Rishi Sunak the loan shark

Tory Chancellor Rishi Sunak has announced an insultingly inadequate policy of offsetting soaring energy bills with paltry but mandatory £200 mini-loans for all domestic energy consumers, which then has to be paid back in instalments over the next five years.

The £200 will be automatically discounted from all household energy bills, whether customers want to be drawn into energy-debt or not, then Sunak's five £40 annual repayments will be added onto all energy bills, regardless of whether the bill-payer actually received the £200 discount or not!

Let's consider how this policy will work for students, people working their way out of poverty, people who get a home of their own after a period of homelessness, or couples who separate/divorce over the next five years, which obviously amounts to a very significant number of people.

Imagine a multi-occupancy house, with say five adults. They can be students in the final year of university, or people trying to work their way out of poverty by house-sharing to save rent.

The household receives a single £200 energy bill discount between the five individuals, but then the household splits up and the individuals get houses of their own (the students graduate, the workers go their separate ways).

One household with one energy bill becomes five households with five energy bills, mandating five sets of five £40 annual "repayments".

A £200 loan ends up requiring up to £1,000 in repayments is the kind of exploitation you'd expect from payday lenders and loan sharks.

Separating/divorcing couples will also be forced to repay up to double what they initially received when they were living together.

As for the recently homeless (street-sleepers, squatters, couch-surfers, hostel-dwellers) who find themselves a home of their own in the next few years, they'll be forced to make years of repayments on loans they never even received a penny of!

When it comes to people who are lucky enough to be living in comfortable housing situations for the foreseeable future, Sunak's misleadingly named "rebate" is just an ineffective and insulting 'sticking plaster on a severed limb' solution.

But when it comes to people in multiple occupancy homes, the working-poor, separating couples, people escaping the horror of homelessness, and others in insecure housing situations, Sunak's strategy is pure daylight robbery.

Of course Sunak and his millionaire Tory chums don't give a damn about the young, the working poor, the recently-homeless, or others in insecure housing situations, and when they devised this crackpot policy, they probably didn't even consider the implications for people they perceive to be lower than scum.

But neither do most of the over-privileged UK media commentariat, who, let's remember worked tirelessly to keep these malicious and economically illiterate Tories in power (because they were so utterly horrified at Corbyn's proposal that the wealthiest minority like them should pay a bit more tax, so life could be a bit fairer for the rest of us).

Of course the £billionaire-bankrolled Tories are going to keep legislating against the interests of the young, the poor, and the marginalised, and of course most of the over-privileged commentariat aren't going to hold these vile and vindictive Tories to account for it, because the majority of them are simply far too concerned with promoting their own class interests, to bother about those of us getting trampled and exploited at the bottom.




Don't forget to check out my other article detailing loads of other problems with Sunak's mandatory energy bill mini-loans.

 

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OR

Ruth Davidson's army cosplay badly undermines the perceived political impartiality of the armed forces

The shockingly opportunistic Scottish Conservative leader Ruth Davidson has been cosplaying as a member of the army in a desperately cynical effort to drum up Tory support from current and former military personnel and their families.

You may wonder why you've never seen a UK politician adopt this cynical services cosplay tactic before (even Thatcher was wearing civilian clothes when she went on that tank) and the answer, as anyone who has ever served in the forces (or other uniformed public services like the police) will know, is that it's strictly against the rules to use your uniform to promote party political causes.

Here's the specific regulation:

Queen's regulations for the army: Occasions on which the Wearing of Uniform is Forbidden J5.368.b - "Uniform is not to be worn by prospective or adopted parliamentary candidates at political meetings, or while canvassing, appearing in public or engaged in any other activities connected with their candidature." [source]

If playing dress up in army uniforms wasn't banned in the UK as the kind of stuff that only happens in autocratic dictatorships, then we can all think of plenty of political opportunists from all sides of the political spectrum who would have absolutely loved to dress up like a Colonel Blimp and strut around for the TV cameras.

Politicians engaging in military uniform cosplay is so beyond the pale that even the likes of Nigel Farage and Boris Johnson wouldn't go there, but Ruth Davidson is a different and far more dangerous kind of politician who just doesn't give a damn about the rules, or the fundamental importance of the army being perceived as a politically impartial force.

As far as she's concerned she's completely untouchable, and she can do whatever the hell she likes, even if that involves trying to appeal to services personnel by egregiously ignoring the rules that they have always had to comply with.

Aside from the fact Ruth Davidson should have known better, it's incredibly difficult to see what the 32 Signal Regiment thought they were doing by inviting Davidson to come and play dress up for the cameras too.

Inviting the leader of the Scottish Tory party to cosplay as a soldier badly damages the perceived political neutrality of the army, especially coming after a serving army general actually threatened that the armed forces would launch a military coup if Jeremy Corbyn is ever elected Prime Minister.

