Nick Clegg - nonsense economics and ideological attacks on the working-age poor

On the 1st of December 2014 the Liberal Democrat leader Nick Clegg came out with some absolutely astonishing comments about the Tories his party enabled into power in 2010.

His headline grabbing comments were the statement that the latest Tory economic plans are "complete and utter nonsense" and that George Osborne is attempting to balance the books "on the backs of the working-age poor".

It's beyond the realms of possibility that Nick Clegg was unaware that George Osborne's ideological austerity experiment was always "complete and utter nonsense". It only takes a rudimentary understanding of basic macroeconomic ideas (like fiscal multiplication and aggregate demand) to understand that arbitrary across the board government spending cuts at a time of low economic demand are a recipe for economic stagnation.

Nick Clegg was well aware that the Tory ideological austerity experiment was abject economic gibberish, and that their plan to load the costs of the bankers' crisis onto the poor and ordinary was socially unjust, but he signed up to support these agendas anyway back in 2010 in order to bag himself a six figure ministerial salary and a short-lived sense of self importance. How else could you explain Clegg's pr-election statement that "we think, that merrily slashing now is an act of economic masochism ... so if anyone had to rely on our support, we were involved in government, of course we would say no, do it sensibly"?

It is absolutely clear that the Lib-Dems opposed Osborne's ideological austerity experiment before the 2010 General Election, but that they changed their tune to become cheerleaders for it as soon as it suited the short-term self-interest of the Lib-Dem leadership.

This decision by Clegg and the Liberal Democrats to enable the Tories back into power to impose their ideological "serve the rich, smash the poor" agenda has led to a spectacular hemorrhaging of Liberal Democrat support from 20%+ in 2010 to the 6-8% support they have now. Things have got so bad that Clegg's party lost 10 of their 11 MEPs in the 2014 European elections and finished as the 5th party behind UKIP, Labour, the Tories and the Green party.

Nick Clegg and the Liberal Democrats have become a hopelessly toxic brand, and I wouldn't be at all surprised to see the party attempt to rebrand itself completely, or break up into two different parties (the right-wing economic liberals and the centre-left social liberals) once they are rid of Nick Clegg.
           
Some of Clegg's other comments about austerity are best described as revisionist drivel, especially his assertion that the coalition government "has not been dogmatic about deficit-reduction plans".

Clegg went on to assert that "when it became obvious that the deficit was not going to be eliminated by the end of this parliament, far from doing what some people urged me to do – which was to cut even more – we said no ... it is going to take a little longer, and it will be three years into the next parliament before we wipe the slate clean". This is about as clear a demonstration as is possible that Clegg is talking complete rubbish. The reason Osborne's ideological austerity experiment failed so spectacularly to deliver the promised results (complete elimination of the budget deficit by now) is that arbitrarily cutting government spending at a time of low economic demand simply reduces economic demand even further.

If Clegg had listened to anyone sensible when it became obvious that Osborne's austerity experiment was failing badly, they would have suggested that arbitrary across the board cuts need to be stopped in favour of investment in areas that produce strong economic returns (infrastructure spending, social housing, flood defences, public services, research and development, tax inspectors etc) and cuts/reforms need to be imposed on wasteful areas of government spending (tax cuts for the rich, Ian Duncan Smith's failing welfare reforms, half a million quid in three years on ministerial limos for Eric Pickles, Trident etc). It's clear that Clegg was only ever interested in listening to right-wing hawks and their mantra of "harsh spending cuts haven't worked, therefore we need even more harsh spending cuts than ever".

The worst thing about the above is that it shows how dogmatic Nick Clegg and the Liberal Democrats have become since they joined forces with the Tories. Gone is the stirring rhetoric that ideological austerity would be "economic masochism" and instead we have a ludicrous narrative about how we should be thankful that the Lib-Dems allowed Osborne to continue his failing austerity experiment instead of allowing him to intensify it, as if ideological austerity and ideological austerity on steroids are the only two conceivable options.

What could be more dogmatic than presenting what we did or an even more extreme version of what we did as the only two conceivable options?
   
There are two factors that make Clegg's criticisms of Tory economics so incredibly weak. The first is that Clegg and the Liberal Democrats have spent the last four and a half years assisting the Tories with their nonsensical austerity experiment and their policy of loading the costs of the bankers' crisis "on the backs of the working-age poor", so to try to change tune and blame the Tories now is a stunning display of political opportunism that nobody but the most die-hard Lib-Dem supporter is going to be fooled by.

