The Politics of Envy...

The Etonian millionaires tell us when we talk about the gap between the rich and poor, that these are the politics of envy. Yet their press- the press they, the rich, own and control, every day talks about "scroungers" " skivers" etc living off the state.

They have used this manipulation of public opinion through their media outlets to lower compassion and in turn justify the stripping of meagre funds that people rely on to feed families through unemployment thrust upon them by the monetarist policies of Governments from Thatcher through to Cameron and Clegg's.

Tell a lie often enough and it becomes truth, the Nazi propagandists taught them.

These policies have ensured those who own medical "providers" profit hugely. Some of these companies were formed before the English NHS was tore apart by the Tories and LibDems but who waited patiently until the legislation was thrust into law and now who are buying up the profitable parts of the NHS and are profiting by charging the tax payer exhorbitant amounts of money. Some were American Companies that in anticipation, many of those who you vote for, bought stock in. Insider dealing?

Your politicians have nothing on the Nick Leeson's of this world.

This Government has pushed millions of children below the poverty line while giving tax breaks - and actual tax money to billionaires.

Their politics of envy have led to despair and desperation - suicides and stress related deaths through their ATOS and bedroom tax programmes.

Research has shown that even during the so called boom years of Blair and Thatcher, there have never been enough jobs for everyone. Yet Cameron and his ministers talk about people languishing on benefit as if it were the fault of the unskilled, poor worker.

As if it were the fault of the poor immigrant asking for asylum from Governments who want them dead.

Or the poor immigrant who comes here to find safe, unionised, reasonably paid work away from the Primark, Walmart etc sweatshops in which they could die, chained to their sewing machine making cheap clothes that gives us the impression we have wealth?

Slave workers who die to clothe our poor or "throw away fashionable?"

So- the politics of envy... by stealing money from the poor- chipping away at the small funds needed to keep people above the breadline; impoverishing people and making this narrative of skivers and scroungers and thieving immigrants a prerequisite of political discourse, could someone explain to me what envy is?

Is it political voices saying the gap between the rich and poor is immoral?

Is it the voices who say no child should live in poverty regardless of how difficult their mother or father are finding it to get work?

Or is it the political voices saying that poor people have it too good? 

FAQ's - NHS Health Bill

Arm yourself.  This is a huge fight.  The NHS is in peril this week.  If this bill is passed, expect to be charged for services you currently pay for through tax.  Your tax money will be going directly to profiteers who will be charging you twice.

Read these FAQ's.  http://abetternhs.wordpress.com/faq/

The Deepbone Roundabout- keep Swinson away.

Letter to Bearsden Milngavie Herald


It is really good to see the construction of the new roundabout at the Duntocher Road / Baljaffray Road intersection. This will undoubtedly save lives and stop the risk taking of motorists pulling out on to the Duntocher Road.

When I saw this was given the go ahead I was reminded of the locally filmed “Burnistoun” comedy series and the single issue politician who was successfully elected to get rid of the traffic lights on the Deep bone Roundabout (see below for video ) and was also reminded of the single issue politician who represents our constituency in Westminster, and through a hung Parliament has become an apologist for the Tories, Jo Swinson.




Swinson was elected on the single issue that she was not the Labour Party, nor was she a member of the Tory party. How wrong we were.

I look around East Dunbartonshire and see the changes electing such a careerist politician to Westminster has imposed upon us. Her unfaltering support for the ConDem Tory led government and deep, rapid cuts aimed at working people have led to a huge proportion of our young people without hope of work after training as teaching assistants, teachers, nurses, doctors etc. Her proudest moment seems to have been the support for a policy that does not, thank goodness, even effect East Dunbartonshire and Scotland, ie. the imposition of huge fees to young people wanting to participate and add to our economy through educating themselves at Universities in England.

