The War is over ..

But the battle goes on.

Let's be honest there are no clear winners from the 2017 general election. Labour lost and are 50 or so clear seats from the Tories and the Tories have to form an alliance with the devil to cling on to power.

In Ruth Davidson and Jeremy Corbyn you have the political personality winners, I don't need to say who the personality loser is.

Labour though won by beating all expectations, including their own and JC  is a new man, he has lost that air of exasperation to cockyness and confidence.  He has proved himself to be a great campaigner. BUT now the reality sets in.

It is all very well for Labour to be crowing victory but that needs to be put behind them and they need to focus on being a credible opposition and using their new found momentum to engineer positive social change or at least to prevent the unpacking of the social state. This has already begun with the election itself requiring May to withdraw much of her manifesto.

Labour need to do more, much more to pick up the reigns of power whenever that opportunity may come.

Another 50 - 60 seats is not an easy task, Labour has taken the low hanging fruit, although with the SNP losing its mandate, Scotland could return to a Labour Conservative battle ground.

Whilst there has been a rejection of Mayonomics,  every one loves Corbyn's social program he has yet to convince many of Corbynomics and that is the battle he needs to fight, educate the voting public that his program can work and not bankrupt the country.

People do not believe his program can be funded by only 5% of the population, but the manifesto is said to be fully costed. Corbyn needs to explain the gap between the manifesto costings and independent experts costings.  Every Government and Opposition has produced figures that experts have disagreed with and the experts have been more right than wrong. Corbyn needs to show why his economics are right and different from the norm.

The next general election will benefit from the current momentum (no pun intended) but you can be sure the Tories cannot be as inept or have as inept a leader.  Next time round Corbyn will be battling against someone and a manifesto that counters the policies that Labour put forward.  Never again will the Tories fight overtly on a platform that harms, the youngest, the oldest, the sickest and the disabled.

Labour need to remember :

No one trusts a politician

Politicians promise the earth and fail to deliver

The Tories attacked the elderly, yet 67% of the over 65's voted for May.

Tories are the party of financial responsibility ( 3 x the debt of all Labour borrowings in government)

Corbyn and the Labour Parliamentary party need to come to a consensus, last night's vote over the single market and sacking of 3 front benchers does nobody in the Labour Party any favours.  Suddenly the electorate are reminded that Corbyn does not carry the wholehearted support of the PLP and by abstaining from the Single Market amendment there is a danger that Corbyn's previous lack lustre attitude towards Europe is raising it's head again and he will be going against the views of the youth on whose "coat tails" of momentum he has been riding.


The War was lost but the battles continue, the next period till the election continues to be one of the most important in our country's history.

Who is Theresa May

Jeremy Corbyn has been analysed to near death by the Tory press, we practically know his breakfast habits and it's no secret that he has bedded Diane Abbot .. free love and all that Jeremy, but Diane Abbot!  We know he is left wing and has a socialist agenda.  We know that he believes in peace in our time and as such tried to work with the IRA and Sinn Fein to bring a peaceful solution and this being used as a stick to beat him.  We also know that despite the Tory party deriding him and his policies the only thing he has flip flopped on has been the trimming of his beard and the quality of his suits.

You cannot say the same of Theresa May. Turning Theresa seems totally flexible in her approach to getting votes, whether from her own party or the people.

Who was it who supported Remain, but now wants a hard Brexit at any cost?

Theresa May

Whose Government wanted to increase Corporation Tax against Small business,  but turned in the face of opposition?

Theresa May.

Who is it that derides the costings of the Labour manifesto,  but refuses to cost her own manifesto?

Theresa May

Who said they would not hold an election before 2020, then two days later calls an election?

Theresa May

Who stopped payment for software upgrades to the health service prior to the recent NHS  IT attack

Theresa May

Who has cut police while Home Secretary, so that we now have a situation whereby intelligence gathering is restricted and we now have troops on our streets to compensate for reduced police numbers.

Theresa May

Who is it that crumbled under scrutiny of Andrew Neil, but thinks she can sit across the table from the EU and win a tough negotiation.

You know, vote the Tories out!

A pebble of destruction creates a ripple of thousands

After the tragic events of Monday we are all reeling and that is before we hear the full list of the dead and then the injuries to the 60.  Physical injuries that will be life changing and even if there are not physical injuries then the mental injuries the post traumatic shock that will be suffered by many. A pebble of destruction creates ripples of thousands.

Some will not look beyond the towering presence of Islam, but the truth is on a daily basis children are dying from the events in the middle east .. Bombs from Isis,  Russia and the West.

At the same time the UK election has come to a halt.  Only idiots like Farage have tried to take advantage of the situation, but the main parties have agreed to hold back.

The Tories can regroup after the disaster that is Theresa May interviewed by Andrew Neil.  Labour will need to refuel the momentum they had built up that was suddenly threatening at least the Tory majority size.

It almost feels dirty talking about the election after Monday but life does go on and our future is about to be decided for the next 5 years, so the discussions and arguments and analysis must continue, but it does seem so irrelevant and unimportant after what has happened to our innocents.

