Theresa May’s Britain 374


I have only ever been able to discern two underlying motivations in Theresa May’s career; a love of office and a hatred of immigrants. It is possible to love office without loving power; loving power means you want to do something with it, whereas loving office is just for prestige and personal economic opportunity. I do not imagine May’s hatred of immigrants is driven by actual racism, easy though it is to read that into her hostile environment, go home van, end free movement, career. It is rather that the incredibly successful Tory narrative remains the false attribution of working class poverty to immigration, rather than its actual cause, massive inequality and an entire legal structure and system of government geared to promoting the interests of the super wealthy.

I do not understand the notion that we have a constitutional crisis. The solution seems self-evident. England and Wales voted to leave the EU, by a large margin if you take those two countries, which share a legal system, alone. Let them leave the EU. Scotland voted by a still larger majority to remain in the EU. Let it become Independent, remain in the EU, and not need to thwart the will of the English and Welsh to leave. And let Ireland forget its bigots and be a united country.

Constitutional crisis over. Indeed, that there is no other viable solution, and the UK is no longer a viable political unit, I can guarantee you will be universally recognised by the year 2030 as having been a self-evident truth. The actual dissolution of the UK will come ten years before that.

The BBC TV News was hyping the success of the British economy under Theresa May a couple of days ago on the basis of figures from the Office of National Statistics showing that the economic inactivity rate had fallen to 21%, the lowest since records began. But that needs to be considered alongside the fact that purchasing power of average wages is still below where it was ten years ago, and a huge swathe of the population is in insecure, part time and low paid employment.

The decline of leisure is not something to be celebrated. The shrinking of the “economically inactive” figure to 21% means that many pensioners are forced to keep on working because they cannot make ends meet on the developed world’s most miserly pensions, that parents of young children are forced both to stay in jobs rather than provide all the love, protection and affection they may wish. Every time Theresa May is questioned on the heartless fiasco of universal credit, she states its aim is to “get people back into work”, by which she means choose between starvation and vicious drudgery; with no rights, no prospects and low paid hours handed down as a favour.

Whether or not May stays as head of the Tory government, or is replaced by some other heartless Tory bastard, I really do not care. I have not been blogging much recently, in sheer exasperation at the enormity of societal injustice and the utter irrelevance of the available political system. But I guess we have to get back to chipping away at the marble facade of power with our tiny social media picks. One day it will fall.


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374 thoughts on “Theresa May’s Britain

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  • michael norton

    Although Theresa May is on the ropes, it is possible that the E.U. will back down, as France is in a terrible pickle.
    The French Economy is taking a nose-dive and France will be breaking E.U. rules if it eases Austerity.

    • Martinned

      I’m still reading the judgment, but so far it doesn’t seem too bad.

      Or do you object to the general principle of the reference to the Supreme Court? Because it hardly seem fair to blame the Supreme Court for that. Also, I’d think you’d support a constitution that, unlike the UK one, provides for clear boundaries on legislative (and executive) competence, together with a process for making sure everyone stays in their corner. Rule of law, human rights, and all that. The Irish have a similar procedure, whereby the President can refer bills to the Supreme Court. (See art. 26 of the Irish Constitution.)

      • Molloy

        .

        A bent and easily manipulated (perfidious) constitutional.

        Please maintain accuracy. Otherwise, war crime complicit?

        Just saying.

        .

        • Molloy

          .

          Apologies. Re-try. . . .

          A bent and easily manipulated (perfidious) constitutioN.

          Please maintain accuracy. Otherwise, war crime complicit?

          Just saying.

          .

      • Republicofscotland

        In hindsight Martinned yes you’re correct, it was the UK government that moved the goal posts half way through and not the Supreme court.

    • Martinned

      OK, finished reading now.

      1. It is clearly bonkers for the Scottish Parliament to purport to restrict what Westminster ministers can do.

      2. The whole point of devolution is that the Westminster Parliament continues to be competent to make any laws it likes applying to Scotland. When it does, such legislation trumps Scottish laws. The relative time when such Scottish and Westminster legislation is enacted doesn’t really matter. Either way the Scottish legislation is not law.

      • Republicofscotland

        Point one, would you go as far as to say even on devolved matters?

        agriculture, forestry and fisheries
        education and training
        environment
        health and social services
        housing
        law and order
        local government
        sport and the arts
        tourism and economic development
        many aspects of transport

        Point two if so why give the illusion of devolved matters then, when you can trump them anytime you like.

