The News In Shorts

How the news would look if everyone stopped waffling and told the truth.

Tuesday 31 December 2013

Tories Wish Their Rich Mates A Prosperous New Year.

How 2014 is likely to progress in Britain is already evident - and the news is not good. While the Red Cross are busy sending food parcels to Britain to feed the starving, figures show that only one in fifty people are feeling the benefits of Osborne's so-called "recovery". Nor do you have to look to hard to find who that one in fifty are - bankers, energy company executives, the greedy and the selfish. It turns out - surprise, surprise - that Osborne has fallen short on his promise to raise £7.5 billion in levies from the banks and has raised only £5.4 billion. In other words he's handed criminal bankers a nice tax cut of £2.1 billion so they can have their bonuses this Christmas. As "trickle-down economics" continues to be what it always was - "gushing-upwards economics" - Cameron has rewarded the greedy and nasty in the New Years Honours List with lots of nice gongs and knighthoods. These include a knighthood for Alan Parker for his crucial services to Public Relations, a knighthood for Ian Cheshire, chief executive of the retail company Kingfisher, for his services to Business, Sustainability and the Environment all of which have virtually ceased to exist in the last 3 years, Marion Dowding, deputy chairman of Cameron’s Oxfordshire Conservative Association, given an OBE for her "services to politics" and Peter Emerson Jones, given a knighthood for giving George Osborne backhanders. Meanwhile, as the Tories have been making the NHS more "efficient" by making redundant more than 7,000 doctors and nurses in the last three years, the Fire Service are so impressed by Tory cuts that they are going on strike on New Year's Eve. So its full steam ahead for the Tories next year - wrecking ordinary people's lives to feed the insatiable greed of their rich mates, destroying public services so they can flog them off to those same rich mates at knock-down prices and smashing up the economy to teach us all a lesson in the wonders of neoliberal voodoo economics. Essentially they are stealing the country and then fencing it to foreign "investors" so they can fill up their offshore bank accounts, while the rest of us, known to the Tories as "stock" or "plebs", are doing "our bit" and sacrificing our future so that Britain can be kept safe for bankers, conmen and spivs.

Sunday 29 December 2013

Toryism Inherited From Neanderthals.

Scientists working to unravel the genome of Neanderthal man have made huge progress, proving that modern Europeans have Neanderthal DNA and tracing the origins of type two diabetes to them. More startling, however, has been their identification of the so-called "Tory gene." The gene enhances the conservatism in modern man, making some individuals resistant to change - unless its in their interests - greedy, selfish and self-serving. It is now believed that this gene was almost entirely to blame for the extinction of Neanderthal man who refused to cooperate in large groups and thought that continuing to hunt already extinct mammoths was the key to the future. We asked Professor Richard Hawkins for his opinion; "You can still see the Tory gene originating with the Neanderthal at work today. Stubbornly uncooperative, Tories refuse to believe that such a thing as wider society exists and continue to believe that Eton reflects true life in Britain. They cling to outmoded and rather ridiculous economic ideas even though these same ideas have brought the world economy to the brink of destruction. Like the Neanderthals insisting on pursuing non-existent mammoths, the Tories are still pursuing non-existent economic arguments to underpin their ridiculous and self-destructive ideology of greed and selfishness. Fortunately, like the Neanderthal, the Tories seem to be doomed to eventual extinction with the last Tory dying alone ranting about the economy being just like a household budget." We asked a Tory spokesman for the party view but were told they were all too busy trying to "progress" back to the 18th century.

Tuesday 24 December 2013

Cameron Wishes Us All A Miserable Christmas And An Austere New Year.

