Philip Hammond actually claimed "there are no unemployed people"

Just imagine the mainstream media reaction if the shadow chancellor John McDonnell​ or anyone else from Labour had made a claim as ridiculous as there supposedly being no unemployed people in Britain. 

But that's exactly what the Tory Chancellor Philip Hammond did on the Andrew Marr Show.

Waiting for the same kind of festival of hate over this ludicrous Tory gaffe as Diane Abbott was given over her police numbers jumble during the election ... pic.twitter.com/OfnwE9UtHe

— Tom (AAV) (@Angry_Voice) November 19, 2017

We all remember the festival of hate that was aimed at Diane Abbott after she got her numbers horribly jumbled up during the general election, but at least she never made a claim as ludicrous as there being no unemployment at all.

Anyone who pays the remotest attention to politics must be well aware of the tricks and scams the Tories use to rig the unemployment figures like unemployed people forced to do unpaid "workfare" work being classed as employed, people working just a few hours a week on Zero Hours Contracts but still on benefits being classed as employed, people hit with draconian benefits sanctions not being classed as unemployed, economically inactive people not being classed as unemployed ...

We also know that the increase in the employment rate since 2010 has been matched by the longest sustained decline in UK workers' wages since records began. It's hardly ridiculous to suppose that the Tory policy of ruthlessly driving down workers' wages and working conditions has resulted in in a boom of low-paid, low-skill jobs as growing numbers of employers use exploitative employment practices like Zero Hours Contracts and fake self-employment in the gig economy in order to rinse as much profit as possible out of the UK workforce.

But we know that Hammond's ridiculous gaffe about there being no unemployed people will get nothing like the mainstream media attention Diane Abbott's mind fart got. And we also know that the mainstream media will continue championing the Tories' rigged unemployment figures without providing the caveat that they've only been achieved through horrific anti-welfare policies like sanctions, "workfare" and erecting as many obstacles as possible for people trying to claim unemployment benefits so that people (especially the mentally ill and under-educated) don't claim what they're actually entitled to.

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Theresa May just promoted one of the worst Brexit liars to replace Priti Patel

After demonstrating her weakness by allowing Priti Patel to resign as International Development Secretary, rather than sacking her for her secrecy and lies, Theresa May demonstrated it once again by capitulating to Brexiteer demands that she had to replace Patel with one of their fellow Brexiteers.

The Brexit fanatic that Theresa May has decided to promote is Penny Mordaunt, who was one of the most egregious of the Brexit liars during the EU referendum campaign.

In the run up to the EU referendum Mordaunt decided to go onto national television and repeatedly lie that the UK had no veto to prevent Turkey from joining the EU. She was challenged several times on her claims by the host Andrew Marr, but just kept repeating the her lies by saying "we are not going to be able to have a say" and "we would be unable to stop Turkey joining".

Not only was Mordaunt guilty of outright lying to the British people about Britain's power of veto within the EU, she was obviously doing so in order to provoke anti-Islamic and anti-refugee sentiments, by making reference to the "migrant crisis" amongst her bombardment of lies.

It's beyond doubt that Theresa May knows about Mordaunt's lies and xenophobia-stoking rhetoric, because the furore over her lies about Britain being unable to stop Turkey joining the EU went all the way to the top of the Tory party, with David Cameron issuing a rebuke.

But as has become so painfully obvious since her vanity election backfired so dramatically, Theresa May is in a shockingly weak political position. So she's been forced to elevate one of the worst Brexit liars into her cabinet, not because she feels she's the best person for the job, but because she knows that a revolt by the hard-right Brexit fanatics in her own party would surely be the final straw that brings her shambolic tenure as Prime Minister crashing to the ground.

As much as it's entertaining to see Theresa May reduced from the terrifying right-wing authoritarian wannabe tyrant she wanted to be in April, to a hopeless wreck of a leader being pulled one way and the other six months later, it's also extremely worrying, because the people who seem to be exerting the most influence on her are not the more moderate centre-right Tories, nor the centrist elements of the press, it's the fanatical hard-right Tory "no deal" Brexiteers and the likes of Daily Mail hatemonger in chief Paul Dacre.

