In most countries, humanity has thrived under democratic systems of government because people vote based on social contracts, whereby they opt for what they think will be better for everyone in the country, rather than just themselves as individuals. However over the last decade (arguably for much longer) we appear to have drifted away from the idea of social contracts. Instead we have embraced populist leaders and governments, “standing up for the majority” rather than looking after those on the edges, “fighting for common sense” rather than for political correctness, and generally entrenching the wealth of those who already have it. Not to mention, continually voting against greener political parties in favour of continuing to trash the environment.

Covid-19 is harking back to more cooperative times, reminding us that we all live in the same society, and that when some of us are in danger, then we’re all responsible for helping – indeed, we can all harm and benefit one another. And it’s doing so in the most alarming way, telling us that if we don’t sacrifice our work and our social lives momentarily, we will kill people. But we shouldn’t forget that voting for populist governments who cut healthcare funding, economic aid or environmental regulations also kill people. A social contract doesn’t just exist to protect the elderly during pandemics, it should protect everyone. In recent times it simply hasn’t.

As if some form of cosmic justice, those most at-risk from covid-19 are largely those who have most benefited from recent populist governments. It risks those with chronic conditions, but also the old, the baby boomers, those who might have amassed wealth previously and then wanted to protect it (by raising house prices, etc) and inadvertently stop younger generations amassing their own wealth. Their own vigilance and self-prioritisation in elections has done little to protect them from pandemics. Instead, those who have suffered from our erosion of social contracted politics – those on zero hour contracts, those with little or no sick pay, and those without their own homes – are now being counted on and asked to sacrifice what little employment and capital they do have in order to protect those older members of society who have continuously voted against modernising capitalism in ways which might benefit them.

In short, demographically speaking, the young and insecure are now being asked to lay everything on the line for those who have continually voted to remove their ability to become secure. They are being asked to fulfil their part of the social contract, despite the other side having neglected theirs for many years.

Short-term, this now vulnerable generation is asking the help of those younger ones upon whom they enforced Brexit, Trump, Boris and with them the inability to become home owners, fully employed and secure members of society.

At some point, Boris and Trump will even likely do what the older generations want and fund the young people to be able to protect the old, by giving them proper sick pay and allowing self-isolation. It is being debated daily in US and UK media. Almost as if to offer the young a small morsel of social contract for themselves, on this one occasion, hoping they do not notice the hypocrisy baked within it.

But let this be a lesson to all of us on social contracts: like it or not, we all share society, and if we continue to refuse our side of the social contract – outvoting the young to ruin their interests, as we have done over the last decade – then eventually they will stop signing their side of the social contract. We might not be cavemen and women who need the young to hunt for us anymore, but during pandemics and moments of national insecurity they are the difference between the elderly surviving or perishing. Covid-19 is a reminder of this, and hopefully it has not arrived too late.

What is the key to appreciating society for the social contract it is? Make an effort to think more rationally and consistently. Ask questions like “why is it only important for zero hours workers to have sick pay when it’s someone else that could be negatively affected?” or “why do we care so much about the number of deaths from covid-19, but not from our lack of mental health funding or benefit cuts?”. A functioning society thrives on critical thinking because it allows us to pick governments who are capable of creating one.

This is an article taken from my 2018 book, Thinkonomics, with Chuck Harrison. I have decided to post it free of charge in response to some of the myths surrounding election campaigns in the UK in 2019.

Most of us will recognise that no system is perfect. Combustion engines in cars don’t just create the energy to power the car, they give off heat energy and produce exhaust fumes which a perfectly designed engine would be able to neutralise and use to power the movement instead. Voting cards on election days are made to be as simple and effective as possible, but there will always be someone who marks the wrong box, or reacts in the wrong way, unintentionally wasting their vote. Even the best made and most expensive TVs heat up, failing to turn all of the electricity it uses into picture quality, whilst many speaker systems fail to cope with the full and infinitely varied spectrum of sound that could come their way, and most can experience vibrations or ‘tinny’ effects when unusual sounds are transmitted. In every day life we are used to these imperfections.

The point I’m getting at is that no system works perfectly. However beautiful or perfect the maths and physics involved, most systems, in reality, cannot be made to a perfect standard. But we get over it. It can be summed up by the sofa analogy: our sofas have holes down the back, and we could lose pound coins down there, but it’s better than not having a sofa. A reasonable amount of waste is accepted and expected. Of course, you could actually just buy a sofa without the hole down the back, and it could still arguably be as comfy… but hey, I’m still proving my point: after all, even analogies can’t be perfect!

The types of system that seem least likely to be perfect are those involving people; people are machines functioning at incredibly complex levels. They each consist of billions of cells and are capable of abstract and irrelevant thoughts, so compared to designing systems containing electricity, metal or plastic, human systems are unimaginably more complex. We are, after all, not just compositions of genetics, but we learn and develop based on our experiences. As a result, no two of us are anywhere near the same, and we can sometimes react to the same stimuli in bizarrely different ways. One person would kill so as not to be tied and tortured, whilst another might consider it a kinky thrill. We are a complicated and varied species, and those designing systems to organise our healthcare, or to run our economy, have a monumental task ahead of them.

That our societies function at all is remarkable, and probably reflective of our intelligence: in general, we realise that despite our differences we must cohabit on Earth. Still, what we have collectively organised in our individual groups is more remarkable. In the UK, for instance, we manage to utilise an advanced form of medical science, funded collectively and improving yearly, to look after one another. We employ people with passions for medicine and caring to do those jobs, so we can live our lives enjoyably yet still endeavour to care for the weakest, oldest, youngest and the most ill. The system isn’t perfect, but that word – remarkable – is appropriate when you consider how far we relatively hairless apes have come.

Yet, despite our progress, we seem to be taking for granted what we have created, and instead focusing on the weaknesses of systems in order to demonise people. We blame the NHS – not its politically motivated lack of funding – when people suffer through lack of care. No system can be perfect, especially not those which suffer through being understaffed and relying on the good nature of the most empathetic and caring people in society, rather than costing us all equally. We might pay chunks of our taxes to keep it running, but the extra unpaid hours that doctors, nurses and volunteers put in to keep the system functioning, and to keep people from suffering, means we aren’t all paying our fair share.

Part of the excuse put forward from Conservative politicians – who are motivated classically by lessening the taxes of the wealthier – is that the NHS is wasteful and so taxes must be cut. Yet, we are asking the wrong questions on public services if we’re more interested in the waste of any system than the output. We can always do things better, but using that as an excuse to limit the input of resources is not doing things better, it’s just doing things cheaper. You don’t make cars run more efficiently by putting less fuel in; you have to redesign the entire system if you’re aiming at efficiency. And when Conservative politicians argued they were getting rid of ‘bureaucrats’ in the NHS, they removed huge swathes of people who were useful for organising care and connecting different sectors.

Those elderly patients who are suffering in the system don’t just require doctors, nurses and carers – who already work long and often unpaid hours just to provide an average service due to understaffing. They also need people to intervene and monitor their care, uphold standards, arrange multi-disciplinary meetings between them, and keep the patient in mind. They need people to balance the books in GP practices and care homes; people to keep the supplies ordered in hospitals; and people to clean the floors and empty the bins. By removing those kinds of people you don’t only make things more dangerous and worse for patients – as you end up spending expensive clinician time on what should be cheaper admin tasks – but you also increase the risk of patients being regularly admitted to hospital, which is the really expensive part of the system.

Of course some of those people are actually bureaucrats – but that is up to managers to deal with and organise, to get the best from people. If they fail, and some bureaucrats continue to exist in the system, we should consider it the same wastage as a warm combustion engine. Large and complicated systems will always involve waste of some sort. If we can’t get rid of it in relatively simple mechanics, we certainly can’t expect to do so in massive organisations focused on human health care. Better to deal with the waste as best we can rather than cut it all out, cutting out half the engine or limiting the fuel in the process.

