pass the first test. The assertion that a god is provably guilty of existing could only be made without any legitimate admissible evidence in support of the claim.  Perhaps such presuppositionalism should have it’s day in court. 

Off to see the Dalai Lama now, hours after a totally bizarre email conversation with the sociopathic psycho ‘gobshite’ Jerry Sadowitz…

Isn’t life strange?

What will you do with your £600? I would suggest the first thing would be to go look for it!

Nick Clegg’s typically disingenuous claim is based on a figure no more scientific than the basic rate lower earnings limit, your ‘personal tax allowance’. It takes no account of changes in rpi/inflation, wage freezes, other taxes or benefits,  or changes in anything else which has affected your relative wealth, over the last THREE years, the comparison being made with 2010 figures.

The largest hike, this year, means that for the average person you will have an increase to the allowance of £1335, but of course based on a 20% rate, that only amounts to £267, or £22.25 per month (£5.13 wk) 'better off’.
Any  increase is welcome, but spin and misdirection from our politicians, whilst currently the norm, should not be allowed to go unchallenged. On annual expenditure of just £10,000, current inflation at 2.8 %, will put paid to £280 of your £267 this year, leaving you with minus £13. On £20,000, you will be £293 worse off. 

Best put Clegg’s mythical £600 in the magical money box in case you join the 2.65 million now officially unemployed.

So even the gerrymandered UK unemployment figures now show 2.56 million unemployed, the ‘underemployed’ are at unprecedented levels, the WTO and the IMF both revise down their UK growth figure estimates.

In the case of the IMF, no longer content with making it’s structural fiscal demands conditional on states to whom it advances it’s financial 'aid’, the organisation, which at best should be no more than expressing a view about the economic prospects of the UK, feels compelled to make the following statement; “Greater near-term flexibility in the path of fiscal adjustment should be considered in the light of lacklustre private demand.”

Now they are quite correct, but is it just me who sees the unsolicited free advice as somewhat insidious? @IMF… Who made you king of the world?

On the matter of the significant facts being addressed however, and in light of these developments, quite how will George Osbourne be justifying his next 'no plan B’, 'this lady’s not for turning’ defence of the government’s troublesome and tragic failed economic policy? One thing is for sure, he won’t be defending policy based on performance to date. Having seen Govenment Debt effortlessly slip past the £1trillion mark, and accelerate towards £1.5trillion, the lack of economic drivers for recovery and growth are now beginning to raise the spectre of debt approaching a figure equal to the total annual UK GDP, in this term, having inherited a figure closer to half annual GDP.

Platitudes and assurances based on weasel words And obfuscation about 'reducing the deficit’, whilst the debt increases at around £10billion each month, are not going to continue to fool even the huge section of the British public who don’t understand the difference between deficit and debt.

This video from the legends ‘The Men They Couldn’t Hang’ is worth a watch anytime, but especially today.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3z3CciyMTqA&feature=youtube_gdata_player

well I say I never heard of an illness cured by singing about medicine.

Tensions in global societies arise, and are sustained, when the dominant ideas and values are not shared by substantial groups within a particular society. Often, within theocratic states, or other states associating a prescribed religion, the predominant and persistent discord arises from a sanctioned disparity in the treatment of some citizens, based on religious principles… Actual applied prejudices, between Shiite and Sunni,  Protestant and Catholic, Hindu and Muslim,  or Arab and Jew.  Even  in states associated with the most inclusive, moderate and tolerant ‘state religions’, many minority groups share a common sense of social exclusion.

Now clearly, in societies where the majority of citizens have an active commitment with, and investment in, a unified political and religious governance, that society is functioning on a reasonably sound basis of 'majority consent’. An additional ideal would be that the prevailing majority ethos favours at least reasonable and respectful treatment of minorities.
So it is in no way controversial to suggest that where a majority religion or ethnicity forms the basis for an integrated  political and religious administration with an inclusive consideration towards minorities, there is no great imperative for change.
But that is no longer the status quo  in the UK. Not because of the move towards an ever greater degree of multi-culturalism, but due in fact to an absolute collapse in the influence of the Anglican Church on the British population over recent decades.

Atheism (and Agnosticism) is at unprecedented levels, regular church attendance stands around 6% and falling, and a rising majority of British citizens are already identifying as having 'no religion’.
The relationship between an increasingly irrelevant church and modern societies would be significantly challenged by the progressive trend towards a more scientifically based belief system, even without the corrosive effect of recent abuses and hypocrisies which have blighted the church, in the United Kingdom as elsewhere.

Irrespective of the future societal influence of the Churches of England, Scotland, Wales and the church in Northern Ireland, (… Even of religion in general) it seems incongruous to continue to confer historical and traditional privileges to a church which has no active place in the life of an overwhelming majority of the population.
I do not pretend to have any great insights into the arcane mysteries of church finances, but I understand that the Church of England enjoys unique tax privileges, has 8 billion of funds under management, and owns in total around a quarter of a billion acres of the UK.
We also continue to suffer the affront to democracy of permanent positions in the legislature for the 'Lords Temporal’ as well as the churches 26 most senior Bishops, the 'Lords Spiritual’. Quite simply this clique within the legislature  represent a church which in practice speaks for a shrinkingly small section of the population, but are in a position to interfere with the fundamental administrative structure of what is now a primarily secular democratic society.
The idea that in any sense the church in England represents a 'state religion’ is delusional. The idea that the state enjoys any practical benefit from Anglicanism as a 'state religion’ is delusional. The idea that any benefits of the arrangement are not overwhelmingly enjoyed by the church establishment, and not the state, is delusional.
Ironically, many officially secular states enjoy higher proportional church attendances than where state religions persist. Ireland, Italy and France are included among Europe’s 28 secular states.

The continued position in the UK, of the Anglican church as a state religion, is untenable. It lays the groundwork for a sanctioned prejudice against the growing numbers of people of other faiths or of no faith. And such bias exists in often quite subtle forms, with the church lobbying or pressurising the state to hold to values shared only by the small proportion of society which itself shares often archaic or unenlightened values. 

Even were this not true, If nothing else, adherents to any other faith or no faith are officially less fully integrated with the component parts of the state, in not sharing a state sanctioned or state supported church or religion. Worse, the actual established state church has shown itself to be capable of prejudice, in for example it’s treatment of, and pronouncements on, issues of sexuality and sexual equality. Also witness it’s discriminatory position regarding it’s own internal hierarchy  All  prime examples of just why the  church and it’s attitudes are increasingly irrelevant. Disestablishment, and a fully secular UK, would provide grounds for the belief that as is (I assert) the prevailing will, all faiths, and citizens of no faith, can genuinely enjoy an equal and fully inclusive status.

Less than one million people in the UK attend church regularly… The fundamental beliefs of that church, might at the time of the reformation have appeared considerably more plausible than they do today, but measured against contemporary scientific knowledge and philosophical enlightenment, it’s antiquated theological  ideas are becoming marginalised by an irresistible scientific rationalism. We are now firmly in the 21st century, not the 17th. It truly is time to take a serious look at the complete separation of church and state.