The News In Shorts

How the news would look if everyone stopped waffling and told the truth.
Showing posts with label Jeremy Corbyn. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Jeremy Corbyn. Show all posts

Tuesday, 12 July 2016

Yet Another Outbreak Of Democracy.

The Parliamentary Labour Party is in turmoil tonight after the National Executive ruled that Jeremy Corbyn will be allowed to stand once again for the leadership of the party. We asked a Tory Lite Labour MP for his reaction to tonight's news. "This is disastrous," he told our reporter. "We've worked so hard to stamp out democracy since the blessed Margaret Thatcher became the spiritual head of the Labour party in 1979 and now it's broken out all over again. When will voters in this country understand that we - the establishment - knows what's best for them and that democracy has no place in our brave new world? If voting continues to make a difference like this we'll have no choice but to abolish it." Puzzled by this reaction our reporter asked about the Brexit vote. "We have to bow to the wishes of the overwhelming majority of the people who voted for it. It's refreshing when the public vote for something that we in the establishment have longed for. Now we can ignore Johnny Foreigner, make up the rules for ourselves and vote ourselves the tax cuts and the unlimited expense accounts that we deserve." We asked if the Labour party would now split. "Split? What are you talking about, split? I have been and always will be a proud member of the very slightly left-wing of the Tory party. Why would we split when our leader, Theresa May, will win the next election? That's the trouble with you people, you actually think that British democracy should have some choice in it. Politics is not about choice, its about maintaining the status quo or, failing that, managing change so that people like me come out on top."

Tuesday, 12 January 2016

Why Corbyn's Economic Policy Makes Sense.

Let us first consider a few statements made by the psychopaths who run the Tory party. David Cameron asks us to believe that there is no connection between increasing poverty and cuts to the benefit system. Iain Duncan Smith assures us that there is no connection between benefit sanctions and the suicide of those left destitute by those sanctions. Boris Johnson tells us that today's junior doctor's strike is because they are 'in the grip of advanced Corbynitis'. Jeremy Hunt tells us that the NHS, amidst its worst crisis in 60 years, is "safe" in his hands. The one thing that connects all of these statements together is that they are all obvious falsehoods, pedaled by cheap crooks who are seeking only to reward themselves with nice juicy tax cuts. These people, together with several Tories inside the Labour Party, also tell us that Jeremy Corbyn's economic plans will lead to economic meltdown, that Corbyn is an economic illiterate and that his policies are too left-wing. So how does this square with a letter written by 41 leading economists, including a former adviser to the Bank of England? “The accusation is widely made that Jeremy Corbyn and his supporters have moved to the extreme left on economic policy. But this is not supported by the candidate’s statements or policies. His opposition to austerity is actually mainstream economics, even backed by the conservative IMF. He aims to boost growth and prosperity. Despite the barrage of media coverage to the contrary, it is the current government’s policy and its objectives which are extreme. The attempt to produce a balanced public sector budget primarily through cuts to spending failed in the previous parliament. Increasing child poverty and cutting support for the most vulnerable is unjustifiable. Cutting government investment in the name of prudence is wrong because it prevents growth, innovation and productivity increases which are all much needed by our economy, and so over time increases the debt due to lower tax receipts. We the undersigned are not all supporters of Jeremy Corbyn. But we hope to clarify just where the ‘extremism’ lies in the current economic debate." So who should we believe? A bunch of self-seeking, greedy, selfish crooks or people who actually know what they are talking about?

Saturday, 12 September 2015

It's Jeremy Corbyn Wot Won It!