        It’s by that very fact of negating a devolved parliaments powers, that shows the people where the real powers lie, and why independence is the only way forward.

      • nevermind

        The laws are a pack of trumps? If the law is not equal in the UNION, its not a union, but a colonial arrangement, we say and you listen and do.
        The Torys are breaking this Union they go on about so much, because they are not interested in equality or a democratic system, they dont care about voters. Laws dont come into this chaotic horse trading.

  • Molloy

    13.12.2018 for CM with thanks.
    ??????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????

    .
    Topic —
    May (racism; warmonger; racist; inept; DSM5 self-entitled); May, along with her unspeakable ‘Thatcher’ puppeteers—Promoting Nationalism; Greed; Self-Regard and its underlying self-important, blind and virtue-signalling message.

    . . .All, of course, intentional and deliberate divisiveness in order to enfeeble and confuse the ‘plebs’, those who don’t matter according to the not very lawful ‘Regime’.

    Scene 1
    * ****** * *

    (voice of past, more than tainted BBC status-worthy-talking head)
    . . . .“Now. . . Step forward, the great “T Welsh”. . .(comment earlier)

    (Some one else; stage left. . said using a racist, snarky nasal voice, mimicking “T Welsh”. . interrupting ‘talking head’)
    . . . .“Really!? You T Welsh say. .‘pure-blooded Scots like me’. . . . Really?

    (“T Welsh”, for it is he? confused air, purportedly centre stage)
    . . . .“Why does calling myself a pure-blooded Scot make me a bigot?
    . .Would it sound better if I wrote “I am descended from Scots parents for at least five generations”?

    (voice of reformed 2019 AD-for-the-many-BBC)
    . . . .”The Dark Arts of Divisiveness. Oh. Dearie all of us!
    Better no Belsen than a racist Belsen.”

    (voice of reason, speaking on BBC)
    . . . “Obviously, normal humans, healthy humans, with their families, by far prefer to live contented lives in a community/State. . . of whatever description. . a State…
    . . . .a/ that doesn’t lie and rob and thieve, and. . .
    . . . . .b/ a State that does not kill, maim, enslave; does not murder does not ever psychologically-harm.”

    (long pause). . .
    (V of R, continuing)
    . . . .”And finally, on that collaborative note, actions speak louder than words, let’s now turn to the weather.”

    **********************
    ©️Molloy

    ¡No pasarán!

    .

      • Iain Stewart

        He may be related to the well-known Italian comic-book character of the same name, an intergalactic tax-collector.
        “Malloy è il più efficiente esattore del Paravatz, l’onnipotente Imperatore Galattico. È inarrestabile, carismatico e porta sempre a casa il risultato.”

  • Molloy

    .

    Fordyce — the ‘law’ of an unlawful May Regime.

    An apparent typo error?

    “The law is not set in stone. The law is an instrument designed to fashion a cohesive society.”

    Obviously should read. . . .

    “The law is not set in stone. The law is an instrument far too easily manipulated to benefit the elite and privileged.”

    (When I last looked, recently, Jurisprudence was and is a compulsory course unit. Have a wee peep in your notes, please.)

    Sláinte

    .

  • JMF

    In the US, people not counted in the workforce remains at record highs. It’s currently at about 96 million people or nearly a third of the population. Worse still, while workforce participation rates increased for older workers, they have decreased for younger people. That is, while almost twice the percentage of workers over 65 have jobs now compared to 1996, a smaller percentage of young workers have jobs. It’s hard to believe things are so rosy in the British economy. I mean they wouldn’t tell fibs or tweak things here or there would they?

  • Molloy

    .

    Faslane = War Crime

    Therefore an error to imply Faslane continues to blight Scotland.

    Referring to the earlier unintentional, May Regime apologist. . . .
    “ Paul Greenwood
    December 13, 2018 at 07:17
    Faslane gets the Cyprus treatment and becomes a Sovereign base open to the US NavyPaul Greenwood
    December 13, 2018 at 07:17
    Faslane gets the Cyprus treatment and becomes a Sovereign base open to the US Navy.”

    ¡No pasarán! Please take care, Paul.

    .

  • Molloy

    .

    Well, everyone. Today, is a lovely day for trolling, step forward. . . . .

    Paul Greenwood
    December 13, 2018 at 07:23
    a bunch of corrupt, incompetent, boorish, arrogant and thieving bunch of public school boys

    Enough material there for a psychologist…………clearly you feel better now after that ejaculation

    Reply ↓
    flatulence’
    December 13, 2018 at 08:17
    “clearly you feel better now after that ejaculation”

    Doesn’t everyone?

