Day 4658: Is Mr Cameron Laying A Trap for the Liberal Democrats?

Wednesday:

Firstly, congratulations to the Daily Heil for granting Mr Milipede free publicity to totally overshadow the guff our pie-faced Prime Monster came out with at the climax to the Conservatories conference.

But to be honest, David Cameron – Mr Balloon – was probably grateful for anything overshadowing the uninspiring, reheated, frankly tired Thatcherite rhetoric he was coming out with. He looks like he’s decided the next election is a lost cause and he’s gone back to shoring up the base against UKIP

I mean “Land of Hope is Tory”? Are you really going to say that, Prime Minister? Really?

It’s like a line out of “House of Cards” (BBC version): Do you remember the bit where Urquhart (and we the audience) look on and mock at Conservatory conference as an Apprentice-line of Leadership wannabes troop onto the platform to deliver what they think will be the rhetoric to stir the troops to their cause. Like the Britain’s Got Talent without… no, actually, like Britain’s Got Talent. “It’s the right way… the right… way!”. Sad.

The whole conference has been conducted under a banner of “For Hardfaced Badwords”… sorry that should read “For Hardworking Families”.

(I remember the meeting with Cap’n Clegg where we were among Lib Dem members who had words with him about adopting that language – and to be fair, even then his idea of “family” was a broad and inclusive one, not the nasty narrow Conservatory prescription, but he accepted that it could trap him in the same frame and he’s worked hard to avoid it since. Liberal Democrats really can do better than this. Er.)

And there was Master Gideon, pumping up the housing market to the refrain of “I’m Forever Blowing Bubbles”, saying it was time to end the “something for nothing” culture. I look forward to his announcement that Inheritance Tax will be going up to 100%.

But it’s all such a long, looooong way from “Hug a Huskie” or “Let the Sunshine In”, isn’t it.

And of course we have to oppose this monstrous idea that people under twenty-five need to be “motivated” into jobs that don’t exist with the threat of homelessness and starvation.

But here’s the “trap” – can we really pledge to block that without reminding every young person in the country of the last pledge that we made?

Is Mr Balloon’s gambit that as soon as Cap’n Clegg raises this horrible policy, he will fling the tuition fees debacle back in his face and say: “well, you can’t trust the Lib Dems can you”?

In fact the policy is so obviously absurd that it almost look like it’s there as a pre-prepared sacrificial lamb for the next round of Coalition negotiations. We are going to have to make it very clear that dropping that policy is a prerequisite for walking in the door, or we’re going to be in the position of trading away something that’s actually important just to kill it.

In fact I’m wondering whether we don’t need one or two policies in the “you’ve got to be kidding” category ourselves – free moon trips for teenagers, perhaps, and fish-fingers and custard on demand for all Eleventh Doctor fans – before we get serious about abolishing ATOS.

Mind you, at this rate it will be Mr Milipede we’ll be negotiating with anyway. And the message for Mr Balloon? Shut Your Trap.

Day 4437: AAA-rrrgh!

Saturday:

The Chancer of the Exchequer – known to you and me as Master Gideon – is in a UNIQUE position in Government: he's the ONLY person who DOESN'T resign when things go disastrously wrong, on the grounds that his resignation would panic the markets and make things go even WRONGER!

So even though Great Britain has, like America and France before, lost our Triple-A credit rating, and although this is obviously a total HUMILIATING FAILURE for Chancer Gideon who has based our entire economic policy on maintaining CREDIBILITY with the markets, he won't be going.

Which is a pity.

The papers of course are full of this story giving pages and pages of coverage to...oh, a sex-scandal instead. OBVIOUSLY the sex sells.


In spite of talk (by ministers trying to make excuses) of the markets having "priced in" the "expected" loss of the triple-A, the immediate consequences of being downgraded were a weakening of sterling. Now that's been somewhat masked by the Euro taking another dive after the Italian elections produced a less than clear outcome.

(PHEW! No one will notice we've fallen flat on our face because they're all watching Europe fall off a cliff!)

There's a fairly simple relationship between the value of the pound and the level of interest rates. If borrowing gets more expensive (which it does if the lender thinks it's more risky to lend to you – which is exactly what downgrading from AAA to AA1 means) then you have to put up interest rates OR your currency goes down in value.

(Look – boring maths bit – suppose your interest rates are 2% and 100 rouble-dollars will buy you a £100 government bond that will return £2. If you get downgraded, and people now want 2½%, either you have to start giving bonds that return £2.50 OR people are only going to be willing to pay you 80 rouble-dollars for your £2 return (2/80 = 1/40 = 5/200 = 2½/100 = 2½%). Okay, non-mathmos can wake up again now!)

So EITHER you have HIGHER INTEREST RATES or you have a WEAKER CURRENCY.

But a weaker pound means more expensive IMPORTS, specifically ENERGY and FOOD, which means HIGHER INFLATION.

In THEORY devaluing the currency should also provide a boost to exports... which is why (among other things) Hard Labour's Alistair Darling crashed the currency following the 2008 banking meltdown.

That of course contributed to the high INFLATION that we had for the first couple of years of this government.

(World events – drought affecting rice and wheat crops, declines in energy production, China taking more resources – all contributed, of course, BUT weakening our currency meant that those world events had an EXAGGERATED effect on the UK. Just as Labour's over-borrowing and reliance on the financial sector to grow the economy meant the financial meltdown had an EXAGGERATED effect on us too.)

However, it appears that our industrial base is so worn away by the Thatcher and New Labour years that devaluing did NOT have the boost to growth effect that was hoped for.

So all round this is BAD, and that is WHY Chancer Gideon was trying to avoid it happening, and why now it has happened it's going to be harder still to meet our targets of getting down the deficit.

(That is, remember, just slowing down how fast we spiral into yet more debt.)

So where was the GROWTH supposed to come FROM? There are THREE theories:

The CLASSICAL theory that says that you grow the economy by increasing the number of workers. (e.g. you increase immigration in order to farm more fields)

The INDUSTRIAL theory that says you grow the economy by increasing the CAPITAL available (e.g. you borrow more capital in order to buy machinery that allows your workers to produce twice as much)

And Mr Frown's favourite, the POST NEO-CLASSICAL ENDOGENOUS (i.e. from within) theory that says you grow the economy by training your workers and trading up to more productive jobs. (e.g. you teach your widget factory workers how to design computer chips and gain a more lucrative export.)

As a footnote, Hard Labour did not really DO the endogenous thing. Education, education, education turned out to mean requiring people to get degrees for the jobs that already existed rather than creating new and better jobs. Most of the "growth" of the Hard Labour years was in fact fuelled by BORROWED money – like the Victorian INDUSTRIALISTS – except we didn't use the money to buy machinery to power up our economy but instead frittered it away on consumables.

On the other fluffy foot, the Coalition appears to have set its face against ALL THREE methods of growth:

The Conservatories' irrational xenophobia means that we cannot import cheap labour for growth.

