Never mind the EU referendum, tory election fraud could explode their right to rule. It seems very likely that they have been declaring local campaigning as national spending which has no limit, unlike the former. A telling sign is using local place names in letters sent using their national spending. If urging constituency voters to 'vote Conservative here in Torbay' qualifies as non-local campaigning then the local spending limit is redundant if it's so easy to circumnavigate.
Meanwhile the tories have underestimated Corbyn's Labour based on his first real test. Losing no councils in the May elections is a decent return for someone who gets so much negative media. There were even gains in the South where many predicted Labour would suffer, these are areas where he is suppose to be rejected by swing tory voters.
The mainstream media are pursuing a narrative of anti-semitism within the Labour party. While there are isolated incidents and Naz Shah rightly paid for one, there is no evidence to support this is systemic within the Labour party. Anti-semitism is an issue for the whole of society and should be dealt with but right-wing mud-singling exceeds the reality of the issue. This is the 'dead cat' strategy of Lynton Crosby to distract from an endemic racism of the right, as the following shows.
The same right-wing that say nothing on the rise of Islamophobia. On any given day you can see keyboard bigots throwing racial insult after insult at any minority. The double standards and rank hypocrisy of the establishment has never been more obvious. It is not even confined to the aforementioned lunatics but brazenly flaunted in national debates without recourse.
The government ruling what many consider to be the most racially harmonious nations in the world has descended into Islamophobia, race-baiting & 'dog-whistle' racism, pandering to those bigots at the margins of society, who will do anything to target an immigrant.
This was evident in a Theresa May immigration speech that had echoes of Donald Trump, so much so that even the right-wing tax-avoiding Torygraph condemned it.
The Zac Goldsmith London mayoral campaign has demonstrated how the tories are not past neo-colonial divide & conquer to try and win an election. They'd probably run-over their own grannies too. Again many of their own have called out this desperate racism.
David Cameron even joined in. There have been constant insinuations that because Sadiq Khan is muslim he is not concerned about a terrorist attack in his own city. This is some of the worst gutter politics ever. The whole sorry scandal is neatly taken apart here:
So nasty are Goldsmith's methods, even a few on the right have called it out. This article summarises the poisonous campaign well, from ex-Telegraph writer and lifelong tory supporter, Peter Oborne:
Meanwhile the recent Obama visit and intervention in the EU debate caused outrage among paunching racists like Boris Johnson. The privileged clown has background of racial slurs and it is a sign of our corrupt system that any he is considered him fit for any public office let alone PM.
King's College university have reacted with ethics foreign to the tory party who are perpetually smearing Labour with anti-semitism.
Far right elitist blowhard Guido Fawkes (Paul Staines) is a self-confessed Zionist, essentially backing Israel's Netanyahu apartheid regime who attack Gaza disproportionately killing children, are silent when IDF soldiers execute defenceless Palestinians and systematically erasing their land.
Ignoring right-wing anti-semitism undermines their faux-crusade against racism. They are only interested in this issue as a political football to smear opponents and move closer to a one-party state based on flimsy lies.
'The Race Card'
Any attempt to oppose or highlight the racism of privilege is met with the audacious accusations of 'playing the race card'. This mantra of neo-colonial self-entitled white men just compounds the racism as they attempt to dictate to minorities how to feel and think when the evidence is so clear. They must be wishing for a return of the Empire.
Your insights on racism are really appreciated, media pundits:
Lynton Crosby is the tory's Minister of Propaganda
His tools of manipulation are political game-playing and media complicity.
What is a 'dead cat' distraction?
The use of shock tactics to move national debates away from a awkward subject. The playground equivalent to shouting "Look over there!" to a teacher then running away. Here are well-documented examples of his strategy:
The 2012 London mayoral election
Ken Livingstone was proposing cheap fares, a popular policy until the tories, with the help of their media cronies, raised the subject of his taxes which shifted the debate into pure speculation. The election was narrowly won by Boris Johnson, who has left no legacy for the capital.
