Politics of self-preservation

Both British and American politics is suffering an illness, it's called being a member of the Self-Preservation Society. An elite grouping of powerful people who band together to ensure and maintain their power at the benefit of only themselves even when their position of power has been determined by the voter. The Maybot Denier of Truth Teresa May and Duck Face Ginger Ball Bag Donald Trump are extreme examples of this. May like Trump has surrounded herself with far right win lunatics whose taste for power and ruling is so strong they don't care about harming the country they allegedly serve. The press is hot on the 25th Amendment where Trumps own cabinet can effectively take him out of power, perhaps because they think he might destroy the planet with the last world war. Similarly, May could face a crisis of confidence in her government were a vote of no confidence to take place. In the background a whisper sounds, it says 'power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely' here and now the world is witnessing this. In North Korea it is Little Fat Faced Rocketman Kim Jong Un is the closest living thing to a god so it is alleged, like Trump he is not being recognised by the world for his sanity and reason or treatment of his own people. So like Trump he is having a tantrum and postures, threatening the world with his own nuclear weapons. Then there is the Nobel laureate Ang San suu Kyi, who once came across as a woman of peace, a woman seeking justice in the world and fought desperately for it. Now this wool pulling over the eyes' protagonist is being seeing in her true glory as a Muslim hating power-crazy loon who doesn't give a shit about the Rohingya Muslims and denies her military have tried out their very own ethnic cleansing. She is appearing nearly as bad as the power crazed oldies who run the biggest communist state in the world and who the business organizations of the Western world dare not say a single word of dissatisfaction just in case all those factories and slave labour camps which give us such high tech goods were to suddenly stop. They would still produce the goods, but everything would be stolen and resold with a different logo. Notice the lack of naming here, for you never know who reads a blog.

It is disastrous the UK has like the US freely elected in power persons who are so self-serving they'd sell their own mother to continue sitting in the same high chair they have now. Individuals with such power should not of been voted into office in the first place. Maybe we've been lied to as we always are as voters. Mays maiden speech as she just about won the last election did for five minutes make every voter sit up and consider here is someone who will try and help us all. But they were just noble words and likely words she did not write herself. Words have no meaning unless the actions congruent with those words take place. In May's case they haven't and they never will because there is no will. Now it is a depressive political situation, British politics stinks so much even the journalists at Westminster have to carry their own vomit bags. Even the right win press is beginning to doubt their own party's capability. Much like the Americans.

It feels like we are on a precipice, but this precipice is the most disastrous one ever. The continued painful struggle with BREXIT makes the Tories look ever more incompetent. The worst part of this is their incompetency will bring about the fall of the entire UK business and finance sector. They are in complete denial. We've been in a recession since 2008, near a full ten years and there is no sight of recovery for each day the national debt increases now it is 1.7 trillion pounds. May tells us at the dispatch box the deficit is down but never utters a word about the debt, then in predictable fashion like a yellow streaked sibling she throws insults at Labour. May must go, Trump must go for all our sakes. It would be so good of they both fell on their own swords but people with dubious mental faculty wouldn't do such a thing. Their motto is self, self, self otherwise it's way too crowded in this phone box.

Viewpoints filled with hate

It seems like the world is going insane. Turn left, turn right, open a news media website and there will be one or more likely several items which have hate filled agendas. If it is not one section of a community it is another, viewpoints abound which could be considered extremist. They are hate filled and the warriors behind these views have no insight into what this does. I see it, I recognise it and I've felt it myself, then, I changed my mind. It is part of the growing up process. Further this process is not physical it's mental, it is understanding the world has many people in it, and let others live how they want to live, for why get bothered?

Of course there are always reasons to get bothered about stuff. To get bothered about the Nazi who walks through your door and no matter how hard you want to say feck off, you can't because they are a member of your family. And if they just didn't have this particular view on life then they'd actually a very OK person. I might want to change this person and have tried to combat their views but as they are still a teenager they have to make their own way in life, their own mistakes, and they get upset if they're told nazism is wrong and toxic. The choice then boils down to whether I want this member of my family in my life or to disown them. Then I think back to being their uncle and having lots of fun playing with them and do nothing. I want to believe behind this extremist aspect of their personality is just a vulnerable human being, an ordinary person who's had a life of bad cards. One hand after the other has just been unfortunate. Unfortunate to have an alcoholic father, a depressive mother who only thinks about herself and to attend a school to find they are in the ethnic minority in their own country. There is no accounting for the experiences other people have, choices are made out of those experiences and taking a step back helps understand this.

