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A fork in the road
write a nature haiku or
political rant
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by Scooj
Tag: Politics
Political brutalism
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A new government
grim-faced determination
ruffling feathers
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by Scooj
I woke at ten past four when the dog started barking at something in the street. Unfortunately I didn’t get back to sleep again after that and lay awake with my mind churning. One of the outputs from the unrest was this haiku. Another, was a long rant about the state that the last government left the country in. Broke with horrific debt and with public services hanging on by their fingernails. The rich, richer and the poor, poorer. Any new government coming into power picking up that mess would struggle. The loudest voices of complaint now are from the haves, not the have nots. I’ll leave it there.
The main preoccupation in my head was composing a speech for my mother’s 90th birthday party in February… I think I made good progress.
Algorithm (thoughts are not facts)
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Content provision
prompts confirmation bias
no need for the facts
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by Scooj
- Reflecting on why we have such divided opinions and polarised societies like never before. My verdict… it is the digital channel algorithms and our unconscious attachment to them.
- Before the general election I followed a few conservative MPs to see what they were saying in my desire to be well informed. Now my ‘X’ feed is bombarded with right-wing narratives (some quite extreme) all day every day, at the expense of the Labour streams and MPs I have been following for years.
- Solution… regulate the algorithms – allow us to choose what we see, and not what AI thinks we want to see.
- A conspiracy theorist might say that these platforms (‘X’ in particular) favour right wing narratives, although I don’t subscribe to that view. I think that there is more right wing disruptive/divisive content out there, much of it being produced by Russia and other nations looking to divide and conquer. They and the algorithms are having a profound impact in the UK, Europe and globally.
Calling time
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Overwhelming joy
general election called
so long overdue
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by Scooj
- I won’t go on for too long, but I have been waiting for this day for a very long time, and while the future under any new administration will be uncertain, there are truths about the past that are too much to bear. I care most about two things – public services and the biodiversity and climate crisis (that so many wedded to (funded by) the oil and gas industries have done their best to discredit) so I think you can probably guess who I won’t be voting for.
- As someone who has spent my entire career in public service I have witnessed first-hand the jaw-dropping disregard the Tories have had for their staff in the civil service, health service, local authorities and agencies who have largely taken huge real-terms cuts in salaries over the last 14 years (in my own case about 19% cut). Cuts in staff numbers and budgets have been demoralising and to cap it all an ideology and poisonous narrative that suggests public servants are somehow ‘swinging the lead’.
- But it is not just public service employees that have suffered, but the whole nation, particularly those who depend on or need the support public services can offer, the only people who are immune from the ferocious public sector cuts are the wealthy, many of whom do their very best to avoid paying taxes and resent paying taxes, so that they can maintain their ever more comfortable lives. I feel all of this is a sickening cliché… you know where I’m coming from.
- I truly hope for change. I can see a much brighter future, both politically and environmentally. We do not have to succumb to the Hollywood tropes of a dystopian future, instead a green and compassionate future is something all of us can aspire to, a gentle kind world. This is my goal and my passion. It is why I am here.
Deck chairs
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Cabinet shuffle
dusting-off an ex-PM
an empty barrel
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by Scooj
- I have recently tried to veer away from politics, but today has been too momentous to pass without some comment. At last, we see the back (for now) of the racist agent provocateur Suella Braverman as Home Secretary, to be replaced by the inept and underwhelming James Cleverly. His post of Foreign Secretary has been filled by former PM, architect of austerity and the EU Exit referendum (who was heard to sing ‘tum te tum’ as he returned to the door of No 10 after his resignation speech). David Cameron isn’t even an elected member of parliament and is the subject of an ongoing serious fraud investigation – furthermore Sunak has had to make him a Baron so that he can sit in the House of Lords to take up his office (there were 350 Conservative MPs Sunak could have selected from, but not a single one of them met the bar presumably). You couldn’t make it up. Other ministers and Secretaries of State have been shuffled, one of which will have direct implications for my own work. Surely, surely the Conservative party is utterly washed-up and should give the country what it wants, a general election.
State of the nation
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The rage inside me
can make enemies of those
who might be my friends
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by Scooj
* political rage is a primeval thing that can cloud better judgement, but Sunak and those he represents really get my goat, when it comes to climate change and green policies.
Cruella
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With her Wallace grin
charmless home secretary
plays to gallery.
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by Scooj
- I have never been a fan of Suella Braverman and her far right inflammatory racist rhetoric, but I caught a clip of a debate in the house yesterday in which she offered an insincere and inappropriately pitched ‘tribute’ to Caroline Lucas, the Green MP for Brighton and Hove, who will be standing down at the next election.
Suella Braverman seems to have a rather inflated impression of her own capabilities and wit, and came out with this toxic ‘tongue-in-cheek’ drivel, and was all the while appealing to her fellow Tories, smirking and grinning. Caroline Lucas has class, capability, competence and compassion that Braverman could never, ever achieve.
Braverman appears to be interested only in power, driven by hatred (an element of self-loathing I suspect too)
Lucas appears to be interested in justice (social, economic and environmental) and fairness, driven by compassion.
The two are polar opposites.
Brexit Pubs Guarantee
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Brexit benefit
pathetic barrel-scrapings
an election bribe
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by Scooj
- After years of searching, without success, for a Brexit benefit, the Chancellor announced, in today’s insipid budget, a reduction in draught beer prices in pubs, because we can, thanks to Brexit. So that’s it, is it? We left our primary trading block and all the benefits of free trade and freedom of movement and a collaborative European approach to global challenges, for 11p off a pint in the pub. Bloody hell, what a monumental cock up! Sovereignty Shmovereignty.
- Of course, the Government have one eye on the election. What disrespect they show to the nation. The two latest vote grabbing gimmicks are; cheaper beer and ban the boats. Jingoism at its absolute worst. Who do they think we are?
- Sorry, another rant
Unthinkable
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Thoughts of fascism
are incomprehensible
nation in decline
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by Scooj
Turnip
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Let them eat turnips
says Secretary of State
complacent, detached
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by Scooj
Natural adventures 