Yet, arguably, health care is not the biggest instance of ‘back of the sofa’ thinking. I think the welfare state is.

Every week, seemingly without fail, a mainstream TV channel, or a national newspaper, decides it will show us someone who is ‘benefiting’ a little too much from not working but instead being on benefits. It will show us stories of people with 20 children who earn tens of thousands of pounds a year by being on benefits, or it will show us stories of drug addicts who buy drugs with their benefits. The media’s intention is to create an audience from which to profit – selling outrage to any scandal they can find – but its effect is in creating a distrust of the system by focusing on the waste rather than putting it in context.

Let’s start at the beginning. Welfare is a necessary cost to the taxpayer, by any standard of human decency and fairness. Capitalism and modern economics can’t exist without unemployment of some level (you need unemployed people, as they help create growth when they become employed), so someone will always be suffering that indignity. It is entirely unreasonable and irrational to decide we are going to have a capitalist system, then not compensate those that suffer because of it. Capitalism is the best form of economic system available to us, but we’re structuring it wrong if we allow people to demonise/harm the necessary victims. As a result, we do provide ‘benefits’ to people who do not have a steady or sufficient income, and the vast majority of those compensated are exactly who are meant to be benefiting.

However – as with any system – some people will be able to claim benefits in an unfair manner. This is a very small percentage of total benefits paid out, but some people will work illegitimately whilst claiming benefits, whilst others won’t want to work at all. All of which will seem unfair to people who do slave away in day jobs and pay for these benefits from their own wages. Further down the line, some people will have huge numbers of children, and be looked after by the state – which will seem parasitic to your average person who is in a hard-working job – and others will spend benefits on drugs instead of food, which to those same workers will seem to not be the point of benefits.

But, as I mentioned before, whereas these numbers of people might be vocal, louder, and scrutinised far more regularly on TV – a normal job-seeker is boring compared to a family of 15 living in squalor, or a drug addict living in a squat – they are a tiny minority.

However, let’s assume them to be wasting taxpayers’ money. That makes them the relative waste in the system. You can’t feasibly uphold an unemployed person’s dignity by giving them food vouchers for certain shops instead of money, just to spite the drug addict. And you can’t force children into poverty by lessening the benefits of people with children, just to stop people having large amounts of children whilst on benefits.

To build a system which does care about people, foster a sense of belonging and an enthusiasm for hard work, and which works to eradicate child poverty, you need a system of benefits. And no system is perfect, no matter how good the intention, so we should expect there to be waste within that system.

If you want to teach people interesting things about the system, teach them how the alternatives to capitalism are more unfair, but how capitalism requires a certain level of unemployment to function. That would help to change the perception of the unemployed, especially those chronically unemployed. Without them there is no capitalism, which needs a pool of the unemployed to balance growth.

Just as next time you find a £1 coin down the back of the sofa, you won’t look with distrust at your furniture for stealing your hard-earned cash, we shouldn’t look with distrust at the welfare state or the NHS, or any other public service, for that matter. These are truly remarkable systems to be proud of. If – as science suggests – there is no afterlife, you have lived as a member of a species so advanced as to be capable of things that are utterly wonderful to behold. Things that you and other members of your species have fought tooth and nail for, died in pursuit of, and championed, whether popular or not. What better life could you have lived?

And it all starts with understanding why waste exists in any system, whilst not allowing yourself to see it out of context.

One of those rarest of things, a winter election, might be Britain’s only hope out of the never-ending ‘will-they, won’t-they’ break up story of Brexit. But you’ll still almost certainly hear all five of these ridiculous myths peddled over the coming month. Be ready…

“They are all as bad as each other…they’re all the same.”

During the 00’s and the days of Tony Blair’s centrist Labour party, opposed by the perpetually changing leadership of the centre-right Tories of the time, this seemed like a reasonably fair statement about Britain’s politicians.

However, to say that Boris Johnson, Jeremy Corbyn and Jo Swinson are all the same would be a bizarre sentiment to have to defend. Boris Johnson is a free-market capitalism loving Tory, who has filled his cabinet with the types of figures you might see in Trump’s race-war baiting White House, himself having made a political career out of insulting persons of all races, genders and nationalities other than his own. Indeed his rhetoric is blamed for many of the attacks on female MPs.

Whilst Jo Swinson leads a party dedicated to opposing Johnson on Brexit, you could be forgiven for seeing little difference elsewhere. After all, she leads a party which enacted Tory policies in government during the parliament which started in 2010, and many fo the current Lib Dem MPs are either ex-Tories themselves, else ex-Labour MPs of the same political persuasion as Blair. The same status quo, the same austerity, the same homophobia. This is a party of more of the same, granted.

But to consider Jeremy Corbyn in anyway similar…you must have lived under a rock for the last 5 years. This is a life-long pacifist, life-long supporter of civilisation – ie, people over money – as well as someone who promises to make the media neutral again, and actually invest in society to help move us away from the ever-on-the-edge-of-recession economy which the 1970’s throwback economic model of the Tories as given us.

Whilst we all have concerns about whether Corbyn or Johnson are the kinds of people we want leading the country, you can’t pretend they are the same unless you’re seriously deluded.

“The Conservatives are the Party of the Economy.”

Perhaps it was true in the past, I won’t judge on that, but it certainly isn’t the case that the Tories are still the party of the economy. They’ve resided over 9 of the most stagnant economic years in British history, all the while ignoring the interests of business in favour of electoral populism.

They’ve maintained their image because of their ‘low-tax’ policies, which means big business donates to their campaigns. But the big business which champions Tories – think tax dodgers and poor employers like Mike Ashley – are not interested in the British economy, they are interested in paying lower tax. An economy which is struggling needs public investment to help get it moving, whereas taxing low and spending low is a way to maintain a poor economy. In turn – stay with me – opportunities for new business is limited, so old businesses can safely keep their position whilst not having to increase wages, etc, to keep talent.

The Conservatives are still the party of the big business, but any economics student who attends a lecture now and again will tell you why this is a million miles away from being the party of economic success.

As an economics nerd, I’ve been saying for years that I want to see a political party asking actual, current, renowned economists for ideas of how to improve our whole economic system rather than just continuing the same nonsense every 4 years. John McDonnel is the only chancellor in my adult life who I have seen actually do this; arranging an Economic Advisory Committee which does just that. Amazingly, not one of the tabloid media outlets covered how ground-breaking this was. Funny that.

Again, I have my misgivings about Corbyn – though not for the ridiculous tabloid smears like him being a terrorist or cooking up drugs on his allotment or whatever nonsense they are printing today – but on the economy I’d back Labour every time. This isn’t the 80’s anymore.

“Cancelling Brexit would be good for Britain.”

It wouldn’t, and I say that with a heavy heart as someone who voted for and argued aggressively for remain. I seem to be another of those rarest of things: someone who listened to and acknowledged the evidence that Brexit was always a terrible idea, yet now acknowledges that cancelling Brexit would be an even worse idea. Yes, even if that means Johnson’s awful deal. Because evidence and reason are more important than sticking your flag to a mast and then supporting it, like a football team, forever.

Leaving the EU was both economically and ethically a misjudged idea, and even having a referendum was a bad idea: evidence suggests that like 6% of people cared about EU membership before the referendum, but that merely making people choose a side on a single issue – and making it front and centre of all media – has made the entire population entrenched to one side or the other, and resistant to all evidence from the other side.

Listen to what that tells you. The vast, vast majority of the population that voted for Brexit (and probably a fair number of those who couldn’t be bothered voting, too, in honesty) still want it, and now see it as unreasonably important. If Brexit is cancelled without asking them, you then ensure that for 10 years, 20 years, 30 years… hell, maybe forever, that this is the primary issue of importance, and to vote for it no matter what else that politician will do. Until it one day will happen. Or probably much worse.

