If you work for a living or are on benefits be very afraid of Brexit

Make no mistake, the organisation that is collectively campaigning for what is called Brexit from the European Union, are also, effectively, the enemies of the people. I am the first to admit that many of those campaigning to stay in the EU, such as the British Prime Minister and his Chancellor, are also enemies of the people as they demonstrate every day of their lives, but, the difference at the moment is that we can get rid of them, whereas if we exit the EU we will be governed by a set of the most amoral gangsters imaginable who will consolidate a hold on power that will be almost impossible to break under the Westminster system of election.

When I speak of the people, I am speaking of the majority of the British population who have to work for a living, plus those who cannot, or are unable, to work, the people who depend on a wage or benefits to live on, who depend on a publicly funded health and education system or a state pension in their old age, who cannot afford to buy their home and have to either depend on social housing, or place themselves at the mercy of the gangster elite who rent houses. These are the people that those leading the Brexit campaign have in their sights, because that is what this is all about, attacking the people at the lower end of the class system, lowering their wages, destroying their rights, removing their terms and conditions of service, and reducing the benefits system to levels not seen since the Victorian age. Yesterday I actually listened to one of Britain's foremost political commentators, the appalling Andrew Neil, whom, I am ashamed to admit, is a Scot, a millionaire and a man whose knowledge of politics is lower than my Yorkshire Terrier's, ask why, if it is the will of the majority, workers rights should not be removed by Parliament. This does not affect this loathsome creature of course, because he is a cosseted millionaire working for the BBC. I forget which philosopher it was (although I am sure many of you could tell me), who remarked that just as one person has no right to oppress one million, neither have one million the right to oppress the one. I would also like to remind you that British governments never rule by a majority, so a majority of seats in the Westminster pigsty does not equate to a democratic mandate for anything. For example, in last years general election, the Tories won 36.9% of the votes cast in a 66% turnout which means Camoron's government are ruling this country with 24.4% of all possible votes. Over three-quarters of the electorate did not vote for this government, and they call this a democracy?  

What the EU 'outers' are always banging on about is the amount of regulation we suffer from with respect to our membership of the EU. But what this really means is that the EU is limiting their ability to make obscene profit by imposing regulations that are actually for the benefit of the vast majority of the population and they are determined that this will stop. Our health, welfare and security are of no importance if it affects their ability to loot as much of the national treasury as possible. Most of these regulations are for our own good and designed to prevent immoral gangsters from harming and exploiting us as much as they can. For example the EU provides 57% of British trade at this time of writing and give us back a great deal of structural funding for the regeneration of areas of deprivation, but, the EU also determines how this money is spent. This is seen by the neoliberal free marketer as unnecessary regulation, that the EU should have a say in making sure that this money is spent for the purpose for which it is given. For our protection and security the EU has ensured that we must have clean rivers and beaches, that we have lead free petrol, that we have restrictions on landfill dumping, that we have a recycling culture, that we have consumer protection and food labelling, that we have a ban on growth hormones and food additives, that we have better product safety, that we have workers rights and a greater level of social welfare provisions, that we have a minimum wage and holiday entitlement, that we have directives on working hours with the right not to be forced to work more than 48 hours per week without overtime (I had that right in the 1960's by the way because of union bargaining, but my right was no more than 40 hours per week without overtime), that we have freedom to work and travel throughout the EU.

That list I have just given you is only a small flavour of what the free marketer calls unnecessary regulation, I could go on but do not wish to bore you. The important part of this post is to alert you that all those measures and many more are what we stand to lose if the EU 'outers' led by Nigel Farage and Boris the Spider get their way. These are two men who make no secret of their hatred of working people and their union movement and of all such regulation that is designed for our safety and protection. This is the 'red tape' that they speak of and have successfully convinced a significant section of the British public is actually harming us. These are the same people who make their hatred of the benefit system plain for all to see and cannot wait to let Britain's Eichmann loose on what remains of the benefit system. But most importantly, regardless of how often they may deny it, they are the most frightful racists.

The EU has its faults and is in need of reform and an end to its obsession with free market economics, but at the moment it is all that stands between us and the slavery and poverty that surely awaits us if we place our faith in those who want us to leave. You have been warned

Your Servant
Doktor Kommirat    

 

Governments exist to do what we tell them, not the other way around

I hope I am not putting people off by being too serious but before I return to normal I would like to post some of my fundamental thoughts on government and politics. I trust my posts are not confusing as I do not plan them and just write whatever is spinning around in my feeble brain at the time, although I admit there is normally an identifiable sequence to whatever is occupying me at any given time. I have been writing about how I feel that the discipline of economics has been totally corrupted and I would like to comment on the same phenomenon in politics.

Government is derivative. What I mean by that is that as the human being is a social and regulatory being, we establish regulatory mechanisms and processes that become formalised and institutionalised into what we call politics and government. The most obvious form of regulation is law, and we establish law making mechanisms and institutions. Thus, government is derivative of the natural human inclination to regulate and govern both the human environment, and human behaviour. The greatest form of regulation is the normative order where our value system is translated by custom and practice into everyday norms that express those values and that are often formalised in the legal process. Thus, government is functional and does not exist by right or for its own sake, it exists for a purpose and derives from the fact of human social life. As a result, government arises out of the social, interactive and interdependent nature of the human being, and being in government does not give you the right to do exactly as you please, unaccountable to the people who put you in government in the first place. The following observations are probably applicable to all modern forms of government, but if you will allow me I will make my observations with respect to Britain because that is the system I am most familiar with.