The second massive criticism is that he is still incapable of accepting what is self-evidently true - that ideological austerity has utterly failed to achieve what Osborne claimed it would. His criticisims of Tory economics would carry a lot more weight if he was man enough to admit that supporting Osborne's ideological austerity agenda was a huge mistake that has done immeasurable economic and social devastation to the United Kingdom and to his own party.   
         
In conclusion it's a bit bloody much for Nick Clegg to suddenly decide to publicly distance himself and his party from the failing ideological austerity experiment they have loyally voted in favour of time and time again, simply because he knows there's a General Election on the horizon and he needs to put as much space as possible between his party and the ridiculous economic shambles they have allowed to happen for the last four and a half years.

 Another Angry Voice  is a not-for-profit page which generates absolutely no revenue from advertising and accepts no money from corporate or political interests. The only sources of income for  Another Angry Voice  are small donations from people who see some value in my work. If you appreciate my efforts and you could afford to make a donation, it would be massively appreciated.

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The pre-election contract the Tories want you to forget

In 2010 David Cameron and the Tories unveiled a 16 point "contract" with the electorate which stated "if we don't deliver our side of the bargain, kick us out in five years".

If you search for this "contract" on the Tory website, all you get is a desperate plea for you to tell them your salary and give them your email list so that they can send you targeted political spam. This suggests that they Tories have realised how badly they have failed to deliver their side of the bargain, but rather than accept that they should now be kicked out by the electorate, they've decided to hide the contract and hope that everyone has completely forgotten about it.

Here's my annotated version of this Tory "contract".

If you want a higher resolution version of this image, I have uploaded a copy to my Flickr account.

In this article I'm going to go through the promises made in this so-called "contract" providing a little more detail than space would allow in the infographic. I'll also provide a number of links to back up the claims I've made in my responses.
   

"Changing Politics"

1. Recall

              
"Give you the right to sack your MP so that you don't have to wait for an election to get rid of politicians who are guilty of misconduct"

The right to recall MPs has still not been delivered, and the current proposals are terribly watered-down, meaning that MPs will have the final say on whether recall proceedings go ahead, because the decision will be made by the Parliamentary Standards Committee which is heavily dominated by current MPs (and other members of the political class). The proposed system has been described as a weak imitation of the Recall systems used in other countries like the US.

2. The Number of MPs, and MPs expenses
        
"Cut the number of MPs by 10%, and cut the subsidies and perks for politicians"

The number of MPs has not been cut by 10% and the amount claimed by MPs in subsidies and expenses is still enormous. In fact the £103 million claimed in expenses by MPs in 2014 is higher than the amount claimed at the peak of the MPs expenses scandal in 2009!

3. Ministers' pay

"Cut ministers pay by 5% and freeze it for five years"

Cameron did cut ministers' pay by 5% but then he outsourced all future decisions on MPs pay to a quasi-independent body which then decided that MPs should get a whopping 11% pay rise while the rest of the country suffers ideological austerity. The justification for this huge pay hike was quite extraordinary and relied on the assertion that if MPs weren't given such a big pay rise, they'd just steal it for themselves by scamming the expenses system even more!

4. Local Communities

"Give local communities the power to take charge of the local planning system and vote on excessive council tax rises"

Local government budgets have been ruthlessly slashed, especially for Labour voting authorities and the Green Party administered Brighton council and the Tories in Brighton colluded with Labour in order to shoot down a proposed referendum on council tax rises (so much for letting people vote!). The Tories are now planning to severely limit judicial reviews, which are one of the only means left for local people to hold their elected representatives to account.

5. Transparency

"Make government transparent ..."

The Tory led government have fought a long legal battle to maintain the veil of secrecy over interference in government by Prince Charles. They've also repeatedly refused Freedom of Information requests over issues like Workfare and disability deaths.

The Tories have also strongly opposed proposals to make private outsourcing companies subject to Freedom of Information legislation requests relating to government contracts.
          

"Changing the economy"

1. Wasteful government spending

"Cut wasteful government spending so we can stop Labour's jobs tax, which would derail the recovery"

Fearmongering about Labour "killing the recovery" was extraordinarily hubristic stuff, since it was George Osborne's ideological austerity experiment that caused the recovering economy to flatline for several years. Ideological cuts in government spending crashed the economic recovery and caused the "double dip recession", which did immeasurable long-term damage to the UK economy. Some of the "wasteful government spending" that was arbitrarily slashed by the Tories included flood defence schemes in places that suffered heavy flooding between 2012 and 2014, one of the prime examples being Kendal in Cumbria.

What is more, the Tories have done a hell of a lot of wasteful government spending of their own.

• There was the £75 million wasted on the PCC election farce, which resulted in the lowest turnouts in UK electoral history. Millions more were wasted on subsequent PCC by-elections. The West Midlands PCC by-election set the taxpayer back £3.7 million, which equates to £20 for every vote cast!

