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amphtaminedreams · 5 months

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General Elections & the Race to the Bottom Ft. Zionism, Transphobia, and a Shout Out to Shithead Starmer: Thoughts No.2 (it's Always & Forever, FCK THE TORIES)

I haven’t written about politics for a couple of years now I suppose because nothing, especially when it comes to the Conservatives, shocks me anymore. Anything I read about them in the news doesn’t elicit much beyond a “just as I thought, trash” kinda response. I disengaged with current events because I’ve felt defeated and like it’s all just beyond my control, like no amount of anger we express or hurt they cause seems to change anything. Even when enough of a scandal emerges that mainstream British media is forced to report on it, it seems to blow over soon enough. Don’t know if we forgive, but it seems like we definitely always forget, regardless of how vile the ethical transgressions are.

It speaks to my privilege that I’ve been able to tap out and passively hate the government; for a lot of vulnerable groups, the policies that I can sit here and criticise without consequence directly impacts them in ways that make day to day life unbearable. I’m not in that position. For sure, I’m struggling financially, and I have watched others (and myself in the past) be let down by NHS services repeatedly but like, these are circumstances I can endure because I’m not grasping at straws to survive as is the case for these groups. The increasing rate of climate change fills me with dread on a day to day basis but because the part of the world I live in is relatively untouched, this sense of detachedness allows me to delude myself into thinking that things can’t really be as bad as they seem and ya know, somebody might invent something in the meantime to reverse it. Up 'til now, it's the only thing that stops me from questioning what the point of anything is. This is possible only because I have the luxury of never being present to witness the place I’ve grown up in become inhabitable. I’ve never had to directly confront climate change in a way that is immediately threatening to my livelihood. So like I say, I am ridiculously privileged to be able to look at politicians like Rishi Sunak, Jacob Rees-Mogg, Priti Patel, and the rest of them, pushing us further away from commitments to slow climate change and do little beyond thinking of fucking course, what else would I expect from tight-fisted, near-sighted, arrogant and uncaring individuals as them and the rest of the upper class who all, I imagine believe that, when the time comes, they can pull a Kimberley Kardashian and hire their private firefighters, or hop on whatever new iteration there is of SpaceX a couple of decades from now, and escape from the carnage.

Anyway, going back to the point, I kinda came to the conclusion (yep, the one everyone has been screaming for years) that the entire political system in the West is kinda rigged:-)

Everything about it was making me angry. Joined the Labour Party under Corbyn, and within a few months of Starmer taking over, I left. The only sentiment I had post-Corbyn was a somewhat tepid belief that perhaps the Labour Party were the slightly lesser of 2 evils. Since then, this difference is so marginal, it is meaningless, which is no better summarised than by Keir Starmer’s refusal to condemn Israel’s actions despite their being in violation of international human rights laws against collective punishment, and moreover, DESPITE HIM BEING A FORMER HUMAN FUCKING RIGHTS LAWYER. This, along with his vocal agreement with Rishi Sunak’s public declaration of transphobia has all but confirmed his label as the “opposition” to the PM is redundant. I say this as if his contributions to both these issues are really not just the icing on the cake of his failure to hold the Conservatives responsible in any meaningful way since he was elected the Labour leader, which they 1000% are.

Where this has caused me to pretty much disengage with politics the last couple of years and instead become resigned to the declining state of the country, his outright agreement with some of the tremendously harmful stances Rishi Sunak has taken over the last month have me absolutely fucking FUMING. When the lines between the motivations of the 2 dominant political parties start to blur to this extent and the mainstream media does nothing but reinforce their ideologies, essentially nothing more than to preserve the wealth of the establishment, it starts to feel like we are heading towards what is, for all intents and purposes, a single party state. I’m sure when the next general election comes, Starmer will run a bullshit campaign on the promise of change, but so far his actions point to him being in favour of nothing of the sort. Who knows, maybe people are so sick and tired of life under the Conservatives that they will vote based on empty promises. If we can all be vocal in identifying the principles of the insidious playbook the majority of prominent politicians seem to ascribe to at present, however, and the harm and damage it does, maybe (don’t get me wrong, my hope that this will actually happen is minute) Labour MPs will realise that they need to do something fundamentally differently if they want to win an election. That means no more deflection away from the decisions politicians make to retain their status and privilege by targeting and villainising the groups that these decisions often directly threaten. IDK if it’s just that being in anorexia recovery has the cogs in my brain working efficiently enough to be able to see over the parapet of the obsessive food and body image trenches, and that this is what’s facilitating me feeling so repulsed by the stances our political leaders have taken over the last month, but regardless, something about this recent bullshit feels particularly morally reprehensible and like we all need to be talking about it. Wilful ignorance for the sake of wellbeing be damned because the normalisation of transphobia by the Prime Minister and leader of the opposition as well as their unequivocal support of the Israeli government’s ethnic cleansing in the name of “self-defence” is EVIL. Never has the complete disregard of intrinsic human rights and dignity, self-determination and quality of life for all in the name of greed, pride, and ego been so clear, and it feels wrong to be complacent. The 1% believe themselves to be the only people governing this country because their threshold for competent governance is not to create and maintain a system that preserves its citizens’ wellbeing indiscriminate of demographic, which is what a government is supposed to fucking do, but instead uphold their own privilege and frequently, unearned economic advantage of the in-group they belong to. They mistake the cycle of wealth they come from given this has been the reigning doctrine for the last 40 years (though on a smaller scale it has undoubtedly occurred since the beginning of time) as proof that they earned the responsibility of their jobs. So business as usual is the bar. The rest of us can fuck off.

But people are angry. A lot of people don’t know why they are angry, or the mental energy to know who they are angry at, they just know their money doesn’t go as far as it used to, the towns they live in are turning into shitholes, poverty is more visible than ever, and their lives are dominated by jobs which stagnated wages make increasingly soul-crushing as more and more businesses cut hours to either increase the profits of the 1% or because, especially if they belong to government funded civil services, their employers can no longer afford them. That’s why they’re angry. And let’s simplify that, because as much as the Tories like to blame it all on past governments, DESPITE being in power for 13 years now, here is a simple bit of cause and effect:

Effect: Fear of Job Security and the Lack of Viable Government Safety Nets

I think most people can agree that unemployment shouldn’t equate to starvation or homelessness. But hey! You are Sophie and the Tories Universal Credit system is here to give you the wonderful choice between one or the other. Aren’t they gracious?

Cause:

The rising cost of living in tandem with an increase in benefit sanctions, the 42 day delay in UC payment, and the decision to decrease benefits across the board means that more people than ever are finding themselves in rent arrears and using foodbanks to eat enough to survive. In recent days, the government have even planned on reforming the way that disability payments are made; the proposed new system would do away with requiring applicants to undergo an interview process (which many already report to be a distressing process where they are made to feel, despite already having provided legitimate evidence to support their claims, they must “prove” they are unwell enough to face obstacles in holding down a typical job) and instead oblige them to meet with a work coach who determines if they are “making enough effort” to find a job or else face sanctions.

To get down to the numbers:

As of November 2023, a single person receives just £83 per week in Universal Credit. This is intended to cover everything from food and transport to bills and basic household needs. This falls short of the £120 P/W the Trussell Trust calculated as the minimum amount required to cover these things.

85.5% of foodbank users reported they rely on Universal Credit for their income; the clear implication here is that as predicted, UC payments are not enough to cover even the most basic necessities (Trussell Trust, State of Hunger survey, 2019).

The number of people who do depend on food banks has reached unparalleled numbers in recent years, steadily increasing since 2010. To put this into perspective, the number of food packages handed out per year has increased from 60,000 in 2010 to 2.5 million in 2022 (Alex Collinson, the Tribune, 2022).