In modern Britain, government has become a form of entitlement for a narrow elite based class of political careerist, regardless of whether they have any talent or ability, and has long since abandoned its role of representing the nation and the people in favour of class and elite interests. Genuine recovery for British society must be preceded by a radical reform of the British political and economic system. British government is wholly unrepresentative, and staffed by a self-serving and self-perpetuating elite that constitutes a form of heredity. The traditional constraints on British government no longer operate effectively and the British need a proper constitution that codifies and formalises their rights as citizens. At this time, the singular most pressing need for the British political system is a reform of the Westminster electoral system and the introduction of a genuine form of proportional representation. Because of the absence of a formal and written constitution, British government is heavily dependent on trust to maintain its authority and its legitimacy, and that trust is evaporating due to the incompetence, greed and outright criminality of successive governments. That is the real impetus behind the rise of a demand for Scottish Independence. Since 1979, successive British governments have ruled by blatant class warfare, which led to serious rioting in British cities in the summer of 2011. These riots are a sign of what is to come unless political and economic priorities are altered, and I have no confidence that such changes will occur. To dismiss such events as the 2011 riots as sheer criminality, as all official accounts have done, is to deny reality.

 Lord Acton famously noted that “power tends to corrupt, and absolute power corrupts absolutely.” In the UK we have a political system where people get voted into office under the auspices of the party system, and for many of them it becomes a job for life. They develop a strong sense of entitlement and become corrupted by the power that comes with office, particularly when that office is largely unaccountable. A British politician has to go through the tedious process of regular election, but it is not they who are being elected; it is their party, for whom they are little more than a cypher. Too many British politicians are of the opinion that the office they are elected to is theirs! They have a right to it; it belongs to them. In government there is a belief that those elected are somehow special and superior to the common man, that they have a right not only to guide the ship of state, but to control its every movement. This is compounded by the class system, whereby a political elite recruit their successors from that same elite. From an early age they progress through an elite education system that socialises them into believing that they are indeed different and entitled to govern. They then progress into leading universities which groom them for elite recruitment into a privileged form of employment that will prepare them for election to the highest offices of state. If there is one thing certain about our representative democracy in the UK, it is that British politicians represent no one but themselves and their class. Our representative democracy is a farce and a disgrace – a self-perpetuating elite minority of public schoolboys. This elite group of so-called experts are so expert, competent and effective that they have endangered the political structure of the United Kingdom by causing the Scots and Welsh and increasingly the Cornish people to demand more and more self-determination and responsibility. They have collapsed the financial system and caused a crisis in our relations with the European Union, the Middle East, Iraq, Iran and Afghanistan. If that were all, it would be bad enough, but they are increasingly a danger to their own population. This expert elite has demonised the working class, single parents, the unemployed, people on benefits, the disabled, significant ethnic groups, black people and Muslims. It passes ever more repressive measures to protect itself from challenge and from the repercussions of its own greed, corruption and incompetence. These actions stem from an arrogant belief that the Anglo-American way of life – its culture, and its political, social and economic systems as interpreted by its elite class – are so self-evidently superior to all other models that it has a duty to impose them, not only on its own people but also on the rest of the world, if the rest of the world is too stupid to recognise them and embrace them. That is why its members exhibit open hatred and contempt for their own people if they happen to be working class, or adhere to a different culture than that espoused by the elite. The ruling classes in both the United Kingdom and the United States will not be challenged, and, if any challenge is mounted by people who believe they are exercising their fundamental human rights, then those human rights will have to be constrained and/or removed. I apologise for the length of this post, but that is the situation we face today and it is one of the results of adopting free market neoliberalism that cannot and will not be subject to either democratic control or democratic accountability. Our civil and political superstructure is indeed a reflection of our economic base and genuine reform of the political system will not emerge until that base is itself reformed. You have been warned

Your Servant
Doktor Kommirat

Freedom, what does it mean?

I do not like to dwell on theoretical matters as it tends to bore people, but in an effort to accurately analyse reality, it is essential that we understand the fundamentals of political and economic theory. I know it sounds arrogant to say that people in high places, such as at the top of government, do not understand politics and economics, but as I have said before on this blog, such people are well-schooled but are not well educated, and I think that is frequently self-evident. For example, I have been discussing the strenuous relationship between freedom and democracy. The concept of freedom is not unproblematic. The neo-liberal agenda continually stresses that freedom is the ultimate human condition and must be the ultimate goal of both politics and economics. This leads them to emphasise that the continual goal of government policies must be to restore and maintain individual freedom, and in this context it is important to remember that to the neo-liberal this primarily means economic freedom. Here the waters become muddied as, taken literally, individual freedom is a meaningless concept. Individual freedom is indeed a basic human right, but has to be seen, as I stressed in the last post, in the context of the human being as a social animal, in that, one person’s exercise of freedom may require the restriction of another’s, and, in economic terms, one person’s use of scarce resources may mean another person’s lack of resources. That is unavoidable and simply a fact of social life but does emphasise the point that freedom cannot be seen as an absolute. Thus, to discuss the concept of freedom in an abstract, desocialised manner, can be a futile exercise, and becomes completely meaningless in the context of starting from the perspective of viewing the human being as an atomised individual which is itself meaningless.