I realise that the media had lie after lie in the referendum campaign – like it does in every election campaign, by the way (I don’t see how Corbyn can both be ineffective, old and pacifist whilst also a dangerous, violent, terrorist for instance…) – but our chance to stop that was to vote for Ed Milliband or someone who previously had policies to fix the media with a proper watchdog. One with teeth which forced rational neutrality in media, rather than just being there for show, like at current, where journalists have to seriously break the countries criminal law to even get punished.

We can’t go back in time, and whilst it will be economically damaging to leave the EU, it won’t be the end of the world. It would be far more damaging to have government after government getting elected based on isolationist international policies, and systematically underfunding our entire countries’ infrastructure and public services, to the degree where our economy entirely collapses and we become solely a tax-haven. Leaving the EU is a bad idea, but forcing 17.4 million people to forever vote based on this one issue is a worse one. We live in an imperfect political system in dire need of reform, but until we do away with party politics, we sometimes have to opt for the least bad decisions.

“The Lib Dems are a centre-left, sensible choice.”

Following on…if the previous bit doesn’t convince you, you’re probably fairly ingrained in this sports-fan-esque version of politics where being remain is by far the most important thing in British politics right now. So this isn’t going to convince you either. But, as I said earlier, the Lib Dems are a party full of Blairites, Tories and a whole bunch of other unsavoury characters who are simply political opportunists looking to make a career out of remain in the same way Johnson has improved his personal prospects by choosing leave.

Lib Dems have always been opportunists rather than principled – these are the party who gained mass support in an election, primarily from students, based on a promise to eliminate tuition fees, and then went into government and immediately not only kept tuition fees but actually raised them, in return for a shit compromise on an even lesser policy (namely a public referendum on a poor version of proportional representation) which they knew their voters wouldn’t approve of. And, may I remind you, the same party who within the last ten years employed a homophobe to lead them on the basis that he was the most media-friendly option. If you think these are decent principles, I despair.

Since then, they have garnered Blairites who don’t like the principles of the Labour party and Tories who don’t like leaving the EU, and hence become even less principled. I’d doubt they are anywhere near ‘centre’ if Blairism is the most left they have in their party, but I’m even more quizzical that they are ‘sensible’. Sensible only, perhaps, if the choice were voting Lib Dem or sticking your foot in a woodchipper. Though, at least in the latter you’d know what you’re coming out with, I guess.

“Socialism is un-British”

Before I write this one, I want to point out what my misgivings with Corbyn are, in the interests of neutrality. I think he’s a better choice than Johnson, whose taking Britain in a dangerous direction, where facts and science are mistrusted and primitive instincts about foreigners are being used to win elections rather than being challenged in a developed education system (gradually returning Britain to the middle ages). And I think he’s a better choice than Swinson, who is offering nothing but division and a whole heap of old-fashioned Blair and Cameron agendas. But I think Corbyn lacks the sharpness and intelligence to be a great prime minister. His responses in debates are poor, his ability to see how he is being perceived is even worse, and whilst I think his principles might be his biggest selling point, but it means he struggles to compromise.

But, like it or not, he is offering an opportunity for Britain to reap the benefits of socialism, which the world is fast being geared toward. Many believe AI is removing the need for human workers, for instance, all the while capitalism is becoming smarter and creating entire multi-million pound companies – multi-billion pound companies, indeed – that need only a fraction of the human resource that they used to. Even democratic candidates in the US – who usually feel like Tories in the UK, given how far to the right the US usually is of the UK – are now suggesting things like ‘basic incomes’ for citizens, as the world is changing.

Socialism is a sensible compromise between full-on ideas like basic income, which isn’t necessary as yet in my opinion, and current free-market capitalism. It’s not a dirty word, indeed Britain has one the most extreme institutional versions of socialism in the world, and it’s one of our most beloved things: the NHS. The Tories might have tried to defund it to a state of wear in the hope that we vote to one day privatise it, but we aren’t showing any signs of doing that: we constantly poll in favour of the NHS, and we constantly tell politicians we want it to get more funding and to be a priority.

It’s difficult to explain to Brits just how socialist the NHS is, but in countries without public-funded healthcare for all, it’s seen as so far to the left it might as well be communism.

What Labour are proposing in their manifesto is socialism of this ilk: they want to renationalise things like the railways, bring education fully back, renationalise water (in England – as it is in Scotland), etc. And this is a good idea. The only benefit of privatisation, is when companies take over and then spend money on employees to run them, thus theoretically improving the economy (which is potentially another myth, for another very different article…), but in an age where companies are spending less and less on employees, and so much more on automation, we are looking at a world which only really functions in a socialist system. And it would be ridiculous to one day be spending more taxes on paying higher basic incomes to people, in order that they can pay for things like privately run trains and water, when we could simply have the government own them instead and thus be able to spend less taxes and pay them less basic income.

We have to realise that it’s 2019, not 1978 – or 1948, if you’re Jacob Rees Mogg – and thus socialism is not only a good idea, but is quickly becoming the only viable option for modern societies. In the following campaign, you will hear people called socialists as a smear. Think of these socialist-fearing journalists as relics from the 70s – or perhaps people bought up in caves – who don’t understand the modern world. Then lend them an economics book.

In the UK, for the first time in our recent history, we seem to be facing not just a constant threat of recession, but an entire crisis of economy. This isn’t just about Brexit – which, whilst a huge economic gamble, could have been economically useful – it’s much wider than that. For the best part of 9 years we have had a self-styled party of business in power, and yet in every important measure, public spending is dropping and we are feeling the effects.

Two areas show this problem particularly well. Between 2010 and 2019, police funding fell by 19% in real terms, and despite their being less police to actually record crime, it has led to an increase in violent crime. Stabbings, gun crime, burglary and robberies are all on the increase, which is no surprise given the funding used to combat, deter and catch criminals is falling dramatically.

In health, the figures are no less startling. The well-documented funding issues in the NHS – which have blighted every public conversation from general elections to Brexit – have not only led to problems recruiting GPs and carers, but have led to the UK being in a unique position of life-expectancy not only stalling, but falling in many areas of the UK. That’s truly remarkable for a developed, Western nation. If there’s one thing society seems to value, it’s not dying; indeed that’s sort of why society exists in the first place. With violent crime rising and life expectancy dropping – through an NHS inability to deal with health crises – we are spectacularly failing at this.

So what’s going on? Why is basic funding in health and law enforcement dropping, if we have a government who values economic growth above all else? Do we now simply have to accept that our society must function with less investment, or risk unassailable debt? Well, let’s start by looking at the facts.

The party of the economy

Firstly, I think it would be biased to suggest that the Conservatives are not traditionally better for the economy. It was Conservative governments who bought us into the EU to open up our trade, despite it being a decision which threatened their very existence and indirectly handed Labour power for almost a decade. More famously, the likes of Thatcher were famed for trying to move the UK economy forward at great cost to her own legacy. Closing mining industries and investing in financial markets, not to mention seeing the opportunities of lower taxes to attract rich domiciles, arguably helped the UK remain competitive with much bigger nations.

We can and should question the usefulness of these actions now, but at the time they represented the actions of a party striving to keep Britain at the forefront of economics. Clumsy and a little biased toward the wealthy, yes, but it’s hard to doubt their intentions economically.

But do they still show these signs of economic strength? Evidence to back this is almost impossible to find over the last 9 years of Conservative government.

Countries like Germany have invested in new industries, becoming world leaders in renewables and placing them at the forefront to exploit this emerging market and target strong economic growth. In contrast, over the last 9 years, the Conservatives have overseen a “dramatic and worrying” collapse in green investment. Alongside their falls in spending on health, law enforcement, welfare, and almost everything else, this has formed the backbone of their principle policy: austerity.

