Category: killthebill

Brittania, Chained: What else must be taken from us before we rise up?

By Daviemoo

Striking and protesting are not primary actions. One does not ask to finish half an hour early then strike when told “no” any more than one immediately takes to the streets when bills begin to rocket up in price. These are desperate actions, taken as a last resort to call heed to the wider powers of the country that a problem unsolvable by workers, or the public as a whole, exists.

For too long now, the British public has been misled by the twin arms of an utterly ineffectual  government and a media machine desperate to spin a gaudy narrative of lazy workers wanting more for less. Glaring headlines shared by Conservative MPs declare that Britain has become a “something for nothing” state- and yet an anonymous healthcare worker striking outside Leeds General Infirmary recently told me “some days it’s like coming in to a hospital in the trenches- I’m not striking because I enjoy it, I’m striking because- whether we’re there or not- it’s not safe for patients OR for staff”. When I spoke to a striking rail worker outside Leeds train station a few weeks ago I was told “my life is practically over. My mortgage went up, my electric and gas went up, my food bills are up, my wife is sick- Whether I strike or not I cant afford to live”.

Striking has long been a fundamental right of workers, but this right has been restricted and squeezed continuously since the dark days of the winter of discontent. In 1980 Thatcher passed anti “sympathy strikes” legislation, halting any wider spread of striking. Balloting was enforced, and the time between ballot and response was decreased from seven days to five whilst postal balloting was also introduced- not only did this involve increased cost, but it also meant determined organisation was required in order to even question adequately the workforce involved in the ballot and even these subversive moves were only the quieter actions laid by Thatcher to suppress strike action.

Unfortunately, the previous labour administration did little to remove restrictions on protest. Blair was reportedly focused more on drilling down on the economy and bringing in results, believing it was unnecessary to scrap the anti protest legislation in favour of simply working constructively to address issues which would prompt strikes.

Prime Minister Sunak’s desperation to enforce legislation around striking which guarantees a “minimum service level” is wholly ironic: minimum service levels are not being met at present, even on non-strike days. When I was thirteen I broke my wrist, and I thought the four hour wait in A&E before I was given a cast was exorbitant: now, 36 hour waits in A&E are the norm: people die waiting for ambulances to arrive or inside of them as they queue for triage outside departments crowded to bursting and understaffed.
These issues long predate the pandemic- an NHS staffing crisis has been ongoing for so long that I do not believe we’ve seen normal staffing levels since 2010 at best.  

Having worked as a recruiter for the NHS directly for two years, I remember being given the amended pay scale one day and being agog: a fully trained, fully qualified consultant earned just over £100,000 at the time. People will, of course, say this is a high salary- and yet I am willing to bet that those complaining do not have to pay hundreds of pounds for indemnity insurance a year, hundreds of pounds for GMC registration, for parking, for a mortgage within an appropriate distance from the hospital in case they are summoned for an emergency. Those who quickly complain that NHS staff salaries are high too often fail to factor in the huge amount of money doctors and nurses must spend in order to simply progress in their careers. 

That pay scale has barely changed since 2016 when I left the NHS’ employ and yet, due to governmental mediocrity we have seen an unprecedented rise in everything we are required to spend on: mortgage and rent have spiralled, uncontrolled bill growth continues, in Labour run councils council tax is the only means of funding as it is widely suggested that the conservatives throttle funding, so council tax bills rise and, of course, the very goods we buy- food, clothing, sanitary products- have continued to grow exponentially in prices.
The malfeasance of Truss and Kwarteng led to a fiscal black hole, into which fell the dreams of many- home ownership, reasonable rental prices and more back breaking fiscal requirements fell like lead weights on the shoulders of the British public. 

How does the government respond to this shocking burden to taxpayers? By passing legislation preventing us from complaining about it. 

But it is not merely workers rights being throttled by the hand of a malfeasant government- the very public’s voice is being smothered under a legislative deluge started by ex Home Secretary, Priti Patel and continued by her contemporary, Suella Braverman. 

Patel passed the Police, Crime, Courts and Sentencing Bill, which was given Royal Assent on 28th April 2022. The bill focused on ensuring the police were given further powers through robust expanse of the “unacceptable protests” clause: a deeply problematic clause which was questioned by many a “lefty lawyer”- for what is an “unacceptable” protest?
The act also endowed the Home Secretary with the power to make regulations without having to defer to parliament, essentially widening the scope for prosecution, criminalisation and eschewing responsibility that usually sits in hand with the person in the Home Secretary chair. 

Under the PCCSB, you could be charged as a “public nuisance” if your protests were “noisy or disruptive”- unlike those very useful quiet and non disruptive protests we hear of so often in the history books.

As the bill moved through the house of lords, huge sections were excised, deemed too extreme and draconian. Braverman, unable perhaps to create and implement her own legislation, swept the offcuts of this bill up, waited for the PCCSB to pass royal assent, took over from Patel then (ignoring the brief period where she stepped down in disgrace for leaking confidential information), used the new powers included in the primary bill to pass the offcuts unopposed under the Public Order bill.

The Public Order bill essentially criminalises the act of even attending protests- those who have attended protests within five years can be compelled legally to “check in” their nonattendance at subsequent protests and can even be legally barred from referencing or speaking about protests which others may attend on social media, thereby disrupting the possibility of encouraging active participation in protest. Braverman also has the power to give injunctions to those “likely” to protest- and yet the regular crowd of free speech advocates who go to pains to defend peoples’ rights to speak out are suspiciously quiet on this. 

Garden Court North chambers had this to say on the Public Order bill:

The right to protest is at the heart of all of the hard-won rights that we enjoy in our democratic society. The Public Order Bill 2022 presents a grave threat to that right and would mark a regressive shift of power away from ordinary people and towards the State.

Not content with stripping protest rights back to the bare sinew, Sunak is now passing legislation so restrictive it even prevents “slow march” protests, where protestors walk slowly in the streets to disrupt traffic.

The overarching question which the wider public should be asking is this: would a government interested in solving problems also actively garrotte the publics’ methods of speaking out about them?

A well run country does not need to pass anti protest and anti strike legislation, because governments which drive results and correct issues are curing the diseases of which strikes and protests are a symptom. One begins to suspect that the disease from which these symptoms emanate is, in fact, a government embroiled in scandal after scandal- from Sunak’s second FPN of his public tenure to Braverman’s lazy dismissal of a holocaust survivor’s warning of her rhetoric, on to Zahawi’s tax affairs which saw him removed in shame- ironic, given Sunak’s taxation snafu over non-do status, or even to the fresh sleaze revelations of Johnson’s securing up to £800,000 loan by a friend he then appointed to a key BBC position and a distant cousin at the bank. We sometimes do not know where to turn in the U.K. because at every juncture lies further injustice, further malfeasance and stricter repercussions for not simply “making the best of a bad situation”.

The normalisation of “suffering for Britishness” is an odd phenomenon, reminiscent of the frog in the slowly heating pan. The citizens of the United Kingdom do not realise that we are, or deserve to, slowly boil in the swamp of corruption pouring steadily from Westminster, subsuming the country and winding us inextricably into the corruption the tories have solidified- and until the British and in particular the English become aware of the steady heat rising around us, we will continue to be scalded by the bad actors who stack the cabinet.

Additionally one must take into account a third arm of state machinery- the police force.
The police are an arm of control the government has been all too willing to use at their discretion, creating the bills mentioned above under Patel and Braverman to restrict our rights. The police force continues to be assailed daily by the excoriating light of truth- police are outed as rapists, racists and bigots, all leading to more state protection through watery statements from Braverman and other officials, or by promises of reform which still does not improve the ramshackle-state of either trust in the police, or the actions of them.
The police are the physical clenched fist of the state, the government it’s rotting brains, the media it’s fork tongued mouth and with these three pillars in place, we fail to be the country we can be, we fail to keep the rights we deserve and we continue to be pinned supine under the conservatives.
A government who takes these radical actions is not a government who will address the root causes- so one must then ask whether a cabinet uninterested in fixing the issues of a divided, exhausted country is a cabinet rotten to the core… and in need of replacement. 

Political lying is Normalised worldwide- it is a travesty

By Daviemoo

From the top job to opposition parties, from the ineffectual reporting of “untruths” and “unlawful actions” by the government in a media who, wholesale, sanitise the actions of the inept in power, the United Kingdom suffers from an insidious sickness: political lies. Here, today, a stark reminder that this should not be normal: that we deserve better from politicians, from our media- and from each other.

Rwanda, ‘The migrant problem’ and fundamental falsehoods

Rishi Sunak’s government is currently trying to re-sanitise itself- not quite a return to the norm; for example, the “party of law and order” is pushing, through sub-standard MP’s like Jonathan Gullis or public liabilities like Suella Braverman, to break human rights laws, and the “party of fiscal responsibility” keeps haemorrhaging leaks about misappropriation and misspending from PPE to fraud write-offs to wasted money on a brexit festival: it’s more of a re-branding. The twin forks of lawfulness and lawlessness, fiscal idiocy and fiscal responsibility show a party divided. And even when you legalise disgusting plans like “the Rwanda plan” otherwise known as government sanctioned human trafficking, its legality takes nothing from its repugnance.
Using the perceived face of the public, MP’s like Gullis push the angry, nonsensical and demonstrably false opinions of a British public that simply does not exist: a majority of the British public, contrary to the home secretary’s claims of yesterday, support refugee protections along with broad reforms in the UK’s operation, including opening further migrant processing centres in the UK. Remember also that at last count around 77% of claims were upheld, meaning deporting to Africa will cost much more as those who are approved are eventually settled regardless.

The furthering of this agenda is more unneeded proof of a government in tailspin: a plan grandiose enough to snare headlines and useless enough that the perceived “problem” with migrancy will continue: for those in doubt of this, let us take a moment to ask whether a roulette spin of possible deportation will deter people so desperate to try that they will climb into a half deflated, crowded boat and sail across a choppy sea, running the risk of an incident much like the one which occurred last week leading to death.

The government is lying about this plan. It will not deter migrants. It will not increase safety. It will not prevent people trafficking, and is, in fact, the legalisation of trafficking persons by a government more wrapped around ideological opposition to refugees than invested in border management. And this is by design: the more the government and media demonise migrants, the more the unthinking masses attribute their issues to these migrants rather than a government who has held power for twelve years, has had an overwhelming majority for three.
If the government truly wished to do so, it could prevent migrancy in almost totality: it does not, because migrants are a useful scapegoat: but how many migrants have voted for your taxes to go up and prevented runaway inflation?
And one must stop for a moment to marvel at the not funny but incredulous laughter inspiring parity and parody of a government who declares its most diverse cabinet in history, whilst preventing families like their own from settling peacefully here.

