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What Labour’s 2015 Election Manifesto Won’t Be Saying

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Seven years into the worst economic crisis since the Great Depression,  and just 3 months away from what could be the most crucial  General Election since World War 2, and the Labour Party are in deep trouble – and all because of a Bacon Sandwich!

So what can be done? What could the Labour Party possibly say in its 2015 Election Manifesto to win the day?

How about this:

Proposed Labour Election Manifesto 2015

The end of World War ll in Europe finally came with the unconditional surrender of German forces in Reims on 7 May 1945 – exactly 70 years to the day before the coming General Election of 7 May 2015.

The efforts of the Labour Party during World War 2 succeeded in “taking the profit out of war”. The 100% Excess Profits Tax, the controls over industry and transport, the fair rationing of food and control of prices all helped to win the war. With these measures the country came nearer to making “fair shares” the national rule than ever before in its history

Both World War 1 and 2 had been won by the British public. The gallant men and women in the Armed Services, Medical and Public Services , factories and offices were promised a happier future than the one that had faced so many of them after WW1.

Just two months after Germany’s surrender, a landslide victory for the first-ever majority Labour government, in the Khaki Election of 5 July 1945, ushered in a new post-war settlement of a happier future, with fair shares for all, by bringing many of the key means of production, distribution and exchange into public ownership and the creation of the National Health Service and the Welfare State,

The people made tremendous efforts to win both wars. But, after they won, they lacked a lively interest in the social and economic problems of peace, and accepted the election promises of the leaders of the major political parties at their face value.

So the “hard-faced men” who had done well out of both World Wars were able to get the kind of peace that suited them. The people lost that peace. And when we say “peace” we mean not only the Treaties, but the social and economic policy which followed the fighting.

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If we want the BBC to do its job we have to complain when it doesn’t!

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Over the past 40 years I’ve watched the rich and powerful greedily chomping their way through every scrap of public property they could get their hands on – from British Aerospace and British Telecom to gas, electricity, water, British Rail , the Royal Mail and now – the last remaining jewels in the Great British public’s crown –  the NHS and the BBC.

Lifestyles of the Rich and Powerful
Lifestyles of the Rich and Powerful

It’s not hard to understand why they want all this stuff.  If you sell things people don’t really need, your profits are  hostage to the whims of fashion, but if you have a monopoly on all the things people can’t live without then your profits are guaranteed for life.

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BBC spends licence payer’s money proving its own hypocrisy in Court!

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Etched in stone high on the front wall of BBC Broadcasting House is the BBC‘s motto, adopted in 1927 to represent the purpose and values of the corporation:

Nation Shall Speak Peace Unto Nation

Based on biblical scripture, this motto inspired the first thing you see when you walk in the front door of the Art Deco foyer, a huge gilded inscription which reads:

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A Peaceful & Prosperous New Year to EVERYONE!

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A video Christmas Card: a load of YouTube videos mashed up with a home-made song.

“Woe is us, we”re in a lot of trouble. We’re at a point of maximum denial. People are ignoring the obvious, They’re keeping the news out of the News.”

“The oligarchic character of the modern English Commonwealth does not rest, like may oligarchies, on the cruelty of the rich to the poor. It does not even rest on the kindness of the rich to the poor. It rests on the perennial and unfailing kindness of the poor to the rich.”

G K Chesterton, 1905
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How the 800th anniversary of Magna Carta could be used to remove all our liberties

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‘Those who are willing to trade liberty for safety deserve neither and will lose both’.

Benjamin Franklin, 1755

In the age of global terrorism, the need to increase security to protect our freedom is something most of us accept without a second thought. “If you’ve got nothing to hide you’ve got nothing to worry about” is the mantra repeated whenever concerns are raised about any loss of civil liberties accompanying increased surveillance – succeeding not only in dismissing those concerns but also implying that anyone who IS concerned MUST have something to hide.

So what Benjamin Franklin had to say on the subject seems to make about as much sense as saying that those who are willing to trade money for something they want deserves neither and will lose both. Everything comes at a cost, and loss of liberty is the cost of safety. Everybody understands that.

But what DOES make sense are the constant threats to our safety and well-being that we hear about on the news everyday. Every kind of ill, from terrorism to carbon emissions, from measles to AIDS. All are kinds of illness. All put is ill-at-ease. All are kinds of dis-eases to which we are continually trying to find a remedy or cure.