We are all human beings. What makes us intolerant is poverty, poor education and lack of exposure to others. When I was a kid there were many taboos. Sexuality being one of them. It wasn't until my twenties I witnessed homosexuality. It was on a holiday to Germany. Two men dressed in complimentary leather trousers and jackets walked down the street holding hands. I was taken aback, I'd never seen this kind of behaviour in the UK and I'd lived just outside of London. I knew of homosexuality of both gays and lesbians but to see this simple behaviour in real life was my first experience of it. To tell the truth I have never been bothered about it, but I have felt the opinions of others encroach on my own self and wondered if I should agree with them and their views. At the time I just simply didn't have any view at all. So perhaps this is why I just simply accepted people were different but they were still just humans. It was my contact with the religiously minded which I found to be intolerant of sexuality. Intolerant of the behaviours of others. Yet the constant question is why on earth should the observer be bothered? If these behaviours are not harming them why should they mentally think they are? Maybe it is better to feel good knowing they are part of the in-group and those there gays, are without doubt in the out-group, in more ways than one. So fecking what. I will state though on record, my encounters with lesbians, which isn't something I go out of my way to do in any sense has also been implicitly hostile. It seems to me they just don't like to converse or have anything to do with men, or certainly heterosexual men. They are standoffish and will not engage in conversation at social gatherings, will not even acknowledge my presence, I might smile but will not get a smile back. No doubt they have their own hang ups and probably meeting a normal hetererosexual who just wants to have an ordinary chat about the weather or some other banality is a no no. It's probably written in the 'How to be a Lesbian Handbook' which I just would not be allowed to get my hands on. Due to the sign on the book shelf saying 'not for men'.

My perceptions of the world and of people have changed, I wouldn't say enormously, but rather subtly to the principle of let live. Hate and bigotry upsets me, but my recognition of it is because I know what it is like to be a bigot and to hate as well. I hate extemism and I'm bigotted in my view about this. I also very much dislike the right wing political agenda in any form it takes because for some reason it is a self serviing agenda and poses as anything but self serviing to hijack the vote of the unsuspecting gullible types. Effectively the right has encouraged bigotry and hate by poor education and the constant allowance of poverty. For the right a divided society makes the right strong, the right needs hate and ignorance to survive. And it's the highest levels of right wing politics who reap the benefits and riches of society. I know hate, for I have hated my upbringing by my own mother and her failure to be a mother a support. I began reducing my emotional reliance and bond with her at the age of five. It wasn't a great childhood and so I cry when I hear of children who also have bad upbringings or experiences. The reality is some people in this world are unlucky, like the nazi relative, they just get dealth duff cards and then don't know how to make the best of them.

Hate and prejudice stems from an inability to look inward and an inability to engage with those contrary thoughts to your own, or those people the hate is directed at. The sum of our experiences and the sum of how we perceive those experiences is what makes us who we are. I can continue to confirm my mental attitude by reading biased literature or I can challenge it and expose it to alternative reasoning. Then I may well find I am wrong at which point a lesson has been learnt.

No longer safe to attend a Trump press conference

So another day passes and yet more fuel is put on the fire to keep it ablaze. No wonder this carrot topped scrotum dick head is so popular. The White House must have an entire basketball room full of hate mail, and the secret service are in full overtime mode.

Trump has failed America and the western world in his take on the Charlottesville murder of a liberal by a far right white neo Nazi. He has failed to out rightly condemn racism and spouted off his own fake news saying it was liberals who attacked Nazis. The odd thing about this allegation is evident from the videos of Nazis in Charlottesville. They are the ones wearing black ex military Nazi helmets and carrying shields. They were the ones prepared, if you go to a riot dressed in riot gear you're going to expect a riot. So how come Trump didn't open his eyes when he watched the videos, or did he only open them as the liberals retaliated for the violence from right wing Nazis. How come the police did not engage and just let the Nazis carry on the way they did? Unless they to have some right wing sympathizers amongst them. A question should be asked about this.

