The Conservative Party is embroiled in a pretty vicious row with Channel 4 over the broadcaster’s decision to “empty chair” Boris Johnson during its election debate on climate change last night, after he failed to turn up.
Michael Gove offered to take his place, turning up at the studio with the gutless wonder’s father, Stanley Johnson, but the broadcaster said the invitation was for leaders only. Johnson senior was apparently in the ‘spin room’ during the debate with the other party leaders. But he couldn’t make this go away.
The Tories wrote to Ofcom, saying that placing an ice sculpture on the PM’s podium was a “provocative partisan stunt”. The increasingly paranoid Tories have implied that Channel 4 conspired with and “did a deal” with Jeremy Corbyn. However, it was Johnson’s decision to avoid the debate and duck scrutiny.
The Labour party has also accused Johnson of “hiding from scrutiny”. Quite properly so.
Urging the regulator to take action against Channel 4, the Conservative Party accused the broadcaster of “breaking its duty to be impartial” and citing other alleged examples of bias. Seems the Tories are not getting all of their own way with the broadcast media, after all. (See also BBC row with the Tories over ‘misleading’ Facebook advert.)
In a letter to Ofcom, the party says Channel 4 News staged a “provocative partisan stunt, which would itself constitute making a political opinion in its own right” by substituting the PM with an ice sculpture.
However, there was no giant picture of the Kremlin in the backgound, with a photograph of Boris Johnson imposed on it, wearing a hat that had been photoshopped to look very Russian in the studio…
Conservative sources also briefed journalists at BuzzFeed News and the Telegraph that “if we are re-elected we will have to review Channel 4’s Public Services Broadcasting obligations”.
Channel 4’s public service broadcasting licence is up for renewal in 2024.
Labour’s deputy leader Tom Watson said it was “deeply concerning for Boris Johnson’s Conservative Party to threaten Channel 4 in this way”.
Image copyrightPA MEDIAChannel 4 replaced Boris Johnson with an ice sculpture which slowly melted during the debate
Watson has written to Ofcom to urge the regulator to “call out this meddling”.
His letter adds: “Boris Johnson has banned the Daily Mirror from its battle bus, ducked the Andrew Neil interview and now attempted to bully Channel 4.”
Meanwhile, Gove, a former environment secretary, said he was disappointed not to be allowed to take part in the climate debate, adding: “We have a record we are proud of and we want to defend.”
Channel 4 also replaced Brexit Party leader Nigel Farage with ice in the hour-long programme, as he also declined to participate in the debate.
Channel 4 News editor Ben de Pear said: “These two ice sculptures represent the emergency on planet earth, not in any human form but are a visual metaphor for the Conservative and Brexit parties after their leaders declined our repeated invitations to attend tonight’s vital climate debate.”
The Emergency On Planet Earth debate featured Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn, Liberal Democrat leader Jo Swinson, Scottish First Minister and SNP leader Nicola Sturgeon, Plaid Cymru’s leader Adam Price and Green co-leader Sian Berry.
“Empty chairing” is where a debate or interview is conducted without one of its participants.
‘Hiding from scrutiny’
The debate’s presenter Krishnan Guru-Murthy had urged the Tory leader to change his mind, assuring him he would get a fair hearing.
He said: “This debate has been called for by hundreds of thousands of people from all sorts of different walks of life.”
Guru-Murthy said the leaders would be grilled on how people’s lives will have to change – whether it would involve giving up red meat, going on holiday or ending fast fashion.
Meanwhile, Labour has published 60 questions it wants Boris Johnson to answer, including on sexism, the NHS, Brexit and his ministers.
The party has accused Johnson of “hiding from scrutiny” and its questions include: “Are you scared of Andrew Neil?”
On Thursday, Johnson refused to say whether he would agree to an interview with the BBC’s Andrew Neil, who has already grilled Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn, the SNP’s Nicola Sturgeon, and is planning to interview other party leaders.
When asked several times by the BBC’s Ben Wright if he would take part, Boris Johnson would not confirm it, saying he would have “all sorts of interviews with all sorts of people”. Johnson – who was interviewed by Neil during the Conservative leadership election in July – confirmed negotiations were still taking place, but he said it was “not my job” to make the final decision.
He added: “Other people than me are responsible for those discussions and negotiations, and I do not want to pre-empt what they may decide.”
SNP leader Nicola Sturgeon and Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn took part in 30-minute interviews with Neil earlier this week.
The BBC’s interview with Lib Dem leader Jo Swinson is set to air on 4 December and another with Brexit Party leader Nigel Farage will be shown on 5 December.
The BBC said it was “in ongoing discussions” with No 10, but said they had not “yet been able to fix a date” for the sit-down discussion between presenter Andrew Neil and the PM.
Looks like he’s frit.
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1. I’ve met people who think that there are no Jews left in the Labour Party.
2. I’ve met people who think that the Chief Rabbi is in some way or another in charge of, or a representative of all Jews in Britain.
Neither of these statements is true or anything like true.
There are several Jewish candidates for the Labour Party. There are thousands of Labour Party members who are Jewish. Several times in the media people have said how it’s impossible or ‘not safe’ for Jews to stay in the Labour Party. It’s not impossible. If the media had wanted to, they could have asked Jewish MPs, Jewish candidates in this election ‘Is it impossible or unsafe for you to be in the Labour Party?’ It has been dishonest of them to have not done that.
There are also Rabbis who have either said that they will vote Labour and/or have expressed great concern over the way Jewish religious leaders (Rabbi Romain and the Chief Rabbi) have intervened in this election. You can read about these Rabbis in the Jewish Chronicle online: Rabbi Danny Rich and Rabbi Howard Cooper.
This tells us that within the religious part of Jewish life, there are people who are worried about how religious leaders have politicised religion. In the past this has been levelled at Muslims for having brought in ‘communalist politics’. Commentators like Nick Cohen were particularly scathing about this at the time of, say, George Galloway being elected. The silence in the mass media about the dangers of a religious group saying, in effect, ‘don’t vote for Party X’ are very great. Howard Cooper could see a danger that it could invite persecution.
In this particular election, it is also particularly dangerous because it is a two-horse race. Saying ‘don’t vote Labour’ is in effect saying, ‘Let’s have a victory for the Tories’. This is no surprise, as the Chief Rabbi welcomed the election of Boris Johnson to the leadership of the Tory Party and blessed him.
Johnson is a bigot and a liar. He and the Tories have been quite content to snuggle up to extreme right wing and antisemitic parties in Europe – like Orban in Hungary. He has also kept quiet about the pattern of antisemitism coming from Jacob Rees-Mogg, who has talked of his Jewish colleagues in the House of Commons as ‘illuminati’, questioned whether they ‘understand’ the constitution, he has done the ‘Soros jibe’ (this is an antisemitic ‘trope’ about the financier Soros deemed to be an international wheeler and dealer); Rees-Mogg has also retweeted a tweet from the Alternative für Deutschland – the far-right organisation in Germany and he has had dinner with the far-right British organisation, ‘Traditional Britain Group’. There are other incidents of antisemitism in the Tory party that Boris Johnson has ‘kept silent’ about (Crispin Blunt, Suella Braverman, Toby Young).
