Let's face facts, British politics is pretty low right now. Apart from nothing else, the whole thing is nothing more than a reality TV show, a popularity contest.
Looking back to the dark days of the EU Referendum, which feels like years ago now, the whole debate was a shambles. Both sides were a joke.
They both used the argument of "this is what Hitler would have wanted and therefore you should vote opposite to that". Adolf Hitler wanting something to happen, as bad as he was, isn't a prerequisite for us wanting the opposite.
Hitler liked sun-shine, mountains, Wagner, dogs, stories about cowboys and indians along with the laughter and smiles of children. Does Hitler liking these things make anyone who also liked them a bad person?
He also had a distinct hatred of jews, black people, disabled people, homosexuals, gypsies.... anyone that didn't fit into his image of how the ideal person should look and behave. Ironically this included the man himself but that's another story.
Everyone knows Hitler is bad, wanting the same thing as him is bad news, right?
Hitler's deep rooted hatred of these things makes him a bad person. Anyone else that has a hatred for those things is also bad, not because Hitler wanted them but because they are bad in themself.
That's what they tried to make us think. The dumbed down version of politics now is use this, relate it to this and it equals bad.
This worked incredibly well for the Leave campaign. Being in the EU means we have to do this, this and this, therefore it's bad news and we should leave.
The main reason given was immigration. The big bad word. It's a divisive word. If you're pro-immigration then you're a "looney lefty", if you're anti-immigration you're a far right fascist. See, assign this to this and you get this.
In actual fact somewhere in the middle is true.
He who wins the immigration debate wins the vote.
Let's take a look at this. It's a real concern for many people, jobs are under threat (figures mean nothing, especially when those figures are skewed by zero hour contracts, what are the people on the street feeling?) School places are in high demand, getting yourself a local GP or dentist is becoming harder and harder. These places are low as it is, if all you hear is that 350 million immigrants are ready to come from the EU to flood your town aren't you going to be worried?
It's not about race or nationality, if 350 million British people lived in some other country but we had a vote in the same circumstances to allow them back in how would you vote?
Although I must admit I do find it hard how anyone who voted to leave the EU can then go on to have five kids. What if every couple had five kids? Worrying, no?
This debate then gets hijacked by far right nationalist groups like Britain First who add in things like traditional British values are being wiped away and then anyone who mentions they're concerned with immigration, for the previous reasons like jobs etc, and they then get wrongly labelled racist.
There is more to it than just that but I don't want to get bogged down on a blog about immigration, I'm just trying to point out it's not as simple as anti-immigration means racist and if you're pro-immigration you're a "looney lefty".
The other main story within British politics this summer is Jeremy Corbyn. This guy really divides opinion. Politics used to be about Labour vs Conservative but now it's about traditional socialist labour vs new labour vs centralist conservatism vs right wing light conservatism vs UKIP. Chuck in the Lib Dems, Plaid and the SNP and we could soon find ourselves needing an FA Cup style knock-out competition to determine whom we should have in power.
Labour is so divided right now, it's effectively five parties.
It was a genius masterstroke by Margret Thatcher who said "Tony Blair was my greatest creation", he was her gift to us.
New Labour killed Labour. The Scots and the Welsh were turned off by his politics so their national parties rose to popularity. Losing that much needed support killed any chance of Labour winning the last election.
Who else did well in that election, UKIP, that's who. New Labour refused to address the immigration problem. Traditional Labour voters abandoned generations of voting Labour because they saw UKIP addressing that problem.
Any Labour member will know that the membership card contains the word socialist. Tony Blair just isn't a socialist. If you want to argue that point with me then you may as well be sitting in front of me trying to argue the Earth is flat (these people are on the rise), I'll listen to you but it's only to humour you because I'm polite.
Because of this many socialists abandoned the Labour Party to join smaller fringe parties, mainly the Greens.
Last week Jeremy Corbyn travelled from London to Newcastle via Virgin Rail. A young journalist who is doing volunteer PR work for Corbyn's team wanted to do a piece on him for the Guardian.
The point was to talk about the railways and how they're underfunded and in what a poor state they're in under private ownership.
When the article was published on the Guardian's website it contained a short video of Corbyn stating that the train was "ram packed" and there were not enough seats available for everyone.
However yesterday Virgin Rail released CCTV footage showing Corbyn walking through the train walking past empty seats.
Worst case scenario is that Corbyn lied. And what? It's not as if he was trying to claim money back, he was highlighting the fact that there weren't enough seats for everyone.
