Monthly Archives: August 2022

Food banks will start turning people away as demand outstrips supply

Food bank: this image was taken a few years ago – now they’re struggling to fill the shelves, and considering turning away visitors.

That’s that, then: no doubt the Tories will be delighted that they have finally overloaded destitute Britons’ last hope.

The food bank network has stated categorically that stratospheric energy bills and rocketing inflation are putting “unsustainable” demand on them – and they are going to have to start turning people away.

Those people will starve.

A fall in donations is entirely consistent with the situation: the rich who can ride out the current crisis aren’t going to donate to help the poor – and those on middle-incomes who normally do are suddenly facing poverty themselves.

The Independent Food Aid Network (Ifan UK) has appealed to the Tory government for “urgent, cash-first interventions” – which This Writer predicts will do about as much good as spitting into the wind.

Source: Food banks are unsustainable and will have to ‘turn people away this winter’

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Is Starmer right with plan to cut energy bills for the rich and poor alike?

Keir Starmer: it seems he actually has a point (for a change).

To answer the question in the title, if you watch this clip of Jeremy Vine attacking Keir Starmer’s plan – to his face – you may think the answer is no:

But if it knocks headline inflation down by four points, it has to be good – right?

And in the meantime – it is to be hoped – Parliament as a whole can work on a multi-headed strategy to bring down the cost of living.

Also – you may not know this, but the Labour plan apparently saves poorer people, who don’t pay by direct debit but by pre-payment, £300 more.

This Writer is no fan of Starmer – but at least he is offering something.

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Enjoy Michael Rosen’s list of slogans for a Truss government

Truss: look at this image while reading Michael Rosen’s slogans for her, and you can almost hear her saying them.

This Twitter thread by Michael Rosen is brilliant and should be saved for prosperity:

The others are all connected to the original tweet (it seems) and I don’t want to bore you by repeating it ad nauseum so here are some of the slogans on their own:

“Liz Truss: never knowingly understood.”

“Can we do it? No we can’t.”

“Forget food, eat hope.”

“Sit down and have a nice cup of cold tea.”

“Eat a pigeon.”

“Find out what you most want, then forget it.”

“Be careful what you wish for: you won’t get it.”

“The Nanny State died of hypothermia.”

“The NHS is woke.”

“Whack the woke.”

“Looking to see a doctor? Compare prices first.”

“It’s goodbye to good buys.”

“Your bills are your fault.”

“Thou shalt not heat.”

“We can’t go under it, we can’t go over it and come to think of it: we can’t go through it either.”

“We got Brexit done. Help us get Brexit done.”

“The Northern Ireland Protocol was foisted on us by us.”

“It’s a free press because it’s owned by free millionaires.”

“Please put a penny in the rich man’s hat.”

“If you’re broke, sack your servants.”

“A pay cut is the kindest cut of all.”

“Low pay
is not
no pay.”

“Knit yourself a salary.”

“Slavery wasn’t all bad.”

“Sell your Granny.”

“‘Hope I die before I get old…’ The way forward.”

“Disabled? Go to work on a leg.”

“Not all sewage is bad.”

“One man’s crisis is another man’s party.”

And this one is probably closest to the actual attitude of a Truss administration:

“You deserve it.”

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In crisis-prone Tory UK you can’t even go for a walk in the park

Here’s another shot in the foot for Tory credibility.

Drastic Tory underfunding over the last 12 Tory years is seriously degrading not just the quality and safety of public parks, but also their accessibility – their very public-ness.

Local authorities in England alone are spending £330 million less per year on public parks than before 2010.

And they are fencing them off to gain the income from hosting private festivals, after the Covid-19 crisis proved that our parks are essential – particularly to people with no green spaces of their own.

The Guardian article from which I’m getting this information paraphrases US folk singer Utah Phillips to describe the situation very well:

“Our public realm is not dying, it is being killed – and those who are killing it have names, addresses and lanyards for party conference season.”

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Energy crisis: Tory government won’t help but wants you to use your common sense. Why?

The Conservative government has developed a curious rhetorical tic lately, as Maximilien Robespierre notes in his latest clip.

Instead of providing tangible help on the latest crisis they have triggered or escalated, ministers tell us to rely on our own common sense.