It is this perspective that motivates the dominant bourgeois perspective of the state being an evil, and make no mistake, this is a class perspective, a negative concept that is hostile to the concept of a social and collective perspective, as exemplified by the philosopher Karl Popper who argued that the state is a necessary evil that must not be allowed to grow greater than is absolutely necessary. What I will argue is that the state is neither good nor evil, but essentially reflects the policies and behaviour of the personnel in charge of it at any given point in history. The state is not a “thing” independent of human activity and behaviour; it is an interdependent set of human institutions, an administrative concept for the regulation and administration of any given political entity. People can be evil and can utilise the agencies of the state for evil purposes, but equally, people can be altruistic and concerned for the welfare of others and can therefore utilise the agencies of the state for good. The state can be large, small, intrusive or liberating; it can be whatever the people directing its activities desire it to be.

The neoliberal persistently refers to what we call negative freedom and is instinctively hostile to positive freedom. Thomas Hobbes argued for the negative form of freedom when he argued that
"Liberty, or freedom, signifies, properly, the absence of opposition; by opposition, I mean external impediments of motion. A freeman is he; that in these things, which by his strength and wit he is able to do, is not hindered to do what he has a will to do."

That looks very profound and impressive but is actually meaningless. Am I having my freedom impeded if I am physically or legally prevented from murdering or raping if I have a will to do so? The answer from Hobbes must be yes, and therefore such a definition of freedom is profoundly uncivilised and unacceptable. For freedom to be meaningful it must involve real opportunities. Freedom to do what we want to, freedom from constraint, looks good in theory but is meaningless to those who lack the capacity to do what they wish. It is one thing to argue that all doors are open to us, it is quite another to be able to access them. And all doors are not open in a class and race and gender obsessed society like Britain. As I repeatedly argue, Britain is an exclusive society where if, in theory, all doors are open, government policy is increasingly ensuring that it remains a theory. The empirical reality is that more and more people are being excluded and turned away before they even get to the doors. What we have to ensure is that individuals and social groups are empowered before they can even begin to realise their potential and the increasingly private nature of British society is increasingly making that even more remote. Britain has erected a vision of 'freedom' that ensures that the strong remain in the position where they can freely exploit the weak. If that is freedom then I do not understand what that means. You have been warned

Your Servant
Doktor Kommirat

A capitalists freedom is your slavery

I wrote that capitalism is incompatible with freedom and democracy and I should explain myself because that is far too sweeping and is not necessarily true, but is true in the context of the Anglo/American free market model that dominates my poor benighted country. First, we must always bear in mind the social nature of the human being. This is important because the interactive and interdependent nature of human living means that freedom must never be regarded as an absolute. Human beings are regulatory beings who regulate their environment preventing each individual human doing exactly what they want. Next, the human being is a collective being who can only individuate themselves with reference to other human beings. Thus, individual freedom can only be discussed with reference to the greater social context and the interactive nature of human living, and all talk of free markets, the necessity for and the desirability of, is simply nonsense as there can be no such thing. As I have written before, the concept of a free market is an illusionary fraud and no serious economist or social scientist uses such language.

Now, we speak about capitalism as if it is a definable ‘thing’ that can be accurately described and categorised when it is, in reality, a generic term describing a diverse set of models that attempt to explain and describe human behaviour in the economic sphere. What I mean is that Britain, the USA, Germany, France etc. are all defined as capitalist societies when in fact their economic models are all quite different, in terms of tax arrangements, public sector activity, legal frameworks, the balance of powers between employer and employee etc. Capitalist societies are indeed much more free than authoritarian societies in both the political and civil spheres, but that is because the nature of supply and demand economics and the legal position of private property requires greater legal freedom of choice, movement, decision-making etc. However, once again, such freedoms are never absolute and are subject to the laws, norms, values and systems of justice prevailing in any given society. Thus, the very nature of capitalist economic behaviour, necessitates regulatory controls on that behaviour. An example is the regulation of monopoly activity. Interestingly, free market theory tells us that as the market is self-regulating, monopolies cannot happen, when in the real world, the freer any market is from regulation, the more likely it is that it will develop a monopoly. But the most important contradiction of capitalism is its exclusive nature.

