A Con.

 

          Our lives are plagued by spivs and conmen who prance about in expensive clothes and sit in the corridors of power. One such spiv, a boss of an energy company, has just stated that high energy prices are here to stay, this is after the energy companies have made billions in profit. What these spivs and conmen don't mention is that wholesale gas prices have plummeted. The reason energy prices sky rocketed  in the first place was the imperialist blood bath in Ukraine and Europe stopped buy Russian gas. At that point in time the price of wholesale gas jumped to around 800p per therm. There little secret is that it has now dropped to 150p per therm, below what it was before the Ukraine affair. Have you noticed this in you energy bills? No you haven't, the reason being the statement made by that energy boss, high energy prices are here to stay. They don't want to see those billions in profits shrink, they're on a bonanza and loving it. How does it feel to be continually ripped-off by a bunch of very rich and greedy spivs and conmen. Like I said before, they are laughing at us, what are we going to do about this continuous plundering of the ordinary people, to fatten the bank accounts of the parasite class of spivs and conmen and furnish them with more expensive yachts, private jets and gas guzzling limousines?

Image courtesy of Catalyst Commercial

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Spivs.

Image courtesy of Muswell Hill Sustainability Group

All of the above.

           Nobody likes getting ripped off by spivs and con artists, so why do we tolerate being ripped off by big corporations? Through this winter ordinary households have put up with cold homes to the detriment of everybody, especially kids and elderly, while the energy companies have been making billions in profits. What these energy companies and their minders the state don't mention is that wholesale gas prices are now as low as they were just before the war in Ukraine. A mild winter in UK and Europe has driven gas prices down more than 4% to 178p per therm. The last time we saw gas below 180p per therm was before the war in Ukraine. At the start of that imperialist bloodshed the price of gas rose rapidly to 329p a therm, skyrocketing to 875p a therm by August. The energy companies were very quick in raising their prices to make sure they still made a huge profit. It has now been steadily falling to pre war levels but there has been no watching drop in price to you and I.
           You have to admit, you are being ripped off by spivs and con artists who live in the lap of luxury at our expense. How long will we allow ourselves to be mugs to the billionaire parasite class, how long will behave like milk-cows to the capitalist system, how long will we pay for an Oxbridge education for that millionaire/billionaire parasite class while we struggle for a decent life?
            Of course the energy companies are not the only rip-off merchants in town. Denise Coates CEO of bet365 had an annual salary of £250 million plus £97.5 million in dividends to March 2022. Making her the highest paid executive in the UK. Where do you think that money comes from? They are laughing at us.

 

Image courtesy of Express.

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Rip-Off.

 

                                                  Image courtesy of The Week.

        As I have spouted many times, the wholesale price of gas has been falling for sometime now, but we're told that they can't reduce the price to us as that is not how the markets work. Well an interesting little snippet appeared in the press, the Isle of Man has reduced its energy prices by 25% due to the falling gas price. Perhaps they haven't yet learned how the markets work, or perhaps we are just being ripped off. I know where my thoughts lie. For how much longer will be put up with being shafted on a daily basis by the rich and powerful?

Image courtesy of Express.

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Contrasts.

            At this moment in time millions of people in the UK are facing hardship beyond their lives experience. Poverty, debt and lack of decent food and heating. with massive increases in prices of food and energy shooting higher, the future looks black indeed. At present in the UK the total debt already owed to utility companies is £1.3 billion. How will the coming price increase add to that. These figures are human beings, struggling to survive in extremely adverse conditions. Compare this with the other end of the capitalist system. The UK has 171 billionaires, with a total wealth of £653 billion, this is up £55 billion on the previous year, that's a 9.4% increase in the past year. Have you seen an 9.4% increase in your personal wealth in the last year. Surely since we are the wealth creators we should be seeing that extra wealth flowing our way. 

 

       Since the end of the pandemic, the only section of this country that has seen a real benefit is the millionaire/billionaire class. During the pandemic UK billionaires saw their wealth grow by more than a fifth, while the population as a whole saw their conditions deteriorate.
       It must be obvious to anyone with at least two brain cells, to realise that this capitalist system is grossly unfair. We have allowed a system that sees the real wealth creators come off worst in the distribution of that wealth and a few parasites to glean the cream of the created wealth. It is long past the time when people think of reforming this unjust exploitative greed driven system of capitalism, its total destruction is the only answer and see it replaced with a system of fairness, justice, mutual aid and the ability to see to the needs of all our people.