Yet, the Chief Rabbi is in effect entrusting those who regard him as their figurehead to a Johnson Tory government!
For clarity’s sake, the Chief Rabbi may ‘speak for’ a majority of Jews in the UK but he does not ‘represent’ them. He is the leader of the United Synagogue which has a congregation of around 40,000. According to the Board of Deputies there are 284,000 Jews in the UK. Half of us are affiliated to synagogues, half of us are not.
In all the surveys of Jewish opinion in the UK, I have never been sure of how the survey of the 142,000 non-religious Jews is done. How do they find us? One survey created a ‘panel’ having found secular Jews by focussing on Jews in areas where there is a high Jewish population and people having ‘Jewish names’. Ahem ahem – apart from Hebrew and Hebraic names there are no Jewish names. Most Jews in this country have German, Polish (if they (we) are ‘Ashkanzim’ or Sephardi names which may be e.g. Italian or Spanish) and/or we have English names! What’s more, since the arrival of many EU citizens, there are many Germans and Poles who have names that before were considered to be ‘Jewish’ like ‘Meyer’ – a standard German name that some Jews have.
The surveys may be accurate – perhaps – but this method of polling looks decidedly dodgy. I have challenged this many times on twitter and no one has successfully defended it so far.
I have been asked several times to come on the radio and TV to talk about supporting Corbyn. I have refused. I have said to the producer – ‘Do the honest thing, talk to a Labour voting rabbi, and/or a Jewish Labour candidate and/or a Jewish Labour Party member.’ The reason why I say this is because
a) I can’t answer any questions that the interviewers ask all the time ‘Is enough being done? Are Jews being bullied in meetings etc’ I don’t want to screw up this matter by appearing on programmes and saying ‘I don’t know…’ or ‘some of my best friends are Jewish and they tell me….x’ It’s a trap.
b) The times I have appeared e.g. on al-Jazeera, the method of dealing with me (or Miriam Margolyes or Alexei Sayle) is to say that we represent no one. At one level, I have to say that that is true. I have never pretended and can’t pretend and would never pretend that I ‘represent’ any other Jews. I have no trouble making another claim that I am entitled to have my views but again, is not great TV in a 2 minute interview!
For the record, for people who are not Jewish: I am no less Jewish than the Chief Rabbi. I was brought up knowing that I was Jewish, and have participated in all my life (read, studied, reflected on, been particularly interested in ) secular Jewish activities to do with Jewish writers, artists, and Jewish history and have of course reflected on this in my writing in hundreds of different ways. I see myself as a poet and performer who has absorbed many traditions one of which is ‘aggadic’ – that of Jewish story-telling.
To say these things has invited Jews and non-Jews on twitter to call me a ‘kapo’ (a Jewish concentration camp guard), a ‘used Jew’ (that from the editor of ‘Jewish News’), someone who ‘dons the cloak of Jewishness’ (a Jewish DJ and actor), one of the ‘useful Jewish idiots’ (from the commentator Dan Hodges, ‘a cheerleader for Soros’ (from Lee Harpin political editor of the Jewish Chronicle), and a plea to the BBC to not employ me to present ‘Word of Mouth’ (from the QC Simon Myerson and the campaigner against antisemitism (!) Euan Philips.
Clearly some people think that the best way to combat antisemitism is to be antisemitic.
Further: the whole question of ‘antisemitism’ has been fogged by an unknowing or unwilling lack of clarity over distinctions between slurs, prejudice, bias, discimination, persecution, incitement to antisemitic violence, and the violence itself. There are times when you might have thought that UK Jews were experiencing a pogrom.
Secondly, the minimum requirements for a claim that there is a ‘problem’ in a given area (e.g. antisemitism in the Labour Party) is that it is distinctly and measurably worse than in other places or in society as a whole. If that hasn’t been shown , (and it hasn’t been) it’s not a Labour Party problem it’s a societal problem.
I’ve known Jeremy Corbyn for 30 years. He is no antisemite. He has put his neck on the line hundreds of times in opposing racism, antisemitism, far right fascism, holocaust denial.
For the record the sudden loss of Jewish support for Labour came when Miliband was leader who the Jewish Chronicle described as ‘toxic’ for Jewish voters. MIliband is Jewish. It was his support for recognition of Palestine before negotiations that did for him, they said. Being Jewish was no shield against this hostility.
Ask me, who am I ‘safer’ with: a Johnson-led government with its record of the ‘hostile environment’, persecution of Windrush generation, and persistent antisemitic jibes from leading party members or this Labour Party, and I say, Labour every time.
But I don’t look at the election purely through a Jewish prism. It is a clear class issue: a Tory government will continue to ravage the lives of of working class people through attacks on wages, public services, and the disabled. A Labour government will halt these and start to reverse them.
World business (‘capitalism’) is in crisis: huge levels of debt, massive ‘productivity’ problems (in their frenzy to compete with each other) a slew towards ‘economic nationallism’ (the Steve Bannon philosophy ) and Johnson is riding the Bannon bus which is driven by the US. The US are desperate to create a bogus ‘free trade’ world, which in actual fact is a US-protectionist world. Johnson is backing this as a ‘solution’.
Yesterday a Director of the UK Rabbinical Executive Board wrote a letter to Jeremy Corbyn which, it said, represented the views of the United European Jews organisation (UEJ). The letter said that the organisation “reject and condemn in no uncertain terms” the recent comments in the media, claiming that the “majority of British Jews are gripped by anxiety” at the prospect of a Labour government. The letter states that the media commentary does not represent the views of mainstream Chareidi Jews who live in the UK.
The letter continues: “We believe that such assertions are due to propaganda with a political and ideological agenda”, which, the group add, “is an agenda diametrically opposed to fundamental Jewish values, as well as the opinions of tens of thousands of Jews in our community”.
The Rabbinical Executive’s letter goes on to thank the Labour party leader for his “numerous acts of solidarity with the Jewish community over many years”.
A press released by UEJ describes the organisation:
United European Jews is a pan-European organisation that performs research and advocacy concerning topics of Judaism, Jewish identity, and antisemitism. The institute was founded by Rabbi Mayer Weinberger of Belgium in conjunction with Jewish faith leaders throughout Europe.
We engage in educational activities which spread information and catalyze action. UEJ offers a view of Jewish identity that at its core is representative of the mainstream 70,000 chareidi Jews that live in the UK, who do not identify with Israeli nationalism or politics as elemental to their Jewish identity.
We advocate the traditional Orthodox Jewish idea that Jewish identity is defined only by Jewish religious doctrine and is independent of foreign nationalist components. As British Jews, our home and country is the United Kingdom, and our religion is Judaism.
Here is the letter in full:
It will be very interesting to see if the media in the UK report on this letter, rather than continuing the concerted attempts to stage manage our democracy.
I would personally like to thank the Rabbinical Executive Board for such a candid, kindly and hope-inspiring letter to a candid, kindly and hope-inspiring politician.
