Revolution of the mind! THERE IS ANOTHER WAY!

Sorry for the delay in this post, but due to working yesterday, I didnt really have chance! Yesterday, in addition to his appearance on Andrew Marr, Ed Balls wrote an article in the Independent- http://www.independent.co.uk/opinion/commentators/ed-balls-same-old-tories-still-doing-it-maggies-way-2198368.html , in which he states the tories are up to their old tricks as “The relentless tax hikes and budget cuts are a high-stakes political strategy taken from Mrs Thatcher’s guide to winning elections.”

He is bang on when he says “we need to re-think. There is an economically more credible alternative to what this Conservative-led Government is doing. We need a plan that puts jobs and growth first. That’s why Ed Miliband and I are demanding a repeat of last year’s £3.5bn bank bonus tax to invest in growth and job creation this year, alongside a slower, steadier pace of deficit reduction. As Ed Miliband rightly said at Prime Minister’s Questions this week, without growth you can’t get the deficit down.”

What we need is a challenge to the hegemony in the media that these cuts are necessary, as the figures show this gamble is not paying off. Like a Jenga tower, if you take out too much, the tower collapses. We need growth, growth in jobs and cuts at a slower pace than at present. We need an alternative of hope and growth not decay and despair. I call for a challenge this yarn of the government. I call for a REVOLUTION of the MIND!

We’re looking for a revolution,

A revolt of a differing kind,

No trading of fists and batons,

Not one of blood on the body, a revolution of the mind.

A revolt against the broken promises of the blue and yellow tories,

Against the hegenomy, the orthadoxy, the same old stories.

Against the fear, let us bring some hope to banish despair,

We need to grow again, not cut the roots,

To this barren field we need the lifegiving shoots.

To challenge this dogma we need a revolt of a differing kind,

Instead of anger and violence, a revolution of the mind!

“Deceit about the past”- Ed’s article!

The previous post I did- 100 days of the reign of steady eddy! was a poetic appraisal of the 100 day reign of Ed Miliband. Some have asked me to define what my view leadership would be, and i have thought about this. The answer came to me like an apple falling on the head of Newton right from the man himself today.

On his website, Ed has featured a piece originally published in the Times – http://edmiliband.org/2011/01/06/deceit-about-the-past-endangers-our-future-times-article/ , stating that “in their politically motivated desire to propagate a myth about the last Labour Government, they (Cam and co)  are ignoring the real lessons of the global financial crisis… my concern is that a great deceit designed to damage Labour has led to profoundly misguided and dangerous economic decisions that I fear will cause deep damage to Britain’s future.”

I’m not going to feature the whole article, however I completely agree with Ed here, especially when he uses FACTs’ such as the fact that the Gov’s ”deceit ignores the evidence from around the world that a global credit crunch caused deficits to rise on every continent. The US and Japan face deficits of the same scale and for the same reason, airbrushing out the fact that Britain’s debt at the outset of this crisis was the second-lowest in the G7; lower than it was under the Tories in 1997.”

He is completely bang on here as the myths pedalled by the government ARE MYTHS, seemingly propgated by ALL corners of a media that is determined to box us in this narrative. For a person who is fed up to the back teeth of all the ills of the world being blamed on the “previous labour government” , its about time someone came out and challenged this narrative for what it is, “a massive deficit of truth”. You ask me what me vision of leadership and this is the answer, a major challenge to the government’s lies like Ed has being doing today in this article and in previous days about VAT. I like this change in tactics, this visible presence that has recently emerged- Keep it up Ed!

This poem I previously posted in ref to Kate Green MP’s inspiration seems to fit here in this context too! Hope you like!

The voice

How do we get our voice heard,

Across the cacophony,

The town crier cries against thee,

Untruth, we are the scapegoats,

Blamed for the ills of the world are we,

We can’t rely on the herald,

We must speak to the masses ourselves,

Tell a new story ourselves,

An alternative, hope in the face of despair.

We steadily build the foundations,

We don’t build this house on shifting sands!

political impartiality?

Yesterday, according to a BBC poll, “Six out of 10 people asked said they were in favour of reducing the deficit,” but there was opposition to cuts in some areas of public spending, with 82% of people surveyed were against education and healthcare cuts.

This was mentioned in Nick Robinson’s blog http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/nickrobinson/2010/09/waste_not.html , and he states that “What I didn’t hear once is anyone argue that there was no need to cut or no cause to worry about the deficit. What I did hear again and again is deep anxiety about where cuts might fall and the impact they might have.”

If we are to have a debate as he says, all arguments should be presented. It seems that the BBC fails to mention that after WW2, Britain had massive ammounts of war debts owed to allied states such as the US and these were only paid off in 2007. Yet still saddled with this debt, we managed to create the NHS in 1948. Thus could this perhaps state that paying back a deficit is not an immediate concern perhaps? I tweeted nickrobinson on this fact, yet heard no reply. This is something, never mentioned on the BBC.

A couple of days ago, an event transpired that may indicate why. The director general of the BBC had to defend the Corporation’s impartiality after it was disclosed he met a senior government aide in Downing Street to discuss coverage of the Government’s spending cuts, with Mark Thompson insisting his meeting did not affect the BBC’s “independence or impartiality in any way”.

This was a  response to shadow culture secretary Ben Bradshaw calling for ”clarity and reassurance” after Mr Thompson was photographed arriving at Number 10 holding a memo from his head of news, Helen Boaden.

The memo disclosed she had previously met Downing Street director of communications Andy Coulson for lunch at which he was “concerned” the BBC should give “context” to its coverage of the forthcoming comprehensive spending review.

Hang on one second, so now No10 want to persuade the BBC to portray cuts in a certain way. If this isnt a breach of political impartiality, I dont know what is! This is very worrying for something that is supposed to be politically neutral- I wonder if proposed cuts to the license fee has something to do with it?

You’re supposed to be neutral,

Supposed to show both sides,

Yet your mind is set, they call you and you come running,

They whisper poison in your ear,

how to airbrush them, how to disguise their crimes.

We look to you for authority,

A rocky foundation in these stormy seas,

You were supposed to serve us, yet now your serve their interests as propaganda,

Now you only serve  only your concerns, your best interests!