RED BARON'S WORDS

I saw the BNP (British National Party) Election broadcast on the television a couple of nights ago. It immediately made me think of Bob Roberts the american political film by the very excellent Tim Robbins. The BNP’s use of a custom written folk song soundtrack coupled with leader Nick Griffen’s assertion that his prosecution on grounds of incitement to racial hatred was simply a result of his “telling the truth” was very reminiscent of the film.

The folk song accompanied pictures of a homeless ex-servicemen and included lyrics like “they find homes for the Afghans and Iraqis but not for me.” This is absolutely classic BNP territory, the Falklands veteran treated badly whilst Johnny Foreigner comes in and takes all the houses. This is emotive rhetoric but is of course Cloud Cuckoo Land. It is not mentioned that the Falklands war was a war by a rich ex-colonial nation against a considerably poorer Latin American country over some islands thousands of miles from Britain and on Britain’s back doorstep. (Funny that Britain didn’t go to war to protect Hong Kong.) Of course the war in Afghanistan and Iraq were quite different circumstances, after all very little infrastructure was left in the country and the West had made such a thing about the threats of the respective incumbent regimes so it would have been somewhat churlish to refuse those seeking asylum from that persecution. Then again the UK has done it before, if we look at Zimbabwe a regime consistently castigated by the British when it suits them and yet traded with as and when necessary and asylum seekers and refugees are regularly sent back.

[For those not au fait with the British political climate the BNP are the ‘reformed’ Nazis, by which I mean they now wear suits and ties and seek to come across as serious politicians but the policies are still the same and in their closed door meetings the rhetoric is startlingly familiar. For some time the BNP has been canvassing particularly in impoverished working class areas and picking up the disaffected Labour voter who feels disenfranchised by Labour’s move to the business and middle class sector. There are around 15 BNP councillors in Britain and perhaps that rise has only been halted by the British electoral system which favours the large parties over the smaller ones.]

The BNP have sought to change tack in the same way as their European counterparts have and in public leave behind their fascist bully boy image. It should be asserted with vigour that no matter what clothes you are wearing or how you seek to dress it up fascism is fascism and the BNP are fascists. The waters have been muddied somewhat by the refusal of the major political parties to adopt a firm stance against this, in fact Labour and Conservatives are positively competing on the BNP’s territory on the issue of asylum and immigration.

The trouble with extreme right-wing politics is that it gives people an easy option, the option of blaming someone else for anything going wrong. Why aren’t things going well in this country at the moment, because there are too many illegal immigrants and failed asylum seekers here. Furthermore this is now being used as the justification for the repressive anti-terrorist legislation after it emerged that a failed asylum seeker killed a policeman during a raid some weeks ago. Said asylum seeker was an algerian and allegedly an Al Qu’eda operative. This plays directly into both the idea that it is the evil foreigner to blame for all the ills, it also helps the socially repressive in their attempt to continue the positively draconian measures in legislation that stems from their undertaking to convince us that we should be living in fear, terrorists, muggers, rapists, murderers, anti-social youth, burglars etc. etc. lock your doors, bolt your windows, quake in your boots.

I heard Frederick Forsyth yesterday attempt to claim that he could not be a racist because he had travelled to other countries. It is alarming that someone who writes books could have such an appalling grasp of language. Racism does not mean implicitly that you hate other people in their own countries, after all the BNP have no particular beef with Africans in their own countries, it generally means you do not want them in yours, but it stems from a belief in your own national or racial superiority and this does no preclude travel to other countries at all. I would like to say at this juncture that Frederick Forsyth is, in my humble opinion, a twat.

Song Of The Day ~ That Petrol Emotion – Lettuce

Original Comments:

protagonist made this comment,
Ah, british politics. so much i don’t understand. but i do understand calling someone a twat – and i appreciate the sentiment. forsyth sounds like a tool – i hate him. mandrake
[Redbaron responds – You want to know anything about British politics from my subjective standpoint mate you only have to ask! As for the solidarity comments on that tosser Forsyth, your support is both appreciated and made me chuckle always a bonus!]

comment added :: 25th April 2005, 21:35 GMT+01
Lynne made this comment,
RG, having spent the af’noon listening to Political Twats try and smarm votes from my regs -all whilst schmoozin’ the press o’course…

(Bah.)