We know that the hard-right Brexiteers desperately crave a ruinous "no deal" Brexit because they envisage rich pickings for their disaster capitalist mates as they use the ensuing economic meltdown to buy up swathes of British infrastructure on the cheap like a pack of vultures stripping the flesh off a corpse.

And we can also see that Theresa May has neither the will, nor the authority to stand up to the dangerous "no deal" fanatics in her own party, because there's no other explanation for the elevation of Penny Mordaunt when there are literally dozens of more suitable candidates in her party who don't happen to be one of the most egregious of the Brexit liars.

This latest feeble capitulation to the whims of the hard-right Brexiteers is a evidence that the longer Theresa May keeps clinging to power, the more probable a socially and economically catastrophic "no deal" flounce out of the EU becomes, because she simply doesn't have the authority to stand up to the elements of her own party who are so desperate for it to happen.

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Don't be fooled by Heidi Allan's "caring Conservative" schtick

The Tory MP Heidi Allan loves to pose as a caring Conservative, but when it comes to the crunch she always folds and votes in favour of even more ideologically driven Tory malice.

Heidi Allan loves to present herself as a Tory rebel with a social conscience, but she's nothing of the sort. She's been playing this dishonest game ever since she was elected to parliament in 2015. 

In her maiden speech in October 2015 she criticised the Tory policy of cutting tax credits for the working poor before she dutifully voted in favour of it in order to avoid being sacked from her junior position in the Department of Work and Pensions.

Her June 2017 speech against the Tory policy of public sector wage repression was exactly the same thing. When the opposition parties gave Tory MPs the opportunity to end the seven year long economic assault on our public sector workers (including the fire fighters they'd just been praising for running into the fire at Grenfell tower) Heidi Allan spoke against the Tory wage repression policy, but then when it came to the crunch she voted to keep the pay cap.

In my view these displays of faux rebellious outrage followed by a dutiful vote in favour of the motion are even worse than a Tory who is delusional enough to actually believe that continuing to crush the incomes of the working poor and repress the wages of our nurses, soldiers, fire fighters and police are the right thing to do. 

If she spoke out against these things then she knows that they're wrong, which means that she knew that she was doing something absolutely inexcusable when she actually voted in favour of continuing Tory wage repression.

I doubt that she was one of the Tories who actually cheered themselves for what they did because she clearly knew that her vote was inexcusable, but she did it nonetheless out of pure self-interest.

On the weekend after the Tories cheered themselves for continuing to trash the pay of our brave emergency service workers Heidi appeared on the Andrew Marr show and said something unbelievable.

She said that the Tory party needs to "change our tone and our language".

"We have got to change our tone and language" @heidiallen75 says the Tories have become too "inward looking" #marr pic.twitter.com/PRv1tVGSwM

— The Andrew Marr Show (@MarrShow) July 2, 2017

This bizarre prescription is based on the delusion that it isn't seven years of savage hard-right Tory policies (socially and economically ruinous austerity, the unprecedented Tory campaign of wage repression, the ongoing systematic abuse of disabled people, privatisation mania, and the erection of one new barrier to social mobility after another) that is the problem, but the fact that these horrific policies haven't been presented misleadingly enough.

Heidi loves to posture as a rebel Tory who actually cares about ordinary people, but what she did on the Marr show was simply regurgitate the new Tory party line that there is nothing wrong with Tory policy, but that the presentation needs some work.

It's been revealed that the Tories are planning to massively increase their social media propaganda unit in preparation for the next general election, and they're obviously going to try to find ways of prettifying austerity, wage repression, abuse of disabled people, privatisation mania and social mobility blocking.

Heidi Allan isn't pushing for the Tory party to change political direction on any of these issues (otherwise she would have voted in favour of the opposition amendment to end wage repression), she simply wants more gloss to slop over the divisive upwards wealth redistribution policies that are at the absolute heart of the modern Conservative ideology.

thee Tories are intent on continuing with their unpopular hard-right policies, and they're going to try to win over the public with a massive Orwellian propaganda campaign to rebrand the same old failing Tory policies as a wonderful new kind of caring conservatism.

