Is there is no alternative to this shower? We put up with 20 years of Tory misrule, but have these so-called socialists done any better when we have the worst rate of low pay in Europe? When will they apologise for the Iraq debacle? Stop listening to the Daily Mail? Properly tax obscene City bonuses? Stop letting Tesco and their ilk take their taxfree profits offshore? Stop bailing out the banks at tax payers expense while they engage in their dodgy practices while running cap in hand to the government and taking their huge salaries and bonuses for failure? Start taxing Big Oil all they deserve while oil is at $120 a barrel? Stop using as a default that Big Business is good and only has the public benefit at heart (yeah right)? Stop taking advice from the fatcats while ignoring the Trades Unions? Engage with ordinary people? Actually act on behalf of the people that elect them? Allow public servants such as teachers and nurses to earn a decent wage? Stamp on all talk of a 3rd runway at Heathrow (T5? hahaha) before they have looked at constructing a high speed rail link to Heathrow and the rest of the country and Europe? Ensure housebuilders make every new home sustainable? Promote sustainable energy generation? Stop the obscene Arms Trade to war zones? Call time on the Israeli government and it's illegal collective punishment of Palestinians? Withdraw plans for ID cards? Defend the BBC? Shit on Murdoch and his non taxpaying activities and crummy newspapers and TV stations? *Rant continues ad infinitum. Add your own.
Will any alternative be any better? Certainly not if the Tories are elected. Londoners elected Boris Johnson? Are they sure? FFS. They are certainly having a laugh: they will pay for their stupidity. Can they really not see that their election is not a chance to have a pop at the government, but the election of a creep that will have a real and direct effect on their lives?
I really hate our political system, which seems to get us a government that acts in the interests of anyone except the people that elected them. We could live in Putin's Russia for this.
Italians elect fascists; the British elect people who act in the interests of big business. The Americans, ditto.It does lead one to wonder why we have elections if Governments are all in the pay of big business. It is like Fascism never went away (Dont forget Fascism is the bully boys running the state in cooperation with the corporations). Orwell wrote 1984 in 1946. Nothing changes. Governments manipulate their electoral systems for the benefit of the rulers, so it appears they are popular when they are nothing of the sort. There has never been a time when people have been allowed a free and fair vote, with full and fair information on what a government is for, so that even Daily Mail readers (and they deserve a vote, once the Mail starts telling the truth) can vote with a degree of knowledge and legitimate self interest that will result in a Government that acts on everyone's behalf. Time for change. Make it snappy. Rant over.
4 comments:
Good rant.
Jenny
Top rant.
Reminds me of the saying "Governments are never voted into power, only out."
In other words, we keep one 'til we can't stand any more, then we get another one.
Phew! I agree - I think!
Great post LH :-)
I've been a passionate exponent of local online government discussion forums being introduced in West Somerset for years and believe they would also work beneficially elsewhere and nationally.
Local online government discussion forums would at least enable 'ordinary people', many of whom are real experts in their own fields and not ordinary at all, to play a direct part in the forensic and factual discussion of alternative policies.
Of course, just having the forums is not enough, councillors must be willing to join in the discussions and the officers of the council must be willing to provide information that often appears currently to be kept under wraps.
Unfortunately, in my local area, my proposals have been received by a deafening silence. Frankly, I don't think enough people care about making the world a better place and are happier just taking their cut (through expenses, fees etc.).
Of course, talk doesn't get the job done but huge amounts of money are being spent on regeneration and, frankly, the benefits are very questionable.
Involving the cooperative intelligence of the general public in public policy decision-making might at least get the right decisions made and would counter balance the vested interest corporate lobbies.
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