A Conservative victory: Now our suffering begins in earnest
If you thought you had it bad under the Coalition then, as someone once said, “You ain’t seen nothing yet!”
The Conservative victory in last night’s election has left many of us reeling – not just because of its disastrous implications for the future of the UK and its citizens, but because nobody saw it coming.
Some have blamed ‘shy’ Tory voters. These are selfish little liars who skew the polls by denying any intention to vote for the Nasty Party. In the case of yesterday’s vote, many will have done so against their own best interests.
So why did they do it? The most likely reason being touted overnight is the success of the Conservative Party’s big scare tactic: The lie that Labour would go into a coalition with the Scottish National Party in the event of a hung Parliament. Cameron made vague claims that this would hit everybody in the wallet and Middle England – already burdened by a £4,000 per year loss of earnings thanks to Tory austerity – turned into a tribe of ‘shy’ Tories.
With the polls duly skewed, there was no way for Ed Miliband and Labour to know that their strategy wasn’t going to work for them, so they carried on. Britain fell into the Tory trap and now David Cameron has a slim majority.
And we are all in deep, deep trouble.
For supporters of the SNP, the disappointment must be the most bitter. Still, they supported a party with the most contradictory message of all – vote SNP in Scotland because Labour is bad, so that the SNP can go into coalition with Labour MPs from everywhere else because Labour is good.
It seems likely the most straightforward reason they voted SNP is because they had been whipped into a frenzy of righteous indignance about the independence referendum, believing the SNP propaganda that Labour was “in cahoots” with the Conservative Party – not just over the referendum but on general policy as well; ‘Red Tories’ was the SNP brand on Labour.
(Of course, others responded by labelling the SNP ‘Tartan Tories’. It is ironic that all this bickering resulted in the real Tories seizing power.)
So Scottish voters believed an SNP lie about Labour, and the knock-on effect was that English (and some Welsh) voters were convinced by a Conservative lie about Labour and the SNP. This created a domino effect which eventually meant that every single Scottish seat could have gone to the SNP, and the UK would still have ended up with a Tory government.
Is Nicola Sturgeon proud of herself? She seems to be. One is led to wonder how her party will respond to Tory legislation, when Parliament resumes.
Interestingly, Jon Craig (of Sky News) tweeted: “Tory at East Renfrewshire count: ‘Nicola Sturgeon has won more votes for the Conservatives in England than she has for the SNP in Scotland.'”
If anything, the election has demonstrated that Conservative/Coalition policy has created an atmosphere of division in the UK, greater than at any time in our history. Nationalism is on the rise, with Scotland keen to secede from the union and the UK as a whole heading for a referendum on whether to stay in the European Union.
The SNP result should also signal the death-knell of the First Past The Post voting system in this country – although its demise is likely to be protracted (the Tories will fight tooth and nail to keep it). Where’s the fairness in a system that can deliver 56 seats to the SNP with 1.5 million votes, and only one seat to UKIP, with nearly four million votes?
(This Writer supports neither party, as previous articles on this blog make all-too-clear. Facts are facts.)
It will also be interesting to see what impact – if any – the Coalition’s ‘individual voter registration’ has had on the number of people who voted. Also, how many people didn’t bother to vote “because it never changes anything”?
Come to that, what about all those people who were forced to move out of affluent areas because they couldn’t pay the Bedroom Tax (which will, of course, continue)? Did they move into Labour constituencies?
We could be looking at interference in the electoral process on an industrial scale.
Feel free to disagree with the free pass this image gives to Scottish voters if you like; the claim about voters in England is absolutely on the button.
Overall, the situation is best summed up by ‘Grumpy David’ on Twitter: “Seriously, who’s looked at the last five years and gone yeah, more of that please?”
What of the future?
Richard Murphy of Tax Research UK tweeted that a Tory victory would mean neo-feudalism is on its way in England, the union will be broken (with Scotland seceding), and the UK will leave the EU. He also predicted an economic crisis within a year.
Europe will be a major issue for the Conservatives now. With no Liberal Democrat partners to blame for government decisions, Cameron will be exposed to attack from his own backbenchers – many of whom are raving Europhobes.
Everyone on benefits will suffer, including those in work. Rachel Martin tweeted: “If exit polls are accurate I advise you not to be poor, not to be ill, not to be old and not to be in need of a job.”
The Tory victory means the end of the welfare state as we know it: People who deserve compassion will get none. Instead they will suffer £12 billion of cuts. Many thousands will die for the sake of a few pennies.
And the NHS? Privatised. With the provisions in the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP) that will lock that privatisation into international law. Here’s Jacob Richardson: “Imagine seeing rape crisis shelters being closed and children’s palliative care being sold off to Virgin Healthcare, and wanting more of it.”
Workers’ pay will take a hammering – and our ability to protest and get a fair deal will be removed, along with the rest of our rights according to the Human Rights Act. They will be replaced by a ‘Bill of Rights’ telling us more about what we can’t do than what we can.