Corbyn’s letterseen by the Gazette, said: “Coroner Hassell’s approach goes against our Jewish and Muslim residents’ faith and is preventing them from grieving for their lost loved ones.”
The letter, co-signed by Emily Thornberry, MP for Islington South & Finsbury, and Islington councillor Richard Watts, notes that other coroner services, including Salford and Bolton’s Coroner Services, use magnetic resonance imaging scans in autopsies, removing the need for “invasive post-mortem techniques that go against a number of religious practices”.
“We regret that Coroner Hassell’s conduct … to date has caused significant upset and undue trauma for people who are already suffering so much and simply want to grieve,’ it states.
Corbyn said: ‘I have been approached by the Jewish and Muslim communities in Islington and I’m very concerned about the stress families are going through in not being able to complete burials in line with their faiths. I fully support their efforts to ensure public services respect their religious beliefs and traditions – and the coroner service should be no exception.”
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Sir Richard Dearlove, controversial former head of MI6, who was “senior advisor” to the Monitor Group – a consultancy and private equity firm which has been scandalously implicated in undertaking three million pounds worth PR work for the Libyan regimeand Muammar Gaddafi
The controversial former MI6 chief, Sir Richard Dearlove, claims that Jeremy Corbyn’s “far-left past” and “relationships with extremists” made him “unfit to enter number 10”. He said exactly the same thing just before the last general election.
Dearlove is a signatory of the right wing neo-Conservative Henry Jackson Society principles. He was also a “senior advisor” to the Monitor Group – a consultancy and private equity firm which has been implicated in undertaking three million pounds worth PR work for Libya and Muammar Gaddafi. In April 2013, it was announced that Dearlove joined the advisory board of Ergo, an intelligence, PR and advisory firm.
The Labour party pointed out that Dearlove lacks credibility because his own past raised questions about his judgement.
AndMI6 has a history of interfering in UK elections.
Dearlove wrote in the Mail on Sunday that the Labour leader would pose a “present danger to our country” if he became PM.
But a Labour source said: “As head of MI6 he was involved in the infamous dodgy dossier that helped take us into the illegal Iraq War.
“He has no credibility whatsoever on the subject of security.”
Dearlove wrote almost exactly the same thing in the Daily Telegraph in June 2017 – the day before the last general election. He’s the establishment’s ‘damage limitation’ PR wheel-out.
It’s a well-established fact that the opposition leader has always preferred the use of diplomacy in resolving conflicts, working to broker peace with all sides involved, in much the same way as others who were involved in bringing about the Good Friday agreement, for example.
Dearlove wants to expand NATO and increase its funding. Personally, if we were confronted with a threat, I’d prefer a Prime Minister who understands that the use of nuclear weapons are the VERY last resort, following exhaustive diplomatic efforts. It’s absurd and horrific that party leaders are expected to demonstrate they would press the nuclear button without any hesitation, triggering the mass destruction of millions, and of our environment, as a ‘mark’ of ‘strength’.
Real strength is taking a pause for thought for citizens, for our planet, fostering good diplomatic relations in the first place – you know, talking to people with courtesy and respect, especially those you fundamentally disagree with. That takes strength and courage. Pressing a button while cowering in a bunker, and incinerating millions isn’t ‘strong leadership.’
On 29 November 2018 Dearlove co-signed an open letter, published in a British national newspaper, condemning Prime Minister Theresa May’s negotiated Withdrawal Agreement for the UK from the European Union after the 2016 Referendum on the issue, as the matter was passing through the House of Commons at the time to be voted upon. In its text, Dearlove alleged the Withdrawal Agreement as negotiated undermined MI6‘s nationally independent global intelligence power.
In a published response, dated the same day, the Prime Minister’s Office issued a public “rebuttal” to the letter’s content, singling out Dearlove personally from the named list of several signatories to the open letter, stating the Withdrawal Agreement “absolutely does not” compromise the national independence of the United Kingdom’s Secret Intelligence Service’s capacity.
However, in early December 2018, in a jointly authored text, Dearlove and Major-General Julian Thompson, published on the website ‘Briefings for Brexit’ an extensive reply to the Prime Minister’s Office’s statement entitled ‘The Prime Minister is misleading the country on defence and security’, citing a ‘worryingly poor understanding of the issues’ by the Prime Minister’s office.
On 8 January 2019, in an extraordinary intervention in the political sphere by figures from the S.I.S. and the military quarter, Dearlove sent a letter, co-signed by Field Marshal Lord Guthrie, to all Chairs of Conservative Party Parliamentary Constituency Associations with sitting Members of Parliament stating that the passage through the House of Commons of Prime Minister Theresa May’s European Union Withdrawal Agreement contained decisions which fundamentally undermined the integrity of the Defence of the Realm, and requested that they take measures to discourage their parliamentary representatives from voting for it imminently in the Commons.
The letter advocated as an alternative the case upon national security grounds that the United Kingdom should fully withdraw from the European Union without an Intergovernmental relationship between the two persisting after the process.
Senior allies of Jeremy Corbyn have previously suggested that the security services are attacking Corbyn, not out of security concerns, but self-interest in defending the establishment.
Dearlove in 2018, making the same claims about Jeremy Corbyn. He’s certainly persistent.
You can watch John McDonnell’s response to Dearlove’s comments about Jeremy Corbyn last year below. The comment about “every government has been loyally supported [by the Intelligence Services]” is untrue of course. There is a trail of documented evidence of MI6 and MI5 interference in political and democratic processes, from the first ever Labour government and the faked Zinoviev letter to the attempts to destabilise Harold Wilson’s government.
Last year the Unite General Secretary Len McCluskey said he supported the view that “the security forces play an unhealthy role in the democratic processes that exist in our nation, both in trade unions and indeed in our political life”.
McCluskey is absolutely right. There are very good reasons why the public should never trust the pro-establishment interference in our democracy by MI6 or ANY account of ANY Labour party leader, not least because of the fact that the faked Zinoviev letter originated from MI6 and was ‘leaked’ to the Daily Mail, with the sole intention of bringing the first ever Labour party down. It succeeded.
Britain’s most senior security and intelligence officials had discussed the smearing of the Labour party just as it was emerging as a major political force according to previously secret documents.
There is a very long history of the Labour party’s struggle on our behalf against a monstrously ruthless and powerful establishment that is determined to maintain the status quo.
The real threat to our national security and democracy is the Conservative government in office
Dearlove’s comments about the opposition leader emerge as senior government officials are currently furious at “leaks” from the top-secret Intelligence and Security Committee (ISC), after details emerged of the committee’s investigation into allegations of Russian interference in UK democracy. The government has been accused of presiding over a cover-up after it emerged that No 10 refused to clear the publication of a potentially incendiary report examining Russian infiltration in British politics, including the Conservative party.
Downing Street indicated that it would not allow a 50-page dossier from the intelligence and security committee to be published before the election, prompting a string of complaints over its suppression.
The committee’s chairman, Dominic Grieve, called the decision “jaw dropping”, saying no reason for the refusal had been given, while Labour and Scottish National party politicians accused No 10 of refusing to recognise the scale of Russian meddling.
