Coming Soon: The Slaughter of the Innocents.

Prime Minister David Cameron has come up with a cunning plan to solve the Syrian crisis, as well as neutralising Islamic State. His solution is to bomb Isis. Now, you may believe this is the work of a genius, until you realise that for the past 18 months, the USA, French and Canadian air forces, along with the recent addition of the Russian and Turkish air forces, have been doing exactly that with little success.

Cameron’s attitude seems to be more about easing his own guilt complex because he feels Britain are not doing their bit, which directly affects his standing on the world stage, rather than coming up with a workable solution that will end this ever increasing threat to world security. It’s more machismo than masterplan.

Why anybody would think that lobbing a few more bombs into Raqqah, killing hundreds of innocent men, women and children in the process, will aid in degrading Isis is beyond me. Firstly, the chances of killing any of the principle characters within the Isis high command is minimal because most of them are based in outlying villages and only come into Raqqah intermittently, and secondly, it is difficult to believe that when they do enter Raqqah that they would not take precautions, such as electronic silence, or travel incognito and mainly after dark. Thirdly, killing any Isis leader will have no effect on the organisation as the position would be quickly filled.

At best you would describe Cameron’s plan as naïve, almost risible, when you consider that two years ago he was urging Parliament to back his proposals to bomb the other side.  It lacks any coherent strategy and is devoid of any endgame. Where these 70,000 moderate Syrians have suddenly come from, who would play a key part in forming a transitional Syrian government, seems to be nothing more than wishful thinking lacking any basis in fact or truth. Many of these so-called moderates are members of Jabhat al-Nusra and Al-Qaeda, so how moderate they are, is debatable. How many 'moderates' carry Kalashnikovs? Cameron seems to expect that Assad will step aside while Isis will buckle under the bombing campaign. A 21^st century version of “it will all be over by Christmas”.

Neither will happen. Assad is going nowhere all the time he has the support of Putin and Isis have nowhere to go. It is a reminder of the Vietnam war, another war based around bombing campaigns, where the question asked about the Vietcong was, “why do they keep on coming, no matter what we throw at them”? The answer was simple. They had nowhere to go. It was their home, they lived there.

A bombing campaign will always be ineffective if it is not backed up by ground troops. At the moment the only effective ground operations are being carried out by Kurdish forces who are not only having to battle Isis but are also facing aggression from Assad’s troops as well as Turkish forces. It is the Kurds who are the key. It may be unpalatable for western politicians to stomach but the solution to eliminating Isis as well as overthrowing Assad revolves around western governments sending in western troops in large numbers and aligning themselves with the Kurds.   

A massive integrated army would be required to steamroller through and over Isis before turning around and doing the same to the Syrian government forces. Of course this will incur the loss of life and pictures of soldiers coming home in body bags. Something politicians are desperate to avoid due to the collateral damage that will undoubtedly occur to their political careers.

The final step would be implementing a detailed 10 year plan that would eventually lead to a more peaceful Middle East. This final step is fanciful, as peace in the Middle East is nothing more than a pipe dream. To achieve it you would have to set up separate Sunni and Shia states around the region. Give the Kurds full autonomy, remove the State of Israel or impose a two state solution upon them where Palestine has full state recognition and Palestinians have freedom of movement. Stop supplying Saudi Arabia with arms and weapons and apply sanctions when they export terror to countries such as Bahrain and Yemen or if they continue to finance the spread of the extreme form of Sunni Islam, Wahhabism, The form of Islam that Isis practice. Finally, a blind eye would have to be turned as a second generation of dictators rise up and fill the void left as western governments withdraw all troops and influence from the region.

None of the above will happen, while all a bombing campaign will do is enhance Islamic State and act as an effective recruiting sergeant for what is nothing more than a sick criminal cult full of murderers and psychopaths who are using religion as a convenient vehicle to exercise their psychopathic proclivities as well as aiding personal enrichment. The worse scenario for Cameron would be a reprisal terrorist atrocity being carried out on British soil.

Britain joining in an ineffective bombing campaign may briefly enhance Cameron’s prominence on the world stage, but that will fade quickly, whereas the blood of the murdered, whether they be innocent children in Raqqah or British citizens in the United Kingdom will stain his hands forever.   

If the objective is to remove a threat to the United Kingdom’s security, then an incoherent strategy based around a blunt instrument such as a bombing campaign, I fear, will not be successful.

We need bravery not bravado from our leaders.

Mr Expedient.

Chancellor of the Exchequer, George ‘Gideon’ Osborne’s U-turn on tax credits had nothing to do with listening, and everything to do with his own political ambitions. Apparently withdrawing Tax Credits from the low paid was the right decision for the nation until Osborne realised it was the wrong decision for him personally and would have had catastrophic consequences for his leadership ambitions. Like most Tories he put his own self-interest first.

Of course the truth of withdrawing tax credits had nothing to do with the nations finances and everything to do with Osbornes vile and spiteful ideologue of punishing the poor whilst attempting to balance the nations books on the backs of the poor, the low paid and the vulnerable whilst featherbedding the rich and wealthy.