The Labour Party will need to get its act together quickly. Probably the best thing to do is get right back out to the general public and get confirmation of why the vote went to the Tories. Was Labour policy too close to the party’s arch-rivals, as some have surmised? Did people feel Labour wasn’t offering a genuine alternative? There will be a conflict between the neoliberal Blairites and traditionalists, and it is important that traditional Labour wins. If there’s one thing to learn from the SNP victory, it’s that a genuinely left-wing, anti-austerity platform delivers a massive victory at the moment.
The Liberal Democrats have been destroyed as a Parliamentary political party – and rightly so. The message for others to take away is that any form of compliance with Conservatives is fatal. The Tories will shift blame for anything bad onto their partners and contrive to win more votes.
UKIP is also a spent force. Despite increasing its vote share, its representation in Parliament has been halved. Voters will see this and abandon.
The SNP has taken on the role that the Liberal Democrats enjoyed at the 2010 election. They were the darlings of the voters this year but will lose out when it becomes clear that they cannot deliver a single promise – and, in fact, their victory in Scotland ensured that they would not be able to do so.
Finally, what can we do – the public?
We need to watch the Conservatives – and any of their known collaborators – hawkishly. We need to build up information about them, their policies, and any other interests – including and especially those that are less than legal (and there will be a lot of this). They won because the public believed them. It is important to undermine that trust with the facts.
We need also to ensure that the Liberal Democrats do not stage a comeback. That party betrayed the people and must be consigned to history. Again, we need to monitor the behaviour of its members and work to make sure the public is not gulled into a false sense of trust.
And it would be good to start thinking about the kind of country we would create, if we had the chance – and what steps we could take to build it. This may seem like pie-in-the-sky at such a dark point in our nation’s history, but it is only with careful and clever planning that anybody achieves anything.
We are in a very dark pit at the moment – dug for us by the Conservative Party. At least we can take heart that, from here, the only way is up.
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I realise this probably isn’t much comfort, but it’s only 1826 days until the next general election!
That is no comfort for those who starve to death in that time!!! If you knew how excruciatingly painful hunger is, then you would not make such a comment! I have nearly starved to death twice in my life, and the thought that it could happen to me again, makes me want to commit suicide before it even happens!!!
Joanna, I really feel for you, and truly understand where you are coming from. I do hope that you have family and/or friends to whom you can turn when you are feeling low. Many of us are in mourning, today and should be allowed to grieve. Then we should all pull together to help each other through trying times. Please be brave and strong.
We must accept finite disappointment, but never lose infinite hope. Martin Luther King, Jr.
But then there are magical, beautiful things in the world. There’s incredible acts of kindness and bravery, and in the most unlikely places, and it gives you hope. Dave Matthews
Our human compassion binds us the one to the other – not in pity or patronizingly, but as human beings who have learnt how to turn our common suffering into hope for the future. Nelson Mandela
But how many innocent people will die because of their policies in the 1826 days?
Bide your time….
After all, Caroline held her seat!
Way to go!
Everyone is welcome to come to The Peoples Republic of Brighton. A truly wonderful home town, I admit my bias as a born and bred Brightonian.
Well,though not born and bred here It sure is a smart place to be in among the aliens!
The only good news is that Esther McVey has lost her seat, if only RTU IDS had too!
Labour always counted on a strong vote in Scotland and that has clearly gone, probably for good.
The LibDems turned their backs on their supporters and principles in order to to be Tory lap dogs, and are now in the dustbin.
Will “UK minus Scotland” now remain permanently Tory ? It seems entirely possible to me. Perhaps the only way we will ever return to a two Party system is if Labour, LibDems, Greens, Independents and anyone NOT Rightist form a single new opposition party.
That is a very worrying concern. The Tories are already banging on regardless about more boundary changes – funny how historically that redrawn boundaries always favour the Conservatives.
I am extremely concerned that should Scotland leave the Union, that the rest of us will suffer a Conservative government in perpetuity. I dare not think what sort of place that our once great country would become – like pre-revolution France, or dare I say tantamount to a Fascist state?
Facts may not be enough. We’ve already seen with this result an apparent inability to allow ‘facts’ to diminish or dis-prove our most cherished beliefs. The Tory think-tanks know this and have used rather more imaginative and mendacious psychological and propagandist methods. With some risk accepted, it might be time we did too.
Michele, In many respects I agree with your comments. Particularly, the one about how well the Tory Think-Tanks have done in framing debates and/or denying facts. Mike’s, reading of Media Macro and how the utter failure of an unrestrained capitalist financial system, and in particular the ‘bonfire of regulations’ policy that facilitated its ‘greed is good’ consequences, that crashed the global financial system and thereafter most economies in the developed world. into a – it was Mr. Brown’s fault. The next step was to stretch the truth even further, with the line it was Britain’s high debt to GDP that caused the crash, again the only fact to support this was that the consequences of the financial banking crisis – of course the first distortion made the second both possible and believable. All these distortions pressed home and given credence by wealth and power seeking media barons and the BBC, who was/is fighting to prove its value to a government threatening its existence and, while giving Sky Media a place at the heart of policy making (Hunt and Coulson). This leads to the main point.
