Why I've decided to shut AAV down

I've been writing Another Angry Voice for the best part of a decade now, and despite my best efforts I've not been able to turn it into the lucrative money-spinning operation I'd hoped it would be, but thankfully it's all suddenly paying off because I've been offered a job I simply cannot refuse.

Who could turn down a job that works out at a hefty six figure salary for just a few hours per week of writing?

OK, part of the job specification is that I have to shut down Another Angry Voice and adopt the political positioning of my new employers. But that's a small price to pay for easily enough cash to buy the classic Aston Martin I've always wanted within a month!

Then after that I'm going to get myself a mansion with a heated swimming pool and a snooker room. Get in!

Some of you may feel upset that I'm going to write for a mainstream media outlet operated by a right-wing media mogul, and you'll probably try to call me a hypocrite and a sell-out.

But the truth is that everyone is entitled to change their minds, and using the skills I've developed running Another Angry Voice to promote orthodox neoliberal views means all the effort I've put into this blog won't have gone to waste.

I mean politicians are always changing their minds and you people keep voting for them don't you?

One minute Chuka Umunna is attacking immigrants and calling for the UK to quit the Single Market and for our citizens' rights to Free Movement to be scrapped so that we can slam the door shut on all the foreign muck coming over here to steal our jobs, and then suddenly he's quitting Labour to set himself up as a Remain campaigner who absolutely adores the Single Market and Free Movement, and everyone just believes that he's sincere!

And what about Jacob Rees-Mogg warning that Theresa May's Withdrawal deal would turn the UK into a "slave state", then doing a total U-turn to actively vote in favour of it a few weeks later because it clearly suited his personal interests to do so?

He deliberately and wilfully voted to turn the UK into a "slave state" (his own words), but even after that he'll still get re-elected to parliament the next time around because everyone simply loves his haunted pencil act don't they?

So if you lot keep voting these guys into power despite such brazen ideological shifts, how dare you criticise me as a hypocrite for the slight modification of my principles involved in switching from lefty stuff like socialism and left-libertarianism to the promotion of orthodox neoliberalism?

I'll still be writing about politics and economics. I'll still be doing exactly the same job, just for loads more money.

And my new employers have even kindly promised me that I don't have to go "full Tory" right away, so it won't be so bad.

They've told me to concentrate on promoting the neoliberalism-lite options like the Lib-Dems, CUK, and the Labour right-wingers who have been working so tirelessly to undermine democratic socialism from within for the last three years.

In fact, they actually seem to consider diversion of the anti-Tory vote towards other orthodox neoliberal parties as a much higher priority than direct promotion of the Tories, which is interesting, isn't it?

And the more damage I can do to Labour by amplifying the antics of the internal wreckers the better from their perspective.

They say I'll come across as "less inauthentic" if I shift position from centre-left to orthodox neoliberal centrism, rather than jumping directly to full bore Toryism in one go, which makes perfect sense.

Few people will be gullible enough to believe it if I suddenly start running propaganda for the Tories, but if I claim disillusion with Labour in order to begin pushing my readers towards orthodox neoliberal parties and political figures, that'd be an absolute master class in concern trolling wouldn't it?

"Look at me I was a notorious lefty, but now I've seen the centrist light, and here's why you should embrace the neoliberal orthodoxy too".

You can see why they've offered to pay me such obscene amounts of money!

As I make the move into the mainstream media limelight some of you will obviously want to find evidence of my hypocrisy by going through my blog history to find the occasions where I've criticised the newspaper I'll be joining this month, but you'll have to be quick because I'm going to start deleting all references to them as a priority, before shutting the whole thing down later this week.

Before long the Internet will be scrubbed clean of any trace of the stuff I used to say about my new employers.

There's no point in fighting it, and you shouldn't feel angry at me or betrayed, because this is actually a wonderful success story. You guys have helped to lift me out of obscurity and into the wealth and comfort I've always felt I've deserved, and you should be happy to have played a part in my success.

If people like me end up getting paid loads on the backs of other people's efforts, then that means we're essentially just better than all the whiners who live in poverty.

If they simply worked harder, they could obviously all have six figure salaries, and classic Aston Martins, and heated swimming pools, and personal snooker rooms too couldn't they?

But they choose not to.

Instead they just whine on social media about how society is structurally rigged against people like them, and naively hope that lefty politicians will come along and make things a bit less rigged so that everyone has a fairer shot at success.

But nobody guaranteed that "life would be fair", or that people have a human right to dignity, or that civilised societies have a duty to care for the most vulnerable, or that full-time workers should earn enough to provide for their kids.

And the way the political establishment class behave makes it pretty bloody obvious that the key to success is doing whatever it takes to claw your way to the top, and then using your wealth, power, privilege, and influence to ensure things stay rigged in favour of you and your kind for the rest of time.

And so as long as some people find an unconventional way to climb to the top of the pile it shouldn't matter how many others suffer perpetual poverty, and stress, and exploitation, and racism, and sexism, and classism, and absolute bloody desperation at the bottom should it?

You lower orders should be delighted for us at the top and wish us well, because if life wasn't meant to be this way, someone would come along and actually propose changing things for the better wouldn't they?

So thanks for all the likes and comments and shares that helped me get noticed and head-hunted by the corporate mainstream media, and I'll see you all on the other side soon.

And Happy April Fools day if you didn't figure it out already.

On a serious note, The right-wing propaganda rag job is a lie, and I'm not shutting down, and I'm obviously not just in it for the money otherwise this site would be blathered in adverts, and I would never ever sell-out like this. I know how much faith people put in me to stay true to my principles (even if all of you inevitably disagree with some of the things I say some of the time because I'm just a guy who literally can't be absolutely right about all of the things all of the time), but after having had April Fools jabs at the likes of Trump, the Tories, the inept Anyone But Corbyn Labour right-wingers, and Brexiteers over the last few years, I thought it was high time I took a stab at myself by creating this absolute fucking monstrosity of a self-caricature. 

I hope you enjoyed it, or at least avoided soiling yourself with rage at the selfish 'I'm alright Jack' audacity I manufactured for this prank. And feel free to join in the prank by sending the link to all your lefty mates in shocked "AAV is a total sell-out" WhatsApp messages (but remember to do it before Midday if you do).

And if the initial thought of losing AAV made your heart sink a little bit, please consider setting up a couple of small monthly donations to support my work and the work of other thought-provoking left-leaning independent media sites so we can keep providing alternative perspectives to the pro-austerity, pro-privatisation, anti-investment, public service-wrecking, wage-repressing, social safety net-vandalising, orthodox neoliberal dogma that goes essentially unquestioned by so much of the mainstream media these days.

Tom (AAV)