According to the BBC, the ISC took evidence from members of the intelligence services accusing the Kremlin of trying to influence the outcome of the EU referendum in 2016 and the following year’s general election. It also hit the news that Russian oligarchs with links to the Kremlin have been making massive donations to the Conservative party. Fresh evidence also emerged of attempts by the Kremlin to infiltrate the Conservatives by a senior Russian diplomat suspected of espionage, who spent five years in London cultivating leading Tories including Johnson himself. Sergey Nalobin – who has described the future prime minister as “our good friend”– lives in a Moscow apartment block known as the “FSB house” because it houses so many employees from the Kremlin’s main spy agency.
It is understood the dossier had already been approved by the intelligence agencies themselves as part of a long clearance process that began in late March. Downing Street was sent a final draft on 17 October and had been expected to sign off before parliament was dissolved.
Grieve said: “The protocols are quite clear. If the prime minister has a good reason for preventing publication he should explain to the committee what it is, and do it within 10 days of him receiving the report. If not, it should be published.”
Allegations that Moscow money has flowed into the Conservative party via emigres living in the UK making high-profile donations, were also heard by the committee – although the party has consistently denied receiving money ‘improperly’.
Committee members were also briefed on an extraordinary – and for a while an apparently successful – attempt to penetrate Conservative circles by Nalobin, who instigated a pro-Kremlin parliamentary group, the Conservative Friends of Russia.
During his time in the UK, Nalobin went to exclusive Tory fundraising events and met senior Conservatives. In January 2014 he posed for a photograph with Johnson at an event at city hall in London. Nalobin posted it on Twitter, writing in a caption that the then mayor was “our good friend” who said “warm words” about Russians.
Conservative Friends of Russia held its 2012 launch party in the Russian ambassador’s Kensington garden, with about 250 Russian and British guests present, including Tories who went on to play a prominent role in the referendum campaign. One was Matthew Elliott, now chief executive of pro-Brexit group Vote Leave, alongside Dominic Cummings, now the prime minister’s chief strategist.
I have to say that I am almost surprised that Dearlove is so concerned about the ‘security threat” posed by a party leader who is not taking donations from Russian oligarchs with close ties to the Kremlin, while remaining supremely unconcerned about the PM who is.
Back in 2016, speaking to reporters at MI6’s headquarters in Vauxhall, central London, Alex Younger used his first major public speech as head of the Secret Intelligence Service to attack the Kremlin for creating a human tragedy in Syria and to warn of the threat to the UK from high tech subversion by Moscow. He said: “The connectivity that is at the heart of globalisation can be exploited by states with hostile intent to further their aims deniably. They do this through means as varied as cyber-attacks, propaganda or subversion of democratic process.
He went on: “The risks at stake are profound and represent a fundamental threat to our sovereignty; they should be a concern to all those who share democratic values.”
The role of the Secret Service is supposedly limited to countering genuine threats to national security, and controls are needed to govern how it may use, but not abuse, its powers. The service should not do anything which would favour one political party over another.
MI6 have a shameful history of subverting our democracy and Dearlove’s comments also call into question the Service’s claimed political impartiality.
It’s not such a big stride, after all from “protecting democracy” to stage managing it.
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It’s something of a myth that anarchists don’t vote. Most reject hierarchy, authority, and promote participatory democracy. Democracy is not something that happens once every five years. It’s not something we have, it is something we must do.
In 2005, civil rights activist and historian Howard Zinn was awarded an honorary Doctorate of Humane Letters at a college that he had been sacked from 40 years earlier. Zinn was a tenured professor, he was dismissed in June 1963 because of his civil rights activities, in particular, he supported students in the struggle against segregation.
He delivered the commencement address titled Against Discouragementin which he said “the lesson of that [civil rights movement] history is that you must not despair, that if you are right, and you persist, things will change. The government may try to deceive the people, and the newspapers and television may do the same, but the truth has a way of coming out. The truth has a power greater than a hundred lies.”
At the height of McCarthyism in 1949, the FBI first opened a domestic security investigation on Zinn. One of the things he said that has always resonated with me is that society changed because ordinary people organised, took risks, challenged the system and would not give up. That’s when democracy comes to life. He’s so right. It’s down to us to fully participate and keep democracy alive, because as we have learned historically, authoritarianism and fascism are the political system of disinterested, disengaged, disinterested, disillusioned and disenfranchised populations.
Many anarchists are also staunch anti-fascists. Most contemporary anarchists are anti-neoliberal.
Anarchist Alan Moore, author of Watchmen and V for Vendetta, said that the last time he voted was more than 40 years ago, because he was “convinced that leaders are mostly of benefit to no one save themselves”. Now he is asking people to vote for the Labour party.
Moore says these are “unprecedented times” and that a victory for the Conservative party in December’s general election would leave Britain without “a culture, a society, or an environment in which we have the luxury of even imagining alternatives”.
Moore posted a statement on his daughter Leah Moore’s Twitter and Facebook pages, where he called on anyone to whom his work “has meant anything … over the years”, and all those for whom “the way that modern life is going makes you fear for all the things you value”, to exercise their franchise.
He says: “Please get out there on polling day and make your voice heard with a vote against this heartless trampling of everybody’s safety, dignity and dreams,” he said. “A world we love is counting on us. If we’d prefer a future that we can call home, then we must stop supporting – even passively – this ravenous, insatiable Conservative agenda before it devours us with our kids as a dessert.”
Here is Moore’s full statement: Another anarchist/socialist believed that the most progressive, healthiest and civilised societies exhibited cooperation among individuals and groups as the norm. He said in 1902: “The animal species in which individual struggle has been reduced to its narrowest limits and the practice of mutual aid has attained the greatest development[…] are invariably the most numerous, the most prosperous, and the most open to further progress.
“The mutual protection which is obtained in this case, the possibility of attaining old age and of accumulating experience, the higher intellectual development, and the further growth of sociable habits, secure the maintenance of the species, its extension, and its further progressive evolution. The unsociable species, on the contrary, are doomed to decay.” Peter Kropotkin, Mutual Aid: A Factor of Evolution (1902), Conclusion.
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The wide variation of poll results on how the the two leaders were viewed following the ITV debate last night, and how the media cherry pick statistics to fit their framing and narratives of significant issues and events.
It’s curious that neither the BBC nor the ITV mentioned the other poll results. That would have provided a rather more “impartial” and democratic account of how people responded to the event.
I think we need to question exactly who the BBC and ITV are delivering “the news” for.
The ‘snap poll’, published by YouGov that the BBC and several other media outlets have drawn on to inform their ‘analysis’ of the leaders’ debate, found ‘viewers split on who won ITV general election debate‘ and states that Boris Johnson narrowly won among 1.646 respondents polled. It was apparently Sky news who commissioned that particular poll.
However, the date and time on the page highlighting the poll result is one hour and ten minutes before the debate started at 8pm.
Thepagehas been archivedhere – and the SKWAWKBOX has made a video of the open page to show that the image above has not been doctored and that the page address is genuine. Read the rest of the article here.