The 2015 general election
Ed Miliband's cost-of-living issues were gaining traction until efforts were made to position the alleged Falkirk Labour "vote-rigging" scandal as the main national debate.
Michael Fallon's 'Miliband has knifed his brother in the back'
Instead of discussing Trident before the last election the then Labour was smeared by the tory Defence minster. Many who knew Fallon said it was out of character, suggesting Crosby was involved. Again it was effective at taking a thorny issue for the conservatives off the table.
More recently
Early 2016
Allegations of left wing anti-semitism.
There has been a strong media narrative about the left's 'anti-Semitism problem' with even the allegedly left-leaning media are taking part. This has clearly been orchestrated from the right. Although a serious issue, we hear little actual evidence. No doubt there is an insidious move to conflate left wing voices against Israel's apartheid with racism.
Meanwhile there is little coverage about the rise of the far right across the west with grassroots extremists followers of Trump, Britain First, Pediga (Germany) & Front National in France or the growth in Islamophobia.
Jan 2016
David Cameron's 'bunch of migrants' language:
The debate about Google's tax evasion was stymied by some strategic racism and predictable fall-out.
March 2016
Supposedly genial and moderate London mayoral candidate Zac Goldsmith's campaign is straight out of the Crosby dirty tricks playbook with racial profiling - stereotyping Hindu Indians with info on passing down family jewellery and alluding to his opponent's identity as a Muslim, classic dirty divide and conquer tricks. As if these the days of Indian/Pakistan partition.
March 2016
The Labour list story emerged from the tory activists at The Times conveniently in time for David Cameron to use at Prime Minsters Questions. This, after the devastating Osborne's omni-shambles budget part 2 and the subsequent resignation (self-promotion) of IDS.
More to come ...
All clear evidence of where tory priorities lie. They are more bothered about winning than the lives of citizens, especially those who don't vote for them.
Brexit campaigners have a point, the EU referendum debate reveals a democratic deficit - our collective ignorance and illiteracy.
On the 23rd June the nation will be asked to vote on an issue whose outcomes reach further than any general election while masses of voters are struggling to comprehend the issue. Our establishment resembles a totalitarian state in matters of public information. So much for a progressive enlightened western democracy? Also the same vested interests have prevented 16/17 year olds voting despite the enormity of the decision. Wouldn't want too many people getting involved in democracy would we?
We don't need conspiracy theories when at every turn we are kept ignorant of our governing system and it is no accident or oversight. Our political illiteracy is not confined to the wilfully ignorant or the uneducated. One can simply ask intelligent, knowledgeable people about the core EU institutions, what are they? how are they elected? how do they affect our lives? what is the troika?
The Brexiters offer nothing against neoliberal global institutions which wield more combined power than their continental nemesis. The undemocratic governance of the EU is replicated internationally. Anyone remember having a say in the G20? The G7? Or deciding the IMF board? Meanwhile the World Trade Organisation (WTO) oversees secretive trade talks of the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) deal involving the collective economic might of East Asia, Australia and the US. This pact is very similar to aforementioned TTIP in that it favours big business over citizens. Brexits want Commonwealth trade to replace EU trade, yet fail to challenge the anti-consumer TTIP terms. With the lack of profile given to this massive issue why should the public feel confident them as an alternative?
The simple framing of Remain or Brexit excludes a third possibility of a democratic EU with bottom-up sustainable economics, fairer competition, absolutely no TTIP and strengthened worker rights. This referendum issue is a complicated mix of national, regional and global debates. But you can't study their underlying neoliberal orthodoxy on any national curriculum, or understand it by watching the news. That is perhaps the greatest democratic threat of all.
Instead we are distracted by the opium of personalities like Boris & Farage because the mainstream media gets revenue from the sensational over facts & insights. The day they and Brexiters highlight the importance of information about power structures is the day I'll believe they want ordinary citizens to reclaim democracy.
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.
