Torygeddon


The hashtag “Tory Scum” is trending on my feeds as the Conservatives gear up for the imminent £20-a-week cut to universal credit, which will leave millions of people unable to cover basic living costs from food to energy bills.
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As autumn looms and the pandemic staggers on in new forms 413 parliamentary constituencies across Britain will see over a third of working-age families with children hit by the planned cut to Universal Credit and Working Tax Credit on 6 October. To get a sense of the scale of the impact, that will mean more than one in three (37%) families with children in Scotland will lose £1,040 per year. Katie Schmuecker from the Joseph Rowntree Foundation, said: “We are a month away from the UK Government imposing the biggest overnight cut to the basic rate of social security since the Second World War. This lays bare the deep and far-reaching impact that cutting Universal Credit will have on millions of low-income families across Britain. Plunging low-income families into deeper poverty and debt as well as sucking billions of pounds out of local economies is no way to level up.”
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Whether it’s leveling-up or trickling-down we know it’s all pish from the government you didn’t elect. At the time when there’s hollow talk of a “just recovery” and the end of furlough looms the Tory manifesto are just a series of broken promises over social care and the NHS. The government are punishing the poorest who have born the brunt of lockdown as front-line staff, precarious workers, carers, nurses, parents in poor housing, hospitality staff and the multitude of invisible-made-visible essential workers.

None of this is new. The pandemic landed on an already broken Britain. As we reported last year there were “deeply concerning figures on destitution in the UK, with around 2.4 million people having experienced destitution in 2019, a 54% increase since 2017.”

Late-stage Anglo-Britain is  quite the spectacle. Double-Booker prize-winning author Hilary Mantel tells La Repubblica of the “dark side of Englishness” and that she feels “ashamed” by the UK government’s treatment of migrants and asylum seekers and is intending to become an Irish citizen to “become a European again”. She talks of how Boris Johnson “should not be in public life”. Meanwhilethe toxic brew of coronavius and Brexit continue to mingle and splutter into life and find new forms. Yesterday the the UK government said that polluters can dump risky untreated sewage into rivers as Brexit shortages disrupts water treatment centres.

As a metaphor the fact that Brexit has created a situation where England literally can’t process it’s own shit is unsurpassed.

Map of rivers where raw sewage is being dumped …

 

In other news Prince Charles was up in Scotland to open things and generally dither about. He was seen in public for the first time after his Cash for Honours scandal involving his former valet Michael Fawcett was accused of helping arrange a CBE for the Saudi billionaire donor Mahfouz Marei Mubarak bin Mahfouz. Leaked emails suggest Mr Mahfouz, 51, was “promised” an honour after he donated £1.5million to restoration projects of interest to Charles.

The scandal takes a new twist as Open Democracy reveals “Prince Charles’ embattled charity has been bankrolled by major Tory donors, whose names are engraved across its headquarters in Scotland. The Prince’s Foundation’s has been supported by a host of leading Conservative donors, including hedge fund manager Michael Hintze, finance and property tycoon Wafic Said, and David Brownlow, who funded the controversial renovation of Boris Johnson’s Downing Street flat. Transparency campaigners have raised concerns about the the super-rich buying access to the Royal family.”

Sue Hawley, executive director of Spotlight on Corruption, said on the Mahfouz donation: “It is increasingly clear that wealthy businessmen, including from highly corrupt jurisdictions, see making donations to the governing party and the royal family as a way to gain influence and access. It’s gone from feeling like John Major levels of corruption to Nicolae Ceausescu levels of sleaze and patronage. Balmoral-Land Jockland has emerged as a sort of Victoriana royal safe-place.

Now Randy-Andy has bobbed-up again with Fergie in-toe.

Scotland it seems is the go-to place if you want to escape the London press-pack, or avoid being served legal papers on sexual allegations. The Metro reports: “Prince Andrew has flocked to the Queen’s Balmoral estate in an apparent attempt to dodge sexual assault papers by US prosecutors, it’s been claimed. The embattled duke is facing a civil legal claim he sexually abused paedophile Jeffrey Epstein’s former sex slave Virginia Giuffre when she was 17, which he denies. Andrew was pictured in a black Range Rover yesterday with ex-wife Sarah Ferguson making the near 500-mile journey to Scotland from Royal Lodge in Windsor. According to reports, Ms Giuffre’s legal team has made ‘multiple attempts’ to issue court papers on Andrew and his lawyers at Windsor, but his security has turned them away.”

Is this really the best plan?

As Brexitland Britain bifurcates itself along lines of class and nation and between essential and (by definition) ‘non essential’ people, and between subjects and royals the very fabric of ‘Britain’ itself seems to be pulling apart held together only by the tragi-comic umbilical cord of Andrew and Fergie’s ‘500-mile journey to Scotland from Royal Lodge in Windsor ..’.

