Tim Martin's fixation with Brexit.

 

Tim Martin - CEO of J.D. Wetherspoon

Although many British people are now beginning to realise that they were sold a pup with 'Brexit', Tim Martin, the C.E.O. of J D. Wetherspoon, was utterly convinced that the country would be better off if we left the E.U. He seemed to see Brexit as kind of panacea that would cure Britain’s many economic problems.

Before the 2016 referendum, if you were a customer of J.D. Wetherspoon, you got Brexit rammed down your throat, it was even on the beer mats, and Wetherspoon customers were paying for all that. I doubt that the beer baron, who was brought up in New Zealand, writes his own copy, but his name was on it. Understandably, as a wealthy businessman, Tim Martin is more concerned with what is in the interests of his company and its shareholders, than what is in the interest of the country. He's not running a benevolent society or a charity. He's in business to make money. I stopped reading the pub magazine a long time ago, because I got tired of hearing about Brexit. 

Tim Martin says that he wants tax parity with supermarkets when it comes to alcohol pricing, but if prices continue to spiral in Weatherspoon’s as they are doing, the company is going to drive many more of its customers into the supermarkets. It would be a pity if this did happen, because Weatherspoon’s is one of the biggest sellers of hand pumped cask beers in the country and I have never had a bad pint. The cask beers and the discounts early in the week, along with the beer festivals, are what draw many customers into Weatherspoon’s. The pubs are generally warm and there are free refills of tea and coffee along with free Wi-Fi. Another attraction is that there's no music but there is TV. 

A lot of Wetherspoon customers are still far from happy that meals like mixed grills, 8-ounce sirloin steaks and gammon steaks were taken off the menu. They were told this was done to save money. Anything that you can get your teeth into, has now been removed from the menu and replaced with overpriced beef burgers. 

Meritocracy – the meta-narrative of liberalism.

 

By: Andrew Wallace

‘Man’ does not live by bread alone; it seems human nature must draw sustenance from existential motivation that rises above the merely contingent. If pre-modern societies were characterised by metaphysical belief systems and religion, our secular age invokes the virtuous in the overarching meta-narrative of liberalism and the ideas of individual self-realisation. Individualism is held up as the repository of rationalism and the cradle of goodness.

In so far as collectivity is acknowledged as a dimension of human experience in terms of language and culture, these are tacitly conceded for the paradoxical cultivation of individualism. Liberal modernity was pronounced in the shift from ‘ascribed’ to ‘achieved’ status, whereby virtue is held to reside in individual performance rather than conferred by ancestral passage. Of course it has never proved to be the case that we can unproblematically distil merit from inherited advantage, although the allure of ‘meritocracy’ is officially observed in legislation that seeks to proscribe the most egregious prejudices when it comes to employment, access to basic amenities and civil rights. Meritocracy is encoded in the formal observation of equality of opportunity.

But while leftists recognised the importance of advancing formal equality of access before the law, they also understood its limitations by way of how powerful inequalities would continue to reproduce themselves down the generations. If social advancement was now predicated on rational criteria of achievement, then a canny middle class accordingly mentored and distinguished by credentials would still wield considerable cultural capital that puts itself ahead of its working class peers. Attempts to remove or redistribute these advantages would conceivably involve communal child rearing and inheritance taxes, all of which invariably prove politically unappealing and unacceptable with the partial exception of a few fringe bohemian communities.

If Britain envisages itself as a meritocracy it must also account for its tenacious monarchism, a rather incongruous edifice of hereditary. In order to swallow this piece of cognitive dissonance we tell ourselves that walling off a not inconsiderable chunk of heritage from modernity does indeed make sense as a kind of marketable living museum imbued with the collective symbolism of nationhood. This serves as a soothing balm against the rougher edges of secular disenchantment that inevitably present with meritocratic atomism. Hence the more telegenic upcoming members of the royal cult are able to renew their appeal whilst also neatly dovetailing into the prevailing culture of celebrity.

The British ruling class have often put class interests before Britain's strategic interests.