How can this man be allowed to continue as president? This is such a demeaning assault on the American image, each day he is allowed to stand up and deliver his vitriolic hate and ignorance the more this great country becomes divided. Not just on racial grounds, but with this continuing stance Trump is driving a wedge in the Republicans. As we've seen now Senator John McCain seems to be the only man with Republican integrity, the only man who is standing up and being counted. And the admiration for McCain goes deep as he fights brain cancer and is taking hospital treatment. A man who perhaps would have been a much better choice as Republican president. One thing for sure is all those supporters who thought a change from the political elite would be for best will now be burdened with guilt. If they aren't then they should be ashamed, deeply ashamed.

Watching Trump is like having a bad dream, waking up and finding the dream is carrying on. I am British and I hate the fact I speak the same language as a man like this who disgusts me. British attitudes towards Trump are as strong as his racism. If Trump comes to the UK I will be out there demonstrating against him, I will make my own placard, I will shout, boo and berate this ginger slime bag at every opportunity. This is from a mild-mannered individual. Providing that is we are all still alive and kicking and this despot hasn't begun world war three and Armageddon against North Korea.
America, do the right thing kick this man out of office NOW!

Trump's Disasterous presidency strides on

The world used to look for leadership, humanity and integrity when it cast an eye on America. However, now look to America we don't. The reason is because America had the most liked, most respected man in the world in ex-president Barak Obama. Now has in power the least liked, least competent and most clown like idiot president in history. He has also proved himself to be racist, infantile and self obsessed.

Currently we hear this dictator has banned transgender persons from the millitary, he trudges on trying to remove Obama care which will remove medical care for millions of people. A new employee to the Trump board of directors is Anthony Scaramucci (communications) has sworn profusely on the record and said he will ensure staff are sacked for leaking who it was had dinner with Trump. He called one individual a paranoid schizophrenic, funny because Scaramucci's behaviour sounds like something a schizophrenic might actually do. Except Scaramucci went further saying he was going to fire all of the communication team. This is someone truly unhinged. Trump's approval rating has dropped lower than any rating any president has held, like an 11 year old pubescent kid he tweets new riddiculous part sentences. For he can't write, read or talk English correctly so it is no wonder he is unable to tweet it either.In defence of the transgender community one article describes Trump as a war dodger who comes from a life of privilege. This seems so true it is something which can not be counter argued. He has never served in the millitary and considering his age he would of been prime meat for a number of wars America has been in. This effectively marks Trump out as a coward as well.

The real question which still hasn't been answered is when will all this end? He is now well beyond embarrasment, when will his own supporters stop supporting him and the light switch on?

The supply and demand monopoly of Tomtom

I'm in the market for a satnav and have an eye on the Tomtom Go 5200, it has it's own SIM and automatically updates the maps, current the universal lowest price is £239.99, in fact this price is so universal it is evidence of a supplier and seller monopoly. There is not one everyday advertiser who is selling it lower. It's like they have all got in a room and decided the price for this product will be X and in our decision nobody is to undercut any other supplier. There are no special deals, no discount vouchers and there apparently is no scruples. All of this seems somewhat counter to freemarket economics, counter to capitalism, counter to democracy. So the question is why would every seller of this product be so compliant, why would they stick to one price? Now in my internet searches it doesn't seem to matter how many times I put the search on google, it comes up with the same results. This is the cost of a new product. Stupidly even on ebay where there are the odd private seller but also many commercial sellers the price for this Tomtom is even higher. The trail is therefore a purposeful red herring to make the very niave amongst us believe there is price variation. The reality is there isn't.

On one review of the tomtom go 5200 on Amazon, I read this was bought when it first hit the shelves at the knock down price of £185, which is bloody remarkable. A couple of weeks ago when I was checking out the price of this satnav it was uniformly £248, a somewhat odd amount, but I swear it was. It was a surprise then to find it had dropped. So now given time maybe it will reduce in price again. The question is how much time does it need before the sellers and the suplier get in a dank dark room, with cigarette if not cigar smoke suspended mid air like a blanket of thick for and agree the price will drop again. Alternatively given we are in the 21st century it might be an email sent out by Mr Big who dictates the next price fluctuation. Just perhaps the price will increase because of some comment about the valuation of precious metals used in making the product going up. Yes Zenon 321 used in the soldering and adherence of printed Tomtom circuitry has doubled, and although only a small amount is used it will mean the price has hiked by a tenner. I wouldn't put it past Mr Big, who actually might be a woman and of small stature and doesn't smoke but is addicted to the gym. In which case lets say Mrs Small. Unless she's unmarried and then she's Miss Small. She can say for sure although she countrols the price on a whim she has never gotten lost. Great, fine for Miss Small but it doesn't help me out at all.