David Cameron has taken time out from his busy schedule of torturing the poor and vulnerable and stealing orphans Christmas presents to clap himself on the back for being such a good Christian. "Jesus would be proud of me," he told reporters. "Jesus had no time for those who didn't have the money to become famous and successful like him and thought that poor people were poor because they deserved it. Any reading of the Bible demonstrates quite clearly that God is the true head of the Tory party and Jesus is his best spin doctor. I am gratified that the real Christians in this country that follow the true teachings of Christ are busily engaged lecturing the poor on their evil and indolent ways and threatening to starve their children to make them pull their socks up. Those who adhere closest to the teachings of Christ - bankers, corporate executives and tax avoiders - know what God wants from us is profit and the glories of the free market. God has no time for namby-pamby, lefty do-gooders who indulge the poor and pay them vast amounts of money so they can enjoy film star life styles on benefits. As the eleventh commandment tells us - "Thou shalt not get something for nothing - unless you're a Tory cabinet minister." I was particularly impressed by Nadhim Zahawi who selflessly spent taxpayers money heating his stables in case Jesus showed up this year even though he's not even a Christian. Still, I'm sure you'll agree with me that all religions are equally valid and that all of them are equally right. Now that is true Tory value - having your cake and eat it. I am looking forward next year to a resurgence of true Tory-Christian values with lots of martyred poor people laying down their lives to make the world safe for the greedy, selfish and self-satisfied. Don't forget the immortal words of Jesus Christ himself - "Blessed are the tax avoiders, for they shall inherit what is left of the Earth."

Sunday 22 December 2013

National Debt Soars To Level Of Last Tory Government.

All the evidence now available shows quite clearly that George Osborne's insane austerity drive is literally killing the country. Shrinking wages, cost-of-living rises, the theft and fencing of national assets to criminal corporate gangs, the blackmail of greedy bankers, tax evasion by the rich, greedy and selfish, the deliberate pauperisation of the vast majority and the persecution of the sick and disabled have delivered only mounting debt. In fact the national debt now stands at the highest level since 1989 - "coincidentally" the last time that the Tory party unleashed their primitive and barbaric ideology on the economy. The reason for this totally predictable outcome - predictable to everyone except the insane Tory party - is the reduction in demand that austerity brings. In the past reducing demand have been used to cool an overheating economy while no one in their right mind would do so to further cool an economy experiencing the equivalent of an ice age. This is not economics, it is madness and only a party driven collectively insane by their own greed, selfishness and idiotic ideology would even contemplate it. The economy needs a stimulus not a general anaesthetic, a shot in the arm not its life blood deliberately being drained away. The Tories are not only destroying the economy in an act of pure vandalism, they are demanding that ordinary hardworking people should not only bear the brunt but, as Esther McVey told us only a couple of days ago, should be prepared to starve to achieve the Tory wet dream of returning us to the 19th century.

Iain Duncan Smith Gets Into The Christmas Spirit.

"At this festive season of the year, Mr Duncan Smith, ... it is more than usually desirable that we should make some slight provision for the Poor and destitute, who suffer greatly at the present time. Many thousands are in want of common necessaries; hundreds of thousands are in want of common comforts, sir." "Are there no prisons?" "Plenty of prisons..." "And the Union workhouses." demanded Duncan Smith. "Are they still in operation?" "Both very busy, sir..." "Those who are badly off must go there." "Many can't go there; and many would rather die." "If they would rather die," said Duncan Smith, "they had better do it, and decrease the surplus population." Charles Dickens' story "A Christmas Carol" could have been written for Iain Duncan Smith. It is a tale of redemption at Christmas, how even the hardest heart can be softened by the plight of the less fortunate and even the most evil can saved. But it is only a story and, as far as Iain Duncan Smith is concerned, it is all mere humbug. He has refused an invitation to meet charity leaders who have organised food banks on the basis that they are "scaremongering" and "have a clear political agenda." The reason for his attitude is quite clear - Iain Duncan Smith is irredeemably evil, has no heart to soften and cannot be saved. He has this, of course, in common with the rest of the Tory party who have now proved beyond all doubt that they have no place in a civilised society. The message this Christmas is also crystal clear - a vote for the Tories is a vote for evil and you don't need three ghosts to visit you to know that.

Thursday 19 December 2013

Tories Mock The Poor And Hungry.