YouGov has been contacted with a request for an explanation of the apparent anomaly. It will be interesting to see the poll company’s response.
Polls are controversial. Some of the major concerns that surround the current polling landscape: Are the polls accurate and scientific? Reliable? Can the questions be manipulated to get a particular answer? Can polls be used to influence rather than simply measure public opinion and voting behaviour? I think the last two concerns are the greatest, and threaten our democracy.
The outcomes of both political and marketing polls — and whether or not the public trusts the results — are influenced by many factors, including polling technology and methodology, how the question is worded, the perception of who is asking the question, when and how the polling sample is drawn, and who agrees to take the poll (the responders) and who decides not to (the non-responders).
“Opinion polls are a device for influencing public opinion, not a device for measuring it. Crack that, and it all makes sense.”
It certainly does.
Hitchens goes on to say that the establishment and the media are responsible for manipulation, based on the misuse of statistics. The overall purpose is to “bring about the thing it claims is already happening” (the “bandwaggon effect”).
In his book The Broken Compass, Hitchens cites contemporary examples of the media attacking Gordon Brown and the “predicted” win of the Conservative Party at the 2010 general election, although Hitchens also described Brown, as a “dismal Marxoid.” Hitchens’ comments are based on his time as a reporter at Westminster. He says that political journalists are uninterested in serious political debate, and describes how a media reporting bias is attempting to facilitate a Tory general election win.
Remarkably, as a social Conservative, Hitchens states one of his motivations for writing the book was to frustrate this exercise.
The current obsession with predicting election results doesn’t add much to our democratic practices. Polls give an apparency of “data-driven journalism” but it produces a reductive “horse-race” narrative, in which political and policy context is mostly ignored with the numbers, accurate or not, pretty much being framed as all that matters. This trivialises our democracy and obscures the importance of critical thinking and crucially, stifles informed choices regarding policies in influencing the public’s voting decisions.
Roger Pielke Jr, professor of Technology Policy Research at the University of Colorado, says: Rather than trying to see the future, political science might serve us better by helping citizens to create that future by clarifying the choices we face and their possible consequences for policy.”
“In treating politics like a sporting event, we diminish the partisanship, the choices, and the fundamental values that lie at the core of politics. I fear that data journalists have diminished our politics.”
When political opinion polls and the media appear to support one political party over another, there can be little doubt that this is intended to have some influence on the psychology of voters, because it’s akin to declaring election winners before the election is actually held. It works rather like a self-fulfilling prophecy. This is based on the bandwaggon propaganda technique. The basic idea behind the bandwagon approach is to appeal to the conformist tendency of the public, and the need to feel a part of wider society; to feel included. The message the propagandist puts forward is that “everyone” or “most people”are doing/voting/behaving like this, or that almost “everyone” supports this or that person/cause.
So bandwaggon propaganda is based on individuals rallying to the perceived majority opinion, because of a fairly widespread psychological need for feeling we are part of a social ingroup, and a general tendency towards normative compliance and social conformity.
And at a time when the strategically engineered and toxic social divisions of political outgrouping is widespread and affecting citizens’ fundamental sense of identity and self worth, this type of insidious call for a normative compliance and artificial consensus creates a false sense of security for some.
Bandwaggon techniques work much better when the public is unaware that professional manipulators are at work.
We know that political opinion polls are certainlynot always an accurate reflection of public opinion. Samples of the population selected to participate may be biased. For example, asking Daily Mail readers who they will vote for will almost certainly produce a majority right wing set of responses. However, if you ask the same question on Twitter, you are much more likely to get a Labour majority.
In the UK, some of the major polls cited widely in the media are run by:
Survation, pollster to The Mail on Sunday, Daily Mirror, Daily Record and Sky News. They say: “Survation also have an active strategy and campaign advisory business helping clients better understand customers & members, appreciate & help shape public opinion. We help our clients improve customer engagement and effectiveness of campaigns – be they charitable, political or commercial.”
ComRes, retained pollster for the BBC and The Independent. It says on their site:“ComRes provides specialist research and insight to support reputation management, public policy and communications. For more than a decade we have used the latest developments in market and opinion research to inform strategies, change behaviours and define debates.”
Ipsos MORI (formerly MORI). Ipsos MORI’s Social Research Instituteworks extensively for the government of the United Kingdom, looking at public attitudes to key public services, and so informing social policy. Issues such as identity, social cohesion, loyalty, physical capital and the impact of place on attitudes are all key themes of the Institute’s work. The company also specialises in mass media, brand loyalty, marketing and advertising research.
YouGov. – Stephan Shakespeare, the firm’s founder and CEO from 2010, once stood as a Conservative candidate for Colchester; he was also a Conservative Party pollster. The other founder, and CEO until 2010, is Nadhim Zahawia British Conservative Party politician who has been the Member of Parliament (MP) for Stratford-on-Avonsince 2010.
ICM. They have this to say:“Understanding choice means you know how your audience feels, thinks and behaves. And how you can change that. We help influence choice in three areas. How do you energise your brand and communications? How do you improve your customers’ experience of you? How do you understand and influence citizens?
Populus, official The Times’pollster. They say: “Our Reputation & Strategy team works with the boards of global companies and public institutions to help them understand, influence, and improve their reputations. We are specialists in reputation. We understand why it matters, how to measure it, what drives it, who influences it, how to align it with existing activity, and what you should do to improve it.”
TNS-BMRB. TNS changed their name to Kantar Public UK: a leading agency providing research and consultancy to UK policymakers and contracted to work for the government. The company is structured around specific areas of marketing expertise: Brand & Communication; Innovation & Product Development; Retail & Shopper; Customer Experience; Employee Engagement; Qualitative; Automotive; and Political & Social.
The bandwagon effect is part of a larger group of cognitive biases or errors in thinking that influence the judgements and decisions that people make. Cognitive biases are often designed to help people think and reason more quickly – “mental shortcuts” – but they often introduce miscalculations and mistakes. These cognitive biases are being manipulated by behavioural economists, the government, polling companies and the media.
Individuals may highly influenced by the pressure and norms exerted by groups. When it seems like the majority of the group is doing a certain thing, not doing that thing becomes increasingly difficult. The bandwagon effect is essentially the manipulation of a type of groupthink process. The government know this and are designing communications strategies which play to this heuristic.
All of the polling companies are commissioned and operate within a taken-for-granted neoliberal context, supporting various actors within the “global market place” paradigm, including governments, and therefore have a distinct ideological leaning and very clearly defined economic interests in maintaining the status quo.
“Behavioural economics shows that people don’t want to challenge the status quo. So if we see a poll telling us ‘what the majority thinks’, we will have a tendency to follow the herd.”Crawford Hollingworth, founder, The Behavioural Architects.
I don’t make any money from my work. My site costs me to run. But you can contribute if you like by making a donation and help me continue to research and write free, informative, insightful and independent articles, and to continue to provide support to others who are going through traumatic social security disability assessments and appeals. The smallest amount is much appreciated – thank you.
