RIGHT WING HISTRIONIC GARBAGE VIS- À-VIS REALITY

“Rishi can prove himself a man of steel by standing up to the ‘strikers’.”
Sunday Express, 4 December 2022

“This autumn the company owning the Sunday Express offered a 3% pay rise. After one day of strike action the company sued for peace. Subsequently pay increases of between 14% and 44% were agreed.”
Private Eye

THE SCARS OF THATCHERISM ARE STILL RAW

As Larry Elliot points out in The Guardian, the modern British Economy was forged in the Thatcher years. The deregulated labour market, the dominance of the City, the north-south divide, the privatised public utilities, high levels of personal debt, the chronic trade deficit and key role played by the housing market, are all legacies of the 1980s, Thatcher’s decade. The strategy was to deregulated and allow market forces to operate freely, reduce the power of trade unions, and sell off state-owned industries.
The recessions of the early 1980s and 1990s were vicious because the pain was concentrated among those who lost their jobs. Unemployment was at the double digit levels. As Elliot concludes, in 1945 the Attlee administration came to power with a plan for fundamental change. When he was leader, Jeremy Corbyn was well aware that we need a repeat of that.

GORDON PUTS THE SPOTLIGHT ON THE DECIMATED “WELFARE SYSTEM”

“How far do social security benefits have to fall before our welfare system descends into a form of cruelty?… The DWP has now become the country’s biggest debt collector, seizing money that should never had to have paid back, from people who cannot afford to pay the debt anyway. In fact, the majority of families on universal credit do not receive the full benefit that the DWP advertises… Now, with what is in effect the privatisation of welfare, our government is giving up on its responsibility to those in greatest need – passing the buck to charities… Benefit levels for those out of work now fall 50% short of what most of us would think is a minimum living income, with their real value falling faster in 2022 than at any time for 50 years”.
Gordon Brown, The Guardian, 15 December

WHAT THE TORIES REALLY THINK

“In the 1980s, a friend working in social care attended a meeting at which a senior Tory patronisingly told her: ‘My dear, when historians look back from the next century, the welfare state will be seen as just a blip’.”
Letter in The Guardian, 16 December.

“NUMBER CRUNCHING” BY PRIVATE EYE

• 20% – the potential rise in private school fees if schools lose charitable status and have to charge VAT, as proposed by Labour, which the right wing press is furious about.
• 65% – the increase in average private school fees since 2010, which the right wing press was not much bothered about.

“THE POLITICS OF THE EARLY 1960S WAS VERY CLASS BASED”

“The two main parties were based on totally different principles – the existing social order, stability, on the Conservative side. The struggle of the working class and a future socialism on the Labour side. The tone of debate was less aggressive, less frenzied.”
Kenneth Clarke, Former Tory Cabinet Minister, The Observer

THIS NEO-BLAIRITE DEFINITION OF “PROGRESS” IS – “JOIN THE GRAVY TRAIN”.

Private Eye reports that the Blairite “Progress” faction within the Labour Party (wildly known as the “Misnomer Group”) has rebranded itself “Progressive Britain”, with close ties to Wes Streeting and other Shadow Ministers on the Party’s hard right. These somewhat sect-like Blairites are now seeking corporate cash. They have reproduced a brochure, with a forward by Sir Keir, launching their Corporate Forum – an “exclusive membership group” charging £5,000 per corporation. In return the businesspeople will have the enormous pleasure of discussing “key issues that will shape the next Labour government’s policy platform, including high-level discussions with senior figures from the Labour Party”.
For £9,500 upwards, corporate sponsors participate in events at the next Labour Party Annual Conference, and are entitled to platform speakers, alongside “high-level politicians and Labour Party imfluencers”. For £15,000, corporate sponsors can fund the Progressive Britain Reception at Annual Conference, where they can hobnob with the Party’s “bigwigs”.