Tag: jeremy corbyn

Taken For A Ride By The Fat Cats

· Leave a comment ·

uk rail fares

The recent lambasting of private rail company SouthWest Trains by the populist left-wing revolutionary rag, the Daily Mail, for exploiting VJ veterans by ramping up the fares during the VJ day commemorations [1], highlights more than ever the fact that Britain needs a modern, safe, cheap and efficient railway.

The way to get that is not to have a jigsaw puzzle in every railway station of different private companies, particularly when we have to subsidize them at a rate five times greater in real terms compared to when they were nationalized [2]. What is the logic of giving privateers like the private rail companies this massive increase in subsidy?

Not only is Jeremy Corbyn promising to bring the railways back into public ownership, but his ‘flip-flopper’ rival for the leadership, Andy Burnham, has promised the same. Cynical appropriations of the public mood by the latter in this way, is of course, not new among the Labour Party establishment. In the New Labour manifesto of 1997, for example, Tony Blair promised that the railways would be put into public ownership only to do a massive u turn after becoming elected [3].

Nationalization of the railways was a major platform (pun not intended) upon which he gained power, thus reinforcing the ‘left-wing policies are electoral suicide myth’ meme propagated by his critics.

So Blair was elected in 1997 on a left-wing ticket of nationalization of the kind the right-wing warmonger is criticising Jeremy Corbyn for now. In other words, for Blair, nationalization was regarded as being electable. But Corbyn who is proposing the same is regarded by the New Labour hierarchy as being unelectable despite the fact that a majority of British people of all political persuasions believe that the railways should be in public hands [4].

It’s worth mentioning that although the rail stock and the running of the rail system has been privatized, much of the infrastructure including the rails upon which the trains run, have not. This begs the question: Why should we be allowing people to print money by obtaining franchises to run on publicly owned track that we’ve paid for?

Although the rail companies are getting massive subsidies, are the trains five times less overcrowded than on the old British Rail? There are now less train carriages than there were under British Rail and the platforms are shorter despite the fact that capacity throughout the network is increasing exponentially. This is reflected in public opinion polls that conclude a high dissatisfaction with the railways since they became privatized [5].

Clearly then, the rail companies are not five times as sensitive to public needs. Are they cheaper in real terms? Again, that’s a negative: Since privatization, rail fares have trebled while earnings have remained largely stagnant [6]. We are paying three times more to stand in overcrowded trains compared with our counterparts in Germany and France [7].

It’s also.difficult to sustain the argument that a privatized system is likely to be safer given the ‘passing the buck,’ culture that the patchwork quilt and largely unaccountable private railway system implies.

At, present the railways are too expensive and fragmented and don’t serve the public interest, despite the fact that we, the British people, are paying exorbitantly for it in order to boost the profits of the fat cats who run it. Why should profits be privatized and losses nationalized in this way?

It makes no economic and rational sense unless, of course, you happen to be somebody like Richard Branson whose concept of market forces is very different from yours or mine. For too long passengers have been taken for a ride on this issue. It’s encouraging that Corbyn has put the nationalization of the railways back on the political agenda.

Jeremy Corbyn and the Jews

· 3 Comments ·

August 17, 2015  /  Gilad Atzmon

By Gilad Atzmon

The relationship between Jeremy Corbyn and British Jews can be summarized into a brief observation:

While Corbyn’s success represents a hugely popular shift within British political thinking, the orchestrated Jewish campaign against him is there to suggest that once again, Jews set themselves against the people they dwell upon.

The vastly growing popularity of Jeremy Corbyn amongst Brits can be easily explained. Following decades of cultural Marxist, divisive Identiterian politics and Zionist-Neocon domination within the British Left, Corbyn brings along a refreshing ideological alternative. Corbyn seems to re-unite the Brits. He cares for the weak. He opposes interventionist wars. He represents the return of the good old left as opposed to New Labour’s affinity with big money, choseness  and exceptionalism. He cares for the students and the youth. He thinks about the future and promises to undo the damage created by Blair and Cameron. But as Britain sees the rise of a hugely popular ideological movement, many Jewish institutions see Corbyn as an arch enemy. They would prefer to see him gone and have used nearly every trick in the book to discredit him.