• George Osborne blasted over a million quid in his failed attempt to block the EU from capping bankers' bonuses at 200% of their salary.

• Eric Pickles spend over £536,000 on ministerial limos to ferry him between Whitehall and Westminster in just three years. This sum would have paid for 122,000 return trips on the London Underground between the two destinations, or 426 annual travel cards!

• Without doubt the biggest culprit for wasteful government spending is Iain Duncan Smith who has blasted hundreds of millions on catastrophic welfare "reforms" like the dismally failing Work Programme and the severely delayed and hugely over-budget Universal Credit fiasco. He would have had to shell out £130 million more to compensate the victims of his unlawful forced labour schemes had Ed Miliband and the Labour leadership not colluded with him to pass an appalling piece of retroactive legislation.

2. The national debt

"Act now on the national debt so that we can keep mortgage rates lower for longer"

Despite their promises that ideological austerity would have completely wiped out the budget deficit by now, the government is still borrowing £billions a month. In fact Cameron's government has now created more debt than all of the Labour governments in history combined!

The stuff about keeping mortgage rates lower through fiscal policy is a perfect illustration of the economic illiteracy of the Tories. Low mortgage rates are caused by the Bank of England setting the interest rate at an all-time historic low of 0.5% and keeping it there for six long years. If there was any correlation between increases in the national debt and mortgage rates, we should expect mortgage rates to have skyrocketed in the last four years as a result of George Osborne increasing the national debt from £811 billion to £1,452 billion. Instead they remain extremely low due to the monetary policy of the Bank of England.

The fact that the Tories printed such abject economic gibberish that confuses fiscal policies with monetary outcomes just goes to show how unfit they are to be running the economy.

3. Green economy

"Reduce emissions and build a greener economy, with thousands of jobs in green industries and advanced manufacturing"

After pretending that they were going to be "the greenest government ever" Cameron soon U-turned. He cut spending on green energy infrastructure and research, he began promoting fracking, and he even instructed his aides to "cut out all the green crap".

4. Benefits

"Get Britain working by giving unemployed people support to get to work, creating 400,000 new apprenticeships and training places over two years, and cutting benefits for those who refuse to work"

The Tory led government haven't just cut benefits for "those who refuse to work", they've also slashed the in-work benefits used to top up the poverty wages paid by their corporate chums, and overseen the longest sustained real terms fall in wages since records began.

The bit about apprenticeships is just guff, most of them are on unpaid forced labour schemes, designed to extract the labour of the individual without recompense in order to distribute it to favoured corporations, and paying another bunch of corporate parasites thousands of pounds per victim for administering the scheme.

Like so many Tory pronouncements on the social security system, this statement is soaked in Orwellian language. The Tories have been blatantly exploiting the unemployed as a source of free labour for their corporate chums, whilst telling anyone daft enough to listen that they are "helping" them. Other examples of Tory "help" for the unemployed include the use of sanctions league tables to drive vulnerable people into absolute destitution (unlike the severely uneducated and the mentally unwell the hardcore benefits claimants know exactly what to do to avoid getting sanctioned) and herding them onto corporate schemes where they are treated with such contempt that the people who are supposed to be helping them refer to them as "lying thieving bastards". 

5. Immigration

"Control immigration, reducing it to the levels of the 1990s - meaning tens of thousands a year, not the hundreds of thousands under Labour"

Without reforming EU Freedom of Movement legislation this was always a completely impossible promise. Net immigration rose 39% to 243,000 in 2013-14, despite Cameron's government deliberately discriminating against British families with arbitrary and draconian income requirements that apply only to British citizens with non-EU spouses, whilst citizens of other EU countries with non-EU spouses can come and go as they please with their non-EU partners.

This shocking discrimination against British families has barely been mentioned in the mainstream press, and after introducing these rules designed to deliberately break up thousands of British families (or force them to live in exile) the rate of net migration to the UK has actually risen.

"Changing society"

1. The NHS 

"Increase spending on health every year while cutting waste in the NHS so that more goes to nurses and doctors on the frontline ..."

Despite lots of Tory trickery trying to prove otherwise it is absolutely clear that spending on the NHS has not been increased every year, 4,000 senior nurses have been sacked since 2010 and frontline staff have endured years of below inflation 1% pay increases.

It's also worth noting what they didn't mention about their plans to impose the biggest top-down reorganisation in the history of the NHS designed to carve it open for privatisation.

Since their NHS "reforms" went through, over £1.5 billion worth of NHS contracts have been handed out to Tory party donors.  The former Tory leadership candidate Michael Portillo explained this failure to mention their NHS privatisation plans saying "They did not believe they could win an election if they told you what they were going to do because people are so wedded to the NHS".