The nature of the bubble and crash mean that the public and government are both massively averse to borrowing, and indeed the stated aim of the Coalition is to reduce and ultimately reverse the deficit and thus slow the growth of and eventually start to reduce the national debt.

And, although the Liberal Democrats have fought for and won a Pupil Premium and more Apprenticeships, the Conservatories have forced upon us the Tuition Fee debacle and the slashing of Educational Maintenance Allowance, while Mr Michael the Borogrove's "reforms" seem keener to return the education system to the Victorian classroom than to adapting it to the needs of fast changing modern industry.

(The advantage of apprenticeships here is that they do an end run about this sort of silliness and, to borrow from "Yes Minister" (back when it was GOOD) give young people a comprehensive education to make up for their Comprehensive Education.)

Okay, but the Government's policy is not ENTIRELY as DUMB as it looks when spelled out like that.

The Government THOUGHT that growth could come from the PRIVATE SECTOR.

Remember: the prevailing belief of ALL governments for the last thirty years (yes, since Queen Maggie's "revolution") is that governments are NOT good at running industries. This is based on a LOT of experience during the Seventies which pretty much tested the opposite theory to destruction.

Therefore, whether you're a Keynesian devotee or a member of the Church of Thatchianity, the idea is that the government should leave PRIVATE industry to do the borrowing, investing and growing. The more LEFTY (i.e. pro-State spending) view has been that the State should spend MORE on SERVICES (health, transport, schools) to SUPPORT the private sector; the view from the more RIGHTY has been... much the same but for a percentage point or two LESS of GDP.

So the Hard Labour's government's borrowing was NOT generally going on "investments" that would return greater growth; MOST of what they were borrowing was spent to fund these SERVICES that (by definition, since we were borrowing) were MORE EXPENSIVE than we were willing to pay for even BEFORE we lost twenty-percent of the economy.

But even where they WERE spending on building useful things – new roads, schools, houses, power stations etc – it was infrastructure for SUPPORT rather than direct investment in growth.

(Of course, Prof Keynes would say that those sort of generally useful support things are exactly what you borrow money to spend on during a downturn in order to keep the workforce working and to have useful stuff to help when the recovery comes. And the Coalition HAVE pretty much admitted that they should not have cut those investments when they cut everything else!)

So, the Government THOUGHT that growth could come from the PRIVATE SECTOR, and that they could ENCOURAGE this by:

a) reducing corporate tax and regulation, enticing foreign companies to move their investment to Great Britain and home grown ones to expand. (At least until people stated getting into a flap about Corporate Tax avoidance.)

b) introducing schemes and wheezes and government guarantees to make it as easy as possible for companies to borrow from the banks. (If it were not for the fact that the public demand for tighter regulation of the banks has made those banks very, very much more reluctant to lend!)

You can see that, to a certain extent, the Government's plans FAILED because their main tools to encourage traditional capitalist growth were thwarted at least in part by external factors, while their own – and let's face it mainly Conservatory ideologies – blocked either the very old or the very modern routes to growth through anti-immigration and anti-education/anti-green development policies.

So how do we get growth? We're going to need a BETTER ANSWER.

We have to start by UNBLOCKING those ideological barriers.

We need a more sensible approach to the problems of immigration than standing at Dover with a "No Entry" sign! The REAL problems, and we've said this lots of times before, are pressure on housing and services and the downward pressure on wages caused by a large free labour pool.

We need to tackle those problems at SOURCE and the good news is that that means building lots of houses and schools and roads which means JOBS. We also need to protect low end wages from being driven down further. The Tories may not like it, but all the evidence points to the Minimum Wage being set well below the level where it would start to put companies off employing people, so progressive steps should be taken to increase the minimum wage ahead of inflation towards the LIVING WAGE.

(NB: this WILL make it harder to raise the personal allowance to the level of the minimum wage. More people will go back into paying income tax as their minimum wage rises, but they will still be better off for the rise, and the government will have more money too and/or more leeway to raise the allowance above inflation too.)

But we ALSO need a COMPREHENSIVE review of our education, and the needs of business, and the needs of universities, and of course the needs of schools themselves. We cannot continue to rely on "ideas wot Michael the Borogrove thought up"; simply IMPOSING another set of changes is just going to cause yet more strife. We need, if you like, a CONSTITUTIONAL CONVENTION for SCHOOLS, to bring together industry and universities with teachers, parents and pupils to try to deliver a wholly new and world-beating education.

But although these plans might sow the seeds of future sustained growth, the key to growth NOW is CONFIDENCE, that elusive SPARK that comes when something – I don't know what it will be – comes along and convinces people that there's money to be made and so they start going out to make it. That thing that, at the moment, continues to be absent from the British economy.

And sadly, the BIGGEST source of ANTI-confidence at the moment is the Chancer himself: Master Gideon is Mister Austerity the piggy-faced face of the recession. His "We fight on we fight to win" response to the downgrade shows that he's succumbed to the same BUNKER MENTALITY that claimed his predecessor-but-one, Mr Frown. Even Queen Maggie needed to exchange Exchequers before we moved from bust back to boom in the Eighties.

And that, even more than the total humiliating ruination of his plans, is why we 'd be (probably quite literally) better off if Gideon did the one thing he won't do, which is go.

Day 4236: Lords, Losers, Liars and Louise

Monday:



So, Great Britain's constitutional reforms lose the Olympic Gold for "Not Crashing and Burning", narrowly surprisingly clearly pipped by the American Mars Lander "Curiosity".

Curiosity, equipped with LASERS to kill any SPIDER-CAT-MONSTERS-FROM-MARS it encounters, succeeded in making the tricky descent through the Martian atmosphere.

Lords Reform, equipped with KNIVES for stabbing Captain Clegg in the back... didn't. Instead it descended into chaos and recrimination.

Wooden Spoon goes to Ms Louise Mendacious, for "spending more time with her family" (surely the Murdochs don't have something on her after all!). Did she get wind of a non-promotion in Mr Balloon's reshuffle?

NO ONE comes out looking good.

Mr Balloon has lost control of his Party. Mr Milipede would rather score tactical points than stand for anything. And we look like we've thrown our toys out of the pram.

There are two fundamental failures here:

First, the failure to deliver on ANY constitutional reform beyond fixed term parliaments. We are the party of change, the Conservatives the party of the status quo – the clue is in the name, really – and no change is a WIN for them. Not good.

This should leave us seriously questioning our place in the Coalition. We may well end up deciding that we can still do more good IN government than out, but we NEED to have that debate.

Second, there is the failure to COMMUNICATE just how important it is to lift the dead hand of the establishment, and to give real power to people to make a difference. Our opponents in Tory and Labour Parties have been able to play the “why now” card and cash in on public apathy because we have failed to make the link between the establishment and the economic disaster clear. Power in the hands of the few is what allowed the bankers to gamble away our money and allowed Gordon Brown to double-mortgage the farm without anyone to stop or even question him.

