DAILY MAIL IN (USUAL!!) TOTAL CONTRADICTORY MODE!

(PER PRIVATE EYE)

“Doom-mongering is a dangerous game…predictions of (economic) catastrophe become a self-fulfilling prophecy… taking Britain into a recession – that would be the height of irresponsibility.”

Daily Mail, Editorial, 14 January 2023.

“These are dark economic times. The public finances are a wreck, Britain’s debts are mountainous and the post-pandenic recovery has stalled.”

Daily Mail, Editorial, 19 January 2023.

NOT TO MENTION THE DAILY TELEGRAPH’ S CONTRADICTORY MODE!!

“Putin has the flailing West over a barrel.”

Con Coughlin, Telegraph, late July.

“The end of Vladimir Putin is fast approaching.”

Con Coughlin, Telegraph, early October.

SPOTLIGHT ON JOHNSON SINCE BECOMING A BACKBENCH MP IN SEPTEMBER

• Written parliamentary questions – zero.
• Short spoken contributions in the House  of Commons – less than 10 minutes in total.
• Paid speeches in London, Hong Kong, Lisbon, New Delhi, Mumbai, New York, Washington etc. Johnson has received some £5 million.

The Guardian

TORY MILLENIALS ARE REVOLTING

“The Tory Government has failed my generation, who have come of age, and entered the labour market during 12 years of Tory rule, with punishing housing and childcare costs, combined with stagnant wages – preventing the building blocks of what Conservatives believe make the good life”.

Tory, Ryan Shorthouse, aged 37, on leaving the “liberal Conservative” think tank, Bright Blue, which he founded.

(Note : YouGov’s December polling found that only 13% of voters between the ages of 25 and 49 would consider voting for the Tories were there an election tomorrow. For 18 to 24-year-olds the figure is only 6%).

The Guardian, Editorial.

“ECONOMIC POLICIES HAVE SEEN A ‘DOOM LOOP’ IN GDP, AND A PARALLEL ‘BOOM LOOP’ IN WEALTH” – TUC REPORT

The doom loop of austerity was responsible for the UK missing out on some £400 billion of economic growth since 2010 – a situation that involved work forces suffering the worst pay squeeze for about 200 years. In contrast the boom loop gave the rich a huge boost. Since the 2008/9 global financial crisis, what can be termed as “financial wealth” increased by over £800 billion to some £1.9 trillion. Net worth (as a share of GDP in 2020), that was pocketed by the wealthy, equalled the peak of wealth inequality experienced in the 1930s.

“There is a desperate need to reset the economy to give priority to production and work, and to heed calls,  heard in the wake of the pandemic, for a new social contract”.

The Guardian,  Editorial

GARMENT INDUSTRY – INSIGHT INTO GLOBAL EXPLOITATION

“The global garment production system  of downward pressures on prices and labour costs, unreasonable lead times, subcontracting and denial of workers’ rights, is not accidental. Global brands decided in the 1980s to move production from democracies that protected workers’ rights to dictatorships that didn’t… Extracting profit from labour is the foundation of capitalist economics.

In 1998, the declaration on fundamental principles and rights at work by the International Labour Organisation clarified the obligations binding on its 187 member states… But most workers in the world are still denied those rights in practice”.

Simon Steyne, former Senior Adviser on fundamental rights at work, at the International Labour Organisation.

UNFINISHED HISTORY

“In the 1990s, awareness of the Holocaust was channelled to support human rights, cosmopolitanism and progressive ideas. Now, this narrative has been derailed. Now, part of the landscape is the use of Holocaust memory to further nationalistic agendas; to facilitate geopolitical alliances on the far right; to ‘expose’ progressive thinkers for their supposed antisemitism or anti-Israel bias.”

Dan Stone, author of “The Holocaust: An Unfinished History”.

T’WAS EVER THUS!

On the eve of the Civil War in 1641, an anonymous pamphlet was circulating, protesting against the unfair tax system, which benefited the rich at the expense of the poor. The historian, Brian Manning has put the pamphlet into today’s language: “Beloved Brethren…A yeoman of £100 a year was (tax) rated at £5, but… a landowner of £1,000 a year was (tax) rated at only £20, a mere four times more though his income was ten times greater, and a landowner of £10,000 a year was (tax) rated at only £100, a mere twenty times more, though his income was a hundred times greater.”

SIR ANTHONY BLAIR – “I WELCOME THE APPOINTMENT OF DR SULTAN AHMED AL JABER [HE IS CHIEF EXECUTIVE OF THE ABHU DHABI NATIONAL OIL COMPANY!! – EDITOR] AS PRESIDENT OF COP28… THE UAE HAS SHOWN LEADERSHIP IN CLIMATE INVESTMENT AND INNOVATION.”

As Private Eye points out, Sir Anthony totally failed to acknowledge the conflict of interest between Dr Sultan being boss of a major oil company and yet a President of COP!! Sir Anthony also failed to mention that his consulting firm, Tony Blair Associates, had been funded to the tune of £8 million by the UAE’s foreign ministry. Also, while working as a “peace envoy” in the Middle East, Sir Anthony was paid millions by the UAE in consulting fees – this was also not mentioned.

TEL’S ASSORTMENT OF POLITICAL WITTICISMS

“How would you tell if your MP is on strike? Especially if they were a backbencher. They are under no obligation to do anything very much”.

John Grace, The Guardian.

“Democracy was only ever skin-deep. Our power delegated to a pantomime performed by 650 people in Westminster… This is a sick, outdated political culture… Protest is the only vestige of real democracy.”

George Monbiot.

“We tend to meet any new situation by reorganising, and a wonderful method it can be for creating the illusion of progress, while producing confusion, inefficiency and demoralisation”.

Petronius, an adiviser to Roman Emperors some 2,000 years ago.