#SwindonsSundaySermon: the Labour cronyism scandal you may have missed

Isn’t it incredible?

The Labour Party goes apoplectic with rage when a couple of their MPs are refused entry in to Israel, but couldn’t care less when Israel is quite literally evaporating entire families in the blink of an eye.

Thankfully, the remaining MPs did still happily pose for a photo opportunity AFTER their colleagues were refused entry. I’m living the solidarity.

Labour and the corporate media: like flies around Israel’s shit

The corporate media are way more offended by two Youth Demand supporters leaving a few fake children’s body bags in David Lammy’s garden than they are by the sight of grief-stricken parents carrying the few body parts that remain of their precious child, in a plastic carrier bag.

A vast majority of British journalists and broadcasters — many on the payroll of tax-shy foreign billionaires and dodgy lobbyists — feed on the frenzy surrounding the fascistic flump Trump without a single mention of the systematic targeting of journalists working in Gaza.

Note to UK media: Israel has murdered more than 200 of your colleagues, since October 2023, and instead of growing a fucking set and speaking up for humanity, you just carry on trying to flog the antisemitism dead horse. Why?

Would I tiptoe into ludicrous Lammy’s front garden to decorate it with body bags? No. But in a situation as dire as Gaza, drastic non-violent means are entirely justified and I applaud anyone that is willing to put their own neck on the line for the greater good.

Meanwhile, if you’re a disabled person…

Like many of you, I have been keeping a close eye on the events surrounding Labour’s savage, callous and utter unnecessary attacks on the sick and disabled people of Britain.

It was Keir Starmer’s turn to sit in front of the Work and Pensions Liaison Committee, this past week, and he decided the best line of defence was to criticise the Office for Budget Responsibility (OBR) for not agreeing with him.

This daft approach might have made just a little bit more sense had Starmer’s own government not put through the Budget Responsibility Act in October, last year, requiring the government to actually listen to the OBR.

Starmer spent much of his time in opposition lauding the OBR and their work in attempting to hold Conservative governments to account.

But here we are, witnessing Keir Starmer wriggle like a gutless red Tory worm on a hook, dismissing the OBR findings because they do not support his and Rachel from accounts claim of Britain’s sick and disabled people finding sudden and miraculous cures to lifelong illnesses and conditions, and returning to the workplace, bright-eyed and bushy tailed.

I’m no supporter of the OBR. It was set up by the coalition government in 2010, which should tell you pretty much everything that you need to know, and some may argue that it is an anti-democratic quango.

But, and to their credit, they are correct to predict that Labour’s assault on sick and disabled people is likely to push at least 250,000 people into desperate poverty. I think we all know each other well enough to agree, the appalling quarter-of-a-million figure is likely to be a massive underestimation.

Getting rid of the quangos. Well, the Tory ones, anyway…

Talking of quangos, former PwC consultant, Oli de Botton has been appointed as Keir Starmer’s “expert adviser on education and skills”. His ‘job’ will be to “advise ministers and drive forward the government’s vision for education and skills”.

What I did find quite remarkable about this appointment is the fact Oli’s wife, Amber de Botton, was director of communications at 10 Downing Street under the Tories in 2022 and 2023, when Rishi Sunak was screwing everything up.

Amber is now the Chief Communications Officer for the Guardian.

Surely the de Botton’s must be the first example of a married couple being appointed political advisers to governments of a different party, albeit with the same rancid, neoliberal ideology?

I wonder what would happen if the government appointed a few ordinary people, rather than wedge open the revolving door between the Labour and Conservative parties?

Perhaps a headmaster, a school teacher, or maybe even a fucking dinner lady could do a considerably better job advising the government on “education and skills”, instead of some private-schooled luvvy with a name that makes you think of de butt cheeks whenever you see it?

Cronyism for them, cuts for us

Keir Starmer was supposed to bring an end to cronyism. Indeed, the compulsive liar of a prime minister pledged to slash the number of regulators, cultural institutions and advisory bodies, which are funded by taxpayers but not directly controlled from Whitehall.

But this is Keir Starmer, and his Labour government has already set up more than TWENTY new quangos since taking office, less than a year ago.

So why does the government feel it is fair to cut disability money when the government of 2022/23 spent an eye-watering £353 BILLION on quangos?

This awful government thinks it’s easier to rinse disabled people for everything they have than it is to find a few savings across more than three hundred unelected regulators and advisory bodies with an annual budget that could build six hundred brand new hospitals, every damn year.

Doesn’t this tell you absolutely everything you need to know about this anti-poor, pro-cronyism shitheap of a fraudulent Labour administration?

Cuts for chronically ill people, jobs for the boys for them.

Anger when they can’t send a couple of Labour MPs to Israel for some brainwashing, but utterly acquiescent to the unimaginable suffering of a Palestinian child.

A long, cold winter for Britain’s pensioners, free Coldplay tickets for Keir Starmer.

A celebration of poverty wages for us, and £94,000 a year basic for them, which isn’t their fault, of course.

Labour: betraying us week in, week out

Didn’t we have enough of this flabbergasting hypocrisy under the Conservatives to last us an entire lifetime? How have we allowed ourselves to become so ridiculously resigned and obedient to their way of doing things?

Starmer’s Labour are set to take one hell of a beating at the forthcoming local elections, and they can’t even use the midterm excuse. Hollow soundbites won’t save him this time around.

The fear of seeing numerous hard-right, Farage Party councillors elected to council chambers across the country certainly won’t be allayed by the inevitable Labour bloodbath, as deserved as their rapid demise will be.

When a politician routinely betrays not only the fools that voted for them, but also the people that thought that they couldn’t possibly be any worse than the last lot, they open the door to fascism.

Cheers, Keir.

Featured image via Rachael Swindon