The government continues to spin the pop-culture issues like mass migration, the culture wars (from trying to strip royal titles from those they perceive as inferior despite this flying in the face of “chosen by God” to blaming the actions of sick, perverted men on transgender women and more) because they must, to maintain power, divert blame.

Braverman, when questioned on the fiscal irresponsibility of her Rwanda deportation scheme along with its general success prospects, accused her opponent, an SNP politician, of becoming “ideological”- an irony. Founded evidence shows that the UK has failed to create safe routes for refugees in key areas across the world- and this was shown in a stark and gut-churning select committee in which Braverman, who has aspired to the Home Secretary role for many months, who left in disgrace after leaking privileged information, who was mysteriously reappointed by Sunak despite this- could not provide a single safe and legal route for a high risk refugee. An ideology is a system of beliefs to which you cling even in the face of evidence that it is incorrect- and Braverman clings to the belief that refugees, not tory ineptitude, are the net cause of UK issues. But this is not unique: other areas of the UK in crisis are easily shown to have been failed continually by the tories in the last years and yet the issues in these areas are continually attributed elsewhere.

One must ask at what point the Conservatives do plan to take account for their leadership.

Failing the NHS-a capitalist choice

The NHS is always going to lose money. It’s clear that you must face that fact: healthcare is not, at its core, a money spinner despite the clear necessity of its’ duties. It is not a luxury, but a fundamental right- and in the UK it is currently neither.

The government’s determination to try to wring profit from the NHS is disturbing. There are pragmatic models of healthcare governance which show that fiscal competition can sometimes be a driver of increased health outcomes- but studies like this fail in totality to account for the humanity – and, worryingly, human cost of life or quality of life- behind these studies.
Outsourcing of healthcare may, as Wes Streeting, labour health secretary, says, help the NHS to function if done on a limited and short term basis- but Streeting’s determined positioning of those ideologically opposed to healthcare privatisation as “the real conservatives” misses out on the fundamental reasons behind why the NHS is lauded as a brilliant institution. Healthcare is not and should not be a for profit model, and ensuring that any costed privatised health brought in has no say in the NHS and simply provides the service at minimal taxpayer cost, should be seen as a sign of the utter dereliction the tories have run the service to.

Whilst tory ineptitude may force us, through lack of options, to outsource- one has to ask whether you can call for wholesale reforms whilst also giving temporary control of NHS services to the highest bidder: to fix problems, one needs a holistic approach; outsourcing services is a blocker on long term observance of those services and their issues, which will prevent resolution.
Worse still, those in direct power are determined to stand in the way of NHS improvement: diverting blame, obfuscating stories about medical staff leaving due to exhaustion and a basic reluctance to fairly compensate highly trained workers in literally lifesaving roles have led us to a crucial moment: the UK’s public must decide whether they stand with workers who somehow dragged us to this stage during the pandemic even with its existing systemic issues, or to capitulate to the double headed hydra of governmental malice and a media whose toe-point-switching of support and demonisation of NHS staff can only be described with a term I normally loathe: gaslighting.

The government has even openly resorted to employing bots on social media to spam disinformation:

Governmental think tanks align around certain core ideas and use social media to openly lie to the public’s face whilst wearing the mask of “one of us”. Where exactly are the people who see these tweets and believe them and are then shown evidence of their falsehood? You would think that being lied to on an industrial scale- as we were by Matt Hancock when a child was treated for illness on the floor of my local hospital which I used to work at, would rankle: but instead the public greedily devours the government line even when it’s proven to be from a poisoned pen: why?

Even here though, lying about the causation of issues does not reach the depths to which the conservatives are sinking when it comes to political lying and it’s enabling.
Jacob Rees-Mogg has now been brought so low as to actively lie to his own supporters about the government’s disastrous attempt to wrench us from the European Union, enabled of course by those denizens of internet nonsense who cannot bring themselves to accept their government of choice’s ineptitude. Rees-Mogg was recently seen on Question Time, belaying the worries of a wine import expert, a lifelong conservative voter, of some 30 years and confirming that the man’s founded experiences and factual stories of increased difficulty negatively impacting his business: even going so far as to openly disregard the man’s qualms. He also confirmed that the NHS was given it’s £350 million a week post brexit and yet no figures attesting to this can be found: one suspects that if £19.2 billion had suddenly been injected into the NHS, we would not be quibbling over a pay rise for nursing staff.

Brexit, of course, is the shibboleth for success for both sides of the government as they try to style themselves as moderates: from the conservatives shouting louder and louder that brexit is a success as the UK slides further and further down and to the right of the Overton window and the fiscal charts of success to the leader of the opposition promising that we will “make a success” of brexit, one has to wonder why everyone fails to mention the terms and conditions attached- with fair winds, good economy, no wars, no governmental malfeasance, it would take about 35 to 40 years for the UK to re-establish itself as a world leading economy outside the EU. I will be 70 to 75 when this happens, and I don’t believe the children in my family, some literally toddlers, should have to wait until they are my age or older just to see some parity with pre-brexit economics.

The mainstreaming of governmental lies, despite popular recitation by those like Peter Osborne in his book, “The Assault on Truth”, far predates this conservative iteration: from the Falklands debacle and pitting the government against the miners to the long established roots of the word “tory” (allegedly coming from an old Irish word meaning “thief”), governmental policy has been long shaped by those willing to lie to and mislead the public. It is tacitly accepted by populations globally that we are lied to on an industrial scale by the government and that they are aided and abetted by media like Sky, like supposedly independent channels like GB News (whose shady donor links should make anyone scorn the word independent)- even by the BBC who are constantly lamented by the right as too left wing and too right wing by the left- the fact is, I do not want the BBC to be “more left wing”, I want it to be more honest. Can the right say the same?

Political lying is as in-your-face-obvious as the chaos that suffuses this current government. Division in the tories is sown openly across the pages of the newspapers, divided now themselves amongst what to report to prevent open rebellion by a beleaguered nation.
To begin to restore political trust, one must begin with political honesty- for one does not trust that which is not honest. So if we hope to regain control of the runaway train of British political discourse and progress someone must wrest the wheel from those who would seek to plow us through more obfuscation.

In the far flung recesses of my mind I long for a government who aligns with me on issues like the mass taxation of the hyper rich, the reformation of the NHS in a “post” pandemic Britain, the forging of strong links to our neighbours, the protection of immigrants- on prevention of landlords abusing the populace and assisting the young in being able to afford property, in modernising education and in standing up to the megaphone dullardry of bigotry who complains about cancellation from multiple mainstream media; but for the moment I look at the status quo, at a nation devouring its own tail just to avoid hunger pangs and I’m willing to settle for a government who just doesn’t lie to me every day, a government who doesn’t throw ideological shrapnel into the face of the population- and most of all, a government committed to bettering the lives of the citizens of the UK.
Once upon a time I’ve never lived, governments supposedly did what was right for their people: currently we subsist under a government determined to recycle money amongst themselves, demonise the innocent, divide the nation and scatter our resources amongst themselves as they angrily ask you why you should have to share with strangers.

Until we begin to steadfastly call out mass political lies, like Mark Francois blithely giving out vaccine misinformation in parliament, to our own allies continuing to push the Big Lie of Brexit (as my good friend Aid Thompsin now calls it), the normalisation of lies will continue- and until people realise that politicians, our representatives, lying to us is not “for our own good” but “at our own detriment”, the United Kingdom will continue to be run like a racket by those whose only success is to pillage the nation whilst blaming the innocent for their bulging pockets.

The cruelty is the point

By Daviemoo

I’m constantly moved by those who fail to realise the ethos of the tory party: one of their many monikers is literally “the nasty party” and it’s not just because a worrying number of MPs look like the recently reanimated.

Look at the faces of the tory party: Patel, implicated in a bullying scandal so severe that the UK taxpayer fronted a settlement with an ex employee, Braverman who dreams of sending desperate refugees to Rwanda, Williamson who thinks helping someone in debt means he “owns” them, Gullis who happily screamed and jeered in parliament in support of a PM who threw back libation whilst we were legally secluded, Rob Roberts, suspended for a month for being sexually inappropriate with staff (and by all accounts trying to do so with constituents, sending out letters asking for pretty young female constituents to visit him privately) and of course the tory MP who we all know is a rapist but can’t name for fear of jeopardising his case and letting him off the hook: and of course the face of the party for nearly two disastrous years, Boris “beat up a journalist letterboxes bum boys let the bodies pile high” Johnson.
We have to get over this obsession with the idea that the tories are tough but fair- I know, I know in my heart that tory voters believe this somehow- that they think the tories are the party of “we’re doing this for your own good” but it’s not the “we’re taking the hard decisions to improve your lives in the long run”, it’s more akin to “you’re making me hit you because you won’t just lie down and take it”.

The tories have pushed through legislation after legislation to hurt the British people- not just the opposition, though the way the tories are stirring up hate against those who disagree with them is indicative of that- but the actual British people. I often have people tell me they think the voter ID bill is good, after all it’ll stop voter fraud: ah yes, just like how anti speeding laws stop speeding, how anti drug laws stop drugs and anti homeless bills make homeless people have homes!
Voter ID laws disenfranchise people: at last count, 2.5 million people will be disenfranchised from their ability to vote in the next election and 2.5 million people is more than enough to sway politics in a direction the country doesn’t want. Fortunately initiatives LIKE THIS (spread the word, share widely) help us to somewhat combat voter disenfranchisement, but we can never recapture all the voices who are silenced by insidious moves like this by the government to control the voting narrative. I’ve said before, the people most likely to be affected by voter disenfranchisement are the poor, the disabled and the young- all demographics who certainly don’t vote for tories in huge numbers: what an odd coincidence, I’m sure.

Then of course we had the police, crime, courts and sentencing bill, a bill that said “protest away! Just make sure you have the assent of the local police force”. The local police force who did stuff like this before the bill was even passed:

And a bill that said “unauthorised” protests, even one man protests, could result in imprisonment. The wooly language of the bill, no doubt in part due to its writing by Patel who was trying her best not to slip into plagiarising Mein Kampf, was so wooly that we still don’t know what an “unauthorised” protest looks like- mayhaps we’ll see a wealth of protest insurance companies pop up, ready to give you indemnity against all the eye gouges, pepper sprays and shield injuries you can muster?