 

The world's wealthy capitalist elite don't really recognise an allegiance to nations as such or national boundaries. What concerns them more is the opportunities for exploitation and to make money. If Labour and manufacturing costs are lower in other parts of the world and people have the right skills and education, they will export jobs overseas. There's also the issue of social-class which I think often overrides national interests.

Conservative decision makers have often let their class prejudices prevail over the strategic interests of Great Britain. During the Spanish Civil War (1936-39), Britain's official position was one of neutrality, but many conservatives made it clear that they supported General Franco. Britain had a great deal of money invested in Spain and it was believed that a Republican victory might put that investment at risk. But they must have known that if the Francoist nationalist rebels won the war, with the help of German and Italian dictatorships, it was likely to lead to a possible world war with Germany. The Spanish Civil War was really a dress rehearsal for WWII.

Sir Henry Chilton, the British Ambassador to Madrid, was anti-Republican and wanted the coup to succeed. The journalist Henry Buckley, was told by a British diplomat, "the essential thing to remember in the case of Spain is that it is a civil conflict and that it is very necessary that we stand by our class." 'Save Spain', meant defending the interests and privileges of a small Spanish elite. Franco said himself that he was prepared to kill up to half of the Spanish working-class to achieve his goal. He's said to have killed more Spaniards than all the King's of Spain combined.

General Mola, the director of the military coup, advocated terror and annihilation of the organised working class. He declared, "It is necessary to spread terror. We have to create the impression of mastery, eliminating without scruples or hesitation all those who do not think as we do." That included Freemasons, incorrigible liberals, feminists, freethinkers, trades unionists, socialists, communists and anarchists.

Mandelson steps down from House of Lords and faces police investigation.

 

Peter Mandelson

What does Peter Mandelson stand for or his creation New Labour? He's drawn to wealthy individuals like flies are drawn to shit. Maggie Thatcher said her greatest legacy to the country was Blair and New Labour.

Since leaving government Blair and Mandelson have done nothing but try to line their own pockets. They're in the pockets of big business and the wealthy. Mandelson has now left the Labour Party and says he stepping down from the House of Lords. His close relationship with the paedophile billionaire financier, Jeffrey Epstein, has been exposed in a series of emails released by the White House. He also faces a possible police investigation for public misuse of office while a government minister. It’s alleged that Mandelson received money from Epstein and disclosed confidential government information.

Labour is past its sell-by date and Starmer will lead it into the abyss. Mandelson was once a member of the Young Communist League (YCL) and Starmer was a Trotskyist. Mandelson and his father were connected to the Jewish Chronicle and his grandfather, Herbert Morrison, a Labour government minister, was an ardent Zionist.

The Green Party under Zack Polansky, is now more popular than Starmer's Labour government. They're likely to get the votes of a lot of young people if they can be bothered to vote. I like a lot what the Green Party say but I'm an agnostic when it comes to climate change and I won't be going on a plant-based diet. Polansky is also a bit too fluffy and woke for me but I will be pleased if the Green Party take Gorton & Denton.

Ayn Rand and her capitalist super heroes.

 

I've read Ayn Rand's book Atlas Shrugged and her fictional heroic capitalists aren't real estate developers or edge fund managers. They're steel and oil barons, car manufacturers and railway tycoons.

Although Rand has acquired many devotees over the years, mainly on the right of politics, her gospel of selfishness didn't go down very well in late 1950s America. Rand was criticised for being immoral and her advocacy of unrestrained laissez-faire capitalism, wasn't popular either. The National Review described it as a "silly book", which I think is fair comment. 

The book, which some consider to be the Bible of the American Congress, is also very American. One government employee, called Cuffy Meigs, is straight out of the wild west. He carries a loaded revolver even in the office, and a rabbit's foot for good luck.  

The Austrian economist Ludwig von Mises, the archpriest of neoliberal capitalism, wrote to Ayn Rand in 1958 praising the book. He basically told her that she had the courage to tell the masses what no politician was prepared to tell them. That they were inferior and that they owed their conditions in life and social improvements in life, to the efforts of "men who are better than you." Margaret Thatcher would have subscribed to this view. She believed that all of us are indebted to a small number of talented people (wealth creators), for our conditions in life. 