Queen's regulations for the army: Occasions on which the Wearing of Uniform is Forbidden J5.368.e - "On occasions when the Army’s reputation or political impartiality might be brought into question e.g. Political protests, rallies, marches or demonstrations of any kind where a political, social or interest group agenda may be perceived as being pursued, or where disorder or affray might result, or appearing in the media to seek personal publicity".  [source]

If your average soldier turned up at a party political event in their uniform or tried to give their political aspirations a boost by strutting around in uniform in front of the cameras, they'd be read the riot act for ignoring Queen's regulations, but Ruth Davidson firmly believes that she's far too important to follow Queen's regulations, so she can posture as a revolting Tory Saddam of Scotland without facing any consequences whatever.

Not only has she ignored the political impartiality rules that ordinary services personnel have to abide by, she's also part of a government that has put their beloved hard-right austerity dogma above the national interest by savagely cutting the army, and has an extraordinarily lax attitude towards caring for the thousands of former soldiers living in desperately unstable circumstances, or even in the streets.

One of the most sickening displays of Tory contempt for ex-services personnel came when the the former soldier David Clapson was sanctioned to absolute destitution and left to die by the DWP.

Still. Davidson imagines that the rank and file services personnel are gullible enough to forget about all of that as they go weak at the knees at the sight of her cosplaying as a soldier.

It's difficult to see how anyone who has ever served would not be furious about Ruth Davidson's disregard for Queen's regulations, and her glib self-serving opportunism.

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OR

Meanwhile in Britain ...

Donald Trump winning the US election shouldn't really have come as a surprise to British people given that we're still dealing with the huge act of economic self-harm the British public inflicted on themselves earlier in 2016.

Even though it shouldn't have come as much of a surprise, Trump's shock victory has still dominated the mainstream press and social media alike since it happened.

Meanwhile several things have been going on in Tory Britain that have slipped quietly under the news radar during US election week.

• 1. The homelessness charity Shelter reported that 120,000 children will spend this Christmas homeless, and that the new lower Tory benefit cap will end up impoverishing an estimated 319,000 children. If it wasn't obvious before, it's crystal clear now that Tory austerity policies end up economically punishing children for the "crime" of being born into poor families.

• 2. The Tory assault on children's rights suffered a setback in the House of Lords where peers voted against the Tory plan to allow local governments to opt out of child protection measures. This Tory effort to build a "bonfire of children's rights" is clearly designed to make the privatisation of child protection services more appealing to corporate outsourcing giants like G4S, Capita and Serco. This vote in the Lords is more of a setback than a defeat though because Tory ministers can always simply reinstate the clause to scrap child safety standards when the child and social work bill returns to the House of Commons.

• 3. The latest figures from the Trussell Trust food bank showed that the increase in food bank dependency in the UK is still continuing. The charity handed out a record number of food parcels in 2015-16 and their evidence shows that two of the three leading causes of food poverty were benefit delays and Tory welfare cuts, accounting for over 40% of referrals between them.

• 4. A long-awaited report from the United Nations absolutely hammered the Tory government for their savage mistreatment of disabled people. Not only did the report find that Tory welfare cuts have disproportionately impacted disabled people and hindered their rights to live independently and be included in their communities, the report also found that disabled people in Britain have suffered a barrage of right-wing anti-disability propaganda that has routinely portrayed disabled people as "dependent or making a living out of benefits, committing fraud as benefit claimants, being lazy or putting a burden on taxpayers".

• 5. Theresa May's government suffered a humiliating setback in the Supreme Court where the High Court ruling that Tory "Bedroom Tax" discriminates against disabled adults and children was upheld.

• 6. The Brexiter argument that the collapse in the value of the pound has been a great thing for exports took a massive blow when it was revealed that the UK trade deficit has widened significantly to £12.7 billion. Not only did the vast gap between imports and exports grow dramatically, the volume of UK exports actually fell by £200 million. The Brexiter argument that a collapsing currency is great for the economy is utterly daft because the UK continues to import vastly more than it exports, but when the economic evidence shows that the collapse in currency value has coincided with a significant decline in exports, even the argument that it's good for the export sector begins to look incredibly weak. Even though the economic evidence shows that this Brexiter delight at the collapse in the value of the pound is misguided, we can look forward to Theresa May and the Tories continuing to spread the ludicrous myth that a weak currency is good for our (import dominated) economy.

• 7. The Bank of England responded to Theresa May's ignorant blame-casting rhetoric at the Tory party conference by releasing a report on the relationship between inflation and interest rates that demonstrated that Theresa May simply doesn't know what she's talking about when it comes to monetary policy (which is no surprise given the economically illiterate myths about monetary policy spread by her predecessors Cameron and Osborne).

