An open letter to the ordinary Tory, appalled and intimidated by the behavior of demonstrators on Sunday

Dear Ordinary Tory,

I agree, spitting,  physical intimidation, and, funny though it was,  even egging, is unacceptable. I'm not so sure about chanting - you've got the entire british media, not so much on your side as in your pockets, chanting is about the only form of public mass communication we control.

But we do need a little perspective. There were 60 thousand plus people demonstrating, a handful crossed a line. This wasn't a hate filled mob. There were a lot of very angry people, many of whom have been badly damaged by the Tories. Their anger is deeply legitimate. These were health workers who have seen their pay cut by almost 20% over the last 5 years, disabled people sanctioned by ATOS, people who've been socially cleansed from their homes by private landlords, graduates with 50k debts and no job... I'm sure I don't need to paint a picture.

The people going to the conference weren't "ordinary people" going about their business. They were dedicated supporters of the conservative party on their way to celebrate their leaders success in creating all the human misery I describe and more besides. The young gloating man deliberately goading protesters with pictures of Thatcher was almost a symbol of the inhuman arrogance of the modern conservative.

The protesters were chanting "Scum". What do you think the Etonian elite, the bankers, landowners and stockmarket fraudsters call us in their relaxed moments? What's the conversation in the country house parties, county balls and city banquets? They really truly believe we are scum, upstart peasants finally getting their comeuppance. Their mindset flows from the resentment and loathing of "people power" and it's postwar translation into a genuinely egalitarian society.

The very powerful never let go of their sense of privilege and entitlement. Thatcher was the tool to start the process of turning things back round - reasserting the historic norm of the dominance of the few who appear to quite genuinely despise us.

I'm not suggesting all the ordinary delegates are of that mind set - but the ethos, political leadership and policy objectives they support are. When it comes down to it - chanting scum is nothing compared to wholesale civil disorder - riot and revolution even, that could happen if the Tories don't let go of their appalling neo-liberal austerity.

Gradual change is always hard to spot - it's like getting old - We don't see see the thickening of the waist and the odd grey hair, then one day we look in the mirror and see a stranger. The Thatcher project has implemented gradual change for 35 years, and suddenly we've woken up to a different world.

Tory policy on tax cuts for the rich and austerity for the poor -
Made in the USA

Globalisation has allowed the very wealthiest corporations and individuals to escape their share of taxation, despite being the biggest beneficiaries of the socialised costs the fallout their businesses create. The myth that privatisation is "more efficient" has been sown. It's object never was better services, and history has shown that to be true - it was always to put those revenues into private hands. The NHS isn't under attack because it's inefficient, it's under attack because it is a hugely profitable investment opportunity for private capital.

Chanting and physical intimidation aren't "very nice" - but the Tories aren't very nice either - the media is owned by the really nasty kind of Tories so they'll be quick to decry the outpourings of genuine fury from the people they are treading under their boots, but they aren't so quick to criticise the greedy dehumanising, morally bankrupt, short sighted policies of a tory government clearly concerned about nothing except the retrenchment of privilege

You response is to say, "I am an ordinary person who goes to Conservative party conference. I am a dedicated supporter who campaigned hard to win. Labour Party dedicated supporters would celebrate if they won. I can't believe you think that people who support the conservatives deserve this intimidation. We are perfectly ordinary people not the klu klux klan. Absolutely appalled"

You may well be an "ordinary person" - but the people you support are not - and actually they don't care about you either - unless you are earning excess of a 150k a year - they really really don't care - it's one of the tragedies of the ordinary conservative supporter - you empower your oppressors.

I ask you

Do you really think the stealth privatisation of the NHS is a good thing?

Do you think it's fair that Nurses and Midwives have had a 17 % pay cut over the last 5 years - was that something people voted for?

Do you think a bedroom tax is fair and reasonable

Do you think it's right that ATOS is sanctioning seriously ill people - declaring them fit for work when they are crippled and blind? What's the point of this exercise anyway? There aren't enough jobs for fit healthy people.

And what about so called Tory economic prowess. The slowest recovery from recession in modern history, the biggest fall in real living standards and a doubling of the defect?

I wonder if you clapped when Hunt said he wanted British workers to be like the Chinese or when Alex Wild urged the party to hit pensioners now, because they'll be dead or unable to remember by the next election.