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The Tory quibbling over sprinkler systems is shamelessly hypocritical

On Sunday 18th June 2017 the Tory Chancellor of the Exchequer displayed an extraordinary level of contempt for ordinary people by quibbling with Andrew Marr over the effectiveness of sprinkler systems.

Andrew Marr had asked him why a succession of Tory housing ministers had spent four years sitting on a report into the Lakanal House fire in 2009 that recommended the retrofitting of sprinkler systems in high rise residential buildings.

Hammond's absurd response was that the government had needed to do more research into whether sprinkler systems are effective fire safety measures.

The Fire Brigade Union claims that there have never been multiple fire fatalities in a building with a sprinkler system, and common sense says that a system for spraying water onto the fire would at the very least allow people more time to exit the building.

But no. 

Under the political shadow of the burned out shell of Grenfell tower the Tory Chancellor tried to argue that the residents of the 4,000+ high rise residential towers without sprinkler systems don't need sprinkler systems until the Tory party are satisfied that there is enough evidence that they are a useful fire safety feature!

When it comes to the safety of ordinary people (or the "lower orders" as they think of us) the Tory mentality there is no precautionary principle, nor even any common bloody sense.

Safety recommendations for the buildings we live in should be shelved and delayed as long as possible, and even after a disastrous fire that killed dozens of people in their homes, longstanding fire safety recommendations should be quibbled over as "complex technical issues" and subjected to as much doubt as possible.

Chancellor Philip Hammond questioned about what government could have done to prevent #GrenfellTower tragedy https://t.co/HciYAQok9I pic.twitter.com/RLqCg00jlb

— BBC News (UK) (@BBCNews) June 18, 2017

There is no such quibbling or reticence about common sense and the precautionary principle when it comes to their own lives though.

At about the same time as the Lakanal House related fire safety report first landed on a Tory desk the government were drawing up plans for the refurbishment of the Houses of Parliament, and lo and behold, their refurbishment plans include a wonderful new sprinkler system at a cost of £1.3 million to the taxpayer.

For some reason the Tories didn't immediately begin quibbling over the proposed sprinkler system for their own workplace and demanding ever more technical evidence that sprinkler systems help to suppress fires and reduce fire mortality rates.

When it comes to their own safety money is clearly no object. But when it comes to the "lower orders" then it's one delaying tactic after another, even after dozens of people were killed in exactly the kind of fire the Tory government were repeatedly warned about.

This Tory hypocrisy doesn't just show utter contempt for the residents of Britain's 4,000+ tower blocks without sprinkler systems, Hammond's quibbling over the effectiveness of sprinklers for tower blocks while his own place of employment is getting one at the taxpayers' expense displays absolute contempt for us all.

How on earth can this guy justify demanding more evidence that sprinklers work before money is spent to protect the lives of ordinary people when he made no such demands when it came to fitting a sprinkler system that he personally benefits from?

It's not just that Hammond and his Tory chums clearly and undeniably put their extremist hard-right austerity dogma above public safety (not just fire safety cutbacks either, consider the 20,000 axed police jobs and their incompetent neglect of NHS cyber security too), it's that they're such brazen hypocrites about it.

If they genuinely don't believe that there is sufficient evidence that sprinkler systems are a useful fire safety measure for high occupancy buildings, they must immediately demand the removal of the proposed sprinkler system from the Houses of Parliament refurbishment plans.

If they want to keep their own sprinkler system then they should admit that they're actually useful common sense fire safety measures and begin implementing the recommendations of the fire safety report they've been sitting on for four years.

anything other than these two options would be yet another display of toxic Tory hypocrisy.

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The Tory defence minister Michael Fallon is a liar

The Tory defence minister Michael Fallon put on an absolutely woeful performance on the Marr Show on Sunday May 14th. He evaded questions, he made unfunded spending pledges, he revealed the latest Tory flagship policy to be just a load of empty spin, he resorted to the worst kind of dishonest gutter politics, and he outright lied to the British public about Tory cuts to the armed forces.

