So it begins...

It’s the Week of Evil, or Tory Party Conference. And there’s perhaps none more evil than Gideon Osborne. The heir to an Anglo-Irish Baronetcy, whose only day job was folding towels in Selfridges, Osborne described a proposed mansion tax as the politics of envy. We wouldn’t want that when we incite people in work against against sick or unemployed people who, in Gideon’s imagination, are busy growing mushrooms. 

His big plan to save civilisation from endless, relentless doom is a scheme whereby workers swap employment rights for company shares. This is the future, folks. Unless we do something we will have the golden opportunity to give up our workplace protections in return for giving a portion of our wages back to the company to play with. Do you see the problem there? I hope you do because, let’s be realistic, given the 2.5 million unemployed, how many bosses are going to present this option as a fait accompli, take it or leave it?

Osborne has also warned parents on benefits against having more children. In his kind of future some children will be left behind. Does that include people tax credits, the biggest benefit claiming category there is, in which case that also means parents in low paid work? He displays a cavalier understanding of where babies come from. If there is now such a thing as surplus humanity (too many babies!) then what can we expect, workhouses, mass sterilisation, or just children starving to death? 

Words cannot express how truly repellent this man is.

The abyss stares back

The link here is to a short, simple piece on the fundamental deception of American political debate. There is such fundamental agreement between the two mainstream parties, public debate narrows down to secondary, often peripheral issues. Because ‘issues’ like teaching evolution in schools, the veracity of climate change or the authenticity of Obama’s birth certificate can be argued relentlessly to no practical conclusion, they serve to mobilise various political bases (although the Republicans are always more interested in motivating their core support than the Democrats) and sustain the illusion of urgent debate.

You know it. I know it. It’s seems hardly worth pointing out, except the same grim parade rolls out every four years and no one does anything about it. America is politically null, excepting the Occupy movement, which, rather like council communism without councils, is a moot point if it’s not able to occupy anything. It would take an event so colossal one almost dares not imagine it to open space for a radical alternative. If America means anything it serves as a warning, this is what happens when the labour movement is permanently sidelined.

Meanwhile Polly Toynbee ponders the Tory options in the run up to their conference. David Cameron needs a national vote of approximately 42% to take an overall majority in parliament, 6% more than he got at the last election, and support is ebbing away. There are plenty of Tories with a mind to blow up Labour ‘client state’, i.e. its basis in the wider working class. This combined with a set of irresistible populist measures may yet work. And these measures need not cost anything. Imagine if Cameron led the country out of the EU just as it collapsed.

Feeble though our efforts may be even something like the October 20th democan start to head off that kind of future.

Socialism for the rich...

According to David Cameron, under New Labour we had a casino economy and a welfare society. That may have been the case (it wasn't) but under David Cameron we've got a welfare economy and a casino society... and you can have that witticism for free.

That discreet Tory charm

Apparently David Cameron has decided to rewrite his conference speech, due today, particularly the section where he tells the public to pay up and be grateful. Yet another example of that discreet Tory charm.

Cameron to Peasants: "don't worry, I've still got a job"

David Cameron will urge us all today to pull up our socks, pay up our debts and have a general can-do spirit about, I don't know, voting Tory or something. But, apparently:

...people want to know why the good times are so long coming.

"The answer is straightforward, but uncomfortable. This was no normal recession; we're in a debt crisis. It was caused by too much borrowing, by individuals, businesses, banks – and, most of all, governments."

It's almost like he's bothered having to explain. D'uh, it's obvious! Are they still asking about this?

But this is a gross elision of the truth. The crisis was not caused by government borrowing. The hike in government borrowing was preceded by the banking collapse in 2008. Only a fool or a liar would deny that. Which are you, David?

It is a fact the capitalist class went to the exchequer to be helped out of its crisis, a crisis it created, that is a fact. Let's not forget the Tories did not so much as put a peep of opposition at the time. Actually, the process amounted to was the public, us, you and me, taking on the sins of the elite, for we it is now being crucified... and there is no need, as UK Uncut continually demonstrate:

We are told that the only way to reduce the deficit is to cut public services. This is certainly not the case. There are alternatives, but the government chooses to ignore them, highlighting the fact that the cuts are based on ideology, not necessity.

One alternative is to clamp down on tax dodging by corporations and the rich, estimated to cost the state £95bn a year...

Another is to make the banks pay for free insurance provided to them by the taxpayer: a chief executive at the Bank of England put the cost of this subsidy at £100bn in a single year...

Either the tax avoided and evaded in a single year or the taxpayer subsidy to the banking industry could pay for all of the £81bn, four-year cuts programme.

No wonder you're grumpy. Even just judging by today's news you're stressed at work, the most fundamental cause being job insecurity; if you become ill long-term because of this you can now 'buy' treatment on the NHS with vouchers, and you thought you already bought it with taxes; you're cutting back on non-essential spending; why wouldn't you, what with seemingly permanent and overwhelming economic turmoil.

But, if you insist on feeling a little put out by the situation just remember 'our' best days are ahead of us... even if they're a long day ahead of us and, whatever you do don't strike. Workers cannot be allowed to shut down vital public services. Only the Tories are allowed to do that.

If I can shoot rabbits...

I think this every year, whenever the Tories meet - where's the IRA when you need them? Not because I think isolated terrorist acts are an effective vehicle for change (any Police or Secret Service reading this take note) but because at present there's no adequate way to express how much I hate them...

I mean, look at this, bootcamps for children Boris Johnson doesn't like (ugly, poor ones spoiling his Olympics). Why only bootcamps? These are supposedly 'feral', i.e. inhuman children we're talking about here. Go the whole hog, have sweatshops, slavelabour, get them stitching Nike trainers in 50 degree heat, that'll show 'em. Arbeit macht frei. Dachau on Thames. Proudly sponsored by Barclays Bank.

Remember how you used to pay a portion of income in the form of tax to go toward collective provision of things like health, education, pensions, rubbish collection, fire fighting? Forget that. George Osborne's going to give it to Barry the Bodger to prop up his ailing business. You're lending small businesses money so bankers don't have to.

And this is just day two.