Written by Geoffrey Bastin
As the economist, Milton Freeman said “Government is the problem” and so it proves as each day and year passes. The deceit of politicians is never more evident than we have just witnessed over Health and Social Care legislation.
How can we ever forget we were promised Brexit only to end up with BRINO?
HS2, that famous vanity project that should have been scrapped, has been allowed to go ahead although now it won’t be extended at the northern end.
We have allowed the national debt to escalate to mega proportions as £400 billion was spent on a dubious vaccination programme whilst a further £350 billion occurred through lockdowns and tracing nonsense for which no identifiable benefit can be found.
So now with the Tories latest election pledge ditched we are told that taxation has never been higher for the majority – bearing in mind all taxation, whatever it is called, all ends up in the same pot.
You may recall Foreign Aid running at £14 billion a year all from borrowed money that now has vanished into a branch of the Foreign Office never to be mentioned again. And ten years ago we were promised a bonfire of quangos that would save £210 billion but has long been forgotten.
So here we are talking about a sum of £12 billion a year being raised through yet more taxation when it seems that such a “small sum” could have been raised or diverted from other sources without all this political fuss.
Probably more insulting to the electorate are the adverts now showing for the NHS to recruit Diversity Managers on unspeakably high salaries.
But this government likes political fuss… it seems if only to keep us on blood pressure pills forevermore. There is no knowing what the additional taxation will be spent on despite the announced figures of only £5.4 billion going to Social Care each year for the next three years. All that extra for the NHS will undoubtedly end up being lost in the system without any noticeable changes apart from frivolous staff appointments.
Over the last nineteen months, the public has shown itself to be easily influenced by well-marketed virtue signalling quasi-Marxist “causes” such as BLM, and Stop Funding HATE, and the post-Covid potential of emotional Social Care talk is just too good an opportunity to miss as a way of skimming more cash from people’s pockets.
In December 2019, the Tory party secured an eighty seat majority as the only alternative to a much-derided Labour party.
Then as now, far too many believe our political system must be dominated by one or other of the two main parties when in the real world, such talk is just nonsense.
Unless and until we accept that both of those parties are hopelessly out of their depth, that parliament is stuffed full of career politicos who couldn’t hope to have an easier life in the real world whilst lacking the depth of knowledge required to contribute to the national legislature, and to whom we listen daily to their mealy-mouthed vacuous mutterings, then there is little hope of any real change at Westminster for the foreseeable future.
How obvious it was during the recent debates about Health and Social Care that this is just another sop and publicity stunt to make us believe something is being done. It, along with so many other issues like illegal immigration, makes us realise this government hasn’t a clue or worse still is deliberately deceitful.
Some even suggest the PM is under the influence of Princess Nut Nut who rules his life and with that Cop26 thing about to happen perhaps her real emphasis is about to mean our increased contributions could so easily be diverted to some climate change agenda away from our prying eyes.
Oh please, you may think that but I couldn’t possibly comment.
Dear old Arthur Marshall who you may remember from that TV programme many years ago, Call My Bluff, was once asked if he ever went jogging. Oh no he replied. “I once ran for the bus in 1934 and said never again”.
My answer would be to take the ‘Party’ out of ‘Politics’. Easy, if you don’t allow the ‘Parties’ to sabotage Independent candidates at elections. Or perhaps not so easy as we just think we live in a democracy and that we cannot possibly be cheated plebs.
So when do we drop mega egos and micro parties and do something about it , together ?
Anything in mind?
Yes, I keep suggesting a Protest Party to cover selected rewarding and significant Protests. Batten experimented with giving Mike Hookem Fishing, and he carried out a good job focussing the protest with gentle help from an already moribund ukip. It was this that sharpened up the action from our politicians to actually not give our fish away… Sacking of Batten finally showed the state of ukip.
I understand those with ambition to politics jobs may be brainwashed into believing that it might direct malice.. But I have no idea why ..
Every Briton has a beef, moan, or favourite whinge..
It would perhaps be possibleto start a “Protest Party ” without a ridiculous manifesto but with obvious simple targetted agendas.from each protest with its own knowledgeable well known and committed Leader This could be managed by a ” Manager ” with purely managerial responsibilities and NO politics. But democratically elected to manage.
And so on, suggestions such as strategy, cash, resourse allocation, and all the rest of the administration rubbish can be fielded and advised on
That is possibly what I would do, and my experience of this sort of thing is perhaps bigger than any Then it only remains for the likes of Colin or Etheridge or Kurten, or whoever to step forward.
A Good plan, a good,manager,( I would advertise ), a good collection of Non Executive Directors and a presentable young, bright, and tough manager. And the pennies will roll in.But the name I suspect needs to include ” Protest “
A most enjoyable read Jake, not for me!
I found the government’s action the last few day totally despicable.
We should all remember that the so called social care are all privately owned business, so the blond bastard is sliding a few more billion into his mates pockets( does daddy own any “care homes”.?
I always think that they are wrongly named. More like prisons and few give a toss about the old who are unfortunate to be put there!
Sorry for being so cynical, must be my age!
“Over the last nineteen months, the public has shown itself to be easily influenced by well-marketed virtue signalling quasi-Marxist “causes” such as BLM, and Stop Funding HATE, and the post-Covid potential of emotional Social Care talk is just too good an opportunity to miss as a way of skimming more cash from people’s pockets.”
Stop funding hate! It appears to me that it needn’t be so expensive, if these people f****d off home to the sh*tholes that they came from, we wouldn’t hate them. Easy and not so expensive!
Indeed flyer but they won’t leave voluntarily. I avoid patronising their businesses now and haven’t had a takeaway from one of their establishments for years. I’ve not used Asda either since it was sold to them. Boycotts can be effective if enough of us participate.
You have hit the nail on the head there. The extra money given to the NHS will just disappear into the ether, and they will still be saying that they are inadequately funded and need more and more money. The biggest losers in all of this will be the taxpayer as per ruddy usual, and the consequence of this 1.25% rise in National Insurance payments will be bigger wage demands. However the only sector that will benefit from higher pay are the MP’s themselves who have already been promised a pay increase significantly above the rate of inflation, the complete shysters that they are……
A most enjoyable read. Thanks Mr Bastin.
I am left thinking of the mighty Liberal Party which collapsed and never recovered because it stopped being ‘liberal’ (classical liberalism) in late Victorian and Edwardian Britain. Is it too much to hope that the Tory Party having abandoned its founding principles of ‘conservatism’ as it courts modern liberalsim, economic and political globalisation and big state socialism suffers the same fate?
I share the same view as Peter Hitchens that only the destruction of the Tories will save conservatism.
Hitchens seriously rattled Farage in this interview as he exposed Farages committment to changing the face of Westminster.
That should read ‘questioned’ Farages committment to changing the face of Westminster.
Quite Jake – no commitment. And the Tories are acutely aware of what happened to the Liberals; they have carefully curated their image and policies to fit with the times. for decades, if not for hundreds of years. They have protected their position by wilfully breaking up and destroying potential rivals.
What Nigel and those hardworking UKIP members (despised and, if still there, discarded by the renegade usurpers in what they laughingly still call UKIP, the party of free speech.) did do was move the Overton Window to make leaving the EU respectable. And as for the fiscal Overton moves that came with Thatcherism – it is now rapidly spooling backwards and leftwards.
What the leftie lurch of the so called Conservatives – or CON- servatives- means since they have destroyed that which could destroy them if they moved away from conservative small state, low tax, individual responsibility principles is that we are sleepwalking into a communist state.
Hear hear Helena.