GE2024 – Hopes and Fears

This is the transcript for my YouTube video "GE2024 – Hopes and Fears".

There is precious little to look forward to under Mr Kid Starver’s leadership but there are some shoots of hope to be found.  The Left may have been virtually swept from the party formerly known as Labour’s benches but the increase in the vote share for Left-leaning candidates, the increase in Green Party MPs from one to four and the reduced majorities in formerly safe Labour seats gives the progressives in the electorate some measure of hope.

Mr Kid Starver may be the Prime Minister now but on the Opposition benches is the spectre of the man he helped undermine and tried to destroy in the form of the newly-elected Independent MP for Islington North, Jeremy Corbyn.  Corbyn whilst still a Labour Party member had his hands tied to a significant extent in any attempt to hold the Starmeroids (similar to haemorrhoids, but a significantly bigger pain in the arse) to account.  No longer is Corbyn so restrained and he’ll no doubt make sure that he’s a thorn in their side for the next five years.

Mr Kid Starver will also find himself under greater scrutiny on his pro-Israel stance from the so-called Gaza Block of MPs who were voted into their positions on a pro-Palestinian mandate, a group of MPs that, ironically, he created.  Several more thorns in the side to contend with.

Of course, the landslide in terms of seats was not based on a love or even like of Mr Kid Starver and his party but on the almost total collapse in the Tory vote, the Tories having become so corrupt and toxic that even their voter base couldn’t bring themselves to support their favoured party and either stayed at home wallowing in self-pity or moved their vote to Reform UK or another party although precious few moved to Labour.  The rise of the independent candidates, several of whom were former Labour candidates purged in favour of Starmeroid drones, cut into the Labour vote count, reducing some former Labour majorities to a mere handful of votes, setting the stage for an electoral defeat at the next General Election if the party formerly known as Labour doesn’t deliver real change for the working class and disadvantaged.

At least one positive thing to come out of the political chaos of recent years is that there seems to be very few safe Parliamentary seats of any colour.

Unfortunately, the number of fears we now face are growing.  Apart from the dozens of MPs for the party formerly known as Labour returned to Parliament, which is bad news in itself, some of the more swivel-eyed loons from the Tories also got returned to Parliament including Dr Death himself, Iain Duncan Smith, the man personally responsible for the premature and preventable deaths of 148,000 benefit claimants.  Former Labour MP Ed Balls Up reportedly said that not taking Dr Death’s seat was a price Mr Kid Starver would consider worth paying which shows the level of hostility towards the Left within the Blairites even now but they can voice such odious opinions because they’re not the ones paying the price, are they?

We now have a weather vane as Prime Minister, a man who changes his position depending on the strength of the gust of political wind that does him the most good personally and who seems unable to lead, as evidenced by the fact that he waited for Sunak and Biden to give their positions on anything before he would commit to a position himself.  Not what the UK needs right now.

And who else has influence over Mr Kid Starver?  He started his term in office saying he was going to withdraw the objection to the arrest warrants for Benjamin Netanyahu and Yoav Gallant for war crimes but, a couple of days and a visit to Israel by David Lammy later, the objection was back in place.  Does Netanyahu have influence on UK foreign policy?  And, if so, will the UK be run in the interests of the citizens of the UK or in the interests of the state of Israel?

Mr Kid Starver believes nothing, stands for nothing, promises nothing and that’s what he’ll deliver – nothing.

Mr Kid Starver’s policy position prior to the election was to promise little to nothing and, despite using the word ‘change’ as his slogan, was offering nothing but continuity Tory austerity policy.  Many of his Cabinet members are funded by Big Business, private healthcare companies or pro-Israel lobbyists which means that policy will be formed on the basis of what’s best for their donors and not what’s in the interest of the country.

Wes Streeting, the man now in charge of the NHS, is pro-privatisation of the NHS and, why wouldn’t he be, he’s paid for by private healthcare companies.  Ironically, the party that gave us the NHS and the welfare state, will be the party, albeit a bastardised version, that finally takes it away.  The NHS will falter and die, not due to lack of investment but due to a large percentage being creamed off to pay the profits for the private healthcare companies that Streeting will bring in.  The service will suffer and health outcomes will tank.

Rachel Reeves is unwilling to do what’s necessary to reverse the decline in public services because she has set herself fiscal rules that are meaningless, tying her hands when they don’t need to be tied. 

The sick and disabled benefit claimants so harmed by the last 14 years of Tory cruelty can look forward to more of the same if the pre-election rhetoric from Liz Kendall is to be believed.  She was the person who stated that the Tories were too soft on benefit claimants so it seems that, now she’s in charge of the Department for Work and Pensions, we can expect her to tell Dr Death to hold her beer while she shows him how many benefit claimants she can drive to a premature and preventable death.

