Depressed by the cynical lies of Brexit and the many other ways we're also failing future generations.
We're not sitting on a through train to healthy survival.
Apr 4, 2023 • 8 tweets • 2 min read
Lawson an inspiration!? He and Thatcher set the UK its path to destruction. That's what he should be remembered for- kick-starting horrible wrong turns. By any measure, the monetarist neoliberal experiment foisted on the UK has failed miserably, actually causing misery ... 1/8
...unless you're one of the out of control wealthy.
Our infrastructure is dysfunctional. Long term investment not made. We see the horror of that now in services, health, environment, bills etc. Productivity shit. Social mobility has shrunk dangerously. 2/8
Apr 2, 2023 • 5 tweets • 1 min read
Seeing a lot on here about joining the CPTPP being inconsequential. It will be, for GDP. But it's much grimmer than that. It's about unmitigated global exploitation. In terms of rights, freedoms, lives of ordinary people, it will not be inconsequential. It will make life worse.
Expanded trade with this bloc is likely to lead to regressive not progressive redistribution of wealth in the UK. That's what's happened elsewhere. The bragaining power of workers and their organisational strength will be undermined badly.🧵
Oct 15, 2022 • 19 tweets • 4 min read
Truss is clearly under political house arrest in Chequers. Rallying support my arse. More like, here's a burner you can contact your mum on, that's it. Who's guarding her while the de facto Prime Minister, Hunt, tours studios not even pretending she has a say anymore?
Saturday🧵
Where's democracy in all this? Is that even a bloody thing in the UK any more? We're now so far from it, it's barely visible on the horizon.
I'm not talking about becoming PM mid-term without an election. Since 1945 we've had 16 PMs and 10 came to power between elections.
Oct 1, 2022 • 16 tweets • 3 min read
Urged not to underestimate Liz Truss, it now appears we should've taken care not to overestimate her. The sheer scale of her instant cock-up has shocked not only the Tories themselves but even highly sceptical Labour, too. She has demonstrated the political nous of an earwig.🧵
She appears not to have understood the first thing about the man she was carefully loyal to in her strategy to become PM: Boris Johnson. In his bid for power, he lied about the EU and about Brexit with a purpose: to put together a coalition between the people who had suffered for
Sep 29, 2022 • 6 tweets • 2 min read
Phrases meaning drastic spending cuts:
we must be internationally competitive
supply side measures
sticking to existing spending limits for the next 2 yrs
efficiencies and savings
iron discipline
tax payers' money to be spent on front line services that matter *most* #r4today
to elaborate
'we must be internationally competitive' means they believe very low taxes esp for the rich, and very low wages and regulation for the workers are what will attract investors. low taxes = no money for public spending (1-6)
Sep 28, 2022 • 5 tweets • 1 min read
We should NOT be happy that the chancellor is assuring the BoE that it is committed to 'fiscal responsibility'.
The only way to achieve that since the minute he announced his reckless tax bonanza for the rich, is *drastic* public spending cuts. #torychaos
I'm not suggesting he shouldn't be fiscally responsible.
I'm pointing out the mess is terminal, with him and Truss in charge, with this policy. The alternatives to massive spending cuts are they both U-turn and bloody quickly, or he resigns/is sacked and she U-turns alone. 2/4
Aug 7, 2022 • 6 tweets • 3 min read
@grimangus Which one hasn't?
We feared we'd lose our freedom of movement and we bloody have.
We feared businesses would get hammered and they have.
We feared Ireland would be a gnarly problem and it is.
We feared the right would use Brexit to shit on our human rights are they are.
@grimangus We feared EU nationals exercising their freedom of movement in Britain would be unwelcome and leave and that's happened.
We feared labour shortages as a result and that's what we've got.
We feared supply chain problems with borders suddenly being reinstated and here we are.
