Toots for blepharon@mas.to account

Written by Sir Rab Nesbitt Κύριε_ἐλέησον on 2025-01-01 at 09:43

More promises.

More excuses.

https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2024/dec/31/keir-starmer-vows-rebuild-britain-as-labour-did-after-second-world-war

He compares his neoliberal austerity "we can't afford it" gov't , with Clement Atlee's commitment to investing government money in the creation of the NHS & building genuinely affordable council houses.

He thinks private capital will foot the bill, & won't use his parliamentary majority, central bank, fiat currency, & his power to impose progressive taxes on those most able to afford them.

He's incompetent.

[#]Starmer

[#]MMT

[#]Austerity

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Written by Sir Rab Nesbitt Κύριε_ἐλέησον on 2024-12-31 at 16:34

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2024/dec/31/antisemitism-israel-gaza-war-right

Well worth a read.

2 observations:

1 Weaponisation of antisemitism endangers diaspora Jews. Perversely, nasty life threatening attacks on diaspora Jews further the cause of Zionism & Netanyahu's government.

2 - Remember 2016-2019, when weaponised antisemitism was used to remake the Labour party to Keir Starmer's liking with vicious lies & smears against Corbyn & the left.

If only this article had been published then!

[#]antisemitism

[#]Israel

[#]Labour

[#]Socialism

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Written by Sir Rab Nesbitt Κύριε_ἐλέησον on 2024-09-27 at 16:38

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2024/sep/27/britain-sick-answer-benefits-crackdown

2 thoughts on this.

1. I knew this in 2012, 2 yrs into austerity, bec I'd started running a f/bank, but DWP & Tories literally weren't listening, & worse than that, they were smearing anyone who pointed it out.

2. If Reeves waits until "growth" has produced extra tax revenue, the Jamies of the UK will be dead.

Labour will be forced into public investment - better sickness/disability benefits, upgrades to housing stock, concessionary bus passes.

We CAN AFFORD IT.

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Written by Sir Rab Nesbitt Κύριε_ἐλέησον on 2024-09-18 at 07:12

https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2024/sep/17/keir-has-integrity-labours-pat-mcfadden-says-starmer-will-bring-reasons-to-be-cheerful

Pull the other one Pat, it's got £100,000 worth of freebies on it ("more than any other recent party leader" https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2024/sep/18/keir-starmer-100000-in-tickets-and-gifts-more-than-any-other-recent-party-leader )

[#]Integrity

[#]Donors

[#]Starmer

[#]Labour

[#]Outsourcing

[#]Corruption

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Written by Sir Rab Nesbitt Κύριε_ἐλέησον on 2024-09-14 at 16:44

"Even in exile, my heart remains with Gaza"

https://mondoweiss.net/2024/09/a-love-letter-to-gaza-reflections-from-exile/

I am not Gazan, and won't ever understand this longing & pain. But all of us, esp. those of us whose countries are complicit, MUST try.

It was not Palestinian Arabs who gassed 6m European Jews in the 20thC, or persecuted European Jewry in centuries of pogroms & expulsions before that. But Palestinians are paying the price now, for OUR pogroms, expulsions, & genocides. God knows why...

[#]Palestine

[#]Gaza

[#]Israel

[#]Genocide

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Written by Sir Rab Nesbitt Κύριε_ἐλέησον on 2024-09-14 at 06:24

https://amp.theguardian.com/commentisfree/article/2024/jul/07/keir-starmer-prime-minister-geoffrey-robertson

Geoffrey Robertson KC gives his views on Keir Starmer, his former pupil in Doughty St. Chambers.

[#]Starmer

[#]Labour

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Written by Sir Rab Nesbitt Κύριε_ἐλέησον on 2024-09-09 at 19:48

Apparently there was absolutely NO dissent in Cabinet this morning when the winter fuel payment restrictions were "discussed". Kim Jong Starmer and Kim Jong Reeves were applauded in unison by the entire Politbureau for exactly 43.5 seconds (as specified in the Dear Leader's Cabinet Unanimity handbook), so no one had to be taken out and shot in the Rose Garden.

