"I'd like to hear an example of a country where Corbyn and McDonnell's ideas have worked"

The bald man in the BBC Question Time audience demanded answers from the Labour shadow Foreign Secretary Emily Thornberry, but he wasn't remotely interested in what she had to say, because he'd already diligently rote learned his political opinions from the right-wing media.

When he said "I'd like to hear an example of a country where Corbyn and McDonnell's ideas have worked" you might have imagined that he was interested in listening to the answer, but when Thornberry replied "most of central Europe" and when pressed to name specific countries she said "Germany" and "Sweden" he sneered derisively as if she was the delusional one.

Thornberry's response elicited cackling and sneering from the Tory tribailists in the BBC audience, but that just goes to show how these people have been led like sheep into believing that Jeremy Corbyn is some kind of terrifying left-wing extremist, rather than a centre-left democratic socialist who is proposing economic policies that are perfectly normal across Europe and the rest of the developed world.

Of course there is no country on Earth where a government has come to power and enacted absolutely everything in the Labour Party manifesto, but significant elements of Labour's economic policies are absolutely commonplace across the developed world.

One of Jeremy Corbyn's most prominent headline policies is the abolition of  tuition fees (which should more accurately be described as Aspiration Taxes) and making university education free. University education is free (or very low cost) across most of Europe, including Germany, Denmark, Sweden, Norway, Finland, and let's not forget Scotland either. If Germany and Scotland can afford to offer free university education, why can't England?

Jeremy Corbyn wants to reverse the extreme Tory cuts to Corporation Tax that have been going on since 2010. He plans to increase the rate for major corporations to 26%, while setting a lower rate of 21% for small corporations. 26% would still be the lowest rate in the G7 advanced economies, which means Corbyn's tax policies are so far from being extreme-left that they're actually more pro-corporate than the USA, France, Germany, Japan, Italy and Canada!

One of Corbyn and McDonnell's most interesting ideas is the establishment of a National Investment Bank in order to fund future infrastructure projects. Other countries that have National Investment Banks/Sovereign Wealth Funds include Norway, Singapore, South Korea, Australia, and the Chinese economic powerhouse actually has several.

The Labour Party Manifesto pledged to renationalise the National Grid. Some might see this as radical leftist extremism, but they'd have to be utterly clueless to have been bamboozled into such a position by the right-wing dominated media, because the United States actually has a network of not-for-profit publicly accountable electricity distribution grids.

Perhaps if you're so rabidly right-wing that you think Texas is an extreme-left state awash with commies and Marxists you might believe that Corbyn's energy policies are extreme-left, or maybe you've got some semblance of a grip on political reality?

Corbyn and McDonnell also want to renationalise the railways. There are several countries in the developed world with national rail companies including France, Norway, Singapore, Hong Kong and Italy. The really interesting thing is that under the Tories' shambolic privatisation agenda these foreign state rail companies are actually running 74% of the franchises on the UK rail network, and the only country that is banned from bidding to run UK rail franchises is the UK itself.

Perhaps a more pertinent question when it comes to national rail networks wouldn't be where else do they have publicly owned railways, but where else have they managed to make such a godawful, inefficient, and ideologically-incoherent mess of their rail network?

Another Labour Manifesto pledge was to bring the Royal Mail back under public ownership. Other countries with national mail systems include Canada, Switzerland, Belgium, and Finland.

Then there's the policy of reversing the Tory strategy of carving up the NHS and distributing the pieces to profiteering corporations (including corporations run by major Tory party donors). You don't have to look very far for an example of a successful not-for-profit public health system. The NHS itself was doing brilliantly before the Tories set about vandalising it. The NHS was ranked as the most efficient health service in the world, and had the highest approval ratings ever, then the Tories imposed huge austerity cuts and imposed a massive top down reorganisation called the 2012 Health and Social Care Act. Since then waiting times have skyrocketed, huge numbers of A&E units, maternity wards and walk in centres have been axed (often against furious local opposition), NHS staff are overworked, underpaid and demoralised  and huge numbers of people are dying as a consequence.

The truth is that we don't have to look abroad for evidence that Labour's policies work, we just have to look at the devastating ideological vandalism the Tories are inflicting on the NHS, and recognise that Labour have pledged to stop the vandalism and set about reversing the damage.

The problem of course is that vast numbers of people are so shockingly gullible that they simply believe what the mainstream media tell them about Jeremy Corbyn being some kind of terrifying leftist bogeyman with bonkers extreme-left policies. They're unwilling to even consider the fact that most of Corbyn's headline economic policies are commonplace across the developed world, and in fact it's radically right-wing Tory policies like handing control of state schools to private sector pseudo-charities, privatising police services, and vandalising the health system that are desperately unpopular, and pretty bloody rare in successful developed economies.