The Conservatives can do things with facts that no Labour government could ever get away with. Every contradiction in Labour’s argument would be splashed across daily newspapers unto it brought the public to the boil. And if the last media campaign did not bring Labour to heel. stories would be run again and against until they did. The point is that the Conservatives can develop media campaigns where facts are only of secondary importance; whereas, Labour have the opposite problem. By this I mean they have to develop policies that can not be spun into half-truths by a mostly compliant newsprint media. So we do need to do all those Mike, wisely, recommends and in addition do our upmost to get those facts out against media barons’ and the Eaton elite that control most of Britain’s traditional media industry.
I agree with much that you say, except the extent to which the media can control the narrative. As we’ve seen in the days since the result, Labour’s offerings were too close to the neo-liberal, austerity line that the Tories were laying out. You can’t disprove or argue that something is faulty if your putting forward policies that basically agree with that faulty argument. Labour seems to have tried to do just that. Even a supportive press would have problems with that approach.
Edit: (sorry Mike) “if you’re putting”.
What you should advise all youngsters to do is to get the hell out of this country whilst they can..I’m old and my life is unimportant but any youngster believing things will get better is delusional….Go and make your life elsewhere this country has turned the corner into darkness,it’s all but finished.
It will be finished if people follow that advice.
steve i am old too but i sure as hell dont think im unimportant. i still have my uses. all be it not as much as in the past and dwindling fast but where there’s a will. i am though very scared for myself, my family and every other person who comes under the umbrella group this government targets unmercifully.and while all the citizens of the UK tackle these things, whats happening about keeping ISIS at bay and other radicals?
Depressing, very very depressing.
“The only way is up”
Five years of uninhibited Tory rule, during which they will take incredible measures to make sure they stay in power for the foreseeable futurs, is your equivalent of “up”?
We are royally f****ed as a nation. Our facts, logic and cries for justice have gone unheard and rubbished by the entire populace.
I have never been so ashamed to be British.
Last night was rockbottom for many people. They need to get energised and they need to protect themselves and each other. They need a message of hope to help them get started.
I’m sorry Mike but how exactly am I to protect myself? I have No family, I have deep mental health problems, I have been through starvation twice and I am terrified everyday apart from Sunday that I am going to be assessed again and found fit for work! There isn’t even the law there to protect me!
People of good conscience need to get together and watch each other’s backs. There are people who can help you if you face re-assessment; there should be people in your locality who can help see you through any attack by the Tory government. Perhaps they should get organised…
Me too Joanna May, take your anger and make it useful. To quote a song “They’ve got the guns, but we’ve got the numbers” As Mike Sivier pointed out we need to hold hands and protect our own..
hmm. in my cul de sac there 8 bungalows , with 2 houses on either side at the end. one lady is over 90. , next door to her a couple, hes 75 shes younger.,me at 72, other side of me man of 50 some..a bit on the slow side.a woman of 64 next to him. woman late 80s.next ,man 80 next to her. then a man of mid 60s . couple at end. 50 ish, other house have no idea how old they are. youngish i think. but no one bothers with anyone else. i moved here aged 55. tried to gt them together to fight for the changes and repairs they needed doing. (most were different people then but at least they spoke to each other)but as soon as we got the thing done each of them wanted doing, they didnt want to know.sod you jack im ok now.most have family living close. i see them come n go.this will affect my grown up kids as well as me. we have no transport of our own n live 4/5 miles from each other. all 3 have problems walking.we wont have money to keep in touch. we wont afford mobiles/computers/landlines. i can just see it coming.but i really cant see any of this lot helping me. so how do such as me and joanna may get this miracle to happen?
There are always people of good conscience around. Do you live in a city?
I’ve said it before in previous comments, The Tories pushed the message through a friendly media that the economy and the deficit were being dealt with by them.
The gullible believed them and the South East (as the map shows) got The Tories through.
Even if Labour held all of its seats in Scotland, they would’ve still won.
I have thought for a long time that England, spurred on by the South East leans towards the right rather than the left, it’s why Blair got through with his Neoliberal agenda.
The worst thing is, Mike, I genuinely think that even if the ESA deaths had been released before the election, I doubt that it would’ve made any difference.
I wonder how many of those using foodbanks voted yesterday!
Very, very tough. Wise words, Mike. By presenting a vibrant vision of what can be achieved in fairness and support for all and then put as much into practice as possible.
As the Sweets Way protestors have shown, you don’t need to have a vote or an election to bring in real change.
It needs to start now and from the grassroots up!
And it needs to involve EVERYONE!
It may only be 1826 days,but the Tories will change boundaries,for fairness of course.Cough Cough.
And how many more people will have died under the brutal foot of austerity.How many more homeless and how many more foodbanks.
I think troubled times are ahead,for all of us,including the Tories.Cameron will be battling his own Euro-sceptics.If we indeed leave Europe,many who voted Tory will be joining the ranks of the unemployed will be subjected to Smiths cruelty.But then again,he believes he is right.
The housing bubble is set to burst,another depression?Who will they blame this time.They cannot use the same scapegoats twice.There has been no real recovery,in fact the Tories borrowed more in five years than Labour had in thirteen years.We have deflation because of falling oil prices,that is the only reason some feel better of.Nothing to do with Tory competence.