In the last few days we have noticed a tidal wave of Jewish institutional opposition to Corbyn. First it was the Daily Mail that attempted to throw Zionist mud in the direction of the man who is destined to take over what is left out of the Labour party. Surprisingly, not a single British media outlet picked the Mail’s dirt for a few days. Eventually the notorious Zionist Jewish Chronicle had to take the gloves off just ahead of Sabbath and lead the battle against the emerging socialist leader.

In the weekend the Jewish Chronicle (JC) outlined its problems with Corbyn while claiming to “speak for the vast majority of British Jews… expressing deep foreboding at the prospect of Mr Corbyn’s election as Labour leader.”

Apparently, on behalf of ‘the vast majority of British Jews,’ The JC wanted to know whether it is true that Corbyn donated money to Dier Yassin Remembered (DYR), an organisation that was founded to commemorate the brutal massacre of an entire Palestinian village by right wing Jewish paramilitary fighters in 1948. I guess that the tens of thousands who joined the labour party in the last weeks just to support the first true British labour ideologist for generations were delighted to learn that their favourite candidate supported DYR and truly opposes Zionist barbarism.

On behalf of the “vast majority of British Jews” the JC demanded to be fully informed about the non-existent relationship between Corbyn and British DYR chairman Paul Eisen. The JC didn’t approve of the connection between Corbyn and pro-Palestinian Rev Stephen Sizer either. Corbyn was also asked to clarify his association with the Hamas, the Hezbollah and Palestinian cleric Raead Salah. I guess that the JC editorial would like to define the list of kosher ‘friends’ eligible for British elected politicians. Until this happens, the message that is delivered by the Brits is lucid: it is actually Corbyn’s firm stand on justice and his ability to befriend true freedom fighters and humanists which makes him into the most popular politician in Britain at the moment.

If someone in the JC fails to read the picture, I will outline it in the clearest form. British people are expressing a clear fatigue of corrupted party politics as much as they are tired of Zionist interventionist wars. They are begging for a change, they demand equality and the prospect of a better future and a leader with ethical integrity. Whether Corbyn can provide these qualities, time will tell. But the British yearning for a radical change has been formally established.

Disrespectfully and outrageously, in the open and on behalf of “the vast majority of British Jews”, the JC set an ultimatum to the most popular man in British politics.

“If Mr Corbyn is not to be regarded from the day of his election as an enemy of Britain’s Jewish community, he has a number of questions which he must answer in full and immediately.”

One would expect the JC editorial to learn something from Jewish history. Those British Jews who insist to speak ‘on behalf’ of their people should at least pretend to uphold some minimal respect to British good manners.

The JC, however, admitted that Corbyn ignored them for over a week – “No response has been forthcoming” from Corbyn or his office, the JC wrote.  Though I do not have any reason to believe that Corbyn has a cell of hatred in his body, I wouldn’t like to see him bowing to Jewish political pressure. What we need is a firm British leader dedicated to equality, justice, peace and British interests instead of just another Sabbos Goy and servant of the Lobby as well as big money.

Toby Young Regurgitates Old Labour Myths In Order To Denigrate Corbyn

· 2 Comments ·

In a debate on yesterday evening’s Channel 4 News (August 11) between Toby Young and Owen Jones, the former was aghast at the prospect of a Jeremy Corbyn victory in the forthcoming Labour Party leadership election campaign.

For the metropolitan elite, who Young speaks on behalf of, any notion that Corbyn could actually be victorious is invariably met with incredulity, derision or mockery.

Corbyn’s runaway lead in the polls, and the fact that he continues to pack out halls to capacity in rally after rally, is simply mystifying to people like Young. In a typically patronising fashion, the right-wing journalist was aghast at how Labour Party members could possibly support Corbyn.

Such support “beggars belief”, he said. He continued: “How many elections does Labour have to lose when it puts up a left-wing leader in order for the message to sink home”? Here, he is perpetuating the myth discussed here and here that left-wing leaders are unelectable.

