Playing politics? I don’t buy it. The people of the UK are angry and will no longer be ignored.

One can’t help but look at the Grenfell Tower inferno and ask why.  Why was this allowed to happen?  Both sides of the political spectrum have had their input although with the Conservatives being the ruling party for seven years they’re obviously fighting a difficult battle.

Labour, on the other hand, are the ones that are able to point the finger at their political opponents when it comes to looking for blame.  In fact, some say Labour may have gone too far and are now entering the realms of gaining politically for this.

I refuse to accept this argument from anyone that blames Muslims for terrorism and looks to automatically put that responsibility at the door of every single Muslim.  The Sun’s front page following Hillsborough looked for blame, trouble is it looked in the wrong areas.

Following a disaster, it is a natural reaction to look for someone to blame.  It’s also the best time.  Right now, since when it was first safe to do so, I shall imagine police and fire officers are raking through the debris looking for clues as to how the fire got to be so bad.  They’re looking for blame.  Investigative journalism should be the same.

I like everyone else first heard about the fire when I woke up on Wednesday morning.  I put the radio on at 7 am Central European Time and heard that there was a fire at a tower block in West London.  It sounded like they were giving it wall to wall coverage. 

I drifted in and out of sleep but when I finally woke up properly I took a look at Twitter and it was full of the news.  One thing that I saw being shared a lot was screenshots of a blog called the Grenfell Action Group.  The post in action was dated on 20^th of November 2016.

The first sentence reads thus “It is a truly terrifying thought but the Grenfell Action Group firmly believe that only a catastrophic event will expose the ineptitude and incompetence of our landlord, the  KCTMO, and bring an end to the dangerous living conditions and neglect of health and safety legislation that they inflict upon their tenants and leaseholders.” How prophetic.

The strong language goes on, you can read it for yourself if you wish but the last words of the blog are “They can’t say they haven’t been warned!” True enough.

If there are any positives to come out of this it is that the media aren’t telling the people what is going on, this is run by the people and you can’t hide from them, they are everywhere.

The people that you’re seeing on social media sharing their anger are the people that live in the area.  I saw Andrea Leadsom being heckled, at least she had the guts to go there, by a local resident.  These are the people who have every right to be getting angry over this.  They’re politicising it and quite rightly.

Theresa May has handled this appallingly.  Oh, how I bet she wishes she could go back a week when she was only a laughing stock for giving up her parliamentary majority.  Now she’s a laughing stock for refusing to meet survivors due to security concerns.  “Hold my crown” joked one Twitter correspondent as he commented on how the 91-year-old monarch showed no such cowardice.

Obviously, Jeremy Corbyn has come in for a bit of stick for also politicising it.  The people of that area are feeling like no-one is listening to them.  Corbyn visiting them at the very least has given them hope.  He has only echoed their concerns.  People have died, the survivors want answers.  Corbyn telling them that he will strive to find those answers is what they want to hear.

Corbyn’s record speaks for itself, he’ll support these people and he’ll get the answers they seek.

Early indications show that the cladding is responsible for why the fire spread so quickly.  The reason why the cladding was necessary is because the building looked “ugly” for those that had to look from their £2 million “pad”.  I wonder if they’re enjoying the view today?

Someone has already done a bit of investigative journalism on this and apparently each piece of this cladding cost £2 less than its less flammable equivalent, making a total saving of £5,000.

£5,000? Is that the price of safety? Is this the price of life? I wonder how much per person that will work out to be once the final death toll is announced. The death toll currently stands at 58 so at the moment it’s a saving of about £86.20 per person.

Ruth Davidson will be leader of the Conservative Party by the end of the year.

So the Tories will join with the DUP, and the number of seats for the government is 328, a majority of just six.

Labour and anyone that is anti-Tory are celebrating, yet some people are pointing out that this is silly as the Tories won.

First lets look at the positives for The Tories.

They gained seats in Scotland.  It seems like, right now, that the referendum 2.0 on Scottish independence has been cancelled.