I want the leader of the opposition pointing that out.
He was pointing out the poor state of our railways, or are they fantastic?
How well would that go down if there was footage of others standing or sitting on the floor while Corbyn is filmed in a seat saying there aren't enough seats?
The issue is not "Corbyn couldn't find an empty seat" something that he never said, it was that the train was "ram packed". This is something that others, who were on the same train, have claimed.
I want CCTV footage of say ten minutes into the journey. I assume Virgin Rail have that? I want CCTV footage of each carriage at exactly the same time. Then we can count how many seats there were free.
Yesterday Channel 4 news reported that Health Minister Jeremy Hunt lied about having enough money for a '7-day NHS'. Oh, what's that, you didn't hear about it? Is that because we're arguing about train seats?
Today Corbyn had a press conference talking about the NHS, what's on the news? That he reacted "angrily" to a question about Train Gate.
Did you know that last week Richard Branson's health private health company, Virgin Health, gained ownership of yet another health trust. Our NHS slowly being sold away bit by bit. I know it's boring, it's not as cut and dried or easy to digest and get your head around as could Corbyn have had a seat or not but I think it's far more important, no?
British politics is just a popularity contest nowadays. Give it to me in bite sizes, I don't want anything too big or too much for me to have to care about. I want something easy to tackle, I want something that is easy for me to choose the side of. Yes, I don't want the Tories selling off our health service but I'd rather talk about Corbyn's train seat as I don't like him.
Looking back to the dark days of the EU Referendum, which feels like years ago now, the whole debate was a shambles. Both sides were a joke.
They both used the argument of "this is what Hitler would have wanted and therefore you should vote opposite to that". Adolf Hitler wanting something to happen, as bad as he was, isn't a prerequisite for us wanting the opposite.
Hitler liked sun-shine, mountains, Wagner, dogs, stories about cowboys and indians along with the laughter and smiles of children. Does Hitler liking these things make anyone who also liked them a bad person?
He also had a distinct hatred of jews, black people, disabled people, homosexuals, gypsies.... anyone that didn't fit into his image of how the ideal person should look and behave. Ironically this included the man himself but that's another story.
Everyone knows Hitler is bad, wanting the same thing as him is bad news, right?
Hitler's deep rooted hatred of these things makes him a bad person. Anyone else that has a hatred for those things is also bad, not because Hitler wanted them but because they are bad in themself.
That's what they tried to make us think. The dumbed down version of politics now is use this, relate it to this and it equals bad.
This worked incredibly well for the Leave campaign. Being in the EU means we have to do this, this and this, therefore it's bad news and we should leave.
The main reason given was immigration. The big bad word. It's a divisive word. If you're pro-immigration then you're a "looney lefty", if you're anti-immigration you're a far right fascist. See, assign this to this and you get this.
In actual fact somewhere in the middle is true.
He who wins the immigration debate wins the vote.
Let's take a look at this. It's a real concern for many people, jobs are under threat (figures mean nothing, especially when those figures are skewed by zero hour contracts, what are the people on the street feeling?) School places are in high demand, getting yourself a local GP or dentist is becoming harder and harder. These places are low as it is, if all you hear is that 350 million immigrants are ready to come from the EU to flood your town aren't you going to be worried?
It's not about race or nationality, if 350 million British people lived in some other country but we had a vote in the same circumstances to allow them back in how would you vote?
Although I must admit I do find it hard how anyone who voted to leave the EU can then go on to have five kids. What if every couple had five kids? Worrying, no?
This debate then gets hijacked by far right nationalist groups like Britain First who add in things like traditional British values are being wiped away and then anyone who mentions they're concerned with immigration, for the previous reasons like jobs etc, and they then get wrongly labelled racist.
There is more to it than just that but I don't want to get bogged down on a blog about immigration, I'm just trying to point out it's not as simple as anti-immigration means racist and if you're pro-immigration you're a "looney lefty".
The other main story within British politics this summer is Jeremy Corbyn. This guy really divides opinion. Politics used to be about Labour vs Conservative but now it's about traditional socialist labour vs new labour vs centralist conservatism vs right wing light conservatism vs UKIP. Chuck in the Lib Dems, Plaid and the SNP and we could soon find ourselves needing an FA Cup style knock-out competition to determine whom we should have in power.
Labour is so divided right now, it's effectively five parties.
It was a genius masterstroke by Margret Thatcher who said "Tony Blair was my greatest creation", he was her gift to us.