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comment added :: 26th April 2005, 18:52 GMT+01
Bob Red made this comment,
Sad fact of the matter is that due to the current state of the country, a lot of people are prepared to swing from one extreme to another. The amount of times ive heard “this time im voting BNP… thatll get the bastards out” is more common than a satellite dish on a council estate! One of the wards near me is already under BNP control and is now a crime hotspot. Its amazing how they dress their true intentions up and play on what is angering most of society.. but i agree they are nothing but nazis in suits and if they ever get in, they wont get out very easily. Maybe its worth everyone taking a minute to stop and think about what biggest single issue that needs tackling in this country is. Personally i think crime and personal safety should come top of the bill. but then thats just my opinion
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comment added :: 29th April 2005, 17:38 GMT+01

Sorry is it just me being obtuse or do other people see the bullshit arguments being attempted by the mainstream political parties? There are after all so many to choose from (bullshit arguments that is, not political parties) but the one that seems so blatantly ludicrous is the whole public spending and tax cuts debate. Once again I am going to assume that it is my failure to grasp the complex elements of macro economics that means I cannot understand the debate but let me wade in and see whether I get out of my depth.

Now for simplicity so that my non-mathematical brain can keep up let us break this down to simple household expenditure. Let us call public spending ‘shopping’ and taxation ‘income’. Now it doesn’t take a genius to recognise that if I want to go shopping I need to have some income. Hence if my income exceeds my shopping bill I am in the black but if my shopping bill exceeds my income I am in the shit and it’s bread and water for the last week of the pay month! Now were I to have the ability to set my income at what I wanted it would be folly to set it below my prospected expenditure but equally it would be unlikely I would be allowed to set it a great deal higher. Let us apply that model to the national economic model. There is state public spending, ie the money spent on public services such as the NHS, Education and the state infrastructure etc. Only a buffoon would argue against public spending, most of the time the arguments are as to how much and where. Obviously the money for public spending comes from taxation, public spending is, in essence, money spent by the public for the public. So the revenue from taxation must in theory cover the amount needed for public spending. The greater the revenue the greater the capacity for public spending, we will leave for the moment the issue of specific governments and whether they use the capacity or not. By the same token again it is not rocket science to see that the less taxation revenue the less money available for public spending. So if a party are offering you tax cuts, what you are getting is more money in your pocket every month and the likelihood that you will be required to spend more of it on things you used to get for free.

Therefore for politicians to attempt to offer a system of good public spending whilst at the same time offering a reduction in taxation is simply a cynical ploy in the hope that people will not really look too closely at it. You cannot have something for nothing and the sooner people realise this the better. At least then we might be able to have a more adult debate about who is best placed to pay for it. After all until it is accepted that the rich pay for what the poor cannot afford we aren’t going to get anywhere. I have made my views on taxation abundantly clear and therefore whilst it is no surprise to hear the Tories talk about tax cuts, after all only an idiot would think that the Tories were going to invest in public services, it would be a gross understatement to say that I was disgusted by the Labour pledge to keep the top rate of tax the same at 40%

There has been a lot of talk today about the Liberal Democrats who have announced in increase in the top rate of tax to 50% (this will however only affect 1% of the population those earning over £100,000/year) further to this tax rise is the proposal to introduce a local income tax to replace the arbitrary council tax. Analysts and critics have been focusing very much on those who would lose out the ‘middle-income bracket’ by which they are referring to those at the bottom of the rate affected and in this case households earning over £40,000. Whilst I appreciate that there is a problem in this country now that many such earners have been saddled with huge debts due to the inflated house prices etc. I cannot deflect from my view that this remains an intrinsically fairer way of gathering revenue. It is said by the Liberals that 50% of households will be better off and this will undoubtedly be the poorest half and this cannot be a bad thing. It is not without faults but remains one of the more progressive policies of the election campaign. To my mind I would be quite happy if limits were put on the local income tax such as deductions for those with children or student debts etc. This could all be subsidised by those at the top of the earnings brackets. It is about time those who have been allowed to milk the system for their own benefits were forced into putting a great deal of that back for the good of those less fortunate. It has been 26 years of halcyon days for the opulent and that has to end. Whilst I see why many people would think in the current climate that since the Liberals are the most left-wing of the major parties and the most socially progressive that they deserve the vote. The quadry is that the Liberals are still only a centre-left party, they have no pretentions to drastically change the system, they would do a bit of minor tinkering in the electoral system but they are like a version of Labour Lite and as such whilst increasingly more acceptable than the Labour or Tory lot they remain very establishment figures.

