All do the Okey-Cokey

This article first appeared in The Wolfian issue 7 before Brexit where I was questioning democracy. In light of the recent events within the Labour Party and indeed within the Cons the questions are still relevant. Especially in light of the ‘leaked’ email that claimed Bojo wasn’t trusted by the media moguls and then he stood down the next day.

You put your left arm in

Your left arm out

In out, in out,

You shake it all about

You do the Okey-Cokey

And you turn around

That’s what it’s all about

And that is what I think of the great EU debate. I’ve not made my mind up yet and don’t feel I ought to comment. I WILL be voting in the referendum however, as that is my democratic right as we live in a democratic country. Or is our ‘democracy’ just an illusion of democracy?

Simple Definition of democracy

: a form of government in which people choose leaders by voting

: a country ruled by democracy

: an organization or situation in which everyone is treated equally and has equal rights

http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/democracy

Full Definition of democracy

plural de·moc·ra·cies

1a :  government by the people; especially :  rule of the majority

b :  a government in which the supreme power is vested in the people and exercised by them directly or indirectly through a system of representation usually involving periodically held free elections

What percentage again did the Tories scrape into power in 2015? Well according to Wikipedia (yes I know I’m being lazy) it appears the Cons had 36% of the vote, Labour 30%

The link is https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_Kingdom_general_election,_2015 and I think that in the light of certain recent revelations this point is particularly of interest.

‘Ministers increased the amount of money that parties and candidates were allowed to spend on the election by 23%, a move decided against Electoral Commission advice.^[13] The election saw the first cap on spending by parties in individual constituencies during the 100 days before Parliament’s dissolution on 30 March: £30,700, plus a per-voter allowance of 9p in county constituencies and 6p in borough seats. An additional voter allowance of more than £8,700 is available after the dissolution of Parliament. UK political parties spent £31.1m in the 2010 general election, of which Conservatives spent 53%, the Labour Party spent 25% and the Liberal Democrats 15%’

It appears the Con’s ‘forgot’ to declare some election and by election expenditure according to channel 4 news. Not only this, but future election constituency boundaries are looking to change with the Labour Party losing out. Of the 50 seats likely to go Labour 35 are labour safe seats while other labour seats will become more marginal. This despite a cross party select committee

Changes to the trade union bill means that as Labours main source of income their ability to be an effective opposition and win future elections is reduced, especially as funding for opposition parties has also been drastically reduced.

If you also add in the changes to the electoral roll meaning thousands have dropped off and are now not eligible to vote, thousands made homeless due to benefit sanctions, no address, no vote.

Personally I do not see that this is a democratic system if one party has more funds than the rest, if they cheat on election expenses, and if they change the rules (by the back door) when in power so nobody else will win. Oh and use the main stream media as their personal propaganda tool by ignoring news stories that would show them for what they are, headlining trivial matters (or even inventing stories) to deflect from what they are up to and try to divide the population by setting one social sector against another.

2:  a political unit that has a democratic government

You see to me democracy means they LISTEN to what others have to say, as a now regular listener to PMQ’s I am usually saddened and furious in equal measures by the total lack of respect from David Cameron towards Mr Corbyn as he very rarely answers a question, all he does is spout meaningless figures which are not representative of the true situation and put all the blame on the last Labour Government. Combine that with the personal insults to Mr Corbyn and the animal farm noises from the rest of the Tory Mob whenever JC tries to speak it’s just absolutely appalling.

Filliblustering*– oh yes the Tories are great at that anti democratic tactic. When an MP wants to amend a bill like – free hospital parking for carers or teaching primary school kids basic first aid the egotistical Tories who like nothing more than the sound of their own voice, talk and talk about something that could be summed up in five minutes. But no they continue talking until time runs out for the bill to be heard then it’s effectively shelved.

The speaker – who should be the referee or playground monitor in the house of commons seems to be deaf and blind to all of these ‘unfair’ actions.

Democracy – I think not, more like Autocracy.

3:  the common people especially when constituting the source of political authority

So when does the ‘common’ person ie you and I get to make decisions or have a say in changing the laws? Certainly not during elections if the playing field is biased and the goalposts are pushed further away at half time. Consulting with our local member of parliament in order to sort out an issue? Not if they’re only part time, or hold totally opposite views to you and only speak for themselves and not for the good of the community.