2. Families

"Support families by giving married couples and civil partners a tax break, giving more people the right to request flexible working and helping young families with more Sure Start health visitors"

The UK continues to have levels of maternity and paternity pay that lag far behind other European countries, we have by far the most expensive childcare in the developed world and since the Tories came to power in 2010 the number of children growing up in poverty has risen by 300,000.
Sure Start funding has been ruthlessly slashed, resulting in the closure of some 600 Sure Start Centres. The "tax break" for married couples represents a tiny fraction of the financial losses due to the longest real terms decline in wages since records began, which has been going on since the Tories came to power in 2010.

3. Schools

"Raise standards in schools by giving teachers the power to restore discipline, and by giving parents, voluntary groups and charities the power to start new schools"

The opening part about restoring discipline is empty rhetoric about which nothing has been done, the concluding part is just jargon for their giving away £billions worth of public property to unaccountable private sector pseudo-charities (over 3,000 schools have been simply given away since 2010, many of them to businesses run by major Tory party donors).

4. Pensions

"Increase the basic state pension by re-linking it with earnings, protect the winter-fuel allowance, free TV licences, free bus travel and other benefits for older people"

The basic state pension has been re-linked with earnings, however this isn't any kind of victory for pensioners given that this government has overseen the longest real terms decline in wages since records began. The winter fuel allowance was cut in George Osborne's 2011 budget.

When the Tory party cut the link to earnings in 1980 the basic pension was worth over 25% of the average wage, by the time the link to earnings was restored it had slumped to well below 20%. The UK continues to have one of the stingiest basic state pensions in the developed world.

5. Police

"Fight back against crime, cut paperwork to get more police officers on the street, and make sure criminals serve the sentences given to them in court"

Over 34,000 police jobs have been cut since 2010. Slashing the number of police working and imposing huge cuts on police budgets would seem like an extremely odd way to "get more police officers on the streets".The part about "cutting paperwork" could be considered a success, as long as you consider the police simply not bothering to record some 20% of all reported crimes as an exercise in "cutting paperwork", rather than an exercise in "juking the statistics" so that the Tories can pretend that crime is falling by ignoring all of the reported crimes that the police didn't bother to record.

Sentencing has not been reformed, so sentences handed out in court are very rarely served in full.
       
6. National Service
     
"Create National Citizen Service for every 16 year old, to help bring the country together"

National Service for every 16 year old is a terrible idea, so at least in this litany of broken promises, the last one of the 16 is a broken promise that nobody in their right mind would have wanted fulfilled anyway.

What Cameron has introduced is a voluntary scheme called National Citizen's Service (NCS) for 16 year olds, which is not something that can be described as "national service" (it's voluntary) nor "for every 16 year old" (there were only 30,000 places in 2013).

Aside from the fact what has been promised hasn't been delivered, the scheme itself is extremely dubious too. It costs £1,400 per participant, and in the later weeks of the scheme these kids are expected to work for no wage doing jobs like cleaning streets and underpasses, maintaining parks and restoring old buildings.

In my view there would be two much more useful ways of spending this money.

It could be used to give the kids £1,400 worth of vouchers to help towards their education costs, or to be used to establish a small business.

The money could also be used to create jobs (with wages and labour rights) to do the work that these kids are doing for free. The wages would add to demand in the local economy, and unemployment would be reduced.

The problem with this "lets create real jobs" approach is that the unemployment statistics are so badly doctored nowadays, that all of the kids working for free on these schemes are classed as "in training" and therefore excluded from the unemployment figures in the ONS Labour Market Statistics. Thus if the money was actually spent providing paid jobs, the real level of unemployment would obviously fall, but the government unemployment statistics would go up, because £1,400 pays for far more wageless 16 year olds in "training schemes" than it pays for real people doing real jobs.

Conclusion

Given the shocking failure to deliver on promises in this "contract", is it any surprise that the Tory party have purged this document from their website in the hope that everyone will forget what they were promising back in 2010?

Perhaps the Tories imagine that simply deleting this "contract" from their website will be enough to ensure that everyone forgets the promises they made, and the fact that David Cameron put "if we don't deliver our side of the bargain, kick us out in five years" into writing.

 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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Why do we keep voting for "more of the same"?

Since 2010 the working people of Britain have suffered the longest sustained real terms decline in wages since records began.

Since 2010 the number of families dependent on social security payments like housing benefits in order to keep their heads above water has grown exponentially.