We should have been saying "fix government or the crash will happen again". We need to spell out that the real price the Tories have exacted is another round of boom and bust.

I tried to express this to a senior MP last night, and I'm sorry to say that they just weren't buying it. "Doesn't make the direct connection to people's lives" and "we look like constitutional obsessives" were the grumbling excuses.

WELL THAT JUST WON'T DO.

It is the JOB of our MPS to communicate WHY our policies DO have a direct relevance to people's lives. WE are NOT in the business of asking what people want like some kind of Parliamentary SANTA CLAUS; we are in the business of PROPOSING SOLUTIONS and EXPLAINING why they are needed and will work.

START with this justifiably FAMOUS post by Mr Mark Reckons – showing that there is a LINK between SAFE SEATS and EXPENSES SCANDALS.

And STOP with being EMBARRASSED to be a LIBERAL!

It is in the INTEREST of the ESTABLISHMENT that we be "embarrassed" to be "constitutional obsessives" – and for FAR TOO LONG we have allowed GREEDY PIGGIES, squealingly-eager for the rewards of PATRONAGE, to dictate the LANGUAGE of the debate – we really need to TAKE IT BACK:

Why do we bang on about changing the constitution?

Because our government IS A JOKE, a BAD JOKE.

Ask ANYONE – ANYONE AT ALL! – do they think that this country has a good system that serves its people well, and they will TELL YOU it is a JOKE!

If an interviewer sneers at reforms, turn it back on them – ask THEM why THEY are defending the system? Do THEY say we have the finest government that delivers the goods? Tell them they would be LAUGHED at for suggesting such a thing and THEN ask them why THEY are shilling for the establishment.

"The economy is more important" people will cry – tell them: "How can Parliament fix the economy until Parliament itself is mended?"

The debacle has exposed that the Conservatory Party ITSELF is a COALITION, and one that Mr Balloon cannot hold together. Ninety-one GREEDY PIGGIES – too LAZY to stand up for their principles, they'd rather coast into the Commons on Mr Balloon's Etonian coat tails than tell their constituents the TRUTH about their REAL manifesto; too eager to get their SNOUTS in the TROUGH of ERMINE to support their own Leader, putting SELFISHNESS ahead of Conservatory VIRTUES like LOYALTY and HONOUR.

The behaviour of Mr Milipede, Leader of the Opportunists, is as much a SYMPTOM of this as it is a CAUSE. He claims to support reform... but he won't back it. In fact, he COLLUDES with the greedy piggies to score some kind of political "point" as though embarrassing the government in today's papers – tomorrows chip wrappings – is in the long term good of the country.

Mr Milipede MAY or MAY NOT be a progressive, but he is TRAPPED in the body of an ESTABLISHMENT MAN doing the ESTABLISHMENT'S dirty work.

He has ACTIVELY HARMED the good of the majority and supported the corrupt establishment for chip wrappings.

That is CONTEMPTIBLE. Not to mention DEEPLY STUPID.

Cap'n Clegg may have been defeated, may have tried and failed, but Mr Milipede WENT OVER TO THE DARK SIDE!

To paraphrase the Grauniad: "For the sake of the NATION, Ed Milipede Must Go! "

(I really DO NOT recommend reading the CiF comments – shrill, self-satisfied and smugly revelling in the fact the Coalition hasn't yet solved the economic chaos wrought under their new best friends in Hard Labour, the sort of people who call the Lib Dems "spineless" and then vote to support an electoral system that means ONLY conservatives can ever win power just to SPITE the progressives for being weak when that very system makes them weak... that's when they aren't calling for the overthrow of democracy itself... it's not a place to seek wisdom – but if you want a FRANKLY UNEDIFYING look into the minds of so-called Lefties who are SO STUPID that they support the Establishment merely because it lets them be snide about Cap'n Clegg, then you know where to look. Clue: it's above the line.)

GENUINE progressives – and, who knows, there may even be some inside Hard Labour, there may EVEN be some at the Grauniad – must, must, MUST break with the past, the old push-me-pull-you game of Labservative BUGGINS' TURN.

Because when our system rewards OPPORTUNISM, how can people be even remotely SURPRISED when BANKERS behave OPPORTUNISTICALLY to make their bonuses?

And when our system rewards SHORT-TERMISM, why is it not OBVIOUS that companies will SUFFER from SHORT-TERMISM because no one want to invest for strong, stable growth, only a quick profit, a fast buck?

And when our system rewards WEASEL-WORDS (or what I would call DOWNRIGHT LIES by those Conservatories who stood on a manifesto promising their constituents they were in favour of reform when in fact they were in favour of making sure their comfortable retirement club was kept exactly as it is), when our system REWARDS these things, then you cannot express SHOCK that corporate lawyers use weasel words to avoid their obligations; that litigation replaces taking real ACTION; that compensation culture flourishes; and all the "jobsworths" and "health and safety gone mad" consequences of people being rewarded for covering their FLUFFY ARSES rather than offering a helping fluffy-foot!

The Government and Opposition benches in the House of Commons are separated by TWO SWORD LENGTHS PLUS A FOOT.

When you build your government on a PLAYGROUND BRAWL not a HANDSHAKE then you really can't expect it to be anything other than CHILDISH.

The problem with Britain at the moment, and it's what is underlying the failure of recovery, is a LOSS OF TRUST. Credit, as in "credo", "I believe", is LITERALLY and METAPHORICALLY in SHORT SUPPLY. George Osborne's political, tactical, omnishambles Budget; two years of Hard Labour shrieking TRAITOR whenever they draw breath; Liberal Democrat compromises – yes, that damn Tuition Fee pledge again – ALL driven by our stupid constitutional arrangements and ALL contributing to the breakdown of TRUST.

Great Britain is NOT Broken. But it IS POISONED. And we won't get better until we address the SOURCE of the poison.

Day 4194: Mr Balloon and the Culture of Entitlement

Monday:

"I want to screw with COMMON PEOPLE," as Mr Balloon might have put it in his speech about abandoning ALL under twenty-fives in the pub toilets*; "Common people like YOU," as he might have announced to the assembled dignitaries at... it says here Bluewater Shopping Centre.

I know we're hard up as a Nation, but is the Prime Monster REALLY reduced to opening the latest branch of LIDL for a fee?!

"And I Would Have Got Away With It Too If It Weren't For Those Meddling Liberals!" he is believed to have added as the police led him away.

When times are TOUGH and the SQUEEZE is on, it's very, very easy to pick on one group, especially one that is too weak to fight back, and to say that THEY are the ones to BLAME. This week Mr Balloon is picking on those receiving benefits. (Just as last week, losing lots of points, Mr Milipede was shamefully picking on IMMIGRANTS.)