I think this is on hold. They had a ref in 2013, the SNP lost but in the GE in 2015 they made massive gains winning, what, 56 seats?

Even pre-Brexit there were calls for another ref, Brexit hasn't happened yet so if it doesn't go the way the Scots want there called be calls for a second ref.

For now the Tories will have taken the gains they made in Scotland had they been offered them pre the result.

In the election overall the Tories did increase their share.  The collapse of UKIP plus the gains in Scotland and collecting a few gains in England helped with this.

There are positives for the Tories in this.

However when you stack them up against their negatives they're insignificant.

Going into this election the Tory share of seats was 331.  If your share is 325 you only need one more seat to be the majority in the house of 650 seats.

Labour had a share of 232, 99 fewer.

Why this is significant is because Labour would never have been in with a chance of been able to gain power to make a challenge had the Tories lost some angry dissatisfied rebel MPs.  Labour were in a weak position.

May called this election because she deemed Labour to be weak so she wanted to increase her share, give herself five more years of power and have the mandate of delivering whatever type of Brexit she wanted.

She gambled and she lost.

So let me explain why this is bad for her.

Within the Tory Party you have traditional Tories who are pro-fox hunting, anti-gay right wing, probably a little bit racist.  This is a minority. Most Tories are fairly liberal in comparison.

In Scotland the leader of the Scottish Tories, Ruth Davidson, is herself gay.  It really must stick in the craw for some Tories to have a homosexual running their campaign north of the border.

Not quite winning enough seats means the Tories have to look to the other parties, offer them a chance at helping them form a government.

In 2010 they had the same situation and did a deal with the Liberals. There are many liberal supporters in the Tories so it isn't too hard to find common ground.  

The Liberals ran a campaign appealing to the younger vote and those that took that bait only to see them betray those who voted for them.

As I have already alluded the Tory Party is a broad spectrum, there are some liberals in there but there are also your traditional Conservatives.

The party most likened to the Tories are the DUP.  Completely believe in the union, the Northern Irish Conservatives fully support Brexit from a further right wing point of view than some Conservatives will feel comfortable with.

The best thing you can say about them is they're evangelical christians....  no, that really is the best thing.

They're homophobic, they make no secret about that, are they happy about Ruth Davidson, is she happy about them?

The DUP are answerable to their voters, they can't ditch their manifesto pledges.

If the Tories shift too far to the right and the opposition Labour offers a fairer Brexit for the country you could see some Tories leaving the party, becoming independents just to prop-up Labour and getting a better deal.

This General Election has unquestionably made Theresa May weaker.  Her leadership is being propped up by the most right wing party in British Politics.

Step forward Ruth Davidson.  If her ambition was to ever be leader of the Tory Party she will get no better chance.

She has shown she can deal with the SNP, shown she can lead and will have a lot of support within the left of the party.

She can get a good deal with the EU for Scottish supporters and nullify any future referendum threat.

She is left wing enough that she can claim the now deserted centre ground of British politics.

Conspiracy theory special: Is Donald Trump an alien?

No, he isn't an alien, the title was just an excuse to get your attention although it is an interesting concept and some could use the idea as a metaphor.

Some people think he is an alien, I reckon David Icke probably does.  As you probably are aware there are people that think the world is being rule by lizards that wear masks.  

Its apparently all down to some world order that controls everything.  Anyone in a position of power is either an alien or is aware that they exist.  

Its a completely crazy conspiracy theory.

One of my favourite conspiracy theories is that of Nostradamus. He was the apparent 16th century soothsayer that is said to have foreseen such events as the Nazis rise to power under a peasant leader, 'Hister' and the 9/11 terrorist attacks on America.

This, like all conspiracy theories, obviously doesn't come without its cynics.  A lot of people ask why wasn't anyone warning people prior to 9/11 as to what Nostradamus warned.  Ah, say his supporters, you don't see what he was trying to say until after the event making the meaning impossible to translate.