Visit ann arky's home at https://spiritofrevolt.info  

Help!!

         Remember the insulting "help" from SSE on how it customers could keep warm this winter with the astronomical energy prices we were being ask to pay? Their heart felt advice as they ran smiling to the bank was, “doing a few star jumps”, “having a cuddle with your pets”, and eating “hearty bowls of porridge”. None of this advice would be needed by their shareholders or their CEO, they would hardly notice the price rises.
       Meanwhile, SSE made £600 million profit, Scottish Power and Centrica, owners of of British Gas, turned in a smart little profit of £423 million. These energy companies stashed away more than a billion pounds in profit before this years price hike. How much are your bills going up by?
       The bosses of the UK six biggest energy companies are the UK's highest earners. In 2018 former Centrica CEO received £2.4 million, a salary rise of 44% on his previous salary. During the first year of the pandemic, CEO of SSE Alistair Pillips-Davies was paid a tidy £1.6 million. In any given year the average CEO by 6th of January will have earned more than the average worker will all year.
        Have a good look at these figures, think of the obscene increases in profits and salaries of the energy companies and the CEO, then think of the massive price increases to you and I with our meager incomes being stretched to breaking point. Then ask yourself, should we blame the war in Ukraine or the greed infested energy companies, who are part and parcel of this system.

 

 

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A Virus.

         Today as the ordinary people of the UK, like those else where in the world, are heading for the biggest fall in living standards for many, many years. People are facing winter unable to heat their homes, struggling to put food on the table and often failing. There is a massive rise in homelessness, in food-banks, our health service is teetering on the edge of collapse due to lack of funding and slices being handed to the corporate word. Our kids' health will be assaulted and their education system is broken.

 

      Despite these unnecessary conditions being heaped on the population, the UK government see fit to spend an obscene amount of tax payers money on this jamboree celebrating a parasite families imperial power. £28 million of our tax money has been set aside for this obscenity, the lottery fund is donating £22 million to plaster the country with symbols of pomp and imperial power.
      We are supposed to celebrate 70 years of a woman sitting on a throne, a woman whose entire family and many hangers-on, who have never earned a penny from honest work in their lives, and are subsidised to the hilt with tax payers money. This old lady, who we are supposed be enthralled with is labelled a "constitutional" monarch. However, she is the one that opens parliament, and in speeches honestly refers to "her government", she is the one approached by the elected Prime Minister should he wish to close down parliament. She also sits in her palatial surroundings signing death warrants on those poor individuals who are condemned by British Overseas Territories that still have the death penalty. This whole edifice of pomp and power is an attempt to get us all to cheer an obscene display to the world of Britain's brutal imperialism, its past and its determination to hold on to that power, wealth and its privileges. It baffles me seeing all those thousands of people who struggle to make ends meet, willing pay homage to this family of parasites, this edifice to pomp, wealth, power and privileges. All I can say of those throngs who wave flags, cheer this obscenity, is that their minds have been damaged by the fatal and vicious virus of patriotism.

 

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Answers!

 

       What is your answer to the astronomical energy price rises, rocketing food prices, increase taxes, increased interest rates, all of which will kick your standard of living back to the Victorian times? All managed by a group of very rich people, who in all events will not have too much to worry about regarding their standard of living. All off them pointing to the hardship and struggle the ordinary people are facing, but not one of them will suggest an end to the insane economic system that is responsible for all this misery being heaped on you and I. They are all obedient servants of the economic madness that blights the lives of millions, and is destroying the planet, capitalism.
         So what will you do, make placards, march in solemn lines appealing to our lords and master to do something to ease our plight? Will you queue longer and with patience at the nearest food bank? Will you try hard to tighten your belt and live on less, or perhaps, cut down on the kids food? Change your vote for the new Messiah? While we do this, energy companies make billions in profit to feed their over privileged shareholders. Will we stand by while large very rich corporations see their shareholders become millionaires/billionaires. Of course we know that all the above methods have been tried in the past with around about zero effect on our living standards. You may get a small concession here and a little sweetener there, mere paracetamol by the system to make you feel better, to quieten you down, but will not cure our ills, poverty, homelessness, fuel poverty, food insecurity, crumbling health service and broken education system.
        Perhaps this onslaught of hardship and poverty that is being flung our way, way be a kick to much, and we will try a different method to cure our ills. For example build up mutual aid centres in our communities, take control of our community assets and run them as we wish them to be run. Take control of our workplaces and produce for our needs, not for the profit of millionaires/billionaires. They need us, without us they are nothing, we don’t need them, we built everything, shipped everything and distributed everything. The problem is we have been doing it to the dictate of greedy self interested corporations all for their benefit while they laughed all the way to the bank at our servility.

