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I shared a post on Facebook (Fakebook) from Harriet Goodale which just about sums up how I feel.

I can’t wait to shut up about what an absolute fucking abomination the Tory party is. If you’re still voting conservative, now fully aware of the consequences, I concede defeat. Congratulations, you’re a prize cunt. Four million destitute children with empty bellies salute you. Have fun remortgaging your house when your appendix bursts. I hope they put us all in labour camps so I can find you in the gruel queue and stamp on your foot.

Reading about Boris Johnson’s victory is depressing, the fake humility and the promises, like any new football manager to turn things around. He’s a winner and we’ll be winners too. Trust him.

Johnson has got that bit of leeway now, results might not go his way initially, but it’s a new project. New Conservatism with big spending plans. When Brexit is dealt with he’ll get back to those other things he plans to fix. It’s a matter of faith.

Perhaps the most depressing thing I read was an interview with a homeless man living on the steets. He said he wasn’t registered to vote, but if he did, he’d have voted Tory. If I’d have put a £1 in his cap I’d have taken it back and taken another fiver or whatever he’d collected. I’ve faith in that’s what the Tories do. Take from the poor to give to the rich.

When things start going wrong, as they will very quickly, are indeed happening at this very moment, when the grace period of Johnson’s government is over and they revert to type, then we know what type they are.

Johnson is wooden and hollow, and his lies are Pinocchio in disguise. Does anybody really believe, for example,  that when Britain are locked out of the block of the richest trading nations, the monopoly on healthcare we call the National Health Service won’t be on the table quicker than you can say wooden nose?

Noam Chomsky tells us the standard technique of privatisation, defund, make sure things don’t work, people get angry. You hand our NHS over to private capital. You hand the United Kingdom over to Boris Johnson and his ilk. He talks about Brexit. How he’ll pull it out of the bag, ready cooked. Results might go against him, but he’s one of us. He’s doing it for us.

The underfunded NHS is low hanging fruit. Perfect for rich fund managers to pick up as a bargain. The infrastructure is already in place. Borrow money cheap and buy. Economic rent can be paid as dividends to the already rich and increased every year.  Look for example at the £400 million profit to Richard Branson for not running Virgin trains very well. Or any of the privatised water companies, not investing in infrastructure but paying huge dividends to their already wealthy shareholders. Not only is privatisation costly it doesn’t work any more effectively than publicly funded corporations.

Deregulation, of course, means no regulation. If we look for example at Ted Genoways The Chain: Farm, Factory and the Fate of Our Food we see what it means is animals, including the human animal, are ever moveable replacement parts where profit is the only thing that counts. Land is degraded and runoff shit poisons rivers and streams. There’s a metaphor for the relationship between capital and labour.

External costs, land deregulation, water and air pollution are prices paid by the majority. Our problem isn’t just chlorinated chicken and degraded beef that will inevitably follow cheaper food, but fishing and farming in Britain being unable to compete and also locked out of EEC food markets. Our ongoing trading deficit with other nations becomes even wider.  The biggest external cost of all is global warming. The Third World War against climate change has begun and we are feeding that fire.   

Deregulation, of course, also gave us the 2008 banking crisis. The weapons of mass destruction were bonds, ostensibly backed by governments. Government money bailed out bankers, taxpayers money made the rich richer. But it also, ironically, provided an alibi for the Laurel and Hardy of British politics, Cameron and Osborne to cut back on public spending. The same promise of public spending that Johnson promises to put on hold and spend big.     

We live in an apartheid state, but it’s not the colour of our skin that matters (although if you’re classified as non-white it might not feel that way) it’s class. If you’re working class you know what to expect. If you’re comfortable, you can look away and smirk at Boris’s foibles. We lost the election, but more importantly we’ve lost the propaganda war.   Harriet Goodale gets it pretty much right. That’s what I call righteous anger.

Comments

You are very negative.

 

I'd call it honest. Tom. Pessimistic would be a better word. On current evidence there's nothing to be optimistic about. Nothing. 

 

You are positive about that?

 

Stupid but I couldn't resist.

Cheers! Tom

 

 

An interesting postmortem! Labour gave some vision of what could be achieved, particularly regarding renationalisations, but they failed to appeal sufficiently to the centre ground. Too overambitious and overspending perhaps. Perhaps many of the British population believed that having had a deciding referendum its result should be followed. Much of British industry has over the years probably moved to other parts of Europe or further. And we don't seem to be able to produce enough of our own doctors and nurses any more, which seems extremely unhealthy to me. It is all quite mindboggling, confusing. I certainly don't think we have much to gain from a trade deal with the US. That does seem a bad idea to me, particularly with Mr Untrustworthy Trump in charge! 

Britiish industry such as Rolls Royce and aerospace ventures are tied in with European venturers, based on a just in time system of movable parts. Brexit fucks that up. It means what manufacturing we've got can't be done just in time. We're outside the loop. Food imports which takes seconds, read hours now and we'll have different food standards. It's also worth remembering Scotland didn't vote for this and firmly rejected Johnson and his cronies. Independence, I certainly hope so. Our wealth was based on coal, steal and shipbuilding (and ahem slavery and sugar), but we retain that class consciousness that shysters like Johnson cannot -ever- be trusted. Like lemmings the working classes in the north agree to follow him, but they will fall off the edge of the cliff. People with money always find a soft landing. Apartheid. 

 

I’ve been away from Broken - or should that be Bonkers ? - Britain for much of the election but tuned in for the exit poll & wasn’t in the least surprised. A Japanese friend asked me to sum up the result. 

“Let us take you out of your misery, comrades!”

”Piss off, we’re watching Emmerdale!”

was about the best I could do!

 

the result isnt a surprise in bonkers britain, disenchantment with fat cats corporatism is channeled into hatred for refugess and the EEC and support for the ever smiling face of  fat cat Boris and his ilk to sort out the fat cats. Pretty simple, really.