Open Letter To Keir Starmer

Here's the transcript of my open letter to Keir Starmer video.

Mr Starmer,

You have made some statements over the last couple of days with some incorrect assumptions that I’d like to disabuse you of.

1. You are not one of the few Labour leaders to have won a General Election.  You were the beneficiary of an archaic electoral system that benefits both Tory and Labour over other parties that allowed you to walk into Downing Street because the Tory vote collapsed due to their toxic reputation at the time of the 2024 General Election.  Labour could’ve had Satan as leader and the Tories had God and Labour still would’ve walked into Downing Street.
2. You do not have a 5-year mandate.  Most of the policies that were in your election manifesto have been either watered-down or abandoned and you’ve tried to implement policies that weren’t in your election manifesto at all.  You sold yourself and Labour on a single word – change – and you haven’t even managed to stick to that single word policy either.  You have attacked disabled people and their benefits, just like the Tories.  You have attacked “illegal” migrants even though the Refugee Convention says that there are no illegal routes and no restriction on where the refugee is allowed to choose as their destination, just like the Tories.  You were going to keep the two-child benefit cap, just like the Tories, until you were dragged kicking and screaming into a U-turn by the public outcry and backbench revolt.  You have moved Labour further to the Right to attract Reform voters, just like the Tories.  You’ve mired Labour in multiple scandals of your own making, just like the Tories did to their party.  You have failed to improve the lives of the majority of people in the UK, just like the Tories.  You bend over backwards for the rich donors and big business, just like the Tories.  You have continued to make the UK complicit in the war crimes and genocide committed by Israel in Gaza, just like the Tories.  You have spat in the face of and broken international law, just like the Tories.  You have become increasingly authoritarian and abused power, just like the Tories.  You have caused chaos in government, just like the Tories.  So, I ask you where is the change you sold yourself on?
3. You have said that you would never run away from the country you love.  That’s great for Israel but you do know you’re supposed to be the Prime Minister of the United Kingdom, don’t you?  Because you do seem to be running the UK in the interests of Israel, not the citizens of the UK.
4. You have said that you’ve won every fight you’ve been in but you won the Labour leadership election by lying to the party members which means you haven’t even got a legitimate mandate to lead the party.  You lied to the electorate with your manifesto as I’ve already mentioned.  If you have to lie and backstab to win the fights you’ve been in, you’re hardly a shining role model or fit to lead a conga line let alone a political party.
5. You keep referring to Labour as “my party”.  Let me assure you that it’s not.  You are the current custodian of what was once a Democratic Socialist party, you are not, to paraphrase King Louis XIV of France, “the party”.  You are a cowardly weasel of a man who has managed to lie and betray his way into the leadership position and who has besmirched the good history of good work done by men much more honourable than yourself.
6. You criticised Ed Davey for his party’s role in the austerity undertaken by the Coalition government and subsequent Tory administrations, however, you seem to have forgotten the fact that your administration has continued to push austerity policies thanks to your Chancellor’s fiscal rules.  Another person you put in a position they are clearly unfit to fill.

I could go on but I’ll leave my list of corrections there and end this letter with my suggestion for the way forward for you.  I suggest that you resign forthwith and promptly throw yourself into the nearest working crematorium oven, that way you’ll actually have done something positive for the country.

You May Not Be Able To Take The Big Money Out Of Politics But…

This is the transcript of my YouTube video "You May Not Be Able To Take The Big Money Out Of Politics But…" 

One of the complaints people have of the political system is that rich individuals and big corporations donate to political parties which gives them influence on policy whether they admit that’s the reason they donate or not. 

Like him or not, Jeremy Corbyn proved that you can fund a political party without the need for big donations from the rich and powerful.  He took the Labour Party from a state of financial debt to one of fiscal plenty from small donations and member fees.  No rich individual or corporation wanted to fund a party that would have destroyed the carefully constructed establishment that enriches the rich, exploits the working class and abuses those who through no fault of their own find themselves on benefits.  That’s why they had to destroy not just Corbyn as Labour leader and a man but Corbyn the idea as well.

