Why does @ChtyCommission allow Zionist groups to ‘police’ UK citizens using tactics synonymous with The Cheka police. How long before ‘volunteers’ claim leather coats on expenses? Make no mistake #Chekism is alive and well just watch Joe Glasman’s video. https://t.co/zZvuGe5HWg
Not that I ever “supported” Corbyn anyway, but there is no doubt that the so-called “Campaign Against Antisemitism” [“CAA”] and other Zionist-Jew orgs and individuals conspired to remove Corbyn from the Labour Party leadership.
The silly thing is that Corbyn was not what I would call “anti-Semitic” anyway.
As for Diane Abbott, obviously I have no time for her on any basis.
Tucker Carlson is the only main steam journalist who speaks truth so I knew it was only a matter of time before he was fired pic.twitter.com/O0sqDrwni9
Yes, we live (whether in UK or USA or EU) in a Western society with various rights and mostly fair-seeming laws etc…on the surface. Excavate a little, though, and you come to a very different layer, as Julian Assange discovered.
My Grandfather was born in kent in 1913 from Italian immigrants and fought in the RAF as a rear gunner in ww2. He married my grandmother an east girl a real Londoner from a family history of real Londoners, he lived to 90.
In his own words.. I'm Italian, my parents were italian.
I'll just correct Mordaunt here.. What the government and all those involved with mRNA are doing is pushing false propaganda and trying to cover up the facts.
At some point people involved in this terrible crime against humanity will need to be brought to justice. https://t.co/n5mWeCxEY1
Penny Mordaunt is yet another of those MPs who have no intellectual or —crucially— financial independence, which means that she is totally dependent on the favour of the System.
It is important to spread positive energy and truth not negative energy and lies. Facts not fiction. It's important to keep focused, on track and not become confused and sidetracked by propaganda and manipulation.
There was a farmer who grew excellent quality corn. Every year he won the prize for the best corn grown. One year, a reporter interviewed him and discovered something interesting about the way he grew corn. The reporter discovered that the farmer shares his seeds with his… pic.twitter.com/8ikV7wCjkS
— @AndTartary and antiquity (@andtartary2) April 20, 2023
That cycle of life is continuous, every day you will find a bush of some fruit or some vegetable where you never sowed.
Mother Earth renews herself.
— @AndTartary and antiquity (@andtartary2) April 20, 2023
AI and robotics will finish the process. Untold millions of British and other workers will fall into unemployment and poverty, because their labour will not be required, having been largely replaced by ever more sophisticated machines. Without pay, and dependent on State benefits, they will be unable to buy the luxury, or even basic, products of the AI/robotics economy.
In those circumstances, “basic income” schemes will be brought in (we already see a crippled version of that with the UK’s “Universal Credit”).
In the end, in the title of the David Icke book, there may be a”robot’s rebellion” by the human beings thrown on the scrapheap, unless the people are too drugged by the opiates of the age, i.e. televized football, pop music, “celebrity” nonsense etc.
What is required is not 1930s National Socialism, as such, but a form of social nationalism which honours 1930s National Socialism and contains within it the essence of National Socialism.
Perhaps, but does the ultra-powerful USA really need “allies” to fight a nuclear, or even conventional, war? “Need” militarily, that is, not as a propaganda figleaf.
Armed Forces of Ukraine withdrew almost all troops from Artemivsk – El Mundo, citing an unnamed source Spanish journalists report that the main equipment of the Armed Forces of Ukraine is leaving Bakhmut along the only remaining "road of life". And in the city itself there were… pic.twitter.com/U6atS0sT2G
Destruction of the positions of the UAF with incendiary ammunition. The work of the NM DNR artillery in the direction of Avdejevka. pic.twitter.com/xr2oEgvtOz
Well, a modest 5/10 this week, but I still managed to beat political journalist John Rentoul, who scored 4/10. I did not know the answers to questions 1, 2, 3, 5, and 8.
“…he thinks schools, universities and employers should actively discriminate against white applicants, purely because of their skin colour and their inherited guilt. Never mind that, say, a little girl born in the 21st century can hardly be blamed for the history of slavery. For Kendi, the mere fact of her genetic heritage is enough to damn her.
