We Are Being Conned.

      As all of the competitors in the present Crooks and Liars competition, (the general election), continue to spout the need for “cuts”, which translates into cuts in our standard of living, the claim is the same, these are tough times, and we have to make sacrifices. Tough times for who, and who is doing all the sacrificing?

     Since “the crisis” of 2008, the UK's wealth has rocketed, before that “dreadful” event, to get into the UK's richest 1,000, all you needed was a paltry £15 million. Today, according to the Guardian commenting on the Sunday Times UK Rich List, to get into that club you need a personal wealth of at least £100 million. According to that list, the top 1,000 have accumulated a combined wealth of £547 billion, this is more than double what it was just ten years ago. Poor ordinary struggle millionaires just can't make it any more. The number of billionaires in the UK has risen from 104 last year to 117 this year. Since 2010, bankers salaries have risen by 35%, FTSE 100 directors have had to get by on an increase of 14%, while MPs are struggling with a modest 11% increase.

       Compare these figures with those that refer to us, the ordinary people, the people that actually create all that wealth. We have seen wages cut, frozen, or had trifling increases of 1%, like teachers and nurses. On top of this we have had rising inflation, rocketing energy prices, cuts in social spending with the inevitable destruction of social services and our standard of living. Since that excuse for austerity, “The Crisis”, we have seen our incomes fall by more than 3.5% in real terms. And proof of the pudding, we have seen food banks pass the 1 million mark.

      Now ask yourself, who is seeing the “tough times”? Who is doing the sacrificing? A bigger question is, do we NEED austerity, or is it just a dogma being forced on us, so the the rich can continue to get richer, while the poor get poorer? After all we live in a very rich country, and the figures prove that it is getting richer at an incredible rate. The problem is that it is all going in the one direction, the wrong direction, upwards. 

      Let's take control of all that wealth that we create, and spread it among our own people. We don't need, nor do we gain by increasing the number of billionaires. We don't need FTSE 100 directors, top bankers, and we certainly don't need nor do we gain, by having MPs. MPs are people that the Crooks and Liars competition proves to be the best liars in the country. They need us, we don't need them. It is a massive con perpetrated by a small bunch of exceptionally rich and greedy people, it is not an inevitable, set in tablets of stone, system. Like all man made systems, we can destroy it, we can create a fairer and more just system, one based on co-operation, sustainability and fairness, why are we waiting?

Visit ann arky's home at www.radicalglasgow.me.uk