So in the Covid-19 crisis, mask-wearing was cast as a matter of choice. And now, with the cost of energy multiplying exponentially, they are refusing to provide advice.

They say we should rely on our own common sense.

Here’s the clip:

It’s an abrogation of responsibilty.

Political choices put the population in this mess, so politicians should grasp the nettle and offer us options to get out of it.

And saying the amount of energy we use is up to us, after experts have already said we need to cut back consumption by 15-30 per cent, is imbecilic.

This Writer’s advice is: don’t listen to them. Listen to the people offering real help, like the Iceland boss in the clip.

Apologies for the unusual layout of this article. I am away from my desk, writing this on my mobile phone, without access to my usual tools.

Why are the Tories letting schools face 200% energy bill price rise?

A class at school: but what will happen to education if this institution has to divert all its resources, simply into paying its heating bill?

It’s as though the energy price rise is being used to drain the UK of all its resources – including education, which is still (mostly) run by the government.

Schools are facing energy price rises of more than 200 per cent – with more to come – and they can’t just turn off the lights or the radiators in rooms that aren’t being used, or take a £400 government subsidy like households.

And schools are also being asked to make pay awards for which the government has provided no extra funding at all.

(And this is the background against which Liz Truss wants to make tax cuts?)

It’s bizarre that the government has allowed this to happen. Look at France, where price increases are capped at four per cent, no matter what; this is a political choice to harm the education of millions of UK children:

Like the funding we need to pay these bills, remarkable leadership is absent from the UK’s current Tory government.

Read the full nightmare scenario: Leading Tories call on new PM to tackle crisis facing schools over soaring costs

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Would Sally-Ann Hart have taken a swim at the beach she was booed on?

Sally-Ann Hart: covering her posterior during the sewage crisis?

Here’s another great analysis from Maximilien Robespierre – this time on the way Tories who were elected to Parliament in 2019 are trying to cover their rear ends after voting to allow water companies to pollute our rivers, seas and beaches:

So: she said she voted for an amendment to Labour’s motion, that demanded investment in the sewerage infrastructure that would end the discharge of raw sewage into the environment.

But the amendment was changed to remove a requirement for water companies (in England) to take every reasonable step to ensure untreated sewage is not released from storm overflows. Also removed was the requirement to show improvements in the sewerage systems.

So her claim that she voted to demand improvements seems to be untrue. But, like many of her fellows in the Tory 2019 Parliamentary intake, she’s trying to put people off voting to remove her from her seat by pretending to be on their side.

She says an “ambitious” plan will be unveiled on September 1, to clean up the system. Will it be as ambitious as the plan she has already supported – that allowed water companies to stink up our beaches with possibly disease-ridden crap?

This Writer agrees with Maximilien Robespierre: Ms Hart should have been challenged to take a swim in the water she voted to despoil – to prove she had defended it, or demonstrate conclusively that she had not.

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Liz Truss SAYS she’s trying to beat the cost-of-living crisis – but she isn’t

Liz Truss: another idea that she’s pretending is one thing while it’s actually completely different.

Here’s a potential truth bomb from Maximilien Robespierre on YouTube: Liz Truss has said she wants to help people beat the cost-of-living crisis but in fact it seems she’s just trying to cut VAT.

Here’s the clip:

So she wants us to think she can save families £1,300 per year by cutting all VAT by five per cent – but to achieve that, families would have to spend more than £30,000 on items on which VAT is levied.

Who does that – apart from the very rich?

And she reckons it would help businesses, even though it won’t affect the tenfold increase in their fuel bills. Many firms have already decided to close or suspend operations until real support is presented by the government.

Finally, the cut would take £38 billion out of the government’s hands every year (yes, I know – taxation takes money out of the economy altogether, rather than recycling it back in, but it also allows a government leeway to put the same amount back into public spending if it so desires).

And it would not help people on low incomes in any way because most of their expenses – apart from gas – are VAT-exempt.

How many small businesses will die because of the energy price crisis?

What better time than a bank holiday to get business-owners thinking about the effect of the 80 per cent rise in the energy price cap on their viability?

Take a look at these:

So the (award-winning) Rose and Crown pub in Bebbington will see its unit charge rise from 15 pence to 97.05 pence, while its standing charge is rising to 40p per day.