Meanwhile up here in the Windor’s Safe-Zone the Scottish Tories are doing their very best to curate a new parody of themselves. Here the Conservative MSP Rachael Hamilton – who has been involved in lobbying scandals and who has been linked with two controversial fox hunting groups – the Lauderdale and Duke of Buccleuch hunts – where members have been accused of illegally killing ­animals – shows the quality of debate the Tories bring to Holyrood:

The reality for poor Mrs Hamilton and her cohorts is that there is an escape-route from this hell-hole and once the pathway is illuminated we can expect a dash for the exits.

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Comments (12)

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  1. Bill says:

    As I am sure that I have stated in the past, an Independent Scottish Republic, with its own currency and tax raising powers is the only way to go. Brenda has ceased to be the dear old lady who servers us all and is now a greedy grasping granny reigning over a corrupt state, that is mainly driven by her and her corrupt family. We do not want nor need a referendum, the Declaration of Arbroath gives us the power to declare ourselves an independent state, with our choice of who will head that state.

    Roll on the Scottish Republic

    Bill

  2. Tom Ultuous says:

    In his 121 with Jeremy Corbyn, on the subject of randy Andy, Johnson stated “the royal family are above a roach”. He might be a clown but he has “balls of steel”.

  3. Craig Fraser says:

    The removal of the £20 Universal Credit and Working Tax Credit on 6 October is in contravention of UNCRC which the UK government signed on 15th January 1992
    The four basic principles to the UNCRC:
    Non-discrimination, best interests of the child and children, the right to survival and development, and the views of the child.On point 2 and 3 of the 4 key principles, best interests of the child and the right to survival and development. This cut will further impact on already families and their children.

  4. Squigglypen says:

    So vote for Independence…problems solved.
    Agreed Bill and keep saying it……listening Nicola?P

    PS Don’t insult roaches.

  5. Iain MacPhail says:

    The world is ready for Scotland

    Vive l’Écosse européenne – as M. Macron made a point of saying on camera

  6. gavinochiltree says:

    The safe-house for Andy is just the start.
    Next up will be a new I.D. —–appropriately as in Day of the Jackal.

    Scour the grave yards for an ideal dead person—–why does the name “Jimmy Saville” sound just right?

  7. James Mills says:

    Poor families left in the lurch , denied basic support by the State , while the vastly wealthy Royal Family is protected and financed by the State .
    Makes one proud to be British !

  8. SleepingDog says:

    Being extremely rich while raising money for charity makes it look like you doing a piss-poor job at the latter. One might think you were only feigning an interest. Ye olde British hypocrisy and cant (public virtue, private vice). Something the New Right has convoluted into projecting ‘virtue signalling’ on anyone setting a moderately better example. Let deeds match words, and reduce royal riches to zero. #RoyalReparations
    https://caricom.org/the-global-reparations-movement-the-greatest-political-tide-of-the-21st-century/

    I remember Conservative Prime Minister David Cameron wittering on about ‘British values’, while thinking that an accurate history of the Conservative Party would show how strenuously they opposed all the more enlightened ones he mentioned. For all the Tory love of tradition, what is more traditional than British Parliamentary corruption and Royal malfeasance (including a vast agglomeration of imperial criminality to the highest level)? Not to mention the stench-capital of world, London, perhaps now returning to former glory with the Thames as an open sewer.

  9. John Learmonth says:

    In the meantime the ‘Tory Scum’ have upped taxes to the highest level since the Attlee govt and will be spending/borrowing public funds undreamt of by the most crazed Corbynista
    The ‘Tory Scum’ on economics are no different to Labour/SNP, both beleive in the State to cure all our problems.
    ‘Left’ and ‘right’ on economics are no different, bring on the Culture wars.
    Woke or non woke will be the defining feature of the next few years until the money runs out when we will then get back to the harsh realities of life. Socialism’s great before you go bankrupt.

  10. Paula Becker says:

    Yesterdays Covid passport vote passed by 68 – 55. If the 7 Scottish Greens had voted against the bill it would’ve been defeated 61 – 62. The Greens will now go on to support Nicola Sturgeon on making emergency powers permanent and ‘vaccinating’ 12 to 15 year olds. After that they have served their purpose are pretty much superfluous. They were bought for two ministerial roles and it was cheap at the price.

    corruptio optimi pessima

  11. Steve says:

    “As a metaphor the fact that Brexit has created a situation where England literally can’t process it’s own shit is unsurpassed.” – A clever line lighting up an almost missed horror that deserves public outrage and disgust……. and you’re right it will not be topped as metaphor…. It’s irony to the power of satire squared or something….. I should laugh or rage or rail or rally or something and yet I’m just so fucking tired of the misanthropic ecocidal bastards in power I can’t even weep.

    You deserve much better than this slow hand-clap in the comments. We all do. Please accept it’s not ironic, It’s exhaustion……. Empire, Ignorance and by the sounds of it…. soon cholera. Seems the Victorians blamed Asians and Irish immigrants…… https://theconversation.com/the-eerily-similar-pandemic-we-could-have-learned-from-but-didnt-138072

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