I despair.
We are a nation built on immigration: my family fled the Irish famine and were similarly unwelcome at that time. Our government, aided and abetted by our right-wing press, maintain the focus on immigration, endlessly, forcing prejudiced eyes away from the heart of the matter. Our current government is responsible for consistently lying to the electorate and now uses the pandemic to deliver tax rises for services that it alleges that the nation cannot afford. Meanwhile, one in four major UK companies pay no tax and the referendum was delivered rather than sign up to cross-continental legislation on tax avoidance. Why? Because it is estimated that the British territories, long-standing as the global leaders in facilitating the practice, currently hold £32 trillion of offshore wealth. To say that we cannot afford anything more than the lowest state pension in Europe is a lie; to say that we cannot fund proper social care is a lie; to say that the 159% increase in homelessness under this government is insolvable is a lie; to fail to build a single one of the 200,000 new affordable homes, promised in 2015 for completion by 2020, is a lie; to say that we cannot afford to properly police our nation while violent crime soars is a lie. This government even had a stand at its party conference advertising the Cayman Islands.
All the time that the Daily Mail features a dinghy arriving on our shores, remind yourself that a new £5bn arms deal with Saudi Arabia has just been signed and that Margaret Thatcher funded and weaponised the Mujahideen, giving life to the Taliban that is now forcing people to flee Afghanistan. We are responsible for 16% of global arms sales and then complain that people want to leave their ravaged lands while 5.5m UK nationals are free to live and work aboard, basking in the superiority that still calls them ex-pats while any other country has migrants.
Alton Towers, my arse. This is not a big dipper, it is life and death and the safety of family, and we would all do the same.
We are a nation built on immigration: my family fled the Irish famine and were similarly unwelcome at that time. Our government, aided and abetted by our right-wing press, maintain the focus on immigration, endlessly, forcing prejudiced eyes away from the heart of the matter. Our current government is responsible for consistently lying to the electorate and now uses the pandemic to deliver tax rises for services that it alleges that the nation cannot afford. Meanwhile, one in four major UK companies pay no tax and the referendum was delivered rather than sign up to cross-continental legislation on tax avoidance. Why? Because it is estimated that the British territories, long-standing as the global leaders in facilitating the practice, currently hold £32 trillion of offshore wealth. To say that we cannot afford anything more than the lowest state pension in Europe is a lie; to say that we cannot fund proper social care is a lie; to say that the 159% increase in homelessness under this government is insolvable is a lie; to fail to build a single one of the 200,000 new affordable homes, promised in 2015 for completion by 2020, is a lie; to say that we cannot afford to properly police our nation while violent crime soars is a lie. This government even had a stand at its party conference advertising the Cayman Islands.
All the time that the Daily Mail features a dinghy arriving on our shores, remind yourself that a new £5bn arms deal with Saudi Arabia has just been signed and that Margaret Thatcher funded and weaponised the Mujahideen, giving life to the Taliban that is now forcing people to flee Afghanistan. We are responsible for 16% of global arms sales and then complain that people want to leave their ravaged lands while 5.5m UK nationals are free to live and work aboard, basking in the superiority that still calls them ex-pats while any other country has migrants.
Alton Towers, my arse. This is not a big dipper, it is life and death and the safety of family, and we would all do the same.
