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We’re currently in the middle of something very strange in Britain today. A peculiar political situation. Very peculiar, indeed. Labour is in power. “But they’ve been in before!” Yes, they have, but this time it is stranger than before. Everyone is well aware that we live in a capitalist state, and that is primarily because of the huge corporations that run our everyday lives. Money is the nation’s most prized possession. Your social status is determined by how much money you have. The only thing we listen to money. And yet soon we will be asked to toy with what currency we are using to live from. Pound or euro? It’s the last decision that Tony Blair will ever adopt a left-wing stance on.
The latest polls show that Britain has decided to vote ‘no’ to the euro, and keep the pound. Tony Blair is trying to urge the voters to vote ‘yes’, however, the socialist stance. The left-wingers want us to vote ‘yes’, because they believe that the closer we are with Europe, the better. The Conservatives, of course, are telling the patriots among us to keep the pound, and to keep our distance from Europe. It is the typical Conservative viewpoint – out on our own, and probably best to stick with the Americans, as it’s more likely they’ll get a Republican leader than all of Europe will get right-wingers.
There is nothing unusual about this political climate concerning the issue of the euro. If Labour wanted the public to vote ‘No’, then it would hardly be surprising if the Tories decided to tell the public to vote ‘Yes’, probably quoting ‘our political and economic future’. This is the trouble with Britain’s politics; one party says one thing, so the other has to say exactly the opposite. Pointless sparring between two groups of people who were meant to look after the public’s interests, but inevitably find themselves in the limbo between the proletariat and the upper class, lost in the country, no longer knowing who they are or who they are supposed to represent. There are the new PPP – Pointless Political Party. It’s a sad thing to see a party go into decline as the two most dominant have done recently, but that’s another story for another day.
The reason New Labour is in power is all to do with the first three letters situated in it’s name ‘N – E – W’. Tony Blair can attribute all his political success of the past five years to those simple letters. How? Why? It’s all because of the money in your pocket. Have a check there now – see those harmless looking pennies, nestling amongst the lint? They can’t have a political opinion, right? WRONG! Those feeble coppers are ruling the House of Commons as this very moment. “But they’re just bits of copper, you deranged lunatic!” Sure (well, they’re not strictly copper), but if you hadn’t based your life around your money, then maybe your political opinion would be heard; but then again, you couldn’t have avoided this at all. The way you govern your life is decided upon by the huge American corporations who have chosen Britain as their new breeding ground. As you may have guessed, I don’t like these people. Rich arrogant types, who cruise around in their BMWs or Mercedes, cutting jobs here, there and everywhere, with no thought as to what they may be doing to the people working there. To these bosses, these people are nothing more than numbers; life forms who suck profits from the directors’ pockets, giving next-to-nothing back. They’re more than happy to cut jobs by the thousand, devastating communities and even entire industries. This has already happened with the steel and mining industries – do we want it to happen again? Of course not!
And yet these dominant corporations continue to act as our own Joe Stalin, because of our choice of life-style. We are, as already stated, a capitalist state. We live and die by the sword of debt. It has not always been this way, but now it looks as though it will be hard to shift. This is the reasoning behind Labour’s addition of the word ‘New’ to their name. They needed to do this in order to win the 1997 general election. The Labour Party must have realised long ago that Socialism is Britain was not going to happen, at least for the next 50 to 100 years. In order to get into power, they needed a new gimmick, something different from what they had before; they needed to be ‘New’. But what did this mean, precisely? They had either viewed the country, and put it into its capitalist context, or had expected the voters to be attracted by the word ‘New’. I believe the former option, although the latter is always an outside bet. Once they had seen that capitalism ruled the country, they must have known that the left-wing was crumbling beneath their feet. They had no chance at the next election if they continued with this ‘Socialism’ malarkey, so if Tony wanted a taste of Number 10, he had to change. And change he did.
I don’t know what the ‘New’ stands for exactly (probably Sanskrit or something), but the jist of it is this:
Labour + ‘New’ = A shift to centre-wing
Tony Blair sacrificed the Socialist ideology he was supposed to have imbedded in him, just to realise what it was like to live in Number 10 (And then what does he do? Moves into Number 11! There’s no pleasing this man). To give credit where credit is due, the party targeted exactly the right people: the right-wingers who were attracted to their policies (although they were hardly tons of those); and the left-wingers who were overjoyed to see their Labour Party mount a serious challenge to the Tory throne in Downing Street.