Tories speak of tough decisions being made yet these so called tough decisions never affect their own circumstances. Persecuting the poor is never tough for a Tory, it is very easy for them. It is their raison d’etre.

We saw the true Osborne this week. We saw the politically expedient Osborne, the opportunist Osborne, the ambitious Osborne. I daresay that he has already drawn up a shady plan of reclaiming the money he was supposed to be ‘saving ‘. So it will be nothing more than a short reprieve for the 3 million families currently trying to survive on low wages.

The Show’s Over Jezza.

Current Labour leader, Jeremy Corbyn, was a principled and honest politician who had opinions and views that he stuck to. That is why he is unsuitable to lead a major political party and should now stand down. In today’s world, principles, values, honesty and a moral code are anathema to the world of politics. Hence why we currently have a puffed up, haughty and vain former PR man currently holding the once prestigious position of Prime Minister of Great Britain and Northern Ireland.

I don’t think Jeremy Corbyn wants to be Prime Minister and it doesn't matter if he does because he never will be. I don’t think he ever really wanted to be leader of the Labour party, so he might as well end the agony and return to the back benches where he can maintain his integrity.

The horizon of British politics is much to vast for the likes of Corbyn, McDonnell, Abbott and Livingstone, and if they really cared about the interests of the people they purport to stand up for, they would stand aside.

It was always going to be difficult with Jeremy as your Christian name anyway.

Grant Schapps.
Definition: The personification and embodiment of the 21^st century Tory.

Mark Clarke.

Definition: Ditto.

 

 “never travel with a clever camel”.

(Benedict Allen, explorer)

Autumn: The Season of Mellow Fruitfulness and Poppy Fascism.

 Autumn in Britain is the time of year when we begin to hunker down, preparing for the onset of winter, when I our minds turn to the impending celebrations for the birth of our Lord Jesus Christ, and when by honouring the fallen, who, in two world wars, saved us from living under the yoke of fascism, people seem to think they can occupy the moral high ground by telling others what they should think, say, and wear. Oh the irony.

The constant vitriolic criticism of anybody who happens to not be wearing a poppy, whether it be a member of the public in the street, or a celebrity, a television presenter, or politician, is sickening, nauseating and worst of all shows an astounding level of hypocrisy and lack of personal awareness.

The poppy is worn to commemorate those who gave their lives so we could live a life free from oppression, in a society where freedom of thought and speech is cherished and where, within reason, people can decide who they commemorate, how they commemorate them and what they wear.

To all those people who try to cloak the wearing of a poppy as some sought of patriotic act that is rooted in nationalism, you fail to recognise that fighting nationalism and patriotism was the reason lives were given in the first place and going around trying to impose your warped belief system on others defeats the purpose of the celebrations, as well as casting slurs and insults upon those who gave their life so we could live ours.

I will now exercise the freedom of speech safeguarded for me by the soldiers who sacrificed their lives, and for whom I wear a poppy to celebrate and commemorate, by telling you that you are a bigoted, jingoistic, ignorant bunch of f%&k&%g MORONS!!!!!!

A final question for all the self-proclaimed guardians of the moral high ground. What do you do with your poppy after Remembrance Day? Chuck it in a draw? Toss it in a bin? Chuck it on the fire? That’s not very respectful…………. is it?

 

 

 “First they ignore you, then they ridicule you, then they fight you, then you win”

( Mahatma Gandhi)

 

 

 



Tory Tax Lies and a Political System not fit for Purpose.

The Tax Credits fiasco has been a saga of lies, falsehoods and the dissemination of dishonest self-serving Tory propaganda that brings grown up politics into disrepute. When you have the grotesque spectacle of an unelected Tory peer in the form of Andrew Lloyd Webber, a man who goes out in public while wearing his face inside out, flying first class back from New York, so he can vote in favour of snatching food out of the mouths of disadvantaged children, along with another unelected peer, the bra seller Michelle Mone, a woman who herself seems happy to inflict financial penury and poverty upon 3 million low paid families, yet who grew up in the east end of Glasgow so you would have hoped she had some understanding of the difficulties of trying to raise families in difficult financial circumstances, you realise our current political system is not only corrupt but also morally bankrupt.

It would be slightly more acceptable if we did not have a quisling self-interested press that consistently fails to challenge the current government but instead serves the interests of a small cabal of media barons as well as a current group of lickspittle politicians whose only motives appear to be ideologue and punishing the poor and vulnerable. This is what it must feel like living under a military junta or in China.

It is an insult to the British public’s intelligence that the Tory’s have attempted to dress the defeat in the House of Lords up as a constitutional crisis rather than what it really is, which is a welfare issue which the Tory’s tried to drive through parliament, under the radar, as a Statutory instrument. The fact that they failed so abysmally, demonstrates the level of complacency and incompetence that resides deep within the government generally, and Cameron and Osborne specifically.