Between 2022 and 2023, the number of children in food poverty doubled, with an additional 4,000,000 children now falling beneath this line. This is unsurprising, given the rate of inflation on groceries has risen to a record high of 17.1% between 2022 and 2023. UC has not been increased to reflect this (Patrick Butler, the Guardian).

This is perhaps reflective of the fact that where only parents were using food banks before, with UC being enough to cover meals for the children if the parents sacrificed their own meals, this amount no longer even covers the nutritional requirements of a child.

So! What has changed so drastically since 2010? Crazy coincidence but that’s ALSO the year One Direction bestie David Cameron introduced the UC system as a replacement for the existing benefits system. All this to say that the government safety net, which one would think should provide the means for people to literally survive, doesn’t actually do that. Starvation tends to be a bit of a health and safety risk, babes, I would know xo

Bottom line, UC denies people access to things that should be basic human rights on the basis of what? That they don’t have a job? To quote Charlie Kelly:

Okay, assume an individual truly just can’t be fucked to get a job. Assume all jobs are fulfilling and meaningful and that the same can be said of the application process, that every job industry is a meritocracy where nepotism ceases to exist. Assume alll jobs, regardless of sklls required, pay enough on full time hours to have at least a little bit left to do a couple of nice things and treat yourself at the end of the month. Assume that we aren’t experiencing another of what we were told after 2008 would be a once in a lifetime economic recession. Assume that the majority of people who are on Jobseeker’s Allowance are not disabled and physically incapable of working (go out and get better! Lazy fucks! They say. Oh yes, hang on a minute whilst I go and put myself on the 2000 year long NHS waiting list to get the bare minimum course of treatment so I’m well enough to get a shit job which makes me too depressed to leave the house alllll over again). Does that mean they deserve to starve? Sleep in shop doorways when it's -2 degrees? And what about children of parents on UC? Do they deserve it to for the crime of being born to those “lazy fucks”? Because there are more children living in poverty in the UK than ever.

Lovely stuff:-)

Speaking of those beautiful waiting lists…

Effect: Collapse of the NHS:

-The number of people on waiting lists for non-urgent care has now bypassed 7,200,000. This refers to procedures like hip replacements, hernia repairs and cataract removal. Where the targeted referral period should be no longer than 18 weeks (a regulation that was introduced in 2004), as of 2023, 410,983 of this 720 million have been waiting over a year (Denis Campbell, the Guardian).

-The total number of excess deaths in 2022 was among the highest recorded since the aftermath of the Second World War, according to figures from the Continuous Mortality Investigation (CMI). In December 2022, the number of people who passed away in their homes rather than in hospital care was 40% higher than the 5 year average (bearing in mind this 5 year period includes the pandemic). Though this is argued to be “speculation” as we “don’t know how many people chose to die at home rather than in hospital and left it late to seek medical help for this reason” (lmao) this figure should be considered in the context of an increase in average wait times for category 2 ambulances from 18 minutes to over an hour. Category 2 ambulances refer to those dispatched to attend to patients in need of urgent care, suffering life threatening medical crises which include heart attack and stroke. So really. If we are honest about why more people than ever are dying at home, the answer is right there. The difference between waiting 18 minutes for an ambulance during a heart attack and over an hour is life or death. And in its current state, the outcome under NHS care is death.

-Even if you get to hospital, the roulette wheel of life or death don’t stop spinning under the Conservatives. Analysis by LCP Actuaries suggested that as many as 500 deaths a week could be caused by delays in A&E; in November 2022, the number of people who waited over 12 hours to be admitted to hospital after being seen in A&E was greater than the total number of people who waited over 12 hours to be admitted to hospital after being seen in A&E throughout the entire 9 year period between 2011 and 2020. This 500 per week figure is based on the LCP’s estimation from the data that for every 72 people waiting more than 12 hours to be admitted to hospital, one of those 72 will die in that waiting period compared to the 2010 average (Daniel Dunford for Sky News, January 2023). We can also assume that many who present at urgent care are there because non-urgent conditions have become urgent during the waiting period.

-Is it so fucking wild that being this overstretched, seeing more suffering and having even fewer recourses to cope with it than ever, NHS workers would want a pay rise? I mean, it’s pretty fucking fair to me. At the very least, I would like to think they deserve a pay rise that even if not accounting for the added burden they’re taking on at work, does account for rising cost of living to avoid a situation where, in real terms, they’re actually making less money than they were when the job was more manageable. But no! Below inflation pay increases mean that in real terms, NHS staff have been facing consistent cuts to their wages. To produce a few specific examples, paramedics’ real pay is down by £6,700 compared to 2010, nurses’ are down by £5,200 and maternity care assistants’ are down by £4,300 (TUC report, June 2022). So yeah! Clap for the NHS guys, says the government! Just don't fucking treat them with empathy and respect for doing one of the hardest jobs a person can possibly do by rewarding them in the material terms we quite clearly know from our own pay rises (which there is conveniently always enough money for) are what make an actual difference.

-All this has resulted in a record number of healthcare professionals leaving the profession as of October 2022 according to the Health Service Journal’s report. For anyone who doubts that, I hope this quote summarising the overwhelming responses of NHS staff when an internal survey was conducted puts your mind to rest: results show "40% of staff had felt unwell because of work-related stress, 21% wanted to quit the NHS, 78% experienced unrealistic time pressures and fewer than a third felt their organisation took firm action to improve staff wellbeing.” (Mark Britnell, the Guardian)

-Of course, the party play ignorant as to why on earth this might be (those selfish doctors and nurses, am I right?) in spite of workers making the answers to this question ridiculously clear, time and time again. When Jeremy Hunt attempted to pass a bill which may somewhat remedy the issue, and called for an independent commission of ministers to estimate the number of nurses and doctors that will be needed over the next 5-20 years and how this can be done, it was blocked by the majority of MPs (Polly Toynbee, the Guardian). Yeah, the opportunity for the government to fix this staff shortage they blame the entirety of the NHS’ problems on is apparently not enough of a problem for them to actually do something about it. Shocker! It suits them perfectly well to have a ready conveyer belt of scapegoats as I will go onto in a bit and when it comes to the NHS, which the average member of the British public will agree is falling apart regardless of political leaning, NHS employees are the ones to blame. BTW, do not take the Jeremy Hunt mention as a defence of him, lmao. He has very much earned the title his critics give him.

-This staff shortage is further contributed to by the large portion of the NHS workforce held up by immigrants to the UK (with frontline staff from 212 nationalities consistently working harder and longer considering the salaries they are paid, Dolin Bhagawati, the Independent) who have since left the country courtesy of the hostile environment created by the government. Honestly, who can fucking blame them when Conservatives have spent the last 10 years in the blaming them for, like, every problem ever? Be it the need for excessive benefits actions, council housing waiting lists, and job shortages over the past decade-nothing to see here, it's just those pesky immigrants! It is no surprise that when Brexit came around, and this carefully cultivated culture of xenophobia mixed with outright lies about just how much our membership of the EU was “bringing us down”, that the majority vote was to leave. The result of this was a slew of deportations, refusals of settled status and a voluntary exodus in the aftermath, with the NHS being badly hit. The most fucking audacious thing about all this is whilst continuing to oust them, whilst continuing to pretend immigrants drain the recourses of this country, the truth is the polar opposite: a study conducted by Oxford University in 2015, (a University which may I remind you all was attended by several top tory ministers themselves, from which one would reasonably assume they view as a reliable source of information unless they wish for us to question their own credentials:-) ) surveying 125 million patient records found that a 10 percentage-point increase in migrants leads to reduced waiting times of nine days for outpatient referrals, with no effect on waits for A&E or elective care.

-And in spite of all of this, the pleas from both employees and the public for the government to act, in real terms, are looking at yet more NHS funding cuts of £20 billion by 2024. If that isn’t enough of a reason to demand better, and understand that these people do not give a fuck about the lives of the average human being then I do not. Know. What. Is. This is the truth of the matter. They will claim otherwise with bold face lies. Remember how “40” new hospitals turned into 6? The maths ain’t maths-ing, and all that.

