0252 Veteran Labour MP Austin Mitchell has a much simpler solution to his party’s woes: “Is suicide a suitable way out?”
I haven’t cared about much lately. The psychiatrist came today, lowered my dose of Seroquel and said I came across as flat. I do care about this, though.
I don’t generally disclose my political views here, and didn’t much discuss voting or the election with anybody online but have been reading with great interest. I was raised in that bizarre tradition of not discussing who you vote for (even though everyone in my family votes Sinn Fein without exception).
Suffice to say, my politics lie on the liberal left and the last 24 hours have been depressing and frustrating. I would like to shake Britain today.
Tory Boris Johnson predicted to win the London Mayoral race.
A homophobe, classist, elitist (some people argue that elitism is good and that people are largely cretins, I don’t support this view) as Mayor of multicultural London. I can’t believe that people voted for him. I know how disillusioned people are with New Labour but I don’t see how people forget that this man is a Tory, and all that they stand for. Just because he’s a blustering, affable buffoon it’s no reason to vote for him. Yeah, wasn’t he funny on Have I Got News For you. He has said nothing of worth throughout this whole race. Check out his policies.
We must stand up for our brave, hard-working police men and women to ensure they get a fair deal from government.
How, Boris?
Those who abuse their free transport privileges will be able to earn back their free Oyster by doing community service as part of my Payback London scheme.
What does that even mean? What is abuse? Are you talking about “youths”, as you probably see them, drinking on buses, or are you talking about people on Freedom Passes who use their pass before 9.30am?
The tube needs to be rescued from the ruins of Gordon Brown’s finance deal, so that vital upgrades that were promised actually happen. I will look again at having an air-conditioned tube. We need to take the thumbs of the RMT off the windpipe of London commuters with a no-strike deal that gives both sides the benefit of an independent arbitrator.
Anti-union, Boris? Really? I’d rather have to take the bus than deny people the right to strike.
I will fight for London’s rail commuters and campaign for longer trains, more frequent services and Oyster at all stations.
Again, how?
- I will support the Low Emission Zone to improve air quality.
- I will take a zero tolerance approach to littering and graffiting.
So basically you’ll continue what Ken did?
He’ll back London business. No mention of trying to close the gigantic earning disparities in London, which has some of the poorest boroughs in the country. Oh, he tokenistically points it out, but that’s it.
Oh wait, he does mention something:
It is a scandal that a child born in Haringey is three times more likely to die at birth than a child born in Richmond, and that if you travel eight stops on the Jubilee Line, from Westminster to Canning Town, the average life expectancy of residents declines by eight years. That is as great as the difference in life expectancy between Britain and Lebanon.
No Mayor can ignore this. Just because the Mayoral remit doesn’t currently have any powers over healthcare, it doesn’t mean City Hall should wash its hands of it. I will take a far more proactive approach to these issues:
- I will make it my moral duty to speak up for Londoners and help them by telling them frankly what kind of healthcare they are actually getting. The data is out there, and I will highlight where the government is failing us.
No, Boris, it’s not about healthcare. It’s poverty. It’s well known that simply being poor shortens your life expectancy. How do you propose to help the poor people in London? Everyone knows where the government is failing. Postcode lottery and all that, drastic underfunding of services and some of the worst cancer survival rates in Europe. So richer people go private. Poorer people cannot. You can’t do anything about that. You telling people what they already know isn’t going to do a fig. People die younger when they’re poor. The simple stress of surviving on a low income- which you’ll do nothing about- the prevalence of smoking and substance abuse (higher in the working classes) contributes to these early deaths.
Just read his policies. It’s all, “I’ll stand up”, “I’ll speak up”. Not, “I’ll do”, or, “Here’s my plan”. It’s specious guff. And it looks like this man is going to be the Mayor of my city. Of course, people think it was between him and Ken. Stop thinking like that. If you truly believe in the Liberals or Green, then you should have voted them. It’s not a “waste”, it’s not “pointless”, as the current research is showing (25% Liberals, 24% Labour). Ken might be the lesser of two evils, as people seem to see him now. But that’s the truth- he is certainly the lesser evil here. Protest voting is useless. If you’re protesting against Labour, vote Liberal.
The Conservatives have the majority of the councils across Britain now. If the 2010 election turns out like this, we’ll be back to a Tory government.
And don’t give me the bullshit of art flourishing under oppression, which is ridiculously something that has been expressed by some people I know. Persecution flourishes under oppression. Bigotry flourishes under oppression. A Tory government doesn’t believe in modern art, doesn’t believe in vocations, doesn’t believe in equality. They believe in the white middle class and all their policies are aimed in furthering them while stepping on everybody else. So many lost their jobs in the last government. They are sectarian. They are the party that overlooks the atrocities and violence carried out by Loyalist forces in Northern Ireland, because apparently the IRA are the only terrorist group in Northern Ireland. (Call me an Irish Republican. Politically, yes, I am. Ireland was colonised by the British mainland. Partition deliberately excluded Catholic majority areas (namely Donegal, which, as you see from maps, is in the North but is part of the Republic) so that they would forever have little political influence and basically Northern Ireland will always be part of the UK. I don’t support any violent actions. Neither, though, do I support Northern Ireland and Westminster’s adamant refusal to acknowledge Unionist and Loyalist violent acts). They’re anti immigration, anti-Islam, anti Irish, anti everything they’re not.