    Well spotted, Jo.
    ¡No pasarán! Tories Out.

    .

  • Molloy

    .

    The R’sWipe in May’s World Who Won’t Go Away —


    Iain Stewart
    December 12, 2018 at 21:44
    Poor Sharp Ears. But cheer up, Craig has posted these new thoughts! ?

    Catch on to yesself?

    .

  • Sharp Ears

    Do you remember Luciana Berger obtaining a police escort into the Labour conference? In fear or her life! All part of the concerted smears on Jeremy Corbyn in the anti-semitism propaganda.

    She would like a people’s vote. Obviously she is hoping for a reversal of the referendum result. A remnant of the Blairite persuasion,

    Her constituency party gives her what for. Why on earth did they elect her?
    https://twitter.com/WavertreeCLP/status/1072823079477350400

  • Paul

    Hi there,

    Thanks for the article.
    We can also had that unactivity rate cannot be genuinely compared to others as there as much method to figure it out as you have countries in Europe for example. Unemployment figures are part of it. What we have here is an astonishing system of manipulation : in the uk one is considered «in employment’, and therefore out of the unemployment figure as soon as one works 1h EVERY TWO WEEKS.
    How that could be allowed ?

    Take care

    Paul

  • Sharp Ears

    Apparently HMG is preparing for a no deal…….

    Civil service told to ramp up no-deal Brexit plans with 24/7 crisis centre
    Whitehall told to accelerate plans as doubts grow about future of May’s deal

    Thu 13 Dec 2018 17.33 GMT

    Civil servants across Whitehall have been instructed to ramp up their emergency no-deal planning, with preparations including hiring staff for a 24-hour “emergency centre”.

    The Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra), one of those likely to be worst hit by a no-deal Brexit, has advertised 90 new posts for civil servants to staff a crisis centre. The centre is being set up to plan for and manage “the reasonable scenario of no deal”, the job advert says.

    /..
    https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2018/dec/13/civil-service-seeks-staff-for-no-deal-brexit-crisis-centre

    Can you imagine getting through to one of the newbies in the call centre for help with a problem.

    • michael norton

      Exactly Sharp Ears, Theresa may is messing up Brexit and putting off the Meaningful Vote untill the end of January, next year, there will only be a few weeks left after that before we crash out, this is her cunning plan.

      • Jo Dominich a

        Michael Norton – I am not disagreeing with you as what you say is probably part of the truth. For me though, she is the embodiment of the Republicans in the USA – she is a power made politician whose sole focus is on remaining in power and bringing the poor and vulnerable and the middle classes down further so her very wealthy chums can become richer and richer. Her sole focus right now is to stay in power – something she is not willing to relinquish – she doesn’t really care about anything else. Stuff what is good for the nation – she cares about what is good for Treason May and her cronies.

  • giyane

    Woolly thinking Craig. It’s not strange that the Tory leader is a Tory Remainer. There’s nothing we can do about her Tory poison. Mrs Thatcher shifted the UK to the right and the Thatcher spawn want to shift it again to the right , but much further. The Thatcher shift to the right included globalisation, by which against all commonsense, bits of cars can be shifted daily over/under the channel to be tweaked.

    If May was an ALT Right Tory + Leaver, we’d be importing GM food from the US and syncing with US foreign policy. But she isn’t, so the very things she is doing in her withdrawal agreement are what you agree with, viz, continuing to operate under the Thatcher globalisation and European integration. You are Thatcher spawn and you think your Thatcher globalisation exempts you from racism.

    But the brown car widgets, brown milk and veg, and brown immigration, using Brown to mean ‘ not Green, i.e. not local ‘, all follow the god of the market, which says if it’s cheaper to move it, stick it in a lorry burning fossil fuel and move it. The EU is a truly Thatcherite ‘market ‘ brown, not green, fuel-consuming project. and you also think that all those things that are shipped by lorry for the benefit of the market prove you are an internationalist. No, they prove you are a Thatcherite.

    Unfortunately the Brown EU project, based on cheap oil, is based on garbage in garbage out economic logic.
    In order to sustain all this vast shifting of stuff for profit, firstly the government has to tax oil in order to sustain the cost of all this transport and secondly it MUST invade the Middle East + anywhere else that has oil, like Africa, Libya, Somalia. Considering that all those places want to do is live in safety and peace, the EU and its essential colonial expansion to maintain its wasteful market-based logic, is the most racist organisation on the planet.