No political leader would have the guts to remove big money from our political system so what can we do to mitigate the damage caused by donations to political parties and any invisible strings that are always attached?

I would suggest the following rules be adopted:

1. Capping individual donations to political parties to around £20 with a cap of no more than one donation a month.
2. Membership fees for political parties capped at a reasonable amount (for example, the amount a person on minimum wage can afford).
3. Rich individuals and corporations can donate money but the donations will be anonymised and placed into a general political fund from which all registered political parties will be allowed to take an equal share to fund election campaigns.
4. If a prospective candidate or party member (including those in leadership roles) is financially well off, they will be prohibited from using their own money to fund their campaign.  Their friends and family will be subject to the rules governing individual donations and membership fees.

These rules are just a starting position but capping membership fees might encourage people to get involved in politics as their party of choice would require the funding and helping to fund their chosen party would give them an incentive to help shape policy.

Capping individual donations might have the same effect but remove the need to join a particular political party so an individual can support a number of parties based on their interests.

Starting a general political fund of the type I suggest might be controversial as it would mean that even the more extreme political parties would be able to fight an election but I suggest that it would be better for the smaller parties that currently can’t fund a campaign as large as those that attract large donations.  It would also be better for democracy as those who have extreme views are, at the moment, restricted in the outlets for their views which only serves to strengthen their animosity to the establishment and, by giving them a legitimate voice or voices in the political debate will allow Parliament to fully reflect the electorate of the UK.

By anonymising the donations, no individual or corporation can pull the invisible strings that usually come with their donations and so the damaging effect of such donations is mitigated.

The general political fund will allow every political party a chance to fight an election on an equal playing field financially at least which is better for democracy.  A separate part of the general political fund should be set aside for independent candidates so they can also participate in elections on an equal footing but there should be a cap of just one independent candidate per constituency.

Prohibiting personal funding of election campaigns means that every candidate is running on an equal footing.

We’d also need to put legally binding rules into place regarding the freebies that MPs are allowed to accept such as a cap on the amount that the freebie costs and submission of a justification for the freebie with a legally enforceable agreement that the freebie will not influence decisions made.  Breaking the agreement signed by both the politician and the person or corporation giving the freebie should come with a lifetime ban on the politician from holding public office again and a financial penalty or prison sentence for the giver of the freebie.

These proposed funding rules would need to be implemented alongside other election rules such as equal media coverage for all registered political parties in the mainstream media, equal media coverage for all registered candidates in the local media, legally binding rules on the holding of hustings in every constituency (including a section of a hustings in which the previous MP is questioned on his/her voting record if they decide to stand again) and, ideally, a mandatory re-selection process to allow local party members a say in who represents them.

I have no idea whether these rules would even be workable but I believe that the ideas I’ve put forward are worthy of discussion and serious consideration if getting big money out of politics is, indeed, impossible.

Of course, I doubt any party leader would have the guts to implement such rules because the current system, as corrupting as it is, suits them fine.

More Ideas For Electoral Reform

This is the transcript for my YouTube video "More Ideas For Electoral Reform". 

Just over a year ago, I posted a video about mitigating the damage caused to our political system by Big Money.  It’s taken a long time to feel up to writing down more of my thoughts on electoral reform and rooting out the bad apples from politics but here I am with just a couple of ideas.

1. We don’t pay Members of Parliament.
        a. Anyone who becomes an MP will be allowed reasonable expenses to live on up to the average wage in the UK. 
        b.   If an MP lives in a constituency too far away from Parliament to travel, they will be provided a council flat to live in somewhere in London. 
        c.   They will be provided expenses for cheap breakfasts, lunches and dinners.  There will be no publicly subsidised meals or alcohol in the Houses of Parliament.
        d.   If the MP is single, their constituency home costs will be covered. However, if they have a partner who works, the costs awarded will be reduced based on means-testing.
        e.   MPs with private wealth will have that wealth frozen for the duration of their Parliamentary career and their bank accounts monitored to ensure that they cannot use their wealth or benefit from any information they gain from their work as an MP.  Transfers of money, stocks, bonds or shares between MPs and their family members or friends will be confiscated to prevent family and friends helping an MP to bypass the rules.
        f.     If an MP wants to have a second job, they are only allowed to have a job that pays minimum wage so that they are grounded in the world of the average worker.
        g.   MPs are barred from taking jobs in any business sector that their Parliamentary career may have intersected with when they leave politics to prevent using knowledge of government for the benefit of businesses or businesses capitalising on employing a former MP.