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Who are the security services protecting, the public or the elite?

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I saw a video on the BBC news website yesterday that kept me tossing and turning most of the night. It’s a piece about army intelligence officer, Brian Gemmell, who was gathering information on loyalists in Northern Ireland during the troubles in the 1970s, when he stumbled across evidence of child abuse at Kincora Boy’s Home in east Belfast.

Brian Gemmell: Former Army Intelligence Officer
Brian Gemmell: Former Army Intelligence Officer

‘ A former army intelligence officer has said he was ordered to stop investigating allegations of child sexual abuse at a boys’ home in the 1970s.

Brian Gemmell said a senior MI5 officer told him to stop looking into claims of abuse at Kincora Boys’ Home in east Belfast.

He said he presented a report on the allegations to the officer in 1975.

In 1981, three senior care staff at the home were jailed for abusing 11 boys.

It has been claimed that people of the “highest profile” were connected to abuse at the home .’

Kincora abuse investigation stopped by MI5 says ex-army officer

Gemmell presented his report to the senior MI5 officer in charge of the investigation and was summoned to go and see him.

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Finding the cause of the MH17 disaster, beyond all reasonable doubt

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Anyone who watches TV detective stories knows there are certain rules all good investigators must follow. The same rules apply in all kinds of inquiry – in law, journalism and science alike.

The rules are essentially what’s called the scientific method. A method for acquiring knowledge which has been at the foundation of all liberal democracies for more than 300 years.

Take nobodies word for it. Hearsay doesn’t prove anything. Forget any theories and assertions, especially from the authorities, and just focus on the facts – the empirical evidence – the things we can experience with our common senses of touch, smell, taste, hearing and sight.

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Whose tea has been spiked with LSD, the BBC’s or mine?

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I saw something on the BBC News Channel yesterday afternoon (Tuesday 22 July 2015) that made me think I was losing my marbles.

Perching on the arm of the sofa, enjoying a few moments of shade after spending a glorious summer afternoon sweltering in the scorching heat of the garden, I was absent mindedly flicking  through the TV channels, when I came across an interview on the BBC News Channel between BBC Business Correspondent, Ben Thompson, and a lady from some City brokerage firm giving the usual market updates. At the end of the interview Thompson said something like:

“I suppose we can’t end without mentioning that RATHER BORING NUMBER released by the Office for National Statistics today: the government deficit for June.”

To which the City brokerage lady said something like:

Well, I don’t  think it’s boring. In fact it’s quite ironic that public sector borrowing last month was 50 percent higher than last year. When you consider that the financial crash of 2008 was caused by too much government borrowing, and total government borrowing since then has risen by another 25 percent, then when they finally decide we have to balance the books, some future generation is really going to feel the pinch.”

YOU WHAAAAT??? I was so shocked I nearly fell off my chair. Some FUTURE generation is really going to feel the pinch? Isn’t THIS generation feeling the pinch NOW! Isn’t lowering government debt what austerity was supposed to be all about?

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Every cloud has a silver lining – just don’t tell the kids

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Every cloud has a silver lining.

That’s one of those sayings anyone over the age of 60 probably heard quite a lot when they were young but rarely hears now. Like nursery rhymes and coal scuttles, it’s a relic of a bygone age. But that doesn’t mean its not worth preserving, because what is says could be very useful in the times we’re living through now.

What that saying reminds us is that every picture has its shadows and it’s source of light. Every positive has a negative. Every thesis has its antithesis. Every bad has a good. Every good has a bad. Or, in other words, there’s no such thing as a free lunch.

Portrait of Sir Isaac Newton by Godfrey Kneller, 1689

To every action there is always an equal and opposite reaction.

… is how the founder of the physical sciences, Isaac Newton, put it in his Third Law of Motion.

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Michael Shrimpton – Spyhunter

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Here’s a video not many people have watched, or are ever likely to watch. It’s a 40 min speech given by barrister Michael Shrimpton at the Britain on the Brink conference in Winchester on 22 September 2007.

What was the Britain on the Brink Conference you might ask? Well, according to the YouTube blurb is was:

A one day Conference by and for people of all parties and of none.

Hardly the kind of catch line that’s likely to attract many YouTube hits you might think. And you know what? … It hasn’t! 

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