Therefore this can only mean Tomtom are dictating the price and they have put an embargo on their suppliers to ensure nobody is undercut. Tomtom is just sitting there screwing their potential and actual customers over.Which gives us all good reason not to trust the seller and supplier, yet in doing so does this mean we can't trust the product either? Well there are other satnavs on the market so perhaps Tomtom wont be seeing my money as part of their next profits report.

The Tory disaster and Europes hole of debt

The Tories are on the edge of a fine precipice, but this disaster will not only hit the Tory party in a case of no confidence it will decimate the country. Teresa May is also on the edge of resigning, She has lost the respect of her MPs, the voters and Europe. If you stand still for one moment the sound of ticking can be heard, it is the inevitable tick of May's death clock getting closer and closer.

When Labour were kicked out in 2010 Liam Byrne the ex-Treasurey secretary left a message stating there was no money in the kitty. It was the beginning of a snowball effect on debt and deficit which are two different aspects meaning current borrowing and total oustanding. To tackle such a thing out of the box thinking would be needed, but of all political parties it could never be from the Tories. Greed is what they are known for, greed for rich people and increased poverty for the poor. So their 7 years of government has now seen the British debt increase from 500 billion to 1.4 trillion. However,  the recession has hit all of Europe there are only three countires which are not in a debt situation, Iceland, Litchenstein and Germany. Yet the Tories insisted on blaming Labour for a recession which went global, it wasn't Labour's fault this was another false fact. To consider this is disasterous would be to undermine the seriousness of how tragic it is.

What is the debt of other EU countries? This is a good question because it puts into perspective how we are dealing with our own debt. For example has austerity actually actually made things worse? I ask this because sometimes you have to spend a little in order to get something back, we all hate doing it but it is one of those facts. Overtime the benefit may actually be much larger than the initial spend, however this notion is something the Tories don't understand, unless it happens to relate to bung money.

Country                    Debt                % of GDP
United Kingdom     £1.8 trillion        89.1
Spain                      e 1.6 trillion        99.8
France                     e 2.2 trillion       96.2 (2015)
Greece                    e 3.3 trillion        177.4 (2015)
Italy                        e 2.2 trillion        132.3 (2015)
Portugal                  e 2.3 trillion        129 (2015)
Poland                    e 2.1 trillion        51.1 (2015)
Czech Rep              e 67 billion         40.3 (215)

Poland is the largest net gainer from the EU, receiving approximately e 8.5 billion, the UK loses out by being a member of the EU and this is about £8 billion. The Czech Republic gains e 2 billion a year from being a member of the EU but from this table is clearly one of the more stable countries financially, just as Poland is. The UK's contribution to the EU is significant and in the top grouping of EU countries. Maybe the Euro experiment is about to bust, there are no figures here for population numbers and employment which would be interesting to see. The perspective is debt though in whichever direction viewed. It also asks the question of when will there be a re-evaluation of the euro and the pound sterling? At this point the opinion of a couple dozen economists would be interesting, for just like politicians they are known not to agree on a great deal, however, surely looking at the debt hole we're all pretty well fecked for the future. Someone is going to have to pay the banker back at some point.

Why will May leave?  Perhaps it will be the continuous and unrelenting pressure from the results of a poor and weak government, one she inherited from the self interested, Osborne and Cameron to name but two. Maybe because there is no response when the facts come home to roost. Such as cutting police officers by 20,000, prison wardens by 7,000 and tax collectors by 10,000. The one thing Thatcher always did was ensure she had a strong police force on her side, mind she needed it. Where as T2 as she is known, is actually nothing of the likes of Thatcher. Thank feck to. Alternatively could it be the unscheduled calling of an election which moved the Tories from just about stable to weak and wobbly shored up by a racist, homophobic right wing DUP party. Put it this way, I'm sure May didn't invite any of her new 10 supporters to the gay pride parade, but she did give them a bung of at least 100 million each. As the saying goes, keep your friends close and your paid allies even closer. Another reason May could go is if there is a sufficient challenge to her leadership, however this is probably the least likely thing to happen. Being a Tory and being prime minister is a poison challice, and this is it, I've stumbled onto the most likely of all reasons. Each morning with her soldiers and boiled egg she takes a sip from the challice of deceit, failure and debt. It's pulling her down she just can't keep taking sips and she's got to give up the ghost. Fingers crossed.
 

