As the NHS crumbles and our transport network grinds to a halt, do not ask why our politico-media circus are not holding the Tories to account, be deflected towards blaming Corbyn’s Labour instead.
New year, same old crap.
2017 has started with the NHS plunged ever further into crisis, London transport pushed further into chaos, and all fingers are pointing the public’s attention towards Jeremy Corbyn (who is, simultaneously, incapable of rousing public support and should step down as leader of the Labour party because of his ineffectualness AND he is the architect of all that is currently tearing at the seams of British public life).
But if you accept that we are being lied to and led up the garden path by a politico-media establishment motivated by their noses in the trough of the public purse (could Laura Kuenssberg’s reported £300,000+ BBC salary, for example, prove that being an establishment lickspittle is a profitable business to be in … you’re welcome taxpayers) then you might like to consider why this country is going to the dogs and what responsibility our current (and for the past six years) government has for the state of affairs.
Take London’s lead story today … transport misery. If you are a London commuter, and millions are, then you will likely be affected by the rounds of strikes affecting London and the South East. Two points; the first is that the Tories have deliberately orchestrated the mess on the railways and the Underground. Those who have lived long enough to have suffered at least two periods of Tory government will know that the last time was defined by the Tories “taking on” the unions. The Tories love it.
First order of business when “taking on” the unions is to create the divide in the public’s minds that “the unions” are somehow a different entity from them and that the interests of the unions are in conflict with their own. In the case of the Underground strike the matter is over job cuts. Why should the general public care about nearly a thousand people losing their jobs on London Underground? The money to be saved from cutting the jobs will join all those other £billions that leave our economy into offshore tax avoiding bank accounts. It really is that simple. The purpose of cutting jobs is to increase profits which leave these shores increasingly poorer. Paying people decent salaries distributes wealth in a way that helps recycle it back into the real economy. It is basic real world economics. If all the £billions that leave Britain’s economy into offshore tax avoiding bank accounts were paid in wages to actual British workers it would all be recycled back into our economy. London Underground workers are members of the British public, just like you or me, and if they earn decent salaries then that’s money that will go back into the economy and their taxes help pay for services like the under assault NHS. The Tories want you to hate such workers because they get in the way of their primary ideologically driven idolatry of transferring public wealth to privateers.
The Tories gave Southern Trains a contract which pays them whether they run train services or not. To be clear, Southern Trains make profits whether they run train services or not and actually make more profits if they run fewer or no train services at all. Isn’t that a strange contract for a government to award to a transport franchise? A contract that pays the franchise operator MORE if they offer LESS service.
In a separate thought, Southern Trains have created a dispute with staff that has led to a series of strikes, during which Southern Trains are running far fewer train services, making increased profits, and have given the government ‘cause’ to make statements about taking on the unions and curbing workers’ rights to strike. The issue causing the strikes is, of course, over reducing staffing costs. Why? Because Southern Trains cannot further increase profits through increased usage of services, only by reducing staff costs.
Naturally, our politico-media establishment have blamed Jeremy Corbyn for orchestrating these abominable strikes through his close ties to the various unions, simultaneously exonerating the Tories of their actions and endorsing the Tories’ narrative that workers’ rights and jobs are somehow the enemy of taxpayers.
But you might not live near London or care about its transport woes, well the Tories are tearing down the NHS across the country, have been selling off the profitable areas and setting up the rest for a final closing down sale. Everything must go, knock down prices for buyers but vastly inflated costs to taxpayers. Like an idiot, Jeremy Corbyn has been banging on about this Tory induced crisis for months now, he’s pledged Labour will renationalise the NHS but it’s doubtful the public know he’s said that or why he has had to talk about renationalising something if it hasn’t been sold off. Because, of course, it has. British taxpayers are paying £billions to privateers who control NHS services. Of the £trillions British taxpayers spend on the NHS £billions have been siphoned off from delivering services to provide profits. Do you think you’re seeing the benefits of those private industry efficiencies? We’re being robbed blind and, worse yet, our Health service is having its heart ripped out and it is being driven into the ground. Yet it’s still costing us £billions, we’re just no longer getting Health service for our money, it’s not patients we’re providing for now, we’re providing profits instead.
When the NHS is gone and our transport network has ground to a halt, when you no longer have worker’s rights or a fairly paid job or stable or robust economy, you might start to ask why our politico-media establishment were blaming Jeremy Corbyn, instead of holding the Tories to account. It will be too late.