Yet, I think it's true to say, that the greatest of inventions, is never likely to see the light of day or leave the drawing board, if we haven't got the labour and skills to make it. As Adam Smith tells us, it's labour that creates wealth and some have argued that all wealth should go to labour. The relationship between labour and capital is a dialectical relationship. 

I don't think Ayn Rand can be considered a serious philosopher. She was once asked if she could sum up her philosophy when standing on one foot. She answered: Metaphysics, 'Objective Reality'; Epistemology, 'Reason'; Ethics, 'Self-Interest'; Politics, 'Capitalism'. 

Like Charlie Kirk, Rand railed against altruism and despised government welfare systems that support the poor. Yet, in later life, when her health failed her, she finished up on social security and Medicare. She couldn't even live up to her own philosophy. Rand is one of very few authors to have written a pro-capitalist novel and her capitalist super heroes, who like Atlas, hold up the heavens aloft on their shoulders, are like Nietzsche's supermen. Rand denied that she had ever been influenced by Nietzsche. 

Joseph Stalin and the art of tyranny.

 

Joseph Stalin

I think it was either Solzhenitsyn or the Yugoslavian communist, Ante Ciliga, in his book 'The Russian Enigma', who described the communist as "good thinkers." What was meant by this, is that many didn't really believe or want to believe, that comrade Stalin was directing and orchestrating the terror and the mass arrests, from his little corner in the Kremlin. They always wanted to believe that others were responsible for what was taking place and that the boss was unaware of it.

Stalin had members of his wife's family arrested, interrogated and imprisoned and some were executed. Many of these thought Stalin was unaware of their predicament. Molotov's wife was denounced and arrested on trumped up charges and Molotov voted in favour of his wife arrest at a Politburo meeting. She was sent to a labour camp.

Just before Zinoviev was shot, he was pleading hysterically with his guards to contact comrade Stalin because he believed that Stalin would save him. He literally begged for his life and clung to the leg of an NKVD officer. Kamenev told him to die like a man. When Stalin was told about Zinoviev's pleas to his guards, he pissed himself laughing. Uncle Joe wasn't just a peasant slayer; he liquidated a lot of communists as well.

Glossop has been dubbed one of best places to live. It's also known as the place where pensioners go to die.

 

Glossop Town Centre

I don't think Glossop, in Derbyshire, is anything to shout about. The people are rather parochial and are very wary of strangers or what they call 'townies'. 

During the COVID lockdown in 2020, I saw pubs displaying signs that said "Tier Three People Not Welcome" and in some pubs, they would ask an unfamiliar face, if they were from a tier three area. 

In the local JD Wetherspoon pub, in Glossop, they had B.F. Skinner pigeon boxes for single people who were put into isolation by a female staff member, who was a complete control freak. She reminded me of nurse Ratched in the film 'One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest'. She definitely displayed signs of deep-rooted psychological issues. The last time that I heard of her, she was working as 'greeter' in a Ben and Jerry's ice cream parlour.

Glossop was once known for being a centre for transcendental meditation but it's also known, for having elevated radon gas levels, that are consistent with the geographical composition of the Derbyshire Peak District.

In my view, a better place to live, would be Uppermill, in what was once the West Ridings of Yorkshire. It's a quaint little place, with a nice community feel about it, and the locals are very friendly and welcoming. They love brass bands and still Celebrate Yorkshire Day.

Comrade Vasily Blokhin; Stalin's trigger finger.

 

The Soviet communist dictator Joseph Stalin, was responsible for the deaths of millions of Russian citizens and many of these, were executed by the Soviet secret police, the NKVD, during Stalin's purges. Although Stalin's regime built a society on a mountain of corpses, he never personally pulled the trigger. You might say that he hadn't got the stomach for it, so he delegated this "black work" to NKVD officers like comrade Vasily Blokhin, the NKVD's official executioner.