 

 

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Growth??

            How have you faired over the last 7 years or so? Have you seen your personal wealth grow by an astronomical amount? Or like most ordinary people in this country you have been struggling to keep you head above water. However our economic pundits tell us that the UK growth has been among the strongest in Europe, with figures like 7.5%, 3.2% etc. these figures are supposed to make you feel better as this refers to the growth in the total wealth of the country. Well has your wealth grown by this much, where is your share of this "growth". During the pandemic in the UK, 24 new billionaires were created, bring the total to 171 billionaires in the UK. Collectively UK billionaires saw the collective wealth grow by a staggering $61 billion over the previous year. We are facing unmanageable energy price increases, staggering inflation in life's necessities, higher taxes and increased interest rates, but no matching wage or benefit increases to met this savage onslaught to our standard of living.
          However difficult it may become for you and I to have a decent life, this economic system makes sure that our pampered, over privileged, billionaire parasites will always do very well.

 

Minimum Wage UK.

2012: £6.19 per hour, 2021: £8.91per hour.

 

Visit ann arky's home at https://spiritofrevolt.info   

Anger!

 

Image courtesy of Telegraph.

 

     Day by day, drip feed by drip feed, we the ordinary people of this country learn the force of the kick in the teeth we are about to receive from this capitalist system. The latest detail is the rise in interest rates. It might not seem much, but could be enough to push those on the edge over into the poverty bin. Mortgages could increase, interest on you credit card, any future HP you might feel you need to take on, any loans you may find yourself forced into, will in all probability cost you more.
       Of course the big one is the increase in energy bills, that thing that no home can live without. The increase is going stratospheric. No matter the sticking plaster or paracetamol the government offers, it will not be any where near enough to eliminate a massive increase to your bills.
      Then there is inflation in general, sending food prices, among other day to day necessities, through the roof. Trying to put food on the table never mind trying to cook it, will an impossible task for thousands. Just to add a little bit more pain to that kick in the teeth, those working families who are at the moment just about managing, will now be hit with an increase in National Insurance, over and above those just mentioned.
This July 2021, before this latest attack on living standards of ordinary people.  

Glasgow.

Image courtesy of The Big Issue.

 

            Now, if that sort of unjustified pain doesn't make you angry, what will? This pain is being planned and administered by millionaires, who will probably be unaware of what their energy bills are and care even less. Some will take off to their luxury extra home somewhere in the warm sun, or take their yacht to the Mediterranean for a wee break. They will have no need what so ever to change their way of living, they live in a land of plenty. They don't feel that pain, they administer it, without a care in the world.
       So you are angry, who will you direct you anger at, the local council, mere pawns in the game, who are legally bound to do the dictate of the government. So the government, well they are just the managers of the system, they follow the instruction of the financial Mafia, that is where the power lies. That gang of mobster who go under different flags, but belong to that one clan, the corporate financial Mafia. The main gangs being the IMF sometimes called the International Monetary Fund, but in reality, the Internation Mankind Fuckers, the ECB, know as European Central Bank, real name Eternal Money Bastards, and the Davos Club, the place where the rich and powerful meet up to decide the best way to exploit the world's people and resources to create greater profit to be split among themselves. They all come together under the banner of corporate capitalism. Until we smash that organisation, we are at the mercy of the financial Mafia. 

      Take what you get or fight back. Organise your communities in conjunction with other communities, not to ask nor demand, please can we have some more, but to take control of you communities resources, in solidarity with all other communities. Every brick, every house, every boat ever built was built by your hands, every piece of equipment every item transported was made and transport by you, it all belongs to you. Take it and use it to service our own people and see to the needs of all our people, with no place for profit, CEO and shareholders bonuses. It's yours by the sweat and blood of you and you forbearers. Nothing is gained by self contained anger, show it, direct it, along with solidarity, it is your righteous weapon.

