Like many, I sat down last night to watch the debate between Johnson and Corbyn on ITV. Probably like many too, I was hissing and cursing like a scorned witch at the television by the end of it.
What happened was what I’d predicted. Brexit. Fucking Brexit. I’m sick of the word- and not in a “leavers and remainers now just want to see us Get Brexit Done” kind of way.
I’m so tired and furious of it being used as a shield by the Tories to hide from any other subject matter. To avoid close scrutiny as to why our public services are suffering so badly and only getting worse when they have been in power FOR NINE YEARS.
I do not just want to hear these people talk about Brexit. Even one of the Liberal Democrats, Layla Moran on BBC Breakfast this morning- clearly in a huff because they weren’t part of the debate- said it was scandalous there wasn’t a Remain voice in the debate because “this is a Brexit Election”.
This isn’t a Brexit election and if you think it is, you are talking from a place of utter privilege. If you think that is the only issue we have right now, give your head a wobble. You haven’t sat holding a shaking relative before they went into a PIP assessment. Seen them crying because they had no food or gas because they got sanctioned. Worried that they were going to Daniel Blake in the middle of the job centre, then were forced to represent themselves at another appeal, which they inevitably won, but then had to repeat the whole process again six months down the line.
I want them to explain why Jayne Rae, a woman dying of cancer, did more this week to try and save the NHS before she passed days later than Johnson has done in his entire career. I wanted to see him challenged more about the outright lie he told about not privatising the NHS when there is countless evidence that this has already been happening for years.
I wanted to hear about Universal Credit and the people whose lives it has ruined and what Labour’s plans were to replace it with when they scrap it, as they have pledged.
I want to demand an explanation as to why at least four homeless people have died in freezing temperatures this week in Camden, Wakefield, Glasgow and Nottingham.
When you look at the track record of the two main contenders for the Dec 19 UK General Election, it shouldn’t even be a debate who the next Prime Minister should be.
I don’t fangirl over Corbyn. All politicians should be subject to scrutiny and accountability at all times, he is no exception. But if you seriously think he was the weaker of the two last night then you only want to engage in soundbite politics and have been conditioned to distrust anyone who doesn’t give rehearsed and deliberately misleading answers.
I think he could have explained his answer on the Brexit question better. It is ludicrous that the Conservative and the Lib Dems are demanding to know which side he would campaign for and suggesting that it is dodgy that he wouldn’t do so, and I think he should have said this.
But think about it. What is dodgy is that any public servant- which a Prime Minister is supposed to be- would actively campaign for either. Their job, apparently, is to listen to what people want and do what will benefit the public best, not their donors and CEO’s of large corporations.
I was what we call a reluctant remainer. Many were. I find the EU inconsistent, bureaucratic and often sinister, but even I can see the obvious nightmare of cutting us off on an island while we have this plethora of twats in power. Why would anyone be so adamantly for Leave or Remain when we haven’t seen what the options are? That is just picking a team for the sake of it. If a good deal was negotiated- which the Tories haven’t-I would happily vote for that rather than Remain again.
I don’t want to have to wear a sign begging people not to call an ambulance if I have an epileptic seizure like people in the US are because an ambulance ride costs thousands of dollars.
I don’t want Priti Patel stood with that wretched smirk on her face at Margaret Thatcher Airport with her rubber glove on ready to personally violate every single person trying to leave or enter Britain.
I don’t like the country they have created in nine years and I wanted the Prime Minister challenged on this, but he wasn’t, because Brexit has been a convenient vessel for which to deflect responsibility and sell us more lies we know are bullshit, but still swallow every time. We have always been at war with Eastasia.
Whenever Boris Johnson is quizzed as to what his plans are for the country, he will immediately provoke the country’s most base emotions and manipulate our outrage. He and his team will yell “Get Brexit Done” and everyone claps. But they won’t get Brexit done because they’ve had three years and as many Prime Ministers to do it, and their excuse that it is everyone else’s fault and not theirs just doesn’t wash anymore.
His other trick is to scream provocative yet empty promises at us. “FULL LIFE SENTENCES FOR CHILD MURDERERS” was his latest. Because honestly, who doesn’t hate child murderers? He knows most people are instantly going to agree with that and that anyone trying to question it will be shouted down like we’d suggested Fred and Rose West should be on the next five pound note. The idea of someone harming children makes us recoil. It is every parent’s worst nightmare, and that’s why this kind of tactic always works.
But ultimately a full life sentence won’t stop those children being killed in the first place, so why is Boris Johnson not proposing measures that may stop it happening in the first place? Why has his party stripped funding to domestic abuse and children’s services, refuges, legal aid, youth work, alcohol, drug, mental health and disability services and all the other protective factors that might spot early warning signs and stop this happening in the first place. Why do they think they are any better than a child abuser when they refused to spend millions of pounds they were allocated to alleviate child poverty?
The refusal to engage in meaningful debate, the mainstream media’s utter inability to challenge on the open lying they participate in and dirty tactics of doctoring videos and pretending to be an independent fact check body- something they insist is normal behaviour- show the absolute contempt they have for the public and how stupid they think we are.
If your life if hard now, it is about to get worse if the Conservatives win this election. Every problem you have is a direct result of their policies or is at the very least exacerbated by them. Labour will not bring down capitalism like the Conservatives claim. I wish to god they would. Corbyn is not the “Far Left” renegade they make him out to be. By voting Labour you are not going to be living in some dystopic republic where we all wear grey uniforms and have to serve two years in the Black Bloc before being forced to work as a vegan propagandist in a gulag ran by the IRA. It just means that outright institutional cruelty will not be made to feel normal to you. If you want to leave the EU, this is your best chance, with someone who actually has some negotiation skills, rather than having an agenda to just sell everything working class people fought for.
Stop saying you are sick of being asked to give your voice to political decisions and demand that they give you more say in what is happening to you right now.
It is far scarier if they stop doing that, for real.
punkfoodbandita 