IT’S a mess. Or it will do until a real mess comes along. I’m talking about the place where you live. Worse, there’s little chance the decline will slow, let alone recover.
UKIP now runs the UK. It calls itself the Conservative party, but we all know what it really is. A bunch of extreme right-wingers couldn’t get elected so it did the next best thing, it took over the Tories. And the result is all around you.
As Scots humourist, Armando Iannucci, puts it: “Asking Conservative party members to choose our prime minister was like putting a Morris dancer in charge of the Large Hadron Collider.”
Moreover, the full effects of the shambles have yet to be seen. As the pound collapses, extreme measures will be introduced by the Bank of England. Expect interest rates to soar in a crude attempt to manage this self-induced crisis.
READ MORE: Ex Tory MSP Adam Tomkins calls for LABOUR government in fierce attack on his own party
Even the most ideological of Tories are losing faith. Adam Tomkins, who left Holyrood last year to return to the groves of academe, confessed that the Tories time in power is up. He added: “What we are witnessing right now is not only the Conservative Party trashing its own brand; it’s the Conservative Party trashing the economy.”
With chaos growing you’d think this was precisely the time for progressive parties to combine to rid us of this vile government. As so many leading thinkers from south of the border I have interviewed on the TNT show, such as the philosopher A C Grayling, have advocated.
You may think that; but you’d be wrong. Labour has set its face firmly against working with the SNP, while being entirely comfortable working with many other nationalist groups. All while wrapping itself in the Union flag. For them, it’s only the Scottish version that is unacceptable.
“I hate the SNP”, Emily Thornberry (below), shadow Attorney General for England and Wales, has proclaimed. Think about this statement. She means most of you reading this column, plus many of your family and friends. She did not say she would not work with the majority party; she actually hates them. Strange language for the daughter of a diplomat, one might think.
READ MORE: Pat Kane: We cannot allow ourselves to be blinded by hate for our political rivals
Her boss is little better. Having been captured by its pygmy thinkers, he has come out stoutly against re-joining the EU, “because he wants to make Brexit work!”. I want to be Mastermind champion, but I rate my odds better than his in this task.
It’s not just that Brexit cannot work, it’s that its stuffed full of contradictions. Suella Braverman, the Home Secretary wants to increase immigration. You heard that right. Having spent years demonising immigrants, the Tories now reckon we don’t have enough folks coming from overseas. But not from Europe. The Tories spat on all attempts by the EU to soften their immigration stand. To no avail. Now they want to attract folks from the far corners. That these nice men, women and kids would want to join a banjaxed economy led by a bunch of failed right-wing nut jobs, suggests conditions in some places must be extremely dangerous.
And a banjaxed economy may be the nicest way to put it. As interest rates soar, more and more people will lose their homes. But where do they go? Rents are also mounting, not least because landlords crushed by huge mortgage payments are selling up. A major housing crisis beckons.
This despite the fact that the Bank of England has spent £65 billion to avert a pension collapse. Where are these colossal sums coming from? Simply printing money is one source. But, and you can put money on this one, the poor and those least able to do so will be asked to foot the bill. Meanwhile the cap on banker’s bonuses has been lifted.
Of course, many of your fellow Scots may be confused by this turn of events. Their daily diet of Scottish news continues to obsess about “ferries”. Broadcasters in Scotland have accumulated such power that they are immune to their own mistakes. BBC Scotland is responsible only to Tory-led bureaucrats at Broadcasting House in London. Instead of changing their stories to fit reality, they often change reality to fit their stories.
Here is a message for all of you who may despair that nothing is being done to avoid the runaway train that is heading down the track towards us all.
Lenin said: “There are decades when nothing happens, and there are weeks when decades happen.”
And if you do not care for the media in your life, you have choices. There is a growing independent media in Scotland, including IndyLive. There you’ll find a range of shows built with you in mind. And it’s free. So, no licence, no problem.
The TNT show on Wednesday features David Clark. Joins us at 7pm on October 5
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