This point of principle has, unfortunately, shown the signs of a political party that has lost touch with economics. Their belief that high spending leads to high debt, and thus a weak economy, has led to – as explained earlier – one of the biggest slumps in societal values in British history. Yes, the UK is in debt, but national economics are not like credit card debts. Credit card debts get bigger the more you borrow, there’s no way around it. But if you invest smartly as a government, you can stimulate growth, decrease the value of that debt, increase the ability of people in society to spend money, export goods, etc, and do much more to eliminate debt than simply stopping spending. Indeed, the entirety of Keynesian economics – one of the most popular theories in economics, and the driving force behind numerous Nobel prizes – is focused on how investment does this.

Politics has changed

So why do conservatives stick to these principles? Firstly, politics has changed. Politics is no longer the place of noble decisions, made by honourable leaders who sometimes make mistakes, but rather it’s now solely a popularity contest of massaging egos, in which mistakes that hurt society can be politically motivated. Recent political history – at least of the last 15 years – has been one where party politics have entirely overcome the importance of the national interest. Whether it be Blair handing the reins to the unelected Brown, Cameron being more interested in his own party’s unity and backing a Brexit vote over economic security (then resigning rather than providing national stability), or May’s interest in her own popularity – which led to an election where she lost support – undermining the countries negotiating position during Brexit.

I stress, this is not about Brexit. Brexit is at best an economic gamble, but could lead to improved economic relations with big economic superpowers such as the US and China – but the way the Conservatives have treated it, to massage their own personalities and party, with no plans of actually making a success of it but rather to ‘win’ politically, speaks volumes about modern politicians.

The Conservatives have changed

More important than this is how the Conservative party has changed. For a long time, they have worried people as to how much they really cared about improving society, and how much they are really just looking out for the interests of the wealthy. But until the 80s they at least had the remnants of an economic theory which appeared to working and making Britain prosperous. However, that bias toward the wealthy has now largely consumed Tory policy.

There is no longer a strong economic theory, they instead stick to ‘trickle down economics’, which hasn’t been valid in economics circles for 20 years. And whilst they ignore the advantages of investing in emerging industries, or placing the UK at the forefront of future economics, their principle of austerity has completely forced the breaks on economic growth in current industries.

Lack of investment in health and welfare necessarily means fewer people are able to work, more days are lost to sickness, and fewer people are employed in the NHS – the country’s biggest employer – which in turn creates a never-ending circle of stress, burn out, recruitment issues, and a hopeless pit where the prime minister now throws money occasionally in lip service.

The same goes for crime – less security and higher rates of things like robberies and burglaries decrease productivity as people are less likely to start or grow companies if they feel their work is going to be wasted or stolen from them. These are not abstract connections. If you decrease spending on societal basics, you decrease its ability to function.

So why do they still win the support of big business? Not because of their record on economics, but because of their rules which allow for profits to escape into tax havens – which in turn creates the supposed lack of funds for government to invest – and which favour existing big companies and company owners. If you are Amazon or Starbucks, and you support the Conservative government, you are making a sound business decision as you’ll pay such low levels of tax and massively increase your personal income. If you’re an emerging business without such clout, there’s almost nothing to support you: you’ll have no influence to pay less tax, suffer from increasingly few schemes to help new businesses, and take the toll of citizens suffering from low healthcare spending and high crime rates. That’s a lose-lose, economically: it doesn’t help economic growth, it just helps the wealthy.

This balance whereby the Conservatives have abandoned economic growth in favour of wealth-protection is matched by direct influences in the government itself. Theresa May’s husband has been linked to the Paradise Papers tax havens scandal, various government ministers have personal interests in low taxation rates on high earning companies, and most come from families where wealth is passed down, and thus have no interest in ‘new wealth’ being created so much as ‘old wealth’ being protected. You can argue that these personal interests have no effect on policy, but the odd decisions they have taken to weaken the economy – by a party who used to be almost obsessed with it – must be somewhat telling.

Is this how things have to be?

The simple answer is we don’t know. Until government policy changes, or a new government is elected, we will not know how much the economy can be stimulated. And, indeed, if you can ignore the noises of the tabloids – the owners of which are so often the benefactors of Conservative ‘wealth protection’ – the willingness of the Labour party to listen to new economic theories is very encouraging.

But there is evidence that the UK is lagging behind, not leading, due to government policy. Life expectancy is increasing in other countries. Crime is falling, or at least not rising, in many others. And despite Brexit wobbling Europe, even the lead economy there, Germany, is managing to invest in new industry and avoiding economic deceleration. What’s more, whilst the Conservatives argue that we need lower taxes on wealth to encourage wealthy people to live and spend here, we actually have some of the lowest tax rates in the developed world, yet are one of the few still advocating austerity (even if this is no longer vocalised, due to its political unpopularity).

What we can say, with some certainty, is there are lots of compelling reasons to raise an eyebrow if you are told that the Conservatives are the party of a ‘strong and stable’ economy.

Everyone – or almost everyone – disagrees with unnecessary suffering. It seems a vital belief for living modern society. After all, how can we coexist with other human beings if we consider their suffering to be insignificant? What constitutes ‘unnecessary’, however, is the subject of disagreement. Especially when it comes to the suffering of those in separate evolutionary trees.

The world becomes more complex if you start looking at alleviating suffering, rather than simply being kind – two very different ways to focus your moral outlook. The former has real-world effects, the latter being an interest in nothing more than your own virtues.

Veganism is seemingly 2018’s buzz word – for all kinds of odd reasons – partly because it makes a pretty strong case for drawing rational lines around what constitutes unnecessary suffering.: that which occurs out of pleasure, taste or convenience. Similarly, it makes sensible concessions, in stating that if you really need animal products (i.e., animal tested medicines), you should take them (this wouldn’t be ‘unnecessary’ given medicines are currently all tested on animals). But veganism maintains that 99.9% of our uses of other animals can only be rationally defined as unnecessary, and so this use must end. Animal exploitation is irrational by our own moral beliefs about unnecessary suffering.

It’s difficult to find fault in this reasoning. Almost a decade ago, after two years of searching for a good argument against it, I certainly folded. Veganism is extending reason based on the enlightenment values of consistency which we have all benefited from, and at some point you have to stop looking for the perfect, imaginary argument against it.

Thus, rather than discussion, the debate often switches to the excuses. After it has been established that you can buy products not tested on animals, and that in the modern world the vegan alternatives to omnivorous treats like ice cream and bacon are actually pretty good, it becomes abundantly clear that the big barrier facing veganism is convenience. I.e., some big companies with their shiny new eyeliners do still test on animals, some snazzy new designers often still use animal skins, and conveniently located shops will sell chicken sandwiches rather than the vegan alternatives to chicken sandwiches. Veganism seems hard because it isn’t convenient as non-veganism.

We should examine what this sort of excuse really means as a moral matter? If you were driving along a country road and saw a fox crossing in front of you, wouldn’t you slow down to avoid hitting her even though it was less convenient? The analogy is unfair – wasting a few seconds in a car journey is not tantamount to the inconvenience involved in becoming vegan in 2018. Let’s make it fairer then. What if the only way to avoid hitting the fox was to reverse and take a different route, significantly impacting your journey time. It’s still the right thing to do, isn’t it?

It’s very difficult to argue that convenience has any sort of pull on our intuitions when faced with this example. The individuals who proudly state they’d run the animal over, for the sake of arriving in a more timeous fashion, seem to be weighing the importance of the small aspects of their own lives in an unbalanced way against the much larger interests at stake in someone else’s. Your timeousness isn’t as important as someone else’s life, even if that individual can not read the collected works of Shakespeare, that’s pretty basic. And it’s not as if you’re spending your evenings reading Shakespeare either. The individual who ignores the suffering of others for their own small gains, or feelings of superiority, is not a common or welcomes sight in normal society.