Jeremy Corbyn has won the election for leader of the Labour by a landslide - beating off the opposition with a massive 59.5% majority in the first ballot. This has hardly come as a great surprise since his victory has been predicted in the press for weeks. So, what does the Corbyn victory mean? David Cameron has no doubts - sternly warning us all that if he becomes Prime Minister then we will all disappear down an economic black hole. This is strange coming from a man that has smugly trebled the national debt over the last five years and complacently watched as Iain Duncan Smith has persecuted the unemployed, the old, the sick and the infirm. Having witnessed the banks laying waste to the world economy he has happily rewarded them for their efforts. Having seen for himself the disastrous results of an economy based on pure greed and stupidity, he has patiently put it back together again. Knowing who was to blame he has deliberately sought out scapegoats to divert attention away from the real perpetrators, punishing the innocent in order to reward the guilty. Any thing else, he has told us, is "socialism" - a sinister conspiracy to destroy ordinary working people by paying them a living wage, providing a decent safety net for the unlucky, giving them a good education and re-establishing services that are fit for purpose rather than to provide an easy living for the already rich. For the rest of us believing in Jeremy Corbyn will be an act of faith since any facts about his policies will be deliberately distorted by a media whose bias is a national scandal. Get ready for stories in the press that Jeremy Corbyn is in fact an ungodly alien communist bent on world domination instead of the decent man he really is. There will rumours (unsubstantiated of course) that he has millions in off shore bank accounts, that he fiddles his expenses so cunningly that the evidence for it cannot be found (which just goes to show how cunning he is) and that he wants to sell our Monarchy to the Americans (not a bad idea if selling off public assets to private enterprise is so good for us all). The question is can he win a general election? The answer to that is a resounding "yes" though that will ultimately depend on whether we are a decent country or just a disorganised rabble addicted to selfishness and greed as the Tories would have us believe. The question is not if Corbyn is good enough to elect but if we are good enough to do so.

Saturday, 22 August 2015

Labour: "We Don't Like Democracy After All".

Certain parts of the Labour party are in turmoil today as they begin to realise that democracy doesn't always give you the result you might want. But, as events in Palestine, Libya, Iraq and Afghanistan have amply demonstrated, that is the trouble with democracy. Many are now crying "foul" and suggesting that diabolical Tories are infiltrating the party in order to foist a completely unwanted Jeremy Corbyn as the new Labour leader. So convinced are they of this that they even banning real Labour supporters "just in case". What they fear is that the socialist party founded by Kier Hardie might be "taken over" by - horror upon horror - socialists! Calls have been heard to halt the election because it's all "going the wrong way." There are dark mutterings that, if Corbyn wins, the revolutionary and Tory wing of the party will stage an uprising or, perhaps more likely, throw their toys out of the pram. This is the unhealthy place that British politics now finds itself in - a place where neoliberal economic mumbo-jumbo has become the new orthodoxy, where socilaism has become a dirty word and democracy is now a dangerous idea. Well, as Franklin D Roosevelt once observed, "We have nothing to fear but fear itself." What, after all, is the worst that can happen? A Labour government will borrow some money, something that the Tories have been doing for the last five years with absolute abandon, but, instead of giving it to bankers and the already far too wealthy, they will invest it in those things that the country needs - mainly housing. The NHS will be saved from the clutches of various giant American health corporations who are slavering to get their hands on assets for nothing that belong to you and me. Education will become less expensive for our hard pressed children. The railways and utilities, plundered by the rich and greedy for decades, will be returned to public ownership where service, rather than profit, will be the aim. And, after five years, if Corbyn should win a general election but fails to improve the country, we can all vote him out of office. That's what democracy is supposed to be about isn't it?

Sunday, 9 August 2015

The Past Is A Foreign Country.

There are many people in Britain today who will fail to recognise the above photograph. It is a ruined factory - a place where people used to go, make things and earn money. Young people who didn't have the aptitude to be a banker, a property speculator or diversity coordinator would get apprenticeships at such places, learn a trade and get a proper job at the end of it all. In 1979 Margaret Thatcher and her Tory henchmen decided that we didn't need manufacturing industry any more and that we could base our entire economy on banking and shopping. Apprenticeships in factories were replaced with training for a life of crime in banking and finance. The working class was essentially exported abroad to India and China where their votes don't count over here in Britain and the Tories looked forward to a new generation who would have no idea that an alternative to neoliberal economics was possible. And it worked. Even the Labour party, the traditional party of the working class, went along with this idea. The economic insanity of "trickle down" became orthodoxy and , in times of famine, it became normal to present the rich and greedy with ever-increasingly bigger meals. Those who didn't fit into this new world, the ill-educated, the sick, the disabled and the unemployed became "scroungers". Those who argued against it became "dinosaurs" or, as Liz Kendall recently put it, "a throwback to the past." That, apparently, would be a terrible thing. Jeremy Corbyn as leader of the Labour party, or heaven forefend, as Prime Minister would reverse all the "progress" of the last 30 years. Just imagine it. Ordinary people with full time well paid jobs. Hospitals well funded by the taxes paid by these people in full time well paid jobs. Entire industries such as gas, electricity, water and railways dedicated to creating public services instead of ripping off their customers. A society more equal in which the rich pay taxes as well. A society in which the sick and disabled are treated with a measure of dignity and the unemployed are helped back into real jobs that pay real money. Awful isn't it? "The past is a foreign country; they do things differently there."

