Clio the cat, ? July 1997 - 1 May 2016
They think their man is above scrutiny
Sep 29, 2024
The people who spent years lying about Jeremy Corbyn are mad that people are telling the truth about Sir Keir Starmer. Specifically, they’re upset people are talking about the freebies scandal. They think this is unfair because Labour MPs are acting within the rules, but if we rewind to 2009, when we had the expenses scandal, it wasn’t just MPs who broke the rules who were the problem. It was felt that even when rules were followed, they’d been abused, that MPs were taking advantage of the system. As a result, the rules were tightened to prevent future abuse. The same needs to happen with gifts to MPs, but Starmer feels attacked by this!
The simplest solution would be to clarify the Bribery Act 2010 applies to MPs and will actually be enforced if they accept gifts. Such a suggestion would make a neoliberal’s heads explode., but I used to work in a bank and we weren’t allowed to accept so much as a box of chocolates. It’s not just bank workers this applies to, council workers, doctors and nurses, and people in many other jobs can’t receive gifts. If they do, they face dismissal, fines or imprisonment. It should surely be the same with politicians. In fact, the punishments should be higher because the consequences are bigger.
We are talking about people who are among the top earners in society and should absolutely pay their own way. We are also talking about people who are the most vulnerable to corruption - a form of corruption that would be most damaging to society. No one can sensibly say it’s worse for a nurse to accept a bribe than for a minister, can they?
We should be pushing to remove all forms of bribery from politics, including gifts and corporate donations. This would be one of the most effective ways to fix society. If politicians cannot be bribed, watch how quickly politics gets cleaned up. All the corrupt ones would have to find alternative career paths!
The irony is the media are pushing on this issue for mostly cynical reasons (to push Labour even further right). They don’t seem to understand this could backfire on them by making it harder to influence politicians. Please don’t say anything!
Starmer used to make speeches about political corruption and tell us how dodgy gifts to politicians are. Now he defends the behaviour he used to oppose. There are countless examples of this kind of flipflopping from him though. Another would be how he pledged to scrap university tuition fees and then decided to increase them (even though he benefitted from free university tuition). Lying and manipulating come more naturally to Starmer than they do Boris Johnson and that’s saying something.
The weird thing is Starmer’s supporters opposed Johnson’s lies, but when Starmer lies, they think it’s clever politics. These people have no principles.
The best defence Starmer’s supporters can come up with is that the Tories are also corrupt, but try explaining we shouldn’t vote for corruption, just like we shouldn’t vote for genocide, and they stare at you like you’ve lost your mind.
Starmer has spent his time sucking up to print media, in particular, the Murdoch empire. The thing about print media is they have always been using Starmer. They will gleefully attack the prime minister to pressure him into moving further right and that’s exactly what he will do. And when he does, his premiership will collapse. This is a very obvious trap, but Starmer is too politically naive to see this. I’m guessing Murdoch’s goal is Prime Minister Farage and he may well get his wish.
One thing that seems to have particularly upset Starmer is how broadcast media have dared to challenge him, even though they’ve been gentle. Beth Rigby from Sky News spoke about how Starmer was furious with her for asking about the freebies and kept bringing his son into the conversation, implying this was somehow an attack on his family, only Rigby says she never mentioned his son or his family and was talking specifically about him.
What’s weird is broadcast media were mostly behind Starmer from the beginning. They are mostly neoliberals so he is supposed to be their guy, but the moment he faces the slightest scrutiny, he intimidates and alienates them. This is a reminder that if he had been scrutinised earlier, he would never have become prime minister.
Starmer is in power only because he had the media on his side. Now that he is alienating them, we’re going to see the lowest approval ratings of any prime minister ever. Mark my words.
Embarrassingly, it looks like Starmer is recruiting Jonathan Ashworth to rebuild his public image. Ashworth is the guy who campaigned in the last election by showing his constituents how racist he thought they were and gave the impression he didn’t give a fuck about Gaza. He seemed convinced he was going to keep his seat and then he lost to a pro-Palestinian independent. I therefore fully endorse Ashworth’s appointment as Starmer’s new spinmeister. It would be genuinely funny.
Starmer feels he is being victimised, but the media haven’t really gone after him for the real scandal which is the £4 million he received from a hedge fund (Labour’s largest ever donation) that he didn’t declare until after the election. They’re giving him a free pass and he still thinks he is being picked on. The reason is he has authoritarian instincts and a sense of entitlement. He thinks it’s his right to be prime minister and people should not be allowed to challenge him.
With Corbyn, they had to make up smear after smear until they found one that stuck. They made up the most sickening lies about one of the most thoroughly decent people we’ve ever had in British politics.
With Starmer, all the media are reporting are his actual policies and the fact he has received bribes, sorry gifts from his rich friends. If you’re mad the public aren’t liking your guy because they know the truth about him, you’re not a serious political operator.
Starmer is a guy who was gifted a wardrobe of designer clothes, who even let another man buy his wife clothes, who was getting VIP tickets to Taylor Swift gigs and football matches, and a free penthouse for his son for the summer holidays. Instead of acknowledging how bad this looked, he insisted the public would see it as “fair dos” and vowed to continue receiving expensive “gifts”. He only backed down when no one would let it lie.
People were disgusted the man who cut the Winter Fuel Allowance and is talking of scrapping pensioners’ bus passes and increasing tuition fees was determined to keep lining his pockets. There is this bizarre sense of entitlement like Starmer is saying, “Well, of course I’m taking what I can get! Why else would someone get into politics?”
Starmer is exactly what we said he was all along. He’s what every neoliberal is: someone who gets into politics as a career move, who is motivated only by personal gain. And if you get into politics for those reasons, you are going to enact policies that hurt ordinary people because that is what you are incentivised to do.
If you vote for neoliberals, you’re voting for legalised corruption. And the corruption is only legal because these c***s make the rules.
Here is the thing: no one gives politicians expensive gifts and expects nothing in return, because no one likes politicians! The people who can afford expensive gifts are not exactly the type of people who give money away. In other words, these are not gifts, they are bribes. The relationship is always transactional.
In the case of Lord Alli, there are strong rumours he funded the plot to overthrow Corbyn. If you’re wondering why our politicians are so corrupt it’s because the ones who aren’t corrupt are removed from politics. This is how we end up with bastards who will do things like genocide if it’s better for them personally.
The last working-class hero in England.
Kira the cat, ? ? 2010 - 3 August 2018
Jasper the Ruffian cat ? ? ? - 4 November 2021
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