The Twilight Zone
Britain is the only G-7 nation whose GDP is still lower than before the pandemic— no more does it seem like the 6th richest country in the world, as its economic performance comes to resemble that of an Eastern European country with an emerging economy. Government figures show the following:
+ the Consumer Prices Index (CPI) rose by 11.1% in October, a 41-year high,
+ the UK’s top energy companies are set to make almost $200bn/$245bn in excess profits over the next 2 years. In the same time energy bills are set to rise to their highest levels in 40 years causing a cost of living crisis. Average bills for electricity and home-heating natural gas have doubled in the last year and are expected to rise further in April. The government does nothing about this bare-faced price gouging,
+ the purchasing power of the pound decreased by 13.20% in 2022 compared to 2021, fuelling a resulting rise in import prices,
+ 1 in 6 British households rely on some form of social welfare,
+ almost a third of British children live in poverty,
+ the number of children eligible for government-funded free school meals is just under 25%,
+ 1in 4 households are in financial difficulty or on the verge of it,
+ almost 1 in 10 households have failed to pay bills,
+ in the 12 months to March 2022, 2.1m emergency food parcels were distributed by a continuously expanding web of more than 2,000 food banks — an increase of approximately 1 million from 2014-15, according to the food-bank organizing charity, the Trussell Trust. This need is driven by spiraling food and energy prices (the price of cooking oil and pasta, for example, has risen 60% in the last year), and plunging wages.
+the sharp decline in public services and public sector wages has ensued in months of industrial strikes by train workers, postal workers, London bus drivers, university teachers and staff, paramedics and ambulance drivers, road workers, workers at Heathrow airport, passport and visa staff, courthouse staff, with nurses due to have their first ever strike beginning on 15 December. This has all the makings of a general strike as the winter starts to intensify.
The Tory government blames the war in Ukraine and the pandemic for causing these problems, without however fooling too many Brits as people realize several other countries have also had to deal with the consequences of the war and the pandemic.
Taken from here
The Twilight Zone of the UK’s Holographic Politics – CounterPunch.org
The Pain of Pakistan’s Floods Persist
The media headlines of Pakistan’s floods have disappeared but the tragic consequences continue. An estimated 33 million people have been affected, of which 20 million are still living in dire conditions.
It’s been almost six months since the floods in Pakistan, and homes and farmland in many parts of the country remain underwater. In the areas where floods are receding, health and hygiene concerns including cholera, dengue, and malaria, pose severe threats to people’s well-being. Many areas also have been reporting cases of scabies, especially in children as they play in the floodwater.
Contaminated water is another big issue, especially in Sindh where the quality of water in the entire region is exceptionally poor. The few handpumps that existed to offer clean water were severely damaged during the floods.
Shelter continues to be a top priority. Many people were forced to leave their flooded homes and retreat to the nearest evacuation centre. Some resorted to sleeping on the roadside – unprotected and with barely any resources to build a roof over their heads.
Pakistan floods: Six months on, humanitarian needs remain dire – Pakistan | ReliefWeb
The Banksters Once Again
Never ever any jail time.
Denmark’s largest bank Danske bank pleaded guilty to bank fraud and agreed to forfeit $2 billion (€1.88 billion) after it admitted defrauding American banks between 2008 and 2016 by allowing, through its Estonia branch, access to US banks for high-risk customers who were neither Estonian nor residents of Estonia, including some in Russia.
Suspicious transactions worth some €200 billion ($212 billion) were made during that period from the accounts of 15,000 non-resident clients, according to a 2018 internal report. The bank said it was unable to determine where the money came from, noting that some 23% of incoming funds were received from Russia. Prosecutors accused the bank’s Estonia branch of luring clients by promises of large transfers with little oversight. The Justice Department added that the bank’s employees also concealed the nature of the illicit transactions by utilizing shell companies to hide the funds’ ownership.
US: Danish Danske bank pleads guilty in fraud case – DW – 12/13/2022
Socialist Sonnet No. 90
Capital Gains?
The great dictator, being dictated to
By his own inner voice and ambition,
Declares his is a patriotic mission,
Insists what’s obviously a lie is true;
Dismisses any humane intrusions.
All those who stand hand on heart and salute
The flag, and do nothing to refute,
At least to themselves, such dire delusions,
Are as prisoners locking their own cell doors.
Such a loss leader, who cannot be wrong
Will slaughter others and his own young
By conducting his self-justified wars.
From his seat of power, rules without pity,
Isolated in his capital city.
D. A.
More Drownings in the Channel
While Rishi Sunak wallowed in the praise of his fellow Tories for reinforcing the hostile environment towards migrants crossing the Channel, news is breaking of a boat tragedy. The number of deaths has not been ascertained as yet.
Suella Braverman was quick to express her sorrow and shed her crocodile tears, ignoring the fact that it has been UK policy which has led to people risking their lives to reach the UK so to be able to lodge asylum claims.
More Drownings in the Channel
While Rishi Sunak wallowed in the praise of his fellow Tories for reinforcing the hostile environment towards migrants crossing the Channel, news is breaking of a boat tragedy. The number of deaths has not been ascertained as yet.