The problem is that we are all involved in this analogy every single day. When I’m in the supermarket, if I fancy a beef burger I am faced with a moral quandary, almost exactly the same as the previous analogy. I can choose to pay someone, who in advance has killed a cow on my behalf (and will continue to do so if I continue to provide the demand) so I can eat her remains in between two pieces of bread. Or I can inconvenience myself slightly by eating something else, or by travelling to a store that sells vegan ‘beef style’ pieces.

There are important differences between the example of avoiding the fox in the road and killing a cow for a burger. One could claim we gain sustenance from the cow, and many people can be fed, etc. Which of course is entirely devoid of meaning, given the fact we don’t need to eat cows – we can be perfectly healthy eating anything else, and, ironically, you can create far more vegan food with the resources you use to farm one cow. The amount of food and water it needs to grow dwarves the nutritional value it provides – it’s a waste of farmland and resources.

However, the most profound difference between the two examples is the level of directness involved. We are appalled by the idea of not inconveniencing ourselves for the fox, as it would involve us directly murdering another individual, however in the supermarket this immoral choice is backed by public opinion, defended by business interests (and tens of myths), and the act of killing is sub-contracted to someone else on our behalf.

You will notice none of these differences in the level of directness justifies the death or mass suffering they intend to, and yet when mashed together in a cultural mixing bowl, they deceive people to a level whereby the guilt of the immoral act of animal exploitation is temporarily removed. This doesn’t excuse the act of animal exploitation, but it does place moral obligations on those who understand this irrational position to educate others upon it.

In utilising convenience as an argument to allow us to eat and use other animals, we err greatly as a rational matter, we lower ourselves below our ancestors who eliminated the moral problems in their eras (slavery, women and children as chatel property, etc), and we contribute to mass unnecessary suffering. That last part is absolutely unimaginable, in fact. 50-60 billion sentient individuals (10 times the entire human population) every year, killed just for food. That’s not even counting hundreds of billions of sea creatures, and those killed for other purposes. This issue is not just the biggest moral challenge facing humankind today, it’s the biggest moral dilemma we’ve ever faced in terms of pure numbers. And it comes about because people don’t think through what convenience really means.

We can all choose to do something about this right now – we don’t need parties to promise us it during elections, or charities to act on our behalf – we just need to make the choice to go vegan, and to educate others about veganism. We can choose to do it before we even reach the end of the next sentence, or before you reach the tills at the supermarket. It’s as simple and as easy as that.

In historical terms, imagine what is was like for Emily Davidson being trampled to death by the king’s horse, or for Frederick Douglass escaping slavery to write and speak out against it. These were acts of enormous, courageous moral bravery which most of us would likely have failed to act out. Society has always been a hostile place for those furthering the next step in moral matters. Luckily, thanks to the campaigners of our past, you have the freedom to choose to be part of the solution now, merely by how you live. That’s remarkable and shouldn’t be ignored for a more convenient life.

Rationalism is about making decisions with your head, limiting the effect of your own biases, baseless opinions or preferences. It’s about making decisions that make your country and the world a better place. In this election, these questions have been explored in depth. If you want a country run by a party who is offering evidence-based policies, there is no perfect option, but Britain’s best option in 2017 is most certainly Labour.

The Basics – economics

Whilst the the Tories continually mislead the public over public services – claiming business simply can not be taxed any higher without it harming our tax receipts – history betrays them. Just 7 years ago, tax rates were higher than they are now. And higher than Labour are proposing putting them up to.

What Labour are offering is a more rational society. It may seem like classic leftism, but taxing the rich more in order to balance society is vital in growing any economy. In the same way that approaching inequality in developing nations – by educating women or providing free healthcare – is the key to improving prosperity. This is not just moral and thereby subjective, it’s rational economic.

Leaving children and adults of poorer families behind, and overseeing a growing economic inequality simply means limiting the pool of potential wealth creators and innovators in the country.

Simply look at the modern world, and an economic environment ruled by a select few individuals who had great ideas and the desire to carry them through. The likes of Facebook, Google, Amazon, Tesla, etc. All going from strength to strength. These kinds of innovators don’t often appear from the already wealthy, but from the minds of humans, spontaneously, who need to be encouraged and nurtured. Limiting the ability of your society to create people like this – limiting the pool of potential – is hugely damaging, as missing just one Zuckerberg or Musk is disastrous for the country and the planet.

We need more ambitious, modern economics, and the Tories championing of Thatcherist ‘trickle down wealth’ has been discredited time and time, and time, again. It increases inequality, meaning the poor get poorer in relation to inflation. This is not the sign of a developing society, but of a stagnating one who thinks it can do no better. Yet we voted to leave the EU last year as at least half of us believe we can do better. So vote for it.

Labour’s move away from New Labour economics is a move toward reason.

Defence.

Classically the party of defence, the Tories reluctance to embrace the most pressing security issues in the UK is telling. It’s abandoning of the public service cyber security – de-funding them whilst the rich are taxed less – has left us all weaker and open to attack. Literally every party other than the Tories appear to offer more than the uncosted, rhetoric heavy non-policies they give us.

On Trident, they fair little better. Trident, I would argue, is a primary source of British defence – a weapon we should never need to use, but whose very presence is equal to every single British person being employed in the armed forces. It’s value, ironically, despite looking high is actually very efficient. Labour’s decision to match the Tories and keep it is a good one.

The Tories inability to create lasting, friendly relationships, however, pushes us closer to needing to use it. Trident should not be used as a hostile deterrent, but as an invisible, nameless utility in the background. Under the Tories, however, the diplomatic skills have reduced so greatly that the British public now clings to it as if its use is inevitable. This is neither the point of it, nor a positive reaction to Tory defence policy. It shows they are doing a bad job.

Corbyn’s personal opinion, of wanting to abolish Trident, is almost certainly wrong. Yes, it’s use would be one of the darkest chapters in human history. But it’s presence deters far more. The lack of any long-lasting, or globally involved wars in the last 70 years – despite following on from two of the most well-remembered and horrific wars in history – is a testament to its deterrence value. Yes we should try to find a way to a nuclear weapon-free world, but at the moment the risk of 1 or more nuclear weapons being used is outweighed by the almost certain saving of hundreds of thousands, perhaps millions, of lives. We shouldn’t ignore that.

However, does Corbyn’s reluctance to use nukes defeat their use as a deterrent? Absolutely not. For the same reason that a man holding a gun to your head doesn’t automatically make you feel safe by saying he won’t pull the trigger. Similarly, Corbyn’s ability to talk to his opponents, a will to solve problems rather than ignore them, and the talent of his diplomats, compared to the bumbling media-celebs in the Tory party, mean Labour is a safer pair of hands on defence, rationally speaking. May’s slight advantage on Trident does not eliminate her huge deficit in the more active and important deterrent made up of diplomacy.

The Environment

Our party of government failed to even unite with other world leaders to condemn Trump’s removal from one of the most important climate change agreements of our time. They sit firmly at the bottom of the political pile in British politics on climate change, which is arguably the most important issue of our time.

The Greens, of course, take it more seriously than any other party and are the rational choice if we consider climate change alone.

Of course, this isn’t sensible. The Green’s are a pressure group, whose economics plan doesn’t add up – if Labour are promising ambitious jumps in economics, the Greens are pretending we can float forwards. In government, they would have to compromise beyond their plans, and so even then they would thus be blunted short of their desires.

So long as you avoid the anti-intellectual and anti-modern politicians of UKIP – who seem to have not been reading any books and thus learning anything about the modern world in the past 40 years – and the Conservatism which currently fails to improve British economics and climate change, then the other parties are all roughly second placed behind the Greens.

Brexit.