In her current position as Parliamentary Private Secretary to Vince Cable, she has now foisted the blame for the UK’s stagnant economy on to workers who are trying to defend their ever decreasing income and in fact their jobs, rather than on the banks and the billionaires who caused the economic crisis in the first place. Cable and Swinson and the rest of the ConDems have, regardless of their empty rhetoric , failed completely in taking on the banks and their bonus culture and the structural aspects of capitalism that will lead to further crisis, and further disaster for working people, in the future. Instead, the workers and their children growing up in East Dunbartonshire are bearing the brunt of the cuts – Swinson, Cable, Clegg and Cameron have turned socialism on its head and instead of the people they represent gaining through the profits of these institutions, the people of East Dunbartonshire, Scotland and the UK have had the DEPT shared out, whilst the bankers enjoy their bonuses and the oil and gas profiteers steal our resources (and charge us the highest prices in Europe for what is produced in our country).

Swinson, with her £60k+ salary and expenses is so far removed from the struggles of ordinary people in East Dunbartonshire, one can imagine her muttering under her breath the thatcherite nonsense, "There is no such thing as society," adding, "only workers who will pay for the neo-capitalist destruction of our economy."

Unfortunately, Swinson has another four years to be an apologist for a Tory led Government that is draining Scotland and East Dunbartonshire of its resources and young people (who undoubtedly will leave our shores to find work in countries that value the skills they have learned).

A single issue politician or a politician without a single issue?

I believe the time to start fighting for a local candidate who sees far beyond the £60k+ pay packet and huge expenses Swinson can claim, is now. I propose those of us in East Dunbartonshire who share a vision of a better world for our children and not more of the same, should come together and find a candidate we can support that will oust the Liberal Democrats from East Dunbartonshire AND ensure the Tories get the message that their extreme capitalism is not welcome here. A candidate who will fight for East Dunbartonshire and for an independent Scotland and a candidate who will not be seduced by the money and self aggrandizement the title of MP has brought to Jo. A candidate who will work for us on an average workers wage.

Oh, and I hope when this new Roundabout is opened, Swinson is not asked to cut the ribbon. The Burnistoun writers and performers have added much more to the Bearsden/ Milngavie/ East Dunbartonshire economy than Swinson has by far. Ask them.

Neil Scott
SSP Organiser, www.campsiesocialists.com

Cameron, the rich, on Social Justice

Let’s be clear about something when David Cameron speaks about “broken Britain.” It was the Tories wot dun it.


What Cameron thinks of poor and working class who are being persuaded to vote for him by Sun, Times and Daily Mail - photo by photographer Michael Schofield


When was British society at its most “happiest” using measurable scales?
During the noughties?

No. During the ‘90s? No.

Ok. The ‘50s or 60’s?

Nope.

It surely can’t be the Thatcherite ‘80s?

Got that right.

The year in which various health indicators have shown that the UK was at it’s happiest was 1978. The year BEFORE the Thatcher victory. The year of the so called winter of discontent.

Why?

Because that is the year when the UK had reached its highest level of equality and social mobility.

Of course, this is something the Murdochracy ,the Tories and the New Labour project do not want you to know.

What happened in between then and now?

Well – Thatcher and her Government decimated our society; wrecked our manufacturing base; destroyed mining towns and villages; made no-go areas of our inner cities; created a society where rather than feeling safe and happy, people feel they need to walk on each other – and kick each other down - in order to succeed – or at least to feel they are succeeding.

Surely the Labour Party changed this?

Well, let’s be fair. The Labour Party, according to social and health indicators, did not destroy society on quite the same scale, but the fact is, they did little to address the gap between rich and poor. They continued the Thatcherite/ neo-liberal project that ensures the people on the bottom struggle and work the hardest to feed themselves and their children, but receive the most “jip” – being called lazy or worse, dismissed as some sort of genetic “underclass.” And all the “main” political parties are turning to the poor to pay off the rich bankers debt by cutting their services and their chance of a job.