But now what are we left with? Some bizarre political party who are marauding around Britain, pretending to occupy the left-wing, but who would rather dissolve the trade unions than co-operate with them to help the average worker. This may just appear to be my opinion, but you can’t deny the fact that many of New Labour’s policies have just been carried over from the Conservatives last term in office. The firefighter’s strike demonstrates the feelings New Labour have towards the people who risk their lives to protect the public. Asking for 40% is ridiculous, but the government did nothing to help the situation. If you read in a fictional novel that the Deputy Prime Minister refused a deal because they hadn’t woken up, you’d probably discredit it for being too unrealistic. But this is what happened, and shows what New Labour thinks about the trade unions. I admit that Andy Gilchrist is hardly the most endearing of people to lead the firefighters, and refusing 11% is foolish, but neither side has helped the situation. The government’s responsibility is to make an attempt to quell the anger of the trade union, and to try and come to a solution as quickly as possible. But when both sides adopt a ‘you first’ policy, neither side can really be judged to be the superior or being atop a higher moral ground.
The situation surrounding the issue of top-up fees for university displays the feelings in the New Labour party. The MPs like Charles Clarke (one of the many members of the party defying Socialism, also known as Anti-Socialists) are in favour of charging the little guys (the students) huge fees, after abolishing student grants. The people with the least money are forced to foot the bill. The real Socialists and left-wingers in the party, such as Gordon Brown and Claire Short, would rather a Graduate Tax be introduced, whereby every beneficiary of university education be taxed for this expense, which I believe is a much fairer option. There is somewhat of a battle between the members of New Labour, between those on the left-wing, and those perched in the centre of the political spectrum. I believe that it is a case when and not if Tony sacks Gordon Brown from the party, and in my view, this can’t come soon enough. When the time comes, there will be some form of Alistair Campbell-orchestrated cover-up (face it, the guy plays the media like a maestro), whereby Gordon Brown is said to have done something perceived as scandalous. It is likely that the spin-machines in Whitehall will probably take some event in Brown’s life, put some of that famous Blairite spin on it, release through a ‘leak’ to the media, and bang goes Gordon’s career in New Labour.
I hope that this happens soon, because it will be at that time that Tony Blair will finally realise how unpopular he is in his own party. When Gordon leaves, he’ll take the true Socialists with him, crippling the New Labour party. Gordon Brown has built up a respectable reputation within the party and with the British public, and I hope that he will have the intestinal fortitude to form his own party (hopefully not called ‘Old Labour’ – it just won’t go), take on Tony Blair, and bury Blair and Clarke’s smug little faces under a landslide of votes.
But realistically, this is far from likely, no matter how many of us Socialists vote in 2005, or whenever Blair decides for the next election to be held. This is because Britain is Conservative. That sounds like a huge generalisation, but it’s the hard truth. It’s why Labour moved to the right. It’s why our political spectrum has had the left-wing all but cut off. Capitalism is dictating the way we live, in the sense of it eliminating our left-wing options. This is due to our capitalist everyday mentality: I’m all right, Jack. Just look out for myself, and it’ll be fine. No need to worry while I’ve got money. This is exactly what J. B. Priestley warned us about in ‘An Inspector Calls’. By not helping anyone else, we’re contributing to the fight against community. This, in turn, breeds ignorance about other people, and their culture. Out of ignorance, of course, there breeds hatred. I’m not trying to suggest that Conservatism means hatred, but capitalism certainly does. Distancing ourselves from other cultures will only result in the loathing and dread of other religions, races and nationalities.
Look at the riots of 2002 in Oldham, Bradford and Burnley. These were clashes between white and Asian youths, all brought about by the incitement of racial hatred by organizations such as the BNP. These aspiring Hitlers realised the tension between the two peoples, and so fed a steady stream of lies to the whites, therefore generating more and more abhorrence of the Asians by the whites. This tension accumulated, and then exploded with the riots. The clashes were the biggest in Britain for 20 years, and they were caused by the roots of capitalism. Keeping people apart from each other is in no way anything near a good idea. We’ll end up with ghettos for the deprived minorities, more riots, more gangs, overall less safety for everyone. In such a multicultural country, sectioning people off will only lead to the country as a whole being cut apart and designated to different cultures. This will not happen overnight, but as long as we continue with our ideas of only looking out for ourselves, we are going to have a situation much serious than raising profits by 0.1% on our hands.
The latest polls show that Britain has decided to vote ‘no’ to the euro, and keep the pound. Tony Blair is trying to urge the voters to vote ‘yes’, however, the socialist stance. The left-wingers want us to vote ‘yes’, because they believe that the closer we are with Europe, the better. The Conservatives, of course, are telling the patriots among us to keep the pound, and to keep our distance from Europe. It is the typical Conservative viewpoint – out on our own, and probably best to stick with the Americans, as it’s more likely they’ll get a Republican leader than all of Europe will get right-wingers.
