Lexin

I'm watching the coronation of King Charles III, not because I'm a monarchist (I'm a republican) but because I'm 61, not in good health and this may be my only chance to see one.

Can't help wondering, though, what non-British people make of all this flummery,

Don’t get me wrong, I’m not a fan of Rishi Sunak, but Liz Truss seems to be short a few brain cells, a few sandwiches short of a picnic, not quite the full shilling. The fact that she’s a woman is the only thing in her favour. Everything else she falls short.

So I’m not happy she’s the new PM.

As my friend aunty_marion said on Twitter, perhaps we should stand on our doorsteps and boo her every Thursday.

Where I am, the result of the election is Plaid Cymru win - no surprise there. It's a hold, they were in charge before, too.

This is good.

Score one for me - I've written my first letter to my new MP, Hywel Williams, who's Plaid Cymru.

It's about the dim idea to lend everyone £200 to pay their heating bill. It's the fact that it's a loan which annoys me. I don't want a loan I'll have to pay back, possibly with interest.

I’m marching in spirit today, I’d have gone but I’m struggling with pain in my feet. Plantar fasciitis.

According to the news this lunchtime, the number of people known to have died in the Grenfell Tower fire has risen to 30, with that number due to rise still higher.

On the BBC News website, “Architect and fire expert Sam Webb said: "We are still wrapping post-war high-rise buildings in highly flammable materials and leaving them without sprinkler systems installed, then being surprised when they burn down.

“"I really don't think the building industry understands how fire behaves in buildings and how dangerous it can be. The government's mania for deregulation means our current safety standards just aren't good enough."”

I do believe that this fire was caused by corners being cut by the local council, the cladding used not being correct for the use to which it was being put, and the fact that cladding was in place was at least partly – from the paperwork mostly – put there so that posh people living locally weren’t offended by the sight of a scruffy block of 1970s flats.

I spent most of Wednesday morning in tears, and then had to go and be interviewed for a job. Not surprisingly, I didn’t do especially well at the job interview.

Have voted. Go me. Fingers crossed.

In Flanders fields the poppies blow
Between the crosses, row on row,
That mark our place; and in the sky
The larks, still bravely singing, fly
Scarce heard amid the guns below.

We are the Dead. Short days ago
We lived, felt dawn, saw sunset glow,
Loved and were loved, and now we lie
In Flanders fields.

Take up our quarrel with the foe:
To you from failing hands we throw
The torch; be yours to hold it high.
If ye break faith with us who die
We shall not sleep, though poppies grow
In Flanders fields.


John McCrae

I'm on the snopes.com feed, and I look at what's trending there a couple of times a day, whenever I check LJ.

Is there no lie so absurd about Barack Obama that the right won't lap it up and regurgitate it? Today's whopper was that, "I heard that the White House Easter Egg hunt included plastic eggs filled with quotes from the Koran."

Not surprisingly to those of us with a brain cell, this turns out to be untrue - and from a satirical website, no less - but I think I've read accusations of one sort or another against Barack Obama every day for three weeks now. There seems no story so nutsoid that some loons from the Tea Party don't take it at face value and repeat it. You would think after this length of time, they'd learn to check veracity and source before posting onwards, but it seems not.

Meanwhile

Meanwhile in Britain, "Anyone could be forgiven for thinking that Westminster has been replaced with a bouncy castle, and our political class with hysterical children. As the long anticipated rise of the SNP looms closer into sight, the Conservative press seems to have wet itself in fear."

That's from here: https://www.opendemocracy.net/ourkingdom/adam-ramsay/newspapers-are-preparing-for-coup-and-labour-is-doing-nothing-to-stop-them

The problem (as they see it) seems to be that the polls show that there may well be another hung parliament (where no party holds an outright majority) after the General Election on May 7, and that the balance of power may well be in the hands of the Scottish National Party (SNP). Further, they are afraid that Labour will be able to form a government in coalition with the SNP, plus other progressives like the Greens.

