Day 28. You didn't wake up this morning because you didn't go to bed, you were watching the whites of your eyes turn red (28/1/19)

(Soundtrack: The The 'Soul Mining', the intense incredible debut - if you don't count Matt's previous solo album, which we're not. It's dark and necessary, and it's on because we're clearly having an 80s revival. The ghost of one Margaret Hilda Thatcher wanders amongst us, cackling at the legacy her warped children are delivering.)

Five minutes of watching the news. That's all it takes. All it takes to assure you that the world is not only insane but heading toward bankruptcy.

Tesco are cutting staff. 9,000 jobs at risk. 9,000 more jobs at risk in what once seemed the most gilt edged surety on the planet. Cutting jobs on fresh food counters in an attempt to keep up with the success of Aldi and Lidl. Perhaps I'm wrong about the wicked witch of the eighties, perhaps she would despair at her hideous offspring; their policies are genuinely destroying the free market she believed in.

Much as I hated her. Much as I celebrated the day she left power, her eyes glistening with tears of self pity as she left Downing Street, hastened out by her own party, I'll give the evil harridan this much: she's not these bastards.

At least Thatcher, and remember at all times I wished nothing but death on her, one of the only people I would ever feel that way about - when I was told she'd quit my response was, "it's not enough" - at least she came from some kind of politics of warped principle. She believed in what she was doing. What she was doing was evil beyond human belief but she believed in it. This shower of shit? They believe in nothing but their own entitlement.

There is one tradition they are carrying on from the 'blessed' Margaret though:

They're decimating the North.

The news broke this morning that research had shown austerity had damaged northern cities far more than anywhere in the south. Plus cà change and all that. Local authority spending has fallen by half since 2010 and, strangely, it's the areas that were already the poorest that are being hit hardest by this.

Barnsley's spending has dropped by 40%, Liverpool's by 32%, Doncaster 31%, Wakefield 30% and Blackburn 27%. The average UK spending drop is 14.3%. Which would be bad enough. Any spending drop by local councils is an indication of cuts to services, cuts to jobs.  (All figures courtesy of The Guardian reporting on the work of the Centre for Cities think tank.)

Barnsley spent 62% of its entire council budget on social care. Which shows the need for care, the despair that people are living in and the paucity of central funding allocated to help.

Liverpool lost £800 per person. Oxford gained £110.

And there are poor areas in Oxford, it's not all Uni town. But that's still inequitable.

Granada's local news opened with a report from a food bank in the L6 postal area. Six years ago they were dealing with approx 40 people a week. Now it's 500.

Austerity was never anything other than a political choice. There is no appetite from our landed gentry to actually tax those making the most money, no desire to enforce sensible rates on corporations, no want to ensure that privatised services that were once ours by right are there to assist. The point of selling our services was to generate profit for those most able to invest heavily in them.

And this would always have been the Tory way. Inflict the most financial suffering on the areas of society (which, let us never forget, that vindictive demon claimed there was 'no such thing as') in order that those with the most could benefit further. The misery would always be there. The country just decided to add to it with a ludicrous referendum that carried a vague notion of a question and no indication of the reality of the choice being made.

This morning's other news carried the reporting of a letter signed by the CEOs of many significant retailers: if we are inflicted with a no deal Brexit, such as our little Englanders are more than happy to endure, invoking the spirits of the blitz and Dunkirk (people being bombed and having no food, and a retreat from larger forces that cost thousands of lives) then food will quite simply disappear from our shelves. And the food that remains will double in price.

They point out that the coming recession won't resemble 2008, it will look very much like the 1930s.

And when these absolute hard facts are delivered by some who actually know what they're talking about, the cries of 'project fear' rise once again.

We live in an era where the rich have managed to finally persuade the poor to vote for their own misery and accept it as a stand against the liberal elite by the man in the street.

This is the true face of taking back control. It's ugly and twisted and it's voting both Conservative and out. It's so concerned with making Britain 'great' that it's broken it beyond repair.

And it will never accept that fact. Instead it will bemoan everything that has 'happened to it'.

It's sickening.