Cameron does not rule for all,he does not care about the lower classes.He only benefits the rich.But Murdoch,s press tells the sheeple otherwise. As does the Daily Heil etc.I recommend that people who care about others stop reading propaganda that is served daily.
“In motivating people, you’ve got to engage their minds and their hearts. I motivate people, I hope, by example – and perhaps by excitement, by having productive ideas to make others feel involved.” Rupert Murdoch
!
and you know what yu can do with THAT quote.. hes a selfish .up his own ass and the torys as well. nasty viscious.
(ok join in with yur words cos im flabbergasted anyone should bring a thing like that into this convo. ) we all know what he says is not true.
May God please help and protect us from those who are meant to protect us, I really don’t want to imagine what the future holds for us now the nasty bastards are here to stay for another 5 years. The amount of suicides will surge because so many more people will suffer for the sake of a few bob.
What can we do? You ask. I asked myself the same then I thought What did Ghandi do?
I saw some of the talking heads when Miliband resigned, and I actually agreed with them. What the hell???? At a point where the opposition needs to be more organised than ever before, when Miliband was breaking through some of that appalling propaganda, why did he resign? If Labour needs to have ” a conversation” about it’s failings, then I wanted him to man up, and take that on, with perhaps leadership run in 12 months, once the Tories have started their final decimation of the UK. Building a party, and maintaining a narrative and building consensus takes time, and cutting and running after a defeat undermines everything we were told Miliband stood for………..the LP membership has been growing, and local level activists were more energised than seen in many years, so who in the central office thought about asking us? Blairites still have some explaining.
So we have to start from the grass roots up, and I begin to wonder at my age if I will see the return of the NHS and the Welfare State, (or survive without it?) but I will never give up. Past generations struggled for each and every inch of ground taken back from the feudal overseers, and we can do it again. Every damn inch. Get the “banners bright” out, we will be victorious.
I have no idea why Ed Milliband ‘decided’ to step down either.
To my mind that will just ’emphasise’ to Labour opponents that even the Party itself thought he was inadequate as leader… something the MSM have been saying for ages.
I think his resignation is a massive mistake.
agree completely. i am so disappointed in Milliband. i really thought he was going to be our saviour. ok he lost,. through no real fault of his own except for having compassion etc. he need not have resigned. in fact i wrote to him saying that among other things.wonder what he tells his boys when they go in for school sports day races???or playing a board game etc to walk away if they lose? i agree he should have stayed. take a few days off to grieve for his loss maybe but he knows how much so many of us were relying on him to get us out of the hole the cons have dug for us all.maybe THAT was the responsibility he couldn’t take any more. maybe he feels he let us down.. he didn’t. i am sure there was some skullduggery at work here.
Mike I find it hard to speak yet alone write, first my sincere thanks for all that you have done over the past years in bringing out as best you can the truth and the facts involving the nasty party.
I like many am absolutely devastated I can not believe what has happened, pretty much housebound I have endeavored to pass on many of your articles to the many people I know followed up with phone calls ensuring they understood the harsh realities people are facing, it appears to have fallen on deaf ears.
Is this the case I’m all right jack.
I truly believe this election has been rigged, it’s something you would hear involving some one like Good Luck Jonathen in darkest Africa.
I do believe that IDS has also held his seat, this can’t be, have the UK citizens been drugged?.
Esther Macvile has gone albeit she still had a strong vote, it is beyond comprehension.
Good bye human rights, are the UK public so blind or are they not bothered with their fellow kin.
I will give it one year and I truly believe the baffoon Boris will get chance to use his second hand water canons, only then will people wake up.
“I truly believe this election has been rigged, it’s something you would hear involving some one like Good Luck Jonathen in darkest Africa”.
Is that you Nigel?
Excellent analysis, Mike. In my opinion, the Tories successfully transformed this election into a referendum on the Union by scaremongering over the threat of a Labour-SNP Coalition partnership.
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/generalelection/theres-going-to-be-an-independent-inquiry-into-why-the-preelection-polls-were-so-inaccurate-10236608.html
The professional association that governs polling organisations is to launch a full inquiry into the inaccuracy of polling during the 2015 general election campaign.
The British Polling Council said it would look at an apparent “bias” in polls across the board which saw large disparities between the industry’s final snapshots of opinion and the real result on the night.
The Market Research Society, which concerns itself with survey standards in consumer research, will also be involved in the probe.
“The final opinion polls before the election were clearly not as accurate as we would like, and the fact that all the pollsters underestimated the Conservative lead over Labour suggests that the methods that were used should be subject to careful, independent investigation,” the Council said in a statement.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/general-election-2015/11591306/Why-the-opinion-polls-got-it-so-wrong-YouGov-president-explains.html
Did you know that Lynton Crosby, Dastard Dave’s election campaign consultant, and known as “master of the dark political arts”, has interests in the YouGov Polling Company. Also he and Mark Textor are co-founders of Crosby/Textor. Textor runs focus groups and opinion polls. Just saying…..
I’ve always thought ukip were set up to take Labour voters, by appealing to the ‘man on the street’ [yes, women too – it’s only a term of phrase!], who may have been a traditional Labour voter.