Major issues such as ‘fracking’ should be put to a public referendum. Fracking is about our countryside, our health and safety, the health and safety of our children and grandchildren. Reports have shown it to be hazardous yet because the investors think they can make money from it they push it through. My local MP voted for Fracking. As so many people now have internet access at home, on their mobile phones or can go to a library why don’t MP’s ASK their constituents how they feel on certain subjects, have a mini poll and then REPRESENT the constituents instead of the bankers. (Should start with a W but I’m being polite.)

4:  the absence of hereditary or arbitrary class distinctions or privileges

Not in this country matey. How many of the Tory cabinet and MP’s attended Eton and other expensive education facilities? How many are related to the Royal Family? How quick are they to jump at pay rises and claim expenses? Not only is there a definite class distinction and privilege in this country it is getting more and more pronounced.

Perhaps David Cameron thinks that he is a member of the French 17^th Century nobility, and on being told that the people are so poor they can’t afford bread suggests that they should eat cake. Or in modern day times suggest offering budgeting assistance to poor and underprivileged families who are living hand to mouth so they can ‘save for a rainy day’ I guess he can’t tell it’s already pouring down from his comfortable private jet that WE the taxpayer bought.

The fact that we can ‘vote’ in elections does not mean we are democratic if the ‘facts’ we are given or led to believe are false. If the reason we are being given to vote a certain way is based on fear of the alternative it is not democratic, it is terrorism. It is just an illusion of democracy, like the EU referendum, the outcome of which, I believe, will be who shouts loudest and pays the most in advertising and bribes.

Oh, Okey-Cokey-Cokey

Oh, Okey-Cokey-Cokey

Oh, Okey-Cokey-Cokey

Knees bend, arms stretch

Rah-rah-rah

* Filibustering with bluster

 

The Tory Legacy

This is a little something I wrote for the next edition of The Wolfian but with the recent events I thought it could do with airing now.

Just because the media is focusing on the EU result, the the Tory leadership battle and the traitorous Labour MP’s, it doesn’t mean that everyone has forgotten about the Tory Election Fraud.

Unity

This is a piece I wrote for The Wolfian Magazine issue 6, originally titled Happy New Year, although tomorrow is Midsummer. I think some of the things I wrote are still pertinent and with issue 9 due out imminently I think it’s now time to share.

2016 hasn’t gone well so far, and we’re still in the first month. We have now lost David Bowie, Alan Rickman, Dale Griffin (Mott the Hoople), Glen Frey (the Eagles), Rene Angelil (Celine Dions manager/husband), Dan Haggarty (Grizzly Adams) and of course just before Christmas Lemmy.  I think I and probably the majority of others were more shocked about David Bowie, just 2 days after his birthday and the release of his final album, Blackstar. A poor radio newsreader had a Freudian slip and announced David Cameron had died, people’s celebrations quickly turned to grief when the mistake was rectified and everyone found out it was Bowie instead.

There weren’t just floods of tears though, heavy rainfall caused some of the worst floods this country has seen in the North, families were evacuated, Christmas’s ruined and although David Cameron said lessons must be learned in 2014 it is pretty obvious he didn’t do his homework. Money promised for flood defences had been cut in ‘austerity’ measures. Not being an economist or politician I feel that spending £50,000 on defences is more economical than spending £300,000 on repairing the damage. Funny there is money to bomb innocent kids in Syria, build a museum to one of the most hated women in the country but not enough to stop the floods.

But we are in a war against terrorists that is a certainty, the definition of terrorism that I found on Google is as follows.

1.the use of violence and threats to intimidate or coerce, especially for political purposes.

2.the state of fear and submission produced by terrorism or terrorization.

3.a terroristic method of governing or of resisting a government.

The government would have us believe that  they are the only ones who can prevent terrorists by bombing other countries, increasing their ‘powers’ to intercept messages via telephone, internet or social media but the way I see it THEY are the terrorists. People are ‘scared’ to become ill and have time off work or worse have to leave their employment. Once this happens the likelihood of them getting into debt increases, which increases their stress, which increases their illness, which makes them more likely to ‘miss’ appointments, which will get them sanctioned, which leaves them with NO money and a high possibility of becoming homeless or having to live in unsuitable accommodation.

