1 October 2020
Diary of a Corbynista
Cash for Access Rides Again
by Don Urquhart
23 September
Apart from 18 MPs, the PLP voted with the government to permit British soldiers to torture people without fear of prosecution. It appears to be demanded by the new leadership’s espousal of what he calls patriotism.
24 September
Every chance Labour politicians get, they attack slow delivery of tests and corresponding results. Why are they not pointing out that this is a problem only for the poor and vulnerable? Of course if you are a student at Eton College you were tested on the first day of term and the college has its own machine for producing immediate test results. And there are many firms able to get their hands on tests and promise fast results as long as you lob them a couple of hundred pounds.
NHS privatisation is well underway.
25 September
A friend visited the USA for the 2008 election and reported on the techniques used to stop people voting in poor areas. Al Capone had it right when he said that it’s not the people who vote, it’s the ones who count the vote. Now Trump is saying he will challenge the result if Biden wins. He already has a 5-3 majority of right wingers on the Supreme Court and is seeking to increase that by one before the election. So a bent President could be kept in power by a bent judiciary. Not as crude as Belarus but just as autocratic.
26 September
Sunak’s replacement for furlough is cheaper but even more half-baked. He is pushing a few redundancies down the road while not really helping small firms. Carolyn Fairbairn of the big-business CBI was all smiles flanking him outside No. 11 but I have no idea why France O’Grady of the TUC was there. Did she really think this was the best way to preserve the jobs of TUC members? Perhaps she calculated that small business employees tend not to be unionised.
27 September
Trump is pushing ultra right wing Amy Coney Barrett onto the Supreme Court bench. Plenty of criticism from all political shades in the UK. But I ask myself how different that is from Johnson pushing Paul Dacre as head of Ofcom and Charles Moore as BBC Chairman. On Sophy Ridge, Steve Baker MP said he would be thrilled to see such right wing people in those jobs. On Andrew Marr Camilla Tominey of the Telegraph was the only journalist and was quite tickled to point out that Starmer’s lead in the polls did not matter with the next election 4 years away.
Before the 2019 election the BBC was overtly anti-Labour and I can quote many specific examples. It is fashionable to say that the BBC demonstrates left wing bias but those who say this have not produced a shred of evidence.
28 September
Everyone has their hand out. Covid-19 has made it harder for people to earn money. For most of us it is a question of tightening belts, changing tack to cut costs in our domestic and commercial enterprises. On TV we see the lobbyists for big business, night clubs, airlines, retail outlets, care home owners and the rest, all with legitimate worries.
You don’t see much lobbying for the 300,000 children pushed into poverty during the pandemic and Sunak’s proposals do nothing for them and the jobless, homeless, vulnerable, those forced to work with Covid-19 making them ill and a risk to others.
It is disappointing to see the Labour front bench focussing on following the Johnson/Cummings agenda while mumbling a few anaemic criticisms.
29 September
In The Times, Eleni Courea reports that Sir Keir Starmer has been writing to rich supporters inviting them to buy a seat in what is known as the “Chair Circle”. If you cough up you get to spend time with Starmer and his acolytes. It used to be called Cash for Access.
Should one assume that under a Starmer Labour government there would be no significant social reforms which might involve the Chair Circle paying higher taxes?