The second example is even more shocking. This is a chart produced in 2020 by the National Museum of African American History and Culture — part of the Smithsonian Institution, probably the most prestigious U.S. educational body of all.
The chart gives examples of ‘whiteness’ and ‘white culture’, which it clearly regards with disapproval. Sinister aspects of ‘white culture’ apparently include ‘hard work’, ‘self-reliance’, ‘the nuclear family’, ‘competition’, ‘delayed gratification’ and even ‘rigid time schedules’.
In just the first three weeks of this year, the NHS advertised for 19 ‘diversity and sustainability’ posts, with a combined salary of a cool £1 million. Indeed, in total the NHS in England alone employs an estimated 800 diversity and inclusion officers, costing a staggering £40 million a year.“
[Daily Mail]
Is there any peaceful way to stop this slide to complete chaos or dystopian tyranny? Frankly, I think not.
Africa is no good for the white man any more. All African countries are now (i.e. now that they are African-ruled) shambolic, corrupt, and suffused with crime and extreme violence, though some more than others.
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UK police no longer deal with burglaries. However, the fight against "offensive stickers" does not subside pic.twitter.com/cdgvNuj9cr
Another UK policeman playing the poundland KGB operative in uniform instead of doing his proper job. It has become pervasive. The police are now almost useless in terms of protecting the British public, while waging the culture war against the British people, and at the instigation of both “woke” activists and (of course) the endlessly, relentlessly, whining and demanding Jew-Zionist lobby.
The Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Russia announced that the decision of Slovakia, Poland, Hungary and Bulgaria regarding restrictions on the import of Ukrainian grain is a heavy blow to the regime of Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky.
Harley Schlanger says the the war in Ukraine and the Green Revolution of energy reduction are driving factors behind the economic collapse that European countries are facing pic.twitter.com/GlUhrGpO7V
As I have blogged previously, for me there are two main issues that stand out: firstly, at some point (and as Elon Musk has mentioned), AI gets to the point whereby it takes over the reins of its own evolution, no longer requiring, or even permitting, human decision-making to control that; secondly, AI may become so pervasive that it becomes almost impossible for any individual human being, or for humanity as a group, to live without it.
That is already to a large extent so in relation to, inter alia, mobile telephones, online access, debit/credit cards etc. Yes, you can live without internet access, without a mobile telephone (I have not had one for many years), without debit or credit cards etc, but it gets harder every month to live “off-grid” in that way.
Once cash becomes a medium of exchange used only by the marginalized, and not used much in supermarkets, larger shops etc, the System/matrix will have almost power of life and death over citizens. Say or do something anti-System, or anti the System agenda, and your banking services will be cut off, and you will find it hard to continue your political life, hard to conduct any business or profession, hard even to buy food, in the end.
“Conspiracy theory”? No. A number of people, such as Laura Towler, Mark Collett, Sam Melia (all of Patriotic Alternative) have had exactly that happen to them in the past couple of years.
The possibility now exists for one, two, or more encirclements.
Press TV's correspondent,@johnnyjamesmiller, says that Russia's primary goal is to defeat the Ukrainian army rather than gain territory. pic.twitter.com/0ZvvIiUefk
Britain: Ukraine will lose control of its skies in a month The shortage of anti-aircraft missiles will lead to Ukraine losing control of the sky as early as next month. This is reported by the British newspaper The Times. pic.twitter.com/YMx1LBjFTd
According to Chinese experts, Ukraine is weakening every day due to a shortage of ammunition. This is due to the fact that the pace of industrial production in Western countries cannot meet the needs of the Armed Forces of Ukraine
It was largely an invention of the western media but then grew a life of its own to the extent that people such as Adam Kinzinger believed it to be true.
I wonder whether “the Ghost of Kiev” will become, over time, a figure thought by many to have been a real person, in the manner of Wilhelm Tell (or William Tell): https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Tell.
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[Grotto Pavilion, Tsarskoe Selo, near St. Petersburg]
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Zakharova: Statements about Ukraine joining NATO "short-sighted and dangerous pic.twitter.com/K2UpQlO22V
and then aired a CNN report stating that the aforementioned ministry sent a "warning letter" to the Russian company "Rosatom ", which currently manages the Zaporozhye nuclear power plant, not to touch the plant since it contains sensitive American nuclear technology
I have already blogged a few times about my visit to the UK’s Porton Down “biolab” campus in Wiltshire in or about 1995, accompanying the then Ukrainian Ambassador to the UK; incidentally or co-incidentally, he was a trained scientist in the field(s) of biochemistry, microbiology etc: see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Serhiy_Komisarenko. See also: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Porton_Down.
Ukrainian General Krivonos: The Armed Forces of Ukraine are experiencing a shortage of shells and will soon be counted individually, if mass deliveries from Western countries do not begin.
The sooner the Kiev regime runs out of arms, ammunition, and personnel, the better. Russia can take over Kiev and eastern Ukraine (east of the Dnieper) and start the work of rebuilding the damaged areas. Ukrainians (and Russians in Ukraine) live, in general, with lower living standards than Russians, certainly Russians from central or Baltic Russia (Moscow, Petersburg etc), and (as Putin has recently said) should be helped to a better standard of living.
Ukrainian police act as a press-gang, trying to force random and unwilling young men to become soldiers in Zelensky’s war.
The founder of the PMC "Wagner" Yevgeny Prigozhin turned to the commander of the ground forces of the Armed Forces of Ukraine Alexander Syrsky. The reason was the information that Zelensky demanded that Syrsky hold Artyomovsk until May 9.
London and the other large UK cities have gone the same way.
The former commander of the US Army in Europe, Lieutenant General Ben Hodges , claims that the main goal of the UAF counteroffensive is to isolate the Crimean peninsula. pic.twitter.com/OByiv9kMpw
The cretins of what passes for the Kiev regime “high command”, and the similar idiots in Washington, cannot or will not see that, were Crimea actually to be isolated by a Kiev-regime fantasy “counter-offensive”, the Russian response might well be a tactical nuclear strike on the Kiev-regime forces, or even on central Kiev itself, obliterating Zelensky and his cabal (if that is where they really are).
a fuel depot continues to burn in Kharkiv. The Russian AirForces delivered pinpoint strikes on the places of concentration of forces of the Armed Forces of Ukraine, preparing for the notorious counteroffensive. pic.twitter.com/T7HPWa9sdQ
The head of the US Joint Chiefs of Staff, General Milley, said that fighter jets would not be given to Ukraine. Only air defense pic.twitter.com/t08sz6IhIf
🇺🇦 Protests by relatives of soldiers of the Armed Forces of Ukraine begin in Ukraine. In Krivo Rog, people protested because, as they say, soldiers thrown to the front without training, without equipment, many died, and they are missing, and payments are not paid. pic.twitter.com/1eDLd7dNZn
The Ukrainians themselves are now starting to push back against the Zelensky regime.
Ukraine had hoped to launch an offensive in April, but postponed it indefinitely due to a shortage of weapons, writes Foreign Policy, citing a Ukrainian lawmaker.
The Government’s “emergency alert test” tomorrow isn’t a technical test, the purpose is a lot more sinister. It’s a test to see how many people will comply, with an added touch of predictive programming thrown in, to get the population prepared for what’s coming. Turn them off!
— David Morgan 🏴 #StayFree (@david_r_morgan) April 22, 2023
Daughter's school is doing a "Stephen Lawrence Day", which is all about "systematic and institutional racism".
This is your pitiful "conservative" government in action. They should all be beaten up by their own rent boys.
Tired trope but imagine for a second the r*ces were reversed. This would be talked forever, with anniversaries from its happening, and it would be denounced by every celebrity and politician https://t.co/KpGfOYEwLW
Neil Oliver: ALL manners of freedom are being eroded | Neil Oliver Live https://t.co/59ojOyUInX via @YouTube@JoeBiden@VP Hey, whatcha y’all doin? Simple peasant, just askin!?!?
“A pub landlady today defied authorities and put more of her golliwog collection back on display just days after 20 of them were seized by police as part of an investigation that she and her husband had committed a hate crime.
Benice Ryley proudly placed five of the controversial dolls behind the bar of The White Hart pub in Grays, Essex, which she has run for the past 17 years with her husband Chris.
Read that article. The Essex Police clowns are still claiming that the golliwogs they seized are “part of an investigation” into a so-called “hate crime“, which is complete nonsense. It is not unlawful to own or display a golliwog.
One of the alarming aspects of contemporary Britain is the degree to which the police are (wilfully?) unaware of the limits to their power and, indeed, jurisdiction.
“Today’s revelation that suspected terrorists have entered Britain posing as small boat migrants brings a whole new context to the Channel crisis.
It was already known that hundreds of criminals had been identified among arrivals from France – raising huge questions about Britain’s porous border and the Government’s ability to protect its citizens.
Now we know that the problem is far, far worse.
The 19 terror suspects who camouflaged themselves as would-be refugees to enter the UK are known to be affiliated with some of the most murderous groups in the world, including Islamic State and the Somali Islamist insurgent group al-Shabaab.
The security services were already under pressure keeping tabs on thousands of individuals who pose an active threat in the UK.”
“Ukraine’s air defence could crumble ‘within weeks’, according to leaked US intelligence documents.
The New York Times reported that newly leaked Pentagon documents and US officials suggest that a huge influx of munitions is needed to keep Russia’s air force from changing the course of the war.
According to one leaked document, missile stocks for Soviet-era S-300 and Buk air defence systems, which constitute 89 per cent of Ukraine’s protection against most fighter aircraft and some bombers, could be fully depleted by May 3 and mid-April.
One leaked document reportedly assessed that Ukrainian air defences designed to protect troops on the front line will be “completely reduced” by May 23.”
[Daily Telegraph]
There it is. The air defences of the Kiev regime may have “crumbled” and will be “fully depleted” and “completely reduced” within 1-5 weeks from now.
At the same time, the Kiev-regime infantry still living is suffering poor morale and huge losses.
The conclusion must be that Russia can press its advantage in the warmer weather expected soon.
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Russian troops are simply razing to the ground the fortified area in the west of Bakhmut, created by the Armed Forces of Ukraine in high-rise buildings, heavy casualties pic.twitter.com/65Zc9KbDEH
A brief conclusive summary of the Ukraine war by Scot Ritter: "Russia has broken the back of the Ukrainian military.. the battle of Bakhmut is over, so too is the chance of Ukraine coming out of this war with any semblance of victory." pic.twitter.com/KT5u4jYm1X
Zelensky will have to stop pretending to be a great (or any) statesman and/or great (or any) military leader, and go back to clowning on TV comedy shows. Either that, or retreat to his USD $40M villa in Florida.
Putting up the Russian flag east of Bakhmut, now that the Ukrainians aren't just going to try to shell it out of spite.
Though I wouldn't mind seeing them try. Its a waste of their dwindling shell supplies. pic.twitter.com/yhCY6xrEhd
“I don’t know if Ukraine will even exist as a nation state by the end of 2023,” McGregor said. Douglas McGregor, a retired US Army colonel and former White House adviser, expressed uncertainty about the existence of a country called Ukraine on Stephen Gardner's YouTube channel.… pic.twitter.com/w3pvsLBxc9
Assault detachments of PMC "Wagner" continue fighting for quarters in the central part of Artemovsk, pushing the enemy to the western outskirts – Russian Defense Ministry
Western-made armored vehicles supplied by the Armed Forces of Ukraine continue to be successfully disposed of by Wagners in Bakhmut pic.twitter.com/JbaqDfDp1g
NYT: Leaked US Documents Reveal Ukraine's Plans to Move Elite Troops to Bakhmut According to US intelligence, the situation in Bakhmut is "catastrophic" for Ukraine pic.twitter.com/qeMdBrDTHE
We invaded Vietnam, Iraq and Afghanistan, and each time we survived the consequences of the war because we had the global monetary reserve currency. Today's war with Russia and China is not like those wars" … Details about the future of the dollar in the video pic.twitter.com/VvEcXqsKuW
The above analysis is very weak re. Weimar hyperinflation. The Weimar Republic did not collapse because of hyperinflation.
The Weimar hyperinflation period was 1921-1923, but mainly summer 1922 to November 1923. In other words, hyperinflation really only existed for about 18 months.
The hyperinflation did not “collapse” the Weimar Republic, though it did destroy the savings of those who had savings, thus making the whole political situation in Germany, already unstable, more unstable. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hyperinflation_in_the_Weimar_Republic. It did rob the Weimar Republic of authority, to be sure. People distrusted it.
The final collapse of the Weimar Republic, which stabilized to some extent in the mid/late 1920s, came about more because of the Depression, which was born outside Germany, in the USA.
Hitler and the NSDAP did not attain full State power until 1933, a decade after the end of the hyperinflationary period.
I was just looking at the memoirs written (actually, ghost-written) by some “senior” (so-called) politicians. Liz Truss’s Out of the Blue, which came out too late, after she had already been deposed, is at present selling about 200 new copies monthly on Amazon. Not very impressive, but better than Andrea Leadsom’s effort, Snakes and Ladders, which is managing a mere 20 per month.
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Heard about this on the radio this morning. Apparently one of those involved is a Ukrainian refugee, who is back there over the Easter break, for a holiday. Who leaves a war zone as a refugee and goes back as a holiday maker while the war is ongoing?
“A newly-leaked top-secret Pentagon document reveals American planners doubt Ukraine’s ability to launch an effective counteroffensive against Russian invaders this spring.
Outlining the developments of the war since February, the document picks up on ‘force generation and sustainment shortfalls’, predicting Ukrainian forces will fail…“
Morris dancers perform with blacked faces despite bans from ancient tradition's governing body https://t.co/zDhfhOCpNP England is a Free Country, so well done to all the Morris Dancers with Blacked Faces for standing up to all the Woke Madness🏴
This may come about not by humanity losing a “war” with robots etc but by humanity simply becoming gradually more enmeshed by (and in) technology which is just too convenient, and which then becomes irremovable.
“A 61-year-old man has been arrested on suspicion of assaulting Matt Hancock on the London Tube.
The alleged attack on the former Health Secretary happened yesterday morning at Westminster Underground station, close to the Houses of Parliament.” [Daily Mirror]
What puzzles me slightly is why Hancock would travel by Underground anyway. He has a salary of £85,000+, generous Parliamentary expenses, and outside earnings (including £400,000 in 2022 for his trash TV appearances) etc. Maybe he is just a moneygrubbing skinflint.
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Officials close to inquiry said to have been shocked by some claims including individuals being physically sick before meetings, regularly in tears and, in more than one case, left feeling suicidal by alleged behaviour.
But Rishi Sunak’s Conservatives now under siege on three fronts – with official investigations into Dominic Raab, Nadhim Zahawi and Boris Johnson – difficult for PM who pledged to instil “integrity, professionalism and accountability at every level” of his government.
“Put a beggar on a horse and he rides it to death” [German proverb].
Looks as though my blog comments about half-Jew Raab, from several years ago, and over several years, have held up pretty well, if I say so myself.
We never seem to learn from history. War mongers setting up for WWIII. While they hide in bunkers dragging us into a war that has fk all to do with us, it’s the little people that are set up to be cannonfodder for these fkrs. Zelenskyy isn’t interested in peace, it’s pathetic https://t.co/98DWCojIug
Sending hundreds of tanks to Ukraine (from all over Europe and the USA) is a massive escalation. In reality, even one nuclear missile on London = the UK finished for a hundred years or more. Even one nuclear missile on each of New York, LA, San Francisco, Washington DC, Philadelphia, Houston, Miami, Chicago, Boston = USA finished for decades, maybe a hundred years or more.
Yes, Russia’s major cities and military centres too, but does that help us? No.
This is not the way to go. The escalation has to stop, and then be reversed.
The present UK Defence Secretary is what was once termed “a passed-over major“, a former officer who, when serving, was unlikely ever to reach senior command. Not someone who can be relied on now.
Yvette Cooper is very much part of the problem, shame she’s not concerned about the thousands of young girls who’s lives have been ruined by grooming gangs, then it’s a case of 🙈🙉🙊 pic.twitter.com/2dHcIzxmb4
Yvette Cooper and her husband, Ed Balls, have several houses, partly bought by the money they ripped off during the expenses-scandal years. Not one houses any so-called “refugees”. Buy-to-let parasites.
Since centrist hero Yvette Cooper is trending, here’s a reminder that she’s an absolute monster who should never be anywhere near power again. pic.twitter.com/Oni1WVQeQR
Amazing how many deluded or misled people actually think that “Jack Monroe” is busying around, collating useful or relevant data about the cost of food; in fact, she just collates enough to sound superficially credible to those who know no better.
The Grocer's Hero of the Year was my particular favourite. For all those things she said she did…but unfortunately she didn't. I invented cottage cheese. May I have an award please?
We had arguments based on facts, evidence and our values. We threw it all at them relentlessly. It didn’t work. They went ahead and killed children and babies anyway. Lockdown wasn’t a ‘bad policy’, it was democide. So were the injections. This is a ludicrous statement from JHB. https://t.co/CmDY5B5TOU
186 Coastal MPs have failed. Johnson sold out the U.K. fishing industry & coastal communities. You all signed the deal that gave our territorial waters back to the EU. 40yrs deprived seaside towns have waited to rebuild, you stole their opportunities & aspirations. Outrageous.
No-one I know wants a “Labour” (fake) government, but no-one I know wants the present fake “Conservative” omnishambles either, and it will be good to see the anguish on their faces as many lose their seats, salaries, inflated expenses, jobs for wives, husbands, girlfriends, mistresses etc.
In fact, one of the best sights of 2019 was to see how upset were Jew-Zionist-lobby puppets such as Anna Turley, Mary Creagh, Ruth Smeeth etc, as they got turfed out of the House of Commons.
The logical endpoint of tolerance and inclusion
Ditto for the disgusting pedo brigade making increasing noises
Either admit discrimination and exclusion aren't exclusively some kind of crime against humanity, and at times even vital, or get comfy in the world you've helped make https://t.co/rAVNPTHVet
That Tom Harwood person is just another pseudo-national traitor to the people of Britain and the peoples of Europe.
Our largest Rotary club will not allow women to join, not because the men object, but because their wives do not want their husbands to be around strange women all day.
Their wives do not want it.
The idea that every space has to be co-ed is frankly disturbing and should stop.
That was what happened in the Royal Navy and the U.S. Navy.
I recall that, when I first lived in the USA, in 1989 or 1990, the first US Navy ship to go mixed-sex was deployed to the Gulf. An aircraft-carrier, I think. The sailors did not object to nearly 100 women sailors joining the crew, but their wives certainly did! With some reason: when the deployment finished, it turned out that about 90 of the —less than 100— women on board had been made pregnant…
As for the Royal Navy, it matters little now, because the Royal Navy scarcely exists as an effective force. Apart from the paucity of ships, there is the question of the quality of many of the officers and men.
I happened to see about 15 mins of a documentary about a British warship. About a third of the complement seemed to be women. The junior officers (men and women) seemed to be incredibly dim, and rather wet (in a non-oceanic way). Drunk, too.
As for the crew, their shore leave in Italy ended with many drunk and near-incapable. Admittedly, rather an old naval tradition, but it was unpleasant to see, especially, the female members of the crew so drunk that they were unable to walk, falling into the gutter in their short skirts, just as they presumably did in the “left behind” UK towns from where many of them must have originated.
I have been interested for several, indeed many, years in the socio-political effects of the AI/robot/computer revolution, which effects started to be felt as long ago as the 1960s, accelerated in the 1980s, but which still mushroom, and may be considered to be still in the youthful stage of development.
I happened to see an online article which was about 25 types of human work likely to be largely replaced by robots. Some were unsurprising, such as Data Entry Clerks and Bookkeepers, others less so (as a former barrister, I noticed “Lawyers” with interest!). I did not expect to see “Farmers” on the list, though in fact much agricultural work has already moved from human and animal labour to robotic or at least automated: sophisticated machines now already sow, harvest and process agricultural produce. Some of the most delicate tasks can still not be effectively automated without loss of quality, but that will probably change. The picking of grapes is done today as it has been since the dawn of recorded history– by hand. The best tea is also still picked by hand, though experiments have been made with automation: the Soviet tea industry tried it back in the 1970s (“on Georgia’s sun-dappled hills”, as Lermontov had it).
Looking ahead, one can see that many more jobs will be automated. Even now, that is leaving many either with no jobs, or with “McJobs”, minimum-wage bottom-of-barrel jobs. Increasingly, there will be discontent as those who have either no job or a job which does not cover even basic necessities become more numerous. At present, in the UK, those who have existed on poor pay have had that pay topped up via “tax credits” etc (and/or, now, the cretinous “Universal Credit” pipedream of Iain Dunce Duncan Smith), administered by a shambolic and punitive bureaucratic regime. That can and will be taken over by a Basic Income, paid without reference to whether the individual is trying to find work or better work.
The essence of the plan in respect of AI etc is that automation creates economic surplus. That surplus, at present, is today then distributed mostly to shareholders and higher executives, by means of dividends, pay and capital gains (eg via share options). That surplus or benefit should be shared out with the employees of the enterprise and with the people in general, via the mediation of the State. Not forgetting the need for an economic enterprise to have reserve funding for R&D etc.
Basic Income will give to all citizens at least a measure of the financial and life security currently enjoyed by only the wealthy, the “trustafarians” etc. It will enable those who want more than the basic minimum to work for that extra money, those who want to volunteer or do charitable work to do so and yet still subsist, those who want to think or write to create. As for those who only want to loaf, they do that under any system (including the present one) and at least Basic Income makes society quiescent.
The cost of Basic Income is high, but the cost of administering and paying out the present “welfare” system is hugely high too! Admin, snooping, interrogating, complex payment structures etc.
Taken to absurdity, one could envisage a society entirely dystopian, where no human workers are needed at all. The machines (etc) then produce goods and services which cannot be bought and paid for, because the humans have no work and therefore no pay and therefore no disposable income.
In such a scenario, either goods and services have to be given away free of charge to the humans unable to pay for them, or the humans need to be given money-value for which they have not directly worked. Basic Income.
The present society is already exhibiting a trend to work which pays little or nothing and a connected trend to an amelioration of the effects of that first trend (via State welfare, pensions, tax credits etc).
In the end, Basic Income is essential, because the robotics/AI revolution is loosening the nexus between work and pay.
The rail system in the UK is a mess. Start from basics: rail travel, when it started (in England, in the world) in the 19th century, was a fast expanding private enterprise system of competing lines. These lines (companies) solidified into an efficient cartel by the time of the First World War. During the war itself, the railways were under State control (and until 1921). The Railways Act 1923 put the de facto private cartel on a statutory basis, with four large railway companies running virtually all passenger and freight services. Profitability waned with the coming of cars and road freight so that, by the time of nationalization in 1948, losses threatened. This became reality in 1955, when British Rail recorded its first operating loss.
The “modernization” plans adopted from 1955 culminated in the Beeching Report of 1963 and the subsequent and consequent closures of lines, services and stations. More than a third of passenger services were closed down. The closures of railway stations were even more dramatic: out of 7,000 stations, more than 4,000 were shut.
The 1990s privatization was carried out in a manner so poorly-conceived that only free-market ideologues who knew little of the realities of how to run a railroad could ever have decided upon it. I do not propose to delve into the detail here (and I myself am no expert anyway), except to say that there seems to be a good case for re-nationalization, possibly on a low-compensation or even an expropriation basis.
What of the future? We see that, all over the world, even in the UK, that driverless train transport, indeed driverless transport generally, is becoming common. Many British people will have travelled on limited forms of automated transport such as the Docklands Light Railway or the monorail at Gatwick Airport which connects the main terminal with another. It would be possible to run many more light rail and ultralight rail services on new branch lines, connecting with existing mainline stations and lines. Indeed, computerized and robotized ultralight narrow-gauge trains could run from towns, villages and suburbs not presently connected to rail, such lines terminating at an existing railway station. A whole huge new web of public transport could come into operation in this manner, eventually becoming more dense even than the railway system that existed before the 1960s. At the extremities, such lines could be narrow-gauge and the trains very small, perhaps single carriage. The expense, though considerable, would be worthwhile, knitting together a country which has become dislocated.
Road transport will be the dominant mode for the foreseeable future, but if an enhanced branch line network can take even 10% of passenger journeys off the roads, the cost of the new system will perhaps have been justified on that basis alone.
Jesus Christ said that the poor are always with us (part of society). Whether that be accepted or not in absolute terms, the fact remains that, in practice, there is always the necessity to deal with “the submerged tenth”. In Soviet Russia, the solution was make-work jobs and, if that failed, part of the GULAG system. In finance-capitalist “Western” societies, there is the illusion of “aspiration” and “opportunity”: people need not be without (sufficient) income if they work. This theory or ideology leaves aside those who cannot work, whether because sick, disabled, or unable to find remunerative or sufficiently remunerative employment.
Robotics and computerization are advancing. Some studies say that a third of present jobs in countries such as the UK will disappear by about 2030 (some say “only” 25%). It may well be that other jobs will not appear to take up the slack. Millions may be left unemployed. At present, lack of income means that unemployed people (as well as the sick and disabled) have to jump through hoops in a degrading and largely pointless bureaucratic exercise in order to receive often very modest State-provided benefit payments. The system is not only expensive because of those payments, but because of the huge bureaucratic machinery that is built in to the process. There is a better way. Basic Income.
The Basic Income idea is that all citizens receive a regular payment, regardless of circumstances. In short, the payment is unconditional, meaning not withheld if the recipient does not have a job, look for a job, can do a job. Basic Income replaces all (or, in some versions, some) existing social welfare payments.
Basic Income is being trialled in some areas of Europe: in parts of Switzerland, Finland, the Netherlands. In Alaska, all permanent residents receive a small Basic Income payment annually (at present, about $2,500), monies routed from oil revenues.
Basic Income could be tweaked, so that persons on incomes above a certain level have an equivalent amount taken via the tax system; another idea would be to give a higher-tier Basic Income to the disabled (though that would mean some form of assessment and judgment). Alternatively, Basic Income could be paid only to those without income or capital, topping up income to a certain or decided level. That is, in fact, more or less what happens now in the UK, but without the present system’s bureaucracy, unpleasantness, snooping, harassing etc (made far worse since the Iain Duncan Smith regime of 2010-present).
It is objected that Basic Income would mean that people would just be unwilling to work. Is that so? First of all it might depend on the level of Basic Income. Economic realities would probably limit Basic Income to no more than about £15,000 p.a. It might be as little as £10,000 (either per person or per household). Many will, at that level, find plenty of incentive to work if they can. Also, it is rarely heard that people should not receive inheritances or trust incomes because they might be made lazy thereby. Lottery winners in the UK usually start businesses, carry on working for pay or do charity work.
In fact, in the UK, there are already payments somewhat analogous to Basic Income. State Pensions are already paid to all persons over a decided age, with extra “State Pension Guarantee Credit” money paid to those whose income and capital is below a certain level. Child Benefit was formerly paid to all persons who have children (regardless of income) and still is paid, though now there is an income cutoff point (at a fairly high level).
The cost of Basic Income is lessened by the removal of large numbers of pointless jobs in the (UK) Department of Work and Pensions etc and by the elimination of the need for large numbers of “Jobcentres” and other buildings and their upkeep. Housing Benefit will not exist, so greedy buy-to-let parasites will not be subsidized by taxpayers via taxation revenues). That alone will save billions of pounds.
A person receiving Basic Income who wishes to work will be able to look for work honestly (rather than in order to tick a Jobcentre box) and with confidence, and in the meantime will have money for transport, clothing, food. The disabled will not have to undergo degrading tests in order to receive at least the “basic level” of Basic Income (medical report from GP should be sufficient anyway). The more fortunate, who have income or capital, will (if receiving Basic Income), will be able to spend more (thus stimulating the economy) and/or start their own businesses.
In short, it will become clear in time that Basic Income is the way forward in the UK.
Ian Robert Millard 