If you've ever wondered what the face of true evil would look like then all you have to do is look at the picture above. This is the front bench of the coalition government minus Iain Duncan Smith who tends to shun the light. He certainly shunned it today as Labour forced a debate on the growing number of people in Britain who are reliant on food banks. Rather that answer questions himself he hid behind Esther McVey as she informed us that we deserve to starve because it was us that caused the economic crash in 2008 and virtually bankrupted the country and not criminal bankers as we all thought. “In the UK it is right that more people are going to food banks because as times are tough, we are all having to pay back this £1.5trillion debt personally." Not that she or any of her fellow Tory criminals are either starving or paying back a penny of the national debt. They are far too busy trying to get us to pay the heating bills for their stables and rewarding the selfish, smug and greedy corporate sharks for bribing them. Having listened to her disgusting arguments for a few minutes Iain Duncan Smith fled the chamber, perhaps afraid that an assassin was lurking in the strangers gallery, as the evil and hard-hearted Tory party laughed and jeered at the plight of ordinary people. It was a shameful and extraordinary display of utter disdain for the poor and vulnerable by the Tories who are now convinced that being as nasty as they've always wanted to be will win them the next election. That they might be right is a chilling possibility and one that would signal the final demise of Britain as a civilised country.

Tuesday 17 December 2013

Lord Of The Scroungers.

The Tories, they would have us think, are very concerned with freeloading scroungers and believe that it is they that are bringing Britain to the brink of destruction. They are quite right of course, except their attention seems to be fixated in the wrong direction. While the whole benefits budget is seven times less expensive to the country than corporate tax dodging, benefit fraud itself represents a tiny drop when compared to the ocean of corporate corruption. The Tories, however, don't even need to look that far afield for bone idle scroungers - they need only look within their own ranks. Paul White, the Tory Lord Hanningfield, thinks nothing of turning up at the House of Lords every day, pocketing his £300 in expenses and then catching the next train back home. He's already served a nine month prison term in 2011 for fiddling £28,000 on his expenses but, naturally, that wasn't considered serious enough for him to lose his peerage. Nor is his latest scam considered to be "outside the rules" of the House of Lords since scrounging is not only tolerated - it is considered to be a right. Lord Hanningfield maintains that he could name at least 50 other peers who do the same thing and defends himself by claiming that it costs him £150 per day in expenses (which he actually claims back) and that, therefore, he doesn't "really make any profit." The Lord obviously has a rather elastic view of what constitutes a profit since pocketing £300 on an investment of £150 is actually a 100% profit. Worse yet he see's this scrounging as "therapy" for the "trauma" he experienced after being caught fiddling the first time around. Like many of our so-called "betters" Lord Hanningfield is a confirmed and serial scrounger who sees fraud as business as normal. That is why Britain is in the state it is - not because of the unemployed, the sick and the disabled as the Tories would have us believe, but because of the crooks, spivs and conmen who form a large proportion of the ruling elite.

Sunday 15 December 2013

What Is Iain Duncan Smith Afraid Of?

The most evil man in British politics seems to be getting a bit scared nowadays. His job, because of his own incompetence, is under threat and Parliament is beginning to ask some very awkward questions about the huge amounts of money he's wasted on his idiotic and insane policies. According to several witnesses, however, IDS's fears now seem to extend to the threat of assassination. On Monday he appeared before the parliamentary Work and Pension’s Committee to explain his many crimes against the people of this country and, it would seem, he was accompanied by several bodyguards including at least four armed with automatic weapons. These weapons, it was said, were raised and pointed at a group of disabled people who were there to give evidence to the committee. It is well known that IDS is evil, arrogant and universally loathed by all civilised people in this country, but is assassination a credible threat? Is it likely that a disabled victim of his vicious and nasty prejudices might rise from his or her wheelchair and smite him to the ground? It is perhaps credible that one of the growing army of unemployed might give it a go or, perhaps, an able-bodied relative of one of the people he's killed with his callous and vicious crusade to reduce his tax bill and stuff his pockets with blood money. The reality, I'm afraid, is that this country's most accomplished and dedicated scrounger is merely demonstrating that he is mentally unstable, driven insane by his own greed probably, and that he is not fit for public office. It's about time this dangerous man was sectioned for his own safety and for the safety for all the vulnerable people in Britain who he seems determined to eradicate.

Cameron: "Bugger It. Let's Just Be Nasty".