But they weren’t done, were they? No, we thought Patel, the grand high bitch was bad enough but they managed to improve on that formula and go from fascist lite to fascist with Suella Braverman. Braverman has crafted a new bill which functionally criminalises you if you’ve ever gone to a protest- even a peaceful one. Braverman wants to electronically tag people who have been to protests and control their ability to even speak about protests online- that seems like pretty abrasive moves to control speech from a woman who is also encouraging the police to allow hate crimes against LGBT+ people.
Braverman is trying to imprison four people for tearing down a statue of a slaver: said slaver, were he alive today, would think nothing of seeing Braverman chained by the neck and forced to clean his floors, and she’s simply slavering at the idea of defending his honour over asking whether the British people might not want to lionise figures who killed 15,000 black people (and fyi that is just those who died during travel) by chaining them up, ripping them away from their homelands and forcing them to work for snooty Brits. Remember, the tories leaned hard for years on “the will of the people” as their catchphrase for everything and yet if you asked the British people if we wanted statues of arseholes like Colston around, I suspect the answer might be now. They say it’s part of our cultural heritage and yet they’re deathly afraid to teach us what slavers did- raping black slaves, allowing the mutilation of innocent people for our convenience: what a strange dichotomy to want these people’s faces in public to celebrate, rather than to disturb and warn us never to become so heartless again.

All of this leads us to a very simple conclusion: the tory party are total cunts. The will, of course, say that they’re doing these things for our good… what good? To stop the “just stop oil” folks? They might be delaying trucks from dispensing the goods that finally manage to run the self imposed slalom from the EU to here, but considering there’s a widespread medicine shortage that isn’t being reported on I’m about 99% convinced that four teens and three old people glued to a road in Middleton for three hours isn’t the cause. And people ask, “why don’t they do something more radical?!”.
Did you know a climate scientist self immolated (for those who don’t like fancy words, that means set fire to himself) and it was barely a blink in the eye of the public. The only time people paid attention was when a painting got some soup thrown on it for fucks sake; people are more bothered about Campbells on a wall than they are about someone literally roasting themselves to death: what a sad little life we all live together Jane.
The tories aren’t trying to stop people gluing themselves to roads or wasting a tin of Heinz cream of tomato: they’re trying to forestall the true dissent they know is coming because of years of their shit leadership. This isn’t about letting us “get on” because if it was, you’d think they would sit down with rail execs, nurses, postage staff, university staff, doctors and everyone else who is striking and actually iron out the problems. And I don’t want to “get on” with it any more! I want the problems to be fixed, not plastered over with posters akin to Enoch Powell’s rivers of blood in 240 twitter characters.

The tories are meant to be cruel- they don’t do it to help people, it isn’t tough love. It’s a distraction technique, a handful of dirt in the face of an outraged camper. They throw distractions at you to make sure you don’t focus upon the obvious: that things are bad when they are in charge.
They could easily do all the things they promise- roll back trans rights, stop people boating here, but they don’t, or they do the bare minimum and why? Because when trans people have no rights and no boats land here and your life still sucks, you just might realise that the real problem is them.

The other day I was walking along the Headrow in Leeds and outside one of the pubs I walked past a guy who said “what we need right- Australia: they have it right, shut our borders yeah”. Every part of me wanted to argue with him (Bet you were pissed off when they stopped Djokovic from coming in due to his vaccination status eh) but why bother? There are so many people convinced, utterly sure that migrants are the problem here, that those nasty foreigners darkening our doorstep are the issue.

How many foreigners voted to dump raw sewage into our rivers? How many trans people voted not to feed school kids, or make sure our pay goes up in line with inflation? How many gay people protect a man who quaffed champagne whilst our loved ones died, or back a woman whose idiotic decisions tanked the economy to unprecedented levels? How many people who arrived on boats liked the eat out to help out scheme which may have seeded coronavirus all around the country and contributed to more deaths? And how many of these people who sneak into our beloved country cost us as much as people bathed in wealth who pay less than their fair share as we get taxed more and more?

Migrants are not the cause of your shit life- your voting choices are, your desperate need to back people in charcoal suits with the right accent, the right haircut, the right demeanour because that’s what you think politics are. So many people are determined to see people like me, tattooed and pierced and extolling the virtues of maybe trying a different way after years of this one not working, as the enemy. You’re more scared of the word socialism than you are losing your houses to overinflated mortgage prices, mortgages you worked for years and sacrificed to save for if your avocado toast slander is to be believed. And you’re so angry at the benefit claimants you never once consider that there but for the grace of god goes you! I’ve claimed benefits, because I had two jobs- one working as an admin for a recruitment company, one in a bar- the recruitment company shut down (and didn’t pay me my last month’s salary by the way- I had to sue my own money out of them) and the bar decided to downsize its staff and I was new. Benefits saved me from literal starvation and I was treated like dirt because I was on them- IN THE MIDDLE OF THE 2010 RECESSION!

The tory party are still, somehow, perceived as the party of necessary evil and they aren’t.
One thing I can’t stand is the way Labour are desperately chasing the voters who love that side of the tory party. Starmer isn’t wrong that we have an over-reliance on immigration for short term staffing- but immigration itself is not a bad thing, and why it’s seen as such is beyond me. Having a country thats services- from coffee shops to the NHS – are staffed well, means we don’t have to scrape for every job going, should mean that money is flowing in a well regulated economy and therefore we can fund education better, giving better opportunities to British born people. This weirdness when it comes to migrant slander has to stop on both sides because it’s not true and it’s not sexy to blame some unnamed, faceless foreigner for our failings to prepare for anything. Operation Cygnus was ignored by successive health secretaries and would have made a huge difference during the pandemic and instead- here we are, 200,000 dead people and over 1.5 million long covid sufferers later and the most the government and the opposition can do is go “but migrants tho”.

We don’t need political parties in charge that cater to the wet dreams of racists, or to the entitled views of people who think benefits exist to do anything other than support people in unfortunate situations: and of course there will be those happy to subsist rather than exist- but blaming them for the system misses the entire point that the system exists with those loopholes built in.

I don’t want the nasty party in charge. They’ve had very nearly thirteen years now and what have we seen? Societal divide and decline, increased poverty rates, food bank usage shot up by 14% in a YEAR, shortened lifespan and lower quality of life, less rights.
We need alternatives, and as my good friend Dr Maria Norris said, we need to rely on hope, not fear. Fearing migrants isn’t solving a problem, it’s assigning it to something. And no migrant ever voted to restrict your freedom.

Embracing the different is what strengthens us – the way iron itself is more fragile than steel, drawing in disparate elements creates strength and this too is true of society. I don’t care about where you were put on this earth by your mother, whether you’re gay, if you want to transition to another gender: I care about your values and your willingness to leave the world better than you came into it. This isn’t a shallow fight for who can hoard the most resources to their chest, it’s not a game of who can get the most stuff- we all end up hollow corpses or piles of dust, but what’s important is making sure we leave the world better than we found it, that we eliminate the struggles we faced for the next group of people for whom fate aligns to put them here. And to do that, it’s true folly to look at this country as ending where the seas begin and to think that simply being born here means you’re better than those who weren’t. From the devices you type your angry messages on to the surgeons who remove your tumour, nationality is not relevant as much as intent and prowess: and that doesn’t come stamped on your rear like three lions or a white and red cross.

If you want to improve your country, start at its power center, start with the government and work outwards and perhaps, when you get to the borders, you will realise that the invasion was always coming from within.

They think you’re stupid

By Daviemoo

The Conservatives think you’re stupid.
This isn’t some controversial hot take from a loony leftie- it’s factual. Do you think when Dominic Raab refers to us as “amongst the most feckless and lazy workers”, or Boris Johnson says “the working class man is likely to have a drinking problem” or Truss blithely declares that we “don’t work as hard as people in communist China outside of London” that they are mentally adding a postscript to exclude you and yours?
The British are guilty of a hilarious type of exceptionalist elitism, where the rhetoric is- “everyone is bad but I”. But every member of the conservatives looks at every one of us, and especially every person who props their shambolic government up, with the open scorn and the quiet dislike we reserve for those we feel are beneath us. This is beyond question- and the only question left to ask is, do you prove them correct by voting for them?

The UK media has propped up and enabled every governmental misstep for years. From it’s “both sides but here is Nigel Farage as an ‘expert'” coverage of brexit to the desperate commands of the Daily Mail and Express to forgive and forget legal transgressions aplenty under tory governance, it’s hardly an open secret that British media is bought and paid for by and large with the thrombosis blue cash of conservative pundits.

BBC Bias & the mishandling of COVID

Emily Maitlis casually confirmed everything we leftists have been saying for years last night; that the BBC is increasingly biased in favour of positive coverage for the conservative government, and that critical coverage of their performance is met with consternation- not just from number 10 which has long been the case, but from within the upper echelons of the BBC itself.
When top advisor to Boris Johnson, Dominic Cummings, broke the lockdown rules to travel the length of the UK from London to Durham- and despite lack of police action, he DID break the rules- the BBC rightly scrutinised his actions. And yet, the BBC, hand in hand with the party, convinced a critical mass of people to calmly accept the lie.

In any other administration throughout history (and no doubt in any future administration which has extricated itself from the miasma of corruption which blights the conservatives now), Cummings’ transgression would have been met with immediate repudiation. His actions endangered people- simply stopping for petrol could, and would, have spread the coronavirus to people around him. Cummings reported later that he was “testing if his eyesight was ok” by driving to a town nearby- begging the question of how he felt safe to drive 200 miles when first becoming sick with the virus. Had Cummings had an accident whilst driving (likely- as coronavirus can make you extremely unwell and especially at the time), his actions would have spread coronavirus throughout whichever hospital was unlucky enough to take him. The hubris with which Cummings et al. handled this betrayal of the British public did two things: compounded the conservatives ability to simply double down in the face of outrage and disgust, and expedited the collapse of the British public’s trust in the government.

Maitlis confirmed in her speech that her opening remarks on Cummings breaking the rules were met with fury from those at the BBC who supposedly oversee impartiality. Justice is blind, the saying goes, but everyone at the BBC who has failed to step forward is guilty of wilfully covering their own eyes to the facts surrounding a lack of non partisan coverage, throughout the pandemic and in the run- up to the leadership contest in 2019.
Many right wing pundits regularly accuse the BBC of a lack of impartiality but when one side says “be less biased” and the other side said “be more biased”, this is not the battle for impartiality the right claim it to be.

Remember as well, the reaction of conservatives to the BLM protests; back then, how dare people risk the spread of the virus at any cost? How disgusting and disgraceful that this is how the social justice warriors flaunt lockdown- and yet every time a conservative broke the rules, that exception was acceptable. the double standards and division of equals has been driven into an engine shaking overdrive by the tenure of Johnson.
Many of us at the time knew that Johnson’s term would be a disaster- and we cannot blame Johnson for the initial effects of coronavirus, as this was a freak occurrence. What we can do, however, is zoom out: coronavirus does not exist in a vacuum. It’s damaging influence also wrapped tendrils into every other problem the UK was facing. From the continuing ablation of security data leaks via Dido “dataloss” Harding heading up the most vital tool in coronavirus protection and prevention to Governmental backroom dealings were brought to the forefront by the brave actions of Jo Maugham of The Goodlaw Project. Even broader still, the economy was already shaking at the knees prior to the pandemic as businesses shored up their interests against the well known but insidiously unreported effects of a horrendous EU withdrawal agreement. This mess, however, can be laid at the feet of Johnson and his unscrupulous enablers, from Priti Patel who formented an anti EU group long before the referendum was announced, to Lord Frost who- just like tinpot Thatcher-a-like Liz Truss, defected from remain to leave just to taste the winner’s champagne- only to discover those of us shouting poison were correct all along.