    The logic of belonging to the EU is the logic of EU colonialism, which might suit the Thatcherites and the current ALT Tory Right, Chancellor Merkel definitely thinks that the acquisition of EU power in the Middle East justifies the one million immigrants per annum who want to come to Germany because of EU aggression by nutter pro-Zionist Islamists.

    But Craig, from a Green perspective, the Thatcher globalisation with its inbuilt need for colonising the Middle east for oil is totally racist , and the current Transatlanticists with their dream of US global hegemony for satisfaction of their NAZI wet dreams is not only totally racist, but also brings them , intentionally, into conflict with the places from which they want to continue to import cheap stuff. Starting a war with China might look like a good idea to Trump, but it looks pretty daft to ordinary people who currently don’t have to think about war from that quarter.

    I agree with you Craig that the Right is bonkers, but your vision of the EU is based on the Right being right, and they’re not right.

  • Sharp Ears

    The Guardian would take a metrocentric view on these findings by the TUC and see the decline for Londoners

    Average UK workers earning a third less than in 2008 – report
    TUC study finds London workers hit hardest with real wages down by £20,000
    14th December 2018
    https://www.theguardian.com/business/2018/dec/14/average-uk-worker-earn-third-less-than-2008-tuc-real-wage-report

    S*d the rest of the country.

    This is the actual TUC report.

    Workers in middle of ‘longest pay squeeze in 200 years’, says TUC
    11 Dec 2018
    https://www.tuc.org.uk/news/workers-middle-‘longest-pay-squeeze-200-years’-says-tuc%C2%A0

    • michael norton

      more people in work than ever before in Scotland.
      Scotland now has the highest rate of employment in the United Kingdom

      • michael norton

        Wages rose at the fastest pace in nearly a decade in the three months to September,
        Office for National Statistics (ONS) figures show.
        https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-46193571

        Scottish unemployment rates are three times better than French figures.
        Almost a quarter of young people are out of work in France.

  • michael norton

    The European Central Bank
    has so far pumped more than two trillion euros into the bloc’s economy, while maintaining ultra-low interest rates.

    The bank argues this has countered deflation and staved off a deeper economic crisis.
    https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-46552147
    The European Central Bank has confirmed it is ending its huge net asset purchase programme to stimulate the eurozone economy this month.

    So we can expect the E.U. to go swiftly into stagnation, they are very keen for the U.K. to give them our forty billion.

    The ECB has stopped its bond-buying scheme, worth €30bn a month, despite a recent slowdown in the bloc’s recovery.

  • James

    I would definitely take this rosy economic data with a large pinch of salt.

    If you are looking for a job, you will find that wages don’t buy anything like what they did in 2007 and employers are able to demand all sorts of experience and qualifications that would be absurd if the economy were really doing that well. Even if you just want to get a job as a van driver, you will often be asked to provide your own van and pay all the running costs!

    Probably a good parallel with today’s official data would be the sort of info put out by places like East Germany and Romania in the mid-1980s.

  • michael norton

    The E.U. Bigwigs are giving Theresa May the bum’s rush in Belgium, today.
    I think it is looking very likely that we are going off the cliff-edge next Spring.

    • Sharp Ears

      Make up your mind Mr Norton. Unless you were being ironic, you were putting out Tory propaganda in the two posts at 8.36 and 8.41 worthy of one of Mrs May’s PMQ answers.

  • Mighty Drunken

    So what was the point of the vote of no-confidence in May?

    It seemed obvious that this was at the worse possible time and therefore May was more likely to win. She did, no surprises. I was wondering if it was timed this way so she would win and it would be advantageous to May. My suspicions were enhanced when I learnt that May is now immune from no-confidence votes for 12 months.

    • michael norton

      French president Emmanuel Macron’s government survived a no-confidence vote in parliament on Thursday without difficulties. The motion was put forward by the Socialist Party, the far-left Defiant France, and the Communist Party over the government’s handling of the “yellow-vest” protests, which brought chaos and violence to the country for weeks. The motion was supported by just 70 MPs, far fewer than the 289 that it needed.
      https://euobserver.com/tickers/143712

      So Mrs. Theresa May messes it up, no-confidence vote – she gets to stay
      Emmanuel Macron messes it up, no-confidence vote – he gets to stay

      Not very inspiring, is it?

    • Dave

      To trigger the vote 48 letters had to be sent in and they may have been sent in by her own supporters to as you say trigger the vote early.