On a related note I hear the IMF has been in town telling the Labour government that they must reign in public spending or taxes will have to rise. Now one must not forget that institutions like the IMF and World Bank are populated by quite a lot of cunts. The IMF is a freelance global receiver, freebooting into countries and forcing a neo-conservative agenda on them by blackmailing them to sell off public utilities and services and general assets in exchange for loans. After what the IMF has done to Latin America I would have thought someone in the Labour government would have had the good sense to tell them to ‘fuck off’ but of course Labour are now the party of “wealth creation” rather than ‘equal wealth distribution.’ Kier Hardie must be spinning in his grave. Just over 100 years after the founding of the Labour party to represent the majority working class for the first time in mainstream politics I think it is time to admit defeat on the current lot and start again. Let us hope that Respect stay true to this tradition and become that movement, I have my reservations at certain points as I have said before but they are currently the only ones with even the glimmer of hope because they are the only ones attempting to do so.

Song Of The Day ~ The Futureheads – Hounds Of Love

Original Comments:

Mark Ellott made this comment,
The Lib Dems have been touting the local income tax for some years now. Not only would it be fiscally fairer, but would be simpler for people to understand.
One area that any government may reduce spending is to trim some of the fat in their own departments, thereby leaving more funds available for essential services (or tax cuts, I suppose). I notice that the parties talk the talk, but rarely follow through.

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comment added :: 16th April 2005, 13:10 GMT+01

So Tesco became the first British company to ever post profits of over £2 billion ($3.83bn). Tesco is now in the top 3 retailers in the world along with Wallmart in the US (who own Asda in the UK) and Carrefour in France. Tesco’s success is based fundamentally on their supermarket core but has become far more than that as supermarkets in the UK have changed radically in the last decade becoming more like American grocery stores.

Tesco operates more than 2,300 stores in 13 countries including Japan, Poland, Turkey, Hungary, and a joint venture in China. The UK remains its largest market, where sales for the year rose 11.9%. Non-food sales rose 17% to £6bn, with the group highlighting a 28% increase in sales of its clothing range. Profit at its online operation grew 51.8% to £36m, on the back of sales of £719m. Tesco said sales at its international operations in Asia and central and eastern Europe were up 13.1%.
Tesco’s underlying profits figure excluded profits on disposal of assets, integration costs and goodwill amortisation. Including these, Tesco’s pre-tax profit rose 24.5% to £1.96bn.

Tesco’s claims that it plans to create 25,000 jobs globally this year of which 11,000 will be in the UK.

Now obviously my views on capitalism are clear and I see it as profane that since Tesco shares have risen by about 25% in the last 12 months there will be a number of middle and upper class people who will be reaping the benefits of this increasing mall based culture that is altering the buying habits of the working class more than anyone else.

However what intrigues me is that in the wake of this information from Tesco’s are items such as the Federation of Small Businesses which has said that this should be ringing alarm bells since it is signalling the continuation of the demise of the traditional independent shops and the High st. in general. More specialist retailers such as Marks & Spencer have seen a steady decline of their sales as Tesco’s has increased it’s coverage in their principle business areas such as clothing, consumer electronics, home wares etc.

It is no doubt that the rise of retailers such as Tesco’s and Wallmart lead to a homogeneity across the retail sector that leads to what people may see as an increase in their choice within a shop but is a lack of choice outside of that. Whilst many analysts say that consumers in Britain have started to become annoyed with Tesco’s dominance and will often take their business elsewhere the following graph illustrates not a trend away from this type of spending pattern merely a choice of a different conglomerate retailer. Whilst consumers may not want to go to Tesco they are still wooed by the notion of having everything in the same shop.