Cause:

Again, I ask, what has changed in the last 10 years to see this drastic reduction in the capabilities of the NHS? Why the refusal to do anything meaningful to solve the crisis? Drum roll, please! That’s it, it’s government policy! We’re talking annual NHS budget increases being slashed by over HALF the rate they were annually increased under Tony Blair, 3.6% a year under his administration to 1.5% under David Cameron. And why? If the response of the COVID crisis is anything to go by, the dismantling of the NHS to be sold off to the highest bidders and party donors, just as Jeremy Corbyn predicted a few years ago, is not a last resort but actually, the preferable outcome. Don’t even get me started about the mental health treatment crisis in the NHS. For real. That’s a whole new post in and of itself, from waiting lists that stretch to upwards of 6 months even for those experiencing a mental health crisis, less inpatient beds than ever, and the increasing number of professionals leaving the job.

Effect: Your hometown’s gotten GRIM

Funding for publicly accessible infrastructure is lower than ever. It’s not limited to the NHS either. This is despite a growing population. You could take my anecdotal evidence of how the police put me on hold like I’m on the phone to the fucking Ryanair refund devision when I called 999 from work the other day to attempt to get them to come to intervene in a quickly escalating altercation between one of the many crack addicts who steal from the store and the security guard, or how they’ve taken about 2-3 hours to arrive when I’ve had to call them to help with situations there before BUT as a fan of numbers myself, here are some to paint a clear picture of how and why all public sector services from the police force and the legal system, to local libraries, parks, state schools (guess where the money they so desperately need are being diverted to tehe) are all being similarly drained, i.e why everywhere outside central London is turning into a shithole.

Cause:

-Between 2010 and 2020, funding for public libraries reduced from £1 billion to £750,000,000. Unsurprisingly, this resulted in upwards of 700 libraries being forced to shut during this period. Some people may not see the significance of this but it can’t be understated how many depend on libraries to access services they can’t otherwise afford, whether it’s to support their education and level a playing field which increasingly demands students self-fund various elements of their curriculum or degree/qualification, use IT facilities to apply for jobs, pay bills etc. or even just to read to give themselves a bit of joy in life! Any one of these things could be vital to someone trying to grow and develop. How can we expect someone who’s recovering from addiction, and experiencing homelessness, or who is trying to rehabilitate themselves after a stint in prison, for example, to build themselves a fulfilling life if everything that gives the average person joy, and provides healthy and enriching social support, is kept behind a paywall?

-City councils, responsible for the management and maintenance of a multitude of areas and services (e.g. open green spaces, rubbish collection and recycling, parks, and leisure centres to name a few) throughout the region they cover, have faced real term reductions in government funding of £15 billion between 2010 and 2020. This has led to increases in council tax to plug this gap. Youth services, which are absolutely vital to ensure equal opportunities for young people going through arguably the most influential stage of their life, in terms for how they’re set up for the future, have been particularly badly hit. To illustrate the point, the YMCA reported in November 2022 that the government expenditure diverted to local authorities specifically for Youth Services has decreased in real terms from £1.48 billion in 2010 to £379m in 2020, which represents a decrease in funding of 74%.

-Education has faced huge cuts, £10 billion in real terms between 2010 and 2020, and it’s absolutely no fucking surprise whatsoever that schools in the most disadvantaged areas have been hit hardest; the Institute of Fiscal Studies reported a 14 per cent real-terms fall in spending per pupil between 2009/10 and 2019/20 for those studying at schools with the highest levels of deprivation compared with a 9 per cent drop for the least deprived schools (all figures from Sam Gelder for the Big issue). This translates to higher numbers of pupils per teacher, fewer teaching assistants, fewer recourses to support special educational needs, and outdated curriculums and technology, which has a knock on effect on pupils’ ability to deal with the demands of higher education and the workplace. The decreased quality of learning those already experiencing the effects of food poverty or falling through the social services nets which are intended to protect children from harm and uphold safe home environments fails young people in setting them up for the their future. I could go all psychology undergrad here and waffle on about the effects of growing up around parental stress as a result of financial strain, illness, absenteeism due to long work hours and necessary overtime just to provide for the family, and harmful gene-environment interactions, and how this has consistently shown to have statistically significant negative effects on long term outcomes but I think we all have enough anecdotal evidence to know that our relationships with our parents, the safety of our home environment, our leisure opportunities and all that jazz are massively influential in our life paths. Bearing in mind I went to a good state school and am generalising to those in a similar average, middle class neighbourhood, I think most of us knew people in school who weren’t necessarily suited to traditional ways of learning and assessment but worked their fucking arse off and wanted to learn, and have done well for themselves because of that. But imagine if you’re in a class where teachers are too overstretched to do anything other than recycle the same PowerPoints they’ve used for 10 years, have too many students to provide one to one support, and are practically inaudible amongst a bunch of noisy other kids who may see the opportunity to socialise as the highlight of their day if they have a crap home life. I have been in the situation where the teacher is genuinely giving a good lesson but cannot hold the room because there’s so much disruption on account of numbers and reciprocal distraction going on amongst classmates-that may be the nerdiest statement I’ve ever come out with but it genuinely used to make me sad seeing them properly try only for it to fall on deaf ears. When learning is taught in a way presuming one size fits all due to teachers deprived of the time or energy to be flexible and attentive, those who don’t learn in that very rigid way are bound to struggle. When we look at how all these factors borne of reduced government funding can accumulate to limit the ability of young people to succeed and get where they want to be in life, to be inspired and encouraged to learn regardless of external influences, falling GCSE and A-level results running parallel to funding cuts paint a clear picture of the claims of economic mobility for the "hard working" and this country being a "true meritocracy" by the Tories is a load of shite. Though it appears the attainment gap between private and public schools may actually be narrowing in recent years, the attainment gap over the last 20 years pertaining to the students from high-income households vs. low-income remains unchanged. This is best summarised by the following quote from the Institute for Fiscal Studies: “While GCSE attainment has been increasing over time, 16-year-olds who are eligible for free school meals are still around 27 percentage points less likely to earn good GCSEs than less disadvantaged peers.” (Sally Weale, the Guardian).

Effect: We’re all broke asf and it feels like we always will be

Rent, bills, fuel, groceries, pretty much everything is more expensive than ever, and for young people especially, it feels as though even the guarantee of a roof over our heads let alone owning property is tenuous. A recent survey Together Through This Crisis initiative revealed that nearly 40% of people end the month with no money left, while 24% run out of money for essentials either most months or most days. And yep, can confirm, at least on my end anyway. The Gym Group just slid into my text messages for the second month in a row to let me know my direct debit payment bounced and that I will consequently be charged an extra £15 admin fee when they attempt to charge me again in 10 days. Thankfully, payday will have come by then but given I haven’t been able to afford Christmas presents yet, I imagine it’ll be a similar situation next month. It probably doesn’t count as the kind of essential these kinds of surveys are talking about but anorexia recovery weight restoration (and then some) has me truly on the struggle bus and the gym is absolutely critical in getting me through that. Sure, I probably spend way too much on vaping too. All that being said, I have had to borrow money until payday to do my weekly food shop far more times than I'd like to this year. Fuck getting my eyelashes done or fixing my godawful roots or any vanity costs or anything like that being within budget rn. I’m trying to lean into being in my ugly era but honestly, it fucking sucks stressing about being able to afford day to day life, let alone thinking about spending money on stuff just for my own leisure or happiness. I work 30+ hours most weeks, which I don’t expect to let me live a life of luxury when it’s a retail line management job, but we’re understaffed AF, you rarely have time for a proper break in a 9 hour shift, and you’re running around like a headless chicken trying to get everything done the whole time. You’d think for the amount of stress the salary would at least cover the cheapest gym membership on offer but not in this economy fellas:-)

With that little self-indulgent ramble off my chest, let’s get back to the facts.

