They want to divide us on pensions, don't let them.

When the welfare state started post WW2. Most people who were in receipt of old age pensions from the state weren't expected to live very long. It wasn't unusual for men, who worked hard in manual labour - coal mines, shipbuilding etc - to die not that long after they had retired at 65. Life expectancy has improved dramatically since then.

About a decade ago, an attack was launched on pensions by the right wing press. It was aimed mostly at 'pension fat cats' - public sector workers with final salary pensions. A deliberate attempt was made to drive a wedge between public and private sector workers, who were said to have less good pensions, which was true, on the whole. Divide and rule. Of course, the aim of the campaign was to reduce pension benefits for all workers, and it had some success.

Now, we see a similar battle being fought on pensions. The starting point is the 'triple lock'. The triple lock, introduced by the Tories, means that annually, the state pension rises by whichever is the highest of three factors: earnings growth, inflation, or 2.5%. Last year it was inflation and the pension rose by 10%. Next year it is predicted to rise by 8.5%. This has caused outrage on the right, who claim it is unaffordable. There are also moves on the right to raise the pension age. Ian Duncan Smith, the ex-leader of the Tory Party, has suggested the pension age be raised to the age of 75. As Jim Mills says in the linked article, this is "class warfare".

The reality is that the UK has the lowest pension of any country in the developed world (OECD). In 2022 the number of pensioners living in poverty rose by 200,000:

"One in five pensioners – more than 2 million people – are living in relative poverty in the UK, an increase of more than 200,000 in the past year alone, according to a comprehensive review of national data."

In addition, if the 8.5% rise goes ahead it will put many pensioners above the tax threshold and their pensions will be taxed.

A key part of this new campaign is - you've guessed it - divide and rule. This time, it's the young being pitted against the old. Young people are struggling, unable to afford a mortgage, saddled with student debt, and paying extortionate rents. They are what Dan Evans in his excellent new book describes as the New Petty Bourgeoisie*.

A Nation of Shopkeepers: Dan Evans

All of this, apparently, is the fault of the elderly, who were lucky enough to grow up in a time when it was possible to get a mortgage and a half decent pension. They are being blamed by the pundits. Don't be fooled. All of this is the fault of successive Conservative governments, whose policies have brought about this situation. At this rate, with more class warfare to come, by the time that youngsters reach old age, all except the wealthy few, will be living in poverty.

Don't let them divide us. Decent state pensions for all are affordable, as Richard J Murphy explains in his blog here. Get the rich to pay some damn tax!

* I highly recommend you read Dan Evan's book. Lots of food for thought about the state of class in the UK and where our nation is going.

Sir Kid Starver

Kid Starver

There once was a man

Called Kid Starver

Who always went on

About his father

His dad made other tools

As well as him

And he crawled up the greasy pole

Despite being dim

He said what he needed to

To get where he wanted 

When telling lies

He was never daunted

He once had a job as DPP

A role he filled disastrously

He then became a Labour MP

And lied his way to the top

Using Brexit as a prop

But the voters sussed

He had nothing to offer

And so he failed

A national disgrace

With blood on his hands

And egg on his face.

The Red Wall

The Red Wall

I am sad to say

I’ve visited the red wall

Where knobhead working class Tories 

And the petty bourgeoisie

Live in thrall

To Rupert Mordoch’s Scum

And the Daily Heil

They believe what they read

And take it up the bum

Trashed by Sunak and Truss

They can no longer catch a bus

Or afford to get their teeth fixed

So they get screwed

While the rich fill their pockets

And kill the planet

As they look on

With their empty eye sockets

Moaning about small boats 

And devoid of nous

Within their Hinch-clean Deano house

They struggle with the cost of living

In constant pain

But at least they can still shag

The union flag

Before they end up

In a body bag

Meet the real BLOB that rules over us.

It's been a busy week for George Osborne., ex-MP, ex-Chancellor of the Exchequer, ex-editor of the Evening Standard, and now the co-host of a 'frenemies' podcast with ex-Labour MP Ed balls. 