Media misrepresentations of the Labour party are being used strategically to create left wing folk devils and moral panic
An academic study published by the London School of Economics (LSE) which examined media and communications, specificallyJournalistic Representations of Jeremy Corbyn in the British Press: from Watchdog to Attack dog,has shown that enduring, aggressive and non factual political and media attacks on Jeremy Corbyn were designed intentionally in a strategic attempt to thoroughly discredit him as a political actor. However, Corbyn is of course a legitimate democratic actor who is the leader of the main opposition party in British politics. Furthermore, he has presented a credible and increasingly popular alternative to the neoliberal doxa.
One particularly successful way of neutralising opposition to an ideology is to ensure that only those ideas that are consistent with that ideology saturate the media and are presented as orthodoxy. The Conservative’s election campaigns are always a thoroughly dispiriting and ruthless masterclass in media control.
Communication in the media has been geared towards establishing a dominant paradigm and maintaining anillusion of a consensus. This ultimately serves to reduce democratic choices. Such tactics are nothing less than a political micro-management of your beliefs and are ultimately aimed at nudging your voting decisions and maintaining a profoundly unbalanced, pathological status quo.
Presenting an alternative narrative is difficult because the Tories have not only framed all of the issues to be given public priority – they set and stage-manage the media agenda – they have also dominated the narrative; they constructed and manage the political lexicon and now treat words associated with the Left, such as welfare, like semantic landmines, generating explosions of right-wing scorn, derision and ridicule.
Words like cooperation, inclusion, mutual aid, reciprocity, equality, nationalisation, redistribution – collective values – are simply dismissed as mere anachronisms that need to be stricken from public conversation and exiled from our collective consciousness, whilst all the time enforcing their own bland language of an anti-democratic political doxa. The political manufacturing of a culture of anti-intellectualism extends this aim, too.
Words like competition, market place, small state, efficiency, responsibility and so on, now crowd out any opportunity of even a fleeting glance of another way of socio-economic organisation. They’ve become our ‘common sense’ without our consent.
Anything presented that contradicts the consensus – a convincing, coherent, viable alternative perspective – is treated to a heavily staged editing via meta-coverage by the media. Anyone would think that the media regards the UK as a one-party state.
This clearly co-ordinated campaign of discrediting the opposition leader began from the moment he became a prominent candidate and ramped up after he was elected as party leader, with a strong mandate. This process of attempted delegitimisation occurred in several ways: 1) through lack of or distortion of voice and media platform; 2) through ridicule, scorn and personal attacks; and 3) through use of the ‘guilt by association’ fallacy, mainly used with tenuous allegations of terrorism and antisemitism.
The LSE study found that 75 per cent of stories about the opposition leader are either distorted or failed to represent his actual views on subjects.
Dr Bart Cammaerts, the research director, described “an overall picture of most newspapers systematically vilifying the leader of the biggest opposition party, assassinating his character, ridiculing his personality and delegitimising his ideas and politics”.
The report also says“Denying such an important political actor a voice or distorting his views and ideas through the exercise of mediated power is highly problematic.”
Many of us havewritten at lengthabout the oppressive, authoritarian-styled narratives in the media and the political circumstances in which they have arisen, as independent journalists. The language use itself on the right warrants study – the left community has been stereotyped and stigmatised with labels such as “cult”, “Marxists” (which has undergone a politically engineered semantic shift, now being used as an insult), “rabble”, “dogs”, “Stalinists”, “Trots”, extremists”, “hard left” and so on.
This language has been widely and purposely used to create folk devils and moral panic. It is the process of arousing social concern over an issue which may be constructed – usually seen as the work of moral entrepreneursand the mass media, but it is also a tactic used widely by politicians on the right of the spectrum.
Some moral panics become embedded long-term in standard political discourse, such as enduring right wing McCarthyist values and longstanding concerns about “Reds under the beds” and about terrorism. (See also my article about the Zinoviev letter).
We have seen a lot of high profile media commentaries from the Conservative Jewish communitywhich has also resulted in the marginalisation of left leaning Jewish voices. We have also witnessed the media narratives of neoliberals (from Conservatives, Liberal Democrats and the faction of so-called moderates within the Labour party) that have attempted to portray an illusion of consensus, from a strategic communications crib sheet.
Allegations made were purposely conflated in the media, with a narrative of ‘guilt by association’ – a commonly used propaganda technique. But allegations can often be founded on malice and until a fair investigation, where evidence is provided, allegations are simply claims made against someone. These have been made very often in the media, often without including a right to reply.
A letterpublished in the Guardian two days ago was written by a group of celebrities, including people such as Joanna Lumley, claiming they “could not vote for Labour” under the current leadership. But the majority of this small group were utterly disingenuous, as they were known longstanding Conservative or Lib Dem supporters anyway. As an ‘animal rights campaigner’, among other things, Lumley, for example, supports a party that wants to re-introduce fox hunting.
A Labour party spokesperson said: “It’s extraordinary that several of those who have signed this letter have themselves been accused of antisemitism, Islamophobia and misogyny. It’s less surprising that a number are Conservatives and Lib Dems.
“We take allegations of antisemitism extremely seriously, we are taking robust action and we are absolutely committed to rooting it out of our party and wider society.”
It’s a pity many of the neoliberal commentators have been so caught up in manufacturing allegations against the Labour party that they have failed to notice people are dying because of neoliberal policies.
Disabled people in the UK have experienced harm and serious violations to their fundamental human rights under successive neoliberal governments since 2010. Ordinary citizens are experiencing absolute poverty as a direct consequence of Tory and Liberal Democrat policies. Yet the media is focused on allegations, smears and reducing democratic discourse to vicious political gossip-mongering.
Meanwhile, the Labour party are the only party to have held consultations with people in the disabled community. I was invited to round table discussions at Westminster to discuss Labour’s future social security policies, and I attended a consultation event hosted by Debbie Abrahams which was about embedding equality legislation into subsequent Labour policies for disabled people.
None of the other political parties have stood up against the oppression we have experienced as a marginalised social group, because of the Conservative and Lib Dem austerity programme, which targeted disabled people disproportionately more than other citizens. Nor have other parties actively campaigned for disabled people’s human rights, as Labour have.
Open letter from credible key public figures in support of Jeremy Corbyn
Now, an open letter has been written in full support of Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn which has collected 30 signatories from a wide range of high-profile public figures, including musicians Roger Waters, Brian Eno, Thurston Moore, Kate Tempest, Robert Del Naja and Lowkey, and it also includes respected academics such as David Graeber, Noam Chomsky and Naomi Klein, the NME has revealed.
It’s unlikely to be accommodated by media outlets like the BBC and Guardian, however.
In the new letter, the signatories – also featuring a range of major Jewish authors and public figures – describe Corbyn as a “life-long committed anti-racist” and claim that “no political party or political leader has done more to address [antisemitism] than Jeremy Corbyn and the Labour Party.”