Since the global financial sector insolvency crisis people who have spent lifetimes saving and investing in pensions have seen their investments eroded away as a consequence of policies like Quantitative Easing (designed to save the reckless bankers and selfish property speculators from the bankruptcies they so richly deserved).

In November 2014 just a tiny proportion of MPs bothered to turn up to a debate on the living wage (see picture), a clear illustration of the fact that the vast majority of the wealthy establishment class really don't give a damn that millions of working families are living in poverty and benefits dependency in one of the wealthiest countries in the world.


So why do we keep voting for the same establishment class who created this mess in the first place by allowing speculative financial practices get so insanely out of hand, and then imposed ideological austerity on the public instead of jailing the people who crashed the economy and confiscating their ill-gotten gains? 

Why don't we vote for something different?

It's hardly an excuse that the mainstream media won't let us know of the alternatives anymore. There is a world of information out there on the internet, all we need do is bother to look for it.

The exponential growth of the Podemos movement in Spain to go from nothing in March 2014 to the second most popular political party in November 2014 shows us that real alternatives are possible, especially given that the Spanish media and political classes are just as biased and corrupt as our own, if not even more so.

Maybe it's just that us British are far more complacent and apathetic than the Spanish? I don't want to believe that this is the case (racial/ethnic/national stereotypes are bad OK?). Perhaps it's just that we haven't had it bad enough yet (youth unemployment in Spain is over 50%) that people are willing to throw their support behind a new party with very limited experience of running things, rather than continuing to support one of the establishment parties that have extensive experience of running things extremely badly?

Perhaps it's trite to reduce things to one of the most over-used Einstein quotes of all, but he was absolutely right when he said that the definition of insanity is "doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results".

If we don't vote for real change in 2015, we'll only have ourselves to blame when the privileged political establishment continue serving their own interests (and those of their wealthy backers) and more-or-less completely ignoring ours.

What you can do:

• If you would like to find out more about the Living Wage campaign click here

• If you would like to find out more about the negative effect of Quantitative Easing on the savings and pensions of ordinary working people, you could do worse than reading my article on the subject, or checking out this short video from Positive Money

• There are myriad alternative parties out there who could do with more supporters. This is an old article of mine detailing some of them. I'll be creating a new article on alternative parties before the 2015 General Election, so keep an eye out for that too ...

 Another Angry Voice  is a not-for-profit page which generates absolutely no revenue from advertising and accepts no money from corporate or political interests. The only sources of income for  Another Angry Voice  are small donations from people who see some value in my work. If you appreciate my efforts and you could afford to make a donation, it would be massively appreciated.

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How I overcame social anxiety and became a successful writer

In November 2014 I was invited to give a couple of presentations to organisations in London about how, as an individual, I've managed to build up a social media reach that dwarfs the reach of so many worthy activist causes that each employ dozens of people and call upon hundreds of volunteers.

I was perfectly happy to give away some hints and tips on how to achieve a large following of politically engaged people, because I have no interest whatever in hoarding my secrets to prevent others from achieving what I have. As far as I'm concerned, I want to be at the crest of a wave of new, alternative media. An inundation of independent citizen journalists and social activist organisations to erode away the edifices of the establishment friendly corporate media.

By advising people on how to use social media more effectively in order to spread alternative political messages I hoped I could play a part in helping more and more people assert themselves as individuals and present distinct analyses to the recurring narratives pushed by the mainstream media and the Westminster establishment. The only way we can prevent these institutions from totally dictating the spectrum of political discourse is if those of us who think differently have the means to express ourselves and to be heard.

The first event went really well, especially considering it was my first effort at public speaking since I said my wedding vows over 10 years ago. It consisted of a speech, a questions and answers session and a short workshop on how spectacularly easy it is to create powerful infographics. I thought it went well, and the feedback seemed to be very positive.

As I was making preparations for my second event, it occurred to me that the process of becoming a successful writer began a long time before the day I decided to set up a political blog, eventually settling for the name Another Angry Voice simply because I couldn't be bothered wasting any more time trying to think of anything better!

At the time I set it up, I obviously had no idea of how much time and effort I would end up putting into it, or that one day it would provide me the power to spread my political views into over 3 million Facebook news feeds per week! At that time I just had something I wanted to write, and I quickly cobbled together a blog to write it on. However, the process of becoming a political writer didn't actually begin there.

For me, the story is incomplete without an explanation of my previous efforts to become a political writer. I've decided against "naming and shaming" the three organisations in the following section, because I don't actually feel any ill will towards them over what happened at all, and I wouldn't want to give them any unnecessary bad publicity.

