I think it was Noam Chomsky who said that we are given the illusion of freedom by being allowed free speech on the topics the elites want while being denied any form of speech on the topics the elites don’t want.
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As a preface statement, I want to say that I am NOT telling anyone else how to vote; merely explaining what I’m thinking at the moment and why.
Firstly, I want to suggest that there is very little point reading any of the political manifestos. There is no legal requirement for Parties to put their manifesto pledges into action and there is no legal comeback if/when they don't. As we all know, they put in place the bits of their manifesto they want to, ignore the bits that they just put in to get votes but never had any intention of doing, and do things which were not in their manifesto but which are brought in so quickly that it was obvious they planned to do them all along. Political Party manifestos are and should be treated like simple propaganda and, as we know, propaganda is a form of lying.
In my view, Labour will be no better than the Tories. Neither Party deserve my vote.
They are two sides of the same coin. Like a coin, the sides may look different at a quick glance but in practice give you the same outcome. The direction of travel is the same, the only difference may be in the speed.
The huge Conservative majority in 2019 was ridiculous and undeserved as will be a Labour huge majority this time.
Swinging wildly between two useless, entitled, and highly outcome-similar Parties shows the poor state of our democracy.
What? They aren’t similar?
Let’s look at the big topics.
Economy – no change. The global economy, particularly that of the USA which will drive the performance of our economy at a macro-level. Taxes will continue upwards with no discernible improvement in services. All the increased revenue goes on the yearly servicing of our massive national debt plus the automatic annual increase in administration costs of the State (wages, product procurement, pensions etc). There’s none left over to actually improve the services given. The cost of living will continue to rise via increased taxes, increased prices & continuing poor economic productivity, thus continuing to widen the gap between the top & bottom 50% which will end in tears.
As usual the tax increases will affect the middle 70% most. No government will increase taxes on the bottom 20% (other than indirectly). And neither will they increase the taxes on the richest 10% in any meaningful way as they will simply leave the country which will lower the overall tax take since they pay way more than 10% of the overall tax.
NHS – There will be no change overall. A new Government may choose one or two areas to throw money at and improve but it will be at the expense of other areas they deem less politically harmful. Like the economy overall, any extra money is swallowed up by increased annual administration costs. Neither of the two main Parties will dare suggest structural change to a sacred cow. If we continue as we are, the NHS will become, in a real sense, unaffordable in a generation or two but who cares? That’ll be for them to sort out; not our problem – thanks grandad!
Education – Again, it’s the same here as with the NHS. There will be no meaningful change. Extra money will not translate into better education for the same reasons as the NHS - increasing costs & lack of political will. There appears no appetite to address structural issues, only ideological ones.
Immigration – huge increases in the last 25 years. The last 10 years make the difference between open borders and sensibly managed immigration a purely theoretical one.
The levels of immigration (legal and illegal) we have witnessed over the last decades is a sleight of hand to appear to be growing our GDP.
Pretending our GDP makes us 6th in the world when per person we’re down at 27th!!
The only difference between Labour & Conservatives is the latter does it for cynical hard-nosed economic reasons and screw the societal problems, whereas the former think open borders is morally the right thing to do and screw the societal problems. The outcome is the same and will end in tears.
Climate - whether Labour or Conservative there will be more doom and gloom and ‘the end of the world is nigh’ predictions that we’ve had since the 1960s justifying more climate related taxes, more restrictions on movement, more laws, rules and regulations justified ’cos climate, obviously’, with no improvement to the actual climate and continued increases in the cost of living via rising energy & food prices. More tears on the horizon.
Understand that China has more carbon emissions than the developed world combined. But let’s blame it on ‘western’ farmers & cows, plaster solar panels on prime farmland, fill landfills with wind turbine blades & use electric vehicles with batteries that include rare elements like cobalt mined by child slaves in Congo, all for the greater good, apparently.
I have a separate piece on climate change policy and its effect on society here. https://rantsramblingsremembrances.blogspot.com/2024/06/my-thoughts-climate-narrative-both.html
Utilities/Energy – is nationalisation the answer or is the real problem net zero policies & lack of energy security via insufficient storage capacity?
Anyone old enough to remember the s**t show of the 1970s will understand that nationalised or privatised, the end result (i.e. quality of service and cost of gas, electricity and water) will be the same – always going up over time. Those who forget the past are condemned to repeat it.
Nationalisation is not a silver bullet solution here and it’s a lie for politicians to say otherwise and naïve of folk to believe it.
I do though think that allowing foreign companies to own our utility companies is plain daft and asking for trouble.
The important stuff little discussed by politicians and the BBC
The even more important, if less obvious, societal issues is where the bigger choice of policy is and is where my decision will be made.
after all, if our society collapses, the economy won't save it!
So things like:
Identity politics generally
Trans rights & racial politics in particular
Islamism/Anti-semitism
The change to a purely digital economy & the control that gives the State
It's actually these less discussed but in reality vital societal issues that should be deciding this election as that’s where the real differences are between all the competing Parties.
So for example:
Are you happy with the current high immigration levels or do you want less?
Do you want trans-rights to mean biological fact can be circumvented at will in the name of inclusivity or do you agree with J K Rowling that inclusivity must stop when the existing rights of others are eroded?
Do you want Islamism (including blasphemy laws and by almost unavoidable extension antisemitism) to increase out of fear of being labelled Islamaphobic or a false belief that minorities or the losers of a fight MUST be the good guys irrespective of other considerations or that speaking honestly about the lack of integration, particularly of Islamic communities, makes you a bad, as opposed to sensible and honest, person?
Do you agree with the steady removal of using cash & forcing the use of online banking & digital currency with the control over your money that gives the State via the banks & credit card companies?
Do you agree in principle with a Chinese style societal-credit system in which what you can do, where you can go, and access to your own money is determined by how obedient you are to the State?
[We’ve seen this already with governments around the world, not just China but Canada(!) ordering banks to deny people access to their own money if they don’t obey the government].
Are you content with those who run our national civic & political institutions in bed with the mainline media and large corporations to force conformity by propaganda and removal of rights & services if they don’t like your views?
None of above important societal issues are discussed in the mainstream media and, however we as individuals would answer these questions, we all know why.
But pretending problems don’t exist doesn’t make them go away. Worse, ignoring real societal problems just allows them to grow and anger to fester bringing civil strife.
The way I see it, it’s not about Left and Right anymore. That’s out of date thinking.
This is the grey technocratic elite class in our society getting a controlling stranglehold on the majority.
Simplistically, it’s about the top 10% income bracket and their wannabe apparatchiks in the 75%-90% income bracket deciding that liberal democracy has had its day as the plebs keep giving the wrong answers.
It’s ‘we know best’ technocratic managerial elitism trying to prevent any further use of very annoying democracy to de-rail their self-righteous and self-serving plans for the world.
It’s a modern day regressive throwback to the medieval feudal system where the elite and their immediate underlings do as they please, decide what’s right and wrong, and everyone else just has to do as they’re told or be punished.
How can these real issues that affect many in their daily lives now and will be unavoidable for all soon, not be discussed openly by politicians and in the media as vital issues which should inform people’s choices?
The fact that they’re not, merely emphasises how ‘guided’, propagandised or rather ‘conned’ we are being by those happy with the system as it is.
I think it was Noam Chomsky who said that we are given the illusion of freedom by being allowed free speech on the topics the elites want while being denied any form of speech on the topics the elites don’t want.
Voting either Labour or Conservative just aids and abets this rise of the predictable anti-democratic technocrat with the demise of liberal democracy and I for one will be voting against more of the same.
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