Suella Braverman was quick to express her sorrow and shed her crocodile tears, ignoring the fact that it has been UK policy which has led to people risking their lives to reach the UK so to be able to lodge asylum claims.
History repeats itself…As tragedy and tragedy (sic)
Back in the Sixties, and beyond, there was a popular Pete Seegar protest song: Where Have All The Flowers Gone. It contains the line: ‘Oh, When will you ever learn?
Oh, When will you ever learn?’ The double question expressing exasperation at the senseless deaths of young men in senseless conflicts.
If the report, quoted by RT, but taken from The Times, is correct then Marx’s adage about history repeating itself, but the second time as farce, begins not to look applicable in this instance. Five will get you ten that there are ‘advisers’ from one or more states with a geo-political interest in sustaining this particular conflict embedded in Ukraine.
Wars are not the business of the working class; the effects falling most heavily upon them.
Neither is supporting the interests of the capitalist class the business of the working class.
Time to start supporting yourselves.
“British Royal Marines conducted high-risk operations in Ukraine in April, Lieutenant General Robert Magowan has admitted, according to a report in The Times on Tuesday.
Russia has consistently warned that NATO troops have been active in the conflict, but these statements have been dismissed by Western analysts and media.
Members of 45 Commando Group of the Royal Marines left Ukraine in January after evacuating the British embassy in Kiev to Poland. However, some 300 members of the elite unit were sent back into the country in April to reestablish the British mission in Kiev, before going on to conduct “other discreet operations,” Magowan wrote in the force’s official journal, The Globe and Laurel, the newspaper said.
These operations took place “in a hugely sensitive environment and with a high level of political and military risk,” Magowan, who formerly served as commandant general of the Royal Marines and is now deputy chief of Defense Staff at the Ministry of Defense, stated.
While Magowan did not elaborate on what kind of missions the commandos carried out, his statement marks the first time that the UK has admitted its troops conducted special operations in Ukraine. The Ministry of Defense refused to confirm earlier accounts of British special forces training Ukrainian troops in Kiev in April.
Russian President Vladimir Putin has described the conflict in Ukraine as one between Russia and the “entire Western military machine,” and claimed in September that there are entire military units in Ukraine “under the de-facto command of Western advisers.”
Putin’s words were rejected by Western media outlets. “There is no evidence of NATO ground forces participating in Ukraine,” Edward Arnold of the Royal United Services Institute think tank told the BBC at the time. “Nor of NATO commanders directing Ukrainian units on the battlefield. There is also a very low likelihood of this happening in the future as Nato seeks to mitigate escalation risks.”
Magowan’s admission proves Arnold incorrect, but the UK is not the only NATO country to acknowledge the presence of its forces in Ukraine. An unnamed Pentagon official told reporters in October that an unspecified number of US troops were inspecting American arms shipments somewhere within Ukraine.”
RT 13/12/22
Dave C.
The NHS. A Terminal Prognosis?
A government-commissioned report by the King’s Fund health thinktank says years of denying funding to the health service and failing to address its growing workforce crisis have left it with too few staff, too little equipment and too many outdated buildings to perform the amount of surgery needed.
A “decade of neglect” by successive Conservative administrations has weakened the NHS to the point that it will not be able to tackle the 7 million-strong backlog of care the report concluded.
One of the experts consulted, said: “We have essentially had 10 years of managed decline. This is not a Covid problem. This is an austerity problem.”
“Though Covid certainly exacerbated the crisis in the NHS and social care, we are ultimately paying the price for a decade of neglect,” said the King’s Fund chief executive, Richard Murray. “The sporadic injections of cash during the austerity years after 2010 were at best meant to cover [the service’s] day-to-day running costs. This dearth of long-term investment has led to a health and care system hamstrung by a lack of staff and equipment and crumbling buildings. These critical challenges have been obvious for years.”
He continued, “The NHS in 2022 faces many of the same challenges it faced in 2000: unacceptably long waiting times and a service hobbled by staff shortages. To that is now added a cost of living crisis, industrial action by staff and a backdrop of a weak economy and weak public finances.”
The promises made earlier this year in NHS England’s “elective recovery plan” are highly unlikely to be met. They included pledges to end waits of two years, 18 months and one year by the summer, next spring and 2025 respectively.
Decade of neglect means NHS unable to tackle care backlog, report says | NHS | The Guardian
It’s going to get worse
Thirty million people in the UK will be unable to afford what the public considers to be a decent standard of living by 2024, according to a study from the New Economics Foundation.
The thinktank said rising prices, below-inflation increases in earnings and projected increases in unemployment would result in 43% of households lacking the resources to put food on the table, buy new clothes or treat themselves and their families – a 12 percentage point rise compared with 2019.
The NEF said its calculation that by 2024 almost 90% of single parents and 50% of workers with children would fall below a minimum income standard.
Sam Tims, economist at the New Economics Foundation, said: “A decade of cuts, freezes, caps and haphazard migration between systems has left the UK with one of the weakest safety nets among developed countries. Millions of families were already living in avoidable deprivation and hardship but as we enter the greatest living standards crisis on modern records, the day-to-day experience of low-income families is set to become even more desperate.”