Coronavirus no doubt exacerbated many problems faced by the British public, but despite being its own distinct illness, coronavirus and its subsequent mishandling was merely a symptom of the long-term disease British people have unknowingly suffered from for many years- governmental malfeasance.

Truss, Sunak and post-Johnsonism

The liar, the switch and the million pound wardrobe

The most insidious aspect to hiring Johnson on as prime minister was the tacit acceptance of the normalisation of political lying. Johnson’s duplicity was “priced in” we were told, better to have a disgusting truth twister as PM who could bluster his way into every situation that came up and leave wreckage behind, because at least he has funny hair and makes us laugh?
The country is in shambles, in every possible way it can be- Johnson cleaved a divide in the nation through nationalist rhetoric, polluting the nature of pride in Britain- it was wrong to be proud of Britain for being multicultural and diverse, wrong to be proud of our progressive steps towards acceptance of the LGBT+: the only thing to be proud of was Britishness itself. So long as you help your bloo passport up high and kept quiet about the ever decreasing living conditions you passed the tory test and were welcomed into the fold as a true patriot, glibly accepting the country’s decline whilst denying the evidence of your eyes.

Who cares if your rivers are suffused with human offal, it’s BRITISH offal…

And what has that led to? Johnson’s eventual ousting has left us with two choices:
Rishi Sunak, a man who has been variously seen to disparage working class people as roundly as his other colleagues, a chancellor whose short sighted stabbings at sense have decimated the economy that, as aforementioned, was already bowing under pressure, a person whose moral fibre is falling apart because he committed the same open transgressions against the British people as Johnson did during lockdown.
And Liz Truss, a woman who has never stuck to a point she didn’t hear cheers for, a woman who changes her allegiance like some people change shoes. Truss has been widely derided in every position she’s been in- known as the “inequalities minister” down the corridors of Whitehall because she’s done not one useful thing for LGBT+ people during her long tenure- except for trying to sneak the LGB alliance, now deemed a hate group in Northern Ireland, in the back door to replace the LGBT council she dissolved out of spite when they criticised her.
When sent to the UN to hold talks with Russia about its assault on Ukraine, Truss managed to infuriate Russia so much that it was rumoured they stepped up their alert on nuclear weaponry and laid the explanation of why squarely at Truss’ lack of diplomatic skill.

The shadow of Johnson looms still over the country, dampening the light of truth- but in the dimness, puppets like Truss and Sunak have been able to fester, and so we end up here. Their normalisation of lying is enabled at every step by tory rags like the express, whose front page today (Thursday 25th August 2022) Tells us that we all must suffer because it helps Ukraine in the war: Make no mistake that our suffering is a political choice by a party so consumed with self masturbatory leadership hustings that they think we can wait until they’ve settled on which head of the hydra gets to speak.

The leadership battle has shown another crack in the conservative armour- so eager they are to blame social justice for the ills of the nation, that they overlook their 12 year tenure; if anyone is responsible for the culture of a country it is the leaders of it, especially when they have had almost 13 years now to address it…

The UK is dying- Scotland wants to leave, Wales will seek to leave, Ireland even hopes to reunify. And still there are those amongst us desperate to cling to the long-dead conservative ideology. Starmer appears to have won back those who defected to tory in 2019 and whilst many of my fellow lefties see this as an indictment on Starmer and his stances (and whilst you may have validity in some of your criticisms) there is no doubt that traditional conservatism has a certain brand of popularity in the UK, and that brand has long since failed to be offered by this iteration of the Conservative party.
Johnson’s (and soon Truss or Sunak’s) cabinet is crammed full of the sort of political ne’er do wells whose entire ideology rests on the accurate recitation of the party line. Not one tory has actually had the courage to draw a line in the sand since Christian Wakeford defected to Labour. I have my own issues with Wakeford simply because he was who he was and did what he did prior to his defection. But every single conservative sat on those benches has been taught, like hell’s own choir, to sing in tune for their supper, to repeat the same tired lines about levelling up, about getting Brexit done, about getting on with the job or the vaccine rollout- to gulp the oxygen in the room and strangle any talk to the contrary, and in doing so they have imbibed every other egregious fiction the upper level of the party have spat out.

Every tory is as guilty as the wordsmiths for their failure to condemn Johnson and Truss’ dismissal of working class brits, every single MP on those benches is culpable for the mass death and ongoing trauma and misery the UK face with the coronavirus pandemic (and no doubt monkeypox). And every person who continues to spiral in tighter and tighter turns to deflect the constant patter of criticisms of this government, wears the badge of dishonour Johnson tore for himself from the ragged material of the Union Jack he so vehemently claims to stand for.

Restricting your rights

Would a prime minister confident in their ability to discharge this oft-fabled “will of the people” feel the need to force through strict curtailment of protest rights?
It seems to me that it simply would not occur to a decent prime minister that he, she or they would have to safeguard against an uprising of people furious at their malfeasance. And yet that is what Johnson and his lieutenant Patel did- despite the open fury at the legislation (I myself attended no less than five protests specifically about the injustice) of the Police Crime Courts and sentencing bill, they kept pushing until the Lords accepted that it was merely- what was the phrase? Ah yes, “priced in” as the cost of a tory government, that UK Citizens should have a tightening of the restrictions on their ability to protest.
Tory supporters would and should have felt a frisson of horror at their government placing these collars around their necks, but were too busy pointing and laughing as it was fit around ours- but a government doing a good job does not waste time debating legislation around whether it’s people can protest or not, because a good government isn’t protested against.

The fact is- the tories aren’t wrong when they look with distain upon some of us. Because a disturbing chunk of voters wilfully crossed that box, gave the tories their assent that this was the status quo they wanted. They were tired of listening to experts so they hired on a government of headline grabbing louts, affair having, law breaking, contract stealing, rights curtailing scum. And some of them have at last woken up- not that they’d admit that we were right all along, no, they’re convinced that swapping Johnson for one of his lessers will improve things, but Truss is as inept as Johnson and much worse with her verbiage and Sunak is just as likely to lie and fall back on culture war garbage to distract from his unfunnily laughable performance: and still yet, behind these folk are the worst- those who still believe wholeheartedly that the conservatives are the best choice for us, that the continually obvious evidence of poor governmental management is just because of social justice and equality even with a huge Conservative majority and compliant media. These people are stupid. And frankly I am tired of capitulating to them, giving in to their ongoing foghorn yells that they are oppressed because they are asked to look critically at the state of the UK and take ownership of it. You are not oppressed, you are not on “the winning team”- because of you we all lose, and those of us who aren’t stupid, who don’t buy into culture war drudgery and the continued propagandist push to accept lacklustre government are sick and tired of having to baby a population of UK citizens unwilling to accept that their ideology was always a shibboleth for the small minded, xenophobic bigots to gain and maintain power.

You made your bed, we warned you it was full of glass- don’t complain to us about your cuts.

Daviemoo is a 34 year old independent writer, radicalised into blogging about the political state of the world by Brexit and the election of serial failures like Trump and Johnson. Please check out the rest of the blog, check out Politically Enraged, the podcast available on all streaming platforms and share with your like minded friends! Also check him out on ko-fi where you can keep him caffeinated whilst he writes.

The Stupidification of Brits

By Daviemoo

As the Conservatives push hard to renationalise imperial measures, something we’ve always had on our food packaging my entire life as an ostensible “brexit benefit” that doesn’t directly revolve around-but will likely contribute to – a poorer economy, one must wonder how it is not obvious that the party is trying to contribute to an overall shift away from the rest of the world: Little Britain will be unable to sell goods to a market that doesn’t understand the measures, or that has to do extra work to do so. But this isn’t the only way the tories are working to Break down Brits…

Imperial Measurements- an exercise in futility- Boris Johnson

Imperial units seem like some kitschy reach back into the not so distant past- some little move towards showing the world we don’t need them because we have our own way of weighing corn and meat… not one person who isn’t desperate to return to the smoky pubs and “it’s ‘ow we’ve always done it” rhetoric of the past is particularly interested in starting to use imperial measurements again, because it is of no benefit to anyone who doesn’t regularly start sentences with “back in my day…”

Imperial measurements will make it more difficult to:
-Sell to other countries
-Cook
-Purchase necessary products and ingredients

It was also never “banned” by the EU, but to fit their standardisation model it was vital that we all used the same measurements- products in the UK have always been allowed to display imperial, just not as prominently as the other units.

So why would we do it? Because as always it pleases that tiny base who will thoughtlessly back the tories specifically because of nonsensical moves like this. Looking at the outlook of those who approve of this, they don’t care about the realistic damage and annoyance this move will cause now- but you can guarantee that they will be the loudest to decry it as soon as they experience issues resulting from it.
As we fall into measuring things here, we will lose step with the rest of the world- the pointlessness of making our coexistence harder rankles, but also fits perfectly well with the desired outcome of those in charge of implementing brexit: what seemed like a silly little brag fits in with the theme of isolationism behind brexit. Measures, money… what next?

The curtailing of university entry- Nadhim Zahawi

Recently it was announced that if you do not score certain fundamental grades, student loans will not be on offer, effectively curtailing university for those who fail to achieve in the earlier exams. This is a disaster both in terms of the hangover from coronavirus which adversely affected hundreds of thousands of peoples’ education, but is also- and there is no sensitive way to write this- a stupid idea.
I’ve written extensively about the myriad different learning styles for human beings, whether that’s an ability to absorb through physical action, reading, listening, watching demos and more- denying someone access to higher education simply because they cannot conform to the archaic system of listen, repeat in a slightly different way on a written exam is a disastrous response to the educational future of the UK. People can excel at university when given access to the right learning resources, teachers and allowed to study a passion subject instead the usual proscriptions of subjects given at a young age- and even if someone goes on to work in a completely different field, the ability to obtain a degree, masters or PHD is a vital skill that should be exercised for those who can – and want to.

Zahawi’s zest for preventing students who don’t excel at exams from reaching new chances of education is a transparent attempt to gatekeep knowledge from those who need it most desperately- and he should be looked upon with shame for this transparently reductive action.

Additionally, the spectre of “left wing censorship” and deeply worrying authoritarian moves to combat this nebulous nonsense has always been touted over university: searching student forums shows right wing students asking whether they will fit in- rather than simply acknowledging that their views, as all views are, will be questioned, it’s an immediate self censorship and a lack of understanding that an exposure to a wide range of people around you is likely to change your narrow views to wider ones: university isn’t a factory for spitting out left wing Leninists, they are buildings filled with knowledge, and intersected by tens of thousands of people you may not have met and learnt from before: you are not being converted, you’re learning other people’s lifestyles and exposure to this is the antithesis of reductive rhetoric.

