The title, of course, does not exclude any overseas friends, especially you Yoosers who are not us Yookers. ;-) But I wrote this a couple of hours ago in response to a post that a couple friends had shared on Fb. I'm not known for starting posts on the ol' 'cat, but I thought, perhaps, the thoughts here might resonate at least a little with many of you here, regardless of your political leanings. I therefore offer it (slightly edited) for whatever it might be worth; comment as you please. I've no power of moderation. I do, however, reserve the right to go "Yah, sucks, boo!" to anyone being rude or obviously unpleasant. ;-)

There is a post currently doing the rounds (two friends have already shared it; I expect there will be more), by one Peter Olusoga, declaring that this govt is to blame for poverty. It includes an enormous list of links that "prove" his point. They don't, of course; it's just an idiotic political polemic.

You can't blame this govt for poverty; it was there before it; it will be there after it. It will always be there, not least because poverty is relative. So there will always be poverty & there will always be poor.

I don't know when my family acquired a TV set (I never felt we were poor, though we were certainly working class), but there was one throughout my recallable childhood. I've vague memories of watching kids programmes with my Mum. Andy Pandy (who I detested) was always in b&w (I was maybe 3 or 4; I think it was before infant school, before she went back to work), because little if anything for TV was filmed in colour when it was made (as far as I'm aware). I've a vague memory of watching The Herbs in b&w (& that WAS made in colour). I definitely remember watching the 1974 World Cup in b&w. Somewhere between there & 40 years ago, the b&w set became a colour one. Nowadays, if you can't afford a TV (& licence!), and it will be colour & of a definition unimaginable 40 years ago, you're poor. Prisoners have TV sets in their cells; to not have them is a breach of their human rights (or so it is often alleged, mostly with a sneer). Poverty is relative, the world has moved on a good deal, and there are many factors that are involved.

To blame this govt for poverty is idiotic.

Having said that, & lest anyone misunderstand me, let me be clear - I will be voting against the CON jobs, I will be voting against Boris the Clown, and if I had one vote for each cause, I'd use them both!

What this govt has done is what they always do, because the CON jobs seemingly don't know how not to. Their philosophies (which I will come back to) don't allow for it. If you're doing alright, they're quite good at helping you do better (not always; if you're on the wrong end of bad luck, then it's hard luck usually; safety nets cost money). If you're doing decently or well, so much more to your advantage they are. If you're below "doing alright" they're crap at helping you do better, and the further down you are, the worse they are at doing so.

The one thing that the CON jobs are really, really good at is WIDENING THE DIVIDE. Increasing the gap between rich & poor. They cant help it. Have they increased the amount of poverty? I wouldn't argue with that statement.

But they aren't "to blame" for poverty. It was always there & it always will be.

A large part of the reason for this widening is that pile of garbage, that most of them are in hock to (or something like it), known as "trickle-down economics". The problem with the CON jobs primarily is that they cannot distinguish between money & wealth. If we all have £1M we are no more rich than we are poor if we all have only £1K. Poverty is relative, remember? Nevertheless, "trickle down" is a political philosophy. There are plenty on the Right who do believe in it. And that's the point of this lengthy Polemic Of My Very Own!

It's a plea for tolerance over the next couple of weeks.

What has disgusted & alarmed me for 20 years or more is the way our politics in the UK has increasingly gone down the polarised US road (both in the sense of American, and of "Us & Them"). No-one listens any more. If You Are Not For Me You Are Against Me!!!

The vast majority of my friends who express political opinions are not only Left of Centre, they are to the Left of my own mild Leftishness. Rarely do any of them do this directly in what they say, but there are several of them who DO share what can only be described as bigoted propaganda. And sometimes they don't even seem to be able to recognise that it is. Especially, a lot of them have friends of their own who post comments that are so one-eyed that they'd label them Daily Fail readers {for non-Yooks, this is an admittedly sneering phrase for the one-eyed, bigoted (right-wing) who'll swallow any old crap & regurgitate it; please, note, there's plenty on the Left who are just the same, which is my point!} if what they were saying belonged to the Right. Except, seemingly, it's alright because they're on your side. And The Other Side are all...

Human Beings.

For whatever reasons, they have ideals & philosophies of their own. You may think they're hogwash, but they cleave to them as closely as you do to yours. Why shouldn't they? Demonising them, declaring that they're only in it for themselves & their mates, and all the rest of the usual tripe, may go down well with your friends, but it doesn't look any different to me than the way you label followers of The Fail or The Scum (for Non-Yooks, these are two newspapers, The Daily Mail and The Sun, both notoriously & blindly right-wing). Even Tory MP's are allowed to have beliefs & ideals; even Boris the Clown (though I think His Ideal & what he Mostly Believes In is His Own Heavenly Self!).

In a couple of weeks, you get to make your opinion known in a concrete (& hopefully not a CONcrete!) way. It probably won't make much difference wherever you are, because our FPTP system is WPIS-BD (Way Past Its Sell-By Date).

But in the meanwhile, please try to remember that those on The Other Side are also human, with their own dearly-held notions. We all know how the EU Referendum went, both before & after. How bitterly divided the nation has been (with very few actually listening to whichever side The Other Side is!). So the next time one of Them Says Something, or a friend of a friend who is nothing more than pixels to you comments, or a meme or post pops up & you think "Yeeeeeeaaah!!!"... Take a breath, take a pause, have a think, and ask yourself if sharing or spitting venom is really going to achieve anything right now. Believe me, it won't. It never has.

Haven't we had enough venom, these past few years?

(And I don't suppose this will go very far; it's far too reasonable (I hope!), but if what I've written strikes any sort of a chord with whoever is reading this, feel free to share the hell out of it!)