In the only honest thing he's done since becoming Prime Minister David Cameron has decided to drop the "Mr.Nice Guy" act and revert to type. He has told the criminal organisation known as the Tory party to forget "blue sky thinking" and concentrate instead on being as nasty as they can. His thinking, if that's what it can be called, is now turning more to defeating UKIP rather than pretending that he runs a decent political party and hopes that being really, really nasty to poor and vulnerable people will give him the edge over the other collection of right-wing swivel-eyes loons who blight our nation. How this will help either himself, his party or the country remains a mystery. His strategy seems to consist of accelerating the destruction of his own country and lying about it while having the sheer nerve to wrap himself in the union flag at the same time. It is an audacious move and one that, with any kind of luck, will consign the Tory party to the dustbin of history. One thing is for sure and that is that the "modernisation" of the Tory party will now consist of a retreat back to 18th century dragging the rest of the country with it in a Gotterdamerung worthy of Adolf Hitler in his Berlin bunker. Knowing beyond all doubt that he cannot win the next election, even with the demise of the Lib Dems and even if he out-polls UKIP, he and his fellow Tory crooks, spivs and conmen are set upon a scorched earth policy that will see so much destruction that nothing of value can be saved by the succeeding Labour administration. It is nihilistic, it is vicious, it is spiteful and it is very, very Tory.

Friday 13 December 2013

So, Who Is Winning The Economic Argument?

I'm no fan of Henry Ford. He was a racist with very definite fascist leanings. However, he had a deep understanding of the capitalist system and knew which side his bread was buttered on. When he set up his motor-manufacturing assembly line he paid his workers $5 per hour - twice the rate of any other manufacturer in the United States - and was at some pains to make his factories safe places to work in. Why would he do this? Surely paying more in wages and investing in safety must have cut into his profits. Well no, his business went on to become one of the largest of its kind in the world. He understood that his workers, with much more disposable income than almost any other worker in the US, would also be his best customers. He made the motor car affordable to ordinary people not only because of his ground-breaking assembly line system of manufacture but also because he paid his workers a living wage. Undoubtedly his accountants, when they saw what he was doing, were horrified. Fast forward nearly one hundred years to a world in which entrepreneurs like Ford have been largely replaced by accountants and financiers. They don't build businesses, they pour over accounts and, unable to summon enough imagination to be creative other than in dodging tax, they think only in terms of cutting overheads. The easiest overhead to cut is wages. That is why Jaguar and Land Rover are booming and small car manufacturers and shrinking. The accountants have now reduced capitalism to the rich selling goods and services only to the rich. Demand is falling across the world and the reason for this is the refusal of the short-sighted, selfish and unsophisticated who think they understand capitalism but, in fact, couldn't find their collective arse with both hands. So who is winning the economic argument? The neoliberals like Cameron and his fellow Eton thickos who have all but destroyed the world economy and are now intent on building the same jerry-built edifice with no foundations? What do you think?

Wednesday 11 December 2013

Cameron Has "Little Black Book" Of Really Nasty Policies.

David Cameron has spoken today of his frustrations at having to govern within a coalition and his hope that, after 2015, he'll be able to be as vicious and nasty as he likes. He has, he maintains, "a little black book" of all the policies that even the two-faced Lib Dems couldn't stomach. Generally these "policies" consist of beating the poor to death with a stick while rewarding the greedy and selfish for outstanding success in being greedy and selfish. "We need to get our economy moving," he told the Spectator Magazine, though he neglected to mention in which direction. One thing he is certain of is that the poor, the elderly, the unemployed and the sick will pay for his "reform" of the British economy while criminal bankers, greedy utility executives and various other hyenas of the business world will be the chief beneficiaries. His short-sighted and insane policies are now being trailed using the usual evasive and misleading language that Tories love so much - "more radical action on welfare reform, Europe, the Human Rights Act and support for enterprise". In other words the disadvantaged will be further disadvantaged while legal barriers that have so far limited Tory viciousness will be removed even as those showing "enterprise", or criminal behaviour as the rest of us would regard it, are to be rewarded yet again. Cameron is not laying out any political manifesto that most people would recognise but a blueprint for a crime spree unparalleled in British history. The Tory party is no longer a political party in the accepted sense, it is now nothing better than an organised crime syndicate and should be regarded as such.

Are You "Stock" Or Simply A Pleb?