• 8. The Institute for Fiscal Studies identified a £25 billion black hole in the UK public finances.

• 9. The Crown Prosecution Service are considering a "corrupt practices" case against the Vote Leave mob (which included high profile Tory government ministers like Boris Johnson) for lying to the electorate over claims like the "Let's give the NHS the £350 million a week ..." lie and their false claims that "Turkey is joining the EU".  

• 10. Theresa May visited India in order to beg for some kind of trade agreement with them, but ended up getting her ear bent about her obstructive attitude towards Indian migration and the "detrimental" immigration policies she implemented during her time as Home Secretary. Additionally Theresa May didn't even bother to schedule a meeting with the Indian conglomerate Tata to discuss the ongoing crisis in the British steel industry while she was in India.

• 11. After returning from her failure of a trip to India Theresa May continued the Tory policy of sucking up pathetically to the Chinese communist government, even allowing herself to be lectured about the importance of "mutual trust" by the Chinese when one of the contractors they lined up to build the UK's rip-off nuclear infrastructure for us has been charged with nuclear espionage in the United States!

• 12. The hope that the Tories are finally going to bin their economically ruinous ideological austerity agenda in order to pursue a sane investment led recovery strategy took another blow with the announcement that the rail electrification project for the South West of England has been indefinitely suspended.

The US election and Trump's victory have overshadowed what's going on in British politics, but it's important not to forget that the US isn't the only country suffering a political farce at the moment.

Whatever the mainstream media try to tell you about Theresa May being a "safe pair of hands" it should be beyond obvious that she's a profoundly dishonest and incompetent politician with a savage right-wing authoritarian streak and anti-democratic tendencies.

The twelve separate stories I've highlighted just from US election week illustrate the shambles that is going on, but as long as the bulk of the Labour Party opposition and the mainstream media continue failing to hold Theresa May and the Tories to account millions of people will continue believing the nonsense that Theresa May is  a competent politician doing a good job!

 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.

OR

Why Gary Neville and Ryan Giggs deserve plaudits

I was rarely one to give Gary Neville plaudits as a footballer and still find it difficult to believe he's the fifth most capped England defender in history, but I have to say that I'm impressed and encouraged by his refreshing stance on the occupation by homeless people of the building he intends to develop as a hotel with his former Manchester United team mate Ryan Giggs next year.

Background

During the last parliament the Tories and Lib-Dems pushed through draconian new legislation against people occupying vacant buildings. This meant that Neville and Giggs could have used the courts to force the homelessness support group out of their building. 

It's also worth noting that the Tories in central government (and their Lib-Dem enablers) are not the only bad guys in this scenario. Greater Manchester Police, Manchester City Council (Labour controlled) and Manchester Metropolitan University have all been guilty of taking harsh measures against the homeless in the city. This backdrop of increased intolerance towards the homeless across UK society makes the footballers' approach that much more refreshing. 

It's a heart-warming surprise to see that it takes a pair of footballers to lead the way in taking a humane and common sense approach to homelessness, when the government, the police, the local council and the city university have all preferred to adopt the stance that property rights over-rule the welfare of human beings.

The agreement

Instead of initiating legal proceedings to evict the Manchester Angels homelessness support group, the footballers decided to let them stay on the proviso that they don't disrupt any of the surveying/building work while they're there.

A representative for the Manchester Angels has spoken about how delighted they are that the footballers have chosen not to force them out using the harsh anti-squatting laws brought in by the last government. His statement is a brilliant example of what can be achieved when people reach amicable solutions rather than resorting to a legal system that has now been so heavily skewed in favour of capital by the Tories.

"We undertake not to cause any damage to anything and to leave the building in as good if not a better state than we found it in. I have ordered smoke alarms to keep the building safe. I even suggested to Gary that he might be interested in employing some of the homeless people who are living here as labourers to help with the redevelopment work on the hotel."

The fact that both parties could come to such a simple agreement sets a really good example that life in the UK doesn't always have to be as bad as the Tories want it to be. 

These guys have set a great public example by coming to an amicable agreement instead of making a terrible public demonstration of the sickness of our society by having a bunch of desperate people evicted by the courts, which would have shown that in Tory Britain property is considered far more important than people.

Political footballers

I've often thought that elite footballers should try to do more social good with their fame and their extreme wealth: That instead of buying another brand new Bentley or adding another house to their extensive foreign property portfolio, they could do something with more social utility instead. I'm not the kind of guy to tell people how to spend their money though, nor ignore the fact that many footballers already contribute to all kinds of socially beneficial projects. It's just that elite footballers have such immense wealth these days compared to ordinary folk that their power to have a real political influence on society has never been higher.

