Last Straw

Richard Wilkinson and Kate Pickett writing for The Guardian:

The evidence shows that almost all the problems that occur most often in the poorest neighbourhoods—including those that make us a broken society—are systematically more common in more unequal societies. Rates are not just a little higher, but between two and eight times higher. Wider income gaps make societies socially dysfunctional across the board.

Last October Cameron rounded on Labour, saying: “Who made inequality greater? No, not the wicked Tories. You, Labour. You’re the ones that did this to our society. So don’t you dare lecture us about poverty. You have failed and it falls to us, the modern Conservative party, to fight for the poorest who you have let down.”

But the truth is that we are suffering the impact of the massive increases in income inequality under Thatcher, which Blair and Brown have since failed to reverse. In the 1980s the gulf between the top and bottom 20% widened by a full 60%—much the most dramatic widening of income differences on record.

No Right Turn on Labour’s electoral reform announcement:

After a decade of broken promises, the UK’s Labour government is finally moving on electoral reform, announcing that they will pass a law before the election requiring a vote on the electoral system within two years. Of course, New Labour being New Labour it is being done for all the wrong reasons…

The Chilcot Inquiry into the Iraq war is already running a propaganda campaign that it “won’t be a whitewash.”

But you only need to realise that its members were appointed by Gordon Brown—one of the perpetrators—and read the terms of reference to realise this is a whitewash before it even starts.

Labour (UK) have had twelve years to do this:
A fierce debate within the government on how to tackle entrenched wealth inequality … is to be ignited by a report ordered by Harriet Harman, the Labour deputy leader and the minister responsible for equalities.

In a devastating interview with George Monbiot Hazel Blears pulls this lovely comment out of the bag, regarding the decision to invade Iraq:
Despite the fact that hundreds of thousands of people have died—and that is a tragedy—I still believe that it was the right thing to do.
If there was a hell Hazel Blears would surely [...]

Two things stand out as New Labour’s legacy: war of aggression (the “supreme” war crime) and the worst inequality of incomes since records began (another supreme crime considering the damage it inflicts on everybody).
Tony Blair, Gordon Brown and their conspirators are little more than wolves in sheep’s clothing and they’ve had much of the Labour [...]

Marina Hyde on New Labour’s relationship with money:
It is difficult to think of a more perfect testament to New Labour’s intellectual shallows. On the eve of the most deadly serious budget in decades, Gordon Brown posts a YouTube video in which he announces he has scheduled some inquiry—pre-empting debate about MPs’ ­expenses. It might as [...]

New Zealand’s No Right Turn has some thoughts:
Now that Green has been cleared, attention must focus on those responsible: the Speaker of the House, who allowed police to search a Parliamentary office without a warrant, the Home Secretary, whose complaints led to the raid, and the Cabinet Office, which inflated the importance and sensitivity of [...]

The new UK regulations that mandate the tracking of all your telephone calls and email.
It certainly makes me feel safe to have a party of war criminals and their police force tracking every citizen’s communications (including whistle-blowers and journalists).

As with the re-election of Bush Junior I couldn’t help but think, using the very arguments developed by the Blairites to support their bombing and invasion of Iraq, that you could formulate a pretty good argument for the bombing of Britain, or at least Westminster, to dispose of Britain’s very own elected war criminal.