BoJo

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2024/sep/27/boris-johnson-considered-raid-dutch-warehouse-seize-covid-vaccine

Boris Johnson has remembered that he suggested a military operation against the Netherlands during the Covid crisis. 

You can just imagine his political and military advisers tearing their hair out.

UN Ineffective

The UN has suggested politely that Israel stop murdering women and children in Lebanon. Israel has ignored previous suggestions from the UN to stop murdering Palestinians. And still the British and American arms keep coming to Israel. #gaza #lebanon #israel

Sharon Graham defends winter fuel allowance

Unite general secretary Sharon Graham today moved the motion on winter fuel allowance at Labour party conference. The full text of the speech is below:

“The nation wants food, work and homes… It wants a high and rising standard of living, security for all, against a rainy day…”

“Friends, that’s a quote from the 1945 Labour Manifesto, written in the shadow of death, destruction and debt, caused by years of war.

“A manifesto of hope.

“Written at a time when our debt to GDP was 270 per cent. Nearly three times higher than it is now.

“Yet, no mention of cuts, no mention of austerity and certainly no mention of making everyday people pay.

“Labour then knew, that to make Britain more equal, they had to think and act differently.

“They knew to make it count. To make a real difference, Labour could not simply be better managers, they had to make lasting change.

 “They promised: jobs, homes and education. And built a national health service on the back of crisis.

 “Their story wasn’t one of tightening belts or making some of the poorest in our society pay.

 “Friends, people simply do not understand, I do not understand, how our new Labour government can cut the winter fuel allowance for pensioners and leave the super-rich untouched.

 “This is not what people voted for. It is the wrong decision and needs to be reversed.

“Friends, we are the sixth richest economy in the world. We have the money. Britain needs investment, not austerity mark two. We won’t get any gold badge for shaving peanuts off our debt.

“These fiscal rules are self-imposed and the decision to keep them is hanging like a noose around our necks.

“Friends, our public services and British industry need investment now. It’s no good having sympathy for workers at Grangemouth losing their jobs. They don’t need pity. They need Labour to step up to the plate and not allow a billionaire, who buys a football club as a hobby, to throw these workers on the scrap heap. 

“We cannot leave Britain at the whim of footloose corporations.

 “Hoping for them to invest is a prayer not a plan.

 “Yes, Britain is broken. Yes, the Tories have left a mess and yes, they are to blame.

 “But Labour is now in Government, and we can't keep making everyday people pay. Friends, I keep hearing, ‘a wealth tax is too difficult, would take too long’.

 “I say absolute rubbish. We seem to be able to get workers paying their taxes in a matter of weeks! 

 “The system is rigged and the country knows it. 

"Friends, let's hold up our heads and be proud to be Labour. Let everyday people know - we are on their side. Let's put our arms around the working class and make lasting change.

“Solidarity, I move.”

A Dedicated Follower of Fashion

Papers are full of who pays for Keir Starmer's clothes. This diverts attention from the numerous billion-pound corruption scandals of the Tory administration.
And on the other hand, the Tories can point to the leader of a "party for the British people" being such a dedicated follower of fashion.

1984

Much of Orwell’s book is still relevant today. How many political slogans actually tell the truth?

Germinal

I have been reading Zola's "Germinal".
Like Jack London's "People of the Abyss" this is a description of the conditions of the working class at the turn of the last century. Although it is based on research, the narrative is itself fictional.
Although it describes in detail the conditions of poverty in which workers in France were living, it also offers a vision of a possible future in which these old conditions will be swept away.
As well as being a month in the Republican French calendar, "Germinal" also suggests a new beginning.

Damned lies and statistics

The BBC repeat with glee the statistic that one in five pensioners are millionaires. The problem is that the "statistic" is fraudulent.

It refers to the number of pensioners who live in a household which has a value of a million pounds. The pensioner themselves may have access to a value of a million, or half a million or a fraction of a million or just plain nothing.

And yet this is one of the many lies being used to justify cutting the winter fuel allowance.

Never mind that many pensioners will die of hypothermia, they can just be branded "millionaires" and that is the end of any public sympathy.

Ending the winter fuel allowance will also affect the four-fifths of pensioners who are nothing like millionaires but forget about them.

Labour has to take tough decisions. No politicians will die of hypothermia so it is not that tough for them.

OFSED Bullies

The government has made one small step towards stopping OFSTED bullying of teachers but even that is too much for the Tories.

Conservatives argue that parents will be unable to understand a comment about a school that is more than one word long!

Most of us can understand whole sentences. 

Classroom Teacher Manual

Chief Hypocrite

Boris Johnson and the Chief Rabbi think the pathetic reduction in arms for Israel is appalling.
.
They give hypocrites a bad name.

Why have neither of them been arrested for hate speech?

Apparently, God wants the Israeli Defence Force to kill children in Gaza. I have my doubts.