Dessert has arrived. It’s confusing. An industrial block of ice cream. Some broken biscuits and a few bananas nudged in. Snapped Oreos are jammed in the side of the block and it’s finished with five butterflied satsuma segments, four raisins and a squabble of chocolate sauce. I’ve seen, ‘Hello To The Queen’ on every travellers’ menu since Fort Kochin. It seems to have some heritage here, but a quick Google suggests that no-one knows what it is, where it came from or how to make it. There was no, ‘Up Yours Elizabeth’. I’d have preferred that. I’m reminded of Blighty and I consider the forthcoming election.

Three million Britons were injured in WW2 and up to 380,758 fatally.[1] All these armless, legless, faceless, limping, blind, traumatized veterans pushed the envelope for the formation of a state funded system of care. As if it could be any other way? The NHS was formed, along with a number of other social reforms at the time. Well, if you’re going to get your body and spirit blown to pieces in a foreign field for your country, your country had better throw you some kind of a bone to replace yours. Social rights have not been handed out lightly over history and we should do everything in our power to ensure that the NHS remains in state hands. The current Tory government is in the process of de-constructing the NHS and outsourcing to its friends. The list of Tory parliamentarians who stand to profit from this decision is far from anything resembling democracy.[2] The fear is that when the end game of our care system becomes financial gain, the end game stops being about care. I for one, do not like to be taxed, knowing full well that – without my consent – that money is lining the pockets of international, ‘Mad C**ts’[3] like RB.

This process is being replicated in other areas of our society to meet the goals of neoliberalism. What should be state systems and services are being placed in the hands of our countries richest people for profit.  Despite the massive constant failings of huge corporate bodies like Olympic bunglers G4S, the Tories continually hand them multi-million pound contracts within our social justice system. As it’s important that our loved ones rush to the hospital is not preceded by a phone call to our insurance company to check whether we can afford the bill, social justice can not be doled out with profit in mind. We only have to look to the States to see how a system of ‘prisoners for profit’ results in the largest per-person level of incarceration in the world. The US has 4% of the world’s population and 22% of the worlds prisoners.[4] How do we make money from prisons? More prisoners. Watch the short documentary, Prisons for Profit[5] on how for-profit prisons effect staff, prisoners and the community.

Linked with the xenophobia and fascism of ‘Brexit’ and the rise of Admiral Ackbar,[6] we are constantly sold the story that the Austerity agenda is required because of immigrants and benefits scroungers siphoning away the public purse. Asylum seekers in the UK are below the EU average. As a percentage we have less immigration than the US, Australia, Japan, France and the immigrant community is actually under-represented in the field of benefit claims in the UK.[7] This meme was shared by The Other 98% on Facebook:

The National Audit Office estimated an £850bn[8] cost to the taxpayer to bail out UK banks. The UK could have used this to pay for the entire NHS for 8 years, our whole education system for 20 years, or 200 years of Jobseekers Allowance.[9] On top of this, Corporation tax is lower today than at any time in history. All this while the poor are blamed and pitted against each other. Collette said to me while discussing this last night, ‘Well there are too many people on benefits.’ This may be so. But when we’re prioritizing what is best for the wealth and health of the vast majority of people in the UK, the issue of over payment of benefits comes well down the list when considering other costs to the taxpayer.

This neoliberal and eternal focus on growth, growth and growth, at all costs, means that the UK has constantly been in foreign wars for resources since the Iraq war.[10]A war that cost 1million Iraqi lives and the death of 179 British service personnel.[11] A war that Jeremy Corbyn opposed then. Always has. According to the Chilcot report he was always right. In fact, Corbyn’s historical voting record speaks for itself and the integrity of the man. Compare this to Theresa May who says one thing in public and then casts her vote the opposite way. She voted to increase tuition fees to £9000. She voted for the war on Iraq. She voted for troops in Libya. She voted for Bedroom Tax – which has literally crippled many of the most needy in this country – and she has voted for strikes in Syria.[12] And now, ‘Brexit means Brexit’. Imagine how that quote reverberates around the rest of the EU with whom we must now amicably negotiate our best terms.