There is nothing unusual about this political climate concerning the issue of the euro. If Labour wanted the public to vote ‘No’, then it would hardly be surprising if the Tories decided to tell the public to vote ‘Yes’, probably quoting ‘our political and economic future’. This is the trouble with Britain’s politics; one party says one thing, so the other has to say exactly the opposite. Pointless sparring between two groups of people who were meant to look after the public’s interests, but inevitably find themselves in the limbo between the proletariat and the upper class, lost in the country, no longer knowing who they are or who they are supposed to represent. There are the new PPP – Pointless Political Party. It’s a sad thing to see a party go into decline as the two most dominant have done recently, but that’s another story for another day.
The reason New Labour is in power is all to do with the first three letters situated in it’s name ‘N – E – W’. Tony Blair can attribute all his political success of the past five years to those simple letters. How? Why? It’s all because of the money in your pocket. Have a check there now – see those harmless looking pennies, nestling amongst the lint? They can’t have a political opinion, right? WRONG! Those feeble coppers are ruling the House of Commons as this very moment. “But they’re just bits of copper, you deranged lunatic!” Sure (well, they’re not strictly copper), but if you hadn’t based your life around your money, then maybe your political opinion would be heard; but then again, you couldn’t have avoided this at all. The way you govern your life is decided upon by the huge American corporations who have chosen Britain as their new breeding ground. As you may have guessed, I don’t like these people. Rich arrogant types, who cruise around in their BMWs or Mercedes, cutting jobs here, there and everywhere, with no thought as to what they may be doing to the people working there. To these bosses, these people are nothing more than numbers; life forms who suck profits from the directors’ pockets, giving next-to-nothing back. They’re more than happy to cut jobs by the thousand, devastating communities and even entire industries. This has already happened with the steel and mining industries – do we want it to happen again? Of course not!
And yet these dominant corporations continue to act as our own Joe Stalin, because of our choice of life-style. We are, as already stated, a capitalist state. We live and die by the sword of debt. It has not always been this way, but now it looks as though it will be hard to shift. This is the reasoning behind Labour’s addition of the word ‘New’ to their name. They needed to do this in order to win the 1997 general election. The Labour Party must have realised long ago that Socialism is Britain was not going to happen, at least for the next 50 to 100 years. In order to get into power, they needed a new gimmick, something different from what they had before; they needed to be ‘New’. But what did this mean, precisely? They had either viewed the country, and put it into its capitalist context, or had expected the voters to be attracted by the word ‘New’. I believe the former option, although the latter is always an outside bet. Once they had seen that capitalism ruled the country, they must have known that the left-wing was crumbling beneath their feet. They had no chance at the next election if they continued with this ‘Socialism’ malarkey, so if Tony wanted a taste of Number 10, he had to change. And change he did.
I don’t know what the ‘New’ stands for exactly (probably Sanskrit or something), but the jist of it is this:
Labour + ‘New’ = A shift to centre-wing
Tony Blair sacrificed the Socialist ideology he was supposed to have imbedded in him, just to realise what it was like to live in Number 10 (And then what does he do? Moves into Number 11! There’s no pleasing this man). To give credit where credit is due, the party targeted exactly the right people: the right-wingers who were attracted to their policies (although they were hardly tons of those); and the left-wingers who were overjoyed to see their Labour Party mount a serious challenge to the Tory throne in Downing Street.
But now what are we left with? Some bizarre political party who are marauding around Britain, pretending to occupy the left-wing, but who would rather dissolve the trade unions than co-operate with them to help the average worker. This may just appear to be my opinion, but you can’t deny the fact that many of New Labour’s policies have just been carried over from the Conservatives last term in office. The firefighter’s strike demonstrates the feelings New Labour have towards the people who risk their lives to protect the public. Asking for 40% is ridiculous, but the government did nothing to help the situation. If you read in a fictional novel that the Deputy Prime Minister refused a deal because they hadn’t woken up, you’d probably discredit it for being too unrealistic. But this is what happened, and shows what New Labour thinks about the trade unions. I admit that Andy Gilchrist is hardly the most endearing of people to lead the firefighters, and refusing 11% is foolish, but neither side has helped the situation. The government’s responsibility is to make an attempt to quell the anger of the trade union, and to try and come to a solution as quickly as possible. But when both sides adopt a ‘you first’ policy, neither side can really be judged to be the superior or being atop a higher moral ground.
The situation surrounding the issue of top-up fees for university displays the feelings in the New Labour party. The MPs like Charles Clarke (one of the many members of the party defying Socialism, also known as Anti-Socialists) are in favour of charging the little guys (the students) huge fees, after abolishing student grants. The people with the least money are forced to foot the bill. The real Socialists and left-wingers in the party, such as Gordon Brown and Claire Short, would rather a Graduate Tax be introduced, whereby every beneficiary of university education be taxed for this expense, which I believe is a much fairer option. There is somewhat of a battle between the members of New Labour, between those on the left-wing, and those perched in the centre of the political spectrum. I believe that it is a case when and not if Tony sacks Gordon Brown from the party, and in my view, this can’t come soon enough. When the time comes, there will be some form of Alistair Campbell-orchestrated cover-up (face it, the guy plays the media like a maestro), whereby Gordon Brown is said to have done something perceived as scandalous. It is likely that the spin-machines in Whitehall will probably take some event in Brown’s life, put some of that famous Blairite spin on it, release through a ‘leak’ to the media, and bang goes Gordon’s career in New Labour.