[#]WinterFuelPayment

[#]Labour

[#]Austerity

[#]Authoritarianism

[#]MMT

[#]Starmer

[#]RachelReeves

[#]FuelPoverty

[#]Hypothermia

[#]DifficultChoices

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Written by Sir Rab Nesbitt Κύριε_ἐλέησον on 2024-09-08 at 20:46

https://www.theguardian.com/politics/article/2024/sep/08/up-to-50-labour-mps-could-rebel-over-cut-to-winter-fuel-allowance

Is there any MP, willing to explain that Reeves' £22bn black hole is a fabrication (MMT theory) & even on Reeves' crazy PPE/BoE economics, there are plenty of alternative sources of taxation, to fill the gap (see @RichardJMurphy's Taxing Wealth Report 2024.

But no MP will do that. BoE/PPE/Austerity economics must never be challenged. Otherwise the hundreds of thousands damaged by austerity would discover it wasn't necessary in 2010 nor now.

[#]Austerity

[#]RachelReeves

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Written by Sir Rab Nesbitt Κύριε_ἐλέησον on 2024-09-05 at 10:21

Mel Stride - Having been a DWP minister ties him to a long line of unlawful DWP behaviour including https://www.devonlive.com/news/devon-mp-accused-dishonestly-misleading-2740540 - and he isn't too hot on economic issues. https://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/entry/presenter-turns-mel-strides-words-back-on-him-in-painful-clash_uk_66ced92fe4b054d20856db4d

/END

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Written by Sir Rab Nesbitt Κύριε_ἐλέησον on 2024-09-05 at 10:21

Tom Tugenhadt - Maybe not the best man to be in the party "driving seat" https://www.standard.co.uk/news/crime/security-minister-tom-tugendhat-guilty-phone-driving-magistrates-court-b1038684.html He is swivelling rightwards as the contest progresses and is willing to take the UK out of the ECHR so we can deport more "murderers and rapists".

/more

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Written by Sir Rab Nesbitt Κύριε_ἐλέησον on 2024-09-05 at 10:20

James Cleverley - No real headliners, apart from a sense of mediocrity, but a bit loose-lipped (referred to Stockton North as a "shithole" in Parliament https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PjNYAsDljRs and made some very crass remarks about rape and rohypnol https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hReBLgJlBQk (8mins in). Some whispers about hypocrisy relating to landlord legislation and rental income https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/mps-rent-expenses-geoffrey-cox-b1956146.html

/more

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Written by Sir Rab Nesbitt Κύριε_ἐλέησον on 2024-09-05 at 10:19

Kemi Badenoch - Here's a list of 10 blunders from an earlier leadership contest. https://www.indy100.com/politics/kemi-badenoch-controversies-tory-leadership

and an entertaining spat she had with Speaker Hoyle.

https://news.sky.com/story/who-do-you-think-you-are-talking-to-speaker-rebukes-kemi-badenoch-as-tory-mps-line-up-to-criticise-eu-law-u-turn-12878350

She also recently criticised Labour's policy on winter fuel benefit, forgetting that she once advocated exactly the same policy herself.

https://www.thelondoneconomic.com/politics/kemi-badenoch-reminded-of-the-time-she-called-for-rich-pensioners-to-lose-their-winter-fuel-payments-382312/

/more

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Written by Sir Rab Nesbitt Κύριε_ἐλέησον on 2024-08-28 at 07:22

https://www.taxresearch.org.uk/Blog/2024/08/27/the-return-of-the-mile-end-road-economists/

This is v significant - economist Danny Blanchflower has fallen out w Starmer/Reeves & their vision of misery, misery & more misery, & the damaging effect it has on the mental health of the young.

If you have a Labour MP, why not write to them & point that out? I will write to mine.

The idiocy of simply peddling a failed Tory message of austerity while at the same time complaining about "the mess the Tories made" is completely beyond me.

[#]DannyBlanchflower

[#]Labour

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Written by Sir Rab Nesbitt Κύριε_ἐλέησον on 2024-08-26 at 19:12

https://www.theguardian.com/money/article/2024/aug/26/rachel-reeves-raise-10bn-peducing-pension-tax-relief-fabian-society

Good to see some challenges to the stubborn lunacy of Reevesonomics austerity entering the mainstream media.