He then made a reference to former Labour leader Michael Foot’s lack of apparent popularity in an attempt to bolster his argument. But again, he was dealing in myth rather than reality. A commentator on Craig Murray’s blog by the name of Bevin put Young straight on the matter:

“What happened to Foot’s campaign in 1983 was that a large part of Labour’s leadership seceded calling the Labour platform extremist and Marxist. This had the effect, amongst other things, of confusing much of Labour’s traditional support.

Occurring at the same time as a massive media campaign celebrating the SDP and its purported radicalism – ‘breaking the mould of British politics’ – it divided the Labour vote and handed the election to the unpopular Tories.

Then there was the Falklands effect. The notion that Foot was defeated in a straight contest with Thatcher and that his mild socialist policies were rejected in favour of her hard right programme is nonsense.

His position was sabotaged by a well financed and carefully co-ordinated campaign to split the Labour party, by a right wing faction that has, since the 1940s, relied upon US governmental patronage on condition that it use every weapon to thwart those in Labour opposed to the Cold War and in favour of nuclear disarmament and peace.

Those who actually recall the history of the period will confirm that both within the Labour party and in the broader population, nuclear disarmament, getting out of NATO and declaring British independence from the US were very popular policies.

The membership of the Labour party was overwhelmingly in favour of the left. The proto Blairites and the Grosvenor Square groupies invariably relied on block votes from the authoritarian Union leaders at the party’s annual conference. The membership of the Constituency parties always supported the left. And so did most Trade Unionists and Labour voters.

When predicting the result of the next general election it would be best to understand that, for the great majority of the electorate, the coming five years are likely to see the NHS going the way of free education, a housing crisis which will see large numbers of working families, once again, living in crowded slums, an enormous increase in unemployment and a radical decline in living standards. A return to Victorian conditions.

Any politician who can offer an alternative is likely to do better than those declaring that nothing can be done, which is what the Blairites say. That any such politician will be crucified in the media, slandered and misrepresented goes without saying.”

Equality And Social Justice – Cameron Style

· Leave a comment ·

The mainstream media today confirmed the Tories commitment to equality and social justice with their announcement of their plans to ensure that UK citizens aged 18-22 are (in line with anti-EU discrimination law), to be exempt from the same rights to tax credits, child benefit and housing benefit as their immigrant counterparts.

Government lawyers have stated: “Imposing additional requirements on EU workers that do not apply to a member state’s own workers constitutes direct discrimination which is prohibited under current EU law” (1).

So, apparently, in order to be compliant with EU law, UK citizens within the 18-22 age group must forgo these benefits on the basis that it’s discriminatory because immigrants are not entitled to them.

But instead of raising the bar by insisting that both UK citizens and immigrants within this age range be entitled to benefits on an equal basis, the Tories have decided to lower it by insisting that neither group are entitled to anything. In other words, equality in the gutter as opposed to equality at the dinner table.

The reason so many immigrants – many of whom risk their lives –  want to come here is because of the perception that the UK is a relative economic powerhouse. However, any cuts to benefits will not deter people who are primarily motivated by the need to improve the lives of themselves and their families as a result of perceived greater work opportunities this country allegedly offers.

The government have done nothing to dispel myths that the UK is a land of milk and honey. This would suggest that their plan to cut welfare across the board in order to adhere to EU law was planned. As blogger Mike Sivier put it: “The migrant situation is a crisis of the Tories’ own making and they are using it to hammer their own fellow citizens” (2).

So what next do the government have in the pipeline you might reasonably ask?

The Tories are ideologically opposed to the welfare state. This latest move is, I would suggest, part and parcel of their intention to get rid of it altogether by stealth. It’s a remarkable state of affairs when our only hope out of this morass appears to be Jeremy Corbyn.

The Benefit Sponging Elite

· Leave a comment ·

Last night another row erupted after it emerged that hedge funds rushed to gamble on RBS shares falling in value after government plans to start selling its stake were leaked last week. (file image)

I was in my local cafe earlier today and nearly choked on my bacon sandwich at the sheer audacity of the banksters. I happened to glance over at the adjacent table at the copy of the Daily Mail somebody had left open. I generally detest this rag, but have to admit that every now and then it does come up with the occasional nugget.

