Arrogant Tosser

The news media is full of political groupies from the 'left' and 'right', but Owen Jones best up my nose more than most possibly because he's so insufferably smug for a young man who's done so little with with his life.

Take this latest offering from The Guardian in which Owen rails against privatisation in the NHS completely oblivious, apparently, to the fact that at the heart of the health service in the UK is a network of private contractors otherwise known as family doctors or GPs. 

Owen would have us believe that in his parallel universe all Labour supporter are noble and virtuous while all Conservatives are cruel, heartless villains which makes me laugh if nothing else.

Where have the Labour-supporting unions been during the fight for equal pay in Scotland, for example? 

Supping with the big Labour-run councils in many cases instead of standing up for their lowest paid members who were kept in the dark for years about the huge, discriminatory differences in pay between male and female jobs.

Yet Owen knows nothing of this and seems to believe that by replacing a Conservative/Lib Dem Coalition Government with a minority Labour one will return the UK to days of milk and honey where no one avoids or attempts to limit their tax liability.

Like the Miliband family with their 'deed of variation', for example, or that well known former football manager (Sir Alex Ferguson) who is often wheeled out as a celebrity Labour supporter and a person to admire.

Owen is a black and white man, not one who dabbles in shades of grey (50 or otherwise), so he sticks to 'safe' issues like the bedroom tax which is a perfectly sensible policy if you ask me, albeit one that has been introduced in a cack-handed fashion by not having smaller homes for people to move into when they no longer qualify for or need an extra bedroom.

Regular readers will remember Owen gave the world the benefit of his opinion on Scotland's  independence referendum and that didn't impress me either.

So he can keep his advice on which party to support in the general election because it's pathetic and childish, just like his politics which say nothing about the essential unfairness of any party being arrogant enough to believe that it can govern the country on just one-third or so of the popular vote.  
      

A cruel society is being built. Voting Labour begins the fightback

By Owen Jones - The Guardian

If you want to look in the eyes of those people pummelled by callous Tory policies, vote Labour – and be prepared to fight

'Those who claim there is no difference between Labour and the Tories do down everyone who has protested over the last few years.' Illustration: Sebastien Thibault

It’s a moment many of us who oppose this government have had: something that powerfully crystallises just what is at stake. For me, it was on 17 July 2014. Sue Jones tweeted me: her disabled daughter had died; thus she had a spare room; thus she had to pay the bedroom tax. “It’s been an epic nightmare,” she wrote. “Shameful and cruel.”

It had been “like dealing with robots”, she later told me. “No room for discussion. Their answer was, pay or move.” I felt fury – cold, seething fury – but I also had a moment of panic. A cruel, remorseless society was being built where predominantly poor people with a disability or a close family member who was disabled were being forced to cough up money they didn’t have or downsize to smaller properties that didn’t exist; where instead of building desperately needed council housing, we balanced the nation’s books on the backs of grieving, impoverished parents.

What if it wasn’t a passing nightmare, in which poor mothers lost their beloved children and had to contribute to the exchequer while the richest avoided tax on an industrial scale? What if this was a new normal, and we were on a permanent journey towards ever greater callousness and selfishness?

Labour commits to abolishing bedroom tax

Above all else, I wanted to end the suffering of her and all those like her. And I can – or at least I can play my part. When the bedroom tax was imposed, a coalition of those affected by it and those enraged by it took to the streets. They say protest doesn’t work; “they” are wrong, because that campaigning paid off. Labour committed to repealing the bedroom tax as a consequence.

Many say that there isn’t enough of a gap between Labour and the Tories, and my sympathies are with them. But in that gap are people such as Sue. Those who say there is no difference whatsoever are surely not being pummelled by the bedroom tax. The removal of that despicable policy will mean everything to hundreds of thousands of the poorest people in Britain. If this was just a referendum on the bedroom tax, that alone would be sufficient reason to vote Labour.