There are a lot of MADE UP stories – mostly HORROR stories – about what an EASY life it is living on BENEFITS, especially if you've got six kids, two ASBOs, a noise abatement order and a council debt collector chasing you. Millions of people IN work (they claim) would gnaw off their own fluffy feet for such luxuries.

The technical term for this is: "a load of old HONK!"

But if you WANT horror stories, here comes Mr Balloon putting the VIDEO NASTY back into the NASTY PARTY.

"Woo, look out!" he tells us. "You might be a couple earning twenty-four thousand between you and unable to afford kids, but the family on benefits down the road has FOUR children already and gets twenty-SEVEN thou (soon to be capped at twenty-SIX) for the privilege." Of course that means they're getting by on four-and-a-half grand per head, compared to twelve-grand a head for our poor put-upon workers, but we'll ignore the details...

"Shivers!" says Mr Balloon, "what about the GOOD GIRL and the BAD GIRL! Good girl went to college, got her qualifications and got a job, but STILL can't afford to leave home. While Bad Girl (let's call her SUSAN – she wears MAKE-UP and probably doesn't believe in ASLAN any more) she went on the dole and got a free house!" Though, obviously, by "free house" we actually mean "grotty bedsit" in a concrete tower block or some suburban terrace where the hugely over-inflated rent goes straight into the pocket of the landlord. Look, he's got a string of buy-to-let properties and votes Conservatory so HE can't possibly be to blame!

"Nightmare!" the Prime Monster reminds us. "Some of us have to commute for hours and stare longingly at properties we could never afford, some of which are occupied by benefit claimants! The horror! The horror!" Though, naturally, by "us" he means "you proles" what with the State providing HIM with a FREE HOUSE, right OVER THE SHOP (and ANOTHER one in the countryside, convenient for the PUB where you can leave unwanted offspring behind**).

And WHO'S fault is that? After YEARS and DECADES of successive Governments (yes, including THIS ONE to our SHAME) colluding in a plan to keep house prices inflating on the grounds that (a) "An Englishman's Home is his Castle (even when he's mortgaged to the eyeballs)" is very popular and you don't mess with very popular and (b) the housing bubble is all that's keeping the British economy afloat at the moment. We can't have the bank taking ANOTHER hit, can we. And remember it was NEGATIVE EQUITY as much as Black Wednesday that nuked the Conservatory reputation for economic competence in the early 'Nineties.

This CONSPIRACY has entailed squeezing SUPPLY to keep prices HIGH through massive under-provision of SOCIAL HOUSING (all those people are on the Housing Benefit in private accommodation because there are not enough COUNCIL HOUSES for them) and a conspicuous LACK of private development while building companies have sat on their land banks and watched the price of their assets INFLATE.


When it comes to OLD people (you know, the ones that VOTE and complain loudly about GRANNY TAXES when told they might not continue to get even more on top of everything everyone else gets) Mr Balloon says this:

"If you have worked hard all your life, then you deserve real dignity and security in your old age."

But you know what? I think EVERYBODY deserves real dignity and security.

And ACTUALLY, as one of the richest countries on the face of the planet, we SHOULD really be able to afford that. No, let me REPHRASE that. As a county that earns more in a year than the one hundred and thirty poorest countries COMBINED, we damn well OUGHT to be able to afford that.

Where's the DIGNITY in asking someone in a wheelchair to walk across a room? Or a heart-attack victim to pick up a pencil? Where's the SECURITY for the young woman or man thrown out of their home for being pregnant or gay or just not getting along? Or just for losing their job? Or because the Royal Bank-that-WE-own of Scotland decided to upload PACMAN instead of their new BANKING SOFTWARE?

And, you know, maybe if Mr Balloon had been a bit less GAGGING FOR IT to cut the 50% tax rate to 45% then he wouldn't HAVE to be talking about finding ten billion squids of benefit cuts.

(Because if Mr Jimmy Carr-crash's tax avoidance scheme was legal but MORALLY WRONG, what does he think about the MORALITY of giving all those rich people another legal way to avoid a great chunk of their tax?)

Look, it's LORDS REFORM WEEK, so this may all be TACTICAL, a bit of FLIRTATION with the Bonkers-in-the-Nut Brigade to keep them onside, tossing a bit of, as they say, red meat to the Howling-at-the-Moon wing of the Conservatory Coalition.

(A dozen points adrift in the polls, it would be RIDICULOUS to think that he might be preparing the way for a snap Autumn election – perhaps on the pretext that he lets the Lords Reform Bill fail and forces us to collapse the Coalition.)

No, far more likely this is a case of crying "Who Will Rid Me of these Troublesome Lib Dem Priests!" and then denying any suggestion he's egging on a rebellion against Cap'n Clegg's reforms when they get stabbed to death in the Cathedral.

(And the Beardy Weirdy of Canterbury is discovered over the body... no, that's Midsomer Murders.)

But if he's POSING as Conservatory TRADITIONALIST, the questions for Mr Balloon are these: what happened to LOYALTY to our fellow citizens? Weren't we all supposed to be in this together?

What happened to sticking by FAMILY through thick and thin? Weren't we all supposed to a part of that Big Society?

And what happened to, dare a militant atheist fluffy elephant suggest it, CHRISTIAN DUTY to the poor and in need?

The Welfare State has, he says, "sent out some incredibly damaging signals."

(More damaging than "we hate young people"; "we hate disabled people"; "we hate poor people"; and "yes, we ARE the Nasty Party"? That IS incredible! No, sorry, back to Balloon...)

"That it pays not to work.

"That you are owed something for nothing...

"...It created a culture of entitlement."

It's not very "One Nation" is it?

This is CHURCH OF THATCHIANITY, blue in tooth and claw. You can spot it in the LANGUAGE: "aspiration", "self-reliance", "evil bloodsucking vampire overlords", er...

I COULD say that it really DOESN'T "pay not to work", unless you've been given an ESTATE IN SCOTLAND by DADDY, and only someone whose privilege has left him totally insulated from reality might think so. A few ludicrous and largely-hypothetical counter-examples do NOT disprove this rule.

Or I COULD suggest that actually we ARE owed "something for nothing", even if it's only our FUNDAMENTAL HUMAN RIGHTS. Though I would say that anyone lucky enough to be in Great Britain (whether they were born here or immigrated) deserves at least a small share of the MASSIVE NATIONAL WEALTH that we inherited through no effort of our own (and which our forebears largely STOLE in the first place).

But instead, let me reply with some of the "incredibly damaging signals" that THATCHERISM has sent out:

"That being very, very lucky is the same as working hard."

(It's not, and privileged white males who got where they are thanks to an enormous leg up from their parents and the perverse way that our society values parasitical city jobs over CREATIVE or CARING professions should remember that more than most).

"That people who don't want to slave away at a conventional job in the rat-race (and yet are not landed gentry) are somehow dangerous subversives who are a threat to OUR WAY OF LIFE!"