I think the rich can afford these redistributive tax adjustments to make the system fairer.

But I'm sure they will howl with rage nevertheless.

[#]MMT

[#]Austerity

[#]RachelReeves

[#]Labour

[#]Economics

[#]Redistribution

[#]Taxation

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Written by Sir Rab Nesbitt Κύριε_ἐλέησον on 2024-08-26 at 12:14

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/article/2024/aug/26/uk-assisted-israels-breaches-of-international-law-labour-better-than-deny-it

Oh so slowly, the Labour gov't is being forced to admit what everyone else already knows. Israel is committing war crimes, the UK is complicit, and the names of several Cabinet members are in the frame.

If the effort they have put into protecting Israel had instead been applied from July 5th, to STOPPING the war crimes, they might have gone down in history as humanitarian & statesmen, with many friends around the world. But they have been headed in the wrong direction.

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Written by Sir Rab Nesbitt Κύριε_ἐλέησον on 2024-08-24 at 21:32

The six major crises facing Labour...

https://mas.to/@KinoGhoul@toot.community/113018091169443259

2 live right now (public sector pay & prison overcrowding).

4 just over the Horizon (bankrupt councils, NHS funding crisis, Thames Water finances, and University funding).

Rachel Reeves has rashly backed gov't into an austerity corner, because of her "fiscal rules", monetarist "public purse" dogma. So it will be difficult/impossible to deal with ANY of these issues, because "we can't afford it" (we CAN afford it BTW.

[#]MMT

[#]Labour

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Written by Sir Rab Nesbitt Κύριε_ἐλέησον on 2024-08-18 at 21:00

https://www.theguardian.com/world/article/2024/aug/18/foreign-office-official-quits-over-uk-refusal-to-ban-arms-exports-to-israel

One step senior civil servants (Permanent UnderSecretary at FCDO) could take would be to ask for a written & signed "ministerial direction" to process/issue arms export licences, having advised ministers formally of their concerns about legality under IHL.

That firmly places personal responsibility legally on the Gov't Minister, as far as the ICJ ate concerned.

Feel OK about that, Mr. Lammy?

[#]DavidLammy

[#]FCDO

[#]IHL

[#]ICJ

[#]Genocide

[#]Gaza

[#]Palestine

[#]WarCrimes

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Written by Sir Rab Nesbitt Κύριε_ἐλέησον on 2024-08-18 at 20:45

And now it's in the Guardian.

Thanks to all who have been posting/boosting this story.

Did we make a difference? I've no idea.

Don't give up.

https://www.theguardian.com/world/article/2024/aug/18/foreign-office-official-quits-over-uk-refusal-to-ban-arms-exports-to-israel

[#]MarkSmith

[#]FCDO

[#]WarCrimes

[#]Genocide

[#]Israel

[#]Gaza

[#]IDF

[#]IHL

[#]ICJ

[#]DavidLammy

[#]KeirStarmer

[#]Complicity

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Written by Sir Rab Nesbitt Κύριε_ἐλέησον on 2024-08-08 at 09:59

https://www.btselem.org/publications/202408_welcome_to_hell/testimony_of_sami_khalili

"We were taken to a room which had a lot of clothes, shoes, rings and watches scattered in it."

I remember seeing pictures of rooms like that. They were on display in the Yad Vashem Holocaust memorial in Jerusalem. I've never forgotten them, they made me weep. It was 1977.

Now history is repeating itself.

Hosea 1.9 Call his name Lo-Ammi (not my people)

לֹ֣א עַמִּ֑י

[#]YadVashem

[#]WarCrimes

[#]Israel

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Written by Sir Rab Nesbitt Κύριε_ἐλέησον on 2024-08-08 at 07:41

Seems we CAN afford to beef up the justice system after all?

"If we can't afford it, we can't do it" (Rachel Reeves)

It always WAS a lie, and more and more people are seeing right through it.

https://www.cityam.com/uk-riots-extra-criminal-lawyers-deployed-to-tackle-fallout-of-violence/

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