Indeed, those who claim there is no difference between Labour and the Tories do down every single person who has protested and campaigned over the last few years. UK Uncut occupied shops and businesses that refuse to pay tax as our services and welfare state are shredded. Many of those activists, my friends among them, were arrested. Their sacrifice was not in vain: they forced the issue on to the agenda, and have everything to do with Labour’s promised clampdown on tax avoidance and non-dom status.

Trade unionists and other activists sick of British workers being commodities to be hired and fired won a commitment from Labour to clamp down on zero-hours contracts. Dogged NHS campaigners won a Labour pledge to reverse privatisation, and even a partial renunciation of New Labour’s obsession with the private sector. The persistence of anti-war protestors over so many years culminated in Ed Miliband’s vetoing of the proposed bombing of Syria, a dramatic rupture with the bomb-happy leadership of Tony Blair. Who knows? Islamic State could be in Damascus right now if things had panned out differently.

What does all this tell us? Campaigners can put pressure on the Labour leadership, and they can extract concessions that could transform lives. I am already savouring the battles ahead with the Labour leadership: to introduce a living wage, a radical council house-building programme, genuine tax justice, public ownership of utilities and services, and far-reaching workers’ rights; to not splash out tens of billions on weapons of mass destruction. With enough determination, these are battles we can win. Under the Tories? No chance. And that is the point: I would rather be arguing with a Labour government than fighting a Tory government.

Critics say that Labour will introduce its own austerity. And they are right. Cuts will be no less painful because they are Labour cuts rather than Tory cuts. But the gap in spending between the two parties is an estimated £50bn. The probable supporter of a Labour minority government, the SNP, has very similar spending plans to Ed Miliband. Every single cut that harms people – whoever introduces them – must be fought. But how many nurses, houses, jobs, and human beings are in that £50bn gap?

Campaigners can put pressure on the Labour leadership, and they can extract concessions that could transform lives

Those disillusioned with Labour resent the suggestion they should vote for the party because of our electoral system, which has clearly now descended into farce, unable to deliver stable majority governments – its supposed upside. It needs to be replaced so people can vote freely, according to their conscience. Minority parties should demand a referendum on proportional representation as a condition of supporting a Labour government; the SNP is privately resisting this because it benefits from the current arrangement, and pressure should be brought to bear.

But let me just be upfront to those who share my frustrations with Labour. If you are in a marginal seat, you may vote for a candidate you believe is closer to your views. You will feel a sudden rush of exhilaration and satisfaction. But will that feeling survive an announcement a few hours later that a Tory or a Lib Dem has been returned as your MP? Will it endure David Cameron standing and grinning victoriously on the steps of No 10, or another five years of George Osborne, of Iain Duncan Smith, of Michael Gove?

We face the nightmare scenario of a Tory government propped up by Ukip and the political wing of the 17th century, otherwise known as the Protestant fundamentalists of the DUP. It will lead to a suffocating period of rightwing triumphalism. You spent years screeching about austerity, they will tell us, and still David Cameron was delivered back to No 10. The NHS, the welfare state, remaining workers’ rights and social housing: all face being shredded. Labour will shift dramatically to the right, probably under the political shapeshifter Chuka Umunna as leader.

The lesson of the 1980s is that the longer the Tories are in power, the more desperate people become to kick them out at any cost. That’s how Tony Blair came about. Opponents of the Tories gritted their teeth: anything to be rid of them. Protests may diminish and activists may ask themselves what the point is. There will be no chance of electoral reform.

The establishment, from Rupert Murdoch to Goldman Sachs, is desperate for Labour to lose. Do we wish to defeat it, or not? For me, the election of a Labour government is not the endpoint: it’s the beginning of campaigns and struggles that would, under Toryism, be doomed. And it comes back to Sue. I don’t suffer from the bedroom tax, but I want to be able to look in the eyes of those who do. So vote Labour – and prepare to fight.