Other tory ministers state that children should be asked to sing unsettling nationalistic anthems in schools– we truly are allowing steps towards childhood indoctrination to nationalism.

Throttling the media- Nadine Dorries

Despite 96% of respondents saying they wanted channel 4’s funding model to remain the same and a wealth of evidence presented that C4 is doing well in it’s monetary goals, Dorries has stated that the government will take steps towards its’ privatisation. Dorries has repeatedly demonstrated that she doesn’t know or understand- nor despite time and prompts, care to learn, how channels in the UK are funded (she has also wrongly stated information about the BBC, ITV and channel 4’s several messups). Dorries has stated channel 4 hasn’t “helped its case” against privatisation when “one of its lead presenters is shouting fuck the tories at a concert”. That would be a sentence in and of itself enough to sink any other culture ministers as blatantly taking revenge on a channel for a presenter not slavishly worshipping the government but Dorries is too busy making raps on tiktok to feel the shame she would if she viewed herself as a huge majority of the UK view her.

But the media also does the tories job for them- all of the big newspapers lean right, from the Daily Mail and its endless campaign to blame “lefty do gooder lawyers” for everything, the Express and its attempts to copy headlines that sound similar to those written in North Korea about their own “dear leader”. Other papers are too busy trying to scratch at culture war to make sales by punching down on minorities or both sides-ing debates which are patently pointless or a nonissue. Those media that do speak truth to power are often small or sat on, or- as we saw recently with Cummings’ admissions about the Johnson administration “throwing bungs” to right wing media whilst ignoring left wing or smaller media outlets, underfunded into oblivion.

Social media has seen an uptick in the amount of people desperate to speak truth to power there- its how I have come to what little prominence I have because the only place you can speak about the disgusting state of the country with little intervention (though lots of hate mail, the odd death threat and a sprinkle of doxxing) is social media.

The only way through this mire is a multi pronged attack. Social media is hugely influential when it comes to allowing the voices of ordinary people to be uplifted above the proscripted dross of the mainstream media- a phrase I hate but will indulge in here, but large scale organisation and a flat refusal to allow the government to pass damaging legislation must also start to take place. Fighting back against tory policy must take place both in cyberspace and in the real world – lobbying the government is ineffective right now, but we cannot stop and must in fact increase our efforts to battle them in the real world including against the frightening anti protest legislation they have inducted.

They will not stop us. We are many- and there are more of us than we think. Though decades of tory policy have enforced a miasma of glibly disenfranchised brits, people can be reached with the right message -we must find this message and galvanise those who would not normally move to counter this fight. We must- for without the voices of the discontented rising in concert, the zombie moans of a nation whose freedom is dead will only grow to silence us all.

Daviemoo is a 34 year old independent writer, radicalised into blogging about the political state of the world by Brexit and the election of serial failures like Trump and Johnson. Please check out the rest of the blog, check out Politically Enraged, the podcast available on all streaming platforms and share with your like minded friends! Also check him out on ko-fi where you can keep him caffeinated whilst he writes.

Britain is Authoritarian: we didn’t kill the bill & now democracy is dead

By Daviemoo

It’s been coming for a long time now, with klaxon warnings from scholars and activists all over the world. But today the United Kingdom truly embraced its role as an authoritarian state as the house of lords voted for the police, crime, courts and sentencing bill to effectively curtail our human right to protest. Those who endorse the bill will tell you that it is not stopping protest, only engendering co-operation with the police and asking that protests- mass gatherings of people- do not “disturb the peace”.
There is no peace, there is no, there is no democracy- in a country who throttles the voice of its citizens.

It’s hard to know where to start with the bill which Priti Patel has fought so hard to implement and my problems with it. Firstly a Home Secretary who was forced to resign for attending unauthorised meetings with foreign powers making decisions on legalities seems a far stretch: secondly, legislation written by a woman who erroneously said the death penalty is effective even in spite of evidence it is not.
The met police have voiced their own displeasure of Patel’s draconian oversight of their duties- but the met hardly have room to comment on poor leadership, or indeed of behaviours beyond the pale, including current accusations of a cover-up around partygate.
Patel has long disparaged actual champions of what right wing figures like herself so often champion as free speech- she is yet to apologise for speaking out against “lefty lawyers” which led to a knife attack against legal experts who work for human rights campaigns. And here is the strongest evidence yet in the damning indictment in the public eye that Patel does not seek to defend free speech, only speech she condones: the effective strangulation of protest rights in the United Kingdom.

Many of those who will clap like seals for this bill have spent time in the press decrying the restrictive regimes of China or Russia- we have watched, agog, footage of Russian people being arrested under similar laws for holding up blank pieces of paper. Once this law passes, the people of China would technically have an easier time of protesting than Britain- because even one man protests can now be punished with a custodial sentence.

It appears that protest will only be acceptable if the local police assent to a demonstration- and protests can be dismantled, including using police violence and arrests for protests which “disturb the public” or people “find intimidating”: and this, we can fairly conclude, proves that every single person who voted for this bill has never had to protest for their own rights or the rights of those they love- that they do not understand the essence of protest is to foreshadow civil upheaval should the voices of those protesting not be heard in peace.

Additionally, those who do attend protests face arrest with custodial sentences lasting years- for protesting against what they see as unfair, undue or dangerous legislative or public moves by the UK government.

The highest irony in all of this comes in many different flavours: the indifferent silence of the anti lockdown protestors who proudly marched gormlessly around London propagating a virus that is still killing over 1000 people a week. The confused smiles of people vox popped in the streets who didn’t even know this was happening and are entitled enough to know they will never NEED the right to protest because they are unaware that their lot in life could be better should they simply rise up- or the ever increasing frustration of activists who have worked increasingly hard to highlight the undue, unfair- unnecessary bill in its entirety. The entire UK seems to have entered into some collective malaise, with only the enraged detritus of we few, the minorities working hard to retain their own rights and safety or the few politically savvy people who are aware of the appalling nature of this bill fighting against it.
Violence was, more than once, used against peaceful protestors in Bristol, London, Manchester who simply wanted to ensure we retain our human right- it is a human right- to protest: yet swathes of football fans wrecked town centres and businesses, broke into stadiums with seeming impunity from police- because in the United Kingdom now it is seen as more dangerous to stand peacefully with signs of protest than it is to throw security staff to the floor and barge, unchecked into a stadium to watch a sports game. During the BLM protests, police hovered at the edges of the protests, hands on batons threateningly as though those desperate to be heard about civil injustices caused by the police themselves would be as great of a danger as angry ignorant people desperate to protect statues over human life and liberty.

The United Kingdom will continue its decline under fascist-leaning leadership like Patel and Johnson, under the baleful glare of politicians like Dominic Raab who wish to scrap the human rights act, along with institutionally corrupt pillars of societal maintenance like the met or the media who hide their collaboration with anti trans screeds, allow lesbian rapists to suggest murdering trans people and who have set us on course to continue to see our rights, our quality of living and indeed out liberty continue to dissipate in favour of a society only extant to keep the rich in money as we squabble- now quietly in fear of upsetting the peace- for what little dignity the tories care to afford us.

Ultimately the passing of this bill into law is a mistake which will cost not only the British public greatly, but the authoritarians in chief.
When you functionally illegalise peaceful protest, you take that avenue away yes- but not the need for it. People still want to, need to, are forced to protest for their liberties and against their injustices. Making peaceful protest as harshly punishable as violent protest leaves those of us who need protest as an avenue to start to make decisions we did not need before: firstly, can we be heard outside of protesting – and if so, how?
Secondly if protesting is our only means of being heard and it is now as harshly punished to be heard peacefully as it is to be more radical, do we choose the peaceful option and face punishment- or do we choose violence knowing that it may be the only way to be heard? This isn’t a decision any activist wants to make and the idea of having to harness violence to enact public change is truly a move for the desperate- but is that not where we are now under a government who blanket refuses to listen to the will of the people they so often expound upon?

Patel, Johnson, Raab- the tories continue to bind our hands and expect us to remain compliant but as our streams of expression for our displeasure evaporate before us the time is at hand to ask: if we can’t be heard peacefully, are our options truly as limited now as compliance, silence… or violence?

Daviemoo is a 34 year old independent writer, radicalised into blogging about the political state of the world by Brexit and the election of serial failures like Trump and Johnson. Please check out the rest of the blog, check out Politically Enraged, the podcast available on all streaming platforms and share with your like minded friends! Also check him out on ko-fi where you can keep him caffeinated whilst he writes.

Either the bill dies, or democracy does

By Daviemoo

KILL THE BILL – that is all

As I write this, I’m all of 2 minutes through my front door after attending the kill the bill protest.

I’m already under the covers- everything is cold, the flat is cold, I’m cold. The only warmth is the fire in my belly from the huge display of solidarity I just witnessed. People of all ages, classes, ethnicities, genders, sexualities stood on the main street in Leeds (and are doing so around the country in other cities) marching. Not just for ourselves, but for everyone.

One could argue that the roots of patriotism are nourished by the pitter patter rain drops of the individual turning to the storm of people coming together in making our voices heard, and in protesting against our country moving in a direction we do not like. Some would disagree. Those who do have likely never had to protest against a single thing, either happy to let others do it for them or that forefront demographic who will never need to protest against censure because the world is their platform.

The Police, Crime, Courts and Sentencing bill is another bill which carries fascist tropes, designed to instil dogged obedience in the nation by removing or curtailing one of our fundamental rights- not, of course, outright criminalising protest but forcing bureaucracy and redundancy into it- those roots we just spoke of, throttled of nourishment by strangulation. Imagine the irony of having to apply to the police to protest against… the police? Imagine being arrested and charged for being a nuisance. Imagine facing years in prison because you blocked a road, shouted too loudly… This legislation is hand stitched by the fascist fingers of Priti Patel to sow discord amongst those who desperately need to protest to be heard and those whose cosseted lives make protest only something to watch, glossy eyed, on the TV.

The biggest irony known at present is that those who have spent two years of pandemia decrying their right to free speech, free faces, free bodies, are nowhere to be seen as our actual rights to live in democracy are threatened.

Standing surrounded by those who also feel the threat of this bill I encountered well spoken older people, students, foreign nationals, trans women, gay men, people of colour – all angry that their ability to speak out critically against a literally criminally inept government seeks to rip away our right to be heard in their flawed system.

I was also surrounded by those who I too often disparage as privileged- the everyman. Many of those at today’s protest were furious at the prospect of more rights being curtailed under the- not so much iron, but) wooden hand of Boris Johnson’s conservatives.
He’s taken so much from us in his short tenure with his attack ready home secretary ready to whip out more dangerous legislation.