Fallon's lie

Fallon told his outrageous lie in order avoid admitting that the Tories broke their 2015 manifesto pledge that they would stop slashing away at the armed forces.

The manifesto commitment Andrew Marr tried to get Fallon to admit was "we will maintain the size of the regular armed services and not reduce the army to below 82,000" [source - page 77].

Since 2015 the Tories have reduced the army to 79,000.

The sneaky and evasive Fallon saw the trap coming and outright lied that the commitment was to increase the size of the army to 82,000 by 2020, rather than to not cut it to below 82,000. Just look at how brazenly he lies.

Michael Fallon telling an outright lie about the Tory 2015 manifesto pledge that they would stop slashing the size of the regular army. pic.twitter.com/f1fEqpKLEF

— Another Angry Voice (@Angry_Voice) May 14, 2017

Here's what the Tory manifesto actually said.

Anyone would think that such a huge and obvious lie from a government minister would have completely dominated the news agenda, especially given the scrutiny Labour politicians are subjected to for stuff like getting their numbers muddled up. But no! Hardly anyone in the mainstream press even picked up on the fact that the Tory defence minister told the British public outright lies about defence policy.

Look how he kept digging despite having the truth literally quote at him. pic.twitter.com/hw6JWWE46t

— Another Angry Voice (@Angry_Voice) May 14, 2017

Witness the way Fallon squirmed and lied, and maintained the fiction that the manifesto pledge was something else, even after Andrew Marr actually quoted it to him.

Just imagine the level of arrogant contempt necessary in order to carry on lying to the British public when you've had the truth actually directly quoted at you, and them. Everyone could see that he was lying, but he just carried on. It's excruciating to think that this guy is actually responsible for the British armed forces.

It's absolutely beyond me how anyone could have confidence in him to continue as defence secretary after such a brazen display of dishonesty. But then there are a lot of S*n, Daily Mail and Express readers out there aren't there?

More lamentable rubbish

Infographic on Fallon's dodgy expenses by Rachael Swindon.

Fallon's lie about the 2015  Tory manifesto commitment to stop slashing the armed forces to bits was far from the only deeply concerning thing he said.

When asked to explain where the government would find an extra £1 billion in their military funding pledge, he claimed that they'd do it "by growing the economy". When asked about the £7 billion black hole in the defence equipment budget Fallon replied by claiming that the government could raise the cash by selling off "some airfields".
So the mainstream media accuse Labour of "magic money tree" thinking over their fully-costed manifesto pledges, but Fallon can just reply with ridiculous platitudes about where the Tories are going to fund their manifesto commitments and resolve their own financial blundering, and nobody gives a damn.

Fallon repeatedly evaded answering questions about whether the UK's nuclear submarines are reliant on the outdated Windows XP operating system that is susceptible to hacks like the WannaCry ransomware attack that just hit the NHS.

Fallon admitted that the Tories flashy new policy on council houses is just empty spin, with no new money to commit whatever.

When Fallon tried to smear Jeremy Corbyn for talking to the IRA (at the same time as Margaret "we don't negotiate with terrorists" Thatcher was having her secret negotiations with the IRA) the Labour shadow defence minister Emily Thornberry hit him with the best sucker punch of the 2017 General Election campaign by highlighting his history of sucking up to the Syrian dictator Bashar Al-Assad.

Conclusion

The Tory defence minister outright lied to the British public about defence policy and he made an arse out of himself over and over again, yet millions will still vote Tory, and for this guy to keep slashing the armed forces, lying to the British public, botching army recruitment, farcically mismanaging the defence equipment budget, and now apparently selling off a load of our airfields on the cheap to whoever wants to stump up the cash (Saudi Arabia? Qatar? China?).

I guess having a blatantly incompetent and massively over-promoted buffoon in charge of our armed forces just a continuation of a longstanding British tradition though isn't it?

 Another Angry Voice  is a "Pay As You Feel" website. You can have access to all of my work for free, or you can choose to make a small donation to help me keep writing. The choice is entirely yours.

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