To Andrew Mitchell, despite his denials and inability to tell us what he actually said, we are "plebs". The term harks back to archaic Rome where society was divided between patricians and plebeians - the rich and the poor. By classical times the distinction between patrician and plebeian had largely disappeared except in terms of political offices such as Tribune of the Plebs. By the time of Augustus the only distinctions of any real importance was that between ancient families - patrician or plebeian - and "new men" such as Cicero. In fact it only has meaning nowadays because of the so-called "classical education" of our wealthy elite who use the term, quite incorrectly, as a term of abuse about the vast majority of us who are not venal, greedy and selfish enough to amass huge amounts of money. Enter Iain Duncan Smith whose own brand of arrogance is based solely upon his ability to scrounge huge amounts of money from the taxpaying public and relatives of his wife. For him the unemployed and benefit claimants are "stock". Now this is a far more up-to-date term which has it origins in Medieval France. Originally referring to herds of cattle which were known as "stock" it was transferred to business in reference to the residual assets of a business. So the question is, was IDS referring to benefit claimants as cattle or as assets of his DWP business? Certainly he is paid to be a Minister and might regard the DWP as his personal business with benefit claimants as some sort of capital asset that might be turned into profit or at least liquidated for cash. In those terms welfare claimants might well be seen as cattle by a man who likes to regard himself as some sort of country squire. And, as everyone knows, cattle are brainless creatures who need to be herded together until the time comes for them to go to the slaughter house.

Monday 9 December 2013

Iain Duncan Smith: “No one has got hurt and that’s the important point."

Iain Duncan Smith made a grudging confession today that he has written off £34 million of taxpayers money on a botched IT system that everyone warned him wouldn't work. Tech journalists working for "Computer Weekly" were less forgiving and predicted that most if not all of the £303 so far invested in the project will be lost. Meanwhile ATOS has been exposed as a target-driven bunch of amateurs who have deliberately targeted the most vulnerable in society in order to deliver the "savings" that IDS has demanded of them. Thousands of sick, disabled and terminally ill people have been left destitute while many have died still fighting to have reinstated the benefits wrongfully taken from them so that the Tories could fund tax breaks for their rich mates. Yesterday Kent County Council produced a report that crime, homelessness and hunger were all on the rise in the most prosperous area of the country and directly blamed Duncan Smith's policies. The only thing that was declining was income it added. The report was promptly suppressed by Paul Carter the Tory leader of the council. While children are literally starving in this country, sick people are being told to take jobs that don't exist and pensioners are afraid to turn on the heating, Iain Duncan Smith could only claim that; “No one has got hurt and that’s the important point." No one except the sick, the disabled, the unemployed, the elderly and the taxpayer. In other words no one of any importance to a Tory party that has shot past "nasty" and gone directly to "murderous."

Sunday 8 December 2013

Neil Kinnock Predicted The Future In 1983

"If Margaret Thatcher is re-elected as prime minister on Thursday, I warn you. I warn you that you will have pain–when healing and relief depend upon payment. I warn you that you will have ignorance–when talents are untended and wits are wasted, when learning is a privilege and not a right. I warn you that you will have poverty–when pensions slip and benefits are whittled away by a government that won’t pay in an economy that can’t pay. I warn you that you will be cold–when fuel charges are used as a tax system that the rich don’t notice and the poor can’t afford. I warn you that you must not expect work–when many cannot spend, more will not be able to earn. When they don’t earn, they don’t spend. When they don’t spend, work dies. I warn you not to go into the streets alone after dark or into the streets in large crowds of protest in the light. I warn you that you will be quiet–when the curfew of fear and the gibbet of unemployment make you obedient. I warn you that you will have defence of a sort–with a risk and at a price that passes all understanding. I warn you that you will be home-bound–when fares and transport bills kill leisure and lock you up. I warn you that you will borrow less–when credit, loans, mortgages and easy payments are refused to people on your melting income. If Margaret Thatcher wins on Thursday– - I warn you not to be ordinary - I warn you not to be young - I warn you not to fall ill - I warn you not to get old." Now the Tories are trying to warn us that Ed Miliband is just another Neil Kinnock. Personally I think we could do with more men like him.

Saturday 7 December 2013

Are The Tories Single-Minded, In Two Minds, Or Just Out Of Their Minds?