(If they are it's only because OUR WAY OF LIFE desperately needs threatening! Endlessly repeating the cycle of boom and crash in the hope that it will do something different is, as they say, economic MADNESS. In the end, we'll ALL need an alternative lifestyle.)

"And that there's nothing wrong with putting your own interests ahead of other people and Devil take the hindmost!"

(There surely IS, as Mr Carr-crash discovered to his personal shame and cost, and it's a pernicious reversal of Hobbes to think that Government has no business interfering in the "war of all against all".)

"Compassion isn't measured out in benefit cheques," says Mr Balloon.

Perhaps not, but people will COUNT these CUTS as a measure of Conservative CRUELTY.

(Not that ALL Government spending is GOOD and RIGHT, not all cuts are WRONG. A fifty percent cut in the subsidy to the privatised companies that run our railways badly would save as much money as Mr Balloon's slashing of benefit to younger people. But we can't have shareholders taking the risk as well as the rewards, can we!)

Mr Balloon's proposed solutions – flying kites – include cutting all under-25s out of the Welfare State, like we don't already tell young people we don't value them; indexing benefits by the LOWER of wages or prices, so benefit recipients are always going to fall behind; and, asking for a "contribution" from people who are still getting benefits after a couple of years. So, workfare then. Which is neither "work" nor "fair". And then we cut their benefits until they fade away. Or, presumably, they're rounded up and shot.

Thank goodness he ADMITTED that the Liberal Democrats would NEVER STAND FOR THIS.

And with Hard Labour TROUBLINGLY unable to answer the question "what would you do differently", it seems like we are the ONLY Party that still believes in a bit of COMMON DECENCY.


If Mr Balloon is going to talk about people with a culture of entitlement, well, he could START by having a look around HIS OWN CABINET TABLE, and just count the privately-educated underachievers with no more excuse to be there than their own self-importance and imagined right to rule. I really don't think people need lessons in "no one is owed a living" from a man who has never done a proper job and has enough inherited wonga that if he got bored of swanning about Number Ten he wouldn't ever have to work again.

"Dieu et mon droit" doesn't mean "My god, what a load of right-wing hooey". But it SHOULD.


*Yes, that again.

**No, I'm really NOT letting that one go, am I.

Day 4183: Sallad Dressing

Wednesday:

It's like the Eighties never went away.

Oh, just shoot us now!

Day 4147: From Rose Garden to Glorious Make Tractor Factory – How the Coalition Failed

Wednesday:


When the Coalition was formed, in the sunshine of Mr Balloon and Cap'n Clegg's Downing St bromance, hopes of genuine renewal were high.

In spite of the economic calamity, we would disassemble Hard Labour's authoritarian apparatus of big government. I.D.iot cards, databases, targets and Whitehall micro-management would go, freeing up funds for frontline services. More freedom, more delivery.

But this week, Mrs the Queen's speech, while not quite as bad as COLD SICK, has gone down like TEPID TEA.

Where did it all go wrong?

I point the fluffy foot of BLAME straight at the Prime Monster and Chancellor.


Of course it's EASY to see how Master Gideon has fluffed this up, with his playing political tactics instead of having a strategic vision.

It started with the AV referendum, when – for entirely selfish, stupid, short-term reasons – the Conservatories decided to put the full weight of all their money into giving the Lib Dems a bloody nose. Selfish because they believe that they can only win an outright majority without a Coalition under the First Pass the Port voting system. But actually STUPID because they are actually TRAPPED in a "coalition" with their right wing NUTTERS. In the long term this makes it HARDER for them to be re-elected, as all the studies show a consistent DECLINE in "two-party" voting making coalitions MORE likely in future. And they will have FEWER options in the Coalition dance if they are chained to the Frothy-Phobics.

A more proportional system would, obviously, see a SMALLER centre-right Conservatory Party and a more substantial showing for a far right UKPnuts. Which looks BAD for the Conservatories in the SHORT TERM. But Hard Labour would probably break up too and we'd see more Greens and proper socialists. (Not to mention a FAIR share of Liberals – 16% of 600 is 96 seats, whereas with 23% we got, er, 57 seats.) In the LONGER TERM, though, this could allow the MODERATE Conservatories to evolve towards the sort of position that Ms Angular Meercat enjoys in Germany, able to form governments through coalitions with a choice of Liberals, UKPnutters or the more Blairite Social Democrats from the former Labour. We've even seen Blue-Green alliances on the Continent.

By averting this possibility, and by mightily fluffing off the Liberal progressive vote, Master Gideon has actually made it more likely that the Conservatories will be FROZEN OUT of power for the Twenty-First Century, by a succession of Labour and Liberal-Labour Coalition governments.

So, good strategy there.

Furthermore, the Conservatories turning their fire on US, and in particular the vicious campaign against Cap'n Clegg personally, meant that the Liberal Democrats had pretty much NO CHOICE but to move to DIFFERENTIATION.

It's unclear how successful this has been for us, but it's obviously undone half a decade of trying to DETOXIFY the Conservatory Brand because now the only policies solely associated with the Conservatories are the NASTY PARTY POLICIES.

This came to a head in the so-called "omnishambles Budget".

For TACTICAL reasons, Master Gideon HAD to cut the 50p rate in this budget if he was going to do it at all. He couldn't possibly do it in the emergency budget when the Coalition came to power; it would have flatly contradicted the whole fiscal consolidation message. Nor could he do it last year, too soon after the Strategic Spending Review. But leaving it until any closer to the election in 2015 would mean that it would still be a live political issue for the election campaign. No, this was the ONLY year he could do it and hope that the fuss would die away before the electorate could punish him for it at a General Election.

That was, obviously, why the Conservatories were GAGGING for this ONE policy in all of their Budget negotiations, and how the Liberal Democrats were able to leverage such a HUGE tax cut for the lower and middle-income earners PLUS the "tycoon tax" tightening of loopholes (which has been so traduced by self-interested millionaires saying how they just can't afford to give to charity without receiving a massive tax bung for the privilege).

For the TACTIC of getting started on cutting taxes for the super-rich, Master Gideon SACRIFICED the STRATEGY of tax fairness.

And wheels came flying off in all directions.

This sort of "government in crisis" narrative has a momentum of its own, as we have seen in the past when Mr Major Minor's government was self-destructing or when Mr Frown's administration was tearing itself apart. Even Mr Miliband's big humiliation in Bradford was not enough to deflect the press from their FEEDING FRENZY for long. Hence we see headlines about hundred-million pound U-Turns and an air of panting anticipation around the latest Leveson revelations in the hope of more red meat to feed the Fleet Street spin machine.

Even potentially good news stories ("New Jobs Created by Deputy Prime Monster's Job Creation Scheme" – actual story) manage to come out painted bad ("Employment scheme may cost up to £200,000 per job" – actual headline). Yes, they MAY cost up to £200,000 a job. OR as LITTLE as £4000 a job. Actually, average costs of the scheme, about the same as Hard Labour schemes cost, with room for some improvement. But who is being "shocked" by these costs? Why it's Hard Labour's Margret Hedgehog. Cynical politics by the Queen Mother of Barking, there, (plus ça bleedin' change) but who left the goal open for Hard Labour opportunism? We did!