Rejection

My first effort to become a political writer in 2004 manifested as an effort to seek out an alternative media website and attendance of one of their meetings, which took place in a pub around a number of small tables. For someone like me, even getting to the stage of going to a room full of strangers was a monumental effort. Gradually, as the evening progressed, people shifted around to talk to each other, so that at one point everyone around me was sitting with their backs to me. If that happened now, I'd simply relocate myself to the centre of the meeting, drawing attention to myself in the process. Back then I suffered quite serious social anxiety, so I just sat there on my own feeling ignored. At the end of the meeting I plucked up the courage to make one last effort to speak to someone, but they were not interested, so I went away feeling bitter and defeated and never went back. In the week prior to publication of this article over 100,000 people had engaged with (liked, commented or shared) my work on Facebook, whilst fewer than 100 people had engaged with the work of this particular organisation.

After that failure I gave up for several years, during which I slumped into several prolonged periods of depression. In 2007 I contacted another organisation who were campaigning on an issue I felt very strongly about, however my efforts to contribute to their campaign were also fruitless. Once again I gave up, feeling defeated and unwanted. In London I had the honour of meeting one of the leaders of this campaign. I told them how I'd tried to volunteer my services with their organisation, and they explained that (as I suspected) they were simply so busy and so short staffed at the time, there was no way they could arrange to meet everyone who emailed to volunteer their services. This didn't stop me feeling rejected at the time though, so once again I ended up setting aside my ambitions to write about political issues and spent the next few years slipping in and out of depression. This organisation continues to do incredibly good work in a field I am passionate about, and I will continue to promote their work.

My third effort to become a political writer manifested as a concerted effort to reach out to a mainstream news website in 2009-10 in order to submit an article about a specific political issue that was adversely affecting my family life at the time. Once again my efforts were rejected, and once again I gave up my ambitions to write about political issues.
              
Why am I telling you this?

The reason I'm explaining this is not about self-pity, nor about gloating that I'm now over 1,000x more successful on social media as the organisation that rejected me ten years ago. It is about consideration of the way rejection works. In my view this is useful for two purposes:

Firstly I want to help individuals understand how important it is that we do not let rejection destroy our confidence and our will to make a positive difference. This is particularly important for people like me who live with conditions such as social anxiety, depression, stress, and obsessiveness. We must never give up our ambitions in the face of rejection. The success of my Another Angry Voice project is a perfect illustration of the fact that information technology and social media now allow all manner of "outsiders" and neuro-atypical folk to reach out to huge audiences as individuals, without the need to work through the prism of collective organisations. If your efforts at political engagement have proven fruitless, there can be no harm whatever in trying, as I did, to set up your own political blog, Facebook page, Twitter account, Youtube channel, Buzzfeed profile, or whatever. 

It took me almost two years to pick up my first 1,000 followers, but now I've got so many that hundreds of people tend to start following things when I draw attention to them on my Facebook page. In order to help people with a quick blast of new followers I'd gladly consider giving people a helping hand with shares and retweets if the content is really high quality and interesting, so don't be afraid to Tweet your work at me or spam posts on my Facebook wall if you think I might be interested in them. I'll gladly give people a bit of a head start with a few hundred new followers if I think their work is really good stuff.

The second issue my experiences of rejection raises is that it may be useful to those who work within activist organisations to consider improving their engagement strategies. After all, the painfully shy bloke sitting at the back not saying anything may actually have turned out to have been the greatest asset you ever had, but because nobody spoke to him, he went away feeling rejected and defeated and never came back. In my view, effective first engagement and retention should be absolutely critical issues to any activist organisation. If your organisation does not have a good first engagement strategy, perhaps you should consider taking the initiative to establish good practice, so that nobody who wants to join your organisation ends up giving up and walking away because they feel unwanted.

Why I'm no longer bitter

At the time I experienced these rejections I had very low social confidence and I took them extremely badly, but in hindsight I retain none of the bitterness and negativity of the immediate aftermath. I've come to realise that these experiences were absolutely crucial steps towards the process of building myself a political platform where I have complete liberty to discuss whatever topic I like, and achieving the mind-bogglingly large audience I have today.

Had I had the social confidence to persist, and keep attending meetings at the alternative media organisation until I was accepted, it is certain that I would not have ended up where I am today. Had I badgered them until they let me write for them ten years ago, I would have learned to write within the paradigm of their organisation and gone forward on a completely different path in life.

It was only because I experienced such rejections that I eventually decided to do it all by myself, belligerently ignoring the norms and conventions of political writing style, graphic design, website layout, social media strategy and moderation policy, and developing my distinctive independent semi-anonymous status as a writer.

In my view the fact that I've ignored so many of the conventions I would have learned had I been accepted by any of these organisations, is actually one of the key factors that has driven the exponential growth of my audience, so I hold no grudges whatever. We are defined by our experiences in life, and without these experiences of rejection I wouldn't be who I am today.