Capitalism is exclusive, in that it excludes those with no capital and is inclusive only to the extent that you can play the game. I am not anti-capitalist because it is self-evident that a competitive market system has demonstrable benefits. It is entrepreneurial, inventive and very productive. It has raised our standard of living quite remarkably and has brought many people out of absolute poverty and degradation. But I also recognise that, if not regulated and monitored, it is extremely destructive and it is this destructive form of capitalism that is the dominant form in the west thanks to the Thatcher/Reagan consensus and the poisonous legacy of people like Milton Friedman and Ayn Rand. As it operates from an exchange of goods and services, and is based on a money economy, if you have no goods and services to offer, or have no money, capitalism has no mechanisms at its disposal to include you. If you are sick, disabled, or circumstances have left you with no form of income, then you will simply perish unless human intervention in this market based economy rescues you and provides you with the means to participate in it. That is the role of the modern state, and why the neoliberal demands a minimal state. Thus, whilst capitalism on one hand demands freedom to pursue economic activity free from interference, it only works when it is regulated. Left to itself the so-called free market removes other freedoms, such as human rights which are seen as constraints on the freedom to make as much profit from your capital as you are able with no regard to other people.
All the founding fathers of economics, Adam Smith, David Hume, John Stuart Mill, Alfred Marshall etc. are all adamant that economics must be regarded as a whole society study and cannot function if only economic activity is considered, separated from the political and social context within which it is operating.

Democracy by its very nature is participatory and inclusive and makes demands (such as a genuine redistribution of resources and power), that constrain economic freedoms. As a result, the modern free market neoliberal model we are dominated by in the West despises democracy because it imposes restraints on economic activity and insists on forms of economic redistribution outwith the market, and so outwith the control of the capitalist class. That is the main complaint the neoliberal has about the EU, a political model that refuses to allow unrestricted market forces to operate, forces that demand the virtual slavery of workers and the pauperisation of the helpless who are seen as uneconomic. The Anglo/American economic model is dangerously exclusive, anti-social and anti-democratic, not only encouraging, but actively promoting obscene inequality, demonization of ‘non-economic actors’ as they like to label people who are unfortunate and disadvantaged, and ferociously elitist. What we have in the UK is a system dominated by a select elite that gives us a vote, calls it a democracy and then quite happily ignores the electorate for the next five years because it knows full well that a genuine democratic system would put most of them in jail.

This topic appears huge and complex, but at its fundamental level is actually quite simple. However, I accept that this post is already too long and I have probably raised more questions than I have provided explanation. To be continued, you have been warned.

Your Servant
Doktor Kommirat

Britain out of Europe - The Contemptible promoting the Unthinkable.

For many years now, when people ask me who I think will win an election I have advised them to go and see what William Hill and Ladbrokes are giving on the result. Bookmakers are the best and most neutral opinion poll you will get. They are not into politics and are only concerned that they are giving odds that will ensure that no matter the outcome they will emerge as winners. It is early days in the long and drawn out campaign we are now engaged in to determine the outcome of the European referendum but today the Stay In campaign are, on average, 2/7, whilst the Out campaign are on 5/2. That is, in betting terms, a substantial lead for the In campaign, giving the Brexit lot a mountain to climb. Ladbrokes are quoting England and Wales at 1/3 to stay and 2/1 to leave and a whopping 1/12 for Scotland to vote to stay against 5/1 to leave. All Scottish parties are supporting the Stay In campaign, even the Scottish Tories, once again demonstrating the therapeutic value of living in Scotland on even the most feverish and damaged brains.

I have decided to give the detailed coverage of this referendum a wide berth as I am already sickened by the lies and fearmongering propaganda from both sides. Other things that bother me are garbage like the speculation over which way Boris the Spider will go. He has decided to back Brexit but who on earth cares what this loathsome upper class buffoon says about anything? It tells you all you want to know about the intelligence of the electorate in large parts of England when they are waiting to see what an imbecile has to say. Yesterday we had the incredible spectacle of Nigel Farage and George Galloway sharing a platform, two people who share a mutual detestation for one another, so everyone must pause and contemplate the nature of the Out campaign. As well as Galloway and Farage, you will be in the delightful company of Duncan-Smith, Michael Gove, Boris the Spider, the Daily Mail, the Express, the Telegraph, UKIP, the English Defence League, the British National Party and every right-wing quasi-fascist imaginable. A greater Chamber of Horrors is hard to imagine.

However, when people ask me I tell them to contemplate the nature of a Britain governed by such people. These are the type of people who caused the financial crisis, who refuse to regulate the financial system but penalise workers at every opportunity, have stripped us of almost all of our employment protection, who wage a continual and savage war against everyone on benefits, who have driven the NHS into effective bankruptcy, who will have everyone on zero-hour contracts as soon as they can, will privatise education and social care, who have destroyed the housing market, the transport network, who want to give the security services total access to our most private spheres of life etc. etc. That is only a glimpse of a future under such people outside of the EU under the figleaf of so-called sovereignty. That is why I call an exit vote unthinkable, not because of the delights of Europe, but because of the genuine sinister nature of going it alone under such atrocious people. Take Galloway out of that picture and you have a group of people advocating unrestricted and unregulated capitalism, a recipe for certain disaster and tyranny. Capitalism, freedom and democracy are fundamentally incompatible. I will explain what I mean by that in another post. You have been warned.