Under the circumstances, "relaunches" only FUEL the notion that the Government is falling to bits.

What is called for is a profound period of CALM and COMPETENCE, something that the Westminster bubble is ILL-DESIGNED to provide.

(And bringing forward all the "who's in and who's out" hysteria of a reshuffle not only smacks of PANIC but increases the chances of COCK-UP by dropping someone inexperienced into a new job AND giving Sir Humphrey another chance to shovel some dirt past them as they learn the ropes.)


So much for Master Gideon's fluffy foot in this; the REAL culprit is of course the Prime Monster Mr Balloon himself.

I once said that the Coalition had the chance to be the making of Mr Balloon. It's a chance he's tossed away with both hands.

If you don't want to look WEAK, you shouldn't go crawling to your backbenchers begging to kiss fluffy bottom! If you don't want to look OUT OF TOUCH then you can't waste your time caring more about what some CRAZY WOMAN thinks of you than the whole of rest of the country. And if you don't want to look like you're NOT UP TO THE JOB then you don't go whinging to the Daily Hate Mail that you can't get the policies you want!

A STRONG Prime Monster would have used the Liberal Democrats as a BULWARK against the ever-more petulant demands of his right wing. A STRONG Prime Monster could have PUT THEM IN THEIR PLACE.

By BLENDING the policies of Liberals and Conservatories, as we did in the Coalition and the Rose Garden, you can achieve a SYNTHESIS that is greater than the sum of its parts and demonstrates a government VISION that give confidence that we know what we're doing and WHY we're doing it. And better still, the Prime Monster gets to claim credit for EVERYTHING.

INSTEAD, the GAME PLAYING by his Chancer cum Political Grand Vizier, Master Gideon, and Mr Balloon's own COWARDICE has left Government policy looking like it's DIVIDED between wins for the Liberal Democrats and wins for the Tory Right, leaving NO WINS AT ALL for the Prime Monster in the middle.

A CLASSIC example is the "Daft Draft Communications Bill". An opportunity to unite Liberal and Conservatory values by rolling back intrusive RIPA powers, end spy-on-the-citizen local government intrusion and bring back some traditional British justice was SQUANDERED in a rushed attempt to win some Daily-Hate-Mail-friendly headlines by letting the security-fetishists in the Home Office have their head over blocking internet rudery and cracking down on communications between those "potential terrorists and paedos" as the Home Office calls them or, you know, ordinary innocent citizens to you and me.

The Prime Monster needed to be a BRIDGE between Liberal Democrats and Conservatories. Instead we're now seeing "I could be a proper Evil Tory if it we're for those Pesky Lib Dems" type headlines.

Burning your bridges is FOOLISH at the best of times. It's DOUBLE FOOLISH with NOBS ON when you're STANDING ON THE BRIDGE at the time!


You can't say that the Liberal Democrats didn't TRY to make this work. Cap'n Clegg in particular has worked tirelessly to present a common front on most Coalition policies, and taken endless flack for it.

(Because obviously it's TEH FUNNY to call the man a "stooge" for holding to his principles of working together for the best of the country, and "spineless" for sticking to his belief that maybe we all ought to try getting along. At least no one's suggested nailing him to a tree, yet! Why Mr Milipede what are you doing, washing your hands?)

The BEST of this Coalition – a tax cut for millions, the pupil premium, the green investment bank – has all come from the Liberal Democrats. But it's a FAILURE of this Coalition that I can say that. The BEST of the Coalition OUGHT to have come from BOTH Parties together.


So, unless the economy comes good, that's going to make things AWKWARD for the next three years.

Meanwhile, here is Mr Danny Alexander with a musical message for Europe Day (hat tip, Mr Whyte.)


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Day 4146: Upgraded Underpants

Tuesday:


Whenever I hear "exploding underpants"* it's hard not to think of Bojo the Clown, whose re-election as Lord Mayor of London Town has inspired some of the more FRUITY Conservatories to come out fighting for more "traditional" Conservatory policies.

Which is ODD 'cos Bojo's nine-point-plan puts LOTS of emphasis on investment for jobs and growth (points 3, 4, 5, 6 and 8. And probably 7 too. And maybe 9.) and distinctly NONE on cutting immigration "to help the working class (i.e. BNP-voting) poor", 'cos Bojo may be BONKERS but he's not STUPID. He just tries hard to LOOK stupid!

London's economy, the most powerful and only GROWING part of Great Britain, RELIES on immigration and on diversity, on the energy and innovation and culture that comes with everything from Brick Lane to gay-daddies getting married. And Bojo KNOWS that.


The idea that the Coalition Parties each just lost loads of Councillors because the Coalition is not Conservatory ENOUGH is just LAUGHABLE.

Quite apart from anything else, we KNEW when we signed up for this Coalition that it was going to be HORRIBLE, that we'd been handed a CHALICE that was not just POISONED but bought on HIRE PURCHASE with the BAILIFFS on the way round! Of COURSE we were going to get roughed up because it's the Government's JOB to take the BLAME. I've said before that we chose the long and painful but ultimately safer path out of the depression, rather than the wild borrow and gamble approach. But that's not going to make things any easier along the way.

But if you really WANT simplistic analysis, then CLEARLY it's because the Coalition policies are TOO MUCH CONSERVATORY, not too little.

Look, the Liberal Democrats are widely seen as losing votes because we've become TOO CONSERVATORY.

And you can trace the moment that the fluffy bottom fell out of the Conservatories' polling figures to... Master Gideon's top-rate-of-tax-cutting Budget, when suddenly the Conservatories looked TOO CONSERVATORY too!

The unravelling of the Budget was all about the spin that it was a tax cut for the rich paid for by hitting pasties, grannies and charities. And, ironically, conservatories.

For some Conservatories it is time to play the "Personal Incredulity Fallacy". THEY have a personal bug about "gay marriage", or Equal Marriage as we call it in the real world, and House of Lords Club reform so they ASSUME that the voters have a bug about Equal Marriage and House of Lords Club reform.

Rather than, say, Mr Landslide's "ever so popular" NHS reforms or Mr Gove's "widely lauded as uncontroversial" Free Schools or Mr Drunken-Swerve's "not in any way likely to have caused a fuss" slashing of Welfare Payments (the cuts hitting hundreds of thousands of families in the month before polling).

Sadly, imposing your personal fantasies on the electorate will not get you elected.


But never mind that. And let's put to one side the fact that most Conservatory Home readers would almost literally die of horror at the thought of an Alternative Queen. And let's look at those Conservatory Home Alternative Queen's Speech Bills in full:

1. British Bill of Rights Bill

Funny how Conservatory's say "no one is interested in Civil Rights" when it's Equal Marriage and say "nothing could be more vital" when it's their own Little Englander hobby-horse.