(Standing charges seem to be a swindle, too. Apparently they cover the cost of keeping businesses connected to the grid, meter readings and government schemes. But wouldn’t it be more accurate to say that they cover not disconnecting firms? And aren’t smart meters ending the need for meter readings? Is there any need for standing charges at all, when several firms already offer a service without them?)

It faces an energy bill of nearly £62,000 per year. A chip shop will apparently pay £32,000.

And businesses will receive no help from the government. How will they survive – especially when pubs and chippies rely on disposable income that so many people no longer have?

Meanwhile, Boris Johnson reckons households will get support – but not all of them – next month:

That’s nice – but someone else will be prime minister by then. Liz Truss, maybe – and she is dragging her feet:

Tax cuts will only help people who pay tax – and not by very much, This Writer suspects.

It seems the energy firms aren’t the only organisations ripping off the public; the Tory government is at it too.

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Why does Liz Truss think she doesn’t need an ethics advisor?

Liz Truss: Ethics? Integrity? It seems more accurate to suggest she’s just another Tory liar.

Tory leadership contender Liz Truss has said she would not appoint a new ethics advisor to replace the one who quit in protest at Boris Johnson, because she has “always acted with integrity”.

Let’s think about that for a moment, shall we?

In October 2014, as Environment Secretary, Truss announced that her number one priority was bringing back fox hunting, after the Country Land and Business Association lobbied both the Tories and UKIP (remember them?) and it was suggested that UKIP could gain half a million votes if the Tories refused to commit themselves to repealing the Hunting Act.

So it seems Truss wanted to restore fox hunting in order to safeguard Tory votes, rather than because there was anything wrong with the ban. Ethical? Acting with integrity?

In 2016, as Justice Minister, Truss oversaw a jail riot caused by overcrowding and a lack of prison officers. Standards were considered “unacceptable” and fell short of “basic levels of decency” because of the regime inaugurated by her forerunner Chris Grayling and continued by Truss herself. Ethical? Acting with integrity?

In August that year, Truss affirmed the Conservative government’s plan to repeal the Human Rights Act and replace your rights with a much more limited British bill of rights (although the idea was later dropped because other Tory MPs opposed it. Ethical? Acting with integrity?

In 2017 it was revealed that Truss had presided over the largest number of prison suicides since records began in 1978.

In February that year it was revealed that inmates at a privatised prison were incapacitated by drugs, officers sometimes left on their own to manage large groups of inmates, and inmates threatening staff – on Truss’s watch.

That same month, Truss earned her nickname “Lukewarm Liz” after she failed to rebuke newspapers for calling the judiciary “enemies of the people” after the Supreme Court ruled that Parliament should vote on whether to trigger the process of leaving the European Union. It was suggested that her reluctance to defend the judges risked “undermining” society.

Those are just a few examples from a few years ago.

But it seems clear that ethics and integrity are sorely lacking from Ms Truss’s psychological makeup.

Indeed, her claim that the existence of “numerous advisers and independent bodies” was “one of the problems we have got in this country” suggests that she wants even less scrutiny of her decisions. Doesn’t that denote a guilty conscience to you?

And she said she would strengthen the Tory Party whips’ office – the organisation that kept a dossier on party members’ sexual (and other?) … indiscretions… in order to blackmail them? Is that an ethical way to behave? Is it acting with integrity?

It isn’t, is it? And her claim to be doing so would therefore appear to be dishonest. Do we really want yet another brazen liar in 10 Downing Street?

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Vox Political

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Monthly Archives: August 2022

Food banks will start turning people away as demand outstrips supply

Like this:

Is Starmer right with plan to cut energy bills for the rich and poor alike?

Like this:

In crisis-prone Tory UK you can’t even go for a walk in the park

Like this:

Energy crisis: Tory government won’t help but wants you to use your common sense. Why?

Like this:

Why are the Tories letting schools face 200% energy bill price rise?

Like this:

Would Sally-Ann Hart have taken a swim at the beach she was booed on?

Like this:

Liz Truss SAYS she’s trying to beat the cost-of-living crisis – but she isn’t

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How many small businesses will die because of the energy price crisis?

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Why does Liz Truss think she doesn’t need an ethics advisor?

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