Read the full letter below:
“To the Editor:
“The coming UK election is indeed a landmark and monumental one as signatories to a recent letter attest. However, we are outraged that Jeremy Corbyn, a life-long committed anti-racist, is being smeared as an anti-semite by people who should know better. Antisemitism is a problem within society and is present within all political parties and movements, including Labour. It must be confronted and rooted out at every turn. No political party or political leader has done more to address this problem than Jeremy Corbyn and the Labour Party. In the last two years, the speed of investigations has increased fourfold, staffing committed to dealing with the issue has doubled, legal experts have been drafted, and rules changed to expedite sanctions. But the prevailing evidence speaks for itself: Labour’s political opponents and much of the media have trivialised and weaponised this issue for ideological ends.
“Progressives around the world are looking to this election and to the Labour Party as a beacon of hope in the struggle against emergent far-right nationalism, xenophobia and racism in much of the democratic world. It has never been more important that voters are made aware of the truth of what the Labour Party under Jeremy Corbyn stands for: the eradication of all racism, including antisemitism, wherever it rears its ugly head.”
The text concludes with the full list of signatories, listed below:
Noam Chomsky Naomi Klein Yanis Varoufakis Brian Eno Rob Delaney Angela Davis Steve Coogan Alexei Sayle Maxine Peake Roger Waters Jason Hickel Francesca Martinez Lowkey David Adler Raoul Martinez Miriam Margolyes Massive Attack Vivienne Westwood Thurston Moore (Sonic Youth) John Keane Michael Mansfield QC Adjoa Andoh Mike Leigh Michael Rosen Robert Cohen Mark Ruffalo Amir Amirani
Mark Rylance
Caryl Churchill
Kate Tempest
Jocelyn Pool David Graeber (London School of Economics) Des Freedman (Goldsmiths, University of London) Justin Schlosberg (Birkbeck, University of London)
I know who are established credible and conscientious voices, and who I will be taking seriously on 12 December.
Related
Watch what Jewish people think about Jeremy Corbyn:
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The National Audit Office is to demand information from Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) on a ‘serious and important’ issue after ministers refuse to provide figures on how many people claiming social security have taken their own lives. The watchdog is to investigate the government’s monitoring of suicides among welfare claimants amid longstanding concerns about links between welfare reforms and declining mental health.
The National Audit Office (NAO) said it would call on the DWP to reveal what information it held on the suicides, after ministers refused to provide an MP with figures on the number of people in the welfare system who had taken their own lives.
In a letter seen by The Independent, the watchdog said it was “clearly a very important and serious” topic and that it would consider trying to collate the information itself if the government could not provide it.
It comes as charities raise concerns about links between welfare reforms and declining mental health among claimants, with an increasing number of self-inflicted deaths being associated with financial difficulties stemming from cuts to support.
A number of studies have established links specifically between universal credit and an increased risk of suicide, with experts blaming the “complicated, dysfunctional and punitive” nature of the new benefit and the frequency at which it pushes people into hardship, debt and rent arrears.
In December 2017, for example, concern was also raised when an analysis of NHS datashowed that attempted suicides among out-of-work disability support had more than doubled since the introduction of work capability assessments in 2008.
The survey revealed that 43 per cent of Employment and Support Allowance (ESA) claimants – and as high as 47 per cent of female ESA claimants – had attempted suicide in their lifetimes, compared with 7 per cent of the general population.
In response to the figures, Dr Jay Watts, a consultant clinical psychologist and member of the campaigning Alliance for Counselling and Psychotherapy, said at the time: “These results are staggering. It is difficult to overemphasise how large a jump in rates of attempted suicide this is. I cannot think of a greater jump in rates in any population.
“If the Government has any real interest in suicide prevention, benefits reform must be the immediate priority. The UN has condemned the government’s treatment of disabled people as contrary to their human rights.
“The shame, guilt, anxiety and paranoia the current system provokes is a national scandal, that should be headline news. Making the workless feel worthless, and under-serving of support, has provoked a mental health emergency.”
A study by leading academics of claimants and support staff in Gateshead and Newcastle found the new benefit to be a “complicated, dysfunctional and punitive” system that forces people into debt and rent arrears and “simply doesn’t work” s claimed by the government.
The research, among the first to focus on the experiences of claimants in a universal credit full service area, also said it was making people increasingly anxious and depressed and worsening existing health problems. Catherine Donovan, deputy leader of Gateshead Council, said: “This report confirms the significant hardship we have seen people and families in Gateshead endure for some time now.
“Austerity is not over. The roll out of universal credit means people are having to choose between eating and heating. It is appalling that people in this study talked about feeling so low, they had considered suicide.
“They talked about the shame and stigma of using food banks. With Christmas coming, the impact on communities and families will be extremely hard. I’m calling on government to scrap universal credit as a matter of urgency.”
At the time the research was published, a DWP spokesperson said: “This survey of 33 claimants doesn’t match the broader experience of more than 9,000 people receiving universal credit in Gateshead, who are taking advantage of its flexibility and personalised support to find work.”
That is atrocious gaslighting.
There are also serious concerns and individual case of premature mortality, within a short time of someone being deemed ‘fit for work’, as well as the increase in numbers of people having suicidal thoughts and taking their own life, raised by many disability campaigners since the implementation of welfare ‘reforms’.
The United Nations concluded in a formal inquirythat the welfare ‘reforms’ have ‘systematically and gravely’ violated the human rights of ill and disabled people.
Government ministers, however, simply denied that this is so, and have accused us of “scaremongering” denying any “causal link” between their punitive policies and distress and harm of citizens. Yet studies have established a clear correlation. Without further investigation, the government have no grounds to dismiss the possibility of a causal link.
Campaigners have said that it was “unacceptable” that the DWP does not appear to record suicides among people claiming social security support and that it was “vital” for it to start doing so in order to assess the impact of changes to the welfare system.
Kamran Mallick, from Disability Rights UK, said: “This is a crucial issue which demands a thorough review. The welfare benefits system is confusing and challenging to navigate at the best of times.
“The causes of suicide are complex and multi-layered. But there’s no doubt that few disabled people find the benefits system welcoming and supportive, and for some it induces high levels of mental and emotional distress.”
Deborah Coles, director of charity Inquest, said: “That people have been so desperate to take their own lives as a result of the punitive and cruel benefits system is a serious concern that requires much greater scrutiny.”
Frank Field MP, chair of the Work and Pensions Committee, who requested the data from ministers in a written question, said in his subsequent letter to the NAO: “I struggle to believe that, given the time it must take to put together evidence for inquests, attend court hearings, and internally review the decisions, that there is no record of such.
“It shocks me even more that the DWP is apparently unconcerned with the most drastic efforts of its policies and conducts no internal monitoring of the tragedies in which it is complicit.”
Field told The Independent he was “pleased” to hear that the NAO was now looking into the issue, adding: “This for the first time will give us some concrete facts on the link between the current welfare system and suicide rates among claimants.”
In one suicide case, published in April in Derbyshire Live, a man who took his own life after running out of money for his electricity meter reportedly left a suicide note sarcastically “thanking” universal credit bosses.
In another, an inquest ruled last month that the mental health of a disabled man who took his life after his benefits were cut was “severely and adversely” affected after the DWP declared him fit for work, as reported by thei newspaper.