The message that Labour were indistinguishable from the tories and all the UK’s woes were the fault of [Labour’s], immigration policies, was pushed massively, promoting ukip as the only viable alternative.
Watching the election results, I was quite disturbed to see that from the tories’ perspective it was ‘job done’.
In many of the constituencies I checked, if Labour had the ukip vote as well as their own, they would have won… easily.
I’ll be writing a few of my own thoughts at some time, but don’t expect many will read them!!
But in the meantime, well done everyone who voted ukip. Like us, [and the Greens, Plaid Cymru, et al], you didn’t want a tory government but, unlike us, you believed the hype.
On behalf of all sick and disabled people, their Carers and low-paid workers, I’d like to say ‘thanks’ to everyone who voted ukip.
To everyone in Scotland, who voted snp and helped spread the tory lies, you got what you wanted too…
Welcome to toryUK!
A few thoughts from the East Mids marginal doorsteps:
1) Have something concrete to offer. The words from Ed were great and inspiring for the few of us that heard them, but the flagship policies were tepid.
2) Gain trust in local communities through actions and support. All the good union members have to be there for the growing numbers who have not experienced employment rights, job security, a fairly run welfare state and being able to run a household with one income.
3) Don’t annoy the core vote. If I was a solid Labour voter getting a dozen reminders to turn out I’d be as pissed off as a lot of the supporters I knocked up in the last days. The time and contact would be better spent on waverers and the ‘they’re all the same’ people willing to engage.
4) As well as asking why votes were lost to rightwing parties and non-voting, try and find out what has convinced them and what they thought a Tory/UKIP government could look like. So many people in 98% white areas voting to take money from foreigners they have never met with only a belief that the bogeymen even existed.
5) Online resources so activists know where Labour stands on X Y and Z with suggestions on lines to take. Just as importantly, honest recording on reactions and a safe space to suggest improvements. Anything to get beyond the three questions (Who you’re voting for this time, who it was last time, which government would you prefer).
6) Be the party of workers but make the definition broad enough to include everyone looking for work, working for free and who would if they could. Press home the power for good of unions, altruism, basic human decency.
I wish I was half as articulate as your good self!
Some great observations & suggestions there. Thanks.
GUTTED!!!! Still in SHOCK at the results… God help us ALL
The only ray of light in the darkness was Esther McVey losing her seat in the Wirral. That at least did bring a smile to my face.
I hope all those Tory supporters and voters out there are really proud of themselves.
Today I woke up to what I have been dreading the most to the run up of the election and fearing the most – Another five years of a Tory Government.
I’ve been crying in despair all day long and that is no exaggeration and I feel like giving up.
Some may say what is all the fuss about. I tell you why it is a problem and how it will badly affect me: Up until 2009 I had been working until my being made redundant for the second time in a period of three years and with my always worked for advice charities in the third sector.
In 2006 whilst still working my symptoms first began to present themselves, however, being sporadic, my condition went undiagnosed. As time went by, the symptoms got progressively worse yet during that time I was still looking for work and still feeling optimistic with my future and also doing some voluntary work just so that I could feel part of society and alleviate some of the isolation I was feeling.
I had to give up after four months because I could barely physically function. I was put on a mandatory two year work programme but spent 11 months missing out on the programme, unable to access due to the decline in physical health and my impaired mobility. I wrote several letters of complaint about my difficulties and had to involve my local MP because I was unable to attend due to impaired mobility and being unable to access public transport to get me there.
When I finally got support and was able to attend I discovered the programme was completely ineffective, being too generic and only concentrated on helping individuals with job searching, with little else on offer for the likes of someone like me with my skills.
Towards the end of 2012 I was finally diagnosed with an incurable chronic health condition called Rheumatoid Arthritis. For those of you who are unfamiliar with it, it’s an autoimmune disease attacking and destroying healthy joints and tissues and very painful at times, it’s also not uncommon for it to also attack the organs and I’ve been told I am also more susceptible to suffering from a heart attack or strokes as a result of my having this disease as well as it being a progressive disease..
To say I was devastated would be an understatement. I feared for my future, knowing full well how much it can compromise my independence. I also had to battle various systems when seeking support, as I’m in the unfortunate position not to have support or assistance from friends or family and having to endure all of this alone.
I am now facing further cuts to my support services after the Tories this year introduced reforms to the Social Care Act, making it far more harder for people like me to get any support and assistance. It is basically another cost cutting exercise in which the public have been led to believe it is necessary by the Tories. I will also possibly have to face further cuts to my benefits being that I am currently claiming Disability Living Allowance but that will end later this year due to the introduction of the new Personal Independance Payment, another cost-cutting exercise, just as it is with Universal Credit, as you also lose all your disability premiums when going onto this. That is something else they have lied to you about and are telling the public that people will be much better off.
So now I’m basically between a hard rock and stone, reduced to constantly living in fear and also facing the prospect of not being able to turn to advice or support agencies when they further reduce public spending on public services and with them already having slashed legal aid. So thanks.
I might as well have been a banker, then at least my punishment would have been justified as I’m been treated like a criminal.
To make matters worse there’s mainstream propaganda about benefit scroungers. Apparently I’m not motivated enough to work, by all accounts. Yet what people are also forgetting, with the workforce more and more privatised, is the reality – who would be willing to employ people like us anyway?