Back in the early eighties when I started working, the Thatcher project was only beginning to show its teeth. There were still communities of council housing where the unskilled worker lived side by side with policemen, nurses, tradesmen and women, public service workers – REAL communities. People could decide how to spend their money – either on a mortgage or on renting a decent house. And every family who needed a house could get one without a wait or having to scrape deposits or risk 95% / 100% mortgages. The current housing system sees young people unable to get a house either from the council – or onto the “property ladder.”

Those of us who “failed” in school (failure being part of the educational language at the time – some good things have happened educationally in the meantime…) could find unskilled – well paid – jobs in factories. Education was not quite the market it has become where people with qualifications within a percentage point of each other compete for precious college or University places.

Nowadays “failure” is on the part of society – the UK Thatcherite/ neoliberal economy has meant our young people are failing to find jobs because, let’s face it, there are few of them. And there will be fewer as the Public Sector are made to pay in jobs and funding for the failure of the much vaunted private sector (the private sector – let’s face it – who caused the “crisis”).

What is a fair society? Is it this scrabble for the pieces the rich throw down from their table? 2% of the people in country benefit from the current system – the very rich – the Cameron’s, Murdoch’s and Rothermere’s who are telling the rest of us we must cut cut cut and live in austerity. When, apparently, times were good – before the “economic downturn” (or the rich rip-off to term it properly) we were told we needed cuts in our pensions/ public services/ pay. Now times are bad, we, the majority of this country are told we need to cut back even more. So when were these good times? For the majority of the country, it seems that the “good times” were just times when the rich were getting even more rich than they are now while shafting the rest of us(the rich in this country made over £300bn extra bucks in the last year, while the rest of us are asked to suffer for their greed).

Why do we not hear any of this in our press?

Well, our press is controlled by the very rich.

Lord Rothermere, whose Daily Mail daily attacks the poor and working class, and who supports the Tory “austerity” drive, ie. the drive to impoverish the poor even further in order to make them pay for the rich’s greed, pays NO TAX in this country.

Why? Because he makes his money here, but is “non-domiciled.” The man is worth nearly a reported billion pounds… yet pays nothing to our society only bile through his working class bashing rag.

Rupert Murdoch not only avoids tax in the UK on his incredible fortune, but has been cited in various tax avoidance cases in the US and Israel to name two. Murdoch is reportedly worth £7bn – but pays no tax here – in the country his Sun and Times target the poor for cuts – and the “austerity” Tories as their party of choice – the party that ruined towns and villages across the country in their “greed is good” philosophy.


As I have said in another article ( HERE ), Twitter and other outlets for real people’s opinion have turned the tables. But not completely.

The Tories and Labour – and the SNP in Scotland - all want one party rule – their party. So they, in their various ways, ensure the smaller parties – or the left - or the sensible – or those purely wanting fairness - have little exposure in societal debates and discussion. This not only happens through the billionaire supported and opinionated press ignoring the Lib Dems or the Scottish Socialist Party, but also in ignoring poverty charities such as Child Poverty Action Group, or damning reports about equality such as the Black Report or more recent work by Richard Wilkinson and Kate Pickett ( see HERE and on the election HERE) and perhaps seemingly less important, the legislation against placarding streets during elections.

Look out for legislation against certain types of blogging or twittering or opinion pieces in the future as the greed driven Thatcherite poverty bashing parties and billionaires all panic.

And as far as Cameron’s “social justice" message this morning, in the words of the young woman who heckled him yesterday, “I don’t believe you.”

follow @sspcampsie on twitter

It was the Son wot Lost it?

Is the Media Mickey Mouse Degree tide turning?

One thing has been made obvious by the welcome knock-back of the “sure winners” the Tories. The media has been exposed. The journalists who have vested interests in pleasing Murdoch daily with even more rancid headlines have been outed.