And, finally to return to Mr Kid Starver himself, we can look forward to him wringing his hands and complaining that his hands are tied because the Tories crashed the economy and his party has to stick to Reeves’ meaningless fiscal rules.  He’ll say that we can’t afford to lift hundreds of thousands of children out of poverty and that it’s a “difficult decision” or a “tough choice” when that’s not true especially when he’s just decided to send more money and arms to Ukraine.  Where’s the money for Ukraine coming from, Mr Kid Starver?  If we can’t have nice things because there’s no money, how can we send money to Ukraine?

We can look forward to the UK’s reputation on Human Rights and international law descend to the depths of Hell with his unwavering support for the genocide being perpetrated by Israel on the people of Gaza and the blind eye he’s turned on any racism other than anti-Semitism. 

Given his extremely thin skin and his abhorrence of dissent, we can look forward to the cracking down on our right to protest and there’ll be further attacks on democratic processes if his anti-democratic actions within his party are any indication.

What we have in government now is a vain, Narcissistic, power-crazed, control freak with a hair-trigger temper who’s economically illiterate, lacks compassion and empathy and has absolutely no backbone.  A Prime Minister who is so weak he can’t take criticism or opposing views and who’ll have his hand on the red button controlling our nuclear arsenal.  Let’s hope no other leader upsets him or he might nuke them in a fit of pique.

If I’ve painted a bleak picture of the future it’s because it is bleak.  Care to join me on the fringes and watch the UK burn?

Where are the rights that disabled people are supposed to have?

This is the transcript for my YouTube video "Where are the rights that disabled people are supposed to have?" 

Rishi Sunak has said that he wants to replace Personal Independence Payment cash payments with a voucher scheme, presumably to control what PIP claimants can purchase that aids their day to day living and where they can get those items.  If my presumption is correct, the scheme will probably enrich a Tory donor’s business as it will be one of the only places that you can exchange the coupons for the items or the coupon scheme will be administered by a Tory donor’s company. 

Again, if my presumption is correct, this is another way of controlling and abusing the sick and disabled through undue interference in their personal lives.

I don’t know how far the proposals regarding the PIP voucher program has gotten but I think Sunak has forgotten one of the guiding principles of Tory ideology in proposing this idea.  The principle to which I refer is that of personal responsibility.  If the government is going to restrict what a claimant can buy the goods or services that aid their day to day living it is taking away the claimant’s responsibility to use the money they currently get to buy what they deem helpful.  Very anti-Tory thinking that also flies in the face of their hatred of the ‘nanny State’, a term which has always confused me as most Tories grew up having their backsides wiped by their devoted nanny so their parents could ignore them until they became the hateful adult babies we know and despise.

Ultimately, a voucher scheme in place of PIP cash payments is an infringement of our Human Right to have a private life free from interference by the government and will more than likely cost the country more than it saves the public purse but as the goal is control and abuse I doubt that would matter to the current Tory administration or, indeed, a future Labour administration led by Mr Kid Starver.

Of course, this isn’t the only potential future attack on disabled benefit claimant’s rights as the DWP want to give themselves the power to monitor claimant’s bank accounts, another breach of the Human Right to a private life and weapon to attack those whose bank accounts are being monitored.

The disabled benefit claimants are a casualty of the culture wars being fought by both the Right and the Left wings of politics, the politics of division, used as a scapegoat and political football rather than address the real causes of society’s problems.  The Tories and the Right blame benefit claimants, immigrants and anyone other group they can think of for the mistakes they’ve caused and Mr Kid Starver’s ego party are going along with it while the Left fight for the Rights of increasingly smaller minority groups as the basic Human Rights for all are eroded by the incumbent administration, ironically weakening the rights for the smaller minority groups as well.

The disabled have been chosen as an easy scapegoat despite not being responsible for the mess the country’s in.  Screwing over disabled benefit claimants is described as “making the hard choices” when it is nothing of the sort.  The real hard choices are the ones that would put the blame and the responsibility of the mess we’re in on the shoulders of those who really did cause the problem and have the resources to mitigate the damage.

Of course, we’re just disabled people and not seen as worthy human beings by the politicians who suckle at the teat of the public purse in greater amounts than a single disabled benefit claimant could ever hope to achieve.  The politicians who are so out of touch with reality and lack the compassion and empathy needed to be a human being with their snouts firmly stuck in the trough while punching down on some of the most vulnerable people in the country, stripping away our rights as they do so.

Does anyone really care anymore?