The Threat is a Tory landslide - A majority of chaos

Tories are set for a landslide victory.  The past 7 years have seen them in coalition and then a small majority. During this time we have seen a continuous austerity program and decline in the UK economy, support for the banking community, even though they brought the world economy to its knees. Under funding of the NHS and blaming the resultant failures on the health service and not on Government policy, the same applies to Local Authorities, Education is being taken back to the 60's and 70's - Grammar Schools and Free Schools will leech critical funds from the education of the mass of  children across the country for a elite few.

IMAGINE THE ELITIST POLICIES A LANDSLIDE VICTORY TO THE TORIES WILL BRING.

VOTE THE TORIES OUT

Be heard, dont miss 23rd May

In Australia it is mandatory for all eligible to cast their vote. Its not in the UK, where in the 2015 election only 2/3rd of people cast their vote.

In 2016, 27.8% of the electorate did not cast their Brexit vote, That means almost 80% of the population did not vote for Brexit (equally a higher number did not vote to stay).  A small percentage of the non voters in the EU referendum could have changed the result.

We don't know how the non voters would have voted, they may have voted for or against or have been indifferent and destroyed their ballot papers.

We have democracy .. it is flawed and sometimes when you see some of the politicians seemingly with their noses in the trough, you despair and become disengaged.  But then you see the late Jo Cox and Mhari Black and you see the good in politics.

This election is an election of importance like few, if any in my life time.  A choice between:-

The old style politics and the new style.
An American style economy and a peoples economy
The welfare state and welfare by market forces.
Nuclear armaments and non Nuclear
Hard Brexit and a more consensus Brexit.

These are big decisions and ones that will affect this country for decades.

Everyone must participate in the decisons, especially the young more than 70% of over 65s voted in 2010, compared to only 44% of 18-24 year olds.  This is the young peoples election, they inherit the earth that this election gives them, so they need to participate.

23rd of may is the date all voters need to be registered .. make sure that everybody you know is signed up to vote even if they are Tory or UKIP they have the right to vote and they must use it, so the legacy of their vote comes out of this election.

Tell them why they should vote tell them if they don't cast their vote then they cannot be heard!  

We all need to be heard, the choices are far too important for us not to be!!

Nuclear Corbyn

Jeremy Corbyn has divided supporters from left of center like no other since Michael Foot, another pacifist.   He is the leader who was never meant to lead and did not follow the conventional route to the top and as such has frightened the establishment in his own party let alone the wider community.

Blair came to power promising change and delivered death and destruction in the Middle East and conventional politics. Weapons of Mass Destruction epitomised his dishonesty and that of the political elite.

Corbyn offers something different - honesty, integrity but also naivety and change.

Human beings "en mass" are intrinsically programmed against change. Change comes from visionaries and economic necessity and at a cost .. the early printing presses smashed to pieces, modern times technology killing jobs.  Corbyn, for better or for worse represents change.

Corbyn style and appearance lacks the smart business suit, the shiny shoes and that's what we are used to .. Blair, Brown, Balls and Burnham.  He also offers a socialist agenda, which is a change from our capitalist agenda that has prevailed for most of my lifetime, and that scares people because it's a change and scares the mainstream media because it threatens their profits, wealth and agenda.

But what scares a lot of labour voters, to the extent they will not vote labour is Corbyns nuclear position and that of labours.

This came up on the Andrew Marr show on Sunday, while I screamed talk economy and social welfare, Marr understandably focused on Nuclear defence.  Corbyn was clear that we would never under his leadership be "first strike" which I can't quibble with, after all,  we would not wish to Nuke a non nuclear nation and who else is there .. USA, Russia and China would Nuke us out of existence before our cruise landed.  India, Pakistan? Unlikely. Iran and North Korea .. well they are likely to be on the US agenda before ours.  So a first strike option is unlikely to be relevant.

So that leaves the responder situation, would we hit back if we were under attack.

The thing about the responder option is that it is not a precision tool.  It's an Old Testament option. 

"An eye for an eye! A tooth for a tooth" " Vengeance is mine sayeth the Lord" or put another way ... you killed 10 million innocent people in our country so I'm gonna do the same to you and your innocent people". It's not an option that I think is worthy of one of the more civilised societies in the world.  There is an argument that we will never use us  them but if that's the case why have them?

The argument against Corbyn is not Nuclear weapons, they have not defended us against the terrorist attacks of recent years and even if we do face a dirty bomb terrorist attack in London or anywhere else then what good will Trident or son of Trident, which Labour has committed to do us?

No the argument against Corbyn, if there is one, is on the battlefields of honesty, integrity, education, health and society and when deciding who to vote for you must decide whether these are safer in Theresa Mays hands of Jeremy Corbyn's!

This election will determine who we are for decades

So Theresa May has called a new election in the hope that she will gain a majority similar to that which Thatcher achieved - 144 - when Labour was in similar disarray. The current Tory government has a minimal majority and yet it is wreaking havoc on our health service, the disabled and education.

We should not allow this election to be about Brexit. Collectively for those of us not tied to the tories we should fight together against poverty, alienation, lies and divisiveness . A coalition of the main parties to oust this government is the only way we are going to avoid dismantling of the welfare state as we know it.

If you do not oppose the Tories getting a significant majority then you will condemn this country to a greater division between the haves and have not's and suffering that will go on for decades to come