Friday, 18 March 2016

Tories

Maybe I've used that as a title before...If I have, you'll have to forgive me. I'm old now. My memory is not not what it was...but I do hate the Tories.

I reserve a special loathing for the current lot. I should be asleep right now, but earlier tonight I heard that Ian Duncan Smith had resigned. I can't even remember his job title. It will have something to do with work, although he has presided over a reduction in the status of workers for years now. Has he quit because he had an attack of conscience over what the Tories are trying to do to the sick and disabled in the Budget? I doubt it.

Is he trying to distance himself from a government that has failed at everything it has tried to do? Deficit up, national debt up, financial rating down (it used to be triple A but not any more), employment up but only if we accept zero hours contracts and low paid jobs as reasonable ways to lower the unemployment rate.

We could sell off our UK assets, except that most of them already went in Thatcher and Major's time. We did make money by selling off the Post Office recently. Of course, the public didn't want the Post Office sold off and the Tories accepted a ridiculously low price for its sale, but hey, the sale raised a wee bit of cash and this government really needs cash.

Manufacturing in the UK used to be a big thing, but the Tories - and recently New Labour - have abandoned the idea of actually making stuff to sell at home and abroad. We welcome firms like Mitsubishi who make cars here for export all over Europe, but we are aware that, at the drop of a hat - or a cheque for a couple of million euros from another country - they'll be off somewhere else where wages are lower because workers are even more desperate. We now live in a service economy in the UK. And our services need more and more to be outsourced to places like India with very low wages so that shareholders can continue to make loadsa money.

But in Ian Duncan Smith's case, there will be a political agenda. Maybe something to do with the EU or the leadership of the Tory Party. Dear gawd, are we really only left with George Osborne, Boris Johnson or Ian Duncan Smith as future prime ministers now that Labour has imploded as an opposition?



I want to make it clear that I am not a fan of Frankie Boyle. In fact, I find him a bit creepy: the kind of comedian who doesn't really tell jokes but sneers a lot - and has no real beliefs but will change what he has to say if he finds the audience are not with him. I've been there and seen him do it. But he has, without saying if he is for or against independence, identified a lot of Scotland's problems. 

So has Lesley Riddoch, a journalist who writes columns in the National newspaper (the only one of the 34 newspapers printed in Scotland that backs independence) and she and Andy Wightman are particularly keen to talk about who owns the land here and what we can do about it. 

Then there's Jeane Freeman who is quite vociferous about human rights. And Philippa Whitford MP who talks a lot of sense about the health service. Tasmina Ahmed-Sheikh is annoying on equality but makes some good points. Patrick Harvie is excellent on the environment. Hamza Yousaf is a very ambitious politician who represents minority communities and Scotland's place in the wider world very well.

What do you mean, you don't know who some of these people are? 

It's not that the UK press and TV and radio stations are prejudiced against alternative voices in the media. It's just that they are stuck inside the Westminster bubble, like a lot of our politicians. Nothing can be heard from Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland, unless it fits the stereotype. So news from Wales and Scotland will be about job losses and news from Northern Ireland will be about problems in the NI Assembly. And if we make a fuss about anything it's because we've been recruited into that weird place: the SNP one-party state. 









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