So there you have it. For all of you out there that feel, “I’m all right Jack”, and “It doesn’t affect me”, well, you might have sent people like me to our death sentence. You obviously don’t have any kind of conscience at all or do not fully understand how the system works, how abhorrent it really is and how that is going to affect the millions like me. I hope you are satisfied and pleased with yourselves and God help you if you ever find yourself in a position like me.
Trust me, you won’t get any special treatment just because you’ve worked and paid your taxes all your life and you would be foolish to think otherwise.
They might as well start building concentration camps for what it’s worth.
From a real human being with a real chronic illness who once felt they had a bright future and the world at their feet. Regards.
Thank you Mike,
Thank you for your endeavours for decency and fairness and we are all grateful to you for your information. We now need another Bevan or Tony Benn to materialize out of the multitude and then we can start the march back to a decent Britain of which we can once again be proud.
What seems so unfair to me are the Red colours in the cities with so many occupants and the Blue in the sticks with so few. Surely this is an obvious pointer to the need for fair Proportional Representation.
Sincerely,
Rupert
I’ve been saying for months Ed M was never the man for the job; too timid, too weak and too close to the Tories, ideologically. We can argue back and forth about how close Labour are to the Conservatives in spirit but I still think their silence on the benefits/WCA?workfare issues spoke volumes, as did their refusal to renationalise anything, their support for TTIP and refusal to rule out more private ‘investment’ in the NHS. Oh yes, and that whole anti immigration mug thing. They never once gave the impression that they were different enough in any real way.
Then there’s the way the Tories managed to boss Labour into denying any chance of joining up with the SNP, making them tiptoe around the benefits issue, adopt economic austerity when there is *no reason* for it. That last one being a massive flaw in a very flawed manifesto (on the big issues, at least). How could Labour tell the truth about how damaging austerity is and will be, about how downright bloody useless Osborne is, when Labour would follow the same way?
All that bewildering strategic incompetence and ideological redundancy added to Miliband’s general air of being well out of his comfort zone and what did anyone expect?
If the best the left could hope for was no overall winner against the single most nasty, evil government in lord knows how long, well doesn’t that say something?
Andy Burnham is the favourite to succeed Miliband, according to Paddy Power. He’d better suss out the way the wind is blowing and keep the New/Blue Labour infiltrators well away from shadow cabinet jobs and get on with being a proper Labour party again.
Christ, I don’t expect socialism, just some semblance of a party with social justice in mind, not the City and not middle England. Look after those who need it and have those who can, pay their way.
I agree with you on the Shy Tories. Being shy about being a Tory is an admission that you know they will be repellent to most and you know you have no morality in supporting them, hence the reticence to admit you’re one of them. They don’t even have the bottle to admit they’re morally deficient. At east the swivel eyed Conservatives are openly psycho – amount of time I’ve been in online arguments about IDS etc and mentioned the deaths caused by benefit reforms, only to be met with a “can’t make an omelette without breaking a few eggs…” retort is astonishing.
Here’s hoping these bastards don’t make it as far as July, much less 2020.
Excellent analysis, I’m with you on starting to plan what we want and need as soon as possible. Making best use of the anger in the country at this stolen election. I am furious at these mendacious Old Etonian Bully Boys actually managing to divide and rule. AAAaaarrrrrgggghhh!
I think you had it right Mike when you highlighted the importance of the impacts of Tory welfare policy, and in particular the deaths. The fact that people from the labour party criticised you for this is one of the problems with the party. In Scotland the SNP were quite happy to ‘align themselves’ with protestors. For me the deaths were the most important issue, and although it might not have changed the vote, I like to think that it would have had an impact. Heaven help us if the British public don’t care about these issues.
I think the problem for Labour was that they were too frightened of the media. They developed their policies in a subtle way so as to avoid the wrath of the right wing media, but failed to appreciate that they were being too subtle for a lot of voters. They failed to challenge a lot of the Tory myths at the start (such as Labour crashed the economy). They failed to appreciate and connect to the anger of so many of us.
I think Ed Miliband came across quite well in the end, but was perhaps a bit too reasonable. He should have ripped apart Myleene Klass when she whinged about the mansion tax. He was too late to engage with Russell Brand (to get more people to register/vote). I also believe that he had a rubbish team around him.
I have a fear that instead of adopting a leftward lean that Labour will think they should have been more right wing.
Still, can’t do anything about all that went wrong now. What we need to do is support and publicise things like the number of deaths report, and the UN human rights investigation.
You’re absolutely correct about Milliband – and most of the other Labour MP’s – having a rubbish team arund them.
A degree in political science or whatever doesn’t mean they have the life experience to understand issues that affect many people, let alone advise politicians.
I’m sure these things can change… ‘how’ is the important question.
Your analysis is most astute however I’m disappointed you failed to acknowledge your own probably unintended complicity in the tory masterplan each time you demonised the snp on this blog. If even a single reader decided not to vote Labour for fear of a coalition with the dreaded scotnats then surely you’re as much to blame as anyone. Do you still believe the labour party will ever save us anyway? They look finished from where I’m standing.