Ask yourself, regardless of your political alignment, why you would ever happily sign rights that you’re entitled to away.

…and it’s not the first time

It’s mere weeks since the nationality and borders bill slugged through parliament. This bill has disenfranchised a disturbingly enormous proportion of the British populace. Some would say it’s divine right to be born and be a citizen of a realm- but others put in work to become, to naturalise, and to assimilate- and those people who have done so have had an abject lesson presented to them: that the tories will remove that from you at their whim. Even today I read a tweet from a man who has served the UK in his position as a soldier for 22 years- who faces deportation in 28 days.

Now we stand in the face of another bill, draconian in nature but more frankly just wrong.

The tories will continue to take, take, take from us- because we let them.

Stand up and kill the bill together. Or the only thing that dies is democracy.

Daviemoo is a 34 year old independent writer, radicalised into blogging about the political state of the world by Brexit and the election of serial failures like Trump and Johnson. Please check out the rest of the blog, check out Politically Enraged, the podcast available on all streaming platforms and share with your like minded friends! Also check him out on ko-fi where you can keep him caffeinated whilst he writes.

What is it that empowers the right? Political ineptitude, selfishness or a willingness to compromise on morals?

By Daviemoo

Forgive me for the rambling -As I write this on my lunch break at work I’ve posted a video I recorded this morning about some of the sacrifices I made during lockdown which have yet again been made fruitless by the incompetence of a government unable to follow their own rules. It’s past time that this blustering, self aggrandising mobster government be sent to the gulags of history and judged as a failure- not just because they are criminally inept at the job, but because they are criminal full stop.

A very American problem

The right have many a method to stay in power. In America, Donald Trump never won a popular vote- but won his first term as president due to an antiquated votership system, the Electoral college -and may have won again were it not for the valiant efforts of supremely invested politicians like Stacey Abrams who worked tirelessly against gerrymandering and voter disenfranchisement. Abrams should go down in history as one of the truest patriots America has ever seen, and her heroism is unsung because America still fights in it’s hear for freedom from a dictatorial cancer – not “conservatives” or “republicanism” but the monster these two types of right wing populist politics have created- the GQP, a bent and blunted force for uneducated Americans to rally around, blaming the blacks and the fags and the jews for their woes- and not long standing contempt for working class Americans, not a broken health system which will bankrupt you for the sin of developing cancer, a deeply propagandist education system more interested in teaching the masculine values of waving a flag and a laughably flawed justice system which allows the gunning down of an innocent sleeping paramedic or protester with automatic weaponry.

Where is England’s Stacey Abrams?

The toxicity of tory

In the UK, the voting system in combination with the differences in voter demographic, mixed with a terminal indifference to politics for younger people have led to the continuation of the tory government. Right wing parties dropped out of the running in areas where tories could gain seats to prop up Johnson, and though over 50% of the UK voted for left wing parties we have in place a tory government with an almost unprecedented control of the house of commons. There is the first piece of evidence to my claim – instant switching of alliegance to tory just to win, even if you didn’t believe in their aims- you just wanted that 52 to 48 result respected. But do you know what else we have after twelve years of tory rule? Under the conservative government, poverty has risen, income inequality has skyrocketed- quite literally as Richard Branson achieved his wet dream of space flight as the rest of us wrote costing sheets to make sure we can afford rent and bills. Anti LGBT+ hate crime has escalated over 300% in 4 years.

The concerns of women about corruption in the police force, both from female officers and hapless women harassed in the street were met with ridiculous sneering contempt – flag down a bus, they were told by flippant Met Officers who backed and still back the tory government- why? Because they are given unique power to attack thsoe who stand against them. Meanwhile the met completely fails to investigate repeated, open, obvious breaches of the covid laws and restrictions which have seen over 5000 Londoners in court paying fines- and, I hasten to add, rightly so. To break lockdown is to thwart attempts to control and curtail a dangerous pathogen. So why are the tories uniquely protected against prosecution, as Cressida Dick wags a bony finger at journalists to dissuade further questions that may bring out more queries?

We have politicians who try to hold the government to account – Zarah Sultana is prodigious and fearless, Dawn Butler passionate and eloquent, Rosina Allin-Khan a front line worker who still finds time to visit parliament and beg the government to explain it’s lacklustre efforts. As an aside each one of these women of colour have been met with belligerent repudiation, told to “mind their tone”- a sentiment oft- weaponised against people of colour and especially women of colour who do not play to the demure-seeking demands of bigots.

The crux of this post is to make people realise that right wing people will do what others simply won’t because of decency. Be it solemnising a company then, before the company is even formed lobbying it to parliament to supply PPE (as a tory lord did), creating a VIP supply lane, using problematic language to slap down women of colour, or- as today’s news displays, showing pathological indifference to the suffering of people trying their best to curtail a pandemic’s deadly spread.

This pattern of thinking leads to a question I’m often asked- do you think all tories, all brexit voters, all right wingers are racist, homophobic, bigoted etc?
Not necessarily no- but they do what I won’t. They compromise on these issues. “Oh I don’t hate foreigners at all, i just *insert reasons for voting here*”. It seems to me that if I didn’t hate foreigners I wouldn’t vote for something that gave the strong and close to undeniably did in fact do that. And always with these voters they’re allowed plausible deniability. Brexit was for taking back control -of what? Our borders? We had more control in the EU. Of our legal decisions? The tories are trying to remove scrutiny from courts. Of our position as a world superpower? Our economy is decimated by brexit, international trade in and out is down, we have trade deals that WORSEN our GDP and we are a laughing stock, a tiny group of islands left to float in our own “anti-woke” seas, now swimming with happy british fish and, of course, tory approved human shit.

Voter ignorance or voter indifference?

Right wing politics, at their face, seems only to be about no compromise. We want this! We want the woke cancel culture agenda to end, we want the trans people’s rights gone, we want to continue to deny our imperialist role in slave trading, in white supremacy, in a devastatingly clear-cut class system. But that’s the lie- right wing politics is nothing BUT compromise from the voter’s level.

Voters who claim not to hate LGBT+ people somehow mysteriously fail to clarify that they are disgusted with the lack of action from Liz Truss who has been in the role for years and has just, again, rolled back the end of the consultation period for a complete block on conversion therapy in the UK- though 3 other countries have done so in the last 2 months. Voters who claim to be disgusted by racism will bend to apoplexy over the statue of a previously unknown slaver being torn down in disgust, and who borrow Johnson’s line of “context” to explain his comments about watermelon smiles or letterboxes.

Voters who say they don’t want foreigners coming here will stare on with blank eyed indifference about news headlines about atrocities the UK committed whilst holding tenderly on to the hand of the US.

Right wing votership is, in my eyes, about one of two things: the ability to wholeheartedly vote against your own self interest and protection because it will also make everyone else unhappy, OR the ability to vote for what you think is your own self interest whilst actually voting against it, under the guise that it strikes a blow against your imaginary enemy.

…but who IS your enemy?

Who is really making your daily life worse? The tired, hungry migrant in a boat out at sea who just wants to make it to shore without being tossed into the maw of the sea to lie with the bones of countless others? Or is it the politician gesticulating about the necessity of taking more money from your salary to prop up a health system they have criminally underfunded for their dozen years in power?

The ostensible links the right make are easily broken- but only if you are capable of listening to fact. Hate the hundred or so migrants who come here a day? Think of them as offsetting the death toll caused by conservative reluctance to place restrictions on the country to curtail coronavirus infection. You hate benefit fraud? Only a few dozen convictions- and who, may I ask, is in charge of the benefit system? It would be the very government you support who don’t and won’t change the system, because they know you can be angry at benefit cheats- instead of politicians who claim £50 back for a charitable donation. MP’s expenses combined would be more in a month than benefit claimants get in a year, even if they fudge the system. And yet the anger is spewed at our underprivileged fellows- because we don’t feel entitled to rail against the creators and maintainers of that flawed system.

Not all right wingers are this type. Some vote right knowing what they are voting for. Some want this sort of draconian rule by people who decry the censorship of language- you’re not even free to call people like me faggots these days- whilst supporting laws that effectively end the ability to demonstrate in public, which make voting more difficult and inaccessible to those who are already under-represented in parliament- tangible freedoms lost or pushed into the distance whilst people get angry about the non-existent thought police.

Still more are simply beneficiaries of the system. We’re taught to worship trickle down economics even as those at the top swim in oceans of wealth hoarded away from us and as our throats run parched, barely sustained from the drip drip drip of financial offcuts. Wealth disparity in the UK is at a terrifying new height- not just because of the pandemic which no one truly predicted, but because of brexit, because of a foolish lack of foresight by a government only concerned about enrichment of the already rich and by the complicity of an underclass who believes that the north star of the Union Jack is their guiding light to supremacy in the world. Just because the man who owns the company you work for is rich and the company is making world beating sales- doesn’t mean you’re prospering as you desperately try to save to pay your mortgage. And again – who maintains that system of tax cuts for your boss and tax hikes for you… but let me guess, Boris is a man of the people? You like his hair? Does he just “get” you?

It’s come to the point now where I wish right wing voters would just say the real truth, the truth we all know but never call out because “wokeness” and “censorship”, because “I’m allowed my opinion”. People vote right because they do not understand what they vote for.
You might be able to install a government that will roll back protections for those nasty trans people – but they are also a government who will force you into debt, crush your pension, close down your workplace and- whilst you wait at home, desperate to make sure your vulnerable mother doesn’t lie choking in a hospital bed as a plastic clad nurse tries to offer her muffled words of comfort- they throw back bottles of champagne which cost more than your daily salary.

Right wing voters compromise on their morals to install governments who work against their own people- and are too dense to see it.

Did I make you angry?

Good.

The point of this entire blog is to make people who think in opposition to me THINK about what they believe or vote for. If you truly believe for a single moment that Boris Johnson is the best representative for you, that he understands your daily struggles from a popped tyre to redundancy, you’re a fool. We are chess pieces on a very large board to the tory government. And the time to oust these flagrant shills is so far gone it can’t even be seen by the naked eye. If you truly wish to prove me wrong, and that you’re not willing to compromise your morals then show me by not voting for the people who “make me pay less tax which is good even if I don’t agree with them on drowning migrants”.


The United Kingdom deserves a government better than we have, a government who will work for the good of us all, a government run by those who have lived our experiences, have faced our issues, who are cognisant of our frustrations. Not a nodding dog of moral vacuousness who prattles on about building back better, about hands face space, about get boosted now- the only three word slogan the UK needs is “you’re our employees”.

