I wonder if this £5 billion for ‘new deal’ infrastructure is on top of the 40 new hospitals the government promised at the last election.
It's all lies,have they delivered on the promises of the 2015 and 2017 elections? The answer is no. They give these plans a long time frame to make it sound they are serious and the well thought out ideas. It's just a game, come September no one will remember these grandiose policy announcements. In 5 or 10 years time,how many of the Cabinet, including the Prime minister will be MPs? The UK is in serious trouble as bad as the early 1980s, the government is the worst in my lifetime. Then we have the looming problem of Jan 2,2021. Depressing times for us all,irrespective of which party you support.
Just like the report into BAME etc. It will take years for the findings to be reported and nothing will be done...
£5bn would buy roughly 4 new Wembley Stadiums, or 11miles of HS2 track laid. In terms of the UK economy, its loose change that is an accounting error in the larger projects.
Alongside the report into Russian interference with the Brexit vote... do we have to actually leave the EU before it's revealed that we didn't even vote for it?
Can you imagine though if Labour suggested spending 5bn , the right wing rags & Tories would be creaming.
What's all this then......Tories splashing the cash........ makes a mockery of their austerity policy.
Attila the stockbroker says it well. Cummings began by expertly distilling and harnessing the various strains of bigotry, xenophobia and lowest common denominator hysteria necessary for the success of a behavioural science-based operation to persuade vast swathes of people to vote for Brexit against their own economic and social interests. He did so in support of the interests of a narrow band of extremely rich hedge fund owners and short sellers who stand to make millions from the economic and social disaster Brexit will bring, one made even worse by the effects of the pandemic. Not just 'talking down Britain' but actively conspiring to profit hugely from economic damage deliberately inflicted on their own country. Then he organised briefings against the cabinet secretary and national security adviser in order to force him out and replace him with the chief Brexit negotiator. Meaning that the most powerful civil servant in charge of national security will be not just a right wing political partisan but someone at the core of the formulation of the very policy which stands to hugely damage Britain socially, economically and in terms of international security co-operation. It's unbelievable. What is happening now is a travesty of democracy. Everything which Cummings does is to the detriment of the country of his birth, and yet millions of people who describe themselves as 'patriots' are farmed, against all evidence, to cheer him and the government he runs. I repeat again: universal suffrage and representative democracy, a huge achievement at its inception and for many years afterwards, are no longer fit for purpose in the modern technological and media age of behavioural science-based manipulation and vote farming. The illusion of freedom and a resulting free vote is no better, and may indeed be worse, than its absence. This does, of course, NOT mean that they are not desirable, indeed essential. Our antecedents fought long and bravely to win for us the rights we still theoretically, though not actually, enjoy today. We do not need less universal suffrage and representative democracy. We need more. We need a proportional electoral system so that no party can govern alone with under 50% of the vote: votes at 16, compulsory for all: statecraft lessons as part of the national school curriculum, emphasising the honour, responsibility, effort and independence of mind involved in casting a free vote, and detailing the ways in which vote-farmers and behavioural scientists operate. We need print and online newpapers which carry impartial news only, with party political material, op-eds etc circulating in different publications not classified as newspapers. We need strict controls on social media advertising and the systematic banning of 'fake news', lies, abuse and intimidation. We need state funding only for parties during elections so that the influence of the super-rich and all 'dark money' is taken out of the equation. Then we might have something approaching democracy.