This has to be a joke, right?
You’re suggesting that VP articles, pointing out reasons why people should not vote for the SNP, are the same as the Tory strategy that didn’t say anything about whether Scotland should vote for the SNP but assumed that Scottish people would. Are you really unable to see the difference between “Don’t vote SNP” and “They’re certain to vote SNP”?
I call foul.
As for Labour being finished, well, the Tories looked finished in 2001.
Totally disagree.
No logic to this
Cameron has won. It’s a shock and not good. However he only has a small majority, smaller then John Major in 1992. It will not be easy for him and in some ways may be more difficult than in the last Government Coalition when with the Lib Dem he had an overwhelming majority.
I thought Ed was great. What happens now? Labour needs to decide and have something in place ASAP. It can have its leaders elections, post mortem, review but we need to be there challenging and debating the Tories daily.
Watch out guys. The ‘Gagging Law’ will be one of their first reviews. We will be silenced!
The hope of Internet anarchists was that repressive governments would have only two options: accept the Internet with its limitless possibilities of spreading information, or restrict Internet access to the ruling elite and turn your back on the 21st century, as North Korea has done. Peter Singer
Word of mouth works wonders. Talk to people on every opportunity. Tell them the truth quietly and calmly but with passion. Never give up ;)
fine if you actually see people. my social circle is my son,my daughter, my granddaughter, my sis ,my nephew and 3 dog walkers. once they start on carers, pension credit and dla that pensioners get…………. plus esa wrag taken away (my son gets that). my daughter is my carer. both live over 4 miles away. sooooooo.already. will have no spare cash between us. not enough for bus fares. i cant use buses. so ill be stuck here. no son,daughter or granddaughter able to gt to me.no care.no cleaning done other than the bit i can do myself. but then no cleaning materials.wont be able to afford those.no dog. wont be able to afford to feed him.(my only companion).. so no walkers coming. oh. no pension credit… does that mean no housing/council tax benefit? reduced to around 70 quid a week income if im lucky. with an 83 quid a week rent to pay.(nothing left for council tax,.. see you in jail then./ see where im going with this? thats if they dont shut all the jails down
Shut the jails? No, they’ll be building more I think! There might be a need for lots more in Cameron’s UK…
Perhaps they’ll put forward a law making internet companies pay tax for political content-so the companies would then pass the cost onto the bloggers-either pay lots of £££ which is too much for most people, or be silenced. Big newspapers and rich people could pay the money and carry on as before.
The Tories now have a mandate for whatever they decide to do to disabled people.
Excellent
But
You have under-stated the cruelty that the Conservatives are about to unleash onto Britain.
Callousness of a new and more brazen brand.
Man the barricades, comrades, they’re coming after every single dissenter, too…
Things will start to change, when those with disabled relatives who voted Tory, who have not yet come into contact with Atos, Maximus, or the WCA do so. Cry foul they will scream and no one there to turn to. We still have a powerful weapon in our arsenal in fact millions of them, People power and mass civil unrest. It’s what the internet was made for, and the Tory Traitors that now stand alone will be scrutinized twice as hard. LET THEM PUT ONE FOOT WRONG they will hear the lion ROAR.
I cannot believe that the fair minded people of this country would consign us sick and or disabled to another five years of Tory injustice. I smell a foul stink somewhere
What I felt overwhelmingly was that the media set Ed up to fail from the beginning, making him look stupid and incompetent, and never publicized what he stood for. That said, I don’t think his team supported him enough either; there was a lot more that could have been done to counteract the constant lies in the media.
I also feel that the blairites should have been cleared out completely; this association let Labour down. The intention of Andy Burnham, Harriet Harmen and co leading the party is a terrible mistake; it will be like the tories when they went through leader after leader when Labour were last in power: this cannot be allowed to happen because peoples’ lives depend on Labour getting it’s act together pretty quick so that there is enough time for them to become a formidable force.
Hi Mike, another type of ‘interference’ to consider https://medium.com/@NafeezAhmed/how-big-money-and-big-brother-won-the-british-elections-2e8da57faac4
lets try and keep our chins up!
A genuinely left-wing, anti-austerity platform delivers a massive victory at the moment: in Scotland.
It’s hard to see how a campaign on this platform would be successful in England.
I had a bad feeling this election wouldn’t go well. And having restless nights I can now see why. Conservatives are a bunch of rich idiots who know nothing about living. They don’t understand the struggles of choosing between paying for electric or food. Fighting for your disability allowance as you’ll never be able to work etc. They aim is to please themselves.
And this country is going to turn into warzone, crime will increase. Death rate will increase in starvation and suicide. As will poverty rise. I spoken to people already willing to start a campaign against this mess, I can tell it’ll fail but I have hope. But failing to try something is better than doing nothing. Sad thing is, people will leave this country now. While I myself am not fully keen on this country, it is still my home and I won’t abandon my home.