Daviemoo is a 34 year old independent writer, radicalised into blogging about the political state of the world by Brexit and the election of serial failures like Trump and Johnson. Please check out the rest of the blog, check out Politically Enraged, the podcast available on all streaming platforms and share with your like minded friends! Also check him out on ko-fi where you can keep him caffeinated whilst he writes.

Critiquing MPs is not a hate crime

By Daviemoo

David Amess was one of the longest serving Conservative MPs and was murdered last week. Speculation is still rife as to the reasoning behind his death, which is currently being investigated by anti terrorism forces in the UK. The Conservative party have quickly made the link to Amess’ murder and online threats of violence- despite the fact that the person held in custody has so far not been shown to have any online persona. If anything, this tenuous linking of brutal and horrific murder to online discourse seems disingenuous, linked to something the tory party had vested interests in already. David Amess was concerned about knife crime before his death and had spoken about this on multiple occasions- perhaps action on knife crime would have been more fitting of a tribute.

A discussion is being had, predictably, that MPs voting records should be sealed or at least not so easy to disseminate- mostly because the more cynical amongst us are quick to check MP voting records when they weigh in on social issues. To prevent that would be a disgusting step backwards- another one- in a democratic society.

Those who are keen to seal voting records are quick to say that MPs could have been whipped to vote against their personal interests etc- regardless, they did vote as such, and to remove our right to transparency when it comes to an MPs vote is a foolish move.

Those who made this observation were also horrendously disrespectful towards those of us who do frequent pages to check voting records, implying that perhaps we “didn’t understand the nuance of voting”. Because of course they understand, in a way we do not. You’ll be shocked of course to know that these people were boomer tories- as always assuming that their opinion is the opinion.

For my sins, I have only seen the screenshots of votes David Amess cast during his time in parliament. I have my own personal opinions about those votes, especially as some directly impacted on my potential rights as an individual. It’s somewhat irrelevant- murdering someone is actually not something we should endorse- if political disagreement is a prerequisite for murder then we’re all constantly at threat, and if you can’t defend your political standpoints without violence then frankly political discourse might not be for you. Getting heated, even being disrespectful is just discussion- feel free to engage or disengage as is your wont. Violence is a no-no.

Equally it’s not exactly easy when you run into someone who is diametrically opposed to you having equality. When I meet people who are against gay marriage I can’t imagine the narrow mindedness with which you can approach deciding that your personal distaste for someone else’s adult relationship trumps their right to have equal standing in a society. So to see anti gay votes on someone’s ledger, yes, makes me dislike them; makes me unlikely to be civil to them if they engage me. That is, as they say – my right in a free country.

We’ve already had our hands tied on protesting. We’ve already been told that helping someone drowning if they’re a refugee is punishable. We’ve seen statues offered more protection than women’s bodies or LGBT+ people, whose hate crimes have risen precipitously. We’ve seen denials of racism even as the PM himself and the home secretary gleefully spark rows about what constitutes abhorrent racist practice, and to refuse to apologise for it. We’re now approaching an inability to speak in terse terms to politicians who have made no concerted effort to protect us from coronavirus, goods and medicine shortages, rising commodity prices… The UK’s ever steady march towards authoritarianism under this government continues.

I will not be stopped from holding MPs to account. Violence is unacceptable. Speaking back to people whose decisions impact on my quality of life is the very least we should be allowed. And the important freedoms we have so treasured in the past are removed, while people opine on the imaginary freedoms like the freedom not to wear a mask during a pandemic, or the imaginary freedom of not getting a vaccine so you can become a walking super spreader.

I wish David Amess had not been killed, because he was a human and human life has value. But the tories move to turn his death into more oppressive legislation is yet another low move on their part. Let’s remember that when Johnson was called out for his rhetoric in parliament after the murder of my old MP, Jo Cox, by a white supremacist who blamed her pro-eu stance – Johnson all but scoffed at the implication that his words inflamed people to commit violence.

The worst, the most insidious literary violence we can see is not from anonymous profiles- it’s from Journalists with tens of thousands of readers who gleefully swallow back the “traitorous remainers” or “terrorist sympathisers” or whatever else you want to cherry pick from the endless rhetoric of the media. The government is interested in curtailing the media’s ability to hold it to account, as mentioned earlier this year. So what, then, if all this legislation is passed- the media cannot publish “embarrassing” articles about MP’s, we can’t speak out about MP’s poor service: does that sound democratic to you?

What the government fail to realise is that UK citizens’ patience with their obsessive need to protect themselves rather than do a good job is waning, even when it comes to the endless defences of the media, and willing puppets like Dan Hodges who push pro government agenda even in the face of their disgusting hypocrisy.

We will not be held down when it comes to exercising our voices.

It is not for the left to continually take abuse whilst fixing the mistakes of the right

By Daviemoo

From lockdowns, Brexit, tax hikes, energy crises and so on, left wing folk are used to regularly facing denigration and abuse by right wing figures and voters. Constantly denigrated and lazily insulted with buzzwords like SJW or woke, we put forward policies that help huge chunks of the population and reverse the damage caused by extremist right wing political parties- but when do we face the simple fact that the right cannot clean up their own messes, and need to start facing accountability for their own shortcomings?

If i had a pound for every time I’d been called some sort of invective by a right wing person- either face to face or online – I’d have enough to make decent inroads into any national debt. Sheep, remoaner, beard (that’s TERF specific)- the list goes on and is extensive. It always makes me laugh – it comes with a grain of frustration – sorry for wearing a mask so you don’t get COVID off me, apologies for thinking we’re stronger in the EU than out of it, please don’t hate me for thinking trans women don’t deserve a relentless hate campaign. It was even worse during the BLM protests- the amount of my fellow milk white people saying ACTUALLY YOU’RE RACIST because I went to BLM protests and spent a good 8 months reading accounts from people of colour to understand their perspectives in a way my ignorant little self hadn’t done before.

One thing that some of the more vocal racists who constantly denigrated me for weeks kept saying was something to the effect of “why should I feel bad for something I didn’t do”. An understandable perspective- wrong though. When it’s highlighted to you that people of colour suffer under a system you’re part of and you don’t work to change it you do contribute to it.

So let’s take that logic and apply it to a few situations which need to be spoken about.

The pandemic

Millions of the us faced the same situation- loneliness and isolation, and took it on the chin because we knew it was the right thing to do. I’d lost my mother two days before the first lockdown in the UK and spent months completely alone, avoiding any contact with any people near me. We all spent time completely away from others, because it was necessary. It wasn’t fun, it wasn’t nice. It was what we needed to do for the good of other people.

Mask mandates came in and even though we didn’t and don’t enjoy wearing them, we did it and do it because science quite simply shows you that if you are carrying an illness that’s expelled via airway, a mask will help. We accepted the things we had to do based on scientific evidence, which is why when the vaccines were rolled out, even if we knew there might be a risk – a tiny risk- that we could suffer health issues, we realised that the only way to seek normality was to take that tiny risk and have the vaccine. The more vaccinated and the less adverse reactions, the more secure I felt. Then came the “WAIT 2 YEARS TIL YOU’RE ALL DEAD!” – Literally every reputable scientist actually laughed at this claim. But all the time we were being vaccinated we had to walk against the tide of the griping fools who said it was an infringement on their liberties. That wearing masks was akin to a muzzle, that we were sheep.

Abuse for doing what we felt was personally and societally, the right thing to do.

Then came the football rioting. Those of us who actually cared about others sat at home watching scenes akin to the London riots- fighting in the streets, flares shoved up sweaty men’s arses, groups of ruffians breaking into a football stadium- and who was castigated? Oh the “reactionary left” who were enraged by the flouting of rules meant to keep us all safe- and yes, the football did in fact cause a massive surge in cases as predicted- but let’s all focus on how the left were angry about this and frustrated by the deluge of racism. Parliament convened to discuss it, only for the right of the room, the ones who are flippant about or endorse this abuse (see the recent report that states that those who suffer racist abuse are a necessary sacrifice in the pursuit of the rule of law…) to police the tone of women of colour who spoke up.

Then came the anti lockdown riots- just in time for lockdown to have ended the week before. These brave soldiers, out in public en masse in defiance of a lockdown that didn’t exist, potentially causing another mass infection to cause exactly what they were protesting about in the first place. If you don’t want lockdowns, don’t do what makes them necessary!

Further to that, those of us who were exhausted with it all and resolved to just get on with it were again insulted for still wearing masks, for being cautious- it seems like as we are trying to move on we’re still castigated- so who is really the one causing issues? The ones who are back at work in a mask or the ones gathered, sweaty faced and shouting, in the streets of London?

The anti everything crowd are the ones prolonging this heinous situation and those of us who have done the right thing and continue to do so face the abuse, but dare we speak up against those who won’t only to hear the tired epithets of “MY BODY MY CHOICE” (if your body can become the disseminator of a dangerous virus it’s NOT actually) or “SHEEP” or whatever else, suddenly we’re the ones causing the issue – I quite flippantly told someone a fortnight ago that I truly hope they don’t experience illness or death or lose someone they love for their decision which prompted them to tell me they were going to “find me and fucking kill me”. Hmm. I’ve spent 19 months sacrificing for your safety so frankly if you do face consequences for your selfishness, keep an eye out for me waving to you cheerfully.

Brexit

Project fear, as it turns out, is actually “project we didn’t predict it would be quite this bad but here we are”.

I can understand people who were swept up in the hype sold by the media and the leave campaign – I didn’t agree with it but I understood the allure for those who felt Britain was chained down by the EU, rather than facing facts that industrial Britain, built on the pain of the enslaved or the proletariat, had had it’s day and we were becoming a mediocre power simply because that’s how the world progresses. As time went on and more and more experts- political, economic, societal, scientific, came out as against it we became more aware that brexit could have potentially disastrous implications for our standing as a nation and for our (ever important…) Economy.

Cue the people desperate for independence from the EU insulting us, calling us doomsayers, being anything from sarcastic to openly violent towards us. The amount of doors slammed in my face, threats of physical violence or insults for simply saying I think we would have been better in the EU is bordering on parody levels of ridiculous.

What it is that brexiteers feel like the EU took from us or held us back from, I don’t know but if the covert changes to legislation that protects workers in this country wasn’t enough evidence that we were making a mistake, if the brutal murder of my local MP by a far right brexiteer radical wasn’t enough, and if the current food shortages, the constant UK EU headbutting wasn’t enough, if the increasing bills wasn’t enough, if the vaccine disruption and accusations of selfishness, the lack of action on ventilation, the blatant disregard of foreign scientists, the lack of HGV Drivers and people to cover certain job roles- if all of this wasn’t enough, I have to wonder what would be the thing that makes brexiteers realise that we DID MAKE A MISTAKE.

I tried to find a tweet I saw last week to place here which was to the effect of “why don’t remainers understand that we don’t care if people lose their jobs, industries fold, if the country goes into recession as long as we get our brexit!”