Before we continue, let's not forget that Osborne is responsible for possibly the most disastrous and harmful government 'policy' in British history - austerity. In the early 2010s, on coming into office, Chancellor Osborne made huge cuts in government spending. Council budgets were cut by 40-50%, so was the Department of Justice, and the list goes on and on. It has been estimated that at least 330,000 excess deaths were caused by Osborne's austerity.

So this week Osborne got married, but before the wedding a 'poison pen' email, making allegations about his conduct, was sent to some of his guests the night before his wedding. On the wedding day, it was reported that a Just Stop Oil (JSO) protester threw orange confetti on him and his new wife. JSO have said it wasn't organised by them.

But let's get the key point of this post. For many years, the hard right have been blabbering about the 'blob' - a powerful alliance of leftie teachers, academics and civil servants who are the 'real power' behind the political scenes, seeking to thwart conservatives and their policies at every turn. The blob is the real 'establishment'.

This, of course, is total nonsense. Hard right Tory governments have been in power for 30 of the past 43 yeas, and most of their policies were followed by New Labour. But they are right about the blob, the establishment, it does exist, but it just happens to consist of hard right conservatives - politicians, newspaper proprietors, journalists, oligarchs, the Tufton Street mob, the list goes on and on.

And this was all beautifully illustrated in Osborne's wedding guest list because some key members of the real blob were there, and it's a long list - Ed balls, Yvette Cooper, David Cameron, Michael Gove, Jon Sopel and Emily Maitlis (both Ex-BBC), and Nick Robinson of the BBC radio flagship news programme the Today programme.

So, if you want to meet the blob who control the UK, get yourself invited to the wedding of a prominent member like George Osborne. It's that simple.

How the #Tories and New Labour destroyed Britain.

In just over 40 years, the Tories and New Labour destroyed the UK. Here's how they did it:

1979 - the advent of Thatcherism.

• Council house sales
• Privatisation
• Anti-trade union laws
• Deregulation
• The Big Bang
• Corruption
• Lack of housebuilding
• PFI
• 'Free' market fanaticism
• Buy to let
• Underfunding public services
• Student fees
• Bashing benefit claimants
• Bashing the disabled
• Racism
• Encouraging hatred of asylum seekers
• Homophobia
• Transphobia
• Islamophobia
• Bank bailouts
• Austerity
• Brexit
• Eugenics
• PPE scandal
• 230,000 covid deaths
• 330,000 avoidable austerity deaths
• Rampant lying
• Inadequate pay for public sector workers
• Mismanagement of inflation (BoE)
• Sham democracy

Feel free to add more to this list.

How the right win, and how we fight back

When most people vote, it's not a rational decision, it's an emotional one. People vote with their hearts - not their heads. Most voters don’t read party manifestos. They may want nationalised railways, publicly owned energy, and a properly funded NHS, but in the end emotions win many of them over to vote for parties that have no intention of doing any of those things. 'Take Back Control', 'make Britain great again', these simple right-wing frames triumph over the changes that would really benefit them, and improve their lives. That is how the successful vote for Brexit was achieved.

The right know how to target people’s emotions, particularly their fears and anxieties, and they are very good at causing distractions from the real issues with 'woke' culture wars and conspiracy theories. They distract from the real issues by encouraging hate against people in small boats, gays, and trans people. Their ‘simplistic ‘explanations’ of the world’s problems obscure what is really happening. They create rage and anger. Love your car? Polish it on Sunday? Now these commies are trying to stop you using it and trap you in a low traffic neighbourhood (LTN) or a 15-minute city! Now you are a victim! You may have a poorly paid job, but the real big issue is a microchip in your covid vaccine!

Fox News is a classic example of right wing propaganda and audience manipulation in action, even though it has been exposed that some of their key pundits don’t appear to believe what they’re saying live on air:

“In group chats obtained by Dominion, the network’s biggest names – Carlson, Laura Ingraham and Sean Hannity – appeared to doubt claims of election fraud that were featured prominently on the network.” and:

"One of the key Fox hosts Tucker Carlson is reported to have said “I hate Trump passionately”.

Some people get subsumed by right-wing outlets like Fox News. They end up glued to the TV, consuming the lies and conspiracy theories. 