Much talk of austerity here and hard times ahead but I sometimes wonder precisely what Labour voters stand for. For an instance, how in the name of pity and sanity did the voters of Rotherham vote in the way they did ? This was pure tribalism with the attendant selfishness thrown in. Could anyone really vote for Labour there after what has been revealed? They weren’t punished – they were congratulated and rewarded. Much more could have been done in Parliament by the Labour party (and others just as guilty) but they chose not to. In my humble opinion the basis of the sewer that masquerades as Parliament now has much – if not all – of it’s base in the phone hacking saga. It started with a man with an axe in his head (Daniel Morgan). So the stakes must have been pretty high even then, all those years ago. Hacking was not about show biz tittle tattle (although it proved useful in diverting attention from the real reasons). It was about obtaining information with which to blackmail politicians and decision makers. It’s been very effective. Maybe you wouldn’t agree, but if you knew much of what that saga was about you would revise your opinion and be astonished at the ease with which politicians (of all shades) have covered up what really happened. Apparently a newspaper man yourself Mike, one would expect you to know the truth of what occured but I’m sure that even if you did you would not divulge it because you’d be shit scared to. And also your tribalism would kick in too. You wouldn’t let the side down. And by ‘side’ I don’t mean the weak and the poor. Ah yes, the poor. They are let down by Parliamentarians and the media who won’t take on the PTB. If they endorsed whistleblowers and effectively protected them, imagine the mega, mega money which would be saved in official enquiries like Hillsborough, Bloody Sunday, Deepcut, Daniel Morgan, the Child Abuse scandals (too numerous to mention), Leveson et al. Enough to support all the poor in the land and then some. Is there a pattern there? No? Then you’re not giving things enough thought.
What a silly comment. If you’re going to discuss Rotherham, you need to actually find out a little about it. Blaming ‘Labour’ for the crimes that took place there just makes you look silly and small. The Labour Party did not commission them and had nothing to do with them. Nor did any Labour candidate in the general election. The council might have been run by Labour but it was council officers – who have no (professional) party alignment – that handled the matter poorly.
As a newspaper reporter I have, in fact, covered the Daniel Morgan case. Nothing in the material I gathered would have induced any kind of terror in me – and besides, you should know from reading this blog that I’m not easily frightened.
Still, I expect you enjoyed the rant.
Senior Council Officers, Senior Social Workers and Senior Police Officers are to be made accountable!
With the new Lord Chancellor, who considered the Stephen Lawrence case a witch-hunt, perhaps not?
You have precisely encapsulated the reason why Labour have failed completely. You wallow in it. ‘Naff all to do with me guv’ . Do the Labour party have absolutely no responsibility for what happened in Rotherham?. This wasn’t a one off, it continued for years and years. I’d like to say ‘overseen’ by Labour but I can’t – their eyes were tight shut but probably not their trousers. Got any sympathy for the kids? Silly question really. So you’re in local Government and have no responsibility? – you’re unhinged. No oversight then, exactly like the banking crisis. “It’s not our fault because we’re not bankers. We’re politicians”. Yeh, that’ll work. Terror? Does an axe in the head not make you feel a little unsettled? Probably not because you think you’re near enough to a politician for it not to threaten you. They don’t take hits – have you noticed? And you’ve not answered the question (in case you didn’t realise there was one in there). Journalists were responsible for the hacking saga, non? Nigh on 30 years of it. But hey – I wasn’t the editor so that rules me out. And the dorks probably deserved it – and probably weren’t our readers. Hell, I sincerely hope that you don’t get called for jury service.
You really don’t have anything to say about Rotherham other than the UKIP-inspired line that it must have been “all Labour’s fault”. Get a grip.
Of course I have sympathy for the victims but you’re looking in the wrong place for the culprits. Unless somebody told the councillors what was going on, they would not have known. DID anybody tell the councillors what was going on? No.
I do not feel threatened by the manner of Daniel Morgan’s death. There’s no indication that it’s about to happen to me; but then again, I’m not accusing the Metropolitan Police of widespread corruption. Nor did I take part in any phone hacking. So, yes, it simply does not have anything to do with me.
You seem increasingly unhinged. Please try to calm down and examine what you are saying rationally – because you are making no sense at all.
No wonder you lost and – uncomfortably for you – with many ex-supporters voting UKIP. I also note that you revert to name calling when you are out of ideas and/or excuses. Time you closed down along with Nu Labour.
Many former Labour supporters did indeed waste their votes on UKIP. I suppose it was an attempt at protest. As for me being out of ideas – not by a long way, matey! And I wasn’t name-calling; I was expressing concern for your state of mind, based on the tone and content of your comments.
Mike ,i live on a bungalow on a hill on a tiny housing estate in a small town on the edge of a city.nearest bus stop is too far for me to walk AND stand waiting for buses that dont turn up. when it does turn up ,by time i get to where i am going i am in pain, been shook up a lot.and no good for doing anything..cant carry shopping from the bus stop either assuming i got there at all.
… Meaning people would have to go to you if need be.
I need to think on this; work up more than a vague idea. It’s a shame some in the political arena hadn’t done so before, but optimism can put a brake on practicalities.
charities are being closed down too remember.so any help from that direction wont be forthcoming.though i admit i dont know how many, and which ones.im being told (dont know if true)that care homes for the elderly are also being closed down.they are gradually cutting off all official avenues to help for the ill,disabled, elderly