Your Servant
Doktor Kommirat  

The free market is destroying political and civil society

I am persistently asked by people why anyone listens to Donald Trump? They also express disbelief that anyone could vote for him, which, from my perspective, reveals that the Scots still retain a modicum of intelligence and decency. But the answer is not difficult and we should not be surprised by his rise in popularity because he is a typical representative of the dominant free market neoliberal  ideology in both Britain and America. Trump is the logical product of this odious and fraudulent ideology that fosters greed, selfishness, intolerance and hate. We have our own Trumps in Britain, but here they are Eton, Harrow, and Oxbridge educated and are taught how to promote the same poison that he does in the manners and style of a 'gentleman'. In other words, our fascism is genteel and mannerly. For example, only today we are being told that the British government put the deportation of a ninety-two year old woman on hold due to public pressure. Our good Christian Prime Minister was going to deport a ninety-two year old South African woman who has serious heart problems, cannot walk unaided and is losing her eyesight. She came to this country to end her days with her only daughter in Poole in Dorset, but British immigration officials had booked her onto a Virgin flight to Johannesburg this coming Tuesday. I am sure Trump would have eagerly approved and is even now considering building a wall around South Africa to protect the poor helpless British from any more 92 year old potential terrorists and benefit scroungers abusing British hospitality.

In Britain we are approaching a referendum on membership of the European Union and the only topic that is being discussed is immigration. We have just been informed that the referendum will be on June 23rd which is, of course, designed in the hope that the Scots and Welsh will not vote in any great numbers given that they will have just emerged from their own elections for the Scottish Parliament and the Welsh Assembly in May and the Tories are praying that they will suffer from voter fatigue and abstain in order that the Scots in particular will not be able to call for a referendum on Independence if Britain votes to leave the EU on the basis that they did not show enough enthusiasm during the EU referendum. The Tories are many things, but they cannot be accused of inconsistency.

The arguments on immigration all centre around the threat to British jobs and the pressures that immigrants put on our services such as housing, health, transport etc. This is of course nonsense since all of these pressures arise, not from immigration, but from the savage cuts that the Tories have made in all of those areas. The other major cause is the privatisation of most of these services. Interestingly, this argument, about the pressures on our services, is in fact a damning indictment on the free market as all of the arguments about privatisation centred on the promises that this would not, and could not happen once market forces were allowed to rescue our services from the carnage wrought by the public sector. However, what can you expect if you place the responsibility for health, care, housing etc. in the hands of disciples of Adolf Eichmann.

So, we are in a position where our politics have been reduced to the level of Donald Trump and David Camoron and our civil society is motivated by building walls rather than by building bridges as the Pope was so gracious to point out, by hate, greed and racism. Adam Smith would condemn this society and its ruling elite root and branch. Remember, there is no such thing as a free market, it is a lie and an illusion, but worse it is a cruel deception. You have been warned

Your Servant
Doktor Kommirat

Wouldn't It be nice if Everyone Boycotted the Tories.

The British government is increasingly revealing its authoritarian nature with its latest initiative that is a quite serious attack on democracy and freedom. All publicly funded bodies are to be banned in law from boycotting certain companies and particularly Israeli interests. Local councils, public and student bodies for example, refuse to buy from, or trade with, those considered to be unethical companies such as firms engaged in the arms trade, tobacco companies etc. In addition, they have deeply held convictions about Israeli policy towards the Palestinians and so exercise a boycott policy towards particular Israeli based firms. Now, whether they are right to do so is one question, and whether they have a right to do so is something quite different. The answer is that of course they have every right to do so, even if you or I deeply disagree with their decision. I have been a very keen student of the Arab/Israeli conflict all of my life and have very definite views about it. However, my views are of no importance on this issue, because this is not an issue about foreign policy or the Middle /East conflict, but about human individual and collective rights. This is about democracy and freedom and about the limits of central government. If a local authority engages in activities that people feel are unacceptable, we have a perfectly satisfactory sanction against them to prevent them doing it. It is called an election where we can vote them out of office. However, if their activity satisfies the majority of the people under their care, then it is absolutely no business of central government regardless of how odious they find it, and we ignore such central government interference at our peril.

I boycott many things. In my daily life I exercise my right to choose who I will deal with and who I wont. For example, I have never bought a Sun newspaper in my life. Neither have I bought a Daily Mail nor a Daily Express. I refuse to allow a government minister into my home and so, if the Camoron or any of his henchmen appear on my TV I immediately switch channels as I would have to move out of my home for a time to allow it to be deloused and fumigated if one of these creatures fouled my house by their presence. Mad Tony has been barred from my home since 1999. I have never bought a spoonful of petrol from Shell in my life. I could go on, but you get the point. You may think I am mad and I can assure you that you would be quite accurate, but those are my choices. If I am in a waiting room or a public place and they are providing newspapers for my convenience, I will read the Sun etc. to ensure that I am still doing the right thing. I often peruse the Mail and the Express in a tearoom that I frequent as it reinforces my conviction that they are deserving of my contempt and refusal to give them a halfpenny. You may think that is being hypocritical but it is my way of checking my own behaviour and that I am not being unjust towards those I hold in contempt. In his book 'Representative Government' John Stuart Mill argues that

‘The very object of having a local representation, is in order that those who have any interest in common which they do not share with the general body of their countrymen may manage that joint interest by themselves.’

