Eating for Britain

Well, good old Tony Blair! (I bet you never thought you’d hear me say that) Wading into the Labour leadership debate like he did though, you have to wonder whether Mandy, the dark Lord was anywhere in the background. Otherwise you’d have to conclude that Blair, the master of duplicity had donned his coat of many colours inside out. The genius of New Labour of course was that with Blair as the figurehead, Labour appeared to have rejected its old anti-enterprise, anti-aspirational mantle and become a refreshing alternative to the nasty party. But all the while, as TB was distracting the crowd, Fagin Brown and his merry band set about picking our pockets to purchase a vote bloc.

And jolly well it was all going until the emperor’s finery fell about his ankles and we saw the awful cost laid bare and dangling before us. They would have gotten away with it, if it wasn’t for them pesky kids! With all con-tricks you have to follow the money and Blair’s unabashed lure of favours for finances has set him up nicely. Shame he’s fucked up the Middle East job. But what I want to know is, what is he up to this time? What advantage does he gain by lending his unpopular voice to the anti-Corbyn lobby? Nothing is ever what it seems, especially in leftist politics, so what plan is behind boosting the left he is so obviously not? (Or maybe he’s just losing his touch and genuinely believes his words of warning will get Liz Kendall in the chair?)

The subtleties will, of course, be lost on those he seeks to influence; it may just be that all those stupid enough to vote Labour have already been weeded out during the general election and all that are left are the stubborn but ultimately pointless dandelions who would elect a mollusc if it was painted red and steadfastly refused to relinquish its limpet-grasp on the old socialist dogma. Tax cuts for the people who pay for everything is somehow a hand-out while a lower hand-out to those who can only ever take is theft. Free booze and fags and Sky TV and rent and transport on the state while low-paid workers do without is ‘child poverty’, but employing people in a local business is fat-cattery. And the NHS has been privatised so many times now I’ve lost count.

It’s all about the words, see? So if you tell the world that poor people are obese because they can only afford high-sugar-and-fat processed stuff there is a section of the population willing it to be true, as a Twitter regular reminded me yesterday by resurrecting a year-old conversation about just that very subject. For people who think that all food is brown and comes via moped from a greasy, illegal immigrant, back-street hell-kitchen the notion of foods of a different hue is as remote as the possibility they could actually live detached from the teat of state.

It is very much in the interest of the old left to corral its unthinking supporters in the narrow shallow pen of accepting at face value what the Daily Mirror tells them. Jordan’s tits, Kim Kardashian’s arse, Kerry Katona’s car-crash life and almost all of Channel 5 are distractions from simply getting on with your own life. So much to watch, so little time and why cook when you can dial? And fatty, deep-fried shit is enervating and almost certainly contributes to sluggardly lifestyles, reducing the ability to think, to develop self-respect and to even attempt to make something of yourself, let alone for yourself.

Come on, love, Labour needs our support

So steel yourselves ‘poor people’; Get up off your backside, get down the market, buy some veg, cook it yourself and watch those pustules disappear as your backbone uncurls and you realise you have, possibly for the first time, acted independently. Then do it again as soon as you can. And repeat until you realise you are no longer one of the ‘most vulnerable members of society’. You will feel the best you’ve felt in a lifetime. Then… as a last gesture of defiance, vote for Jeremy Corbyn and keep Labour out of power for a generation.