This shouldn’t be an election about Brexit, but it is. UKIP are on one side – desperately wanting to pursue every possible form of isolation from Europe, in a way which would certainly hurt our economy, and almost certainly hurt our reputation globally. On the other are the Lib Dems, who not only want to get into power in order to spend the next 5 years having the same conversation we had last year over and over, but also show disrespect to the people who voted for Brexit, and the process they took part in. Yes, politicians lied, but the key would be to learn from this and fix the system – make the media neutral, make politicians accountable to truth, etc – and not simply go backwards by a year and disempower people who feel like they’ve finally been listened to. The country needs us to move on, the EU isn’t perfect, and perhaps we do just need to accept it and try to keep good trade and relationships.

Theresa May believes Brexit is her strength. Yet, personally, she’s second best even in comparison to Corbyn. May wholeheartedly supported remaining in the EU, changing her mind only when it would grant her more power and riches. Corbyn, when asked how certain he was about staying in the EU during the campaign, told Sky News he was “7, 8” out of 10, settling on “7 and a half”. Of all the leaders, Corbyn appeared to be the only one saying he could see both sides. So, in reality, the only one able to honestly negotiate on both side’s behalf.

Add to this Corbyn’s willingness to talk to and charm his opponents, to broker rather than May’s outdated 1980’s window salesman negotiating tactic of dogged, dishonest hostility. It shows Corbyn is more suited to negotiating in the modern world. A man of principle who his opponents know will not U-turn, but will make fair demands. Almost the opposite is true of May – she makes unreasonable demands, changes her mind based on what it does for her personally, and u-turns constantly (most recently on big policies on social care, the self-employed and even the election itself).

But this isn’t just about the leaders, it is the negotiating teams who do it on their behalf. In David Davis, Theresa May is leaving the country in the hands of a career politician whose experience is to be found mainly in back-bench Westminster politics, with the small experience of having worked in the sugar industry. Corbyn, by contrast, has opted for Keir Starmer QC – not just one of the countries top lawyers, but someone who has been Director of Public Prosecutions and head of the Crown Prosecution Service. This is not even a fair comparison; there’s not a person in the country who, given the chance, would hire Davis over Starmer to negotiate their divorce. And this is the most important divorce settlement the UK has ever been involved in.

Summary

Rationalists have classically believed that politics is outwith the realm of evidence-based endeavours. But the above shows it isn’t. In this election, every party will engage in spin and bias, but not every party is equal in it. The Tories are offering very little in terms of evidence-based policies or progress, whilst Labour have put forth an agenda which, even if they fall short – and the neutral IFS (Institute for Fiscal Studies) believe they very well might – they will still transform Britain unimaginably for the better. It’s ambitious it’s exciting, it’s positive and it’s well-thought out.

As a rationalist looking for clarity as this election, there is only one choice: it’s Labour.

In the wake of another awful attack on Tuesday, it’s time we started discussing some of the uncomfortable truths about terrorism. We owe it to the victims, not just of Tuesday but of various attacks here and abroad in the past. In order to stop it happening again, we need to understand what it even is, what we’re up against, and what is the most effective way to avoid it happening.

Of course, security services being vigilant, intelligence serviced being well-funded and communities being resourceful are all wonderful ways in which we already limit the horrendous damage from being much worse. But there is much more we need to acknowledge. Here are 4 uncomfortable truths we have to start talking about.

1) In the modern world, foreign policy has to be smarter with its use of violence.

It is little surprise that the bulk of the UK’s terrorist atrocities occur because of a chain of reactions often leading back to violent excursions into foreign lands. We go to war with the best of intentions, of course, but politicians should be much more aware that an enemy who perpetrates terrorism crosses borders. Attacking 1, 2 or even 3 different nations with bombs and troops will not stop the adherents here, and in other countries, from retaliating.

Very rarely do discussions and parliamentary votes on war take into account the likelihood of increased terror attacks; they get carried away, instead, with patriotism, opposing dictators, etc. They absolutely must also start considering the never-ending war of terrorism which it seemingly starts.

2) Terrorism isn’t a battle of territory, it’s a battle of ideas.

It may occasionally be necessary to arm rebels, fight on foreign shores and go after the regimes around the world which support terrorism. It also seems necessary to occasionally infringe civil liberties in order foil terrorist attacks which could kill multiple people. Yet that’s where our efforts mainly stop. We don’t seem to understand that this is actually a battle of ideas. As a result, we’re not even fielding a team to fight it.

ISIS, or whatever you want to call them, recruit around the globe with ideas. And these ideas are persuasive because they pitch the story of a deity-backed David vs. a cruel, imperial Goliath. Time after time, it is not terrorists from the countries we bomb which attack us, but the ideas they spread, which infect our young people, who do the damage for them. We are in a battle of ideas, and you need to grasp the next point in order to know how to fight it.

3) Terrorism is, almost always, religiously inspired or related.

In the wake of every attack, religious groups come out to condemn the actions, by stating the passages of their religious books which would seem to condemn these actions. Moderate religious people are rightly outraged that someone would commit such atrocities in their name, and they use their beloved scripture to condemn it.

Yet, it’s no mistake that the Bible and the Quran both inspire terrorism, whilst the ancient books of Aristotle, Plato or Pythagoras don’t. The latter do not tend to inspire violence, because despite their age, their work – full of intrigue and knowledge, but also doubt and wonder – has to be fully misunderstood, perhaps even completely ignores, to lead to violence. Whereas the aforementioned religious books have certainty in their commands, and all incite violence against non-believers in sections. That they contradict themselves later on with messages of peace or love is neither here nor there; kind people use these books to justify kindness, terrorists use them to justify violence. Both are equally valid if the book says both.

What’s more, despite what religious groups say, this point is reasonably obvious. For someone to make the ultimate sacrifice – their own life – one has to be both certain in one’s beliefs and sure that it will lead to a better outcome than before. That certainty, desperation to fend off otherwise rational ideas and promise of eternal reward is what drives suicide bombers. You simply do not find that anywhere but in the teachings of religion, be it organised or otherwise.

Terrorism is very difficult to explain without religion. Religion is very difficult to ignore as the cause of terrorism.

4) Secularism is a way forward, and the best idea we have to fight back with

That we do mental gymnastics following terrorist attacks, in order to get religion off the hook, is not wise. Terrorists are engaging us in a battle of ideas with our young people. And many times they win. Their message is of eternal reward, promised in ancient texts, and our response is ‘…love… peace…can’t we all just coexist?’ Well, no, not if that’s the best argument you’ve got.

This is a battle of ideas where the opponent is utilising what we have for centuries called the opiate of the masses. An organised, rebellious kind of religion where you can be a martyr and live forever in eternal happiness. And we are responding with meaningless platitudes on concepts most of us barely understand.

Yet, here in the UK, we are brilliantly equipped to fight such a battle of ideas. In fact, we helped start a revolution of thought several hundred years ago which has already fought off primitive thoughts in order to progress society. We were the society, along with countries like France, where the Enlightenment took place. Where people began to lay the foundations for reason, and the opposition to religion, which allowed science to flourish. In turn, everything from technology to medicine became completely, unrecognisably advanced.

We had these arguments on behalf of reason then, and we have them now. We just refuse to use them as we believe arguing against faith is arguing against religious people. It’s not. Religion is impossible to back with logic, difficult to defend in philosophy, and unsafe as a method of public reasoning. Faith is not a good way to form ideas, and it leaves people open to manipulation by people with unkind intentions. Whether it be the terrible Christian terrorism of the past (which continues in nations like America), or the current wave of Islamic terrorism, the rigid certainties of belief which religion provides are not useful or safe for society.

It’s okay to attack bad ideas. And religions are bad ideas. We need to be celebrating and championing uncertainty, doubt and debate, rather than devotion, faith and certainty. That is the way to win a battle of ideas with a particularly violent cult which is spreading across the globe. That is the way to engage, intrigue and win young minds – with honesty and intelligence. If not, even if Isis sizzles out over the coming years, there will be more groups just like it. Religious terrorism has been present throughout history and it won’t stop until secularism has confined religion to being the personal, spiritual belief it should only ever be; far away from government and communities.