What I’m afraid I fail to see is why anyone can be especially surprised or upset by this dominance of the market of the big players. This is the nature of capitalism where success is ultimately measured in your ability to outdo the competition. This is why I see capitalism as an essentially flawed basis for a system because it works on the premise that consumer choice and freedoms are paramount but on the flip side the companies have an ultimate goal of monopoly because this is the true measure of their success. You doubt this? Well it’s not as if there aren’t plenty of precedents for it, Microsoft being but one prime recent example. You see in the capitalist system a company must appeal to its consumers whilst in its infancy. It must expand its appeal and broaden its market and attempt to compete with its rivals. To do this it must move in on their territory, take their customers, undercut their prices etc. etc. The way I see it Tesco is the embodiment of a successful capitalist enterprise. You don’t have to like it, but to expect capitalism to work in any other way is simply naivety. Or am I missing something?

Song Of The Day ~ Buffalo Springfield – Stop, Children What’s That Sound?

Original Comments:

Mark Ellott made this comment,
I had a really heated discussion on this subject a few years back when Walmart bought Asda. While the conglomerates meet the buyers’ demands, they do so at the expense of the smaller retailer. It is the smaller retailer who is left with the high risk, low turnover goods. So you can buy pet foods in Tescos, but the small pet shop who relies on these to make a profit goes under. Now where do you buy, for example, your hamster? Or if, like me, you are into exotics, your reptiles? People often fail to see the implications of pile-it-high-sell-it-cheap retailing. Until they can’t get a hamster for love nor money, that is.
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[Redbaron responds – You are exactly right Mark, the big supermarkets do not like to be left with high inventory, part of their strength is that they buy in huge bulk because of the ability to shift such a vast amount of stock. The lack of high-risk low turnover specialist items is not good for the options of the consumer and will not be fulfilled by the specialists who’s margins have been eroded by the MNCs under-cutting them for the peripheral items. Your pet shop example is a good one, you can use the same sort of analogy about electronics. I could buy a new stereo in Tesco’s but I have around 500 records and where do I go if I need a new stylus?

You have therefore provided yet another reason as to the paradox of capitalism where the nature of the system is always going to mean that the interests of the business are the antithesis of the interests of the consumer and these only work for a brief period in time in a capitalist economy’s infancy.]

comment added :: 13th April 2005, 15:25 GMT+01
Katie made this comment,
They do make a rather nice wild mushroom cannelloni though. You can’t argue with economics, in an ideal world there would be perfect competition but there isn’t. Tesco (et al) gives people what they want i don’t like it, you certainly don’t like it, but that’s the way things are. Are you going to prohibit them from selling cat food? What gives us the right to do that? I particularly don’t like the way that tesco metros are springing up everywhere wiping out small local ‘grocery’ stores however, the other side of the coin is that it’s now cheaper to buy beans from your local shop. Market forces dictate what companies do, if “we” didn’t want it then it wouldn’t happpen. Government intervention to prevent full monopolys is the best and fairest thing that we can hope for and that’s what we currently get. Then again though, I’m a capitalistic microsoft bitch.
Big hugs, Katie x
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[Redbaron responds – Sorry hon but this is the typical bullshit New Labour neo-liberal argument. That classic “capitalism isn’t great but it’s the only show in town”. Why is it? We have been spoon-fed this notion that Communism is a good system in principle but can’t work in practice whilst all around us we are forced to settle for a system that is neither good in theory and reality shows us that it is fatally flawed in practice too. Your idea of state interventionist capitalism contravenes the concept of Free Market economics whilst you have a very naive assumption of the benign nature of supply and demand. Whilst it may be true that consumers can drive the market if they excercise the power, quite often in the case of the big retailers the trick is to give us the perception that we have a choice whilst directing us to what they want us to buy. Market forces only dictate company policy if companies passively allow it to.

But you’re right, you are of course a capitalist microsoft bitch not to mention a Daily Mail peddling one!]

comment added :: 13th April 2005, 19:01 GMT+01
baracuda made this comment,
I read somewhere that something like £1 out of every £8 spent in Britain is given to Tesco. That’s not £1 in every £8 that’s spent on food that’s in 1/8 of all the money spent in total.
I just find that statistic to be a bit scary.
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comment added :: 18th April 2005, 15:51 GMT+01