I can’t recall who said that the Tories would call a snap election in October, but I think he is right. The signs are there. Pick a fight with the unions. Tick. Pick a fight with the EU. Tick. Keep asylum seekers in the public eye. Tick. Blame the economy on anything but themselves. Tick. Get the majority of the media to misrepresent the truth on all the above. Tick. When that ****, Hancock, tweets something along the lines of “the rail strike will cause harm to the NHS and lead to the loss of life” with his record of neglect and loss of life, when he was the Health Secretary, they really are digging deep in the gutter.
Let's hope so as they will have to choose a new leader too. No way on earth the Tories get in again with Bluster in charge. No way. Whatever BS they put out before the election.
I would like to think you are right but having posted a few days back that in a YouGov poll 43% were supporting the government’s decision to send asylum seekers to Rwanda, I think the hatred and chaos the Tories are raising will see them returned again. Just watched the ITV news and there was pretty much an assassination job of the rail workers strike, even filming people with disability to make the unions appear “nastier”, so the media are onside. Teachers and nurses are likely to be offered something like 3%, which will likely be rejected, with other strikes being balloted. This plays well for the government, who will spin it dishonestly, as usual. What doesn’t get much mention is that an MP’s salary is 28% higher than it was in 2010, an increase of £18406. (£65738 < £84144).
Interesting read from the FT https://www.ft.com/content/7a209a34...nyyVFyjxY3_SK1l4d8FI2DhnoUB5WGKWHjI&fs=e&s=cl
I think pretty soon our mainstream media outlets are going to be on par with the US - that is if you sit on one side of the divide you watch one channel and the other side for the rest. That is if it isn’t there already. Although it won’t get mentioned that an MPs salary has risen 28% in the last 12 years that figure is a actually more in real terms. I have just checked and a newly qualified grade 5 nurse has seen their salary rise 21.5% in the same period. Wow some may say. But to quote myself when I had a particularly **** paid job and got a 10 or 15% pay rise, 21.5% of sweet FA is still sweet FA. The lower down the income scale you are the higher % of your income is on the necessities you spend. That 21.5% rise means they have less in real terms in their pockets than even a same 21.5% increase on a MP’s salary as nearly all of that is swallowed up in living whereas the more you earn the more you benefit from a raise and the more you spend on pleasure rather than the basics. I dont have an answer to it, but although we sit probably on different sides in the political spectrum sometimes I can see that something is not right.
Just tried to go back into myself, and couldn’t. In a nutshell, iirc, it was spelling out how badly Brexit has impacted on the country and how scared all the main political parties are to suggest reversing it or even softening it, in case it impacts on the next GE. It mentions that even the LibDems have softened their rejoin message and the high percentage of Labour voters, who voted Leave, could turn away from Labour if they put too much talk into changing things. I think it also mentioned that a Tory MP, who recently suggested rejoining the Single Market, was basically told not to mention it again. Starmer’s let’s make Brexit work, could actually prove to be good for Labour.
I have said it before but in my opinion that feeling of “something isn’t right” that everyone feels is because the money is broken. Most of the problems that people perceive to be political issues are actually a result of decades of financial mismanagement of the economy. Politicians are basically powerless to change most of these things as the western world is swept up in a torrent of currency debasement and inflation
Strong words from the ex Tory chairman, Chris Patten, about the future of the UK, if the Tories win the next election.
Top tip. If an article is paywalled, head over to archive.today and paste in the url. You will see the page either immediately or after maybe a minute or two (while some code visibly runs on your screen). Works for every paywalled site I've ever come across. Vin
Have to say I was very disappointed by Starmer’s response to the RMT strike. It’s okay that he has said that he didn’t want a strike, especially as the Tory media are somehow trying to blame him and Labour for it happening, but he seems to have missed a golden opportunity to educate the country on why this strike is happening. The financial offer of 2% plus another 1% if the union agrees to redundancies and worsening working conditions, is outrageously poor. He should have been explaining that this poor offer, on top of wage stagnation over the last 12 years, is deliberately provocative and that the Tory party wants the strike to go ahead, so that they can weaponise it, when they could have stepped in and tried to prevent it. The media are still plumbing the depths to find the saddest story of someone affected by the strike, rather than questioning the part played by the government. My own circumstances will be affected by this strike as I am due to fly back to the UK on Saturday and then board a train, which I guess won’t be running, but I still support RMT 100%. In fact I might not even make it back to the UK Saturday, as Ryanair’s Spanish cabin crews are striking, so my plane might not even take off. In the past some strikes have just been plain wrong, but I don’t think this one is.
There's only one person getting flustered in this interview and it sure as hell isn't Lynch! Awful interviewing from Burley, just fishing for the sensationalist line - and getting no joy.