Comrade Blokhin personally executed Zinoviev, Kamenev and Bukharin, as well as 7,000 Polish prisoners at Katyn. He also personally executed his NKVD bosses, Yagoda and Yezhov. Blokhin was very meticulous when it came to carrying out the executions. At Katyn, a sound proof building was constructed with a sloping floor to wash away the blood of his victims and he used a German Walther pistol, to shoot the prisoners, at the base of the skull. Blokhin liked to work throughout the night, preferably, when there was a full moon. He wore a leather apron, leather gloves and a leather hat. He's considered one of the most prolific official executioners in world recorded history. Unlike many of his victims, Blokhin survived the Stalinist era but succumbed to chronic alcoholism and committed suicide.

Will 'free gear' Keir do a U-turn on Burnham to thwart a Labour civil war?

 

Will free gear Keir, have to make another U-turn and allow Andy Burnham to stand for selection for the parliamentary seat of Gorton and Denton? I'm pretty certain that Labour are going to lose the Gorton and Denton by-election and Starmer will be blamed for that. Labour is trying to shoe-in the trendy-left, LGBTQ+ Bev Craig, the current Labour leader of Manchester City Council, to stand in Gorton and Denton. She comes across like a bit of a kid. 

Keir Starmer was one of the ten 'officer panel' NEC members that voted to stop Burnham standing. Starmer is a wet lettuce and is running scared of the electorate and is trying to postpone local elections because he's clinging onto power by the skin of his teeth. He's a lame duck Labour leader who can't connect with the general public and his personal popularity ratings, are abysmal. I think he will be gone sometime this year and possibly after the May local elections. 

The longer Starmer remains the PM, the more likely it is that the spiv Nigel Farage, will be in Downing Street at the next general election. If Farage becomes the next UK Prime Minister, Britain will become the 51st de facto state of America. Farage thinks that Greenland should be owned by the Americans and he endorsed Donald Trump's comments that British troops only provided a supporting role to U.S. military forces in Afghanistan and didn't serve on the frontline in Afghanistan.

Where exactly was the frontline in Afghanistan? When you're fighting a guerrilla war, the front line is everywhere, but you can't expect a draft dodger like Donald Trump, to understand that. More than 450 British men and women lost their lives in Afghanistan and over 2,000 were wounded in action. 

If Nigel Farage becomes the next UK PM, will he turn Britain into the 51st state of the USA?

 

Nigel Farage - Leader of Reform UK

I don't think Reform UK will take the Manchester constituency of Gorton and Denton. Labour has more chance of retaining the seat, if Andy Burnham does stand and more chance of losing it, if he doesn't stand.

Nigel Farage is far too closely identified with Donald Trump and the Trump administration and this will ultimately damage Reform UK politically, in the long run. I'm pretty sure that if Farage becomes the next UK Prime Minister, Britain will become the de facto 51st state of the U.S.A. because Farage is so far up Trump's arse. We can expect to see in Britain, U.S. imported chlorinated chicken and U.S. imported beef, from cattle fed on growth accelerating hormones. We can also expect to see more involvement of U.S. private healthcare firms working within the NHS.

Farage has already said that the draft-dodger Donald Trump, should take control of Greenland from the Danes and he's upset many British people, by endorsing Trump's opinion that British soldiers only played a supporting role in Afghanistan and never fought on the front lines. Some 457 British soldiers were killed in Afghanistan and over 2000 wounded in action. Neither Iraq or Afghanistan was a direct threat to Britain and British soldiers were sent there because of the 9/11 attack in New York, carried out by an assortment of Saudi citizens and Egyptians linked to al-Qaeda. 

Lenin & the Russian Revolution.

 

If Lenin was such an orthodox Marxist as the English philosopher, Bertrand Russell, believed, then Lenin would have held to the view that Russia had to go through a period of capitalist industrial development and bourgeois democracy before there could be a revolution. Marxist revolutions are supposed to take place not in agrarian societies like Russia, but in highly industrialised economies like Britain, France or Germany. 

In February 1917, when the Russian Revolution broke out in Petrograd, Lenin was in Zurich and Trotsky was touring America. When he was in Zurich in 1917, Lenin had told students that he didn't think the revolution would happen in his or his generations lifetime. The Bolsheviks who were in Petrograd were taken completely by surprise. They were preparing for the elections to the Constituent Assembly. 