It is a concern that politicians are so detached from reality, and appear either wilfully ignorant of the carnage that taking thousands of pounds away from low paid families will cause or they are just cruel, uncaring and callous. When the Prime Ministers says he is ‘delighted’ when the policy was successfully put through the Commons and Osborne, the Chancellor of the Exchequer, says he is ‘comfortable’ with the cuts, I think we can all agree it is the latter. And let’s not forget, they are Tory’s after all, so it is in their DNA to punish the poor while featherbedding the lives of the rich and wealthy.

The Tory’s will claim the cuts are compensated by a reduction in fuel prices, an increase in the tax threshold and the increase in the minimum wage, which Osborne laughably calls the ‘national living wage’. But this is also dishonest, as he wilfully ignores the fact that people on low incomes generally cannot afford to run a car, are normally already earning below the tax threshold and the minimum wage of £9 per hour does not kick in for 4 years. What people are supposed to do until then I do not know, but I’m sure landlords, mortgage lenders, utility companies and banks will be very ‘understanding’ when it is explained to them why the rent or mortgage won’t be paid, or the electricity bill, and could they just hold on until 2019 when everything will be just super.

Returning to the issue of the so-called ‘constitutional crisis’ which the Tory definition seems to be “when people don’t vote the way we want”. It is amusing that the Prime Minister claims that the government was defeated by a bunch of ‘unelected representatives’ when only a few months ago he was happy to ennoble over 50 Tory peers, or as he calls them now, ‘unelected representatives’ and is at the moment throwing a massive hissy fit and threatening to ennoble another 150. That’s how politics works in Britain now. You just make a load of old school chums, party donors and placemen, Peers of the Realm, so they can vote as they’re told.That’s democracy in 21^st century Britain. When you add into the mix the upcoming gerrymandering of the constituencies, which is being done for the benefit of the Tory’s, and the newly introduced Voter Registration process, which will disenfranchise millions of mainly poor, mainly young and mainly Labour voting people, you realise that British democracy is on its deathbed. When Jeremy Hunt, the Health Minister, said Britain should be more like China it obviously wasn’t a suggestion but a future manifesto pledge. One the Tory’s would gladly fulfil as opposed to all the pledges they made on the run up to the last election which have turned out to be lies, lies and more lies. Some examples being the social care cap, rail electrification, affordable homes, tax free childcare and of course the supposed free vote on fox hunting which as soon as the Tory’s realised that they would lose, they cancelled the vote. That’s not democracy, that’s absolutism bordering on tyranny

The Tax credit fiasco illustrates quite clearly that the Tory’s are not ‘the party for working people’. They never have been and more importantly, they never will be.

Not much Talk Talk from the government.

It is worrying enough that it would appear a couple of teenagers managed to hack into telecommunications company Talk Talk's database giving them access to thousands of individuals’ personal data, but even more sinister is the Tory governments silence on the events of the last week. I wonder if it has anything to do with the fact the Talk Talk’s Managing Director Dido Harding is married to Tory Minister John Penrose and she also has a seat on the governments business advisory group.

Got to look after your own you know.

Caring Tory’s?

An attempt to make carer’s exempt from hospital parking charges has been wrecked by Tory MP’s who talked it out, or filibustered it. Let’s be clear, this wasn’t a proposal to go to war, make drinking and driving legal or increase taxes on second homes. It was a proposal to ease the financial burden on people who are caring for the sick and the elderly 24/7.

Steel Industry.

I’m sure that during the first cabinet meeting, after the recent election, Cameron gathered the chaps together and said that they couldn’t really call themselves Thatcherites until they had destroyed at least one heavy industry and put thousands of northerners out of work.

However, the steel workers must bear some responsibility for insisting in having their steelworks ‘oop north’ in Labour or Scottish Nationalist constituencies, when if they had any sense they would have built them near Tunbridge Wells, or Reigate, or Camberley or anywhere in the South East except Islington North.

Snoopers Charter.

The current Tory government are very keen on passing a law, known as The Snoopers Charter, that will allow them to intercept, collect and monitor all our electronic correspondence in the form of internet use, e-mails, phone calls and blog postings. In the event of the Tory government being successful in their endeavours I would like to make it clear that the Home secretary, Theresa May, is really, really, great, even though she looks like a Federation Stormtrooper who has just removed her helmet, and that all the boys and girls at GCHQ, MI5 and MI6 are a great bunch, and that although I’m the author of this particular item within this blog the rest has been written by an anarchist group of hackers who are currently holding my pet ginger kitten Mittens hostage in an underground bunker in the north country.

When the law is passed, probably with the aid of recently ennobled Tory Peers, I will happily welcome the intrusion into my privacy and subsequent arrest, authorised not by an impartial judge but by a politician, when it is discovered I visited a website called “MAKE A BOMB WITH ISLA and MICK STAITE!!!!!!!! from Ohio, who made thousands of dollars baking and selling cupcakes”.

P.S. If anybody knows of Mittens whereabouts, please let me know forthwith, as she needs her daily injection.

I love you Mittens.

 

“nothing is more conducive to peace of mind than not having any opinions at all”.

(Georg Christoph Lichtenberg)