To people who think like that I ask- what the fuck did you gain then? You’re tanking people’s lives and economy in the name of a sovereignty we always had! You talk about how the EU restricted this and that and now we’re free- we still need to trade with the EU, so all you’ve done is remove any say as a conglomerate piece of the union that we had. The freedom you gained is from the EU’s perspective as a united group of countries who have far more influence than we do- and talking about the queen, trade deals that don’t rival the flow of EU goods, or how we are a nation built of strong stuff doesn’t change the fact that people here are in a worse position because of a vote you made based off of what have been demonstrably proven to be lies.

And who suffers for this? Is it the people who voted out? No. We all do- and as a staunch remainer I don’t want anyone to suffer, but we all suffer because of the decision of just over half of us. So we work to continue on, to make the best of the situation as leavers demand- and yet we can’t point out our frustrations or we’re remoaning…

Let me ask you again as I have in another post- who is the patriot- the one who wants their country to face up to it’s mistakes, issues and shortcomings and overcoming them to lead us to a better future, or the one who thinks draping a union jack over the cracks in our culture and economy fixes the problem. And of course, we all suffer together but those “remoaning” are just voicing their issues with the shitty economic position we’ve been put in through the ignorance of those in charge and the spurious claims of a campaign run by a man who has money to spare and access to a European passport should he wish. I know leavers don’t like to be told this but you were led down the garden path by a group of people who can escape any suffering through wealth and they’ll leave you to misery without batting an eye. But enjoy your tarnished sovereignty.

Tory voters

If one more person tells me “BUT IF LABOUR WAS IN”…

Every time someone has said this to me, it’s been about things that are literally happening now.

Empty shelves? Corbyn would have made us have empty shelves

Energy crisis? Corbyn would have priced us out of the energy market

Authoritarianism? The tories took your right to protest and put it in the bin

Terrible handling of covid and the NHS backlog?

Pick your poison. If your response to being told the conservatives are doing a bad job is to say “it could be worse” you’re not focusing on the fact that it could be better. It could be much better, if you’d stop accepting the bare minimum from your leaders- it seems like because Johnson’s marketed himself as an affable fop people will accept that he’s a fucking terrible politician who is as laughable as Trump. But if you speak out against the conservatives you’re in for “at least it’s not socialist Corbyn/ Labour is a terrible party” and on and on and on in a never ending cycle- and not just from the right.

Focusing on the nebulous situations in your head rather than dealing with the realities we’re suffering under is a special talent of all of the above.

I think every person on both sides of the above feels they are the victim- but only one side actually caused these negative situations to come about, and so maybe we are all, or none of us are, victims- but I certainly know who the perpetrators are.

The reason all of this is so frustrating is that I had a video go viral on TikTok recently where I had 30, 40 people telling me over and over that I should go out and DO- stop moaning and SORT SOMETHING, offer SOLUTIONS.

Did I get us into this mess? I campaigned for labour, I campaigned against brexit, I isolated, wore masks, social distanced, washed my hands, vaccinated… and all the while I was called a socialist (as if that’s a dirty word…), I was called remoaner, sheep, test subject. I do what’s right even in the face of all of this, as do so many others- and of course, when the chips are down its US who need to rise up, take back power, fix it, find solutions. Do you understand how exhausting it is to have to carry this huge facet of society along all whilst it’s railing against you and kicking and screaming against progress? I understand why people get so jaded with political activism because it is exhausting to try and simply get people to see your perspective whilst being constantly insulted, threatened and more, and then be told that WE need to do more, we need to undo it all, fix it all.

It’s well past time that the brexiteering anti mask anti vax tory voting weak brained amongst us realise that they have caused untold misery, frustration, pain – death- and face the fact that they are on the wrong side. They can enjoy the victories they amass in the fact of common sense, knowing that it’s at the expense of a worn out group of people who want what’s best for us all as we spiral more. Or they can take the wheel they’ve repeatedly snatched at and try to guide us out of the repeated and worsening messes of their creation.

Sleepwalking Into Authoritarianism- The English Nightmare continues

By Daviemoo

Let’s get some things out of the way first: I am a woke, lefty do-gooder. If that upsets you, it’s a problem you may want to consider discussing with an experienced GP. This blog is my own version of part human/egg hybrid Dominic Cummings’ effusive ramblings on the monster he installed in Westminster, and if you disagree that is your right- but whilst it is A right, it does not mean you ARE right.

I’ve always been somewhat politically aware, but was one of the crowd who gleefully sleepwalked through British politics at large, designating it “out of my control” or “someone else’s problem”. This issue seemed to renege with age, and as I became aware of the power of the proletariat I felt something greater than I- a collective will to better the country which I was born in.

As I’ve grown though, I’ve noticed a disturbing trend of the stupider, the louder, the more uncouth running roughshod over traditional politics- from the human custard era that was Donald Trump’s wittering presidency, having to watch a man masturbating his own ego for a nation of people who didn’t even vote him into power, to the closer to home installation of the perceived bumblingly innocent and somewhat daffy Boris Johnson, or even looking to countries like Brazil with angry little men like Bolsonaro in charge; politics has changed and seems to have become a game for those who are happy to stand on the neck of morals for the sake of being seen as “strong”.

I finally broke and created this blog to get some of the words I’ve had rattling around my head down in word format, though I’ve been creating internet videos making pastiche of British politics for around 7 months now- the only way to manage the ever increasing political rage I feel.

As ridiculous day after ridiculous day rolled by, my patience and understanding of British politics has been worn down to the type of nub I expect both Johnson and Trump to be concealing in their oft-stained slacks. I am done with being pleasant to people who disagree with me politically because my politics are aligned to “for the good of everyone” in a nation whose politics daily seem to slide more into “for the good of the rich” or “for only me”.

I savour the daily insults from red faced lunatics who call me woke and sheep and weak, because the more they rage that I’m NOT LIKE THEM the more I am convinced that I’m on the side of right. And though I always treat my own views with a healthy dose of scepticism, the high irony of people who can’t even work out the hierarchy does not include them telling me that I am the stupid one, the sheep, the weak one, is a hefty source of amusement in a world with scant other resources to entertain me.

Kill The Bill

Today, in my virgin post on here, let’s talk specifically about the latest tory travesty – the death of non manufactured, and therefore helpful, protesting.

The Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts bill was passed in parliament yesterday by a margin of 100.

This bill lays a heavy blanket of suppression down on everyone- regardless of political affiliation, though clearly those who are not in support of this government will suffer most. Protests, even one man protests, cannot take place without assent from, and collaboration with, the police- who, in the age of the BLM protests are often the subject of said protests. Protests by their nature are meant to be disruptive- they are, at their core, a show of the power of the proles, a demonstration that whilst we accept governance we can and may voice our displeasure with a simple show of bodies and chanting. This has been a right since time immemorial- and the false conflation of protests and riots has become laughably common in today’s society. Those with no sense of nuance will happily conflate the two, and decry those who partake in either- those people are usually the privileged who are either lucky enough to be unaffected by social issues or who simply don’t care.

The police already had too much confidence in their role as mediator of protesting- look at the vigil for Sarah Everard, in which police cornered and injured women who were standing up for their right to be safe- against men, but also- POLICE, because Everard was murdered by one of their own- subsequently other police were suspended for making off colour jokes about murder on WhatsApp- of course, we had the usual mumblings of “it’s just a few bad apples!”, but as usual the revisionists who want to protect the establishment so conveniently miss the finisher of that saying- “a few bad apples spoils the bunch”.

Again the police showed themselves up at the counter protests for this dangerous bill in Bristol, were accused- and it was proven with video footage- of using their riot shields as weapons, slamming them down on the backs of hapless protesters whose crime was… sitting. A nurse who was at the protests said “I cannot express how quickly it went from peaceful chants to head injuries. Not just bumps of a shield. I’m talking in excess of 5cm lacerations to the top of the skull – all of the ones I saw were struck from above.”

The larger picture of legislation this prohibitive passing is that we now live in a country where we must meekly accept the whims of politicians who do not live our lives, who do not understand our woes and yet who feel entitled to lay down edicts as to how we should operate as a society. But this is indicative of a society who has spent years, even before Conservatives came to power, being governed by those who do not understand the lives of those who fill the country. It has long been a source of frustration for me that we have health secretaries who have never worn a stethoscope, education secretaries educated at the finest private institutions, whose yearly rates are more than some parents make in twelve months combined; those best placed to govern are those who experience the life of those they work for.

Focusing back on this bill though: even in countries like Russia- a literal dictatorship- do protests take place without assent from the police- when Russia’s hope for independence from Putin’s rule, Navalny, was arrested and sent to essentially a horribly unsafe prison his group protested in the street- until, of course, Putin counteracted; now anyone seen to be allied with Navalny is a terrorist and STILL they protest.

In Bolsonaro’s Brazil, the streets are currently awash with violence after Bolsonaro’s bumbling has allowed COVID-19 to ravage the country- a country ruled by a maniac is protesting. And in our supposedly free nation, with our magical sovereignty that hasn’t changed one jot post brexit, that right, that fundamental right- is gone.

The fact that we operate in a society that politicians are trying to control the masses is not a shock- this has been the case since fiefdoms were the order of the day. The shocking part is that no media outlet, no prominent celebrities, barely any political figures, and almost no actual voters, humans in the street – are as furious as I am about this.

The UK now has the most prohibitive laws against protests in Europe- purely because Johnson and his crony Patel- want to make sure that we are toothless in our fight against their corruption – and the British public at large seem willing to simply lay down and accept it.

It’s such a fine irony to grow up in a country where you’re constantly told about our proud legacy as those who stood up to fascism and died in the fields to protect other’s freedom.
Our freedom has just been decapitated before our very eyes, blood still warm on our cheeks, and the fools it affects are just happy to let it go on.

Those who so proudly claim the doings of their own blood in wars are the ones so keen to support the tories, because somehow the conservatives have convinced people that they are “the party of Britain”, but to those I’d like to pose a question: is it truly patriotic to nod, smile and accept your country with all its faults, or is it patriotic to work for change, to expel the negatives and to work for your country to be something bigger, better, to remove the obstacles in society so everyone can live freely? If you truly believe that sheep-like acceptance of the status quo is patriotism i guarantee you that the relatives you so proudly edify would be ashamed of you, and would tell you that this is how fascism starts: acceptance that the state can and will do what it may, and that you must agree, blank eyed and fervent.

My question, therefore, to the British populace at large, is simple:
How long will you continue to lie down under tory rule- not governance, but rule- and allow this feckless band of grifters to dictate to you how you should live? And what, if anything, will it take for you to realise that you’re marching to their beat, not yours?

Update- Contact your local MPs

I hereby include an email I sent to my local MP and his response: it’s vital to contact your local representation and make yourself heard.