I hope that this happens soon, because it will be at that time that Tony Blair will finally realise how unpopular he is in his own party. When Gordon leaves, he’ll take the true Socialists with him, crippling the New Labour party. Gordon Brown has built up a respectable reputation within the party and with the British public, and I hope that he will have the intestinal fortitude to form his own party (hopefully not called ‘Old Labour’ – it just won’t go), take on Tony Blair, and bury Blair and Clarke’s smug little faces under a landslide of votes.
But realistically, this is far from likely, no matter how many of us Socialists vote in 2005, or whenever Blair decides for the next election to be held. This is because Britain is Conservative. That sounds like a huge generalisation, but it’s the hard truth. It’s why Labour moved to the right. It’s why our political spectrum has had the left-wing all but cut off. Capitalism is dictating the way we live, in the sense of it eliminating our left-wing options. This is due to our capitalist everyday mentality: I’m all right, Jack. Just look out for myself, and it’ll be fine. No need to worry while I’ve got money. This is exactly what J. B. Priestley warned us about in ‘An Inspector Calls’. By not helping anyone else, we’re contributing to the fight against community. This, in turn, breeds ignorance about other people, and their culture. Out of ignorance, of course, there breeds hatred. I’m not trying to suggest that Conservatism means hatred, but capitalism certainly does. Distancing ourselves from other cultures will only result in the loathing and dread of other religions, races and nationalities.
Look at the riots of 2002 in Oldham, Bradford and Burnley. These were clashes between white and Asian youths, all brought about by the incitement of racial hatred by organizations such as the BNP. These aspiring Hitlers realised the tension between the two peoples, and so fed a steady stream of lies to the whites, therefore generating more and more abhorrence of the Asians by the whites. This tension accumulated, and then exploded with the riots. The clashes were the biggest in Britain for 20 years, and they were caused by the roots of capitalism. Keeping people apart from each other is in no way anything near a good idea. We’ll end up with ghettos for the deprived minorities, more riots, more gangs, overall less safety for everyone. In such a multicultural country, sectioning people off will only lead to the country as a whole being cut apart and designated to different cultures. This will not happen overnight, but as long as we continue with our ideas of only looking out for ourselves, we are going to have a situation much serious than raising profits by 0.1% on our hands.
Page:
We’re currently in the middle of something very strange in Britain today. A peculiar political situation. Very peculiar, indeed. Labour is in power. “But they’ve been in before!” Yes, they have, but this time it is stranger than before. Everyone is well aware that we live in a capitalist state, and that is primarily because of the huge corporations that run our everyday lives. Money is the nation’s most prized possession. Your social status is determined by how much money you have. The only thing we listen to money. And yet soon we will be asked to toy with what currency we are using to live from. Pound or euro? It’s the last decision that Tony Blair will ever adopt a left-wing stance on.
The latest polls show that Britain has decided to vote ‘no’ to the euro, and keep the pound. Tony Blair is trying to urge the voters to vote ‘yes’, however, the socialist stance. The left-wingers want us to vote ‘yes’, because they believe that the closer we are with Europe, the better. The Conservatives, of course, are telling the patriots among us to keep the pound, and to keep our distance from Europe. It is the typical Conservative viewpoint – out on our own, and probably best to stick with the Americans, as it’s more likely they’ll get a Republican leader than all of Europe will get right-wingers.
There is nothing unusual about this political climate concerning the issue of the euro. If Labour wanted the public to vote ‘No’, then it would hardly be surprising if the Tories decided to tell the public to vote ‘Yes’, probably quoting ‘our political and economic future’. This is the trouble with Britain’s politics; one party says one thing, so the other has to say exactly the opposite. Pointless sparring between two groups of people who were meant to look after the public’s interests, but inevitably find themselves in the limbo between the proletariat and the upper class, lost in the country, no longer knowing who they are or who they are supposed to represent. There are the new PPP – Pointless Political Party. It’s a sad thing to see a party go into decline as the two most dominant have done recently, but that’s another story for another day.