Cause:

Though the sharp increase in cost of living was arguably not necessarily intended, because ya know, like everyone is pissed about this, including the people who would overlook the other things to vote conservative, and they need the votes, it has been a long time coming given the way the Conservatives have 1). failed to plan for anything beyond coming out on top in their ongoing power struggles and 2). promoted corporate greed, for the last 10 years. The tories would like people to believe that they are prioritising the housing crisis, rising rent, inflation etc. because they want to honour the average person’s grievances but let’s be clear, their priority is and always has been the preservation of wealth within a certain subsection of society, and anything they do outside of that to address the issues this has created is damage control. Empty promises and inaction, essentially. This includes:

Failure to act on Legislation to Restore the Balance Between Tenants and Landlords: Whilst the waters are slightly murkier when it comes to capping rent increases by social housing landlords (caps on rent increases have been proposed but in real terms, this is going to make little difference given years of neglecting the issue of affordable housing by the Conservatives), private landlords continue to get away with whatever the hell they want, and yep, can personally vouch for that one too. The desperate attempt to paint over black mould that our landlord claimed had 0 to do with structural issues and allll to do with our “not heating the flat properly” (the multiple plumbing problems over the past 2 years, the numerous tins of identical solidified white paint previous tenants had brought stored in the outside cupboard, and evidence of previous coats of paint over the same area suggest otherwise but hey ho, don't you just love the burden of proof being on the tenant!) in our last few hours left in the place after the new proposed rental contract increased the monthly cost for my 2 flatmates and I by £150 each due to the “cost of living” and we had to move out, because he wouldn’t tell me how much he’d deduct from the deposit because of the problem…that was fun! I hope he really enjoys all the money he got from selling the property once we were gone. Hope that covers your cost of living, buddy:-) But anyway, it’s illustrative of a larger issue, where most of us are out of options, and have to just put up with this kind of thing, because the situation isn’t any better elsewhere. An early 2023 poll by YouGov indicated millions of private tenants in England were “stretched to breaking point”, with almost 2.5 million renters either behind or constantly struggling to pay rent, a number which had increased by 45% since April 2022.

Despite repeatedly claiming that restoring tenant rights was a key party objective, even including an end to Section 21 in their 2019 Manifesto and sparking a degree of backlash from Landlords in return, as of October 2023 the Conservative Government have further delayed legislation banning no-fault evictions. Coincidentally (so by absolutely no coincidences whatsoever), 68 sitting conservative MPs act as landlords for multiple properties, constituting 1/5 of their majority (John Stevens, the Mirror). This has been blamed on the need to clear court backlogs which have increasingly become an issue in the context of yet more funding cuts being faced throughout the criminal justice system.

On this note, it’s worth taking you on a little side quest here to give you this fun fact:

There is a backlog of 60,000 criminal court cases, with 75% of individuals under the care of the criminal justice system still awaiting sentencing (Catherine West for HamHigh, October 2023). I don’t state this for the sake of scaremongering and spreading a “more criminals than ever are running loose on your streets! Beware, feeble citizen!” Rhetoric because yes, whilst it is true there are a number of dangerous individuals who have not yet been prosecuted due to the collapsing criminal justice system (I’m not going to list all the reported cases of sexual predators who have fallen through the net of just sentencing due to this chaos and gone onto reoffend but they’re out there if you wish to read up on it for yourself), we have plenty of dangerous individuals also presiding over our country who will never see any kind of sentence not because of the justice system their complacency and greed has helped destroy but because they got cash moneys! The point in this is that prisons are intended to rehabilitate. There is a good chance that many repeat offenders would never have reoffended if prisons were fit for their intended purpose. Instead, given a lack of substantial wider investment, reform, and strain on court and community services to support rehabilitation post-imprisonment, the issue of severe overcrowding (which was reportedly the case in over 60% of UK prisons in 2015 according to a report published as part of a parliamentary inquiry) and staff resignations create an environment which is at best chaotic, and at worst, traumatising for all those incarcerated, reflected by incidences of self-harm and violence being higher than ever. This points to a system which operated in a way completely antithetical to the aim of aiding reintegration of offenders to their communities. Despite a pledge of £1.3 billion to create 10,000 new prison places by 2020, the Public Accounts Committee reported in September of that year that just 206 of these have been fulfilled. In fact, a £900 million maintenance backlog to Victorian era prisons results in a loss of 500 prison placements each year.

If the knock on the effect of the £18 billion cost by reoffending doesn’t summarise the complete lack of foresight on the part of Conservative ministers, I don’t know what does. You would think anyone with a single oxygenated brain cell would predict this being an outcome of court closures, reduced numbers of judges, police and local authority cut backs etc. etc. but nope! The solution is outsourcing incarceration overseas? Yep. Don’t let immigrants into the country but demand that the simultaneously most vulnerable and dangerous individuals, not uncommonly in that predicament because of a Conservative Party engineered absence of opportunities, guidance, and safety within their communities, become their problem. Sounds fair.

Anyway! To get back to the cost-of-living crisis, starting with:

-Housing: Despite demand for social housing increasing drastically over the last 10 years (homelessness reportedly doubled between 2010 and 2018, with a February 2023 report by the Metro revealing a 74% increase in rough sleeping since the Conservative Government took power), there are now 200,000 fewer council homes available than there were in 2010, and the building of new houses has fallen by 80% (John Healy, Labour Shadow Secretary of State for Housing). In efforts to meet targets set for the development of what constitutes “affordable housing”, this threshold was increased to include houses up to £450,000, at which price the corresponding deposits and mortgage payments are realistically within the budget of a fractional portion of first time buyers; consequently, 800,000 fewer households under 45 own their home than was reported in 2010.

-According to a report by the National Audit Office in 2019, not one of the 200,000 “starter homes” promised in 2015 by Conservative Ministers have been built. Instead, the £151 million set aside for this project has been used to buy and remediate land which has been sold to developers. In this context, it is no surprise that the number of households which fall under the privately rented sector have increased by over one million since 2010.

-Let’s talk about the BILLS too: Britiain has always been in a vulnerable spot when it comes to energy, with our domestic gas storage levels significantly lower than many other countries at comparative levels of economic development. Successive Conservative government ministers’ lack of impetus to invest in this, including their complete refusal to listen when existing structures began to fail and warn of further significant depletion to our energy supply, as well as their lackadaisical approach to developing a way of utilising efficient forms of renewable energy has left the country dependent on external global forces, without any back-up plan (where other European countries have internal energy stores to supply consumers for weeks if shipments were to be ceased, Britain has only 4 days worth; The Spectator, September 2021), whilst simultaneously allowing those who make their money through the exploitation of natural recourses to sit on ever-increasing mounds of wealth; the consumer, not those who have failed to focus on the shift away from processes which serve only to pollute or planet and adapt, is forced to take on the burden of maintaining the level of profit those with stakes in such companies have become accustomed to by subsidising the overheads with our money (Ed Miliband, the Independent). Of course the pandemic meant that energy was in short supply on a global level-the reason that average energy prices for US consumers has only doubled whilst it has increased almost fivefold here is because the government do not value any system in which they do not themselves stand to benefit, even if that is the source of immense hardship for the average British person.

-So what the hell are all our taxes going towards I hear you asking. Well, they’re footing the bill of the people who need financial relief least of all who themselves are making bigger profits than ever on the backs of the increasing number of British people whose quality of life has sharply declined, even to the extent that civil servants in full time employment, NHS employees ffs (again, who wouldn’t want to work there!!! What are those nurses THINKING), are accessing services established for those falling beneath the poverty line. They’re the fucking catalyst for this cost of living that is making people more dependent on increasingly non-existent public services than ever.