Another conspiracy theory I want to talk about is people who see Jesus in their toast.  Stay with me, this is going somewhere.

Its not just their toast, they see his face in a number of things, anything with a pattern could potentially have a face, in theory, is what the critics say.

This theory could too be attributed to Nostradamus.  After the event that he "predicted" you read one of his theories and you assign it to the said event.  

I do believe that Nostradamus never said that his doctrines were predictions and instead was just writing stories although there is apparently evidence to contradict this, some believe that he definitely did.

Either way, whether he did or didn't this is about how we see it and what we can learn from this.

Now back to Trump being an alien.  What a divisive guy.  Trump's popularity is through the roof with his supporters but with others he couldn't be lower.

Looking back across the pond at Europe and again we have divisive issue in Brexit, in fact you could say we have a wider issue at hand and that is that we could be on the verge of the break up of the EU.

It seems that right now relations between communities, political parties, countries and people with different beliefs are at an all time low.  I say that but I'm sure things have been worse in the past but in my lifetime this is the worst it has been.

For me, as I'm sure it is for many others, this is sad to see.  All I want is for everyone to get on, you don't all have to agree, just stop the hate and the fear.

Now comes the point.

Have you ever seen a movie, really liked it and then watched it again only to enjoy more because you know what its saying?

I have, Arrival.

First of all its such an intelligent movie.  The way it presents and unravels the plot is so clever.

I won't spoil it for you in case you haven't seen it but lets just say its the correct movie for the modern time.

Its like the director is some sort of Nostradamus, he knew the movie we would need for this time and decided to make it for when we'd need it.

I think its more likely the case that I just happen to see parallels with the movie and the current world we live in.

What is racism? Or, in this case, if you want to call it what it is then it's xenophobia?

This afternoon I went to an Irish bar in Barcelona to watch England in the rugby against the French.

Most of the people in there were Catalan, French, Irish, Scottish, Spanish or Welsh, basically they were against the English.

I was one of three, maybe four English fans in there and of those other fans I was the loudest throughout.

If France scored a point there were loud cheers from everyone, if England scored my cries of "Come On England" drowned out any applause from anyone else.

I stayed for a few pints after the game, not one person came up to me to say anything.

I would have expected one or people to perhaps say "good game mate, well done" as I did when England lost to Wales in the World Cup fifteen months ago.

Before the game Ireland lost to Scotland. Did the Irish fans say to well done to their Scottish counterparts after their defeat?

Why do I get treated differently just because I support England?

Everyone wanted us to lose. A few people did talk to me during the game but once the result was delivered, nada.

Doesn't it say something about my character that I was happy to stay very loudly throughout in the bar and take whatever result that was delivered.

To be honest right now I'm a little unhappy that we won because had we of lost at least I could say I was happy to be there and congratulate the victors whatever.

There was a guy wearing a French Rugby shirt who would have got my congratulations had they have won. As they didn't there was nothing I could say.

I'm just a bit fed up with being victimised just because I'm an Englishman that happens to believe in a United Ireland, Independence for Scotland and and whatever the majority of the Welsh want but I respect their right for their language to be taught in their schools for it it to be their "national", if that's what they want, language.

But when it comes to England versus ....... then, as an Englishman, I enact my right to support England.


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If you think Trump supporters are just white, working class males in their 40s that believe Jesus founded America then you're wrong

You have to admit, these are interesting times that we live in. Easy for me to say, of course. I'm a white, some would say middle class, although I would say working class, straight male and I live in Spain, an ally of the US.

I say ally but you wouldn't think it to hear what some Spanish politicians have said about the Donald after his administration removed the Spanish language from the US government website.

I commend the Spanish politicians, something I don't do very often, for their speaking out against Trump's actions.

We all sit eagerly awaiting news of Trump's next move, will it be that he has ordered the department of education to change the curriculum to teach that the Sun revolves around the Earth, I shouldn't joke, it is coming.

Even though I am just a white, working class straight male living in Spain I do quite rightly still care.