The reason New Labour is in power is all to do with the first three letters situated in it’s name ‘N – E – W’. Tony Blair can attribute all his political success of the past five years to those simple letters. How? Why? It’s all because of the money in your pocket. Have a check there now – see those harmless looking pennies, nestling amongst the lint? They can’t have a political opinion, right? WRONG! Those feeble coppers are ruling the House of Commons as this very moment. “But they’re just bits of copper, you deranged lunatic!” Sure (well, they’re not strictly copper), but if you hadn’t based your life around your money, then maybe your political opinion would be heard; but then again, you couldn’t have avoided this at all. The way you govern your life is decided upon by the huge American corporations who have chosen Britain as their new breeding ground. As you may have guessed, I don’t like these people. Rich arrogant types, who cruise around in their BMWs or Mercedes, cutting jobs here, there and everywhere, with no thought as to what they may be doing to the people working there. To these bosses, these people are nothing more than numbers; life forms who suck profits from the directors’ pockets, giving next-to-nothing back. They’re more than happy to cut jobs by the thousand, devastating communities and even entire industries. This has already happened with the steel and mining industries – do we want it to happen again? Of course not!
And yet these dominant corporations continue to act as our own Joe Stalin, because of our choice of life-style. We are, as already stated, a capitalist state. We live and die by the sword of debt. It has not always been this way, but now it looks as though it will be hard to shift. This is the reasoning behind Labour’s addition of the word ‘New’ to their name. They needed to do this in order to win the 1997 general election. The Labour Party must have realised long ago that Socialism is Britain was not going to happen, at least for the next 50 to 100 years. In order to get into power, they needed a new gimmick, something different from what they had before; they needed to be ‘New’. But what did this mean, precisely? They had either viewed the country, and put it into its capitalist context, or had expected the voters to be attracted by the word ‘New’. I believe the former option, although the latter is always an outside bet. Once they had seen that capitalism ruled the country, they must have known that the left-wing was crumbling beneath their feet. They had no chance at the next election if they continued with this ‘Socialism’ malarkey, so if Tony wanted a taste of Number 10, he had to change. And change he did.
I don’t know what the ‘New’ stands for exactly (probably Sanskrit or something), but the jist of it is this:
Labour + ‘New’ = A shift to centre-wing
Tony Blair sacrificed the Socialist ideology he was supposed to have imbedded in him, just to realise what it was like to live in Number 10 (And then what does he do? Moves into Number 11! There’s no pleasing this man). To give credit where credit is due, the party targeted exactly the right people: the right-wingers who were attracted to their policies (although they were hardly tons of those); and the left-wingers who were overjoyed to see their Labour Party mount a serious challenge to the Tory throne in Downing Street.
But now what are we left with? Some bizarre political party who are marauding around Britain, pretending to occupy the left-wing, but who would rather dissolve the trade unions than co-operate with them to help the average worker. This may just appear to be my opinion, but you can’t deny the fact that many of New Labour’s policies have just been carried over from the Conservatives last term in office. The firefighter’s strike demonstrates the feelings New Labour have towards the people who risk their lives to protect the public. Asking for 40% is ridiculous, but the government did nothing to help the situation. If you read in a fictional novel that the Deputy Prime Minister refused a deal because they hadn’t woken up, you’d probably discredit it for being too unrealistic. But this is what happened, and shows what New Labour thinks about the trade unions. I admit that Andy Gilchrist is hardly the most endearing of people to lead the firefighters, and refusing 11% is foolish, but neither side has helped the situation. The government’s responsibility is to make an attempt to quell the anger of the trade union, and to try and come to a solution as quickly as possible. But when both sides adopt a ‘you first’ policy, neither side can really be judged to be the superior or being atop a higher moral ground.
The situation surrounding the issue of top-up fees for university displays the feelings in the New Labour party. The MPs like Charles Clarke (one of the many members of the party defying Socialism, also known as Anti-Socialists) are in favour of charging the little guys (the students) huge fees, after abolishing student grants. The people with the least money are forced to foot the bill. The real Socialists and left-wingers in the party, such as Gordon Brown and Claire Short, would rather a Graduate Tax be introduced, whereby every beneficiary of university education be taxed for this expense, which I believe is a much fairer option. There is somewhat of a battle between the members of New Labour, between those on the left-wing, and those perched in the centre of the political spectrum. I believe that it is a case when and not if Tony sacks Gordon Brown from the party, and in my view, this can’t come soon enough. When the time comes, there will be some form of Alistair Campbell-orchestrated cover-up (face it, the guy plays the media like a maestro), whereby Gordon Brown is said to have done something perceived as scandalous. It is likely that the spin-machines in Whitehall will probably take some event in Brown’s life, put some of that famous Blairite spin on it, release through a ‘leak’ to the media, and bang goes Gordon’s career in New Labour.