I think one of the things that makes this case interesting is that it's one of the most overt forays into the political sphere I've seen elite footballers make. I wouldn't be surprised that Gary Neville's generation of footballers might be hesitant to take bold political stances. Giggs and Neville will both remember how their old Liverpool adversary Robbie Fowler was browbeaten and punished by the FA 20 years ago for daring to show solidarity with the Liverpool dockers. 

Deciding not to have the homeless people evicted from their building is a much bolder political stance than routine footballer stuff like setting up a charitable foundation, or telling the press how much of a wonderful guy they think David Cameron is (as Frank Lampard did just before the Tories handed him a vast income tax break while they simultaneously introduced Bedroom Tax on some 600,000 families with disabled members).

The factor that makes it such a bold political stance is that there are many wealthy property owners and defenders of capital who are going to react with disgust at the idea that anyone might actually help people who are occupying their vacant buildings, instead of throwing them out onto the streets.

How some right-wingers react

If you've seen any of the public reaction to this story, the overwhelming response has been "good on them" which is great to see, especially from the supporters of rival clubs. However, interspersed between the flood of positive reactions are a few incredibly bitter comments from people who absolutely hate that these footballers have wavered their own property rights in preference for behaving like decent human beings.

You might think that people bitterly criticising Neville and Giggs and predicting the ruination of their building because all homeless people are all "disgusting lazy scum" are just terminally miserable kill-joys, but in many cases there's more too it than them just wanting to pour scorn on the concept of showing a bit of basic human decency because they happen to be miserable gits.

It seems that several of these people really perceive the footballers' wavering their property rights as an attack on the whole concept of property, and by extension an attack on their own property rights. These people come across as absolutely terrified that some guys reaching an amicable agreement instead of launching eviction proceedings is setting some kind of awful precedent that it's preferable not to go around treating desperate people like inconvenient "scum" who deserve to be shoved back out onto the streets and turned into somebody else's problem, as they themselves would undoubtedly behave.

What seems to have passed a lot of these bitter cynics by, is that the building belongs to Giggs and Neville, so they can do with it as they please. If it suits them to allow homeless people to use it through the cold winter months, that's obviously their decision to make. To force them evict the homeless people out of blind adherence to the Tory principle that property rights are more important than human beings (as some people would apparently prefer) would be an obvious infringement of their right to do as they please with their own building.

Why footballers?

It's worth pointing out that the main reason this story has captured the public imagination is the fact these guys kicked a bag of air around in front of cameras to make their millions. If such an agreement had been reached with people who had made their millions designing computer software, running a taxi firm, speculating on the property market, selling plumbing supplies or whatever, the story would have been unlikely to go further than the pages of the local press. The fact that Neville and Giggs had high profile public careers is the main reason we've even heard of the story.

As for the actual reason they chose to take a non-confrontational approach, I think it would be churlish to say that they did it to avoid bad headlines about former Manchester United players evicting homeless people in the city. I prefer to think that it's because both guys grew up in ordinary backgrounds, and that doubtless they know several former team-mates from their youth and academy days who have fallen on hard times, so they did it out of basic human empathy. I'm pretty sure they both know that if their lives had panned out differently (they'd suffered a career ruining injury when they were young for example), they probably wouldn't be in the position to develop an exclusive hotel, and there's the chance that they might have ended up poor, and in need of a helping hand at some point.

Legacies
   
Having never met either of them I don't know Gary Neville or Ryan Giggs personally, but I imagine that when they're old and looking back at their lives, there's a chance that if this venture works out well, they'll feel a lot prouder of what they did for some of Manchester's most vulnerable people when they didn't have to help at all, than the fact that they owned a 35 bedroom luxury hotel in the city. 

I hope their decision to let the homeless support group stay in their building works out well, and that the Manchester Angels can be found a permanent home at some point in the future. I also hope that it encourages other footballers and ex-footballers to consider helping out the needy in their own communities. A couple of grand in support from a bunch of guys who earn hundreds of thousands of pounds a week might not seem like much to them, but it would be a huge contribution to a homeless shelter, food bank or soup kitchen in the community their club is based in.

It's not just financial contributions either. Many elite football players have enormous social media followings. I know from my Another Angry Voice Facebook page that it's possible to reach out to millions of people per week with fewer than 200,000 followers. Many footballers have millions of followers. Neville has 3 million Twitter followers, his former Manchester United colleague Wayne Rooney has 12 million Twitter followers and 25 million more on Facebook! 

Just imagine the number of people these guys could reach if they used their social media platforms to promote worthy causes and talk about social justice every now and then. I'd love to see more footballers get involved in politics, after all - being good at kicking a bag of air around actually seems an awful lot more meritocratic than the Westminster establishment practice of continually stuffing the unelected House of Lords with failed/retired political allies and millionaire party donors. 

 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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