Visit ann arky's home at https://spiritofrevolt.info   

Organise.

          I sometimes wonder if the general public in the UK are fully aware of the tsunami that is thundering towards them. There is the energy price increase which will kill hundreds of elderly and infirm, their is the cut to universal credit, which will plunge thousands more into poverty, then there is the increase in National Insurance payments that will cut the wages of the poorest the hardest. On top of that, those in need of special care are being hit by a care system that is in dire crisis. All this while the bank accounts of millionaires and billionaires grow ever fatter and fatter. Of course it is not all being taken lying down, Stagecoach bus drivers are taking strike action over pay, care workers who have struggled to do their job under the most adverse conditions, under staffed and under paid, have decided to march to the Tory Party conference in Manchester to vent their anger.

    Before the national insurance and energy price hikes and before the slash at the universal credit, in the year 2019/20 11.7 million people, 18% of the population in the UK were in the "relative low income" category.

        Some facts and figures on Poverty in this country, one of the richest countries in the world:

The facts and figures show the reality of child poverty in the UK.

• There were 4.3 million children living in poverty in the UK in 2019-20.1 That's 31 per cent of children, or nine in a classroom of 30.2
• 49 per cent of children living in lone-parent families are in poverty.3 Lone parents face a higher risk of poverty due to the lack of an additional earner, low rates of maintenance payments, gender inequality in employment and pay, and childcare costs. 
• Children from black and minority ethnic groups are more likely to be in poverty: 46 per cent are now in poverty, compared with 26 per cent of children in White British families.4
• Work does not provide a guaranteed route out of poverty in the UK. 75 per cent of children growing up in poverty live in a household where at least one person works.5
• Children in large families are at a far greater risk of living in poverty – 47 per cent of children living in families with 3 or more children live in poverty.6 

 

         These figures are all before the present tsunami of energy price increase, and cuts, not to mention the pandemic, hits the public at large. No working class family will escape these hammer blows to their standard of living, what can we do about it? We can take a leaf out of the Stagecoach bus drivers and organise strike action, we can organise in solidarity with the care workers and take our righteous anger on to the streets. We can organise in our communities and work places to take control and shape society the way we want it, a society that sees to the needs of all our people. We don't need the millionaire/billionaire parasites and their bedfellows, prancing political ballerinas, that army of pampered privileged parasites that hold the reins of power over our lives, all to their own advantage. We don't need them, they need us, dump them, we can make a better world without them.

 

 WE THE LABOURING MASSES.

We the people have, every brick laid,
have fed the world with sweat and spade,
every instrument played in every band
created by the skill of the craftsman's hand.
We made every truck and every load,
our toil our effort every winding road,
every ship that ever sailed the sea,
our power our imagination made it be.
Cities and towns large and small,
our labouring hands fashioned them all,
every home, every spire,
luxury mansion or humble byre.
No matter what dreams the mind might spawn
without labour's hand, never see the light of dawn,
without labour's strength and labour's skill,
we would be foraging beasts in a jungle still.

Visit ann arky's home at https://spiritofrevolt.info  

Killers.

          Which one of your family, friends or neighbours will die unnecessarily this winter? It is estimated that in Scotland this winter, approximately an extra 400 elderly and sick will die because the will not be able to heat their homes properly. Fuel poverty has always been a larger problem the further north you go in this country, Scotland's winters tend to be colder than further south. So this recent astronomic price rise in energy supplies will proportionally kill more Scots than anywhere else in the UK. You have to ask yourself what democratic government would allow this to happen. For years energy companies have been making billions of pounds, shareholders have been reaping fat profits from those companies and CEOs have sorted millions of pounds into their various tax avoidance bank accounts. Yet we let our elderly and sick be killed because they can't heat their homes adequately. I wonder how many energy company CEOs are worried about heating their home, or should I say "homes".

         If ever we needed an example of how callous and brutal this insane capitalist system is, then this surely must be that evidence. To allow someone to sit and simply feel their life slipping away because it is cold and damp in a country that is awash with wealth is an indictment against the entire system of profit before people and against those who manage and perpetuate this cruel insanity, capitalism kills, when will we ever learn.

