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Unsubstantiated opinion for fun and profit.

CAVEAT EMPTOR y'know, I really am not a journalist. I do occasionally do the odd bit of research for these sporadic outbursts but nowhere near enough to factually cover my arse (which level I suspect puts me on a par with some journalists, but not enough for me to claim any oracular tendency to you, dear reader), it's just opinion. Unsubstantiated opinion, prejudice and gut feeling.

And my unsubstantiated opinion, prejudice and gut feeling is making me exceedingly nervous at the moment. You see, whilst I'm too lazy to do much in the way of research what I do possess is a memory, and a capacity to occasionally read a book; as such a couple of things have me worried.

As you're doubtless aware, the US pharmaceutical giant Pfizer, those lovely folks who convinced a generation of men that they needed Viagra rather than foreplay has launched an aggressive takeover bid for the UK firm AstraZeneca. Now, it ill behooves us to second guess their intentions, but Pfizer has a track record of buying companies purely to strip them of intellectual property before moving on. Our Government has talked proudly of wringing concessions from them to um, carry on building a building that's in the middle of being built. And that's it. Cambo's talking about "safeguarding British jobs". What he's not talking about is damaging British exports, of which AstraZeneca currently contributes 2%. He's also not talking about it being a contributor to public health, about it being important that we, as a nation are capable of producing our own drugs, not having them sold to us by Americans at usurious rates. It is always strange that the conservative party, the party of patriotism and bulldog spirit, has a bit of a blind spot when it comes to the country being fucked up the arse by people with a lot of money. But memory tells us this has happened before, which is why of the big six energy providers, only two are UK companies, and why your bills are through the roof. and they stand back, shrug their shoulders and go "markets, eh?"

Prejudice, unsubstantiated opinion and gut feeling also suggest to me that the Government's current poll bounce due to an economic recovery fuelled by a housing boom and increasing personal debt may end in tears. Memory tells me it's because this only happened SIX FUCKING YEARS AGO. What are you, goldfish? And what's with a Conservative government, the government of low spending, the party that denounces the benefit excesses of the left using taxpayer's money to fuel said housing bubble via right to buy? You could argue that it's an ideologically driven investment, believing in every person's right to be a homeowner. You could equally argue (and I am) that it's buying votes with other people's money.

History tells us, memory tells us, the Conservative party is a machine for making money at the expense of the population. It's a machine without any ideology, for everything they purport to believe in goes out of the window if there's a quid in it. My memory stretches back as far as the last Tory bunch prior to this shower, and this lot scare the shit out of me.

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