I care that pretty soon many US citizens will not have affordable healthcare, I care that immigrants living in the US will feel even more victimised than they do already and I care that if a woman has a sexual relationship with a man and happens to fall pregnant then that woman loses the right to have a say over her own body.

I don't claim to know squat about Obamacare, in fact many people tell me it's a mess but if you think Trump is going to improve the situation for families and deliver then you need a wake-up call.

I suspect, or rather I know that in the US there are people like me, many concerned citizens. They're of course in the thick of it.

Last weekend saw action from women right around the world and all over the States who sought to #Resist the Trump.

On Wednesday in downtown Washington, just a few blocks from the White House some protesters scaled a crane in order to deliver their message. One amazing picture had the White House in the foreground with the crane behind showing just how close the two were.

And perhaps the most vocal message came on Twitter with a new parodyish account, @RogueNasa, delivering the truth to Trump's bullshit.

As I'm writing this article I've gone to look at their Twitter account to see this message. I've not mastered putting pictures on my blog just yet but in case I don't here is what the tweet says.

"Have some free time? Help archive all you can on NASA.gov and EPA.gov"

They're asking for people to archive their websites "just in case" they're ordered to remove anything.

Scary times we're living in, interesting but very very scary.

On Wednesday Trump signed another in a long line of executive orders. On this occasion, it was for there to be a wall along the US' southern border with Mexico.

The distance of the border is roughly the same distance from the very most northern point of the westernmost isle in Scotland all the way down to Rome in Italy.

That's an absolutely insane distance, how exactly is that going to be policed even if you do get past the impossible task of building the damn thing!?

The Mexican president was due to meet with Trump next week but after the announcement of the wall, Enrique Peña Nieto has cancelled the meeting.

Resistance is what's needed #Resist #Resist #Resist

Today the British PM, Teresa May, is to be the first foreign leader to meet with Trump. As she is technically "my leader" I am still a British citizen, I'd prefer it if she resisted him too.

A lot of British political commentators are concerned about how the UK's 'special relationship' with the US will come out of this.

Resisting Trump does not mean we resist the US and I think it would speak volumes if we made that point clear.

This is why it is important to resist, have your voice heard and let people know what you're thinking and let them know that they do have a choice and if they were to resist that they wouldn't be alone.

I wonder how Trump will be remembered? Many liken him to Hitler, I think the difference is that Hitler believed what he was saying, Trump doesn't.

Hitler is largely remembered as being the psychopath that he was, he absolutely had to rid Germany and then Europe and then eventually the world, had he got that far, of jews as that was what he had managed to convince himself of what needed to happen.

Hitler's desire was perfection as he saw it.

Trump, in contrast, doesn't believe it and for that he is different. Trump is the metaphorical school yard idiot that will do anything his chums tell him to, just so he can be allowed to remain in their circle of friends. They have no real value for him or desire to have him around, they just like the stupid things he does.

This is Trump. He started to criticise Obama because it made him popular, he then, with this not being enough, was dared to run for President, how would he gain popularity? Oh, I know, we can pick on some people, let's do that....

Trump is now being willed on by the crackpot nutjobs within his administration, people like white supremacist, Steve Bannon, these are now the people daring Trump to do things, these people are the problem and what's worse is these people are like Hitler, these people do believe the US, North America and eventually the world needs to be rid of Muslims.

Desire for people like Bannon is the same for Hitler, perfection as they see it. If you don't fall within that remit then you're gone.

With Hitler you needed to be a heterosexual, able bodied aryan. White skin, blonde hair, blue eyes, not Jewish and that is it, sort of.

With Bannon you need to be the same, give or take the odd distinguishing feature or minority.

One of Hitler's qualities, he did have some, ignoring the fascism, was that he was a great orator, in fact we probably haven't seen anyone as good at speaking, at least in political circles, as he was since his infamous speeches, formally at the Circus Krone and more latterly at Nurnberg.