It’s worse if they are in London on one of the ‘estates’ that are deemed to be a ‘problem’ as the Tories are attempting to bulldoze these and build ‘affordable’ housing. The trouble with the affordable housing is that ordinary people on an ordinary/minimum wage would never be able to afford the in a million years. The people who have lived all their lives in this community are displaced and forced to move miles away. I believe they call this social cleansing.

And this is how I believe the Tories got elected, by instilling fear via the right-wing media, spinning such negative propaganda against all the other parties, and a lot of times telling outright lies. Have you ever noticed that whenever the government are found out in a lie there is suddenly a major news item which pushes the story about them sometimes completely out of the media, and this is in addition to the flood of reports that ‘hides’ the bad ones or so they hope. http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/uk-news/9-pieces-bad-news-tories-7031791. I was always suspicious too of the way the notoriously Tory paper ‘the Sun’ broke the ‘exclusive’ that they had images of the Queen when she was 6 – years before the war doing what looked like a Nazi Salute, which of course could also have been an American Bellamy Salute. What were the Tories trying to hide that day, the attack on social housing maybe?

From what I can see it is the Tories who are the Terrorists and they are the ones we need to fight. I wrote on one of the Labour Facebook pages a couple of weeks ago that not only do Labour need to unite as a party they also need to form alliances and unite with other parties such as Lib Dems, Greens, SNP, Plaid Cymru etc. They can fight over who will lead the country when the Tories are gone. Someone asked on the forum why I didn’t include UKIP, I told them that I believe UKIP are still Tories and are there to deflect attention from the bad Tory Policies and to divide the votes for the other parties. It’s clear from PMQ’s that the way Cameron tries to avoid answering the questions is to attempt to divert attention to what he perceives as friction in the Labour party. Comparing the Shadow Cabinet re-shuffle to Shakespeare and quoting ‘Much Ado About Nothing’ and ‘Twelfth Night. I think perhaps he forgets that he is a dead ringer for Lady MacBeth and he’ll never be able to wash the blood off his hands. And then a couple of weeks later instead of answering the question he wittered on about a ‘suggestion’ that Trident instead of being scrapped could go out without Nuclear bombs aboard as Japan’s fleet does, and referenced the Beatles ‘Yellow Submarine’.

Seriously is that politics? Is that adult debate? Is that working ‘for’ the people of Britain? The Junior Doctors went ahead with their one day strike, and quite frankly I don’t bloody blame them. They’ve even cut the bursaries for nurses and now they have to take out a ‘loan’ to study to be a nurse. That isn’t fair and will seriously reduce the number of people going into nursing, although Camoron tries to claim it will allow more to study, he really can’t see that people do not want to start off in debt. The NHS is being ripped apart and sold piece by piece. I heard that a contract out to tender went to a ‘private’ firm despite the NHS consortium quoting £7 Million LESS.

I keep seeing ‘polls’ being quoted, and not believing the samples are fair I have now joined the ‘YOUGOV’ poll site. I was asked a question on there about corruption so commented that The current Conservative government are the most corrupt in British History (or words to that effect) I know many people will NOT join that or sign any of the Government petitions as it requires your details, but you know what, I DON’T CARE. I’m happy to stand against them and stand for Justice and Fairness and increased equality, the only things the Tories have increased are homelessness, poverty, insecurity and inequality.

I have seen indications today however that Lib Dem leader Tim Farron and Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn are to have talks about uniting in the effort to rid the country of the Tories. Just need the SNP, Plaid Cymru, Greens and any Independents in on it too and hopefully it will work. I even wrote a poem to urge them to Unite.

Claiming carers allowance and being made to job search.

Appalling treatment of someone who is SAVING the government money by being a carer

The poor side of life

This next story is one we heard last week. The person we spoke to is very adamant that this is the truth, and that this is happening to him. We can only write upon his word, but we did see his paperwork regarding job searches etc.

A gentleman walked out of the supermarket in an obviously agitated way. He was upset so I stopped and asked him if he was ok.
He said that he is a carer for both his wife and his daughter. He is a registered carer and his daughter has learning problems and attends a special school.
He said that he couldn’t understand why the Jobcentre were making him do work searches. He said that they were hounding him constantly. He had already been sanctioned twice because of this.
He has to take his daughter both to and from school because of her special needs. But…

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