The Tories are fixating on meaningless slogans, the Lib Dems are obsessive on reversing Brexit, the SNP – yet again – are focused almost singularly on independence, and Labour are trying to regain ground lost, as always, in the tabloids. Yet whilst many issues get thrown around on TV, no party seems interested in fixing the biggest issue in this, or arguably any, election in the last few decades.

Look at any developing country, and the biggest political struggle – and indeed the most effective way toward economic and social success – is moving toward a democratic system. Moving away from authoritarian, maniacal leaders and toward votes where the civilians get to decide who rules the country. Before any other issues – whether it be state independence, healthcare, social welfare, defence, etc – first a country must struggle to ensure it’s leaders are held accountable and thus are acting in the national interest. Otherwise countries get run into the ground by people who have dodgy intentions and dishonest opinions.

A big part of that journey toward democracy – arguably the biggest part – is not in normal people being allowed a vote, but in the media holding politicians accountable and reporting independent, neutral news on their policies and actions in the first place. Indeed, the first thing a dictator, or anyone else opposing democracy does, is to take control of the media. To take control of the armed forces is to cause violent rebellion, but to take control of the media is to quietly hide your actions and create a culture of ignorance which removes a person’s democratic right to be informed. It’s the easiest way to destroy democracy, and the most famous dictators in history – the likes of Hitler – did it exactly like this. He was voted in, he did not suppress ‘democracy’ as his voters understood it because he had the media tell them he was acting in the national interest.

Yet, the tabloids in Britain, which constitute some of the most read forms of ‘media’, are controlled and owned by people with ideological interests in maintaining governments with certain policies, exactly in the manner that history would show as problematic. Similarly, they are not held to account by the truthfulness, or helpfulness, of their stories, but rather they are guided by principles of profit, like a normal company. A free press is vital in democracy, but it must be free of both governmental and individual bias, otherwise it’s worthless.

It is not only the tabloids, with their ideological bias, which are important to mention though. News channels and audio-visual media are just as bad. Far from providing balanced, neutral and rational analysis of policies and intentions, they run a ‘we reported what blue politician says, so we must report what red politician says’ farce. This is not investigative or useful democratic journalism, it is providing a balance of propaganda, so as whoever has the best PR campaigns can win. Again, this happens in every long-term authoritarian state Hence why Theresa May is avoiding all chance to debate altogether, in favour of carefully managed press appearances and massive slogan-filled posters – she knows how it works, and she doesn’t need to defend her position because the press do it for her.

This problem has been persistent in British politics for at least the last few decades. Even the most neutral of our media sources – the likes of the BBC – are duty bound not by rational, democratic journalism which should neutrally lead them to oppose some politicians more than others, but by a desperate attempt not to point out errors on one side more than any other. Thus, even if the Prime Minister were to completely lie about holding an election for months on end (which she did), it will get only the same treatment as the opposition cabinet member who forgot a couple of numbers on early morning TV. Forgetting figures and consistently lying to the population are not equally bad political actions, but if you judge the BBC’s brands of journalism as neutral then they are equal.

Arguably these problems in British media have become less problematic as social media has begun to take more control of what news we actually see. However, far from create a more level playing field, companies like Facebook have made it even worse. Your Facebook account allows sponsors and those same rich ideological interests to be the primary articles you see, even above posts your friends or pages you follow have made. Which causes problems further still when people end up liking these erroneous pages, and their opinions become more and more entrenched in what are essentially bold, basic lies, being told to affect a person’s vote.

Whereas the ideological obsessions in the tabloid press are open for all to see and extremely problematic for democracy, the bias and control of your political opinions through social media is far less open. Fake news here can even give the impression of being reputable – with official sounding site names, newspaper names, and even professional, non-tabloid styles of writing – whilst being completely false. Elton John has died more times than I care to remember on my Facebook feed, which tells me we are now even more likely to see biased, unchecked news than we were before – even the bias of tabloids would generally not print such a basic lie. Our lives are less free and fair than even they used to be due to social media.

The press – whether it be tabloids, the BBC or Facebook – continue to act in such an ideological manner because it remains free of state control. Indeed, those running the press believe that this is what ‘free press’ means. It really isn’t. Free press is about being free from all bias and control, and that means you have to run newspapers, news broadcasts and news channels very differently to how a company is run. It can’t be run for profit, feeding the electorate what they want to hear, or what the director of ITV or the Sun wants you to hear. Democracy only ever works when the press is completely neutral and free from that control. And actually, yes, that means regulation. A government must pass laws that means the press is regulated independently from government, and independently from the people who own it. And that regulator must have the sharp, pointed ability to close down newspapers who do not act in a way which is neutral, rationally informed and useful to the electorate. It must act to obliterate institutional bias in a newspaper, whether left-wing or right-wing, in favour of truth.

Until we do this, every other issue in the country is largely meaningless. It doesn’t matter if we care about the NHS, or social care, or old people or young people, or foreign affairs or poverty. So long as the press isn’t neutral, you and I will have no idea whether we are moving backwards, forwards or staying completely stationary on these issues, so our votes are useless. So long as controlling interests run the tabloids, or control your social media feeds, you will only hear about the Labour party being ‘communists’ or Theresa May being ‘a pound shop Thatcher’. A democracy can not possibly be free if you are not given the free and independent assessment, by experts in their field, of how the government is performing, and that doesn’t currently happen.

There’s no two ways about it: we don’t currently live in a democratic society, because democracy is about having more than a free vote, it’s about having a trusted, informed media to give you that free and useful vote. A democracy without a free and independent media in the interests of it’s citizens is absolutely not a democracy. You should be angry that none of the political parties are talking about it, because every other issue in this election is absolutely meaningless unless we are informed about it.

If, like me, you are sick to death of the government shirking the running of the country in order to run constant public votes – on leaving the UK, on leaving Europe, on electing a new government two years after we elected the last one – then the next 6 weeks are going to be tiresome. Why not use it to argue against and refuse to believe the bullshit that newspapers and ‘journalists’ will have you believe is important.

Here are 4 of to watch out for, along with the arguments to arm you in opposing them.

1. “This is an election about Brexit/to lead Brexit/etc”

Brexit is happening. I didn’t vote for it, 48% of the country didn’t vote for it, but it is happening. It was a campaign filled to the rim with political spin, abrupt lies, political careerism and generally dodgy characters (a good few of whom are now in the cabinet…). But it happened, it’s done, Brexit is happening.

To vote for the Lib Dems, on their single-issue campaign that they will reverse it, would be a shockingly ridiculous idea. It was a referendum, and we all had a chance to point out the rubbish the politicians were speaking. Similarly we all had a chance four years ago to vote for a government which would do something about the manipulative, bias British ‘newspapers’/gossip rags. We didn’t, so the press remained bias and people were under-informed when it came to the vote. But to reverse a public mandate on this topic would be to go lower than the unscrupulous people who spread fake news to achieve votes in the first place. It would also be to tell 52% of the people that you wasted their time, don’t care about their vote and generally wish to see them never trust politics again.

Similarly, on the other side of the debate, voting for UKIP in order to ensure that Theresa May only listens to the 1/3 or so of the country who want a hard Brexit is, again, a poor idea. Brexit will happen, there’s no stopping it. But we should now allow people who know something about the EU, not the foreign-hating quasi-businessmen who hate the poor (UKIP), to negotiate the terms of it. Let people who know something about the legislation, trade and immigration make the decisions, not rich Donald Trump groupies with no grasp of the lives of real human beings.

And most of all, vote for people who will actually run the country rather than just be arseholes in Brussels during Brexit negotiations.

