A Small Island Man

Will Strikes Bring the House Down? Nurses are striking because we have 10% inflation and they cannot afford their rent, transport and food. Tories, and as far as I can see Labour too, seem to respond with: There is nothing in the kitty A pay rise will fuel inflation It’s not fair to other people people who are not getting a rise It's visionless and gutless. I say negotiate an immediate settlement. There will need to be give-and-take on both sides. But the government should also start showing some leadership and look at solutions that amount to more than sitting on their backsides fiddling with taxation and budgetary spreadsheets. Where is the POLICY? The largest slice of a nurse’s salary is his/her rent or mortgage. It will take about a third of what s/he earns. One-third of her/his labour is going into putting a roof over his/her head. Source: https://www.nimblefins.co.uk/average-uk-household-budget#nogo We Need: High-quality social housing for everyone from the homeless to those...

Dear LibDems and Greens, The UK has become a laughing stock. Our government has gone rogue and has trampled over the parliamentary process such that is now entirely dysfunctional. The list of blunders continues to grow. The absurdly inappropriate, multi-billion pound, state-of-the-art, HMS Prince of Wales languishes lame-duck in Portsmouth is a fitting metaphor for a country holed below the waterline by successive inept governments that stretch back even before 2016. We are a country going nowhere. But, it was 2016 that changed the course of UK politics when the established right/left division in politics was rotated through ninety degrees to become a leave/remain division. The party now in charge, a party that no longer deserves to bear the name “The Conservatives”  caught the Brexit bus solely as a matter of self-interest. Sadly, Labour under Corbyn failed to acknowledge how the political world had changed, and on Brexit, fatally, selected Neutral, and accordingly motored nowhere...

The Truss/Kwarteng mini-budget was so brazenly "fuck-the-poor" and "fuck-the economy" that there is no way that it could have been anything other than intentional (not necessarily understood by Truss & Kwarteng but whoever is pulling their strings). Someone is creating as much damage to the economy as possible knowing the next government,  no matter who they are, cannot possibly restore widespread prosperity within a single term. If Labour wins, they will face an impossible task. All attempts to reverse the policies, and put right the wrongs, will be like administering a foul-tasting medicine to a child. Four years of sour-tasting medicine and the Tories will be there blaming the pain and suffering on whoever is in power. Tories will be there with promises of sunny uplands and tax cuts and a gullible public who are suffering like never before will take the Tory lies just like they took Johnson's lies on the side of a bus. Labour may win the next GE, but they...

Putting my cards on the table: I am an ardent believer in the EU (for all its flaws, I still believe in the ideals it was founded upon, and rejoice in so much that it has actually delivered). I believe in a fairer-for-all society, and so have never voted blue in my life. Now you see the cut of my jib, I'll add... I long for a more left-leaning 21st-century savvy government. It breaks my heart to say this, but I believe only the end of the Labour party is likely to deliver this. Labour has recently (since being out of power) served best to keep the Tories in power by dint of being too large to let any other parties succeed within FPTP, and yet too weak to win. They are also too 'broad a church' so they consume far too much energy in tearing themselves to bits from within. Labour failed to acknowledge the fundamentals of Brexit insofar as it pivoted UK politics from "Left vs Right" to "Leave vs Remain". Whereas the Tories adopted a UKIP stance and wholly a...

  C***s The Lot of Them Income tax cut from 20% to 19% Estimates that 31 million people getting £170 a year more - 46p a day! Make sure you do not spend that on Netflix and fags you lazy good-for-nothing working class slackers - that goes for you too, nurses, firefighters, lorry drivers, etc. Meanwhile the filthy rich get a tax cut from 45% to 40% on anything over £150,000. So even Kwasi Kwarteng's basic salary of £155,817.00 gets an extra £290 a year benefit. Erm, but hold on, if Kwasi Kwarteng's only income is his ministerial salary I'll eat my hat! And someone earning £300,000 (don't forget those scrapped bankers bonus caps) would see a cool £7,500 reduction in what they have to contribute in tax. Because, you know, they're worth it. A six-month freeze on energy bills to be paid for not by a windfall tax on producers who are raking it in due to profits boosted by the Russian/Ukrainian situation, but by national borrowing which in effect every man (but disproport...

I'm not a Royalist So it means nothing at all Except it's so much to one and all. She was steadfast and constant in a variable world A reference for duty and much we hold dear. Especially in times when the world was unclear. I knew it was coming, but, too suddenly gone There before me and there every day Her passing coincidental with losing our way, So allow me, for now, to be sentimental My wish; we all can be instrumental  And remember it's when we feel our worst Duty demands we behave our best first.

 I bet Liz Truss' school report read "a very bright, enthusiastic and promising student" unfortunately her unbridled ambition, only eclipsed by the enormity of her own stultifying ego caused arrested development meaning the UK is now led by someone with the emotional and intelectual maturity of a teenager. This has already been seen with her comments on Macron, Cheese and her vacant looks into camera when waiting for the teleprompter. Liz's agenda thus far has been to appeal not to her party MP's but to the extreme right swivel-eyed looneys in the membership (at least some of those from the membership who were not swivel-eyed, probably tore up their membership upon Johnson's escapades). She played a blinder on that one and secured her position as the latest court jester. She has also routed any Sunak supports irrespective of their capabilities further depleting cabinet talent. As always, everything that now unfolds will be a desperate race to win the next GE. ...