 The other thing the right do is promise people a better life - you’ll get a decent job and a decent roof over your head. That is what people want. That is what Trump’s MAGA was all about. You’ll be better off, just like your grandparents were in the good old days of the 1950s and 60s. Of course, they have no intention of delivering on this, but that doesn’t matter if it gets them elected. They will still spout the same nonsense in office as Trump did.

How does the left combat this rage and manipulation by the far-right? Well, we don’t do it by wasting hours of our lives pointing out the right’s lies, which is what many leftists do. By focusing on the far right rubbish churned out by channels such as GB News, all you do is amplify them. If you must do it, the best way is to use neurolinguist George Lakoff’s truth sandwich:

1. Start with the truth. The first frame gets the advantage.

2. Indicate the lie. Avoid amplifying the specific language, if possible.

3. Return to the truth. Always repeat truths more than lies.

He also says:

“Remember not to repeat false conservative claims, and then rebut them with the facts. Instead, go positive. Give a positive truthful framing to undermine claims to the contrary. Use the facts to support positively-framed truth. Use repetition." 

This in a nutshell is what the left needs to do, i.e. go positive and appeal to people’s emotions!. Not paranoia, fear and victimhood like the far right, but hope, compassion, and solidarity. If you are going to win people over, start from where they are, not where you are.

The left need to build a convincing story and repeat it over and over again.

People are frustrated and angry. They are suffering because of the cost of living crisis, the housing crisis and a failing NHS. The right channel that anger and make the enemy refugees in small boats, and transgender people. The left needs to channel that anger against our real enemies - those who control the media, oligarchs, big pharma, fossil fuels companies, banks and corporations. As Lakoff says, go positive, focus on the solutions and how we can build them. We have a mountain to climb to bring about positive change. We need to organise and change our focus to win.

Only a dozen years of #Tory government and the UK is becoming a failed state

I've just been reading this editorial article in the Guardian about the horror that is happening in Lebanon. The ruling class - the business and political class - have run the country into the ground. Lebanon has been trashed and the middle and working classes are really suffering. Its worth quoting at length what is happening. According to the article:

"Lebanon’s problems are longstanding. Corruption, violence and incompetence dogged the years following the civil war; Iran, Saudi Arabia and others duel for influence via their proxies. Political jockeying and outright violence play out within as well as between sectarian communities. But the challenges have dramatically worsened in recent years. Those at the top essentially ran a giant Ponzi scheme – propping up the currency by attracting dollars through absurd interest rates for investors."

And:

"Parents are sending their children to orphanages because they cannot feed them. A growing number of citizens have resorted to armed robbery as the only way to extract their own deposits (now vastly reduced in real terms) from banks when they desperately need to pay for basic services such as healthcare."

Lebanon has become a failed state and its hard to see how the situation can be retrieved. The ruling class, who are not affected, have little incentive to resolve the situation. There have always been corrupt politicians in the pockets of corporations but since the advent of neoliberalism with Thatcher and Reagan in the early 1980s, things have become much worse.

The USA has become a virtual one party state with both Democrat and Republican politicians in the pay and pockets of oligarchs and corporations. One of the latest manifestations of this is the horrific rail crash in East Palestine, Ohio which released tons of toxic vinyl chloride into the atmosphere. People had warned this was an accident waiting to happen and called for train braking systems to be updated and made safer. The train companies lobbied the politicians to stop this happening and were successful. 

After a dozen years of Tory government the UK is heading in the same direction as Lebanon with the underfunding and undermining of public services such as the NHS and education, discharges of raw sewage into our rivers and disasters like Grenfell. Corruption is rife and there is a complete lack of respect for the welfare of citizens and their human rights. Of course what has happened in Lebanon couldn't happen here could it? Don't hold your breath!

My review of 2022

Another annus horribilis. Another year of Tory disaster - lies, corruption, tax dodging, public sector destruction, swimming in sewage, and dumping on all workers. Where to start? The list of crimes is very long. 

The sad reality is that the Tories and their, Tufton Street sponsors, are getting close to their Brexit dream. Britain as Singapore on Thames, the triumph of the 'free' market - with freeports, a gig economy with no limit on working hours, no holiday pay, sick pay, or maternity leave, and the destruction of environmental protections. The only value that remains is the one that matters to them - shareholder value. Profit before people every time.

As Richard Murphy said in his 2021 article (link above):

"A government source said that Mr Johnson was pushing for Britain to become a low-tax, low-regulation regime like Singapore. Last month Mr Johnson raised the prospect of tax cuts for entrepreneurs. He told a Facebook question-and-answer session: “We’ll be looking at the tax environment and the regulatory environment and everything we can do to encourage and support business.”

Three prime minister and four chancellors in  the past twelve months year and still the shitshow goes on in our pseudo-democracy. How can this be tolerated? 

The reality is that broken Britain has been coming for a long time. It started in 1979 with the election of Thatcher as PM and has moved on ever since. One of the worst crimes came with George Osborne's austerity programme - the disastrous effects of that are still being felt with a predicted 330,000 excess avoidable deaths so far. Massive underinvestment in the NHS is now reckoned to be causing 500 deaths a week.

This week we were treated to tedious and meaningless 'promises' from the PM Rishi Sunak, halving inflation and stopping small boats, and now we're being told the government is planning to introduce legislation to force nurses, firefighters, and rail staff to work even if they vote to strike. 

So, 2023 is already looking like a grimmer sequel to 2022.  What can we do? Our number one priority has to be to support public sector workers striking for better pay and conditions. If more draconian anti-union legislation is successfully introduced we may well see wildcat strikes. Make no mistake, this is class war. Join a picket line, and contribute to strike funds if you can. Work, every day, in every way, to help bring this Tory government down!

Productivity is tyranny

Today I was listening to Helen Lewis's programme about gurus - The New Gurus - on BBC Sounds. The show was about productivity gurus. How can you make the most of your time? You only have 4,000 weeks to live - yikes! It seems there is a guru industry out there with millions of followers on YouTube. Did I learn anything particularly useful about how to be productive? Er...no. Maybe other people did.

But then I have a problem with productivity, and a large part of that is what 'productivity' is really about. Let's go back in time 500 years or so to medieval England. In those days, before the enclosures, your actual 'peasant' didn't have such a bad life. It wasn't as nasty brutish and short as some would have us believe. Productivity then was seasonal, planting seeds, harvesting, grazing livestock, hunting,  and foraging. In midwinter, where we are now, days were short, and you couldn't plant or sow, so people had holidays and celebrated instead. This is their time of the year for wassailing and celebrating the beginning of a new year. It is reckoned that, in those days, they had 150 or so holidays a year, Saints Days, etc. Not bad compared with now eh?

Fast forward to the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries, the industrial revolution had begun, and the common land, used by those peasants had been enclosed by the ruling class. The industrial revolution had begun. People were forced out of the villages into the growing towns and cities, to work in the mills and factories. It was then that productivity, as we know it now was born, capitalists making workers toil for longer hours and fewer holidays to increase the surplus value of their labour.

Although organised labour brought us the eight-hour day, the weekend, and many other benefits we still live in that productivity trap. Although productivity is more than just about the hours we work it's key to making the wheels of capitalism turn. Of course, if you want to spend sixty hours a week chained to a keyboard as one of the gurus admitted he did that's up to you. Me I'd rather be a wassailing! A much better use of my time.😀 🍻🌲🍎

Merry Yule!

What does Xmas mean to me? In a word nothing. I loved Xmas when I was a child. I was lucky enough to have a loving family and a Mum who was a very good cook. The tree, decorations, the presents, and the food were great. It was a time of genuine warmth and celebration, lit by an open fire. Now things are different. I still like to make merry with family and friends as much as possible but I despise the hype and commercialism. 

I’ve never been remotely religious so that aspect had no impact on me. Now, I’m much more interested in the origins of Xmas as a midwinter festival. In the distant English past midwinter was an important festival with days of celebration. Whole communities participated in wassailing. As a sufferer from SAD, the winter equinox, Yule, is an important day for me. The days get longer and lighter. That’s what mainly I’ll be celebrating, and, as I do, I’ll also take some time to reflect on all those who’ve suffered under a dozen years of Tory government. Merry Yule! 🙂🎄

Privatisation is theft!

In 1840 Pierre-Joseph Proudhon famously said, "Property is theft". He was right. The worst event in human history occurred when somebody put a fence around a piece of land and said "this belongs to me". All land should be held in common, and for most of our human history, it has been. In England, hundreds of thousands of acres of common land were stolen from the people by the ruling class during the enclosures. The purpose of the theft wasn't just to gain control of the land but to dispossess the English people, starving them of resources, such as food, grazing land, and firewood,  making them less independent and easier to control and dominate. 

If you want to find out more about this I can recommend two very good books on the commons. The first is  'Who Owns England' by Guy Shrubsole. In his book, he describes how the land was stolen and who now owns most of it. Here is a quote from the review:

 'Two-thirds of land in the UK as a whole – 40m acres – is owned by 0.36% of the population; 24m families, meanwhile, share the “urban plot” of 3m acres'

The second is the 'Plunder of the Commons' by Guy Standing. He describes how it's not just land and resources that have been stolen from us but the wealth that goes with them, and what we can do about it. One of his key references is The Charter of the Forest (Carta Foresta) of 1217. This document is as important as Magna Carta but has conveniently been written out of our history. It establishes the people's rights on common land in England.

So what has this got to do with privatisation? Quite a lot actually. Just as our land has been privatised so have our other natural assets. Water is in the news at the moment. Not only have millions of people been outraged by the water companies dumping raw sewage into rivers and onto our beaches but it's clear that these corporations are screwing us by extracting as much profit as possible whilst failing to invest in much-needed infrastructure. As if that wasn't bad enough they have saddled the companies with £54B of debt whilst extracting £66B in profits!

It's clear that water companies must be brought back into common ownership and that this can happen without any cost. This needs to be done as soon as possible so that the mismanagement of our water can be halted and improvements begun. That won't happen though as long as we have a Tory government that puts profit before people, and the Labour 'opposition' has shown no signs of bringing about necessary reform. 

Of course, the same is true for energy, the railway network, education, and the NHS. Such measures prove popular with voters but our politicians are more interested in the wants of corporations and donors. It's not just a massive expansion of common ownership that we need but taxes on the wealth that the 1% extract from us, a land value tax, the right to roam, and a return to the time of Carta Foresta when the commons are once again ours. Our political system is broken but there are many people engaged in the struggle to bring back the commons and public ownership. Get involved and keep on fighting for it! Oh! - and join a union, support the striking key workers, and fight for decent pay!

#EnoughIsEnough! ✊✊✊

In a rapidly worsening climate emergency solidarity and mutual aid are key.

CoP27, taking place this year in Egypt, is now on the horizon. Our new PM Rishi Sunak has said he won't attend. This is shocking but not surprising, and he may well yet be forced to change his mind*. We are in a position where climate scientists are warning that we won't meet the CoP set target of restricting global warming to 1.5ºC. Despite the fact that we have known about the dangers of carbon dioxide emissions for many decades, they are still rising and fossil fuel companies are still exploring for new oil and gas, as well as making extortionate profits in the process.

The climate emergency is an existential threat to humanity and life on Earth. We need to take action now to reduce our dependence on carbon and commit to investment in a green industrial revolution that will involve much more renewable energy and better-insulated homes and workplaces. The latter would be a great help to millions who are suffering in the energy crisis.

The main problem we have is neoliberal governments that dominate western democracies and politicians who are working for corporations and banks rather than citizens. Profit before people. We are getting the usual line from Sunak's government, and the MSM, that there is too much government debt and there is real concern that we are facing another round of Tory austerity at the worse possible time. 

In a cost-of-living crisis, the government should be supporting and bolstering households and public services. That means spending and investing in projects like a green new deal and decent pay rises for public sector workers. It also means higher taxes on the wealthy and corporations. Carsten Jung a senior economist at the Institute for Public Policy Research (IPPR) said:

“We face a serious economic situation with inflation running high and people's livelihoods in peril. But spending cuts will not get us out of this crisis. On the contrary, the right policy mix can tame inflation and stabilise the economy at the same time – without spending cuts.  

“The government has significant fiscal space to spend on household support and the economy, if combined with some tax increases and gentle interest rate rises**. The lost decade following the financial crisis has shown us that austerity enduringly harms people and growth. It is wrong to frame cuts as inevitable – they are not." 

So, what has all this to do with solidarity and mutual aid? The sad reality is that our government is unlikely to do anything to really improve the position of households and mitigate climate change. We cannot depend on the Tories to give people the help they need. Increased hardship is inevitable. That means, at a time of crisis, we are going to have to support each other and do all that we can to make our own communities safer and more resilient. The very fact that there are foodbanks in the UK brings shame upon our nation, but the number is growing and many more citizens are supporting their communities and are getting involved in this form of mutual aid. 

In addition, there are a lot of other community projects going on that you can get involved in. These include:

• community land trusts - building homes

• community energy companies - local energy companies supplying renewable energy

• food coops and growing local food

• providing community spaces - for warmth and company

• repair and recycling groups

• retrofitting homes for energy efficiency

• Transition Towns - building community resilience

I've provided some links above to help people get started on the road to building better, stronger communities. There are many local groups and cooperatives all over the UK working on solidarity, mutual aid, and improving community well-being in the face of the ongoing cost-of-living crisis and the climate emergency. Can you help your neighbours and make your community a better place? Not only can you help them but you can help yourself and your family to build a better future.

You, me, and us. We have agency and the power to build a better society.

* Not long after I wrote this he did.

** Just to note I don't agree with him about interest rate rises.

Truss has gone but the #Tory horror show continues apace.

What a week! What another grim week! After the Trussonomics mini-budget fiasco, the departure of chancellor Kwasi Kwarteng, and the 'resignation' of Suella Braverman because of a row with Truss about immigration, and her security breaches that precipitated the resignation of the PM. 

So now we have Tory chaos, another leadership election in which Bozo Johnson, who has been partying, and has been absent from parliament, having three holidays since he was booted out in July, threw his hat into the ring. He was immediately supported by many conservative MPs including Nadheem Zahawi who had told him to quit only a few months ago. As someone said, an hour is now a very long time in politics. 

But Johnson had to withdraw due to lack of support and now Rishi - eat out to catch covid - Sunak - is the favourite to become the next PM. Tory members may get an electronic vote and it's worth mentioning here that union members have been denied the opportunity to have an electronic vote, another piece of anti-union legislation.

Even half an hour is a long time in politics! Since I started this post Penny Mourdant, who was Sunak's only remaining rival for leader has withdrawn and the richest person in parliament, Sunak is set to be the next anointed PM. So, we're no further forward and still deep in the nightmare of Tory government. I expect that Sunak will cling on for the next two years and try to win in 2024. Will he? I doubt it, but Starmer's Labour isn't offering us much hope. After the expulsion and departure of many socialists from Labour, including myself, there is no viable vehicle for the left in the UK. Enough is Enough is not enough!

The only light in the darkness is that it appears that many Tories are quitting the party because they are racists and don't like the colour of Sunak's skin. Some are saying he's not British. Anything which helps to split the Tory party and potentially weaken it should be welcomed. The hashtag #RishiOut is already trending on Twitter.

We can only hope that Corbyn will stand as an independent at the next election, or preferably as a Peace & Justice Party candidate. I have no doubt he could win his seat and that thousands would join such a party. At the moment that is just wishful thinking. Are we going to get a left alternative to Starmer's establishment party? Try to make it happen if you can. I will.

The most important event in world history

What is history anyway? It's a human creation for sure, stories of happenings from our collective past. Given how old the Earth is our recorded history doesn't go back very far, a few tens of thousands of years, maybe a bit more. Most of the ancient stuff is due to discoveries by archeologists. One of the world's oldest human cultures, the aboriginals of Australia goes back about sixty thousand years, a matter of seconds in the long history of our planet.

But no matter, think yourself lucky because you may just have witnessed the most important event in world history - the funeral of Elizabeth II. Being 'interviewed' on Laura Kuennsberg's new show Sir Lindsay Hoyle, speaker of the HoC said:

"We should not let anything overshadow the most important event the world will ever see and that is the funeral of her majesty"

Wow! Where to start with that? Well, I guess it was predictable from a sycophantic groveller like Hoyle, who has been useless since he became commons speaker. And of course he was roundly mocked on social media - as he should have been.

So what was the most important event in history? Social media provided some contenders - the big bang, fall of the Berlin wall, the French revolution, Einsteins theory of relativity, VE day, the building of the pyramids - the list goes on. Take your pick but I would go with any of those before Lizzie's funeral.

In addition, the BBC had to tell us that vast numbers of Brits watched the funeral on telly. The figure for the average audience was 26.20 million according to Wikipedia. That's a fair bit lower than the 1966 World Cup final as you might expect (32.3) million. I'm not sure where the BBC got their figures from, but I know at least one episode of Eastenders has had a bigger audience - Den serving Angie with divorce papers (30.15 million) - and that was in a time when the UK population was a lot lower than it is now.

What was my most important telly moment? Watching the Moon landing live in 1969 with my Dad and a neighbour, who gatecrashed because he didn't have a TV. This is closely followed by the 1966 World Cup final and Manchester United winning the European Cup in 1968.

If the dinosaurs had been able to keep a record no doubt their most important event would be their demise due to an asteroid hitting the Earth 66 million years ago - the real life Don't Look Up. Thanks to climate emergency, and the failure of governments around the world to address it, maybe, one day soon we'll be able to watch our own demise live on TV. Now that will be the most important event in our world history......... watch this space.

Another day, another death.

The MSM has lost interest in the pandemic, and coverage is poor. Last time I checked about a month ago, deaths from Covid were about 210,000. It's hard to find the latest figures. Deaths may be going down but cases are still going up. Add to that the avoidable deaths* from austerity of about 200,000, and deaths due to the underfunding of the NHS and I'd guess we're nearing half a million deaths due to Tory government mendacity and incompetence. General concern about deaths seems to be receding.

But, last week another death occurred -  ‘our’ monarch died, and if anyone dies it's normal to have sympathy for the person and their family. But the reporting of Elizabeth II’s death has been anything but normal, if entirely predictable. Yes, by all means, mourn if you want to, but the wall-to-wall sycophantic MSM coverage is reminiscent of North Korea as many have noted. The UK’s airwaves have been filled with solemn voices, black ties, and glowing tributes, and there is another week of this to go.

At the moment the media is frantically following the new King, Charles, as he tours the UK, making sure his feet are securely under the table, and there is little time for the population to contemplate change. Proclamations have been read, parliamentarians have grovelled, football has been cancelled, strikes postponed, and the use of bike racks in Norwich suspended! 

We are in an economic and cost of living crisis, so when is parliament going to sit again? When are our 'democratically elected' politicians going to get on and do their actual day jobs?

I'm a republican. I have been for over 50 years. I want an elected head of state, an elected second chamber, and a proportional voting system - in other words, a democratic Britain, not the half-arsed, not fit-for-purpose setup we have at the moment.

Britain is in crisis. Truss's 'fix' for the energy crisis is wholly inadequate and is designed to benefit the better off and the very corporations who are ripping us off, not people and businesses. 

Yes, this is truly the end of an era. Most of us have lived with Elizabeth II as Queen for the whole of our lives. But while the crisis of neoliberalism deepens, as it will, we could just be seeing the end of another era - the end of the monarchy. As the pantomime of prehistoric pageants trundles ever onwards and MSM pundits continue to scrape the bottom of a very worn barrel, more people will become jaded and turned off. 

At the latest count, three people who protested against the monarchy have been arrested by the police (the most recent isn't mentioned in this article). No doubt more arrests will follow. And so, as this dreary shitshow continues I expect many more people will be alienated. 

One of the main barriers to the abolition of the monarchy lies in Westminster. Neither the Tories nor Starmer's Labour is going to allow a referendum on this anytime soon. I think Charles will be less popular than his mother, and we really need to organise and fight if we are to get an elected head of state. We're not good at bringing about real change in the UK, but the tide may just be turning. If you want to help bring that change about you could start by joining Republic.

* yes, the figure is 130,000 but they did say 200,000 by 2020