Ayaz Manji, senior policy and campaigns officer at Mind, said: “Suicides are not inevitable, they can be prevented, and the DWP is responsible for making make sure its processes and policies are safe for those of us at our most unwell, and not causing serious harm.
“We still hear every week from people with mental health problems who have struggled to cope with the impact of sanctions, repeated and unnecessary fit-for-work assessments, and other changes to their benefits.
“It’s important that the DWP is held to account when independent investigations cite problems with benefits as a factor in someone taking their life. We cannot continue to wait until someone else takes their own lives before change happens.”
Sara Willcocks, head of communications at charity Turn2us, said: “It is disappointing that the DWP does not already know how many of its claimants have committed suicide. We believe it is vital that the department records this data so it can draw correlations between changes to the welfare benefits system and increases or decreases in suicide.”
A DWP spokesperson said: “The death of a claimant is always a tragedy and whilst this is not an inquiry, we will engage with the NAO on this important topic.”
However, an inquiry is long overdue.
How many people with chronic illness and disability have simply died because they can’t meet their most fundamental survival needs in light of austerity cuts?
What kind of government shows no concern or remorse that its policies are destroying some citizens’ lives?
And continually denies that this is happening?
This prompts another question; the risk of suicide among support-dependent disabled people is now foreseeable. Does the government intentionally disregard us as economically “surplus to requirements” and ultimately disposable? When the evidence points so clearly to the relationship between austerity cuts, which have disproportionately been targeted at the poorest and most fragile citizens, and suicide, it’s hard to reason otherwise. Especially when the government shows nothing but supreme indifference to those of us raising these serious concerns.
The link between social security cuts and suicide cannot and must not be denied or ignored any longer.
If you’re feeling suicidal, you can contact your GP, call 999, go to A&E, call the Samaritans on 116 123, or email them at jo@samaritans.org
I don’t make any money from my work. But you can support Politics and Insights by making a donation which will help me continue to research and write informative, insightful and independent articles, and to provide support to others going through disability assessments and appeal. The smallest amount is much appreciated, and helps to keep my articles free and accessible to all, and helps towards the costs of runnimg this site – thank you.
With Ermine Season seeming to come later every year, the Queen’s Speech has been delivered in a robust performance to a packed House. Delivered in homage to Anthony Hancock, the lesser known Queen’s Aphasia announced a startlingly honest enumeration of the aspirations of the Departing Parliament. In a series of mimes, gestures and facial expressions, the ageing monarch delivered a damning indictment of the aspirations of one time Seaside Entertainer and Serial Liar, the Primed Minister.
With an arched eyebrow, Brenda gave voice to the words “New Economic Plan”. Seasoned Royal Observers distinctly saw the Royal Left Eyebrow – traditionally associated with making historical remarks – announce novaya ekonomicheskaya politika in Morse Code. The Speechwriter quite clearly overlooked the ability of the Monarch to recognise the theft of other Politicians’ work. It is intimated that the Great Purge which saw the departure of twenty one One Nation Conservatives from the Government Benches was memorialised in a quick game of Blackjack with Black Rod before the morning’s entertainment, proper, commenced. The game of Blackjack with Black Rod was introduced in 1962 and is part of the Long Game being played by the Monarchy. Currently standing at 1482 hands, who is ahead – Black Rod or the Monarch – is a State Secret.
The Announcement of the privatisation of the National Health Service under the new Brand Name of Babylon Health is rumoured to displeased the Monarch who tapped out her preferred brand name Sodom and Gomorrah Health as she tottered to the ornate seat set aside for such a purpose. Business associate of the Rasputin of Westminster – whose comings and goings at the Bar and Ten Downing Street, is being passed off as advice – The Far Right Honourable Matted Handcock, was seen to visibly wilt as the Monarch gave her “oh I see you are abolishing Adult Social Care and ending Mental Health Care completely” look. It is rare for Brenda to give Ministers more than one arched eyebrow let alone a full facial expression. The regal full facial being reserved for more important matters.
Visibly pleased that a crackdown on violent crime would allow the ongoing white collar crime promotion policy to flourish, Brenda delivered the sop to Him Indoors of Blaming Foreigners and Victims more efficiently for the collapse of law and order while frowning at the revelation that the politicisation of the Police would not achieve the kind of Parole politicisation that had been promised as far back as 2010. Seasoned – and sober – Royal Commentators have spent a lot of time and energy analysing some Freudian Slips particularly since Freud was a foreigner and a scientist. The notable inclusion of the marvellous phrase cackling climate change was agreed to be a stab at the Cabinet’s Resident Liemonger, whose parents appear to see arrest as extremists as being preferable to association with the Far Right Honourable Gentleman.
The announcement that Public Bodies were to be obliged to do the Government’s Dirty Work was met with some agitated Morse Blinking and the rearrangement of the Royal Train into the phrase “Happening Right Now” using the panel signalling system, Brenda learned during her military service. While there is some disagreement as to the precise words, the sentiment does appear to be that the Department for Work And Pensions has being doing the Government’s wet work for almost a decade so why would public passivity prevent that from being escalated. The one anarchist moment of the entire Royal Aphasia being over, Brenda returned to blinking platitudes – her default.
Brenda grimaced her best, most polite, oh really face for the announcement that the Internet would be shut down for being unkind to The Ruling Class. It is a look that is normally reserved for the dubbing of particularly vile individuals whose elevation to the Upper Chamber is cheaper than incarceration in Belmarsh. In total the speech contained no less than sixteen oh really faces and one, possible, no shit sherlock nods. Brenda, whose hat commentary is without rival, adopted the 1992 annus horribilis face both at the commencement and conclusion of her delivery of the Cabinet’s Resident Liemonger’sspeech. Significantly she was particularly close to an annus horibilis face during the announcement that the Debt for EducationLoan Shark Scheme will be extended to Kindergarten Students in the first quarter of this Session – this turned out to be regal flatus.
Brenda has never been the greatest supporter of Science but seemed vitally inspired, despite ennui, to employ the finger speech ofJohn Bulwer in order to communicate the simple sentence: “we will abolish the environment by 2021” which may well have been a message for Her Eldest In Line. The eye Morse Message, “told you Charlie” – was interpreted this way although her line of sight was towards the Chancellor of the Dutchy and not the Duke of the Dutchy. Implying an entirely different message. When reading the announcement that the Government will shout a lot about Science, Brenda lapsed into a pained expression. As a seasoned Corgi Breeder – and Corgi registered Boiler Installer – Brenda is aware that giving the Fox a head start before releasing the Local Tory Party Committee is not strictly conservation. Equally unimpressed at the notion that environmental standards would be established, Brenda Morse Blinked: “so that fines might be levied”.
As the Queen’s Aphasia drew to a close, the most damning comment came in the silent mouthing of the words“at least Mary Stuart had principles” while Morse Blinking: “A liar is no statesman and delivers nothing. This Election Speech was never delivered by him either.” All in all the rumoured absinthe, champagne and gin binge would seem a decent end to a Queen’s Speech delivered at a cost of £114,325 a second from the Monarch and £1.8Tr from the Bumpkins in the Downing Street Bunker.
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