Wednesday, 5 August 2015

Can The Tories Waste Any More Taxpayers Money?

It is the great political and economic dilemma of our times - how can the Tories waste even more taxpayers money while still benefiting themselves? Selling off RBS at a loss of £1 billion to the Tories rich mates in the City is a doddle. All George Osborne has to do is to stand up in Parliament and tell everyone with a straight face that this "is a good deal for the British taxpayer." Child's play for an accomplished conman like George. Explaining away the hundreds of millions lost to the NHS by Jeremy Hunt has proven a bit more tricky. Softening up the NHS for privatisation is, of course, the aim, but how to explain it? Cue Jeremy who now has the sheer brass neck to turn the argument on its head and suggest that the NHS cannot control its shrinking budget. "NHS spending is simply unaffordable" he tells the public while he gloats over the tax cuts for his £1 million mansion and congratulates his rich mates for their ingenious tax-dodging scams. Meanwhile, sniggering up his sleeve, George Osborne has asked public sector workers "for their ideas on how to deliver public services more efficiently" since he doesn't have a clue. "We need to save at least £20 billion if Dave and I are to get our next tax cut," George told our reporter. "Asking public sector workers to cut their own throats saves me the trouble and, when it all goes tits up, I can simply point the finger and remind them it was all their own idea. Brilliant! But its true that political scams and con tricks are becoming increasingly hard to pull off. In the 70's and 80's things were much easier when the world's most successful peadophile ring - Parliament - was bullet proof. Now we have the likes of Tom Watson and Jeremy Corbyn swanning around telling everyone the bloody truth. Thank God for offshore banking is all I can say."

Sunday, 26 July 2015

Who's Afraid Of Jeremy Corbyn?

So let's get this right. Jeremy Corbyn is a leftie. Jeremy Corbyn is a socialist. Now, forgive me for perhaps missing the point here, but what is so strange about a left-wing socialist party being led by such a man? Unless, of course, the Labour party has now decided that it is not left-wing and is no longer socialist. This seems quite likely given their track record over the last twenty years or so. Perhaps then they should change their name to Tory Lite. Their argument seems to be that socialism is dead, that right-wing neo-liberal economics has won and that the British electorate cannot be persuaded that there is something wrong with greed and selfishness. They may be right but shouldn't some one at least be making the counter-argument? What is wrong with politics being about principles? Why can't a political party take a principled stand, argue the issues, seek to persuade and then win an election when public opinion finally catches up? We have spent the last twenty years watching the Labour party argue that they must win power no matter what the cost, ditching all their principles and then finding themselves unable to do anything worthwhile because they "don't have a mandate". How about this for an idea? Why not point out that the Tories are a bunch of lying crooks and hammer home the point until the electorate realise the truth? Why isn't Labour shaming the Tories on a daily basis for murdering the disabled, for preying on the sick and infirm, for a corrupt economic policies that amount to fraud and for protecting their kiddie-fiddling predecessors? The Tory party is nothing better than organised crime and we need some body to stand up and say so. Labour supporters have been abandoning the party in droves because it no longer represents their views while most of the electorate can't be bothered to vote at all. And why is this? Because a growing number of people see quite clearly that there is nothing for them in the modern political system and that corruption and lies are all they get in return for their support. Those who like corruption and lies vote Tory in any event so what is there to lose by having a bit of backbone and having principles? So who's afraid of Jeremy Corbyn? The Tories are.