It is unbelievably difficult not to smell the XENOPHOBIA all over this one. "We want to send bad people to bad places and we don't care if bad things happen to them even if they turn out not to have been bad people after all, and now nasty foreigners are saying we ought to stick to the list of HUMAN RIGHTS even if it was US that wrote it, wahh!".

Which part of FUNDAMENTAL HUMAN RIGHTS do these people not understand? It can't be FUNDAMENT. And it can't be MENTAL. Cos they've demonstrated plenty of BOTH.

2. Promotion of Competition Bill

a) Water companies to compete on what appears to be a Railtrack basis with the pipes owned by a separate company. Not a recipe for disaster at all, then.

b) More banking competition, including breaking up RBS. Don't swoon; this bit is actually good.

3. Rail Improvements Bill

Scrap HS2 and tackle bottlenecks and reduce overcrowding instead. Tricky one this, as we should really look at the evidence and decide which is the better investment of limited resources. If they could back up their case with some facts, this might be convincing.

(For some reason, also includes high speed broadband roll out – why not in the competition bill?)

4. Make Prison Work Bill

(Are we saying prison DOESN'T work? Are we admitting Mr "Something of the Night" Howard was wrong?)

Solution, basically, export the problem. Repatriate non-British citizens and make 'em serve sentence abroad (assuming we CAN, and that's not a recipe for "foreign murderer/rapist/paedo released early in foreign jail outrage" type headlines) + send mentally ill to social services (who we're sure will cope and that's not a recipe for "loony murderer/rapist/paedo strikes again in not in prison outrage").

5. Fairness to British Taxpayers Bill

(i.e. Hand the Foreigners the Bill Bill)

a) Charge an "entry fee" for foreign road users to cover "wear and tear" of British roads

You can see how this appeals to the "it's not fair" mentality of the little-Englander. And fortunately, as a nation of traders there's no way that a hike in the cost of transporting goods INTO Britain could possibly be passed on to consumers here. Er.

b) Charge an "entry fee" for foreign tourists for entrance to British attractions e.g. museums

Fortunately, Britain has no massive tourist industry that generates important foreign currency income, so adding an extra disincentive to visit Britain will do no harm to the economy there either. Er.

c) Charge foreign people who get sick for use of NHS

Actually this happens already but "enforce" it by putting an statutory obligation on trust Trusts to collect – because they don't "trust" then to collect! Nice. And there's nothing like refusing to treat people with communicable diseases for keeping those epidemics out there in the population.

6. Affordable Energy Bill

Translation: "cut subsidies for generation by more expensive means" means "cut subsidy for green renewables" therefore placing more reliance on imported energy (i.e. LESS affordable energy bills).

Or fracking. Hilariously, injecting water into shale rock to force gas (and earthquakes) out was SO wildly economically UNVIABLE that no one even considered doing it until the price of oil and gas went through the roof.

7. Anti-congestion bill

Make councils let cars drive faster.

8. Double EU referendum bill

OK, now we're getting to the real fun.

Part One: hold a referendum to pre-determine (bind the hands of) the Government's negotiating position in renegotiation of a treaty with the other 26 EU members that is NOT up for grabs.

Part Two: then hold a second referendum to agree to the outcome.

How many ways can this POSSIBLY go wrong?

How do you even HOLD a referendum on a negotiating position? What's the question going to be? "Do you agree that the Prime Monster should go to Europe to demand the Abolishing of the Common Agricultural Policy, the Repeal of the Social Chapter, the Sinking of the Spanish fishing fleet, the Bulldozing of Strasburg, the Introduction of Driving on the Left Continent-wide and the Compulsory Imposition of Dairy Milk as the European Chocolate Standard, but we're willing to cave on all of that so long as you let us measure beer and milk in pints, tick one box Yes or No"?

Are the "Yes" campaign supposed to become the "No" campaign if the negotiations go fluffy-bottom up?

Will ANYONE on the other side of the Channel even take this seriously? Ms Angular Meercat is already telling Greece off for "getting their election wrong".

Note also that the wording pre-supposes that we WILL be repatriating powers, the referendum will just determine what and how much. This is called "begging the question".

9. Education (Choice and Opportunity) Bill

Private companies to provide schools on a fee-paying basis. No chance THAT could be portrayed as "privatising our schools" is there. Oh, because it IS.

And it certainly couldn't be portrayed as turning the clock back FIFTY YEARS. Which to be fair would only make Mr "Boro" Gove's British Empire history lessons TWO decades out of date instead of SEVEN.

Admission by academic achievement (which in no way favours those able to afford tutoring, er).

A "percentage" of profits to be reinvested. So that'll be a percentage lower that 100%, I guess.

No mention of removing Eton and Harrow's status as "charities" though.

10. University Standards Bill

aka The Waahh, Vince Cable got his way over the head of OFFA so we want to abolish it Bill.

11. Double Devolution Bill

Tax-raising powers (and hence blame) to be sent to Scotland. Fair enough. English votes for English laws. Riiiiight.

Funny how Conservatories say "No one is interested in Constitutional Reform" when it's the House of Lords Club and not when it's their own Little Englander hobby-horse.

12. Finance Act (don't we get one of those anyway?)

Putting the "you're 'aving a laff" into the Laffer Curve.

The next budget should "increase" the amount that rich people pay by, er, cutting the top rate of tax from 45% to 40% and cutting the rate of capital gains tax to from 28% to 20%.

Didn't that just work out SO WELL in the Budget. See above. And also your current poll rating (-10% in a month).

Admittedly, it might be that YOU see the need to differentiate from US as much as WE Liberal Democrats want to disassociate ourselves from the nastier ideas that YOU have. In which case, we will keep our tax cuts for the least well off and you are welcome to be the Party of tax cuts for the super-rich. Good luck with that!

13. Trade Union Members' Bill

Further neuter Britain's remaining Trades Unions by requiring 50% turnouts in strike ballots. You know, just about one and a half times the turnout that turned out so 'enthusiastically' to give a 'massive' popular mandate (not a gay-marriage euphemism) to that 'popular new old-style Tory hope' Bojo the Clown.

Oh, and slice off Labour's funding by giving the Unions the "option" of donating the political levy to good causes instead. Why not just have them buy Lottery Tickets?

Next step, what, house arrests for Mark Serwatka and Bob Crow? I know they're ANNOYING but... didn't we used to live in a DEMOCRACY?

14. Electoral Integrity (Yes, We Have None) Bill

Requiring everyone to turn up at the polling station in person – with I.D! – if they want their vote. Like THAT'S not going to deter anybody from voting. Like THAT'S not going to disenfranchise anybody. And what would be the chances that it's easier for the well-heeled to get to the polling station and they're more likely to have passport/driving licence/credit card I.D. to hand. Our democracy is pretty robust and widely trusted as it is.

