Mar 172024
 

Well yes, the Tories need a new party leader to rebuild their party after the next election. Before the election? The new leader will just be a sacrificial lamb that’ll probably be thrown out onto the slag heap (hopefully a nice soggy wet one) at the next election.

It’ll almost certainly not save them from being wiped out (and that’s from 6 months ago; if anything, things are even worse today) at the next election.

An overwhelming majority of people want an election now and changing leaders now in what will be seen as yet another undemocratic move (it isn’t; it’s just people like to think they’re voting for a particular PM when they’re just voting for their MP) is likely to make the Tories even more unpopular.

If I were Starmer, I’d launch a parliamentary vote of no confidence as soon as the replacement showed up in parliament :-

The people don’t want you.
We don’t want you.
The other parties here don’t want you.
And if they were honest, half of those on your side don’t want you either.

– Me putting words in Starmer’s mouth.

He’d lose of course, but the people will see it as an honest attempt at doing the right thing.

A long road to the gatehouse
Dover Castle Gateway
Jan 142024
 

This is going to be a bit of a departure from the normal far-left propaganda and I dare say almost every Tory voter will be ignoring it. But maybe a few will at least listen – at least to me it makes sense. And not because I’ll not be voting Tory myself either.

Today’s Tory party is broken – to at least the extent that the Labour party was broken during the era of the Militant tendency; they have been infiltrated by two (at least) factions of the far right.

The first are your classic proto-fascists – nationalistic to the extreme, anti-immigration, and worried by “woke-ism” to the extent they’ll by really nasty to those the wokeists will say you should be nice to. And I don’t just mean with words – they’re basic thugs.

The second are disaster capitalists who don’t care about the country. They’re after enriching themselves and their rich mates. They’re after tax cuts – not because they believe in small government but because they want to cut taxes for the rich.

The fix for this is to smash the party at the next election; anything less won’t work. The party needs to be reduced to the point that the extremists will give up on the party and leave for greener pastures. Hopefully they won’t find a new home.

It is quite possible that a loss at the next election won’t be quite enough – real Tories need to get out and shout down the extremists at every opportunity. The party needs to look closely at what the public as a whole wants – for example, sabotaging the NHS over the last decade has made much of the public very, very angry.

And the party needs to look very closely at why the young steer clear – the way things are going at the moment, the Tory party will be having an annual conference in a back street pub in a couple of decades. The old adage about young people becoming more right-wing as they age is almost certainly wrong, but even if it’s right, they’ll be looking to the right-wing of the Labour party or the Liberals as their home.

Why am I trying to help the Tories? Because I’ll enjoy seeing the Tories have an election result that’ll make the 1906 disaster look like a tea party of course. But a relatively small loss won’t cause the party to do a proper reflection to the extent they need.

The Lighthouse
Jan 072024
 

The 𝕏-verse has been splattered with Tory messages about this month’s cut in National Insurance; many of which have been amusing tagged with context pointing out that this isn’t a tax cut. Oh and if you see a Tory tax calculator, don’t try it – it’ll dishonestly add you to a Tory mailing list.

  1. National Insurance isn’t quite a tax; it looks like one, smells like one, but isn’t quite. The NI contributions are added to a fund out of which certain benefits are paid – chiefly state pensions. See: https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/media/657ae7f1254aaa000d050d2e/Great_Britain_National_Insurance_Fund_Account_-_2022_to_2023.pdf
  2. There is already a stealth tax rise due in April; a ‘tax cut’ that’ll be obliterated in three months is nothing more than a token gesture. Quite possibly a political stunt aimed at encouraging voters to vote Tory in a May election (if it occurs).

We can expect many, many more Tory lies on social media as the next election approaches; always pay attention to the “added context”.

Jan 062024
 

There’s quite a bit of noise online about how Keir Starmer is really a “red tory” because he isn’t socialist enough (or at all). Now don’t get me wrong – he’s nowhere near left-wing enough for my taste, although neither was Jeremy Corbyn.

But a red Tory? Well perhaps, but at least he’s red rather than blue. But whilst he’s dropped socialist policies, he doesn’t seem to have dropped all socialist policies – he’s still in favour of nationalising the rail industry.

That doesn’t sound very Tory.

He’s in favour of extending free breakfasts to every primary school in the UK if he’s dropped the plan for free lunches in every school.