Grenfell Towers a Mother's Escape

It was said Grenfell Towers fire began within the first hour after midnight, a fridge on the fourth floor exploded. It was not the fault of the person who owned the fridge though it does depend on the circumstances of this incident. It is the fault of the fire and safety regulations, one comment I heard was the fire had gone from the fourth floor to the 18th floor in eight minutes. Further there was no firealarm system in the building, considering the many millions which had been spent on refurbishment again this is mind boggling. Cosequently cospiracy theories have arrisen the local council of Kensington and Chelsea have been practicing social cleansing. There has to be no doubt such an abhorent thing was happening, though whether it was deliverate is another question, but rather it is a matter of unintended consequences when a local authority begins to attract the wealthy.

There is one story about a mother who escaped Grenfell Towers which is an active expression of how it is necessary to do something. At about 1 a.m. she phoned the police to say her Tower block was on fire, she was worried, the smoke was thick and she feared for the safety of her two sons, both young aabout 10 and 12 years of age. She asked what should she do as her flat was on the twelth floor. The reply was to keep the door closed and stay inside. She took their advice and waited. The fire got worse so she rang the Police again. She asked them if the firebrigade was coming, she said there was fire on her floor she needed firefighters on her floor. Over the next hour and a half she rang them up a total of five times, of which the first four times they advised she stay in her flat, don't move from there it was safest. Then she phoned again and now it was about 2 a.m. the voice on the phone said get out now, if you don't you will die. She was a little taken aback by the urgency of the voice as the Police had not phoned her back to tell her about the change in their advice after all had she known an hour ago it would of been better to have made the attempt then. Perhaps the firebrigade were giving advice to the Police and after a short period of fighting the blaze they recognised nothing could be done. The resident took towels and wet them, she took her boys and went to the front door opening it to thick acrid stinking black smoke. One of her boys said:

"Mummy I don't want to go," her response was,
"If we don't go we will die."

They left their home. There was no description from the mother of how they managed it down the stairs, how that single stairwell was most likely thick with smoke or how she may have passed bodies and firefighters on those stairs. It might of been crowded and awkward to drag her sons out with her. She did it though, she saved her own life and the lives of her sons. The emergency services didn't reach her floor and they failed to phone her back and inform her to get out. It was only her persistent phoning and pestering of the Police she took her own safety into her own hands. Now she says her sons are wary of Police advice, she says they feel like they don't trust them.  It is understandable, in this real incident the organization of the emergency services sounds like it was attrocious. They may have done what they could, but there was a lot they didn't do and I don't understand given they have breathing apparatus why there had not been a group which had climbed those stairs and told all the residents to get out of the tower. Perhaps the fire was an ongoing situation and they continued to take and evaluate information as it came in.

The blame is squarely on the shoulders of Kensington and Chelsea Council. They say all fire safety regulations were met. But as there has been no change to these regulations for at least ten years they were out of date. The tower housed working class and lower class people, the kind of people who are the salt of the earth, the kind who do their best just to make ends meet. Grenfell Tower is in an area full of multiple millionaires, we saw Lilly Allen stating she had never seen an incident where the media were downplaying the number of deaths. At the point of her interview they had 17 confirmed recognised deaths. Lilly said how she had walked up and down the area past firefighters and Police who were saying there will be at least 150 deaths. Why on earth could the media not use such phrases as "expected deaths to reach over 100 persons?" It was as though they were trivialising the extent of this tragedy. At the moment this figure has now gone up to 58.  Additionally the emergency services state it is likely it will take weeks if not months to recover all the bodies and some of them may not be identified. Given the inferno raged for hours some of those bodies turned to complete ash as it had effectively been an incinerator. The building will need to be made safe, the process will be painfully slow. As the days pass more information will come out more stories with sad endings.