Conclusion

Whether you have experienced rejection from campaigning organisations or not, I would advise anyone with strong political views to try to write them down and publicise them on social media.

Whether we do this through the prism of an established campaigning organisation, or as an individual blogger, it is really important that we at least try to spread awareness of the issues that are important to us.

The more of us who take the time to express our own political views, the bigger the alternative media tide will become, and the harder it will be for the mainstream media and the Westminster establishment to continue their near complete domination of the political debate.

 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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Who is Nigel Farage's new Polish mate?

We all had a good laugh when it was reported that UKIP's so-called European Freedom and Direct Democracy group had collapsed after the withdrawal of the Latvian MEP Iveta Grigule, who quit the group within six months of joining it, meaning that they had representation from fewer than the seven EU nations necessary to form an official group and claim £millions in subsidies from the EU.

I'm pretty sure anyone but the most hardcore of UKIP tribalists must have thought "good job too ... what on earth is an anti-EU party doing gobbling up subsidies from the organisation they supposedly oppose anyway?"

Unfortunately Farage was quick to find a makeweight MEP from elsewhere to fill out his group again in order to requalify them to continue riding the EU funding gravy train. The MEP he found was The Polish MEP Robert Iwaszkiewicz, who comes from a political party so fanatically right-wing that even the French Front National wanted absolutely nothing to do with them!

In this article I'm going to take a closer look at the ragtag bunches of parties that Nigel Farage builds around UKIP in order to gobble up EU subsidies, and then go on to look at UKIP's new Polish friend and the party that he represents.

The European Freedom and Democracy group (2009-2014)

If you know anything much at all about European politics, it is blindingly obvious that EFDD (and the predecessor group EFD) are just haphazard groups of parties, with virtually nothing in common apart from the fact that without being part of such groups, UKIP would be short of the multinational alliance necessary in order to claim £millions in party subsidies from the EU.

The fact that UKIP's 2009-2014 group was pretty much a random jumble of parties can be seen by looking at the schitzophrenic voting record of the EFD group. One vote that is of particular interest to me is the May 2013 vote on whether the EU should proceed with negotiating the TTIP Corporate Power Grab, which is a proposed "trade deal" designed to completely over-write the democratic and judicial systems of signature states with pro-corporate legiaslation.

Given their habit of harping on endlessly about British sovereignty, one would have expected UKIP and their EFD group to vote against TTIP, however a look at the voting record reveals that only one UKIP MEP even bothered to vote, and he voted in favour of it, along with the majority of the EFD group. In fact the ex-Tory Roger Helmer joined 17 other EFD MEPs in voting in favour of TTIP, whilst only two MEPs in the whole group rebelled and voted against it.

It's quite extraordinary that UKIP are now pretending to be opposed to TTIP, even though Roger Helmer, and the majority of their political group voted in favour of it last time it came before the European Parliament, and their economics spokesperson William "Dartmouth" Legge continues speaking out in favour of it.The European Freedom and Direct Democracy group (2014-)

The composition of UKIP's group has changed dramatically since the 2014 European Elections. Out went the Italian neo-fascists Legia Nord and in came Beppe Grillo's populist Five Star Movement protest party in their place. The neo-fascist True Finns party also departed, as did the Calvinist Dutch political party SGP and the radical right-wing Greek Popular Orthodox Rally. In fact the only survivors other than UKIP from the previous incarnation are the two MEPs from the Lithuanian Order and Justice party. To reflect this change the group name was altered to include the word "Direct".

Within UKIP's reconstituted European gang, only one other party provides more than two MEPs, and that is Beppe Grillo's Five Star Movement (MS5) which provides 17, to UKIP's 24, the other five contribute only seven MEPs between them.

The Five Star Movement and UKIP make extremely odd bedfellows. The only similarities seem to be that they are both Eurosceptic parties, and that they both have a charismatic populist as their leaders.

There are large policy differences between the two parties, not least the MS5 support for gay marriage and gay equality, their commitment to digital democracy and their environmentalist policy platform. A bunch of gay equality enthusiasts and environmentalists look like extremely odd bedfellows to a party riddled with climate change deniers and gay equality opposers.

Perhaps the strongest indicator that MS5 are extremely odd companions for UKIP is that they initially tried to join the left-wing (and strongly anti-TTIP) Green - European Freedom Alliance containing the Green Party, Plaid Cymru and the SNP, but they were rejected.

After being rejected by the Greens MS5 tried to join the ALDE group which contains the one remaining Lib-Dem MEP, but they were rejected by them too.