In 1917, around 80% of the Russian population would've been peasants. Lenin was taken to Petrograd by the Germans in the so-called "sealed train." When he arrived at Petrograd's Finland Station on April 3, 1917, he addressed a crowd of workers and Bolsheviks, and denounced the Provisional Government and demanded an immediate socialist revolution. He outlined his radical 'April Theses' calling for the Soviets to take power. 

The Bolsheviks seized power in October 1917, because nobody really wanted it. The Petrograd Soviet had the power but didn't want the responsibility and the Provisional Government had the responsibility but not the power. Had Lenin not arrived in Petrograd in April 1917; events may have taken a completely different course in Russia. Such is the power of agency. Lenin basically responded to events that had been initiated spontaneously. 

Between 1918 and 1921, the country was plunged into civil war with the Bolsheviks fighting the counter revolutionary ‘White Army' and a war with the Russian peasantry.

Reform UK launches legal challenge against government plans to delay May local elections.

 

It looks like Labour are running scared of the electorate and are giving local councils the opportunity to delay elections until 2027. They say this is because the government are planning an overhaul of local government and this will take time and many councils lack the capacity for reorganisation. Labour also knows from the opinion polls that they're likely to get slaughtered in the forthcoming May local elections, which will seen as a vote of no confidence in the leadership of Spineless Starmer and his Labour government.

Reform UK have now launched a legal challenge against these attempts to delay local elections. It seems to me that the longer Starmer remains PM and leader of the Labour Party, the more likely it is that we will see Farage in Downing Street at the next general election.

Most British mainstream political leaders are supine and prostrate themselves before Donald Trump and American global interests, but a British government, led by a charlatan like Nigel Farage, would turn Britain into the 51 state of America. It's already bad enough Britain being an aircraft carrier for the Yanks. Under Farage, we can look forward to eating U.S. chlorinated chicken and beef from U.S. cattle, fed on growth promoting hormones. We can also expect a Greater role for U.S. private health care companies within the NHS and charges for NHS health care services. Farage also thinks that  the Americans should take over Greenland from Denmark. 

Your Party wants to nationalize the British economy. Would this be in the interest of the state or the workers?

 

We had nationalization in the past in Britain before Maggie Thatcher and I once worked for a utility, but I wouldn't call it worker's control, it was more like the TV series 'Upstairs and Downstairs'. 

Labour's 'Clause 4', was never about "workers control" it involved the acquisition of the means of production by the state for the benefit of the state. Mine owners were compensated when they nationalised coal and some were better off.  

If the workers are going to run the "entire economy", as Zara Sultana, of 'Your Party" wants, through co-operatives, does that mean the abolition of capitalism and the private ownership of the means of production, and if that is the case, why doesn't she say so? Given that many former nationalised industries are now privatised would the owners and their shareholders, be compensated, or would their businesses be expropriated? If they are to be compensated where would the money come from to compensate them? If it involves expropriation, does she think that it's likely that the capitalists would acquiesce in this? If history tells us anything, it is likely to lead to a counter revolution, a conservative reaction, and fascism. 

If everything is under the control of the workers, how is all this co-ordinated and organised in the general interest of society and what role does the state play in all this? Are we really all working for the state and if this is the case, doesn't the state become our sole employer?  That doesn't sound like much fun to me. What happens to us if we don't obey the state? Do we starve?

The French anarchist, Pierre Joseph Proudhon, did say that "property is theft", but he drew a distinction between personal possession and the private ownership of the means of production. He thought that a certain amount of private property, small holdings, was necessary for independence. It is also argued that private property acts as a counterweight to state power. 

Rough sleeper found frozen death in Manchester City centre on Boxing Day.

 

On Boxing Day, a man was found dead under a bridge in Manchester City centre near to the Bridgewater Hall. The police said there were no suspicions circumstances. What they couldn't say, and this was reported in the Manchester Evening News (MEN), was that this man had frozen to death because he was a rough sleeper. The temperature that night was -4 degrees.