Aug 7, 2022 • 7 tweets • 2 min read
Pinning this now. It's one thing seeing it used everywhere as an 'old Turkish proverb' and occasionally pointing out it's actually an adaptation of one by me but another when a well-known author using in a perfectly good cause 6 months later, nonetheless won't admit it's not his.
I told him early on, when he only had about 450 likes.
Aug 7, 2022 • 8 tweets • 3 min read
@BlogdoNoblat
These are not Paulo Coelho's words. They're mine,from 23/01/22. Happy they're useful, but it is not right to refuse to acknowledge you're using someone else's words. I told him. He could have just replied, 'Thanks, that's interesting to know.'
But he blocked me.
Once I'd told @pauloCoelho that this was a Turkish proverb, reworked by me for our times, and showed him the evidence, he blocked me. However, later someone else asked him, Is it a Turkish proverb? And he replied yes, it's a reinterpretation of one, without saying it's not his.
Jan 3, 2022 • 16 tweets • 6 min read
@QuislingT You sure are confused. Let me help you.
Here follows a list of ways in which everybody British could use the freedom of movement that we, the British, (only we the British with British parents and grandparents- everyone else with EU passports still has it) have lost. Thread.
@QuislingT to live with a partner we love from any of 27 other countries in any of 27 other countries
to live with our children from any of 27 other countries in any of 27 other countries
Jan 1, 2022 • 4 tweets • 2 min read
Jan 1 2022 #R4today#Brexit
Trade expert Sam Lowe explains the gnarly new trade rules kicking in, particular risk for small companies and inevitable higher costs.
MK: And what kind of advantages might there be for the UK in this?
Hey! We're all ears! An answer at last?
1/4
SL"Well we go back to the sort of general premise of Brexit; the UK has prioritised having the ability to set its own rules and regulations over having frictionless trade which would require regulatory alignment and giving up some of its autonomy so the question for the UK is 2/4
Jun 23, 2021 • 20 tweets • 4 min read
23rd June 2016 Five years ago today
The four freedoms: goods, persons, services and capital - all lost.
To commemorate the destruction of our FOM in 27 countries, here's a list.
The treatment of EU citizens in the UK is worthy of another whole thread. #Brexit#23June
Here goes:
British passport holders have lost:
1. Our right as a citizen whether rich or poor, to live in any of 27 other countries whatever our qualifications, connections, background
2. Our right to live with a partner we love from any of 27 other countries in any of 27 other countries
Jun 21, 2021 • 5 tweets • 1 min read
“Unsurprisingly, the value of the UK passport has collapsed, passing from the top 10 to a much more mediocre place: the rights attached to it are now equivalent to Argentine or Brazilian nationalities.”
(Prof Alberto Alemanno, Prof Dimitry Kochenov, open letter, Le Monde)
Their joint open letter begins: “The most dramatic consequence of Brexit is the loss of European citizenship for British people..."
May 12, 2021 • 11 tweets • 2 min read
Listening to past Labour leaders who have spectacularly not won elections attempting to advise a current labour leader on how to win them, is like asking Icarus for flying lessons.
I haven't the answer. But I can start with a version of the problem.
<thread>1/10
Only three Labour leaders have *EVER* won an election: 1) Attlee - immediately after the war, when the population felt like winners on a run of winning 2) 'White heat of technology' - Wilson 3) Education, education, education, opportunity and aspiration - Blair
2/10
Dec 31, 2019 • 5 tweets • 2 min read
OK @uklabour let's actually start a period of reflection.
1. "We won the argument."
No. We didn't. We lost the argument, the argument was derided, the argument was mocked and ridiculed, there was utter contempt for the argument.
Therefore, we were slaughtered as predicted.
2. "It wasn't Corbyn it was Brexit."
They were one and the same. Brexit crap was Corbyn crap, Corbyn crap was Brexit crap. Everyone could see Corbyn was conflicted and had rationalised the situation into pretending indecision was conciliation. It was transparent nonsense.