If the Tories had stood on an honest manifesto - if they had said we intend to privatise the NHS and Education, attack the most weak and vulnerable, have a million people dependent on food banks and slash social services do you think you would have won the election?

Of course you wouldn't. As it was, you were elected by 27% of the electorate and you have a majority of 15 - I would have thought a little more humility and a little less arrogance might  be appropriate.

I'm appalled by spitting - it's disgusting - But 4 people out of 65,000 were arrested on Sunday - Manchester police said the demonstration was largely good humoured and well behaved. As a human being,  I'm sorry you felt intimidated - but are you surprised given the policies you support? To be honest - if you genuinely agree they are a good thing, maybe you are scum - heartless, selfish and greedy.

Are you afraid of Climate Change? If you are not - You should be.

I'd make a small bet. Ask any 100 people selected at random to identify the biggest threat from  climate change and I'll guarantee that of the 70 odd percent who understand global warming is not a crazed conspiracy by deranged scientists, most will say "rising sea levels".

Most will also believe it's a problem for a distant future. It's a worrying misconception. Climate scientists have raised their personal threat level from "terror struck panic" to "urgently needing clean underwear".

Climate Change is an existential threat that goes far beyond "environmentalism". It should be at the very top of the political agenda. Why is an issue that is as much as threat to national security today as Nazi Germany in 1939, so underplayed? Human inability to deal with the long term is a big factor, deliberate fraud and deception on the part of the energy industry is another  - but we've also failed to communicate effectively - public understanding of the true nature of climate change is poor.

The very term "Global Warming" is misleading. It's a lazy explanation of the effects of greenhouse gasses. The idea that the planet will be two or three degrees warmer doesn't seem particualarly scary. More importantly, it gives the wrong idea of why rising levels of greenhouse gasses are so serious.

To understand the real problem, it's more helpful to visualise our climate system as a giant heat engine fueled by the sun. Greenhouse gasses are a thermal blanket, but their effects are more like the accelerator of a car. The higher their concentration, the more of the sun's energy is made available to power the world's weather - and over the last 100 odd years we've effectively "floored it".

To get an idea of why pouring more  energy into the system is  such a problem, imagine what would happen if all the cars on the M25 were suddenly forced to drive 15 mph faster - irrespective of traffic, driver's ability or the condition of vehicles . It would be hard to show increased speed caused a particular crash,  all the usual risk factors would still apply, but we can be sure that crashes would happen more often, and when they happened, they would be more damaging.

In the world's weather systems these accidents are "weather events". Minor bumps are the warm sunny days with occasional showers. Writing off the car the car creates the  "build an ark / phew what a scorcher / big freeze" headlines.

Then  there are the "air ambulance has landed and there are 40 mile tail backs" events.

Extreme Weather -
Flash floods in Cannes - 03/10/2015 - 
where 10% of annual rain fell in 2 days

These are the extreme events, like the deluge that flooded Cannes - the destructive droughts, floods, heat waves, and hurricanes and "once a century" storms. They've always happened - but it's now clear they are happening more often and with more severity. These are the consequences of climate change that create the existential threat to our world. They aren't something that may happen  in some distant future, but real events, happening right now.

Climate change is already having direct economic impacts One of the reasons for the hike in food prices in 2010/11 was the widespread Russian crop failures caused by drought. We also saw crop failures in Norfolk  a few years ago but compared to the "dust bowlification" of SW USA caused by  prolonged drought and acute water shortages in California, predicted to have real impact on US food supplies, these were relatively low-key incidents. Extreme events mean more and more violent storms, longer droughts, hotter hear waves.

The problem with more frequent extremes is that eco systems can't cope. A systems stability doesn't really depend on averages - it's the extremes that limit a system's ability to survive. Ecosystems need time to adapt - the pace of climate change risks of entire eco-systems being wiped out.

In the Arctic, where the impacts of climate change are far more pronounced,  sea ice has retreated rapidly, as the Arctic has warmed, two extreme droughts caused widespread dieback in the Amazon rainforest, and most bizarre of all - in Australia entire colonies of flying foxes have fallen dead from their roosts - killed by heat exhaustion.

The effects are not restricted to food security and ecological impacts -  the Pentagon identifies climate change as a major threat to national security, impacting on water resources, driving migration, destabilising the fragile economies of marginal countries and affecting strategic considerations as seaways through the Arctic become ice free.