Thus, if the people of London, Glasgow, or Moreton-on-the-Marsh, wish to impose a boycott then that is their right, even if their motivation is wrong in your eyes. The people in Liverpool deserve our congratulations and praise for maintaining a very honourable boycott of The Sun over its deplorable and deeply dishonest coverage of the Hillsborough disaster. Another important point of understanding is that local government must genuinely mean government and not simply local administration. A proper system of democracy demands genuine limited government with clearly defined independent centres of power, legitimacy of power and decision-making, genuine representation and as wide a dispersal of power as is necessary. For example, representation in the Westminster pigsty is quite farcical and would be considered a standing joke were it not for the  serious repercussions it has on this poor democratically deficient nation. As a result, local government is not an additional extra, it is a necessary requirement for a healthy and functional political system. The principle of local government is designed to satisfy such requirements as is neatly summed up by Mill. If such local responsibility were to be replaced by centralised administration from London or anywhere else, it is argued that such local individuality of approach would be sacrificed to uniformity, and that the adaptability of local decision-making would give way to rigidity and the centralised imposition of a bureaucratic ‘only one way’ of doing things. As local government enjoys a degree of autonomy from the centre, the power of the state is therefore fragmented and limited, indeed the elimination of local government is generally taken as a symptom of totalitarianism, a development within British politics I have now been highlighting for some years now, with one of the prime symptoms being an unrelenting war against local government.

The diversity of life in any modern state requires different approaches to similar problems. For example, consider policing or refuse collection. It is not rocket science to understand that the solutions to both such fundamental requirements of modern life require differing methods of implementation in different locations. Policing and refuse collection in London or Glasgow will be markedly different in style and implementation from that in Ross and Cromarty or Cornwall. The principles remain the same, but the methodology will differ quite considerably. As a result, direct responsibility for the government of a locality can harness powerful forces on behalf of that community and imaginative and meaningful solutions to local issues. It is for those reasons that a decision (such as a boycott) by a local authority or any other autonomous body is none of central government's business and its intervention should be resisted as powerfully as is necessary. Thus, in response to this government's quite stupid proposal, I suggest we all boycott the Tory Party as a first step towards Britain regaining a semblance of civilisation. You have been warned.

Your Servant
Doktor Kommirat

United Kingdom? You having a laugh?

One of the worst characteristics of British culture is the deeply embedded concept that some people are our betters. The abiding characteristic of British society is social class, and the mainstay of the class system, the institution that justifies and institutionalises inequality, privilege, elitism; that maintains and supports the class system and everything that is wrong about Britain, is the monarchy. The monarchy is the living embodiment of a system that tells us that some are better than others, that some are deserving of privilege and power whilst others are only there to support the elite. The British elite indeed genuinely believe that they are an elite, not of ability, not of achievement, but simply of birth and position. They openly speak about the lower orders. I have come to the conclusion that if I was ever to meet Prince Charles, that I would probably like him. He seems a decent sort to me and the kind of man I would be happy to go for a pint with. In my world there are two kinds of people, those I would share a pint with and those I wouldn't. Charles comes into the former. However, that does not blind me to the fact that he represents a system I am deeply opposed to. I would cheerfully welcome Charles as my next door neighbour, but I doubt very much if he would welcome me. That is not his fault, as I suspect that he is a prisoner to his environment, I do not know that, but would be very surprised if he was not. But, in my experience, elite and privileged institutions must tread carefully as they can be subject to sudden reversals of their fortunes. 

In my lifetime I have witnessed changes in Scottish society that would have been deemed impossible at times. Three of the most dominant and seemingly impregnable institutions in Scottish culture have collapsed during my lifetime and no-one could have predicted it only a few years earlier. In the early 1950's the Scottish Conservatives, then known as the Conservative and Unionist Party, rode the dominant position of garnering over 50% of all votes cast in Scotland. Anyone at that time who had suggested that within 50 years they would be left with not one MP in Scotland would have been sectioned. With their demise, the Labour Party established a stranglehold on Scottish politics for the next 50 years, and, following the referendum, they have literally collapsed and are predicted to lose all of their constituency seats at the coming Scottish elections. The other dominant force in Scotland was Rangers Football Club, who collapsed even faster than Labour and the Tories. The common thread linking all of these institutions was corruption and hubris. Labour and the Tories in Scotland became totally corrupt in both an ideological and structural sense. They adopted a sense of entitlement and elitism (a poison that afflicted Rangers too) that estranged them from the people and led them both to believe that they embodied the soul and the will of the people, when nothing could have been further from the truth. As Confucius told us, all things seemingly united will eventually become divided. This is the fate of the United Kingdom, the result of corruption and hubris.

