The king’s speech on Wednesday 17 July was nothing if a direct play to the Labour Party’s now-target audience: the middle classes and middle England. Because within the 39 bills, there was nothing that would directly support the poorest and most marginalised people in the UK.
Labour: the party of Gordon Brittases
Keir Starmer’s ‘landslide’ victory was mainly thanks to politicians and those in power spending decades disenfranchising the poorest people from democracy – so, on 4 July they didn’t even bother voting. Labour, rather than ‘sweeping’ to power, cuckolded in off the back of a hatred of the Tories and an equal disdain for politicians of all stripes.
Based on preliminary analysis, Labour’s voter base consisted of the middle classes and middle England. There was a smattering of working-class people who voted for them. But overall, the poorest people abandoned all political parties; a theme since 2015.
So, New-New Labour has a mandate – but only if that mandate is a government of middle managers tasked with overseeing the dregs of colonial Britain. Ergo, the king’s speech on 17 July was a fitting agenda for this party of Gordon Brittases.
Mealy-mouthed measures dressed up as radicality
For example, snivelling trade unions have been making an almighty fuss about Labour’s New Deal for Working People. In reality, it’s a mealy-mouthed piece of corporate servility dressed up as something radical. For the avoidance of any doubt, Labour is:
- NOT giving all workers rights from day one. There is a loophole which will let bosses “operate probationary periods to assess new hires”. Cue said bosses making one-year probationary period.
- NOT making flexible working mandatory. Bosses only have to implement this “as far as is reasonable”.
In other words, Starmer’s band of David Lloyd area managers have promised a load of shit with their fingers crossed behind their backs.
Elsewhere in the king’s speech, there was the predictable anti-immigrant laws, an improvement on conversion therapy nullified by Wes ‘twunk on a ship‘ Streeting’s ban on treatments for trans teenagers, and the renationalisation of the railways which isn’t really full renationalisation at all.
A lot for the few, nothing for me and you
However, the glaring omission from Labour’s plan to *insert PR firm-created buzz phrase here* was anything – literally ANYTHING – for poor people.
For example, outlets like the Big Issue – which present themselves as somehow radical, LOL – have trumpeted Labour’s Renter’s Rights Bill because of the banning of no-fault evictions and laws around safety in properties. But this is window-dressing when parasitic landlords (i.e. all of them) can still charge whatever the hell they want.
Moreover, this particular bill is the prime example of Labour playing to its new voter base. Most of the poorest people in the UK do NOT privately rent. They live in social housing. It’s the middle classes who have the largest proportion of private renters.
So, what are Labour going to do about housing associations who systemically neglect, abuse, and mistreat tenants while upping rents by 7.7% a year for squalid properties? Ask Carleen Anderson.
Fuck Labour and all who sail in her
There was, of course, nothing for chronically ill, disabled, homeless, and social security-reliant people either.
- Nothing for the 145,000 homeless children – the highest number on record.
- Nothing for the countless chronically ill and disabled people set to lose nearly £3,000 a year thanks to Universal Credit.
- Nothing for the 1,000+ homeless people likely to die in the next 12 months.
- Nothing for the tens of thousands of women (many of them mothers) set to lose their benefits altogether thanks (again) to Universal Credit.
- Nothing for the hundreds of thousands of people who die avoidable deaths every year – literally due to poverty and inequality.
But why would Labour do anything for any of these people? In the hollowed-out husk of the already splintered remnants of what politicians repeatedly told us was a democracy, their voices don’t matter – and never really have.
Oh, and don’t think charities and campaign groups are coming to save us, either. Organisations like Disability Rights UK seem to think polite chat over tea and biccies is the order of the day WHEN PEOPLE ARE LITERALLY DYING.
A certain geriatric straw-haired maniacal sexual predator shouted the other day (after he got his ear grazed):
FIGHT!
I dunno. Maybe he was right.
Featured image via the Canary
