Prime Minister,
Today in the news is the idea from the concealed Leader of the Conservative Party, Iain Duncan Smith, aka Mr E Grise himself, to sell off 2.5 million council/housing association properties in order to let people know that the Conservatives are the party of the working person. Those who aren’t among the 13.5 million struggling in working poverty, that is. (https://www.dailymail.co.uk/debate/article-2974030/JAMES-FORSYTH-Dave-wants-just-one-win-s-Samantha-s-turn.html) The problem is that Smith only has his eye on what he might save in Housing Benefit (like Hunt has with the ambulance service, perhaps? (https://uk.news.yahoo.com/ambulance-services-spent-5m-private-crews-051749165.html)) but he seems to have forgotten that last time your party sold off housing, the promise to use the funds obtained to build more properties was reneged upon by your late Leader. This time around, people will know that when they’ve made that huge commitment to a fake money mortgage, you and your oil-stained mates will then be free to leave all kinds of poisonous liquids under their pride and joy, waiting to seep up and kill off either their children or their grand-children.
That’s if the fracking-induced earthquakes don’t cause the thing to fall down first, of course. A 3.6R at mere fracking depth is sufficient to cause serious structural damage and probable injury/death, and we’ve not long ago had a shake close to that strength here in Hampshire. The fact that such damage has been confirmed by insurers as “not covered” is going to make people think very carefully about whether or not to commit themselves to what could tun into a ruin overnight.
Plus, of course, people my age (54 this month – where HAS the time gone?!) will remember that last time your lot sold off properties, your Party in government then managed to engineer a situation where interest rates sky-rocketed to 15% and people were being thrown out of those properties right, left and centre by the criminal-run banks. I notice from the report about RBS that they are still rewarding failure with ludicrously high bonuses. I would – if I could even afford to buy – pass on this round of discounted housing opportunities.
Meanwhile, those of us who cost the most in HB, and who cannot obtain a mortgage anyway because of our welfare dependent status, will continue to be the weevils in Psychosmiffy’s cornflakes. I’m sure that MaxiMurderUs will try very hard on his behalf to fling deserving people off benefits, but in the long run we will discredit them just as thoroughly as we did Atos. It’s only a matter of time before they breach the Court injunction that was laid against them…
On the subject of oil, I see your government is getting the jitters about those pesky Russians buying up North Sea oilfields, and threatening to sue you if you stand in their way. (https://uk.finance.yahoo.com/news/uk-blocks-russian-oligarchs-deal-170220464.html ; https://uk.finance.yahoo.com/news/russians-fight-north-sea-oilfield-232749757.html) The way I see it, Prime Minister, either you want to encourage a free market economy or you don’t. It’s not one of those things where you can cherry-pick. It seems you have a choice to make about where your neoliberal agenda is going to go, especially as it is fast being discredited across the length and breadth of Europe. Spain, Italy and Greece are all against it. France has always been a closet communist state anyway and is almost permanently socialist as a result. Germany’s economic bubble will burst sooner or later (probably thanks to Greece, who will sign up with Russia) and that will leave Britain standing alone with its economic future well-being dependent upon the goodwill of international owners (such as the Chinese water barons) who are now influential in the operation of services that should never have been privatised. Those are the risks you take in a FME, Prime Minister and it looks very much as if those you and your predecessors have already taken are now coming back to bite you in the backside.
In the meantime, you’re sound-biting about companies having a responsibility to pay their taxes or lose out on services, yet you’re hyping TTIP and failing to take account of the wishes of the majority of people in the UK about keeping the NHS squarely out of any such deal. The fact that TTIP will permit more companies to avoid tax and prevent your – or any other – government, under threat of legal action, from doing anything about it makes me wonder if, once the deal has been forced through, we’ll have any further use for a UK Parliament. It will not, after all, be capable of making any laws to curb the greed of foreign oligarchs, will it?
Just for your information: Last week I deliberately held off buying anything at all, in protest at the so far lack of criminal prosecutions against the head of HSBC (Hugely Successful Because of Criminality?) and therefore I withheld from the Treasury 100% of the tax (VAT) that I would have paid. I’m sure that a quick trip to the crack house by George’s advisor will come up with a spaced-out way around that though. I suppose there won’t be any prosecutions there either? Illegal possession of a controlled substance, for example? No, thought not. Maybe Theresa May should set up an enquiry, just to delay things further, like she’s managed to do so successfully with the CSA…
Sincerely,
Darren Lynch