Many people criticize Corbyn’s oration. Or his beard. Or his clothes. Or some other petty snub that anyone who has left their brain at the door would make. I have huge groups of friends who would never vote for Corbyn in a million years. And I have absolutely no idea why. Oh wait: [13]

RIDICULOUS, I MEAN WHO IS GOING TO VOTE FOR A MAN WITH A BEARD?

JEREMY CORBYN WILL BE CHEERED BY RACISTS AND TERRORISTS
Telegraph

REVEALED: HOW JEREMY CORBYN WELCOMED THE PROSPECT OF AN ASTEROID ‘WIPING OUT’ HUMANITY, ATTACKED ‘PIGEON PREJUDICE’ AND DEMANDED A BAN ON ACTION MAN TOYS
Mail Online

JEREMY CORBYN IS A STRANGER TO RESPONSIBILITY AND WILL LOATHE LEADERSHIP
The Independent

FOX NEWS ATTACKS JEREMY CORBYN AS A ‘BEARDED VEGETARIAN SOCIALIST’ WHO HATES AMERICA
Huffington Post

JEREMY CORBYN CAN’T BE TRUSTED OVER IRA SYMPATHY
Belfast Telegraph

JEREMY CORBYN INSULT TO OUR HEROES
The Express

JEREMY CORBYNS FOREIGN POLICY WOULD BE A DISASTER FOR BRITAIN
City AM

Contrast that nonsense with the key labour pledges heading into the forthcoming election. There’ll be terrorists and gays dancing in the streets:

Halting Tory care closures

Scrap the pay cap on NHS workers wages

Increase Carers Allowance

Protecting police budgets

Cap school class sizes

Extending free school meals

Rights for renters pledge on habitation standards

1 million new affordable homes

A 20 Point plan of new employment rights including:

Banning zero hour contracts, and

Four new Bank Holidays

A vote for parliament on the final Brexit deal

Introduction of an EU Rights and Protections Bill

[14]

Please do your own research before deciding who will genuinely support you best. Personally, I’d much rather be led by someone who is genuine, will lose sleep over what is the best thing to do for us, but bumbles a bit. And the sooner we can say, ‘Goodbye to the Queen’, the better.

[1] Commonwealth War Graves Commission via: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_War_II_casualties#Charts_and_graphs

[2] http://socialinvestigations.blogspot.in/2012/02/nhs-privatisation-compilation-of.html

[3] http://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/2015/04/02/frankie-boyle-calls-richard-branson-mad-ct-over-global-warming_n_6990728.html

[4] Roy Walmsley (November 21, 2013). World Prison Population List (tenth edition). International Centre for Prison Studies. Retrieved July 11, 2014.

[5] http://www.imdb.com/title/tt3520104/plotsummary?ref_=tt_ov_pl

[6] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B2_59njgKKs

[7] ‘Austerity: The Demolition of the Welfare State and The Rise of the Zombie Economy’, Kerry-Anne Mendoza.

[8] https://www.theguardian.com/politics/reality-check-with-polly-curtis/2011/sep/12/reality-check-banking-bailout

[9] ‘Austerity: The Demolition of the Welfare State and The Rise of the Zombie Economy’, Kerry-Anne Mendoza.

[10] https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2009/feb/13/resource-wars-david-king

[11] http://www.bbc.com/news/uk-10637526

[12] http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/theresa-may-voting-record-house-of-commons-new-prime-minister-conservative-leader-tory-fox-hunting-a7132601.html

[13] http://www.neonnettle.com/feed/184-10-most-anti-jeremy-corbyn-headlines-ever-written-by-the-uk-press

[14] http://www.standard.co.uk/news/politics/labour-manifesto-general-election-2017-what-will-be-in-it-and-when-will-it-be-released-a3529606.html