The reason for this, for those who don't follow UK politics, is that the current 'third party' the Liberal Democrats, are massively unpopular with the voters who blame them for the shit the Conservatives have doled out over the last five years. Polls show them as tanking.

Therefore the Tory (Conservative) papers, largely (but not completely) owned by Rupert Murdoch (curse every cell in his body) are shitting bricks, as are the tax-avoiding businesses and the very wealthy. They really don't want any species of Labour government. (Please let Labour win. Professional troll Katie Hopkins has threatened to leave the country if Labour win. She's less attractive than Piers Morgan.)

Now, I would rather have a Labour government than a Conservative one, that is, if I were forced to choose between only the two parties. I would prefer, though, that the government be formed by the Greens, as they are the nearest to socialists that we have standing (except for the Trade Union and Socialist Coalition, a group of democratic socialists, though even I'm not daft enough to believe that the TUSC stands any chance of getting enough votes even to save its deposits).

From the article, I am very concerned that this will turn out to be the case, "If they [the Conservative newspapers and media] can possibly get away with it, they will find any way they can to declare Cameron the winner, even if it’s going to be almost impossible for him to command a parliamentary majority. In doing so, they will seek to make it impossible for Miliband to govern."

From my experience it has always been harder for a left (OK, Labour are not a left wing party these days, but let's not get hung up on that point, we could be here all night) coalition to govern than for a Tory+ coalition. After all, Cameron has been ruling as a coalition government for the last five years and behaved from the start as if he'd had a landslide majority. He didn't.

Worst would be Tory plus UKIP. Then I'd have to move to Scotland.

I hate this government so very, very much. They would look good on a lamppost, like Mussolini.

The Spending Review. Yes, that’s what it’s about. For welfare claimants none of it is an improvement.

The key policy elements of the settlement include:
• 7 waiting days at the start of UC, ESA and JSA
• Increased requirements at start of claim, including an English language test for JSA, mandation* for CV and UJ (Universal Jobmatch) registration
• Increased signing, weekly for at least 50% of claimants
• UC claimants subject to full conditionality to verify claim every year
• Increased requirements for IS lone parents
• Looking at pilots for new ways of encouraging ESA(WRAG) to take steps to improve their health and significantly increasing requirements for claimants over 3.5 years on JSA


Seven waiting days at the start of a UC, ESA or JSA claim. Now, that’s seven days without money for the poorest people. My savings are such that I could last seven days without pay, but many people, including many poorly paid people, are skin-close to borrowing from loan sharks to keep the wolf from the door as it is.

Increased requirements for the start of claim…we may live in England, but nowhere is there a requirement to be able to speak English. Speak what you like has always been the rule.

Besides, I can think of at least one or two situations where the outcome of this would be very unfair indeed. Think of the situation of a woman who has come here as the wife of a Pakistani man. She speaks only Gujarati. He’s abusive and she leaves him, leaving the children behind her. She can’t go to family: they will shun her because she left her husband. She can only claim UC/JSA – but now she can’t because she doesn’t speak English. What does she do? Her only option is to return to her abuser, because she can’t live any other way.

It’s not that unusual a situation in the district where I live. One of my colleagues has a wife who manages a Jobcentre in central London. Where she works, about 65% of the clients don’t speak good English.

The mandatory registration on Universal Jobmatch means putting your details on a site known to be unsafe (see what Johnny Void has to say about it) and known to be glitchy, in a way which means the staff at your Jobcentre can see what you’ve applied for and harass you to apply for unsuitable jobs in places you can't travel to. It’s a rubbish idea and someone’s going to be killed, I swear it.

The rest of the ideas are appalling, too. It’s as if they think that there are jobs to be had easily which people are not applying for. If there were decent** jobs to be had, people would take them. That’s how it’s always worked in the past and it would work that way now, too.



* Is mandation even a word? I don’t think it is.

** Properly paid, not part time zero hours contracts, or weird jobs which don’t exist when you make further enquiries.