When I say this, I mean corporate profits are higher than ever, even after last few years of global events which have impacted on the prices of imports, exports, and consumer habits, all of which should suggest higher expenses and lower sales. Rather than take a small hit to corporate profits in order to absorb the additional expenses on trade with foreign entities, or raise the wages of workers to encourage household spending across the economic landscape, shareholders with management roles in their respective mega corporations have decided to raise prices of their goods. This is not just rhetoric; profit margins for the biggest British companies were 73% higher in 2021 on 2019, pre-Covid, even though sales had fallen (Owen Jones, the Guardian).

Consider Shell, a company directly responsible for the continued destruction of our eco-system, and their reported adjusted profits of $11.5bn during the second quarter of 2022, even as Russia’s invasion of Ukraine caused global energy markets to soar, and gas and electric prices for consumers in the UK increased by astronomical amounts (Jillian Ambrose, the Guardian).

Shell are a clear cut example of how big business owners, as well as the managers and directors who more often than not represent major shareholders, would rather consumers foot the bill of their own expenses and spread their household income even thinner, to fund the lifestyles they’ve become accustomed to as well as their reinvestments to facilitate the growth of even more wealth, rather than themselves take a minimally smaller chunk of the pie. This same approach is not taken when it comes to preserving the lifestyles of actual employees mind you, whose wages remain stagnated, declining in terms of the actual purchasing power afforded to these employees by their salary. This decision to preserve shareholder returns at any cost to the consumer is particularly insidious when we think about the businesses that monopolise industries specialising in goods completely necessary to decent quality of life and basic human necessities like Shell.

And where do the Conservatives come into this? Well, because where they shove austerity down the throat of the ordinary British person, tell us to reduce our spending, the same cannot be said for their instructions to corporate shareholders. Where our taxes have risen, the declaration that the surcharge on bank profits (i.e. the extra they pay in corporation tax) would be raised by 6% is no longer going ahead. The amount above which these banks must pay the surcharge has similarly been raised from £75,000,000 to £100,000,000. That’s an extra £25,000,000 they will no longer be taxed on (Taxscape, Deloitte, November 2023).

We are told that if we want to live in this country, we must pay our taxes to contribute to its smooth governance, even as these increase. They are told the exact opposite, despite their businesses not only residing here, but actually making coin off the country’s inhabitants. Individuals pay to be in this country, and when you look at the average person, the more we make, the more we have to pay. If you dare not to pay your taxes, or if you’re self-employed and misreport them in any way, you are a criminal. It seems the rule of make more, pay more, or be prosecuted for it, only applies up to a certain threshold.

If you are a mega-corporation, you are perfectly welcome to evade paying taxes. Whoops, did I say evade? I meant avoid, soz. Only I still don’t know exactly what the difference is apart from the latter being the label given to the activities of big business, legal on the basis they spend extortionate amounts of money for legal representation to poke holes in the famously holey regulations about these kinds of things.

The Conservatives have presided over a legal system filled with loopholes that practically encourage it, and have made the Britain a haven for tax avoidance. Deregulation of the financial market in the City of London means that what counts as tax avoidance vs. Evasion, illegally vs. simply immoral, is decided on a case-by-case basis (John Warren, Bella Caledonia), and as is previously established, what kind of a public court system do we even have right now anyway? Under a fair system where big business, and those who profit from it, are held to the same standard as the actual people living in this country, we could develop and implement solutions to an astonishing number of social ills. Instead, wealth is saturated further still at the top, and the financial burdens continue to pile on and are exacerbated for those at the bottom. UK Uncut’s estimates of lost tax revenue come to some £100 billion over four years-and the National Audit Office finding in 2007 was that a third of the UK’s biggest companies paid no tax at all in this country in the previous boom year.

I’m not arguing the City being used as a way to conduct business in overseas territories to avoid tax is a phenomena borne of the current government. What I’m saying is that where that might have flown without causing much damage to the British people prior to the 2008 financial crash, the subsequent increase in the national deficit to bail out the same companies which participate in this tax avoidance and whose activities were behind the global economic crisis has been framed as a burden the average individual has to now shoulder through the Conservative’s policy of “austerity” and the increased taxes and cost of living that come as a part of this. Meanwhile, the big businesses responsible for this financial crisis are allowed to continue as they always have despite their refusal to take responsibility for the crisis, and avoid being subject to the same austerity, due to the desire of many Conservative MPs to continue to benefit from these activities and retain the power afforded to them by donations from these companies. Take Lycamobile, the UK-headquartered international mobile virtual network operator, who have been in the news this week. We’re talking a company who gifted £2.15mn to the Tories between 2011 and 2016, according to the Electoral Commission database, without paying a penny of tax in this country since 2007. Unethical but based on technicalities, not illegal. The Paris criminal court, however, have just this past October convicted Lycamobile’s French corporate entities of committing fraud with respect to value added tax and money laundering (Lucy Fisher, Jim Pickard and Yasemin Craggs Mersinoglu in London and Leila Abboud and Sarah White in Paris, Financial Times, October 2023). Turns out in countries where firms like Lycamobile can be held accountable, they are. Sunak is being pressured to return donations, which I’m sure he would do if he stood for anything, and thus was suitably horrified by this revelation. Unsurprisingly, he hasn’t yet returned anything. Maybe he will to save face, who knows. What is for certain is that it was public knowledge that Lycamobile were doing what they could to avoid tax here for over a decade and concerns about financial fraud had already been raised in October 2015, and given the Conservative government had no problem with that if their acceptance of a £600,000 donation following this revelation is anything to go by, they likely would have had no problem with this if it hadn’t be called to international attention. In fact, reports that in 2017 HMRC rejected a request from French officials to raid Lycamobile’s London offices suggests that tax cheats are actively encouraged in their activities under the current government, which, well, we been knew. Conservative ministers like to talk a big game about challenging tax evasion, but the evidence, the leak of the Pandora Papers just to give one example (the largest ever such leak exposed the secret offshore holdings and finances of several wealthy donors to the Tory party), suggests otherwise. Whilst David Cameron promised the development of a register identifying people who own UK property through offshore companies, allll the way back in 2015 (David Conn, the Guardian), we’ve seen crickets on this front.

So yah. It’s the hypocrisy for me, the throwing of the people for whom the concept of government was formed under the proverbial bus, all whilst lying to our faces. This doesn’t stop at accepting donations from shadowy companies. Remember the reports about the land purchased under the guise of being designated for starter homes? Makes a lot more sense that it was sold off to developers when you consider that Anthony Bamford, who runs JC Bamford Excavators, the yellow digger company founded by his father, Joseph Cyril Bamford, was the fourth most important source of political party donations for any party in the 2019 election and the Tories’ top donor that year, according to a 2022 study by the University of Warwick.

They say that wealth is self-creating but the same is infinitely true of poverty. The inability to plan ahead, the short-term need to borrow money, the volatile environment financial stress creates for a household, it all contributes to long-term negative financial outlooks that outlast temporary financial difficulties on a national, global scale, without genuine, sincere efforts by the government to level the playing field. Whatever the Conservatives say about doing this to win votes, they rarely follow through-that they remain themselves part of the 1%, the elite, privileged circle they have gotten used to, requires they do not bite the hand that feeds them, instead that they lap it up eagerly, and ethics can get fucked. It has been established time and time again that a number of Conservative MPs themselves have stakes in businesses using offshore tax havens (Geoffrey Cox, the Independent). This points to the fact that they see their roles as nothing more than a means of preserving their own status, and that is the only thing of value to them when they are conducting themselves within the political sphere, rather than the pursuit of the intended goal of a representative system which is to serve the best interests of the people.

Human life does not factor into the equation, and consequently, neither do our interests if they do not serve the elite in some way. This is never clearer than in times of crisis: see the way contracts for emergency medical supplies were handed to tory donors left right and centre rather who wasted time analysing how to make a profit rather than actually respond to said emergency, and how lower-level employees at big businesses were forced to reopen doors far earlier than was safe to do so given the fears of redundancy, which reached an all time high during COVID. Had the government response (let us all remember Boris Johnson failed to attend several meetings designated to address the pandemic and simply advised us all to “wash our hands” prior to the rapid increase in case numbers but yeah, the shite response of the UK government to COVID really isn’t one I need to go over again) not been one of such incompetency, businesses may not have been forced to keep their doors closed as long as they did. The threat of losing their jobs during the pandemic lead to many British workers feeling overstretched and overworked: almost half (46 per cent) of those who began working remotely during lockdown reported feeling more pressure to be ‘present’ for their employer and colleagues, with more than a third (35 per cent) saying they had continued to work despite feeling unwell (Siobhan Palmer, People Management). The impact of this is still felt even as redundancy figures begin to drop off from their all-time high in 2020. According to data from employee review site Glassdoor, talk of layoffs and redundancies has increased by 185 per cent from March to June 2022 in employee reviews, indicating that it is top of mind for many individuals (Dan Cave, People Management). The cost of living crisis continues to see the threat of redundancy held over the heads of British workers. Increases in interest rates, energy prices, and National Insurance are reported to be behind the sentiment of upper-level management that redundancies may be necessary to combat profit losses: data from the Office for National Statistics shows the number of redundancies planned by businesses increased by 103 per cent between January and February of 2022. Unsurprisingly, 18% of employers, particularly those heading up big businesses (shocker) reported they were considering even more planned redundancies before March 2023 in June of the previous year (Damian Kelly, People Management). Given that the first quarter of 2023 saw the number of business closures top the number of businesses created by record amounts (Katharine Swindells, City Monitor), that unemployment overall increased by 274,000 between April and May this year isn’t wild but rather, a reasonable deduction. What is shocking is that this period saw the steepest rise in unemployment month on month since modern records began, according to separate figures from the Office for National Statistics (HR Magazine, Millicent Machell). Redundancy is a significant and pressing fear, and a lack of job security leaves more and more people feeling obligated to overextend themselves for employers to avoid such financial situations; a report from HR software Employment Hero, found 42% of those who want to quit cited redundancy rounds or headcount changes as their top reason. All the while, mega-corporations like Amazon, Microsoft and Meta (I.e Facebook) actually make profit for layoffs (Chad Brooks, business.com).

The precedent, that business executives will largely layoff low level employees before they lose profit, is firmly established. During COVID, however, the UK government agreed to relax rules against all expert advice rather than providing sufficient aid themselves. They hate listening to people who know better. We see that time and time again.

Now, despite factual accounts of innocent people being killed in their thousands in Gaza, Rishi Sunak continues to support Israel. It is a blatant violation of international law and flagrantly immoral. A majority of Israel’s supposed justifications to do with the Hamas attack have been debunked, not that the terrorist attack of a radical group, even if the situation were that simple (I ask exactly what gives the IDF and the armed settlers who have treated Palestinians with such cruelty in their own homelands for several decades now immunity from the terrorist label anyway) should automatically justify the genocide of the group they emerged from anyway. So why is Sunak in support of it, in spite of all logic? I imagine his wife's family owning a company partenered with BP, major dependents on Israel's go-ahead to drill for oil on Palestinian land has something to do with it.

I implied earlier that the Conservatives lack brain cells and that this is what drives their apparent lack of foresight, but their educations and credentials would argue against this, no matter the degree of privilege which helped them get there. What I suspect is actually the case, based on the evidence, is that their empathy for anyone not like them is so low, anything that appears to serve us is nothing more than political strategy, rather than an actual goal they are willing to exert themselves towards the fulfilment of. If anything else which appeals more to their self-interest intervenes in the half-arsed fulfilment of these speculative plans? Well, cya later public good. We’ll deal with the fallout later.

Now, herein lies the central issue, the repugnant display of their favoured tactics despite the consequences over the last month. The Conservatives, and the leader of the Labour Party, Keir Starmer, who has been willingly complicit throughout his entire tenure so as to appear not “too radical”, have pulled out that treasured old chestnut of the blame game to 1). Divert attention away from their own failures and moral transgressions and 2). Win the populist vote without making any real, meaningful changes (because they of course threaten their own positions).

Every now and again, the scapegoat is one of their own, and that, I welcome-Nadhim Zahawi, for example. But more often than not, the girlies at Westminster go for the lowest hanging fruit of some marginalised, broadly misunderstood group, pointing the finger at some facet of their identity that unites them as if they are not complex individuals but instead, a homogenous population, reduced to a dehumanised entity of opposition whose mere existence threatens the very thread of to the neurotypical, gender typical, etc. etc. prototypical British individual’s life. Like I said, we live in uncertain times, where an undercurrent of fear for the future brews at the back of most people’s minds. This exists because we see things getting worse and nothing being done about it right in front of our eyes. The tories, along with several other notable politicians across party lines, and the inaction borne from their selfishness, are at the root of this. But they don’t want to lose the positions providing them access to the recourses granting them further wealth and status. That is why they point the finger elsewhere. The way you feel is not because the country is a shitshow. It’s because change is coming, and you anticipate yourself being villainised for living the way of life you’ve become accustomed to, as well as the repercussions of that. The tories pose themselves as the solution to this, the ones who “stick to the facts”, who are the only buffer against this “woke madness” as if it’s some real, aggressive force which is going to come along and destroy your life. They appeal to the “WHAt HAppEned to FREe SpEEch?!” screechers, and fan the flames of that very valued argument. What happened to free speech? Nothing, fuckface, and that is exactly why I have to read your bullshit all over the internet and also why Rishi Sunak is allowed to stand behind a podium and say something as scientifically reductive and divisive as “we shouldn’t get bullied into believing that people can be any sex they want to be. They can’t, a man is a man and a woman is a woman. That’s just common sense.” with impunity.

Gender isn’t a "common sense” thing, Rishi Sunak knows that, and so do the politicians who spout the same rhetoric. I don’t doubt that transgender individuals, for them, symbolise their left-wing critics, ya know, the old “woke mob”. I don’t know the statistics on the political orientations of trans individuals in Britain-what I do know, is that if they do tend to largely associate with the left, it’s not because they wish to use the guise of political change to infiltrate the movement and establish a new world order where people are imprisoned for innocently misgendering, for being undereducated, and where sex offenders who transition to allow them to more easily abuse individuals of the sex they have transitioned to is permitted. And can we just acknowledge, on the record here, how utterly fucking ludicrous this last dogwhistle is. As if it’s a wide spread phenomenon like???? As if people commonly transition to commit sex crimes?? As if Rishi Sunak repeating this crap isn’t wildly hypocritical when his party’s underfunding of the criminal justice system has quite literally allowed actual sex offenders to go free and reoffend?? Please worry about them, not the unicorn cases of individuals transitioning for the purpose of sneaking into women’s toilets.

But yeah, the left is not some group of sexual predators who push the “trans issue” so that they can “get away” with their crimes. If it seems to be the case that trans or gender nonconforming individuals associate with the left, it’s probably because 1). Rishi Sunak is hardly the first Conservative MP to be transphobic, 2). this government continues to push back against legislation advancing trans rights, including their recent attempts to block Scotland's gender recognition law and 3). because the waiting list for gender affirming surgery is a million fucking years long as a result of the same conservative engineered NHS underfunding that hurts all of us. To be precise, here are the non-hyperbolic numbers:

The second longest average waiting times - after those at the Laurels Exeter Specialist Gender Identity Clinic in Devon (90 months) - were seen at the recently closed Tavistock gender clinic in London, at 54 months.

Even the lowest average wait at the Nottingham Centre for Transgender Health was 28 months.

(Clara Bullock, BBC News)

All trans individuals want is to be respected and treated with empathy, and to push the narrative they are “bullying” the majority into accepting pseudoscience whilst they are one of the most marginalised groups in this country, commonly the target of harmful legislation when the tories can actually be arsed to get off their money-hungry backsides and implement change, is vile. They want to look like they’re helping. So what they do is create a new, politically weaker group to target, and take fire, and let the public marvel at the spectacle of their missiles believing it represents their “strength”.

Keir Starmer is fully aware of the same tactics, btw, and capitalises upon it just as much, conducting himself in a way that those with a conscience will see as guided by complicity and cowardice. This solidifies to me he has little in the way of meaningful, implementable plans to fix the social issues catalysed and created by the tories. If he did, he wouldn't be so afraid to criticise them and be labelled as Corbyn reincarnate, directly aligning himself with the "woke left", because his policies would speak for themselves. He is counting on the vote from those dissatisfied with their life under the current Conservative government, who want to go back to the way things "used to be", and is complacent in achieving votes that way. That he refuses to take a stance against the evil bullshit that the tories facilitate speaks volumes about how much trust we should put in him to do the right thing.

To go back to the Palestine/Israel situation, because I know that is at the forefront of so many of our minds right now, the major figures in British parliament refusing to call for a ceasefire are not doing so because they are as stupid as to believe that what the Israeli government is doing is within reason. All they are doing is doubling down on the version of events which villainises all Palestinian people as harbouring a terrorist group hellbent on taking over not just Israel, but the world, against which Netanyahu and his government are acting out of necessity to be the moral buffer protecting us all, because that’s the only version of events that would supposedly justify their actions. In reality, it’s an attempt by our government leaders to wash their hands of their own complicity of these crimes, because they themselves are benefitting from them.

Realistically, Hamas are the inevitable product of the Israeli government’s view of the Palestinian people as a subhuman group who will take mistreatment within, and displacement from, their own homeland, but the truth is, Hamas represent to Israel a threat to the delusion of Palestinians being a dehumanised population who are just a problem they can slowly eradicate. Not one to miss making lemonade from lemons, they have become an opportunity to twist the reality into something justifying the more aggressive, but faster, and easier solution of genocide, so grotesquely as to overshadow the very basic fact that their actions right now, even in a vacuum which ignores the immorality of their expansion over the past half century, contravenes international law forbidding collective punishment. Criticise it, and it’s antisemitism, because what they are doing is “for the Jewish people” in spite of the harm they are themselves subjecting normal, everyday Jewish people to, by perpetuating the falsehood that this is something they all condone purely because they are Jewish. Again, this is something our government leaders are complicit in. Yet, again, when peaceful protest occurs against the slaughter in Gaza, Conservative politicians point fingers at protestors and paint them as the antisemitic mob.

Rishi Sunak, Keir Starmer, every politician sitting in UK parliament who refuses to acknowledge this, points to what should be clear from the Conservative Party’s actions, and in Starmer’s case, his complacency with these moves, which is that they think 1). The majority of the British public are a bunch of fucking idiots and 2). Their entitlement to their positions affords them a sense of invincibility. They would not be repeating this bullshit narrative with their chest if they had any respect for any of us or believed that the dominant sources of information we have access to would ever hold them accountable. And the actions resulting from this belief of theirs have consequences more devastating than ever. They have 0 empathy, and it is for that reason that we can never trust or depend on them. TO REPEAT, these are the people egging on the Israeli government’s genocide of the Palestinian people. These are the people who refuse to call for a ceasefire when the death toll since October 7th now exceeds 11,000 (Nidal Al-Mughrabi and Maytaal Angel, Reuters, November 2023).

There is a general election coming up before 2025 and as the Tories become more and more extreme in their efforts to distract, with more harmful consequences than ever, we really have to do our research, talk to everyone we know about our local candidates, get involved with our local party groups if we can, speak up. I don’t necessarily think it’s a case of the lesser of two evils anymore on a national level-when it comes down to who ends up as our “Prime Minister” and the cabinet, it can feel like a game played by the upper echelons grappling for the ultimate ego boost. Look at the year we’ve had. As much as I’d like to say to anyone who voted Conservative primarily for Boris Johnson, you deserve this chaos for making such a garbage decision in the first place, you probably didn’t think you’d end the year with Rishi Sunak in charge of the country, and David Cameron, who wasn’t even bloody elected, by his side. It’s easy to feel hopeless, 1000%, when who’s in control of the country appears to be a matter so far removed from everyday people but it’s important not to forget elections are about more than just who ends up being PM, which if anything is a distraction to reduce the complex matter of representation and lawmaking down to a binary situation. Mainstream media are all game for an oversimplification of the choice we have because it makes developing straw-man arguments to push their favoured narrative even easier.

Local representation, which is what it becomes easy to forget we're actually voting for in a general election, still offers a way to exert some degree of influence over policy in parliament. I don’t like Keir Starmer but that doesn’t mean I’m against people voting for their Labour MP if their voting record is sound; the resistance of a number of party members to Starmer’s line on Palestine, which went so far as to him vowing to sack any of his shadow ministers that go against the whip, perhaps shows that not all hope is lost, and that there are still some good eggs out there. In that same vein, this has really driven home that you can’t assume party line/ethos will translate to actual policy; though if you’d asked me a few years ago, I'd have probably assumed most Labour MPs would vote for a ceasefire, this truly wasn’t the case.

I wished that when the vote to call for a ceasefire happened yesterday, more of them would’ve been heard, even though the ceasefire is really the very least that can be done for the people in Gaza after all of this. In case you missed it, here are the list of MPs who defied the whip and showed some human decency, including several who have lost their place in Keir Starmer’s shade cabinet as a result:

Diane Abbott (Independent - Hackney North and Stoke Newington)

Tahir Ali (Labour - Birmingham, Hall Green)

Rosena Allin-Khan (Labour - Tooting)

Hannah Bardell (Scottish National Party - Livingston)

Paula Barker (Labour - Liverpool, Wavertree)

Apsana Begum (Labour - Poplar and Limehouse)

Clive Betts (Labour - Sheffield South East)

Mhairi Black (Scottish National Party - Paisley and Renfrewshire South)

Paul Blomfield (Labour - Sheffield Central)

Steven Bonnar (Scottish National Party - Coatbridge, Chryston and Bellshill)

Deidre Brock (Scottish National Party - Edinburgh North and Leith)

Alan Brown (Scottish National Party - Kilmarnock and Loudoun)

Karen Buck (Labour - Westminster North)

Richard Burgon (Labour - Leeds East)

Dawn Butler (Labour - Brent Central)

Ian Byrne (Labour - Liverpool, West Derby)

Liam Byrne (Labour - Birmingham, Hodge Hill)

Amy Callaghan (Scottish National Party - East Dunbartonshire) (Proxy vote cast by Marion Fellows)

Dan Carden (Labour - Liverpool, Walton)

Alistair Carmichael (Liberal Democrat - Orkney and Shetland)

Wendy Chamberlain (Liberal Democrat - North East Fife)

Sarah Champion (Labour - Rotherham)

Douglas Chapman (Scottish National Party - Dunfermline and West Fife)

Joanna Cherry (Scottish National Party - Edinburgh South West)

Daisy Cooper (Liberal Democrat - St Albans)

Jeremy Corbyn (Independent - Islington North)

Ronnie Cowan (Scottish National Party - Inverclyde)

Angela Crawley (Scottish National Party - Lanark and Hamilton East)

Stella Creasy (Labour - Walthamstow)

Jon Cruddas (Labour - Dagenham and Rainham)

Judith Cummins (Labour - Bradford South)

Ed Davey (Liberal Democrat - Kingston and Surbiton)

Martyn Day (Scottish National Party - Linlithgow and East Falkirk)

Marsha De Cordova (Labour - Battersea)

Martin Docherty-Hughes (Scottish National Party - West Dunbartonshire)

Allan Dorans (Scottish National Party - Ayr, Carrick and Cumnock) (Proxy vote cast by Marion Fellows)

Peter Dowd (Labour - Bootle)

Sarah Dyke (Liberal Democrat - Somerton and Frome)

Colum Eastwood (Social Democratic & Labour Party - Foyle)

Jonathan Edwards (Independent - Carmarthen East and Dinefwr)

Julie Elliott (Labour - Sunderland Central)

Tim Farron (Liberal Democrat - Westmorland and Lonsdale)

Stephen Farry (Alliance - North Down)

Marion Fellows (Scottish National Party - Motherwell and Wishaw)

Stephen Flynn (Scottish National Party - Aberdeen South)

Richard Foord (Liberal Democrat - Tiverton and Honiton)

Mary Kelly Foy (Labour - City of Durham)

Barry Gardiner (Labour - Brent North)

Patricia Gibson (Scottish National Party - North Ayrshire and Arran)

Patrick Grady (Scottish National Party - Glasgow North)

Peter Grant (Scottish National Party - Glenrothes)

Sarah Green (Liberal Democrat - Chesham and Amersham)

Margaret Greenwood (Labour - Wirral West)

Fabian Hamilton (Labour - Leeds North East)

Claire Hanna (Social Democratic & Labour Party - Belfast South)

Neale Hanvey (Alba Party - Kirkcaldy and Cowdenbeath)

Drew Hendry (Scottish National Party - Inverness, Nairn, Badenoch and Strathspey)

Wera Hobhouse (Liberal Democrat - Bath)

Kate Hollern (Labour - Blackburn)

Rachel Hopkins (Labour - Luton South)

Stewart Hosie (Scottish National Party - Dundee East)

Rupa Huq (Labour - Ealing Central and Acton)

Imran Hussain (Labour - Bradford East)

Christine Jardine (Liberal Democrat - Edinburgh West)

Afzal Khan (Labour - Manchester, Gorton)

Ben Lake (Plaid Cymru - Ceredigion)

Ian Lavery (Labour - Wansbeck)

Chris Law (Scottish National Party - Dundee West)

Emma Lewell-Buck (Labour - South Shields)

Clive Lewis (Labour - Norwich South)

David Linden (Scottish National Party - Glasgow East)

Rebecca Long Bailey (Labour - Salford and Eccles)

Caroline Lucas (Green Party - Brighton, Pavilion)

Kenny MacAskill (Alba Party - East Lothian)

Angus Brendan MacNeil (Independent - Na h-Eileanan an Iar)

Khalid Mahmood (Labour - Birmingham, Perry Barr)

Rachael Maskell (Labour - York Central)

Andy McDonald (Independent - Middlesbrough)

Stewart Malcolm McDonald (Scottish National Party - Glasgow South)

Stuart C McDonald (Scottish National Party - Cumbernauld, Kilsyth and Kirkintilloch East)

John McDonnell (Labour - Hayes and Harlington)

Conor McGinn (Independent - St Helens North)

Anne McLaughlin (Scottish National Party - Glasgow North East)

John McNally (Scottish National Party - Falkirk)

Ian Mearns (Labour - Gateshead)

Carol Monaghan (Scottish National Party - Glasgow North West)

Layla Moran (Liberal Democrat - Oxford West and Abingdon)

Helen Morgan (Liberal Democrat - North Shropshire)

Grahame Morris (Labour - Easington)

John Nicolson (Scottish National Party - Ochil and South Perthshire) (Proxy vote cast by Marion Fellows)

Brendan O’Hara (Scottish National Party - Argyll and Bute)

Sarah Olney (Liberal Democrat - Richmond Park)

Kate Osamor (Labour - Edmonton)

Kate Osborne (Labour - Jarrow)

Kirsten Oswald (Scottish National Party - East Renfrewshire)

Sarah Owen (Labour - Luton North)

Jess Phillips (Labour - Birmingham, Yardley)

Anum Qaisar (Scottish National Party - Airdrie and Shotts)

Yasmin Qureshi (Labour - Bolton South East)

Bell Ribeiro-Addy (Labour - Streatham)

Lloyd Russell-Moyle (Labour - Brighton, Kemptown)

Liz Saville Roberts (Plaid Cymru - Dwyfor Meirionnydd)

Naz Shah (Labour - Bradford West)

Andy Slaughter (Labour - Hammersmith)

Alyn Smith (Scottish National Party - Stirling)

Cat Smith (Labour - Lancaster and Fleetwood)

Alex Sobel (Labour - Leeds North West)

Chris Stephens (Scottish National Party - Glasgow South West)

Jamie Stone (Liberal Democrat - Caithness, Sutherland and Easter Ross)

Zarah Sultana (Labour - Coventry South)

Sam Tarry (Labour - Ilford South)

Alison Thewliss (Scottish National Party - Glasgow Central)

Owen Thompson (Scottish National Party - Midlothian)

Richard Thomson (Scottish National Party - Gordon)

Stephen Timms (Labour - East Ham)

Jon Trickett (Labour - Hemsworth)

Valerie Vaz (Labour - Walsall South)

Claudia Webbe (Independent - Leicester East)

Philippa Whitford (Scottish National Party - Central Ayrshire) (Proxy vote cast by Marion Fellows)

Nadia Whittome (Labour - Nottingham East)

Hywel Williams (Plaid Cymru - Arfon)

Munira Wilson (Liberal Democrat - Twickenham)

Beth Winter (Labour - Cynon Valley)

Pete Wishart (Scottish National Party - Perth and North Perthshire)

Mohammad Yasin (Labour - Bedford)

As for the rest of them, I don’t understand where on earth their humanity is gone. I know I’m not alone in thinking there is 0 justification, EVER, for murdering thousands of innocent people, fucking CHILDREN!! Day after day after day. It makes me feel sick that there are sitting MPs who are so devoid of a conscience. It is properly just horrific. They are fucking dangerous and should be far FAR FAR away from government.

This country needs to be run for its PEOPLE. There is more than enough money out there to make sure everyone has at the very least the bare necessities of survival, and politicians need to stop throwing vulnerable people like lambs to the slaughter to distract from this truth. We need to elect representatives with real principles, who are against the continuation of the status quo, which is to encourage greed and the belief that the greediest of us are above the rules. That’s why they end up with such detachedness from real every day people, and this comes at the cost of adapting the government safety nets to be appropriate for the current economic climate, and on a bigger scale, failing to tackle the most important issue 99% of the fucking human race should be concerned by. The emergence of an “anti-green” group amongst MPs has undoubtedly influenced Rishi Sunak’s rhetoric on the “cost” of net-zero. Anyone listening to this and nodding their heads in agreement, firstly please refer to how our refusal to invest in renewable energy is hurting us, and secondly, listen to me when an fucking BEG you remember that money won’t matter when viruses completely alien to the modern human body make their way into the water cycle because rising sea temperatures are melting the glaciers they’ve been trapped in for thousands of years:)

These people are literally willing to let the world burn as long as it lines their pockets with the knowledge they’re sitting pretty. Whilst the rich get richer, in spite of the rest of us being told to cut down, the poor stay exactly where they are, and many suffer completely needlessly. There are a shit tonne of British politicians who don’t want us to notice that this is their best case scenario, and that it’s all by their design. But we need to let them know we do and that they are just as human as us. In the spirit of the new Hunger Games sequel film, with Hunter Schafer’s Schiaparelli red carpet look on my mind, I end this post with the words of Katniss Everdeen:

If we burn, you burn with us babes xoxo

Even if it's just your pathetic, hollow career in politics, and the expense of those GARGANTUAN egos:-)

#rant over #fuck the tories #british politics #general election #thoughts #trans rights #save the nhs #free palestine #cost of living

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