The floods in Cannes are just the latest example of an extreme weather event, and while there's nothing new about dramatic floods they are almost 20% more likely today because of global warming -and are set to be 40% more likely if temperatures rise by 2 degrees.

Food security, ecological stability, political instability and disruptive climatic instability are all climate change related issues that are happening right now. As if that isn't enough, some of the disruption drives "feedbacks" that make the situation worse.

Losing sea ice reduces the earth's reflectivity or albedo, meaning less energy is reflected back into space. As the Arctic warms thawing tundra will release methane into the atmosphere. Dying rain forest means  a double whammy - those ecosystems no longer strip Carbon Dioxide from the earth's atmosphere - but the decaying trees also release more carbon. These feedbacks are effectively pressing even harder on the pedal.

If that's not enough, climate change's evil twin - ocean acidification,  has sneaked up behind to bite us the bum. The seas are getting more acid  - something that could have profound effects on marine eco-systems - systems that provide the world with it's biggest habitat, a significant part of it's food and - for good measure - a third of it's oxygen.

Climate change is a clear and present danger - and failing to address it has been one of the greatest acts of political irresponsibility of the last 40 years. It scarcely seems credible that politicians would ignore the issue - but there's clue why in the two faces of  Margaret Thatcher.

As prime minister, she was the first G8 leader to acknowledge that climate change was real and a serious threat. She was also, arguably, the first climate change denier. In her 2003 book Statecraft, in a passage headed "Hot Air and Global Warming", she regretted her leadership on the issue because of the negative effects of climate change policy on business.

Her leadership on climate change flowed from her early training as a scientist and her ability to understand research and evidence. Her U turn came from her position of  neo-liberal capitalist heroine - who recognised that extracting oil and coal was just too profitable to allow silly concerns like global environmental meltdown to get in the way.

"The Agenda of the Left has Never Worked Anywhere - Ever" - Really??

Last week, one of the troll army who stalk on-line media made a comment that - well - dare I say "made me see red" He asked if "all the mainstream Labour members really going to be overwhelmed by the fanatics"? With the votes in, it looks mainstream members overwhelmed themselves. 50% of the party and 57% of affiliates would have won the first round for JC even without the army of  "registered fanatics".

Not that I've seen much evidence of fanaticism among Corbyn supporters. In two rallies I saw all ages and backgrounds - without doubt they were feeling angry, undervalued, ripped-off and betrayed, but fanatical?

a crowd of extremists at Burston Strike School Rally

In my eyes, there are fanatics in the UK political scene, but they aren't the teachers, nurses, midwives, firemen, trade unionists, manual workers, OAP's and small businessmen who gathered at Burston last Sunday to hear Corbyn speak. It's the Tory right.

IDS's murderous policies towards the sick and disabled; taxpayer subsidies for oil exploration and fracking while blocking the development of renewable energy; the deliberate blindness to the plight of refugees fleeing a war we helped precipitate and the winks and nods to tax dodging corporations. Add to this the bedroom tax and the stealth kick in teeth for "hardworking families", with the tax credit cuts announced alongside the introduction of the national living wage set to make 3 million families over £1000 a year worse off, and we see the true fanatics at work.

Not content with libelling a group of people who, for the most part, spent their days, calmly and quietly making the world work, my Troll went on to say Corbyn's solutions are problematic, "because the agenda of the Left has never worked anywhere ever".

It's not the first time this particular old chestnut has thrown back into the the roasting oven of an almost universally hostile media. Nothing like grand sweeping statements for overwhelming reason. Big lies work, or did, until the internet changed the way politics work.

Now we have Google for access to instant history lessons. "The left has never worked anywhere ever"? Is there any evidence to support this particular big lie?

What do we mean by right and left anyway? We think in terms of  political parties but the origin of the term goes right back to the French Revolution of 1789 when the National Assembly divided, with supporters of the king to the president's right and supporters of the revolution to his left. In essence, the left is "the rest" versus the right, "the elite".

