SO it’s official: no sanctions for the bullying, whining Tory cabal after their interference in the partygate inquiry. The message is simple: let people die, let braying, stereotyped Hooray Henry nerds party, let ghastly, overprivileged Softy Walter faux-aristocratic right wing pseudo-intellectuals wallow in their own pointless, self-indulgent, cliched verbiage. 
 
Let their unspeakable, sexist, racist, “press,” whose flagship, let us not forget, was a tawdry, sexist monstrosity called Page 3, obliterate the whole issue in favour of yet another politically motivated witch hunt “scandal” where the “publicly owned” BBC is rightly expected to adhere to one set of social and political rules but the “pubicly owned” sex-obsessed gutter press can have another.
 
Bin the distinction between public and private. Expropriate the billionaire owners and require readers and writers to finance their own newspapers. We at the Morning Star do it: they should have to as well. Impose disciplined, intelligent reporting on all media outlets. Celebrity smegma-soaked, bungalow-bigot brainwashing craven Tory propaganda sheets should be declassified as “newspapers” and put on the same shelf as the TV guides and comics. 
 
I keep thinking of the man who said he was going to vote Tory because under Labour there were no food banks and now there are loads. End this bizarre farce where the overprivileged and underprivileged unite at an FPTP-slewed ballot box to force the rest of us to live on a xenophobic, sewage-covered rock. 
 
And bollocks to AI: before we even think about artificial intelligence we need to look to the beer wars of the 1970s and start a Campaign for Real Intelligence. The Tories are the political version of Watneys, no doubt of that. I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: I’ve spent my whole life working for British intelligence, and there still isn’t enough of it about!
 
Rant over. 

This week I am in the East of England, Lowestoft and Ipswich, and I’m having a relatively quiet July before a frenetic August. I start at Rebellion Festival in Blackpool on the first weekend followed by two weeks at the PBH Free Fringe in Edinburgh, playing afternoon spoken word/music “Left Wing Economic Establishment” shows at Bannerman’s Bar in Niddry Street plus a couple of very special early afternoon music events at St Cecilia’s Hall, Edinburgh’s music instrument museum and concert hall, just across the road. 

At those events I shall be playing crumhorn, cornamuse, five different recorders and fiddle, doing songs from my “Restoration Tragedy” album about the Levellers, Diggers and Ranters of 1649.  For all details see the links below. 
 
I want to give a special shout out to the PBH Free Fringe, which brought me back to Edinburgh after many years away, disgusted by the way the original DIY Fringe ideal had been hijacked by corporate promoters demanding huge fees from performers for venue spaces, playing on people’s dreams and often leaving them audienceless and penniless. 

Peter Buckley Hill’s model is a brilliant idea, with venues providing spaces free to performers and audiences free to attend without payment and give whatever they choose at the end of the show. It gives the Fringe back to the people, with both those on stage and those watching able to participate in the world’s largest arts festival regardless of their ability to pay.  

Thank you, Peter, Luke and everyone involved. 
 
The one remaining problem is the price of accommodation at the festival and there is a desperate need for a similarly creative solution. The large promoters, already coining it, are in receipt of grants – this is ridiculous. Arts Council money should be used to subsidise accommodation for grassroots performers, and Edinburgh Council should be addressing the issue as well. It’s no use having a venue for free if it costs you a grand a week to stay in the city! 
 
Finally for this week, a call out to anyone local to the area to join our local Labour councillors at a Save Our Ticket Offices protest at Southwick station (near Brighton) next Tuesday (July 18) at 8am. Public transport must be safe and accessible to all. Trains need ticket offices, trains need guards, and above all trains need taking back into public ownership!

For further info please visit https://www.facebook.com/attilathestockbroker and/or https://attilathestockbroker.bandcamp.com/merch