Rab Bruce's Spider

by Rab Bruce’s Spider   Mastodon: @RabBrucesSpider1@Mastodon.Scot BlueSky: @RabBrucesSpider.Bsky.Social X / Twitter: @RabBrucesSpider   Whether you call it Right Wing Extremism, Oligarchy or Fascism, there is no doubt that the movement is seriously on the rise across the world. It is actually fairly easy to see why this is happening because the past decades of more centrist government was superseded by neo-liberal capitalism which has created a situation of extreme social inequality. Some people will argue that there have always been rich and poor, and that nothing can be done about this. It is certainly true that there have always been rich and poor, but the post-WW2 years demonstrated, in the UK at least, that something could be done about it. With record numbers of houses built and the creation of the NHS, the poorest in society could see that things were improving, with better standards of living and far greater social mobility available to all. That impetus, h...

by Rab Bruce’s Spider   Mastodon: @RabBrucesSpider1@Mastodon.Scot BlueSky: @RabBrucesSpider.Bsky.Social X / Twitter: @RabBrucesSpider     I couldn’t help laughing when I heard the news that a spoof song has reached Number 1 in the UK charts. The original “Lonely This Christmas” by Mud was a hit way back in the 1970s and I never did like it. However, the parody version, “Freezing This Christmas” is spot on both in terms of copying the original and in making some powerful political statements about the abolition of the Winter fuel Payments for pensioners.   I can’t help thinking that this song’s elevation to top of the chart may be down to Labour’s political opponents spending time and money on downloads, but it could equally be a public backlash against what is seen by many as an unnecessarily cruel attack on some of the most vulnerable people in society. After all, we’ve all had grandparents, and we know that many elderly people are struggling to he...

by Rab Bruce’s Spider   Mastodon: @RabBrucesSpider1@Mastodon.Scot BlueSky: @RabBrucesSpider.Bsky.Social X / Twitter: @RabBrucesSpider   The UK, along with the USA, is one of the most unequal countries in the world. There are plenty of others, of course, but the tragic thing is that the current inequality in the UK was not always the case, at least not in as extreme a situation as we now find ourselves in. Billionaires and millionaires have seen their wealth increase dramatically, while levels of poverty in the UK have soared. Fourteen years of Tory rule contributed greatly to this, and there are few signs that Keir starmer’s Labour Government seem inclined to change things very much. Indeed, with their attacks on pensioners and the disabled, it seems likely they will simply continue the Tory tactic of targeting the most vulnerable in society.   These levels of inequality inevitably give rise to social discontent sooner or later, and unscrupulous populist p...

by Rab Bruce’s Spider   Mastodon: @RabBrucesSpider1@Mastodon.Scot BlueSky: @RabBrucesSpider.Bsky.Social X / Twitter: @RabBrucesSpider     There can be no doubt that Brexit has been a disaster on so many fronts. All of the promises made by the Brexiteers have turned out to be either complete lies or, at best, wishful thinking. Recent polling suggests that a majority of UK citizens now want to rejoin, but the UK Labour Government shows no signs of being interested in this, no doubt afraid of the outrage and vitriol they would suffer at the hands of GB News, Reform and most of the UK media. With many voters now backing Nigel Farage’s Reform Company for reasons I cannot really fathom, Keir starmer seems terrified of providing them with more ammunition. In the meantime, everyone else suffers the ongoing impacts of being outside the EU.   Some worry that rejoining, if it ever did become an option, would result in losing sterling and needing to join the Eu...

  by Rab Bruce’s Spider   Mastodon: @RabBrucesSpider1@Mastodon.Scot BlueSky: @RabBrucesSpider.Bsky.Social X / Twitter: @RabBrucesSpider   A poll released over the weekend provided some much-needed encouragement for the Yes movement, putting support for becoming a normal country at 54%. As I mentioned on social media, that’s only 1% short of being decisive if the claims of better Together in 2014 are to be believed. Mind you, they lied about everything else, so who knows?   Some have pointed out that the pollsters are still weighting their results in accordance with the 2014 IndyRef result. With 10 years having passed, the validity of that must be questionable, so the actual Yes number could be a bit higher. Still, it’s only a single poll, so let’s not get too excited.   The most important thing to note is that this upsurge in support comes after the announcements in the Scottish Government’s Budget. If a single announcement like that can be s...

by Rab Bruce’s Spider   Mastodon: @RabBrucesSpider1@Mastodon.Scot BlueSky: @RabBrucesSpider.Bsky.Social X / Twitter: @RabBrucesSpider     During the run up to the General Election, many of us tried to warn voters in Scotland not to put their trust in Labour. Sadly, too many of them forgot that Labour had no qualms about lying to us during the 2014 IndyRef campaign, so they fell for the lies again. The cohort of Scottish Labour MPs promised to stand up for Scotland but instantly fell into line with their London masters as soon as they were elected.   The clues were there for all to see, especially Keir starmer’s habit of appearing with Union flags all around him whenever he gave a formal speech. He, like most Labour politicians, is a hardcore Unionist. He knows the value of Scottish resources to the UK, and he’s not going to be the PM who made England poorer by allowing Scotland to become a normal, self-governing country. And yesterday The National r...

by Rab Bruce’s Spider   Mastodon: @RabBrucesSpider1@Mastodon.Scot BlueSky: @RabBrucesSpider.Bsky.Social X / Twitter: @RabBrucesSpider     I had an interesting chat with a friend recently. During conversation, he mentioned that we disagree over politics, but when we got into it, we learned that what we disagree about is how to achieve what we want.   It turned out that, like the majority of people, what we want is fairly basic. So here’s a short list of the main things we agreed on.   To live in a peaceful and safe environment. Good schools, colleges and universities to educate our children. Free NHS care for everyone. Social care for those who need it. Adequately resourced Emergency Services for when things do go wrong. Fair pay for work, and employment for everyone who wants it. A Social Security system which provides a safety net for when things go wrong. A reliable public transport system.   I don’t think there’s a...

OK, things have not been good on the blogging front. Being blind, I need an easy to use system, and a tech friend set up a way for me to simply draft an email, send it via Evernote, and it would appear on the Postach.io blog site. However, it seems that new owners have taken over Postach.io and have broken the link with Evernote. I've waited nearly 3 weeks for them to fix it, but no luck so far. I've been searching for an accessible way to post blogs, and this is the only one I've found so far which seems to be accessible with a screen reader. I have no idea what it looks like visually, but my main focus is on being able to publish comments on Scottish Politics. so let's see if this has worked.