It was also reported in the MEN, that last Monday, the Holiday Inn, on Oxford Road, Manchester, refused two people accommodation because they were people off the streets. Apparently, a charity had taken pity on them and had paid their accommodation costs and the rooms had been pre-booked. The receptionist told them that he knew they were people off the streets and that it was the policy of the hotel, not to admit rough sleepers. The temperature that day was -6 degrees. I believe the two individuals were eventually accommodated in a Travel Lodge.

British politicians like to describe Britain as an "inclusive society". When people are freezing to death on the streets of Britain, one of the richest countries in the world, because they're homeless and people are being denied access to accommodation because they're off the streets, you can hardly call that an inclusive society. I'm afraid that we seem to be returning to Victorian times when these kinds of deaths among the homeless and destitute were commonplace.

Trump bombs Venezuela and kidnaps its President!

 

Nicolas Maduro

People will obviously question the legality of the kidnapping of the leftist Venezuelan President, Nicolas Maduro, in terms of international law. The kidnapping of the Venezuelan President, and the bombing of the Venezuelan capital, is illegal under international law, but the Americans have never bothered too much about that. The Americans consider Maduro a 'Narco-Terrorist' and a New York court indicted Maduro in March 2020, and issued an arrest warrant for him. The American government wants to put him on trial. They don't consider Maduro to have diplomatic immunity.

They did the same thing in 1999 when they invaded Panama and captured the dictator, Manuel Noriega. The U.S. courts ruled in (United States v Noriega) that "jurisdiction is not defeated by abduction." If the U.S. military can physically drag you into a courtroom, even illegally, you can still be tried. This is backed up by the U.S. Supreme Court which relies on the doctrine based on the legal case (Ker v Illinois) which essentially states ("Bad capture, good detention").

Despite their abductions, both Maduro and Noriega, have fared better than Patrice Lumumba, the first democratically President of the Democratic Republic of Congo, Salvador Allende, the democratically elected Marxist President of Chile, and Maurice Bishop, the leftist Prime Minister of Grenada, who all died following CIA inspired coups.

The Yanks will install a Transitional puppet Government in Venezuela, who will retroactively consent to the U.S. operation, and transform the kidnapping into a legal "cooperative extradition." This is what happened in Panama in 1990. It says something that the Americans were able to capture Maduro so easily and to take control of Venezuela and its oil supplies. Will Iran be next? Many Iranians are hoping so.

Are the free market and immigration control incompatible?

 

Eddie Dempsey - RMT General Secretary

The leader of the RMT union, Eddie Dempsey, is right to point out that very often those who do the hard graft in society are often the least recognised and the least rewarded -they keep the show on the road.

But the market doesn't always determine the wages for some people. The wages of many workers are regulated and are not determined by a Dutch auction. Remuneration committees often determine the salaries of banking officials. An MPs salary is set and so are the wages of Eddie Dempsey as a trade union official. What's the going rate for an MP? The wages of police officers will be regulated along with many legal officials like judges. The wages of civil servants and local government workers are also regulated.

If you believe in the so-called "free-market", then you can't really be in favour of immigration control and must be in favour of the free movement of Labour. What does Donald Trump's crackdown on "undocumented" workers have to do with free markets? Many migrant workers may better at doing your job and may be prepared to do it for less money, but very few free-market economists are bold enough to speak out against immigration control.

In America, many immigrants work in food processing, construction, agriculture and hospitality. Undocumented workers, who still pay state and federal taxes in the U.S., make up 25% of all farm workers. There are 7 million workers in the U.S. who are undocumented.

In his book entitled '23 Things They Don't Tell You About Capitalism', the Cambridge economist, Ha-Joon Chang, wrote: "We are persuaded to accept what I call the L'Oréal principle - if some people are paid tens of millions of pounds per year, it must be because they are worth it." We know that many top bosses get well paid even when the companies they run, are losing money and even if they resign, they're given a huge pay off. They're a nepotistic class who have basically got their fingers in the till.

In a class ridden country like Britain, the options that people can choose from, are usually severely limited by a lack of resources or education. Our preferences are strongly formed by our social environment - family, neighbourhood, schooling and social class. The social bank of mum and dad, opens as many doors, as the financial bank of mum and dad.