Trump isn't in the same league as Hitler oratorically, although very good at public speaking Trump is just a populist, tells the people what they want to hear, listening to Hitler speak was like being hypnotised.

However he doesn't need to be as good as Hitler, he is not competing with him, he needs to be better or at least as good as his rivals.

And to his followers that is exactly what he is.

The Trump administration has, in separate parts, everything that Hitler had and the good thing for them is that no-one can say "that's Hitler". They can't pinpoint one person and say that is 'Hitler' but he is in there.

Not every Trump follower was, is or ever will be a white supremacist. They don't all believe that Jesus discovered America and the the world was discovered five thousand years ago, or whatever the number of years is this week.

Adolf Hitler and his Nazis were never really democratically elected, it's debatable, some would say they were but really they bullied their way to the Reichstag until they got what they wanted.

Trump was democratically elected and although people will bleat on about how he never won the popular vote when has that ever mattered in the past? Trump won the system that was being played, the electoral college is a difficult complicated system to understand so I'm not going to bother to explain.

Complete annihilation of the Jewish 'race' was never on the cards on day one, hence the name "final solution". It probably was for Hitler, by the time he ended his service in the German army at the end of World War One he was talking about ridding Germany of anyone that wasn't a pure German.

He was probably a fully converted anti-Semitic by the time he got to Munich from his Austrian homeland in 1914 where he'd spent the past seven years sleeping rough on the streets of Vienna growing more and more resentful of the Jews and their wealth.

That's what racism is, it plants itself like a tiny seed in a person's mind and the more hard luck Hitler had trying to make his way as an artist the more resentful towards them he became. Never mind the fact that he was best friends with a Jew, who was also sleeping rough, whilst in Vienna.

Shortly after Hitler gained power as Chancellor, a position he pretty much stole, a so called but never proven "false flag" arson attack saw the Reichstag burn.

As the fire burned the police conducted a search of the building and found a Dutch communist, Marinus van der Lubbe, who owned up to the fire. He was arrested, tried and then assassinated.

It was said that on the morning of the fire Hitler was happier than his followers had seen him for weeks.

Eighteen months later the death of President Hindenburg gave Hitler the clear path to dictatorship.

For many people within Trump's administration outside of the white supremacist circle, I include Trump in this as I have said, he doesn't believe what he says, I have no doubt that the plan is not to annihilate anyone.

That's not Trump's style, he doesn't want a solution, he wants the problems to remain so that he can continue to criticise them and this way he's popularity should remain fairly high, at least for a while.

That's the plan for now at least.

People have spoken about Trump being impeached, this won't help unless he takes his white-sheet wearing pals with him. In fact it could actually be the worst case scenario.

Just who will they replace him with, that's the next question? Trump is actually in this case not necessarily the problem. The people that surround him are.

What needs to happen is like what happened with the Penguin in film Batman Returns. He was the Trump of 20 years ago, short, fat and tiny hands not to mention incredibly popular with the people.

He was running for mayor of Gotham and as he was Batman's enemy he had people believing that the capped crusader was some sort of bad guy.

This was until Batman managed to record the Penguin badmouthing the people, he then played it over him talking in front of a crowd and the veil fell away and the people saw him for who he was.

How perfect if we could record a Trump administration meeting with them all slating the people, over to you, Wikileaks.

The white supremacists want what they perceive to be "perfection".

But how long will it be that Trump has to deliver something so big that it is what's needed to prevent his popularity slipping?

Trump will make changes but as we know nothing will improve as those changes won't be what is needed.

Eventually people will be calling for a register of Muslims, for Muslims to wear identification tags so they can be spotted and won't be so much of a threat.

How long will it be for the narcissist Trump who is so desperate to be liked that to maintain his popularity he has to ban anyone with brown skin from riding public transport?

He can do it now if he wants, who is going to stop him? If this is what he feels he needs to do to keep his popularity ratings up then he will be willing to do anything.

It never starts with concentration camps and genocides, that's only ever where it ends.


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