neo-con

About Starmer following Blair and Corbyn

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https://johnwight1.medium.com/jeremy-corbyn-is-a-better-man-than-starmer-and-starmer-a-lesser-man-than-blair-a300c7ba116b

Image of Keir Starmer sucking up to the rich and powerful at the World Economic Forum, Davos
Image of Keir Starmer sucking up to the rich and powerful at the World Economic Forum, Davos

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Shakespeare himself could not conceive of the dramatic fall from grace experienced by Jeremy Corbyn, under whose leadership between 2015 and 2019 the UK Labour Party could boast a mass membership of 600,000 to make it the largest political party in Europe, and under whose leadership Labour came within just under 2500 votes of winning the 2017 general election on a transformational programme of wealth redistribution, meaningful policies to end homelessness and poverty, and a foreign policy placing a priority on peace over war and hope over fear.

That his outstanding performance in 2017 came in the face of a concerted attempt by Labour Party officials to undermine his leadership and election campaign, and despite a treacherous PLP of unreconstructed bastards, this only makes the question of ‘What if?’ all the more salient and also tragic.

His successor, Starmer, went out of his way to court Corbyn’s supporters in order to get himself elected as leader, while announcing with the sincerity of a mafia boss that “Jeremy is a friend as well as a colleague.”

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The issue of antisemitism has again been weaponised to demonise the most principled anti-racist politician in Britain, again at the behest of an establishment of bastards in the eyes of which the Palestinian people are deemed children of a lesser God.

The issue within a Parliamentary Labour Party stacked full of apologists for apartheid and white supremacist Zionist ideology that underpins it, has never been antipathy towards Jewish people; it has and continues to be the thoroughly dishonest smearing of those who dare stand in solidarity with the Palestinians and their just struggle against occupation, siege, and the most sustained apparatus of injustice in modern history.

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https://johnwight1.medium.com/jeremy-corbyn-is-a-better-man-than-starmer-and-starmer-a-lesser-man-than-blair-a300c7ba116b

23/2/23 The quote “Jeremy is a friend as well as a colleague.” appears not quite correct. Unless it’s quoting a different occasion it should be “I want to pay tribute to Jeremy Corbyn, who led our party through some really difficult times, who energised our movement, & who’s a friend as well as a colleague”. I wouldn’t truncate it like that without making it clear, that’s your academic rigour eh? Can be watched here

Apologies, this one

https://twitter.com/RedCollectiveUK/status/1627670270847639552
Continue ReadingAbout Starmer following Blair and Corbyn

That Nasty Neo-Con Starmer :: Why?

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There is huge aversion to the Conservative (Tory) Party in UK meaning that Keith Starmer’s Labour Party is likely to be elected at the next general election. This aversion to the Tories is partly due to successive worse than useless Tory Prime Ministers, Boris’s criminality, lying and cronyism, Brexit which has been catastrophic, trashing of the UK economy (partly due to Liz Truss’s catastrophic bonkers short term as Prime Minister and ill-judged budget), huge inflation and crippling fuel poverty caused by hugely increased energy prices. It is a growing recognition and acknowledgement that the Tories are shits destroying public services including the Health Service.

There is a real danger that Keir Starmer will get elected to government on a false prospectus. For exaample, the UK electorate understands the Labour Party to support the National Health Service (NHS) while Starmer and Shadow Health Secretary Wes Streeting are opposed to a publicly-owned NHS instead preferring the Tory policy of privatisation. Similarly, the Labour Party’s proposed GB Energy company is likely to be confused with nationalising energy companies which has huge popular support. But it’s not that.

Looking at Keir Starmer’s performance as Director of Public Prosecutions and as Leader of the Opposition can inform us how he’s likely to perform as Prime Minister. It looks as though it should be avoided.

later edit: To Labour Party members: There is an historic opportunity now to move away from Neo-Liberal politics. Why would you want to elect the Tory Keir Starmer as Prime Minister and does that achieve anything?

Continue ReadingThat Nasty Neo-Con Starmer :: Why?

Stuart Hall: New Labour has picked up where Thatcherism left off

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https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2003/aug/06/society.labour

The Labour election victory in 1997 took place at a moment of great political opportunity. Thatcherism had been rejected by the electorate. But 18 years of Thatcherite rule had radically altered the social, economic and political terrain in British society. There was, therefore, a fundamental choice of direction for the incoming government.

One was to offer an alternative radical strategy to Thatcherism, attuned to the shifts that had occurred in the 1970s and 1980s; with equal social and political depth, but based on radically different principles. What Thatcherism seemed to have ruled out was another bout of Keynesian welfare-state social democracy. More significantly, Thatcherism had evolved a broad hegemonic basis for its authority, deep philosophical foundations, as well as an effective popular strategy. It was grounded in a radical remodelling of state and economy and a new neo-liberal common sense.

This was not likely to be reversed by a mere rotation of the electoral wheel of fortune. The historic opportunities for the left required imaginative thinking and decisive action in the early stages of taking power, signalling a new direction. The other choice was, of course, to adapt to Thatcherite, neo-liberal terrain. There were plenty of indications that this would be New Labour’s preferred direction. And so it turned out. In a profound sense, New Labour has adapted to neo-liberal terrain …

https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2003/aug/06/society.labour

Continue ReadingStuart Hall: New Labour has picked up where Thatcherism left off

The state of UK’s water industry

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The Guardian has a series of articles looking at UK’s water industry. Looks like it’s a cash cow for foreign investors with prices to consumers inflated to service debt and excessive payments to shareholders. Well worth a look (and tofu-eating is not mandatory ;) …

England’s water: the world’s piggy bank

England is one of the few countries in the world where water is fully owned by private companies. These companies answer to investors based thousands of miles away from their customers.

“What we have here is just a crazy system,” said Kate Bayliss, from the department of economics at SOAS University of London and author of several papers on England’s privatised water. “We are managing our water in the interests of offshore investors.”

These offshore investors include private and state-owned international funds, banks, multinationals and billionaires headquartered outside the UK, and they control at least 72% of English water, new Guardian research has found.

Here’s how England’s profitable water system has been sold off around the world:

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Revealed: more than 70% of English water industry is in foreign ownership

Foreign investment firms, private equity, pension funds and businesses lodged in tax havens own more than 70% of the water industry in England, according to research by the Guardian.

The complex web of ownership is revealed as the public and some politicians increasingly call for the industry to be held to account for sewage dumping, leaks and water shortages. Six water companies are under investigation for potentially illegal activities as pressure grows on the industry to put more money into replacing and restoring crumbling infrastructure to protect both the environment and public health.

More than three decades after the sector was sold off with a promise to the public they would become individual small shareholders or “H2Owners”, control of the water industry has become dominated by overseas investment vehicles, the super-rich, companies in tax havens and pension fund investors. The ownership structure is such that transparency and accountability are limited, according to Dr Kate Bayliss, a research associate with the department of economics at Soas University of London.

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Down the drain: how billions of pounds are sucked out of England’s water system

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In the 30 years since England’s water was privatised by Margaret Thatcher, water companies have set up a system in which billions of pounds leave the network in an average year.

It’s money that could have gone towards building a more resilient water system, say academics. Among them, Dieter Helm, an Oxford professor of economic policy specialising in utilities, went as far as saying in 2021 that England’s water system was “a scandal of financial engineering”.

So where is the money going?

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Continue ReadingThe state of UK’s water industry