New Labour killed Labour. The Scots and the Welsh were turned off by his politics so their national parties rose to popularity. Losing that much needed support killed any chance of Labour winning the last election.
Who else did well in that election, UKIP, that's who. New Labour refused to address the immigration problem. Traditional Labour voters abandoned generations of voting Labour because they saw UKIP addressing that problem.
Any Labour member will know that the membership card contains the word socialist. Tony Blair just isn't a socialist. If you want to argue that point with me then you may as well be sitting in front of me trying to argue the Earth is flat (these people are on the rise), I'll listen to you but it's only to humour you because I'm polite.
Because of this many socialists abandoned the Labour Party to join smaller fringe parties, mainly the Greens.
Last week Jeremy Corbyn travelled from London to Newcastle via Virgin Rail. A young journalist who is doing volunteer PR work for Corbyn's team wanted to do a piece on him for the Guardian.
The point was to talk about the railways and how they're underfunded and in what a poor state they're in under private ownership.
When the article was published on the Guardian's website it contained a short video of Corbyn stating that the train was "ram packed" and there were not enough seats available for everyone.
However yesterday Virgin Rail released CCTV footage showing Corbyn walking through the train walking past empty seats.
Now at no point does Corbyn say that there were "no seats" for him to sit on. Some will dispute this of course, instead of doing that just provide the proof.
What he does say is that the train was "ram-packed". Now could it be that Corbyn, a man of integrity decided to find a space on the train and wait to see, after everyone else had gotten on, where he, along with his team (<important) could sit?
So, Corbyn boards the train and instead of clambering like an animal to find himself a seat he instead moves through the train, passing empty seats, to find a space on the train, allowing everyone else to board with the intention being that he will take an empty seat if/when available.
Now, important bit from earlier comes in here. He wouldn't just want one seat for himself, he'll want to sit with his team. It has later come out that he wanted to sit with his wife, the bastard!
So why does Corbyn make the point of not taking any old seat and then moan about there being "no seats" (he never said that) available to him?
I cant find it now and while its not necessarily important that I do some will say it is but I'm sure I heard him say something along the lines of "I'm a civil servant, is it fair that tax payers pay for me to have a seat while they have to stand?"
That would explain him passing through the empty seats. He's happy to let the seats go spare to everyone else and then if he can find one for himself after everyone else has one then he will.
45 minutes after boarding the train a seat became available.
Worst case scenario is that Corbyn lied. And what? It's not as if he was trying to claim money back, he was highlighting the fact that there weren't enough seats for everyone.
I want the leader of the opposition pointing that out.
He was pointing out the poor state of our railways, or are they fantastic?
How well would that go down if there was footage of others standing or sitting on the floor while Corbyn is filmed in a seat saying there aren't enough seats?
The issue is not "Corbyn couldn't find an empty seat" something that he never said, it was that the train was "ram packed". This is something that others, who were on the same train, have claimed.
I want CCTV footage of say ten minutes into the journey. I assume Virgin Rail have that? I want CCTV footage of each carriage at exactly the same time. Then we can count how many seats there were free.
Yesterday Channel 4 news reported that Health Minister Jeremy Hunt lied about having enough money for a '7-day NHS'. Oh, what's that, you didn't hear about it? Is that because we're arguing about train seats?
Today Corbyn had a press conference talking about the NHS, what's on the news? That he reacted "angrily" to a question about Train Gate.
Did you know that last week Richard Branson's health private health company, Virgin Health, gained ownership of yet another health trust. Our NHS slowly being sold away bit by bit. I know it's boring, it's not as cut and dried or easy to digest and get your head around as could Corbyn have had a seat or not but I think it's far more important, no?
British politics is just a popularity contest nowadays. Give it to me in bite sizes, I don't want anything too big or too much for me to have to care about. I want something easy to tackle, I want something that is easy for me to choose the side of. Yes, I don't want the Tories selling off our health service but I'd rather talk about Corbyn's train seat as I don't like him.
You'll care when it's too late for you to care. It might not even be in your lifetime but it will happen.
When you find yourself having a poor run of luck, being made redundant by your company and you can't get a GP appointment. Not because of immigrants, which by the way will still be paddled out as being the reason your luck is so bad, but because you can't afford it as Virgin Health Care is too expensive for you to pay for.
When you find yourself having a poor run of luck, being made redundant by your company and you can't get a GP appointment. Not because of immigrants, which by the way will still be paddled out as being the reason your luck is so bad, but because you can't afford it as Virgin Health Care is too expensive for you to pay for.