I know this is the case for one primary reason. In the way miners used to bring birds down the mines to let them know that gas was present, I talk politics to my parents. This can be painful for a Socialist – my parents are Daily Mail/ Sun reading pensioners who worked hard all of their lives. They come from a generation who grumbled about politicians and in fact had no illusions (they live in Northern Ireland) – but every year were fooled by the scare politics of the unionist hegemony in the province. This year, in Northern Ireland is a little different. Unionism is shattering and a beleaguered UUP is being bolstered by a desperate Tory Party.
But it isn’t Northern Ireland politics that my parents have noticed is rotten – they knew that many years ago. No – it is that their usual Daily Mail and Sun line has slightly changed. They still say unreasonable things straight from the pages- but last night, when I spoke to them on the phone, both said to me, more or less in the same words, “the papers told lies about Nick Clegg.”

Let me expose my partisanship – I am a socialist. I want a fair society. I just don’t want you to get the wrong impression… but…

Last night Ann Leslie appeared on BBC Question Time. This experienced old tory hack was also a miners bird (not literally – she did her very best back during the Thatcher years to destroy that industry and those peoples lives). Leslie started her usual less than subtle Tory diatribes with the sentence, “As someone who votes tory, but is not a member of the tory party – I don’t hold with journalists belonging to political parties…” - an unprecendented admission on a populous political programme. With most of her points there was a knowing audience titter and certainly on Twitter as her name, surprisingly trended, the twitter-atti were certainly not fooled by her.

Murdoch Mess

This morning on asking Gordon Brown a question about honesty, a Sun reporter was openly laughed at by the press and Gordon Brown, Harriet Harman and Mandelson joined in the laughter, Brown saying, “That’s rich from the Sun, the sun should give people more credit,[and be honest] and allow people to make their own minds up.”

Yesterday the Independent Newspaper was confronted by James Murdoch (Rupert’s son who advised his dad to back the Tories) openly at a press do. His objections were because the Independent dared to say, “Rupert Murdoch won’t decide this election, you will,” in a promotional ad. This shows the flakiness and panic setting into the Murdoch empire as they are feeling the pressure of the fact they have pumped millions of pounds behind a Tory campaign that seems to have ran off the rails. If the Tories fail, that would be millions of pounds wasted on both sides of the Atlantic as President Cain and Vice President Palin failed to reap the Fox News dividend. Murdoch had also met with the Daily Mail pre-the attacks on Nick Clegg – exposing that short lived and transparent joint strategy. The Murdoch’s are under pressure because of the seeming imminent failure of their support for the Tories and their want to place online news print media behind a paywall. Is an empire unravelling?

Press owned by self interested billionaires

Johann Hari sums it up in an article today saying, “The British media is overwhelmingly owned by right-wing billionaires who order their newspapers to build up the politicians who serve their interests, and marginalise or rubbish the politicians who serve the public interest. …Only a tiny spectrum of opinion was permitted [by the Murdoch’s according to ex-editor of the Sun, David Yelland]. Everyone to the left of Tony Blair (not hard) had to be rubbished – even when their policies spoke for a majority of British people.” (full article HERE )

Hari believes the TV debates have been one of the biggest factors in the changing of the public’s ability to be fooled. I nearly agree. I would say it ruins slightly deeper. Thatcher’s nightmare has come about. She used to attack Media Studies as a Mickey Mouse course – but those educated into how the media works seem to have spread the word. Not only that, the ability to blog, twitter, youtube etc has brought different views to people – showing there is more of a view than through the Murdoch/ Rothermere looking glass. The internet has shown people they can make a difference in controversial issues (Trafagura/ Iran/ Haiti etc) and also make little changes to what is accepted will happen (Rage Against the Machine as the very festive number one instead of Simon Cowell’s latest singing cash cow). The people have been educated, and perhaps slowly (a move to the Liberal Democrats is hardly revolutionary!) consciousness is creeping into elections – and these are going to be more than an X-Factor glamour contest.

I predict it will be less of a “It was the Sun wot won it,” than the trending Twitter hashtag this morning of “#itwastheSONwotlostit”.

After the upset this election promises, watch out for an even more colourful Scottish Parliament in 2011.