Scotland is in danger of sleepwalking into a nightmare.
24/2/2017
English politics, and therefore British politics, is in a sad, sorry state. The Conservative Government, uninspiring and unremarkable in the six years before Brexit, is now utterly out of its depth. Austerity has failed, for example, demonizing the disabled and the dispossessed, leaving many of them destitute, costs more than it saves.
Clearly, they haven’t a clue about how best to deal with Brexit. The Prime Minister and her Cabinet, Team Theresa, are a shower of mediocrities caught in a maelstrom of their own making. And yet they are ahead in the polls. Not only that but in yesterday’s Copeland by-election, the Conservatives won, taking the seat which had been held by the Labour Party since its creation in 1983.
It seems voters in England just don’t consider the Labour Party an effective opposition, let alone a credible alternative to the Tory Government. Why is that? Some will say it is down to a combination of poor leadership and the perception that the party is deeply divided.
I had come to the conclusion, albeit reluctantly, that Jeremy Corbyn simply isn’t a leader. But then, I wonder how much that has to do with the mainstream media, particularly those on the right, who fear Corbyn as it appears he can’t be bought and sold, and might, therefore, shine a light on the seedy underbelly of the British Establishment.
Or, is it that the English/British Left is dead and buried, killed by Thatcher, and interred by Blair? Strange, how many will tell you they despise Blair, yet without him, Labour, are seen to have strayed from the centre-ground, ever more so successively through Brown, Miliband, and now Corbyn, rendering them unelectable.
It might just be that England, and again, therefore Britain, is a nation now permanently predisposed to the right, or at the very least, the centre-right. The reality of this is that the welfare state, including the NHS, are on the road to rack and ruin.
The Tories are chipping away at everything, little by little, and before we know it there will be nothing left. Try as I might, I can’t understand how ordinary people allow themselves to be conned, yet again, into believing that the Tories, now in the guise of Team Theresa, are “working for everyone”, these are Tories for crying out loud. The longer they are in power, the more unequal Britain will become. Leaving the EU will only accelerate this.
This crowd are in it for themselves. They didn’t give a fig when they decimated and destroyed whole communities by dismantling Britain’s heavy industries and coal mining, the repercussions of which are still felt today. And they won’t give a fig when low earners take risks with their health when they are too poor to see a doctor.
Make no mistake, if this happens, and if things continue as they are, it will, people will die unnecessarily. This is what happened in pre-NHS Britain. Sadly there aren’t enough people left who remember it. It is all fine and well to say that the private sector should play its part in the NHS, but it will only be a matter of time before the corporates have taken over the whole shop, lock, stock, and barrel. It is the same with means testing this benefit and capping that benefit. Bit by bit, they are chipping away at it, outsourcing this and that.
The way to avoid this is not to wait in vain for England to see sense and reject all this right-wing roastery. It isn’t going to happen. The only way to save the NHS, and to secure social justice in Scotland, is to make a break for it. We are in grave danger of sleepwalking into a dystopian nightmare and there’s no excuse for it, the warning signs are there, and alarm bells ought to be ringing.
