Don't let yourself be put down.

 I observed the family picture of the Conservative Party candidate for Gower it reminded me of a picture from the "Janet and John" book that helped me learn to read some 58 years to go. There was a picture of Father, a man in a business suit with mother outside of their 'castle'. A young child with blonde hair nestled in mother's arms. Gender was binary, the house prosperous and the young child had an almost Aryan look. This was the Tory. candidate who felt as a joke that people on benefit should be "put down" . I have met Tories like this many times. They have a curious view that they are all "individuals" yet when challenged or analysed they come out with the same arguments, prejudices and attitudes. They will tell you that conservatives are more intelligent than other voters and that it's really all about envy. When challenged on facts they will exhibit a shocking lack of collective understanding and cultural blindness . They will tell you that a family budget is a model for the national economy, without realising that the family unit cannot create currency or import and export produce they won't realise that the family is no longer the basic unit of society. They won't realise that's it's the poor who pay and contribute the most to the community. They will celebrate the millionaire without understanding that very little of their money builds the economy and the community.

Those of us who have sat with the broken in courts and tribunals in which the full weight of the establishment and the state has been trained on both us and them know differently to the "Janet and John" Tories. It's easy to run and hide from reality yet that is the attitude that leads to the joke to "put them down" . The truth is that we can no longer live in a society where the powerless and the poor are excluded and made to feel guilty for claiming benefits. We either quickly move to a citizens income where you are recognised as a full member of society because you live here and not because of what you appear to be or what your occupation is. The only other solution is the nightmare of the 1930s and the death camps and the approach of T6. All people are first class and it is second class services that should be abolished. It's time to celebrate the excluded and the outcast and to become inclusive and respectful.

There is no middle ground my dear Fib Dems. There never was it's either socialism or Barbarism. As the Labour vote starts to climb even outside of purdah it becomes clear that this is far more than a Brexit election public services and health are forcing themselves to the political surface. We can be put down metaphorically, symbolically and through force and it is simply explained in the 'humour' of the Tory candidate for Gower. It is no laughing matter and no apology can remove the darkness of post modern fascism spilling out our across the land. It's time to stop it now.

Dispelling the Corbyn is an IRA supporter myth.

Dispelling the Corbyn is an IRA supporter myth.

With the General Election on the horizon the old Corbyn is a IRA sympathiser lie is doing the rounds once again.
The following will help you counter the lie.
(Copied from a friends Facebook profile)
Fact time

1. On 29th November 1994, Jeremy Corbyn signed a House of Commons Early Day Motion no.24 deploring the "terrorist atrocity & murderous violence" of the pIRA's Birmingham pub bombings.

2. In 1994, Jeremy Corbyn met four loyalist leaders including David Ervine whom he met five times both to discuss the wrongful imprisonment of UDR man Neil Latimer, and at Labour Party Conference in Blackpool in the October to receive notification of an impending ceasefire that was called just over a week later.

3. In an interview to the Belfast Telegraph on 10th October 2015, Ian Paisley's wife commented that Ian Paisley always found Jeremy Corbyn very courteous and polite. And that "he thought Jeremy Corbyn was a gentleman".

4. In February 1987, after initially incorrectly smearing him, Rupert Murdoch's The Times apologised to Jeremy Corbyn and admitted that he had ordered staff to phone the police to warn them of a suspected pIRA operative in London.

5. On 11th August 1988, the Irish Times ran an article praising Jeremy Corbyn as a "tireless campaigner for the Irish". Jeremy had worked to quash the wrongful conviction of the Guildford Four, and pushed for a reopening of the Bloody Sunday inquiry.

6. It was the Tory government who first spoke to Gerry Adams 11 years berfore Corbyn became an MP. MI5 files released under the thirty year rule showed that the Tory government released Gerry Adams from prison for secret talks in London. 476 people had died in 1972, the worst year of violence. MI5 files show that the Tory government concluded "there is no doubt whatsoever" that Gerry Adams "genuinely wants a ceasefire and a permanent end to violence". The British government also recorded that Adams's "response to every argument was reasonable and moderate".

7. Jeremy Corbyn only ever met Gerry Adams when the latter had entered electoral politics a full 14 years after the outbreak of the Northern Irish Conflict, in Adams's capacity as an elected MP. In the 1980s Margaret Thatcher placed a ban on elected Sinn Fein politicians' voices being broadcast. Jeremy thought this ran contrary to the principles of free speech. He was also keen that constituents from West Belfast were not silenced.

8. Gerry Adams visited Westminster in November 1996 to meet several Labour MPs, including Jeremy Corbyn. The only item on the agenda was to resurrect the ceasefire that had collapsed. The ceasefire was recommended months later and has lasted ever since. Bill Clinton had invited Gerry Adams to the White Hosue the previous year, thus Corbyn's actions fitted with the broader efforts for peace.

9. There were at least two controversies throughout all of this that do deserve explanation. Shortly after the Brighton bombing Corbyn along with other MPs met Republicans in Westminster. This is indeed insensitive and wrong. Corbyn's own motivation was to end the strip searching of female prisoners on remand.

10. On 13th May 1987, Jeremy Corbyn stood for a minute's silence to mark the eight people who had been killed by HM Armed Forces one week earlier in Armagh. One was an inoocent civilian but seven were pIRA men. The minute's silence was held at an intellectual gathering of Irish
sympathisers in London. The bodies were not all yet buried, and the circumstances were not wholly clear. There was controversy at the time over whether or not this was a shoot to kill incident. Indeed, the European Court awarded £10,000 compensation to each of the eight families.
And I'll add:

The Gandhi Foundation International Peace Award 2013
The Gandhi Foundation International Peace Award for 2013 was awarded to Jeremy Corbyn, MP Islington North on 26th November 2013 at Portcullis House.

The Trustees of The Gandhi Foundation agreed to offer him our International Peace Award in recognition of his consistent efforts over a 30 year Parliamentary career to uphold the Gandhian values of social justice and non‐violence. Besides being a popular and hard‐working constituency MP he has made time to speak and write extensively in support of human rights at home and world‐wide. His committed opposition to neocolonial wars and to nuclear weapons has repeatedly shown the lack of truth in the arguments of those who have opposed him.