2. Any individual must spend at least 6 months living in a council property on benefits before they can even be considered for being put up for a Parliamentary candidacy.  This should be mandatory training for a prospective candidate. 

3. All prospective candidates must undertake mandatory mental health, neurodiversity and disability awareness training.  The training must be delivered by people with lived experience of mental ill-health, neurodiversity or other disability and any prospective candidate who fails to pass the final tests will be barred from standing in an election.  People with lived experience will mark the final tests. 

4. All prospective Parliamentary candidates must undertake a course of basic economics so that they understand how the economy really works and not how politicians have said that it works.  Failure to grasp the information will result in the prospective candidate being barred from standing in an election. 

5. No individual will be allowed to stand for public office if they have accepted any money from large corporations, lobbying groups, rich individuals or foreign States or any individuals with ties to foreign States.

These are just a few of the ideas I’ve been mulling over but ideas that I think might help give us representatives who are more fully rounded people and not going into politics simply for the power over people. 

Why not let me know your ideas in the comments below?

Do Elected Politicians Automatically Deserve Respect?

This is the transcript of my YouTube video "Do Elected Politicians Automatically Deserve Respect?". 

Do elected politicians automatically deserve respect?  It’s an interesting question and I guess there are going to be as many answers as there are respondents to the question.

I’m sure the response from elected politicians would be “yes, I automatically deserve your respect because I was chosen out of thousands of constituents to represent them”.  I call bullshit on that answer and here’s why:

The truth is that most members of a constituency wouldn’t know the person chosen to be a Parliamentary candidate from any other random stranger in their area so that reduces the pool of people who actually chose the candidate.

The Parliamentary candidates are chosen by the local constituency party which can be a very small number of people, depending on the size of the party at the national level and the level of engagement at the local level.

If you’re extremely lucky, you might be a member of the local constituency party and have a say in who’s picked to be the candidate but you’re probably not given a blank piece of paper to write any old name on it that’s then put into a box and whoever gets the most mentions becomes the candidate.  The truth is, there will be a small committee who choose a number of potential candidates and the constituency party members get to chose from that very small sample.  Not exactly the badge of a true chosen one.

You may not even be that special if the national party is being led by an authoritarian control freak like Keir Starmer because he overrode the wishes of many of the local constituency Labour party branches at the last General Election and parachuted in his chosen handpicked candidates that may not even have a connection to the local area they have been chosen to represent, meaning that a number of Labour candidates were picked by a single person, Starmer.  And it’s not just Labour who picked candidates with no connection to a constituency so how can those candidates possibly be considered “chosen out of thousands”.

The truth is that most people vote for the party, not the candidate, meaning that a particular party could put up a trained chimp and win a seat.  Some would say that that’s exactly what happens all the time.  It certainly explains the moral and ethical vacuums that represent the Starmer regime.

I couldn’t guess what your answer would be but here’s mine.

All human beings are worthy of a baseline level of respect for their basic Humanity.  We should treat everyone with a bit of respect until they prove themselves worthy of more respect or worthy of none.  Members of Parliament are deserving only of that baseline respect.  Every other bit of respect they think they deserve should be hard fought for and as fragile as Hell.  The more they do to benefit their constituents and society as a whole, the more respect they deserve and should get.  The more they do to harm or ignore their constituents or society or the more they serve themselves at the expense of their constituents or society as a whole, the less respect they deserve and should get.

It’s a simple equation – good – harm = the level of respect you deserve. 

That’s how I’ve worked my entire life and it’s worked for me so far.  It’s just a shame that most people don’t use that equation or those of us who’ve worked hard for the respect we deserve would actually get it.