Only after being rejected by the long-established Green and Liberal Democrat parliamentary groups did MS5 settle for joining Nigel Farage's ragtag bunch.

Another really confusing aspect to MS5's participation in UKIP's EFDD group is their commitment to preventing politics from becoming a way to make money and a career choice, which manifests through their rejection of publicly allocated funds to their party. What a party with such a commitment to not scamming expenses and making a career out of politics is doing propping up a European group which pretty much only exists to ensure that UKIP receive £millions in subsidies from the EU is anybodies guess.

Who is Nigel Farage's new Polish mate?

The new addition to UKIP's disparate bunch of Euro oddballs is the Polish MEP Robert Iwaszkiewicz who has been given special dispensation from his KNP party to join the UKIP group. 
KNP is an extreme-right group led by Janusz Korwin-Mikke, who is one of the most "outspoken" MEPs in Europe, who has a habit of doing things like denying the holocaust, saying that women shouldn't be allowed to vote and referring to black Americans as "niggers".

Here are some quotes from the leader of the Polish party that has saved UKIP's lucrative European subsidies by lending them one of his MEPs.

"Women are dumber than men and should not be allowed to vote"

"Evolution has ensured that women are not too intelligent"

"The general public should not see the disabled on television" (an objection to the 2012 Summer Paralympics)

"Democracy is the stupidest form of government ever conceived"

"Gays are a gang of louts imported from abroad"

"We must destroy the minimum wage and we must destroy the power of trade unions" (from this speech in which he refered to black Americans as "niggers")

As for the man himself, UKIP's new ally Robert Iwaszkiewicz has praised Adolf Hitler for his tax policies and defended domestic violence. Here are a couple of quotes:

"If taxes were lower in Hitler's time, and now they're higher, what's wrong with wanting to say so?"

"[wife beating can] help bring many wives back down to earth"

It's absolutely clear that UKIP is now reliant upon a man from a very distasteful extreme-right bunch of Holocaust deniers in order to keep their taxpayer funded subsidies rolling in.

Ukipper reactions

It's no surprise at all that the overwhelming reaction of Ukippers to all of this has been to jump straight into self-pitying conspiracy theory mode, because that was precisely the mentality of their leader Nigel Farage when the Latvian MEP Iveta Grigule left the EFDD group.

Instead of contemplating the idea that she might have left because EFDD is an incoherent group made up of totalitarians, libertarians, anti-gay, pro-gay, environmentalists, climate change deniers, extreme right-wingers and wannabe-greens, to Farage and his followers it was clearly the result of some grand conspiracy orchestrated by Martin Schultz and a cabal of evil Euro-federalists.

The Ukipper reaction to the revelation that their new Polish friend comes from a disgusting and misogynistic extreme-right party is similar. You only have to read any article exposing KNP for what they are, to see a bunch of Ukippers complaining that the quotes have been "taken out of context"; that they were "only jokes"; that they were "deliberately mistranslated"; and that it's all some big conspiracy against the brave UKIP freedom fighters.

This tendency to jump straight into conspiracy theory mode derives from the tribalist hero narratives of the UKIP campaign. It's impossible for the tribalist Ukipper to see that UKIP has ever done anything wrong, because they are by definition the heroes of the story, meaning the narrative would be rendered incoherent if the problems they encounter are of their own making, rather than the result of the meddling of some arch-villain (in this case Martin Schultz, but in other cases the Lib-Lab-Cons, the media, the gays, the environmentalists, the PC brigade ...).

Conclusion

It's absolutely no surprise to anyone who follows European politics that Nigel Farage has once again hopped into bed with terrible nutters from the extreme-right fringe in order to keep UKIP's ticket to ride the EU gravy train of party funding. In the last European Parliament he cavorted with Italian neo-fascists who openly declared that the mass murderer Anders Brevik had "excellent ideas" that were "in defence of Western civilisation", and already in the new parliament he's been forced to defend the outrageous history of his Swedish Democrat allies, which grew out of the Nordic Nazi Party.

The fact that UKIP are up to their old tricks of hanging about with the dregs of the extreme-right fringe in order to secure more taxpayer funding for their party is not at all surprising. What is much more interesting is the fact that the Italian progressives MS5 continue to prop this group up. What on earth are a bunch of pro-equality, environmentalist, digital democracy enthusiast, wannabe Greens doing propping up this increasingly vile extreme-right coalition?

Perhaps someone who speaks Italian could ask the leader of MS5 Beppe Grillo what he thinks he is achieving by associating himself and his party with right-wing opportunists like Nigel Farage, and extreme-right fanatics like Robert Iwaszkiewicz and the Sweden Democrats?


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