A letter a day to number 10. No 1,281
Thursday 10 December 2015.
Dear Mr Cameron,
The boy’s own Chancellor speaks to the Council on Foreign Relations in New York on Britain’s air strikes in Syria – “Britain has got its mojo back and we are going to be with you as we reassert Western values, confident that our best days lie ahead.”
I am happy to say that Britain is a very long way ahead of him. Behind the ever escalating need for food banks there are millions of good hearted people who are supporting Britain’s hungry to eat. It would be presumptuous of me to second guess what motivates others to engage with the violence of poverty and help and support others. What matters is that, quietly, they do.
This winter and Christmas our NHS, albeit in government imposed crisis, will be working to save lives; nurses, junior doctors, surgeons, specialists, cleaners, porters, emergency services, telephonists, receptionists, cooks and bottle washers, too many to imagine let alone mention. Not heroes, nor out of the ordinary, just ordinary people doing what they do, many working antisocial hours and giving up family time and celebrations for others. It happens every year.
Across the country people are daily helping the homeless, from organisations like Shelter and Crisis to individuals, people rise to the increasing crisis of homelessness in Britain. This Christmas there will be countless initiatives to feed the homeless and provide warm clothing and shelter, mostly unseen and unheard, as are the homeless themselves. People helping others for no personal gain or self aggrandisement. Just helping.
I have no idea what Western values George Osborne is talking about and I suspect he doesn’t either as he has no idea what values are apart from the accumulation of wealth and the transfer of wealth from the poor to the rich. As the Mirrors associate editor Kevin Maguire put it rather well, ‘He’s a Chancer of the Exchequer wedded to an unequal free market that enhances the wealth of a powerful elite at the expense of the overwhelming majority’.
I wonder if Osborne even knows what a Mojo is? It’s a spell or magic charm, although latterly it has connotations of sexual prowess and virility. Perhaps that’s what he means as he struts his stuff before the world. It’s a “source of real pride” for Osborne to be bombing in Syria. War isn’t, or shouldn’t be, a source of pride, it’s a cause for sorrow. War is a tragedy, not a cause for celebration. It’s made acceptable through the spin of pride and patriotism and flag waving rhetoric from those who will never put themselves in harms way but persuade or conscript the youth of the nation to fight and even lose their lives in conflicts which are none of their making. To be honest I think Osborne has lost his mojo along with his marbles.
http://www.trusselltrust.org/foodbank-use-remains-at-record-levels
http://www.crisis.org.uk/pages/homeless-def-numbers.html
http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/uk-news/george-osborne-totally-opposed-redistribution-6749109
Fear and Loathing in Great Britain 