I hope that this happens soon, because it will be at that time that Tony Blair will finally realise how unpopular he is in his own party. When Gordon leaves, he’ll take the true Socialists with him, crippling the New Labour party. Gordon Brown has built up a respectable reputation within the party and with the British public, and I hope that he will have the intestinal fortitude to form his own party (hopefully not called ‘Old Labour’ – it just won’t go), take on Tony Blair, and bury Blair and Clarke’s smug little faces under a landslide of votes.
But realistically, this is far from likely, no matter how many of us Socialists vote in 2005, or whenever Blair decides for the next election to be held. This is because Britain is Conservative. That sounds like a huge generalisation, but it’s the hard truth. It’s why Labour moved to the right. It’s why our political spectrum has had the left-wing all but cut off. Capitalism is dictating the way we live, in the sense of it eliminating our left-wing options. This is due to our capitalist everyday mentality: I’m all right, Jack. Just look out for myself, and it’ll be fine. No need to worry while I’ve got money. This is exactly what J. B. Priestley warned us about in ‘An Inspector Calls’. By not helping anyone else, we’re contributing to the fight against community. This, in turn, breeds ignorance about other people, and their culture. Out of ignorance, of course, there breeds hatred. I’m not trying to suggest that Conservatism means hatred, but capitalism certainly does. Distancing ourselves from other cultures will only result in the loathing and dread of other religions, races and nationalities.
Look at the riots of 2002 in Oldham, Bradford and Burnley. These were clashes between white and Asian youths, all brought about by the incitement of racial hatred by organizations such as the BNP. These aspiring Hitlers realised the tension between the two peoples, and so fed a steady stream of lies to the whites, therefore generating more and more abhorrence of the Asians by the whites. This tension accumulated, and then exploded with the riots. The clashes were the biggest in Britain for 20 years, and they were caused by the roots of capitalism. Keeping people apart from each other is in no way anything near a good idea. We’ll end up with ghettos for the deprived minorities, more riots, more gangs, overall less safety for everyone. In such a multicultural country, sectioning people off will only lead to the country as a whole being cut apart and designated to different cultures. This will not happen overnight, but as long as we continue with our ideas of only looking out for ourselves, we are going to have a situation much serious than raising profits by 0.1% on our hands.
The latest polls show that Britain has decided to vote ‘no’ to the euro, and keep the pound. Tony Blair is trying to urge the voters to vote ‘yes’, however, the socialist stance. The left-wingers want us to vote ‘yes’, because they believe that the closer we are with Europe, the better. The Conservatives, of course, are telling the patriots among us to keep the pound, and to keep our distance from Europe. It is the typical Conservative viewpoint – out on our own, and probably best to stick with the Americans, as it’s more likely they’ll get a Republican leader than all of Europe will get right-wingers.
There is nothing unusual about this political climate concerning the issue of the euro. If Labour wanted the public to vote ‘No’, then it would hardly be surprising if the Tories decided to tell the public to vote ‘Yes’, probably quoting ‘our political and economic future’. This is the trouble with Britain’s politics; one party says one thing, so the other has to say exactly the opposite. Pointless sparring between two groups of people who were meant to look after the public’s interests, but inevitably find themselves in the limbo between the proletariat and the upper class, lost in the country, no longer knowing who they are or who they are supposed to represent. There are the new PPP – Pointless Political Party. It’s a sad thing to see a party go into decline as the two most dominant have done recently, but that’s another story for another day.
The reason New Labour is in power is all to do with the first three letters situated in it’s name ‘N – E – W’. Tony Blair can attribute all his political success of the past five years to those simple letters. How? Why? It’s all because of the money in your pocket. Have a check there now – see those harmless looking pennies, nestling amongst the lint? They can’t have a political opinion, right? WRONG! Those feeble coppers are ruling the House of Commons as this very moment. “But they’re just bits of copper, you deranged lunatic!” Sure (well, they’re not strictly copper), but if you hadn’t based your life around your money, then maybe your political opinion would be heard; but then again, you couldn’t have avoided this at all. The way you govern your life is decided upon by the huge American corporations who have chosen Britain as their new breeding ground. As you may have guessed, I don’t like these people. Rich arrogant types, who cruise around in their BMWs or Mercedes, cutting jobs here, there and everywhere, with no thought as to what they may be doing to the people working there. To these bosses, these people are nothing more than numbers; life forms who suck profits from the directors’ pockets, giving next-to-nothing back. They’re more than happy to cut jobs by the thousand, devastating communities and even entire industries. This has already happened with the steel and mining industries – do we want it to happen again? Of course not!