So the big question has to be how do we reach out to people who are so damned gullible that they uncritically rote learn the mainstream media propaganda about Jeremy Corbyn being an extreme-left bogeyman, and sneer derisively when anyone points out the fact that Corbyn's policies are absolutely commonplace across the developed world while the Tories are the ideological extremists?

How do we reach out to people who prefer to believe in mainstream media lies than in observable reality?

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How did Damian Green's audition for Theresa May's job go?

The Tory First Secretary of State Damian Green stood in for Theresa May at Prime Minister's Questions and put on a very accomplished display of evasion to put Theresa May's charmlessness and inathenticity into perspective.

The press continually describe Green as a loyal Theresa May ally but today's performance popped that particular balloon. The relative competence with which he evaded answering all of the questions, and the confidence with which he wove several ludicrous narratives about how swimmingly everything is going made his performance look a hell of a lot more like a job interview to succeed his hapless boss than a man loyally holding the fort in her absence.

Green is an accomplished liar who has a long track record of lying through his teeth in order to sell the toxic Tory snake oil that is austerity dogma, so it's no real surprise that he put on a competent display of evasion and misrepresentation as he provided a series of tangential and downright misleading non-answers to Emily Thornberry's six questions about the very real threat of a ruinous Tory "no deal" strop away from the Brexit negotiating table.

When he was asked what would happen to the Irish border if Theresa May decides to strop away from the negotiations with nothing, Green responded by claiming that that's not what the outcome the Tories want, as if claiming to not want something to happen is the same as explaining what the consequences would be if it did happen.

Thornberry pressed him again about what a "no deal" strop would mean, and again he evaded answering the question with a load of partisan political bluster as if it's perfectly fine for the Prime Minister to threaten to do something, then not explain what the consequences would be for jobs, the economy, international trade, peace in Northern Ireland, or anything else if she actually does it.

Green's blustering political attack on Labour provided Thornberry with the opportunity to land a glorious counter-punch; accusing him of not getting the Prime Minister's memo because "you're supposed to be building consensus man!".

It was a cracking riposte against the lame duck Tory Prime Minister, and it's absolutely telling that her supposedly loyal ally Damian Green could only sit there and chortle away with the rest of the house at ludicrousness of his absolute laughing stock of a boss.

Thornberry persisted with another question on the "no deal" threat, and instead of answering the question Green resorted to bragging about how the Tories have juked the unemployment statistics through an unprecedented campaign of wage repression, a barbaric sanctions regime that costs more to administer than it saves in reduced benefits, a bonfire of workers' rights, and an absolute explosion in low-pay, low-skill exploitative Zero Hours Contract, fake self-employment, part-time and gig economy jobs since 2010.

Thornberry tried to address the "no deal" threat yet again by bringing up the dreadful Tory inconsistency over whether there is actually a government contingency plan for a "no deal" nuclear Brexit strop, or whether Boris Johnson was right to claim that there is no such "no deal" plan the day before.

Again Green evaded the question in the kind of glib and effortless manner that David Cameron used to manage so easily, but which Theresa May struggles so badly with.

This time Green evaded the question by once again falling back on the juked unemployment figures that only total dipsticks could believe have come about through good economic management, rather than continual Tory attacks on wages, labour rights and working conditions.

Thornberry muddled her words in her final question, but had the good grace to laugh at herself in exactly the way that Theresa May would be incapable of if she'd messed up, and Green responded to the question with a truly fantastical fairy story about how the Brexit negotiations are going swimmingly, and how it's bumbling David Davis who is firmly setting the agenda, rather than the EU27.

We all know that the EU27 forced Davis to collapse his own negotiating stance in the first bloody meeting, and that the belated Tory offer on citizens rights was derided as an absolute insult by all other parties, but Green was enjoying his fantasy, and his moment in the spotlight so much that it didn't seem to matter.

My political sympathies are obviously with Emily Thornberry, but I thought Damian Green did well too under the circumstances (excusing the chaotic mess the country is in after seven years of ruinous Tory mismanagement is hardly an easy job).

Thornberry is quick-witted, engaging, actually funny at times (a rare trait indeed in Westminster), and definitely the kind of person you'd want on your side of a debate rather than arguing against you. She was one of the absolute stars of Theresa May's vanity election, and while the Blairites continue to skulk around in the shadows of the back benches, she's one of the Labour politicians continually building a bigger and better public profile by staying fiercely loyal to the wishes of the party membership.

Not only did Green do his job effectively by doggedly evading every single question without resorting to displays of sneering, grimacing, and uncontrollable fury responses like his lame duck of a boss, he also came across as actually having a bit of a sense of humour, which is not something that can be said of Theresa May (humourless glowering is more her forte), David Cameron (slick, but far too slow-witted to be genuinely funny), Michael Howard (his combination of creepiness and ineptitude was funny, but not deliberately so) or Iain Duncan Smith (about quick-witted as a fence post and about as funny as a terminal cancer diagnosis).

