Smash And Grab

I think I've worked it out.

All of those measures that the government have taken, recently. All of those cuts to benefits, tax breaks to big business, funding reductions to necessary services. Concessions to fracking companies, tightening of the screws of austerity.

All of the truly suspect conflicts of interest that are just being undertaken without any regard for the law, or fairness, or even trying to appear fair. Gideon Osborne being an MP and also an editor for a newspaper, finally leveraging his political career to succeed in the career of journalism that he'd failed in on his own merits. Phillip Hammond, harming most of the country with his most recent budget, while his own firm gets a significant tax easement. Andrea Leadsom, the Secretary of State for the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs - whose job it is to prevent hydraulic fracturing on protected or green-belt land - previously having worked in an investment fund that dealt primarily with fossil fuel companies. The Prime Minister's husband having investments in the private companies that will do very well from the increased privatisation of basically half our nation.

Every single thing they do - from forcing through Brexit and anti-privacy and anti-person laws, to clear instances of lying to the public and deliberately sabotaging diplomatic relationships with other nations - has been a confusing mess of sociopathic thrashing, but I've finally settled on the key.

They don't care any more.

They know they won't win the election in 2020. They just know - they are throwing it. And instead, they are literally tearing apart the nation's resources while they still can, and divvying them up between themselves and their friends.

This was it, the big one. The cash out of dreams. No need to make tiny profits hiding in the shadows and pretending to be a bunch of valid politicians. The austerity kick lasted for six years and had precious little effect, doing nothing to reduce national debt or make anything better for anyone at all. No need to hide behind the common good, now - so instead, it's a fire sale.

The punishing effects of Brexit are being felt already, but they will have truly started to dig in, in three years. By then we'll have signed the paperwork and we'll be out on our collective ass. We'll be hurting - and there will be opportunities. Opportunities for companies to make a killing off our low pound and our need to trade outside of the single market. Opportunities that can be tapped by the right investment firms and companies.

Such companies and firms will probably already be made fat from buying up the NHS, student debt, and who knows what else. Virgin had a knockback from getting their claws into our health service - OUR health service, WE pay for it - and so are considering court action, and are spewing venom all over the press. Employment figures are still all over the place, and people are desperate for work - desperate enough that companies can profit from a reduced set of worker protections (the EU sets those) when hiring. After all, they'll need to somehow make up for everything they lost from a ready market of immigrant labour.

You wait and see. They will all be friends of our current government, or connected to them in some way. I would place money on the fact. The people that make the most profit from our nation's loss will be the family, friends and old work colleagues of the Front Bench and their cronies.

Because they won't have to care, come 2020. Because they aren't going to try and win. They will probably still receive a significant amount of the vote - because hell, a vast swathe of the country doesn't pay attention to what is actually going on anyhow - but they will lose. And then, they will start resigning in droves.

Come 2021, the Tory opposition will contain less than half of the faces that it currently does. Those left behind won't be the party faithful. They will be the outliers, the back benchers, the ones whose name nobody really knows. The ones who haven't been part of the Cabinet, who have just sat quietly and made their expenses claims and voted to take money from disabled people.

There will be more. There always is. And maybe in five or ten years, they'll pull themselves back together again. And those who win the election of 2020 will work their guts out, trying to rebuild, repair and recussitate the crippled husk of a nation that they are left with once the current crop are done with it.

And come 2030, those still hurting from the mass sell-off - those still disadvantaged by the plundering of a nation - will be told how Labour (or whoever is in charge) can't be trusted to fix this mess, and that new leadership is required.

And god help them, some people will believe it.

And the entire cycle of shit will begin again.

I hope this isn't how it goes. I truly hope this ram-raid smash-and-grab profiteering isn't what happens. It just seems to be the only explanation for the decisions these people are making.

I'll be keeping an eye out, though. Just to see who is there to salvage the wreckage of the United Kingdom, and to see who they know that wears a blue tie.

(Yes, I am aware of the irony that I present this theory a mere week after putting out a blog about how conspiracy theories are all bunk. But still.)