When Scotland becomes an independent nation, it will be essential in my humble opinion that it is established on republican principles. There will be no place for a Royal Family if Scotland is to attain to its goals of an open, democratic, fair and just society. There is no real openness, no proper democracy, no fairness and justice in a monarchy. All British history shows that if openness and transparency, accountability, democracy, fairness and justice even mildly threaten the monarchical, aristocratic, elitist nature of British society, then they will be crushed. As Adam Smith warns us
"To hurt in any degree the interest of one order of citizens, for no other purpose but to promote that of some other, is evidently contrary to that justice and equality of treatment which the sovereign owes to all the different orders of his subjects."
That is what the British class system practices and perpetrates every minute of every day, it is the essence of what Britain is, the deliberate hurt of one order to promote the interests of another and the foundation of that system is the monarchy. You have been warned

Your Servant
Doktor Kommirat.       

Doctors Beware, You're doing exactly what Hunt wants you to do.

Since I started this blog I have been warning that the Tories are determined to destroy the NHS in Britain and privatise it for profit. The dispute between the doctors and the government, culminating in the government imposing the new contract against the wishes of the medical profession is no accident. This dispute has been deliberately created by the government who had all along the intention of forcing a new contract on doctors for the purpose of driving as many doctors out of the NHS as possible. This is what the Tories want. They want the NHS to collapse in order that they can then claim that they are forced to turn to the private sector to save it. It has been their policy all along.

The thing that characterises this strike is the barefaced lying of the government through its spokesperson the sinister Jeremy Hunt. In announcing that he was imposing the contract he claimed to have the support of the top 20 CEOs in the NHS in England in a letter he had received supporting him. This was immediately denied by the named CEOs and is the front story in today's press. Tories lie, that is what they do, and they are totally barefaced and shameless about it. If anyone reads this from outside the UK we had the spectacle yesterday of Prime Minister Cameron's own mother and his aunt signing a petition against the cuts he is imposing on Oxfordshire council where he and his family live. His mother and aunt have told him enough is enough. British politics has the stamp of PG Wodehouse at times, you really couldn't make it up. Doctors are educated people. They can read and understand the offer that is being given to them, they don't need it to be explained to them When Hunt continually tells us that they doctors are being misled by their union, the BMA, as one the doctors tell us that this is just nonsense and that they are insulted and demeaned by the suggestion that they cannot understand the offer without external help. All doctors interviewed by the media say the same thing, Hunt is a liar. He has lied persistently and consistently about the offer, the negotiations, the conditions within hospitals at weekends and the necessity for a seven-day week. What we are being asked to believe by the Tories is that Hunt is the victim of 53,000 lying medical professionals and their representatives. He is the only one telling the truth.

But this is all part of the game for the Tories. The greater the crisis in the NHS the more they are happy and content, as they see the rewards of their labour coming to fruition with the conditions being created that will allow them to destroy the hated NHS and bring it to an end. This dispute is not over because now that the junior doctors have new terms and conditions, the rest of the staff in the NHS will have to follow suit to accommodate the new doctors working conditions. So, now the government will go for the consultants, nurses and ancillary staff. That is a certainty. Tories are evil and driven by one motivation only, to make as much money as is possible. In pursuit of this they will destroy anyone who gets in their way or seeks to challenge them. To this end they have been applying the shock doctrine to the NHS for many years now and this dispute is the latest chapter in this process. However, revolutions always come from the middle classes and, having effectively broken the working classes they are now turning on their natural supporters. In addition, doctors now have the example of the Scottish NHS to look to. Rather than leaving the NHS they should stay and launch all-out war against this government and a Prime Minister who has even disgusted his own mother. There are alternatives, there are choices. I do not wish to appear arrogant, but everything I have been telling you since I started this blog has been accurate so far. The support for an Independent Scotland has now reached a clear majority of 58%, and, if the larger British picture continues to become ever more unequal and unfair this majority will continue to grow. You have been warned.

Your Servant
Doktor Kommirat 

The British are simply devoid of moral decency

The arrogance and complete selfishness of the British elite and their utter contempt for the democratic process was exposed when David Cameron told his MPs to ignore their constituency members and vote with their conscience in the coming European referendum. So, for the Westminster criminals, what the voters and their own party membership, the people who elect them into office, whose taxes pay their salaries, expenses, pensions etc. have to say on a matter that will determine the future of the United Kingdom for the foreseeable future is of absolutely no consequence. The inhabitants of the Westminster pigsty and the rest of their right-wing free market imbecilic supporters are devoid of any form of moral compass. I listened to a spokesperson for the Taxpayers Alliance arguing for seven day a week shopping and NHS services and noted how this was, in their opinion, a matter of individual freedom. What about the individual and collective freedom of the people she was demanding will have to work in order that she can have her little piece of individual freedom? According to her this is a serious case of the right to freedom of choice. However, this is an example of how these people haven't a clue what they are talking about. They latch onto a concept and regurgitate it as if it was holy writ when it is obvious they don't even begin to understand it. Freedom is not an absolute. Like everything else, it is a finite resource. An exercise of one person's freedom is almost certain to mean a restriction of someone else's. If you wish to exercise your freedom to shop 24 hours a day seven days a week then you had better speedily understand that you are seriously restricting other people's freedom to allow yourself that luxury. What about the freedom of the people you are in effect demanding must work to satisfy your particularly selfish demand for freedom? When will they be free to shop, or to care for their families, or to indulge in recreational activities?
This is Camoron's approach to democracy. It is significant of the political mentality in today's Britain that this vile creature would make such a public announcement in the House of Commons. It is also a cruel joke to continue to call this disreputable establishment 'the Commons' as it is simply a social club for the Oxbridge elite.

