The financial crisis awakens while too many are blaming the powerless

The tories have exposed the UK to global instability

In the last few months there have been no shortage of signs that another financial crisis is coming. Osborne and the tories will probably blame it on Labour while they are responsible for steering the nation through it:



Yet this government are happy to prostitute our resources, markets and workforce to any country as long as the right people are reaping the benefits:

• Our railways are actually two-thirds nationalised but not domestically - the German, French & Belgian states run large swathes of it. So the supposedly patriotic, Queen & country flag-waving tories are essentially saying "any state can run our railways as long as it isn't the British state."
• Immigrants that our elites seem to like, Russian oligarchs and the new super-rich Chinese, are welcomed to inflate property prices for locals & citizens who've paid a lifetime of tax only to be priced-out.
• As we know from 2008 our financial services industry is more open than ever under Osborne's light touch.

Our hyper-globalised economy can be a good thing, but not when run so unfairly for minority vested interests. While true that everyone is dependent on faltering China, the source of the turmoil but the tories seems to enjoy our status as one of the most globally exposed economies. If we had more control over our markets we could make decisions of economic sovereignity.

Anti-EU types seem to pick and choose when they speak about this lack of sovereignty, the much nastier global institutions of the G7 / G20 / IMF / WTO / TTIP are hidden from the spotlight - as is predatory global finance in general.

Stuttering growth is toxic for an unbalanced economy about to take a global hit. The graph below should have the tories apologising and using evidence-based economic solution instead of the austerity delusion. Yet they indulge in the rhetoric of empty triumphalism.





Domestic retail slowdown:

Weak figures over the 2015 Christmas shopping period do not present a optimistic future. The tories even had the gaul to blame it on mild weather. Seem to remember they used cold weather for a similarly disappointing yuletide results.

Meanwhile the supposedly anti-tax tories persevere with their ridiculous burden-on-the-poor VAT rate of 20% having raised it from 17.5% in 2011. Under the Labour it was 15% at one point encouraging consumer spending and liquidity after the 2008 crash.

UK productivity is one of the lowest in the G7 This particularly telling because it shows the lack of attention the tories pay to bottom-up long-term solutions. If there was a plan to incentivise small marginal gains for low-waged workers than the benefits would ripple-up. Instead trickle-down carrots do not permeate further than a small group, which as we know from wider economics.


Tories act as if certain groups are not essential parts of the economy:

While UK steelworkers suffer under market volatility the government does nothing. It appears they are completely at ease with skilled manual labourers losing employment through globalisation and ending up in the local Aldi for pitiful wages. While tax-take goes down it is also a complete waste of experience and expertise which tends to impact already-marginalised communities.

They sit on their hands apologising for dodgy Chinese market practices and provide no answers. No real surprise from the party who callously smashed the miners contributing to the regional issues in the first-place.

Meanwhile the Northern powerhouse has been moved from Sheffield to London. There are no words.

And the corporate media are up to their usual smoke & mirrors by again by failing to scrutinise the institutions which govern our lives. 

When the financial crisis strikes again we will finally realise the extent of media distraction #marr #bbctbq #bbcsp pic.twitter.com/hyTzbvZGG9

— JeSuisFedUp (@JeSuisFedUp) January 31, 2016

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How the media are smearing Jeremy Corbyn: A leadership campaign is not meltdown.

McCarthyism is alive and well in 21st century UK.

The mainstream media after smearing Nicola Sturgeon before the election and getting embarrassingly exposed after the source of the leak was revealed,  has now set it sights on Jeremy Corbyn.


HSBC propaganda leaflet, The Telegraph were chief perpetrators against Sturgeon. Now they actively encourage readers to vote for him under the pretence that his leadership will keep their beloved Conservatives in power. Or is this just a stunt to undermine him because he's a real alternative? Can he win an election? - who knows? Many thought the tories would be in permanent wilderness post-Blair. Remember baseball hat Hague and IDS's Quiet Man speech I don't recall the media being as aggressive.

A regular tactic is to ramp up the rhetoric on Labour with words like 'panic', 'existential crisis' and asking if the party will split, branding things 'dull' one minute then 'chaos' the next. Even supposedly 'left-wing' BBC is complicit - a cherished national institution but also a profit-driven global multinational. Media enterprises always sell business narratives because profit trumps public interest.

Unfortunately, the more the media scare-monger about alleged Labour disarray, the more likely swing voters will turn towards the tories or 'safe' Blairites, who then pander to the owners. Even the left-leaning New Statesman have run with this populist trend.

Ultimately it's no real surprise that Labour are having a heave-ho, they just lost an election they expected to get something from. It's easy to forget that despite attacks on Miliband and the SNP takeover, Labour increased their vote share - nearly double the tories percentage.

Those on the right of Labour are increasingly coming across as out-of-touch, something Miliband kept accusing the tories of. Most of their MPs abstained on tory cuts to tax credits for 3+ children families. This bill effectively dictates the size of a affected working families, the strivers this government pretends to reward. The media frame this as Labour in-fighting, instead of supporting those sticking up for the children who will be plunged into poverty as a result.

click for 38 degrees petition

So Osborne cynically plays political games with people's lives while trying to re-brand his party as pro-working people. And the Labour right allow him his win. This was a bill that could have been successfully opposed if Labour's 184 spineless MPs had grown one.

Then Blair emerged and, probably to the relief of the average citizen of the Middle East, dropped bombs on Corbyn's bid and his party. An interfering war-monger who commands huge fees to speak at world hunger events. I guess he's making the most of Chilcot report delays

To me the whole political debate since the 2008 financial crisis comes down to this:

a) Who caused the global banking meltdown?
b) Who should be protected from its consequences?
c) Who should be made accountable?

These are rhetorical questions for informed followers of news/politics with basic moral reasoning but please read/comment away if you want to discuss. Keep it constructive and witty please.

Finally, if you wonder why I am so bothered about the media, it is because key swing voters are still influenced by it, as I argue here.

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