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Same Old.

 

        Just in case there are any young people out there that think the present day energy crisis is a new phenomena, I would like to point out to them that the ordinary people get shafted year in year out, while millionaires become billionaires and billionaires bank accounts grow fatter by the hour. It will be ever so, as long as we tolerate this greed drive exploitative, insane system of profit oriented capitalism. To make my point I'm reposting this article I wrote for the Anarchist Critic away back in 2008, read it and see if it rings familiar.

issue 67 Aug. '08
WHO WILL DIE THIS WINTER??

         Energy firm Centrica, owners of British Gas, recently announced a massive 35% price increase to take effect immediately. A day or so later they announced a profit of almost one billion pounds for the six months to June 30th. This was £100 million higher than the city financial spivs were expecting, this did not however, cause them to revue their price increase. So while the city spivs were rubbing their sweaty palms in greedy glee, the rest of us are probably sweating while thinking of our next gas bill, of course you will not be sweating come the winter when you cannot afford to heat your home. British Gas managing director, Phil. Bentley, stated, “We very much regret that we have had to make this decision at a time when many household budgets are already under pressure” I wonder, how cold will his house be this winter and how much pressure is his household budget under?
         Every winter in Scotland there is an large increase in deaths among pensioners, mainly from cold related health problems. Pensioners and others on low income in this country cannot heat their homes properly during the winter and have to make that third world choice, “to eat or to heat”.
The recent fuel price increases will push even larger numbers of vulnerable pensioners and low income families further into the pit of fuel poverty. Many will die and others will suffer health problems that will stay with them the rest of their life.
       Look around you, see the old and the low income families, try to visualise the ones that wont make it through the winter. Try to think of how they will die, their life slowly ebbing, their dignity disintegrating as the temperature falls and the dampness bites. As one of the richest nations on the planet are we prepared to see our friends and neighbours die in poverty because of the greed of shareholders? Are we prepared to stand by and feed the rich parasites at the expense of those around us? Or will try to change things so that we see to the needs of all our friends and neighbours, put an end to such indignities as death from fuel poverty and put all the natural resources in the hands of the people?
ann arky would be interested to hear how you will cope with this massive increase in gas prices and what you think should be done. annarky@radicalglasgow.me.uk

When will we ever learn? 

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You Grow The Food, You Create The Energy!!!

         The picture in the UK is grim, we have had almost 5 years of wage cuts/freezes and rising inflation, a sure path to deprivation for millions. We are informed by our millionaire lords and masters, that the cuts so far are nothing to what has yet to come. This picture of falling income has seen food banks on a rapid increase, we are a nation of families that go hungry. Since 2007 food prices in the UK have risen by 32%, twice the average in the EU, with “experts” predicting matters getting worse, as they expect food prices to rise at twice the rate of inflation for at least a decade, with your shopping basket price rising by approximately 4% per year, until around 2022. When it comes to energy prices, they have been rising at 8 times the rate of earnings. Since October 1010, energy suppliers have increased their prices by 37%.

 

       These two factors, food price increases and energy price increases tied to low or no wage increases, are enough to push millions more of us into poverty. When you factor in more cuts in the next five years, than we have seen in the last five, millions will move from poverty to deprivation on a massive scale.
 

        No matter which of the millionaire parties you may decide to vote for, if you are foolish enough to vote, It will make no difference. All the major parties are tied into what the financial Mafia have prescribed. No party will upset their financial masters, for fear of reprisals, the parasites will lift their money and go elsewhere. Bringing turmoil for the country, and our lords and master might lose control of the population as unrest could explode. Capitalism is not patriotic, that's for the peasants, it will callously see a country's infrastructure disintegrate into ruin, and to hell with the people, if its puppet politicians don't toe the line.
 

     No amount of lobbying your MP, changing the suited smiling face at the podium, or trying to change the party “from within”, will not make one iota of a difference. You may get a few more crumbs here, or an extra teabag there, but the trajectory of our living standards will be for ever downwards. The only hope is to dismantle the whole stinking edifice that is the capitalist system, and from its ruins build that fairer world that we all want. A society that is based on mutual aid, co-operation and voluntary association, one that is free from the cancerous profit motive, and sees to the needs of all our people. You grow the food, you create the energy, why do you go without?

 

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