2. “A united government is a strong government/voters need a strong and stable government”

This is one of the most ridiculous things every British person seems to believe. Almost every idea, every piece of progress, every major chapter of human history has come about through people disagreeing! Every good manager wants their staff to disagree with them and challenge them, every good leader wants their team to point out the problems. This is how things get better!

Preferring, instead, to support people based on how little their teams disagree, or to elect leaders who ‘keep them in their place’ is just utterly bizarre. It’s also authoritarian and decidedly anti-British. It’s what dictators do, or what office managers in the 80s did. The successful organisations and businesses of the noughties are all based around innovation, new ideas, challenging teams and getting rid of the incapable managers whose only tactic was to ‘keep people in their places’.

The Tories, in particular, want you to believe that Theresa May is the best leader because she is stern, disciplinary and generally looks like a head teacher. No good school is run by a head-teacher like Theresa May, whose opposition to new ideas (even the likes of gay marriage) would run a school into the ground. And, moreover, that we want an old-fashioned head-teacher running the country says more about our attachments to authority figures in our childhood than rational decision making in election votes.

If you want a country that keeps up with the rest of the world, let alone leads in it, you need a leader who will encourage a team full of people who disagree. Britain has gone backwards as the world around us has moved on. We need to catch up, not keep trying to find a new Thatcher.

3. “Conservatives are good on the economy.”

The Conservatives have long been the businessman’s choice in government. They are generally funded by a small number of individually extremely wealthy donors, as the remit of Conservative policy is to offer low taxes across the board. This, coupled with a desire to see public services gradually phased out, or monetised, means many believe they are strong on the economy.

This is incorrect for all kinds of reasons, not least of which is because having the backing of a relatively small number of wealthy individuals does not mean they are good at improving the economy in a way which benefits everyone else (whether it be smaller business or people working in them). Indeed, quite the opposite. Successful wealthy people generally want less competition for the things they sell, lower (preferably no) taxes on their wealth, lots of unemploympent so there’s a big pool of workers to choose from, low wages so they pay less in costs, etc. These are not good economic desires for a government to support, as it benefits a few businesses and disadvantages the entire countries economy instead.

There is even more reason why voting Conservative is bad for the economy, though.

Starting with Thatcher’s political success, the Conservatives began to put a lot of effort into the public image of their ‘business first’ policies (which as I just explained is not ‘business first’ for 99% of businesses). Largely this revolved around building the theory of ‘neo-liberal’ economics, which orbited a single, politically brilliant idea: we need to be lenient with our tax on the wealthy, and help big business, as otherwise they won’t stay here, spend money here or thus pay taxes here.

With this single idea, the 1970’s Conservatives had found a persuasive reason why the 99% of the country who aren’t rich should vote for them. It allowed them to continue wealth-friendly policies, but also scared everyone else into voting for the kind of system which favours wealth-creation for the few. The Conservatives core belief is that wealth ‘trickles down’ from the lenient taxing and maintaining of several billionaires, or a small group of millionaires, to improve things for everyone. Indeed, this is known as ‘trickle down’ economics. Despite the global economic environment changing dramatically, and the emergence of various different forms of economic theory and evidence in that time, this core and important Tory policy hasn’t changed in almost 50 years.

What’s more, as the decades have gone on, evidence has mounted time and time again which shows that lenient taxes on the wealthy increases equality, rather than trickling down sufficiently. The likes of Thomas Piketty, in one of the 21^st century’s great economic works, has shown without a shadow of a doubt that trickle-down economics not only increases inequality, but also increase economic instability, financial crashes, etc.

The Conservatives continue to amass the support of the wealthiest in society, but the policies of successive Conservative and New Labour (who were basically neo-conservative in economic policy) governments have halted economic growth, caused great financial instability and, more to the point, been very bad for 99% of the people who actually voted Conservative. Wealth has become concentrated in the hands of even fewer people, who in turn do not wish to reinvest it in others, interest rates have not risen from historic lows in years, and even the pound is now stuck in a cycle of decline. ‘Trickle down’ economics has failed, evidence has been telling us this for 10 years, yet arguably the biggest myth in politics remains: that Conservatives are good for business. The only reason we still believe it is because they spend millions on very talented PR experts.

Labour, to their credit, have turned away from New Labour’s neo-conservative economics, and yet, lo-and-behold, they are painted in the press as economically unsafe. Almost as if the press are run by those same millionaires who fund the Conservative party…

4. “The SNP are progressive.”

The SNP have governed Scotland for years now, and have overseen a failure in public services which even the Tories would be proud of. They enact policies which, in general, can be characterised as Blairite, or perhaps centre-right, but they amass support among the left-wing of the political spectrum as they continue the rhetoric of being progressive. So, they keep the same lenient taxes on the wealthy as the Tories do, but have the rhetoric of a party who run a communist stronghold. Partly this might work because Scotland isn’t as progressive as it thinks it is, and voters are seemingly happy with rhetoric rather than action. More likely, they simply have the support of about 50% of the population by being pro-independence, and thus this number may not drop regardless of what they do in government. Either way, they aren’t a progressive party if you examine action over rhetoric.

Similarly, they aren’t interested in progressive alliances to help improve things in the wider UK. A cynic might say their destruction of public service in Scotland is a way to make such services seem unworkable whilst Scotland is still in the UK. That would seem accurate to their intentions which is, of course, independence above all else.

In 2015, that single-issue focus meant giving the Tories the ammunition to make Labour seem like they are in the pocket of Alex Salmond (who carefully manufactured his image to only seem to care about the human beings residing above the border) by offering Labour an ‘alliance’ which it was obvious to even the least canny political operators would be used to the Tories advantage. Indeed, many believe the Tory-funded posters of labour leader Milliband in Salmond’s pocket were the defining image of the campaign.

Now, they have begun again trying to poison Labour’s chance of electoral success via mention of political ‘progressive alliances’. It works well in Scotland, because it makes them seem to Scottish voters like they are being the ‘bigger man’ and offering Labour support. It works well for them in England, also, as it makes English voters more likely to vote Tory with thoughts like ‘crikey, that party who only cares about the voters in Scotland might be dictating how public services work here’.

The SNP are arguably the most well-oiled, smart political machine in the UK. But that’s not because they’re the best politicians in the UK, rather there are 3 reasons why they are so effective.

• They can, more or less, get away with doing absolutely nothing in Scotland, and blame it on Scotland not being independent – they essentially have no standards to maintain, other than keep talking about independence. Every other party in the UK walks a political tight-rope, whilst the SNP have some of the most unwavering support ever seen in British politics. They have sold a large section of Scottish voters on independence as a magic cure to Scotland’s ills, a momentous coming rainbow, and thus any problems until then are not because of the government but rather because the rest of Scotland refuses to drink the irn-bru flavoured Kool-Aid.
• They do not need to care about any opinion elsewhere in the UK other than making the Tories popular, and thus making the rest of the UK vote differently to Scotland. It’s much easier to ruin a reputation and cause damage, as they have been doing to Labour, than to win support.
• Whilst religious devotion and unity to your leader isn’t important in modern politics, the SNP are all united because rather than sharing and balancing complex sets of values, every MP or MSP joins knowing the single goal and focus of the party is independence. Thus any policy, agenda, decision or remark which doesn’t fit the goal, or best strategy for achieving the goal, is easy to persuade members of. People don’t join the SNP because their primary focus is social justice; they join it knowing the primary focus is independence. Again, no other party has the political tight-rope replaced with such a large collection of stable floorboards in this manner.

These are not the only 4 myths you’ll be asked to believe over the next few weeks; indeed, if 2016 was anything to go by, you might be told nothing that is true at all. But these are the 4 myths which constantly, and usually quite successfully, will try to manipulate you into voting a certain way. The above should you give the arguments and reason to counter this nonsense.