  • Sharp Ears

    I see that as well as advertising Walkers Crisps, Mr Lineker is also promoting a second vote/referendum/do it all again until you get the right answer.

    In his capacity as the highest paid BBC presenter*, he should be advised to keep his opinions to himself and to stick to football.

    Gary Lineker criticised by Jonathan Agnew for ‘political’ Brexit tweets
    https://www.theguardian.com/football/2018/dec/14/gary-lineker-criticised-by-jonathan-agnew-for-political-brexit-tweets

    * An annual report released by the corporation disclosing the salaries of all on-air staff showed Gary Lineker is now its highest paid employee with a salary of £1.75m; Claudia Winkleman, its highest paid woman, earns between £450,000 and £500,000.11 Jul 2018

    Those salaries are obscene.

    • michael norton

      I shouldn’t worry about the BIG salaries of the BBC Pundits.
      As we crash out of the E.U. there will be much belt-tightening to come
      and I think we will find a huge belt-tightening for the BBC,
      which is profligate.

      • Molloy

        .

        Here, of course bent BBC “profligate” is easily interchangeable with “corrupt” and BBC$ abusing public trust in return for money of any kind.

        Psyops Pay As You View. Anybody?!

        * * * *

    • Dave

      I presume he calculates that’s the way to remain so highly paid. Would he prosper if he advocated Leave?

    • michael norton

      Gideon is our version of Macron, imagine if ( as planned) Gideon had taken over from David Cameron?

  • Mary Francis

    Surely. SURELY, at some point, the electorate will send the Tories packing? if we vote them in again, we deserve the complete unravelling of everything and anything that made our society civilised. I’m the chair of small branch of an opposition party, with ten active members in a dying community, totally under Tory control, doing what I have to do, because giving in is a poor option.

    I find this blog a source of inspiration. Thank you.

  • michael norton

    Mrs. May is very angry with Tony Blair sticking his oar in. He has said there should be a peoples vote, Mrs. May said the people have already said they want Brexit.
    A lot of people are very angry with Tony Blair, especially the Corbynistas, who feel Tony Blair is working to destroy them.

  • Sharp Ears

    On the BBC if you have the time to read 4,000+ words..

    Can’t Afford to Tell the Truth
    Owen Bennett-Jones on the state of the BBC

    Depending on how one defines the BBC’s purpose, its licence fee income of £3.8 billion is either too much or not enough. In a world dominated by Facebook, Amazon, Apple, Netflix and Google, it’s ever harder for the BBC to keep up. It is estimated that Netflix alone will have spent upwards of $12 billion on content in 2018. It has a global audience of more than 130 million, a figure that is increasing by more than two million each month.

    /..
    https://www.lrb.co.uk/v40/n24/owen-bennett-jones/cant-afford-to-tell-the-truth

  • michael norton

    Mrs. Theresa may is stepping-up the governments
    Cliff-Edge-Brexit preperations,
    as are the E.U.

    Jacob and Boris and others are coalescing around Mrs. May,
    it really is looking like the plan is for no deal.

      • michael norton

        Billions are being put in to Cliff-Edge-Brexit planning, three and a half thousand troops are being readied to “assist”

        we are leaving, come what May.
        The last two years has been a smokescreen

        • michael norton

          Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn is facing calls to apologise for apparently calling Theresa May a “stupid woman”
          during Prime Minister’s Questions

          I should think he is correct.

  • Ros Thorpe

    Excellent analysis but very depressing that people are taken in by this nasty rhetoric. Tories never take responsibility for the mess they always create. It’s either the foreigners, the EU or Corbyn to blame. I have never and probably will never understand why anyone who is not rich would vote Tory. If they are that stupid, how do they manage to vote at all?

    • Dave

      To help understand people are not bothered by the inequality of wealth, they want more money themselves, but are worried about their immediate environment and broader national issues. This means high salaries for the rich is secondary to whether its safe to walk the streets and the identity of those who do.

      This is where the ‘Left’ make a big mistake. Saying we are manipulated by the 1% is true, but that doesn’t mean you want a foreigner as a neighbour, hence why despite everything Labour are behind in the polls!

  • michael norton

    Russia’s leader Vlad Putin said British Prime Minister Theresa May has no choice but to follow through with Brexit,
    as failing to do so would undermine UK democracy.

    “She must enact the will of the people, expressed during the referendum,” he said. “Or otherwise it is not a referendum at all: doing it over and over again if someone did not like it [the result]. Is it a democracy?”
    https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-46630723
    Mrs. May has said we are leaving, no ifs no buts.

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