That doesn’t sound very Tory.

Does It Matter?

Well of course it matters!

But if the choice is effectively between a hopefully competent red Tory leading the Labour party in government, or a pathetic waste of space leading a dysfunctional blue Tory party in government, the choice is easy. The kind of government I want just isn’t a choice at this point.

Unfortunately we have to compromise and settle for the least damaging government we can feasibly get.

The Conspiracy Theory

Now most “he’s a red tory” commentators out there are probably perfectly innocent, but the Tories have started pushing their message as if a current unscheduled election in May is on the cards. And they aren’t above pushing black propaganda – after all their 2% National Insurance cut is very conveniently timed for a May election when the stealth tax rises are about to kick in.

Are some of those “red Tory” allegations, propaganda by the Tories to discourage left-wing Labour supporters from voting? Or for voting for no-hopers?

If we want to be sure that the current bunch of corrupt clowns is removed from government, we have to vote tactically (and avoid potential “fake” tactical voting sites).

Dec 172023
 

The twitterverse (or the 𝕏-hole) has been awash recently by far-right whinging about immigrants stealing our houses, jobs, and forcing us all to behave according to their notions of societal norms. And of course they are really spitting lettuce when it comes to the “invasion” of small boat refugees.

Really about what you would expect from a bunch of people with the intellectual capability of a syphilitic squirrel on acid.

The truth of the matter is that immigration is just a distraction from the real problems of the country and the Tories are quite happy that their mismanagement and corruption is being hidden by some extent by the ‘immigration issue’.

The ‘Small Boats Invasion’

Which the slack-witted will insist on labelling ‘illegal immigrants’; they are of course nothing of the sort. Refugees have a legal right to apply for asylum status and the sneaky Tories have very conveniently blocked every other method of seeking asylum. Leaving refugees no other way of getting to the UK other than the dangerous route of small boats.

What are they coming here for? Benefits? No of course not – asylum seekers are not entitled to benefits and are probably one of the most deprived groups in the UK. They are probably on their way here for a number of reasons :-

  1. The UK is a relatively safe place with a stable (if currently dysfunctional) government.
  2. English is a very widely spoken second language – if you were moving to a foreign country wouldn’t you prefer one where you already speak the language?
  3. They may well have existing connections to the UK – family, friends, or relatives.

The other thing to note about the small boat refugees is that the total is trivially small. In 2022, there were just 45,000 refugees coming by small boat (source: https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/irregular-migration-to-the-uk-year-ending-december-2022/irregular-migration-to-the-uk-year-ending-december-2022). To put it a more visceral way, if you were at the back of a queue to make a GP appointment that was 10,000 people long, you could shoot all the small boat refugees and reduce it by 7 people – not enough to really make a difference. Or even 12 if you were to include all the small boat refugees from 2018-2022.

Economic Migrants

There is a great deal of confusion amongst the knuckle-dragging mouth-breathers who go berserk at the mere mention of immigration – who seem to believe all the so-called ‘illegal immigrants’ are here to take British jobs. Which is complete rubbish of course – asylum seekers are not allowed to take jobs, and they’re a tiny proportion of the population as a whole.

And indeed a small proportion of legal immigration. As an example, in 2022 ‘net migration’ reached 745,000; an unusually high number. The net migration figure is immigration minus emigration, so there were actually 1.2 million legal immigrants.

We could stop that immigration overnight – just stop issuing visas.

And the NHS would collapse. And the universities would collapse. And plenty of other industries would collapse.

We need immigration to keep the economy moving.

Is housing shortage a problem? Of course it is, but it has been a problem since the 1960s – we simply don’t build enough houses and keep not building enough houses. Way back before most of us were alive (1970), the cost of a house was 0.7 times the average salary; today it is more like 9 times the average salary.

Are NHS waiting lists (and queues for GP appointments) a problem? Of course they are, but immigrants are less likely to use them than our ageing population. Frankly the problems of the NHS are down to under-investment and Tory corruption.

The figure of 1.2 million immigrants is unusually high, but we’ve coped with hundreds of thousands of legal immigrants for decades. Almost all of the problems supposedly caused by immigration are in fact caused by government incompetence.

Is it any surprise that all this fuss about immigration comes at most 13 months away from a General Election? When the Tories want to distract from their 13 years of malicious and shambolic government?

The Door