The Tory spin doctors are out in force at the moment rotating like swirling Dervishes as they try to make sense out of their policies. After deliberately re-inflating the property bubble to try and get the moribund British economy at least to appear as if it is still breathing, George Osborne has been declaring to anyone stupid enough to listen that the "recovery" is "well-balanced and solidly based." What he appears to mean is that it is well-balanced between private debt, the national debt, imaginary house prices and consumer spending inspired by low interest rates that discourage saving. One thing is for sure and that is the Institute for Fiscal Studies has found that Osborne's bizarre claim that "living standards are rising" is utter bilge. Meanwhile David Cameron is busily engaged jumping on the "Nelson Mandela was a God" bandwagon even as Norman Tebbitt reminded us all that Margaret Thatcher was "quite right to regard Mandela as a terrorist" and right to completely ignore the anti-Apartheid movement. Then there is the very quietly announced reversal of policy regarding defence procurement which, it would seem, will not be privatised after all. This follows on the from the abandonment of plans to privatise the prison service after it was discovered that G4S and Serco are simply too crooked to look after fellow criminals. Yet, while private industry is not good enough to protect the Tories against the criminal classes or against foreign enemies, they remain perfectly good enough to fleece the rest of us as far as energy and transport costs are concerned. The problem seems to be that Tory ideology keeps butting up against the real world which remains stubbornly indifferent to its idiotic and destructive beliefs.

Thursday 5 December 2013

Is Osborne "Finishing The Job" Or Just Finishing The Country?

George Osborne's Autumn Statement today is being billed as a blueprint for how he intends to "finish the job." Churchillian phraseology aside, essentially it was a road map laying out the route from the early 21st century back to the mid 19th where the Tories would like the country to be. The welfare state will be largely phased out while retirement age, for ordinary people at least, will eventually rise to 70. The message is clear - work for less money, work with fewer rights and work until you drop. His excuse for this is that Britain can no longer afford the luxury of running its affairs in the interests of its own people but must be changed to make it more amenable for the wealthy off-shore account holding elite who pretend to live in various tax havens across the world. If Osborne succeeds in his crusade to save the rich they will soon no longer need to park their money abroad or even pretend to live in Belize since they will no longer have to pay any tax at all in Britain itself. That is what Osborne means by "finishing the job." What he actually means is finishing the country as we've known it and replacing it with a Tory dystopia safe for bankers and already wealthy scroungers, like himself, to live in. This is not an economic blueprint intended to sketch out Britain's road to recovery, it is a battle plan and ordinary British citizens are the designated enemy. Eternal austerity, the wet dream of the Tory party, is not a road to recovery, it is the road to a desperate, sterile and stagnant future for the vast majority of us.

Wednesday 4 December 2013

Iceland Gives Home Owners £24,000 Boost.

The International Monetary Fund (IMF) is up in arms over Iceland's decision to give every person with a mortgage in their country £24,000 in debt relief. Standard & Poor, however, have actually upgraded Iceland's credit-rating. Of course the IMF, despite their claim of promoting "global economic growth and stability, and raise living standards and employment", are only interested in keeping the world safe for bankers, whereas Standard & Poor simply report on what they see. The American CIA would seem to agree with Standard & Poor, pointing out in their report on Iceland that the country had completely reversed by 2012 the shrinkage of its economy after the banking crisis of 2008, while cutting unemployment by half during the same period. As an aside the CIA also mentions the fact that Iceland, formally negotiating entry into the EU, has now decided not to join because of that organisation's "economic instability". Iceland's policy compares favourably with Britain which has been down-graded by Standard & Poor and where the only real growth industry is in food banks for the increasing number of poor people who can no longer afford even the most basic needs. The report of the CIA with regard to Britain in 2012 makes for sober reading; "weak consumer spending and subdued business investment weighed on the economy. GDP fell 0.1%, and the budget deficit remained stubbornly high at 7.7% of GDP. Public debt continued to increase." The message is clear - strip out all the Tory ideological claptrap and the pro-banking propaganda and the comparison between Britain and Iceland couldn't be more stark. Iceland, after prosecuting it's bankers and politicians, is recovering strongly whereas Britain, still in thrall to the bankers and their corrupt political allies, is still bumping along the bottom.

Monday 2 December 2013

What Can Britain Afford?