The paper does appear of late to be on a mission to undermine Osborne and the Tories. As I alluded to in post on August 4, it was clear that the Tory Aristocrat had garnered some insider knowledge prior to the part sell off of RBS thus providing the opportunity for his mates in the City to, once again, pillage the public purse- this time to the tune of a cool £1bn (1).

This was money which no doubt could have been better spent on bailing out a non-taxable status charitable organisation like, for example, Kids Company run by Camila Batman (and robber?) ghelidjh. Maybe an extra billion added to the £3 million Cameron nodded through to the bankrupt charity would have saved it?

But anyway back to the latest banking scandal. With her insider knowledge and connections as a former City banker, it’s highly conceivable that Treasury minister, Harriet Baldwin. who defended the sell-off, would have advised Osborne on the matter.

The Daily Mail’s Banking Correspondent, James Salmon, revealed that hedge funds rushed to gamble on RBS – a ploy known in the market as ‘shorting’ – “may have generated profits of more than £10 million, This is because the bank’s share price fell in the days before the government sell-off.” (2).

Labour MP John Mann, a member of the Treasury select committee, said: “Yet again hedge funds and bankers are making money and the public are losing out.” (3). A few days ago former City trader, Tom Hayes,was given a 14 year sentence for his role in rigging the Libor interest rate. (4). But he is merely the sacrificial lamb for a much wider and systematic corruption that begins at the very top. The fact that these kinds of abuses are allowed to continue in the context in which people struggling on benefits are jailed for stealing food (5), is the scandal of our time.

The former Republican analyst Mike Lofgren, disgusted with what his party had become, said the following about the economic elite in the United States:

“The rich disconnect themselves from the civic life of the nation and from any concern about its well being except as a place to extract loot. Our plutocracy now lives like the British in colonial India: in the place and ruling it, but not of it ” (6).

He might as well of been talking about the UK, which is basically little more than the 51st state. Osborne and Cameron identify more readily with a transnational elite than with the other people of this nation. The proof is in the pudding. On behalf of this elite, the government gives away a staggering £93bn a year in corporate welfare – a sum bigger than the deficit.(7). It champions the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership; a graver threat to the interests of this nation than Islamic extremism.

And yet there is a iron-cast consensus between the Tories and the Labour hierarchy in terms of their unwillingness to tackle the problem. This explains why the latter distance themselves from the populist Jeremy Corbyn who wants to put and end to this kind of revolving door political cronyism.

The real benefit spongers are not those who feature on low brow documentary programmes, but rather they are the elites who occupy the corridors of the plush buildings within the City of London.

Banking Racketeers Set For Another Windfall

· 1 Comment ·

A sign is displayed outside of a branch of The Royal Bank of Scotland in central London, Britain May 20, 2015. REUTERS/Neil Hall

The UK Chancellor’s announcement that he plans to sell-off £2 billion worth of the 79 per cent stake the government has in RBS over the coming fortnight is, according to Unite national officer for finance Rob MacGregor, “recklessly irresponsible”(1). RBS shares that stood at £6.88 in 2007, are now valued at £3.30 (2). It should be noted that the shares have not been offered to the people who bailed out RBS, that is us, the taxpayers but to the Tories’ city friends.

The decision by Aristocrat Gideon Osborne, who seems set to be next in line to take the reins of PM from his friend David Cameron (3), and who promised action on tax avoidance (4), despite the fact that his family business has avoided tax (5), is defended by Treasury minister, Harriet Baldwin. Why would she defend the sell-off which will result in a £1bn loss to taxpayers, you may ask?

Well, it could have something to do with her connections within in the banking racket. Having joined investment bank JP Morgan Chase in 1986, she then became managing director and Head of Currency Management at their London office in 1998. She left the bank in 2008, after more than two decades with the bank (6). Maybe she has advised Cameron to get shot of the RBS millstone before his transition to PM.

The chief architects of the RBS collapse, Fred Goodwin and Sir Tom McKillop seemed to have disappeared into the ether.