And it's I.D.iot Cards again. AGAIN! Not content with learning ALL the wrong lessons from the most disgusting Replutocrat malpractices of the US of Americaland, you want to adopt the NEW fluffing LABOUR playbook too!

Examples of voting fraud are shocking BECAUSE they are so few and far between. They need to be tackled, but the way to tackle them is by having council officers CHECK people who want a postal vote by going to MEET them. Whereas this is a rather naked attempt to put people off voting altogether.

And finally...

15. House of Lords Reform (Now We're Really Taking the Piss) Bill

Having based their entire article on the unsupported assertion that we should not at a time of economic woe be considering legislating for reform the House of Lords, they conclude by proposing... legislating to BLOCK reform of the House of Lords, and to waste everyone's time and even more money by prancing naked round the issues yet again, this time with a Royal Commission, like the business of reforming the Lords hasn't been Commissioned to DEATH in the ONE HUNDRED YEARS since we started.

Anyone signing up for this LIED in their 2010 manifesto and should be required to RESIGN their seat IMMEDIATELY.


In conclusion, Popular Conservatoryism is an OXYMORON. By which I mean a member of the Bullingdon Club.

But as the Conservatory Homeboys themselves put it:

"Popular Conservatoryism is pro-poor and broad-based"

By which they mean FAT-ARSED and in favour of MORE poor people.



It's important to remember that the Coalition was supposed to be about finding solutions through GOVERNING.

We CAN'T just pass laws to make problems go away. We don't believe that works! We're not Hard Labour! Their insane machismo of pushing more and more LEGISLATION through the House of Commons like lard through a mangle solved NOTHING (except for a temporary assuaging of Lord Blairimort's addictive craving for a new Press Release every five minutes).

What Mr Dr Vince is doing DAY to DAY in the Department for Business is FAR MORE IMPORTANT than any number of "Willies, look at the size of my waving of, Bill" bills in Mrs the Queen's Speech.


Mr Milipede has some cheek when he says that people want "answers not excuses" from the Coalition.

"Excuses" from Hard Labour for the economic shambles precipitated on their watch so far: the bankers, Europe, the bankers, America, the Tories (don't help them), the bankers, world economic conditions, the bankers, the Crimson Pirate Life Assurance Company, and the bankers.

"Answers" from Hard Labour: ...

But never mind that because we hold ourselves to a higher standard than Mr Opportunist and his Bandwagon of Merry Persons.

Why HAVE we failed to deliver so far? Isn't it because the Conservatories have had us sticking TOO RIGIDLY to the Plan A for Austerity when we SHOULD have been TESTING the outcomes and ADJUSTING as we went? That's EVIDENCE-BASED policy making.

We should look at Cap'n Clegg's schemes to bring forward infrastructure investment and the youth programme, and at Mr Dr Vince's plans for more apprenticeships and support for British winners as the RIGHT way to respond to the deepening crisis.

In short: LESS Conservatory DOGMA; MORE Liberal Democrat FLEXIBLE RESPONSE.



*I know, I know it's a "terrorist atrocity" in the making but, seriously, how can ANYONE think that HUMILIATING THEMSELVES by trying and failing to blow off their rude bits in the cause of murdering a lot of people is going to get them anything but the POINT and LAUGH treatment in any imaginary afterlife they might, well, imagine?

I genuinely think that massive amounts of DERISORY LAUGHTER is a better way to counter these numpties than the sort of massive security overkill that makes them think they're important.
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Day 4110: Snooper Powers aka This Must Be Stomped On With Giant Fluffy Elephant Feet!

Monday:



Leaks to the press say that the government – NB: authoritarian idiot branch (note to Cap’n Clegg: please ensure this is confined to Conservatory rabble) – are proposing to “maintain” our security forces' ability to fight baddies (or indeed anyone they think is looking at them funny) by MASSIVELY INCREASING the scale and scope of their powers.

Simple solution, Cap’n Clegg NEEDS to make a statement: “This is the Conservatories FLYING A KITE. You know as well as I do that I and my Party aren't going to put up with this sort of STUFF AND NONSENSE. Case closed.”

We are NOT in a competition to see who can be the most “not quite as EVIL as Hard Labour”.

We are the FLUFFING LIBERAL PARTY. We ROLL BACK this kind of thing; we do NOT ROLL OVER for it!

That is all.
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Day 4096: Ask Not For Whom the Road Toll, it Tolls for You!

Monday:



This is starting to get SILLY. Apparently we're now proposing to privatise the roads.

So buying large public works on the never-never is BAD when it is Hard Labour's crazy PFI schemes but FINE when it's giving the nation's vital road infrastructure over into the fluffy feet of MAMMON, is it?

Because we're all so PLEASED with the way that the OTHER privatised monopolies have worked out.

(So long as by "we" we mean "the foreign companies who now own our utilities".)

It's not QUITE up there with slashing disabled people's benefits, but it is a VERY Conservatory-led policy.

If we want a JOBS and GROWTH strategy, wouldn't it be a BETTER idea to keep the key underpinnings of our civilisation in public ownership?

And for a government that is supposed to be obsessed with NOT lumbering our children with debt the way Hard Labour did, do we really want to be using some of Hard Labour's Enron-style OFF-BALANCE SHEET accounting to spend money now and pay later?
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Day 4073: Workfare? Workfoul?

Saturday:

It's entirely voluntary and the idea is supposed to be to give young people the experience of holding down a job, of getting up in the morning, of working as part of a team and so on. Just without the experience of GETTING PAID FOR IT.

I have listened to the lovely Sarah Teather defending this government scheme, and pointing out that 50% of people who try it out DO go on to get a proper job afterwards. And I've heard that the scheme is terribly popular and that people are desperate to get on it. But with record youth unemployment, YOU'D be desperate for anything that might give you an edge too, wouldn't you. And I just can't get over the NIGGLING feeling that we have MINIMUM WAGE legislation in this country for a REASON.

We already know that the minimum wage is set TOO LOW. Otherwise why do we need to have WORKING TAX CREDITS? Surely we all know that these were not just the moody monomaniac's compulsion to control who is and is not "deserving" but also Mr Frown's ADMISSION that he would rather make other taxpayers subsidise criminally low salaries than force his new chums in big business to pay a living wage. A win-win for the authoritarian friend of the millionaires!

And now we're letting them pay NOTHING and getting people to work for the price of their benefits.

OK, it's not "slave" labour because you can just walk away; but it is a BLEEDIN' LIBERTY!

If a job needs doing – and burgers DO need flipping, shelves DO need stacking – then it ought to be worth PAYING someone to do it. If your company is getting some desperate youth to do it while on the Job Seekers, then that's a PAYING JOB LOST.

Waterstones quits unpaid labour scheme
Matalan quits unpaid labour scheme
Tesco and Argos quit unpaid labour scheme
Greggs the Bakers quit unpaid labour scheme
Burger King quits unpaid labour scheme

Do you see a pattern developing here?