And we, people like you and me, mentalists, people who survive on benefits, will be dropkicked by them because they believe we’re malingerers or murderers.
Fair enough that Labour’s performance has been dire in some places. They took us to war (and a lot of shadow ministers supported this) and their NHS track record is awful, with funding cuts across the board, particularly in mental health services.
But that doesn’t mean that the Conservatives are now good.
Just what the Conservatives represent is damning enough. I know I’m generalising massively but to see how they and their voters think, just read the Conservative press such as The Daily Mail (Littlejohn in particular, who always evokes a massive, “You’re so right! That’s what we all really think but can’t say due to the PC culture blah blah) as opposed to the liberal press such as the Guardian. Then you’ll see what each truly stand for.
It’s just incredibly depressing.
Too late now. I think Boris has won. I’m not writing off the next four years. I am just upset at what he represents, when I believed in London, in Britain, more than this.
Filed under: boris johnson, elections 2008, policy, politics
Stumble It!
Really well said.
I think the sad truth is that whilst London has a greater rich/poor divide than it had ten years ago, it’s also been colonised by wealthy people a lot more as house prices have gone up. Wealthy people who are more likely to vote Tory. It’s just not the same city these days, let’s be honest. Immigrants are our biggest problem, no question – immigrants from another strand of society, not another country.
That said, the Tory gains across the country are sickening. As is the continual bleating justification of “but the Conservative Party have changed!” by so many of their voters, when there is no evidence to point to this whatsoever. It’s so aggravating I almost can’t put it into words.
I agree. We can take some cold comfort, though, from the fact that he’ll at least be awful enough to make sure the Tories aren’t elected in the general election. That really would be horrible.
There’s an air of doom in my house at the moment, everyone’s just sitting around waiting for the election results. It’s like suddenly having a safety blanket snatched away; even if the government were a bunch of careerist slimeballs before, at least you knew they were on your side…
Ah well. In my city, Rome, the latest news is that the new Mayor will be the candidate of Alleanza Nazionale, a party whose roots goes straight to the fascist party, you know, the one Mussolini was chief of. And the reason why Roman people elected him is because the left party candidate was possibly even worse (having devasted Rone for more than a decade). And please, keep in mind Berlusconi just won the elections, AGAIN. And what is even better, my mother is so happy about it (though she doesn’t stop to consider that during this fantastic Berlusconi decade me and all her niece just expatried, NOT ONE left: a coincidence? Maybe).
Yours
Politically castrated
G.
And he still uses the word ‘piccaninnies’, mustn’t forget that.
I agree, and I am gutted. I can’t even think of anything to say right now. The next 4 years are going to be painful, and I might even have to do the unthinkable and get out London as soon as I can. I can’t even put any optimistic spin on this. We’ve just put a clown in charge.
No… picaninnies? Surely he can’t mean what I think he means by that?! Good heavens!
By the way, hello — I’m a recently arrived American ex-pat, bipolar 1, needing a med change and suffering through the interminable wait for an NHS referral to a shrink.
Peace.
Yep, Boris is now in office for sure, it’s confirmed.
I don’t live in London but if you do, good luck.
Su x
People have short memories. They have forgotten how unspeakably awful it was under the Tory’s and just how much damage they did.
The most depressing thing was listening to people in South Wales being interviewed. People were blaming Labour for the fall in house prices. They have fallen by 1% in a year. People have forgotten that there were millions of people in negative equity in the early 90s and that repossessions ran at a record rate.
Ignore David Cameron’s charm routine, the people leading the Conservative Party now are neoliberals who will go at public services – including the NHS – with a hammer if they get in.
Actually, I’m back again to point out that the ‘picaninnies’ line was a joke, about how royalty derives comfort from patronising Third World countries. It was taken out of context and used to make him sound like a racist.
OK, just wanted to let that in the open.
Su x
Fab Post
Evan so today is a bad day, if i had black pj’s I would be morning.
Not just Borris but the BNP has got a seat, forget leaving London its time to leave the country!
Ok following my message I hope this cheers you up hun, its Boris in his prime
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CcgrZs4GXv4
Enjoy x
If you don’t mind, I’m going to link to this post from my LJ to point a number of anti-new-labour friends at it. And lots of people who feel the way you do.
This is a fantastic post btw. You are a talented writer.
I don’t live anywhere near London, but it still depresses the hell out of me that Johnson won. The idea that the general public (including plenty of usually left-leaning people) are stupid enough to put a thoroughly nasty extreme-right-winger into a position of power, just because of his floppy blonde hair and the fact that his phone once rang on HIGNFY, is truly frightening.
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