To sell these shares when business is slow, many are on holiday and the stock market depressed, means its the opportune time for these scoundrels to defraud us for the second time round, which of course is really what this latest scandal is all about.

If, after this latest act by the page boy to his dads banker friends in order to further the interests of the banking racketeers, won’t have awaken the masses from their slumber, then I fear nothing will. There is no clearer illustration we are being taken for a ride than the governments collusion with the bankers as highlighted by this sell-off.  Austerity amounts to the raiding of the public coffers to bolster the pockets of the super-rich (7).

As economist Andrew Fisher alludes, this is clearly an ideological and dogmatic move by Osborne, not a financially pragmatic one:

“Banks that owe their continuing existence to public funds should be acting in the public interest — investing in the productive economy, reducing the margins between their lending rates and savers’ rates, and ending the fat-cat bonus culture at the top, while underpaying and laying off cashiers at the other end.”(8).

The Financial Times reported yesterday (August 3) that Osborne wants to flog off £32bn worth of public assets by the end of the financial year, as part of a strategy to reduce the role of the state that will do nothing to stimulate growth (9). The £32bn worth of public asset stripping that is to include the Met Office, Ordnance Survey and air traffic controller Nats, breaks even Thatcher’s record (10).

We are not in this mess because politicians are stupid but because of the cozy relationship that exists between them and the bankers who the latter lobby on behalf of (11). The Guardian outlines how it all works. A commentator on Craig Murray’s blog argued that:

“The entire RBS saga is a scam from start to finish:

• All banks make huge profits by lending prodigiously.
• Concentrate bad debts in a few banks.
• Instill ‘too big to fail’ meme.
• Order politicians to ‘nationalise’ compromised banks at huge cost to tax-payers.
• Continue injecting billions until ‘nationalised’ banks have paid off the lion’s share of bad debt.
• Sell bank back to bankers at knock-down price” (12).

Another commentator from the same blog makes another apt point:

“Note the bastards didn’t buy voting shares in RBS: the taxpaying sucker didn’t even have the opportunity to reform the bank. Lovely little restructure: the retail arm goes to another retail bank for a knockdown price (W&G may not have been too wise buying it even then), while the crooked division ends up divvied up between hedge funds. And lives to cheat another day” (13).

Don’t forget dear readers, we are all in it with the aim of getting the deficit down.

Don’t Believe The Hype

· 2 Comments ·

Much to the almost certain consternation of Harriet Harman, forty-eight labour MPs did the honourable thing by voting against the Tories’ welfare reform legislation. As I alluded to previously, Harman’s concession to the Tories was predicated on the belief that Labour has to move right in order to be electable.

Given the Liberal Democrat’s close ideological proximity to the Tories during their power sharing term, and their subsequent virtual demise following the last election, the strategic move by Harman and the party hierarchy is clearly a calculable risk.

Harman’s assumption appears to be that there is no longer any more political and electoral traction to be gained by appealing to a diminishing band of traditional left wing voters. But the question is, are the abandoned merely lying dormant and waiting to be awoken from their slumber by a parliamentary opposition worthy of the name?

If we accept that the class structure remains in tact and that the real life experiences of the vast majority in the country will be made worse by the impending cuts, then rationally the answer to the question is they will at some point make their voice heard. But neither Harman or any of the Blairites competing for the leadership will be the catalyst.

In essence, there is no fundamental difference between the people of England and the people of Scotland. And yet, with the exception of a solitary seat, the latter wiped out from power a pro-austerity party, while the opposite was true for the former.

Outside the relatively small band of Labour Party dissenters, the opposition to benefit cuts in England will come from the SNP, Plaid and the Greens. The dominance of the SNP in Scotland and the popularity of both Jeremy Corbyn and Nicola Sturgeon, puts the lie to many of the claims in the corporate media that you have to be right wing to win elections. The forthcoming labour leadership battle is likely to bring this myth into even more of a sharper focus.

The reality is the people of England are inherently no more right wing than the people of Scotland. But the media who marginalize, ridicule and smear those with left wing views, most certainly are. So it’s not a question of their being no appetite for left wing views among the public, rather, the issue is one in which a right wing consensus is arrived at between the political establishment and the media. This is a policy that works.