And yet these dominant corporations continue to act as our own Joe Stalin, because of our choice of life-style. We are, as already stated, a capitalist state. We live and die by the sword of debt. It has not always been this way, but now it looks as though it will be hard to shift. This is the reasoning behind Labour’s addition of the word ‘New’ to their name. They needed to do this in order to win the 1997 general election. The Labour Party must have realised long ago that Socialism is Britain was not going to happen, at least for the next 50 to 100 years. In order to get into power, they needed a new gimmick, something different from what they had before; they needed to be ‘New’. But what did this mean, precisely? They had either viewed the country, and put it into its capitalist context, or had expected the voters to be attracted by the word ‘New’. I believe the former option, although the latter is always an outside bet. Once they had seen that capitalism ruled the country, they must have known that the left-wing was crumbling beneath their feet. They had no chance at the next election if they continued with this ‘Socialism’ malarkey, so if Tony wanted a taste of Number 10, he had to change. And change he did.
I don’t know what the ‘New’ stands for exactly (probably Sanskrit or something), but the jist of it is this:
Labour + ‘New’ = A shift to centre-wing
Tony Blair sacrificed the Socialist ideology he was supposed to have imbedded in him, just to realise what it was like to live in Number 10 (And then what does he do? Moves into Number 11! There’s no pleasing this man). To give credit where credit is due, the party targeted exactly the right people: the right-wingers who were attracted to their policies (although they were hardly tons of those); and the left-wingers who were overjoyed to see their Labour Party mount a serious challenge to the Tory throne in Downing Street.
But now what are we left with? Some bizarre political party who are marauding around Britain, pretending to occupy the left-wing, but who would rather dissolve the trade unions than co-operate with them to help the average worker. This may just appear to be my opinion, but you can’t deny the fact that many of New Labour’s policies have just been carried over from the Conservatives last term in office. The firefighter’s strike demonstrates the feelings New Labour have towards the people who risk their lives to protect the public. Asking for 40% is ridiculous, but the government did nothing to help the situation. If you read in a fictional novel that the Deputy Prime Minister refused a deal because they hadn’t woken up, you’d probably discredit it for being too unrealistic. But this is what happened, and shows what New Labour thinks about the trade unions. I admit that Andy Gilchrist is hardly the most endearing of people to lead the firefighters, and refusing 11% is foolish, but neither side has helped the situation. The government’s responsibility is to make an attempt to quell the anger of the trade union, and to try and come to a solution as quickly as possible. But when both sides adopt a ‘you first’ policy, neither side can really be judged to be the superior or being atop a higher moral ground.
The situation surrounding the issue of top-up fees for university displays the feelings in the New Labour party. The MPs like Charles Clarke (one of the many members of the party defying Socialism, also known as Anti-Socialists) are in favour of charging the little guys (the students) huge fees, after abolishing student grants. The people with the least money are forced to foot the bill. The real Socialists and left-wingers in the party, such as Gordon Brown and Claire Short, would rather a Graduate Tax be introduced, whereby every beneficiary of university education be taxed for this expense, which I believe is a much fairer option. There is somewhat of a battle between the members of New Labour, between those on the left-wing, and those perched in the centre of the political spectrum. I believe that it is a case when and not if Tony sacks Gordon Brown from the party, and in my view, this can’t come soon enough. When the time comes, there will be some form of Alistair Campbell-orchestrated cover-up (face it, the guy plays the media like a maestro), whereby Gordon Brown is said to have done something perceived as scandalous. It is likely that the spin-machines in Whitehall will probably take some event in Brown’s life, put some of that famous Blairite spin on it, release through a ‘leak’ to the media, and bang goes Gordon’s career in New Labour.
I hope that this happens soon, because it will be at that time that Tony Blair will finally realise how unpopular he is in his own party. When Gordon leaves, he’ll take the true Socialists with him, crippling the New Labour party. Gordon Brown has built up a respectable reputation within the party and with the British public, and I hope that he will have the intestinal fortitude to form his own party (hopefully not called ‘Old Labour’ – it just won’t go), take on Tony Blair, and bury Blair and Clarke’s smug little faces under a landslide of votes.
But realistically, this is far from likely, no matter how many of us Socialists vote in 2005, or whenever Blair decides for the next election to be held. This is because Britain is Conservative. That sounds like a huge generalisation, but it’s the hard truth. It’s why Labour moved to the right. It’s why our political spectrum has had the left-wing all but cut off. Capitalism is dictating the way we live, in the sense of it eliminating our left-wing options. This is due to our capitalist everyday mentality: I’m all right, Jack. Just look out for myself, and it’ll be fine. No need to worry while I’ve got money. This is exactly what J. B. Priestley warned us about in ‘An Inspector Calls’. By not helping anyone else, we’re contributing to the fight against community. This, in turn, breeds ignorance about other people, and their culture. Out of ignorance, of course, there breeds hatred. I’m not trying to suggest that Conservatism means hatred, but capitalism certainly does. Distancing ourselves from other cultures will only result in the loathing and dread of other religions, races and nationalities.