Green must have dramatically improved his odds of succeeding his hapless boss on the strength of this job audition, but given the absolute mess that Cameron and May have created between them, and the near-inevitability of another election before the summer of 2019, it looks like he'd have to make good use of that sense of humour from the opposition benches.

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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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Another astounding display of pro-Tory bias from the BBC

You don't have to be an expert on politics to understand that BBC Question Time has become incredibly right-wing biased over the last decade or so.

Anyone who has watched the show in recent years will have noticed the way that the host David Dimbleby repeatedly hectors and interrupts Labour Party politicians and socially progressive panellists, whilst taking a much more lenient approach to right-wing politicians and commentators.

On Thursday May 11th the BBC upped the right-wing bias even further by planting an actual serving Tory Party councillor called Eric Holford in the audience, inviting him to ask the very first question of the show (in which he slagged off the Labour Party) and even letting him to make several comebacks against the panellists and legitimate members of the audience.

If the Tory councillor had used a fake name to cheat his way onto the show it might be understandable, but he didn't. He used his real name, under which he's stood as a Tory candidate in the Westminster elections in 2015, the Scottish parliament elections in 2016, and most recently the 2017 local government elections in Clydesdale where he won a council seat just a week previously in the local elections.

One week grinning his head off at winning a council seat for the Tory party, then the very next week pretending to be an ordinary member of the public in order to slag off the Labour Party on a national TV show!

The bias from the BBC is absolutely astounding. There's absolutely no way they should be allowing a serving Tory politician to masquerade as a member of the public in order to pose an extremely partisan question aimed at damaging his political opponents, but somehow they did, and somehow our supposedly neutral and non-partisan public sector broadcaster will get away with, it as they always do.

The question Eric Holford was invited to ask was a repetition of the agreed right-wing propaganda line that Labour's manifesto would "drag Britain back to the nightmare that was the 1970s".

Several of the panellists responded strongly against the planted Tory propaganda. The Labour shadow foreign secretary Emily Thornberry presented the general election as a choice between a better future where nurses no longer need to rely on food banks to survive, and young people can actually afford to buy a home, against more of the same from a Tory party that has run out of ideas.

The actor David Hayman and the SNP's Joanna Cherry were quite enthusiastic about the leaked Labour Party manifesto. Hayman said he genuinely welcomed the Labour manifesto as "exciting" because for the first time in ages it will give the people of the United Kingdom "a proper choice" and Cherry noted that the free university tuition manifesto pledge has been an SNP policy for years.

The Tory Home Office minister Ben Wallace responded to the question from his fellow Tory politician with an extraordinary ramble about how the UK is still £57 billion in deficit as if that's a good reason to vote Tory: "We said our policies would have totally eradicated the deficit by May 2015, but it's still £57 billion two years later - so vote for us!".

It's a sign of just how politically and economically illiterate this Ben Wallace guy must be to think that blibber-blabbering about "money trees" like an absolute half-wit and talking up your own massive economic failure is somehow a reason for people to vote for your party!

The Financial Times journalist Merryn Somerset Webb predictably took the Tory side putting on an exasperating display of political illiteracy as she used the Tories woefully inept efforts to reduce the deficit by slashing spending to the bone as a reason to criticise Labour's strategy of trying to resolve the problem in a different way through an investment led recovery.

"Austerity doesn't work, so an investment led recovery is a terrible idea, let's have more austerity" - If that's what passes for economic analysis at what used to be a very respectable publication, Britain really is as doomed to mediocrity as it seems.

At one point the host David Dimbleby even assisted the Tory plant Eric Holford in interrupting and shouting down a genuine member of the public who was complaining about the inflation in rail prices since privatisation!

Planting a Tory politician in the BBC Question Time audience didn't quite work to plan though because most of the panel, and most of the audience disagreed with his question, and the two panellists who actually agreed with him made themselves look like economically illiterate idiots in the process.

Sadly though, there are a lot of economic illiterates out there who actually enjoy hearing people blabbering on about "magic money trees" and "living within our means" like the worst kind of economically illiterate tabloid rote-learners, and telling everyone that Britain is too poor, and weak, and pathetic to deserve decent publicly owned railways and energy infrastructure like Germany, France or the Netherlands.

Doubtless the BBC will not face any repercussions for planting an actual serving Tory politician in the audience, allowing him to masquerade as a member of the public rather than identifying him for who he was, allowing him to have the very first question of the show in which he attacked an opposition party, and even assisting him in shouting down a genuine member of the public.

The BBC almost certainly won't suffer any consequences for this incident, but hopefully this brazenness of it will have at least opened a few more people's eyes to the shocking levels of pro-Tory bias at the BBC.

What we can do

• Make sure you are registered to vote so that you can defy the BBC bias and vote against the Tories.

• Consider complaining to the BBC Trust about this outrageous display of pro-Tory bias.

• Spread awareness of this outrageous incident by sharing this article and talking about this incident with people you know.

 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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