We can expect greater media vilification of Corbyn as his campaign gains momentum in the coming period. The notion that a singular right wing ideological elite are first and foremost motivated by an overriding quest for the reins of power, has been addressed by former UK Ambassador, Craig Murray.

As Murray contends, persuasively, not only are the supposed parameters between left and right upon which electoral battles are fought based largely on an illusion, but as evidenced by successively low electoral turnouts, there is little enthusiasm for their leaders either.

Blair may of been the exception, but as Murray points out, his popularity was predicated on a set of left-wing policies outlined in his manifesto that he subsequently u-turned on once gaining power. As people discovered that New Labour were “intensely relaxed about people getting filthy rich”, to quote Mandelson, their popular support plummeted. “The great communicator” Blair for 90% of his Prime Ministership was no more popular than David Cameron is now. 79% of the electorate did not vote for him by his third election.

Nevertheless, since Blair’s election victory in 1997, successive Tory-lite labour strategists have appeared to have taken the view that the preferred direction of travel for the party is that which is undertaken by their opponent. This ignores the fact that this ‘race to the bottom’ is in nobody’s interests other than the narrow careerist and financial ones of those at the top. And that, as far as Harman is concerned, is clearly the crux of the matter.

Increasingly, the political battle lines are being drawn, not between the ruling party and the opposition, but between the ruling party, opposition and the rest of us. I don’t remember a time when the disconnect between the political establishment and the people has been greater. For the vast majority of the political establishment and their paymasters in the corporate media, they really are all in it together. But that doesn’t mean that left wing views are unelectable as Nicola Sturgeon has shown. Maybe Jeremy will become England’s Nicola. We need him.

Dead Labour

· Leave a comment ·

Following Harriet Harman’s admission that the purpose of the Labour Party is to outflank the tories at the expense of any allusion to principle, she might have just put the final nail in the coffin of the party, That said, the heart of the beast hasn’t stopped beating quite yet and it could be revived if leadership contender Jeremy Corbyn comes to its rescue by winning the forthcoming battle.

Harman’s claim that she would not oppose Tory benefit cuts was only surprising in the sense that she was being frank about it. Should Labour die and what remains of the corpse align themselves with the Greens and other progressives, the English people will be reliant on the SNP coming to their aid on their behalf.

Just as the bankers are now in a stronger position than they were prior to Syriza in Greece coming to power as a result of the former’s usurping of national Greek sovereignty, so too will the Tories should Corbyn lose..

In challenging the Osborne/Harman narrative, what used to pass as positively centrist, is now regarded as dangerously revolutionary, particularly when the issue of raising taxes for the rich is concerned..This is what Corbyn had to say to Sky’s Adam Boulton yesterday evening:

Corbyn:

“I think we have made a mistake on giving so much ground to Osborne, particularly on the treatment of young people in the budget and treatment of people in larger families. Why should the third and subsequent amount of children be penalized depending on the random date in which they happen to be born?

Boulton:

“Why should the tax payer support larger families”?

Corbyn:

“We have a system in which even Thatcher signed a European convention protecting the rights of the child. What number were you”?

Boulton:

“I’m playing devils advocate. This is only going to be introduced for future families and that they have a choice as to how many children they have. Surely encouraging families to have a smaller amount of children must be a good thing.”

Corbyn:

“I agree. But they don’t need encouragement. People having small families happens anyway. The average family size over the last 50 years has come down. But because of the idea that there are some large families, that children should be penalized for being born, is simply not right. We could cut rising welfare expenditure by capping rents thus saving on housing benefit and improving drastically the living wage thereby undercutting the subsidising of low pay paid through benefits – a system that currently works to the advantage of large multinationals like Tesco. We need to pay people more so the tax yield is greater and the economy does better. It’s a win-win situation.”

Boulton:

“How are you going to pay for it”?

Corbyn:

“We have to raise the taxes of the wealthiest. Over the last few years, child poverty has increased, homelessness has increased, the use of food banks has increased and overcrowding in houses has increased. So we need a different and more humane approach to welfare.”