Look at the riots of 2002 in Oldham, Bradford and Burnley. These were clashes between white and Asian youths, all brought about by the incitement of racial hatred by organizations such as the BNP. These aspiring Hitlers realised the tension between the two peoples, and so fed a steady stream of lies to the whites, therefore generating more and more abhorrence of the Asians by the whites. This tension accumulated, and then exploded with the riots. The clashes were the biggest in Britain for 20 years, and they were caused by the roots of capitalism. Keeping people apart from each other is in no way anything near a good idea. We’ll end up with ghettos for the deprived minorities, more riots, more gangs, overall less safety for everyone. In such a multicultural country, sectioning people off will only lead to the country as a whole being cut apart and designated to different cultures. This will not happen overnight, but as long as we continue with our ideas of only looking out for ourselves, we are going to have a situation much serious than raising profits by 0.1% on our hands.
Blimey.
Politics is wasted on this forum, unless it somehow links in with 'Daily Mail is crap'. Although it's clear you went to some effort to write that, and from what I saw it was nicely punctuated. Well done.
El Blokey wrote:
> Politics is wasted on this forum, unless it somehow links in with
> 'Daily Mail is crap'. Although it's clear you went to some effort to
> write that, and from what I saw it was nicely punctuated. Well done.
Cheers, El Blokey. I still hope that there are some that will take heed of this, because I know that there are plenty of them that can.
> Politics is wasted on this forum, unless it somehow links in with
> 'Daily Mail is crap'. Although it's clear you went to some effort to
> write that, and from what I saw it was nicely punctuated. Well done.
Cheers, El Blokey. I still hope that there are some that will take heed of this, because I know that there are plenty of them that can.
Excellent, well done.
I totally agree
For 18 years the Conservatives were in power, mostly under Thatcher. She completely destroyed the Welfare State and many peoples life's. Yet she still got elected again and again... even when Kinnock got in charge of Labour they started to move further to the centre but still lost. it wasn't until New Labour came in they got in.
And now the Conseravtives want to become a centre party. Which leaves us with little political difference or choice... which sucks. I'm going to vote for the Scottish Socialist Party in the next election... although I miss the Scottish election in May this year as I'm only 17 and 'mature' enough to vote.
Yeah, right. I'm not mature enough like half of those who don't even vote.
Emmm yeah, socialism baby.
I totally agree
For 18 years the Conservatives were in power, mostly under Thatcher. She completely destroyed the Welfare State and many peoples life's. Yet she still got elected again and again... even when Kinnock got in charge of Labour they started to move further to the centre but still lost. it wasn't until New Labour came in they got in.
And now the Conseravtives want to become a centre party. Which leaves us with little political difference or choice... which sucks. I'm going to vote for the Scottish Socialist Party in the next election... although I miss the Scottish election in May this year as I'm only 17 and 'mature' enough to vote.
Yeah, right. I'm not mature enough like half of those who don't even vote.
Emmm yeah, socialism baby.
SHEEPY wrote:
> Emmm yeah, socialism baby.
That needs jazzing up. Let me give it a try:
In the words of the late John Smith, oh Socialism BABY!
*Dances the hokey-kokey*
> Emmm yeah, socialism baby.
That needs jazzing up. Let me give it a try:
In the words of the late John Smith, oh Socialism BABY!
*Dances the hokey-kokey*
El Blokey wrote:
> Politics is wasted on this forum, unless it somehow links in with
> 'Daily Mail is crap'.
Hehe, true.
Sorry LL mate, I'm not much when it comes to politics, the only reason I never want Labour to win is that Blair promised 1 and a half hours homework for us Year 11s every night. :D
Looks like you've spent some time on it though, and I reckon there are a few people around here who will know what you're talking about. {:)
> Politics is wasted on this forum, unless it somehow links in with
> 'Daily Mail is crap'.
Hehe, true.
Sorry LL mate, I'm not much when it comes to politics, the only reason I never want Labour to win is that Blair promised 1 and a half hours homework for us Year 11s every night. :D
Looks like you've spent some time on it though, and I reckon there are a few people around here who will know what you're talking about. {:)
Sadly, many are expected to do even more per night, such as moi.
Labour only use their Left-centre wing staturs as a ploy to get votes off people who disagree with right wing views, or just hate Thatcher, seems amusing to me that people still feel that Thatcher has control over the Conservative party. Anyway Labour are as you say very much centre and a little to the right. Conservative and Labour are not that different, if you watch Newsnight the other day Mandelson and a torrey MP basically were arguing over the same views, its so pathetic when they think they are so much different.
Labourative anyone?
Labourative anyone?
I am technicly supposed to get....let me see......
18 hours of homework a week.
I get about..........4.
Good deal.
18 hours of homework a week.
I get about..........4.
Good deal.
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