We can afford £50 or £60 billion to build a high speed railway so that the rich can get to Birmingham 20 minutes earlier, we can afford to subsidise the investments of MP's in the lucrative London property market, we can afford loopholes that bleed off billions in tax avoidance for the rich, we can afford tax cuts for the super-wealthy, we can afford to subsidise wind farms for wealthy landowners, we can afford to bail out criminal bankers and we can afford billions in foreign aid so that our politicians can swank about the world pretending to be important. But, as George Osborne explained today in full smug, self-satisfied mode, we can't afford the welfare state. When all the ideology and greedy self-interest is stripped out what Osborne said today in the Telegraph is that ordinary people count for nothing and the entire country should be run exclusively in the interests of people like George Osborne. This has come about, he forgot to mention, because the rich, smug and self-satisfied have all but wrecked the world economy to slake their insatiable greed. But greed is good and, therefore, there should be more of it not less. So it is the poor, the vulnerable, the sick, the disabled and the unemployed who must now pay the price for the neoliberal economic insanity and not the greedy, the self-interested and the criminal. It is the typical Tory message - in a time of famine the rich must be feed ever bigger meals on the basis that they will leave more crumbs for the rest of us. The truth is that what Britain can't afford are the bone idle wealthy scroungers who avoid paying tax like the plague and seem to believe that corruption is a viable political philosophy. What Britain can't afford is the Tory party.

Sunday 1 December 2013

Know Your Political Masters.

George Osborne appeared on the Andrew Marr Show today to tell us all why his manufactured house price bubble is not a bubble, why energy prices can't be frozen while pensioners can and why austerity has to last for ever. It's all because his "recovery" is dependent on these things while Labour threatens this because they want to borrow more. Apart from an unintentional slip when he admitted that the crash of 2008 was the fault of the banks and not Labour, it was a strange argument since he was telling us on one hand that the "recovery" was only for a selected segment of the country since it is austerity forever for the rest of us. His economic measures, he tells us with a straight face, have protected our credit rating and this has enabled his to borrow more in the last three years than Labour did in the entire thirteen years of their government. So, it is clear that borrowing to benefit the already wealthy is good while borrowing to benefit ordinary people is bad. As for the latest Osborne-created property price bubble the explanation for that is, mercifully, quite straightforward. Increasing house values is counted as part of Britain's Gross National Product and underpins Osborne's so-called "recovery". Of course houses haven't suddenly become more productive and begun to earn more because they are working harder. Their increasing value is pure fiction and that tells you everything you need to know about Osborne's "recovery." So, when you strip out the utter bilge, evasions and downright lies what is Osborne and his "recovery" all about? The clue lies in those who bankroll the Tory party, the men whose "donations" are the grease that keeps the Tory wheels turning and the men who call the shots. Men like David Rowland, the property tycoon; Michael Farmer, hedge fund manager; Henry Angest, banker; Michael Hintze; hedge fund manager; Murdoch McLennan, Chief Executive of the Telegraph Media Group. Bankers, financiers, property developers and the right-wing media. And that is why Tory policy is austerity for us forever and unlimited goodies for an already wealthy elite whose chief talent lies in "avoiding" tax. Just so you know who to tug the forelock for.

Saturday 30 November 2013

Rewarding And Repeating Failure - The Tory Way.

Now let's get this straight once and for all. The crash in 2008 was the result of three decades of the banks lying, cheating and inflating a property bubble that they knew would one day pop. They did it deliberately and without any regard for the consequences as each individual working in the sector calculated that they could enrich themselves before the whole thing went tits up. It was a criminal enterprise pure and simple and, under normal circumstances, would have led to wholesale arrests for corruption and lengthy prison sentences. That it didn't is due entirely to the fact that our politicians were complicit in the crime and had often directly benefitted from it. So the banks were saved from facing the music using money stolen from ordinary people, with money in other words lifted from the victims of the crime. The Labour party, like political parties across the globe, had gone along with the neoliberal crime spree because they were convinced that the likes of Margaret Thatcher and other supposed miracle workers had won the economic argument. But it was all a colossal confidence trick, a means for those driven insane by greed to steal as much as they could. When the crisis hit in 2008 Britain, like many other countries, appeared to be doing well with a healthy economy and enough cash to be generous to its own citizens. When the crisis hit politicians across the world were caught completely by surprise because, by and large and despite many warnings, they had been too stupid or too wilfully blind to see what had been going on. Finally revealed for the crooks that they were the banks did the only thing they could - they put a pistol to their own heads and told the rest of us, "Stop, or I shoot." So our politicians rescued the banks believing they had no choice if they were to avoid a global financial meltdown. All this is known but the question remains, what has been learned. