We used to call it ‘Fash fatigue’

I haven’t written here for a while. There are a few reasons for that…

Family health problems always take priority and there’s been a fair bit of that to deal with of late.

I’ve been building up my online business via http://www.TamTalking.co.uk and http://www.MindTheCareTraining.com so I can stay around to help out with family problems once the world opens up again.

Fash fatigue. Everywhere I look this government is continuing to drive UK to Hell in a hand basket and newly emboldened fash are crawling out from beneath their rocks in support.

As if my family stuff wasn’t enough, I’m genuinely overwhelmed with all the hardship I see and the government corruption that exacerbates it. So I’ve been quiet.

But I haven’t gone away. I’m still taking notes and the mission of Left eye view remains – to show up this government for what it really is in time for the next election.

I’ll be back.

The NHS: Brits taking back control

I released a longer video some time ago in which I talked about international trade talks, the NHS  and in particular US trade talks and the practice of negative listing. That’s the idea that unless something is specifically listed as ‘off the table’ in trade negotiations it most definitely is to be considered ‘on the table’.

This week our conservative majority government, including my own MP, Mark Jenkinson voted not to protect the NHS in this way. They could have made it illegal to sell the health service in whole or in part to foreign concerns out to make a fast profit from our taxes but they didn’t. They actively chose to keep our national health service vulnerable to predatory private health providers.

Ah, you might reply, but at least it’s a British decision from the British parliament made via British sovereignty.
But you’d be wrong.

You see, they also voted to extend their own impotence. Tory MPs, including my own, voted once again to ensure that the government doesn’t need the approval of parliament to make far-reaching changes to our constitution, to our system of government, to our democracy and to the institutions of state.

If your MP is not a cabinet minister then you have no representation in parliament because the tory MPs used their majority to give it all away.

How’s that for taking back control?

A little graph

If you’re one of those people who thinks Boris & co have handled Covid-19 well, have a look at this. Bear in mind that we’ve known about this for months, since well before we had our first cases here in UK. While the rest of the world, including Italy and even the World Health Organisation were telling us to prepare, Boris was advocating we just ‘take the hit’.

This Financial Times graph isn’t ‘real time’. It’s been adjusted to track each country’s progress since they reached 3 deaths per day. That means we’re all assessed on an equal footing – equal until you realise how much more warning the UK had than some other countries. Of course other countries did have a couple of distinct advantages…

Their health services hadn’t been crippled by 10 years of Tory underfunding. Our NHS went into this crisis with fewer beds than we had when the service began in 1948 due to conservative savagery. The tories opposed and argued against the creation of the NHS in the 1940s and they oppose it now, they just won’t admit it so openly in 2020.

Their political leaders didn’t see Covid-19 as an excuse to reduce the welfare bill by getting rid of their ‘useless eaters’.

In the 24 hours since this graph was produced the UK has overtaken even Italy. Do you still think Boris is handling things well?

Nurses aren’t heroes!

It’s lovely that you think we’re heroic and all that but it’s just not true. We’re working people like any other doing the best we can in extremely difficult circumstances. Like everyone else we’re doing the jobs we’re good at. Personally I’d be a rubbish plumber but I am pretty decent as a mental health nurse. Provided, of course, I’ve got enough equipment to do what I need to do safely.

If you’d really like to do something to support nurses and all the rest of the staff who are keeping Britain as healthy as we can in these difficult circumstances, there is something you can do, something that is far more powerful and long-lasting than applauding on Thursday evenings…

Jenky MP: Promises versus reality

JenkyMark Jenkinson MP entered the House of commons as Member of Parliament for Workington on 13th December 2019. He cruised to victory in the 2019 General election, partly because of Brexit and partly on the back of promises and pledges he made. Promises which have been saved for posterity in his election address. Promises which we can refer to when assessing his honesty. Promises which provide a framework to determine just how much he really cares about the circumstances of those people who elected him.

So what were these promises? According to Jenky’s printed election address he was going to…
Support our NHS
Invest in schools
Increase police and support tougher sentencing
Support businesses and jobs
Improve infrastructure
Support town centres

FB_IMG_1573195407980.jpg

To date Jenky has not voted against the government even once. This seems remarkable enough in itself for anyone who claims to have integrity. The work of this callous government seems so far removed from that of decent, caring human beings that opposition is a duty, not just a choice.

Mark Jenkinson_1We’ve already noted that Jenky voted against the rights of working people – hardly a positive move on behalf of a working class community like ours.

We know that he voted to abandon unaccompanied refugee children – one of the most callous decisions British politics has seen for decades.

19530663_303.jpgWe know that he, along with every other Tory MP, voted to disempower the House of Commons and remove the HoC’s right to scrutinise government proposals. This was the first move in Boris’ increasing journey toward Dictatorship.

Now let’s see what else he’s been up to since he entered Parliament. Use these two links to confirm all that follows…

Public whip

They work for you

On the NHS and Social care

It’s no secret that there is a funding crisis in health and social care, largely as a result of Tory and Liberal Democrat underfunding since 2010. Jenky and his tory mates had the chance to vote to change all that by voting to provide adequate funding – funding that currently goes to the most wealthy in tax cuts. Given Jenky’s commitment to support the NHS you’d have thought he’d be happy to be one of the people supporting this motion. Alas, no. On January 16th he voted to deny both services the basic funding they would need to start to rebuild their efficiency. So much for that promise.

Boris party of the NHS

Not only that, on Feb 4th 2020 he voted to scrap government responsibility for targets and monitoring and to prevent further funds being made available to the Health Service. He even voted to let the Health secretary avoid making an annual statement on health funding. That should help hide the Tory party’s appalling under-funding of the NHS from here on in, shouldn’t it?

On police

Police passing out paradeIt was January 29th when Jenky voted to refuse the extra funding necessary to fulfil his pledges about more and better policing. Remember that this is the guy who said the Government’s majority meant they could do everything they want to – and he was right. So why won’t they do what they promised to? Could it be because they didn’t mean it? Could it be that Jenky’s own voting record shows that he doesn’t care about honouring his pledges to his electorate either?

On rights

On January 8th Jenky voted against maintaining protections for working people post Brexit. This is interesting because during the election campaign he stated categorically that EU standards for working peoples’ rights were merely a minimum (which is true), that UK rights provisions exceed them and there is no plan to reduce that provision of rights for workers. Why then did he vote to detach us from the minimum that we apparently plan to exceed anyway? Could it be that there really is a plan to reduce our rights still further? After all, that would be in keeping with the erosion of rights that has already been the hallmark of Tory policy for a decade.

Human rights

On January 20th Jenky voted against reversing austerity and against clamping down on tax avoidance. On the same day he voted against measures intended to extend full employment rights to all workers, to end in-work poverty and to introduce a real living wage. It’s almost as though he doesn’t care about working class communities or the ‘Workington man’ who voted for him.

On homelessness

Jenky voted against providing the relatively small amount of money needed to end homelessness, a problem that has grown several-fold under the Tories throughout the last 10 years of ideologically driven austerity.

Two weeks later he had the audacity to ask a question in the house about help for veterans, a group disproportionately affected by the very homelessness that he refused to eradicate.

This is the hypocrisy of Mark Jenkinson MP.

A grim future

Jenky and all the other newly elected Tory MPs who now represent the former ‘Red wall’ constituencies may well have been elected on the back of a Brexit promise but British politics is and always has been about much more than just one, single issue. Similar articles (indeed almost exactly the same article) could be written about them all – so slavishly do they tow the party line.

Together they are destroying the working class communities of Britain.
They are destroying the communities they claim to represent.
They are destroying the livelihoods of the voters who trusted them.

New tory MPs 2019

It was bad before but it’s even worse now. Boris’ huge majority in the house means he can get away with anything he wants to – or rather his handler, Dominic Cummings can. There’s nothing we can do about that for the moment though – the die is cast and we’ll just have to hang on and weather the ideological storm – a storm that will make Thatcher’s 1980s look like a walk in the park.

So please remember these betrayals, remember the voting records of hypocrites like Jenky and let’s kick them out in 2024.

Let’s take our democracy back from these hypocritical liars and con artists!

A little history: Jesus of Nazareth

Jesus crucifiedThe Nazarene (0-33) seems to have been an extreme lefty by today’s measures. He preached against greed (many of his followers conveniently ignore that bit) and recommended compassion instead. He even got a bit ‘fighty’ with the capitalist pigs in the Temple grounds.

Like other socialists, he was especially unhappy with the usurers (like modern day bankers) whom he described as ‘thieves’. These were the money changers, the guys who took normal money in exchange for unsullied ‘Temple coin’ that could be used to purchase sacrificial lambs at Passover. The money-changers charged exorbitant rates – a bit like Wonga (which is linked to the Tory party, by the way) and so profited from the obligatory observance of the faithful. Jesus seems to have had a point there.

Jesus apparently hated inequality. He was the guy who said that it is easier for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the Kingdom of Heaven. He lived among the poor, helped the sick and the disabled and eschewed the tables of the wealthy whose oppressive ways simply maintained the suffering of their fellows.

Like many others before and since from Confucius, the Buddha and Lao Tzu to a host of Gurus and philosophers he recommended living by the Golden rule – Do unto others as you would have them do unto you.

That’s why he fed those who were hungry and advocated help for the sick and those without shelter, the direct opposite of this present government’s actions. The tories have spent the last 10 years increasing homelessness, forcing people to use foodbanks to survive and denying sick and disabled people the resources they need. They’re even starving the NHS of funding in preparation for selling it off to private enterprise as a way of increasing personal profit through the suffering of others.

It’s amazing how many Tories profess to be Christians and yet ignore almost everything their Messiah said.

As Archbishop Desmond Tutu once remarked…

“I am confused as to which Bible people are reading when they suggest that religion and politics don’t mix!”

To those non-religious Tories and others and others who either support oppressive Tory ideology or stand idly by and look the other way, the good Archbishop had this to say…

“When the Elephant stands on the mouse’s tail, the mouse will not appreciate your neutrality”

Welcome to the Twenties

It’s 2020! Welcome to the Twenties!

What a decade it’s been. We began 2010 in the throes of recession thanks to a global recession that began in 2008 with the American sub-prime mortgage and investment fiasco and quickly spread across the globe. By 2010 our economy here in UK  had suffered massive damage but we had a working welfare state to protect our citizens from the worst of the crisis.

Then, in May of 2010 the real British catastrophe began, The ConDem government introduced austerity and so began a decade long process of starving our social safety net of funds while throwing massive tax cuts at the wealthy. Ten years on and our vital services are almost unrecognisable, they’re so depleted by years of Tory and LibDem cuts and back door privatisation. And now, in the closing weeks of 2019 a new disaster has begun to bite.

Boris Johnson has such a huge parliamentary majority that he can do whatever he wants and make no mistake, he will. He’s already made it clear that he plans to ‘review’ the relationship between the government, parliament and the judiciary in such a way that he and his ministers will be able to rewrite any law they choose without recourse to anyone – not even the law. Privatisation of the NHS is increasing quickly now and manifesto promises about minimum wage rises and working peoples’ rights are already being fudged. The new decade looks set to be a whole lot worse than the one we’ve just left.

If this nation is to survive the next ten years and still retain even a modicum of decency, if we are to maintain anything close to the social safety net we have taken for granted for so many years we  need to come together as one. We need to put the differences of the last few years aside, forget the petty prejudices and paranoia centering around race, religion, country of origin or social status and work together for the good of the whole community.

Many of us are working hard to do just that. Join us – help keep UK society together until the storm of this far right government is over. It’s a storm we need to face together or few of us will survive it at all.

Stand up. Be counted. It’s a duty!

I may be unusual but I’m convinced that it’s a duty owed to my society to stand against injustice. It’s not enough quietly to disengage from abusers, to say nothing in the face of racism or to walk away from the impoverishment of our neighbours.

Perhaps Desmond Tutu put it best…

“If you are neutral when the elephant stands on the mouse’s tail, the mouse will not appreciate your neutrality.”

Stand up. Be counted. It’s a duty!

‘Twas the morning of Christmas

Twas the morning of Christmas

And all through the house

Not a creature was stirring

Not even a mouse.

The members were missing,

Backbenchers and front

Even dear Boris

At Thame in the country (with Carrie his soon to be spouse).

The front benches were empty:

Tories flew off like bats

To their fat Christmas turkeys

The selfish tw rats.

And in towns that were labour

Until Boris lied

Rough sleepers lay shivering

As hungry kids cried.

But the Tories don’t care

About other peoples’ pain

Their only real interest

Is personal gain.

They could have done so much

For kids, mams and dads

But they only care for

The Bullingdon lads:

The lovers of pigs heads;

The trashers of bars;

The fifty quid burners;

And crashers of cars.

Twas the morning of Christmas

And all through the house

Tory MPs ignored

All those poor as a mouse.

#ToryChristmas

Afraid to stay in UK after Tory victory

Whilst the press was jumping over the Labour party because of around 0.01% of members with anti-Semitic views, British Muslims were looking in a different direction. They saw plainly what many others did not. They saw the rampant Islamophobia and racism that has overtaken the Tory party.

I’ve never been all that impressed by the conservative party and its callous attitude towards ordinary people but at least it used to maintain at least a veneer of fairness and decency. Nowadays the party that brought us forced deportation of genuine Brits, Grenfell and the hostile environment is almost as openly racist as it was in Enoch Powell’s day.

Of course there’s more evidence to come but for now I recommend you read this little article from the Metro detailing the fears of British Muslims fleeing the country. This is what a Tory victory means for them. They know the signs all too well and the rest of us had better start watching too.

If we are to prevent a national decline into full on racism we need to do two things, and we need to do them relentlessly…

1. Challenge racist and religious bigotry of all kinds whenever we see it.

2. Make it clear to our Muslim, Jewish, European, Black and Asian neighbours that they are accepted by the decent majority of Brits – especially by those of us from a white, working class, Christian heritage.

Unless you want to live in an increasingly racist, bigoted, mean-spirited and hate-filled society please consider this a duty.

Mark Jenkinson: Workington man

An interview with the potato!

Mark Jenkinson is the Tory candidate for Workington. In the past he’s supported Labour, the Conservatives, stood for parliament with UKIP and now for the Tories.

This is the ’empty chair’ interview he wouldn’t agree to take part in.