One of the essential differences between the people who live in England and those who live in Scotland is that, despite the fact that, beginning with Thatcher, the Westminster gang have systematically and quite deliberately destroyed Britain's industrial infrastructure, despite the fact that they destroyed the coal, steel and manufacturing industries, and with their savage austerity programme have starved the education and health sectors, have almost destroyed the caring sector, have wrecked the rail and transport network etc. (I could go on here to write a book about their crimes), the people who live in England insist on blaming immigrants, the EU and the unions, whilst the people in Scotland have laid the blame firmly where it belongs at Westminster's door. Britain's problems are blindingly obvious but, apart from Scotland, the British continually support the criminals who caused our problems and seek to scapegoat their stupidity and complete lack of moral fibre by blaming 'the other'. The Scots live in no doubt who is to blame, that is why the SNP have the levels of support that they enjoy.

Most people in Scotland are not nationalists, the referendum showed that. If the Labour Party had a scintilla of moral courage and apologised for Mad Tony, New Labour, the Iraq War and the appalling cronyism that has benighted Scotland for decades then they could make a reasonable comeback. But even in the face of the overwhelming rejection of the Scottish people they still refuse to face reality. That is their choice and they will reap what they sow. Even the London based press are beginning to notice what I have been telling you since I started this blog, that the Tories are systematically building an authoritarian one-party state. If the English vote to leave the EU they will live to regret it, but in the meantime the Scots will vote to leave the UK. We are far too intelligent and civilised to tolerate such a scenario. You have been warned

Your Servant
Doktor Kommirat 

Unions, who needs them?

The British public has an irrational hatred of trades unions. This hatred has been assiduously fomented over the past 40 years by the Tories, the Westminster pigsty in general and by a Tory union hating press and media under the malign influence of the Murdoch empire and neo-Nazis such as the editors of the British tabloid newspapers. I am sure Britain is not unique in this and that it is a universal feature of all free market economies, but in this country it is an artificially created phenomenon with the purpose of preparing the way for the eventual enslavement of working people caused by the removal of any rights and ability to challenge the employer class.

That this hatred is irrational is shown by the fact that it is the democratic and rights based social culture that the British have inherited from the passion and struggle of trades unions throughout the past 200 years that enable people to express that hatred. I continually speak to people who express contempt for the union movement, which, of course, they dismiss as 'socialist' when it is demonstrably obvious that it is no such thing. These are people whose whole working and social existence can be demonstrated as deriving in many ways from union struggles in the past. I was reminded of this when I was speaking to a gay friend who was disparaging unions. I reminded him that one of the greatest boosts that the gay liberation cause gained in this country was when the Labour Party adopted gay rights as a fundamental human right because of the bloc vote of the National Union of Mineworkers. Labour was forced into adopting gay rights, they were not supportive, and the person most responsible for dragging Labour into civilisation was, at that time, the most hated man in Britain, Arthur Scargill.

The next time you embark on your holidays, or access your old age pension, or claim overtime for working more than an eight hour day, I ask you to pause and think where such benefits derive from? If you are claiming unemployment benefit, or any other form of social security, if you enjoy a workplace pension, if you enjoy a hot meal in a works canteen, ask yourself where such things had their genesis? Indeed, most people enjoy pay levels that have been established by trade union bargaining whether they belong to a union or not, because the employer has to pay a rate that has been set elsewhere by a trade union in order to attract the skill required. Why do you think that the Tory establishment wants the destruction of unions? Because they want the destruction of all your working rights in order that they can dictate your working life and prevent you protecting your job, your conditions of employment and your conditions of retirement, that's why! Why do you think they want you to vote yourself out of the EU? The big question at the referendum will be immigration, but that is simply a scapegoat to take your eyes off the real prize, the destruction and removal of your human rights. They have created the classic Nazi scare tactic, the fear of the other, Johnny Foreigner, in order that you lose sight of what their real goal is. If immigration is putting a strain on social services such as housing, health services, education etc. it is only because the Tories have starved these services of funds in the first place. That situation can be easily remedied if we have the will, but we have been reduced to such a greedy selfish tax and foreigner hating mob by years of Tory propaganda that we no longer have either the will or the common decency.

It is not the withdrawal from the EU you should fear, it is what will happen once the Tories have removed the British from the protection of Human Rights, the European Courts and destruction of civilisation that will follow. Once again I am confident in the civilisation and intelligence of the Scottish people that we will avoid this looming nightmare by withdrawing from the UK in the event of such a scenario. If such things do occur, then the only protection that ordinary people will have in what is left of the UK is their union movement, but by then it may be too late as your hatred will ensure the castration of all union activities as it has in all right-wing authoritarian states. The unions are the last bastion of democratic accountability as there is now no hope for you in Westminster. You dismiss trades unions at your peril. Who needs trade unions? you do, now more than ever. You have been warned

Your Servant
Doktor Kommirat