The tension between right and left, the elite and the rest, is inevitable. There's a problem with the vastly rich. It's more than the exploitation and repression that allowed the historic accumulation of wealth and privilege. It isn't even ignorance of the price of  a loaf of bread or a pint of milk. There's strong evidence connecting wealth to a lack of empathy . Look back to the court of Louis 16th to see wealth and privilege at it's most ostentatious. "Let them eat cake" weren't truly the words of Marie Antoinette, but it's a fair indication of the mindset. There's something about  the psychology of wealth created isolation. It turns people into arrogant heartless fools - think IDS.

Establishing the roots of the words "left" and "right" in revolutionary France takes us neatly to a left policy that, from the perspective of French serfs and workers, worked very well. The left's policy of beheading, the French court and aristocracy,  was a resounding success.

Admittedly, it was a messy policy, some would argue a little too radical -  and because the roots of elitism are seemingly hard wired into our psyches,  a new elite quickly took on the parasitic arrogance of their aristocratic predecessors - albeit with slightly less outlandish dress codes.

We've found less messy ways of making adjustments to human governance today, and, while the the guillotine may have it's merits, the occasional bloodless coup we call democracy is a better option.

That democratic process has brought many "left" policies that have worked. The health service, pensions, state education,  public sewers and public infrastructure are left wing policies (I'm presuming any social democratic redistributive measure is "left" - we're not talking about political parties but policies) as are health and safety laws, environmental protection, not allowing small children to work down pits and under moving machinery paid holidays and public parks. Some set of failed policies.

In truth, much of what people see as "making our Britain great" are social democratic measures. They demand a redistribution of the nation's wealth for the benefit of all. Not so much failed left policies - more like successes Cameron's government are intent on destroying or privatising.

Far from the left being doomed to failure, it's the right is in deep trouble. It may look like the tories are riding high but there's a huge problem with classic capitalism, and it's one that's been compounded in its modern neo-liberal incarnation. It's sole criteria is the bottom line, and it's a bottom line that has to be delivered on an ever decreasing timescale.

Yes, good old shareholder value, the modern capitalist holy grail. It's a "perfect" expression of a perfect market place. Or maybe not.

Adam Smith would see little that's free or fair about the modern market place. Bent, corrupt, set up to allow the fraudulent peddling of worthless goods and some strange mix of blind brag and russian roulette with the surefire knowledge that if your reckless gambling on worthless junk goes belly up, socialism for the rich will bail you out. A media owned by the elite will of course blame Labour's recklessness for economic catastrophe.

I suppose we could go on playing this game forever but there's a limiting factor. It's the great undeclared, defining issue of the 21st century. It's called climate change and capitalism can do nothing about it.

In fact, the main response of capitalism has been to marshal billions on creating a barrage a fake science to try and delay the dreadful day when the world finally needs to stare it's biggest problem in the face.  The climate denial machine is so bizarre it still feels like a paranoid nightmare - but it is an appalling reality. It's modelled closely on the tobacco industry campaign to "muddy the waters" of the science behind the links between smoking and cancer. It's used tobacco industry tactics, establishing false front organisations, fake science and masters of spin to maintain the big lies about climate - but as scientific certainty grows there's a new tactic - own the politicians.

In the USA,  the energy industry has been so successful in seducing or installing it's cheerleaders that only one of next year's Republican presidential hopefuls  acknowledges the existence of climate change .

Capitalism can't deal with climate change because it's the primary cause of the problem. It's not necessary to have an economy that's based on throw away consumption. Consumerism isn't the only route to prosperity, but it is a route to huge profitability. Pour in oil at one end  and trashy beads  and trade goods out from the other. Even better - export the manufacturing processes to the least developed countries in the world. No unions, no environmental regulation, no heath and safety laws.

Who cares that shipping this junk around the globe covers the world's sea in a giant sulphur dioxide cloud?

Who cares about the crushed burnt Bangladeshi sweat shop workers stocking Primani -  or the Citizens of Beijing choking under a pall of smog? Keep the shareholders happy - the environment is just another global common to mine.

Failure to address the environmental crisis is a massive fail for the right and it's philosophies, it deliberately ignores the catastrophic nature of climate change because so much capitalist wealth is tied up in coal and oil. They'd rather put our planetary eco-system at risk than risk profit.

Corbyn - he understands this. He understands that for all the eyes squeezed hard closed denial, we face clear and present danger, and most of all - he understands that if we want a prosperous society, that's not underwritten by utterly unsustainable consumerism, only social democratic policies can deliver.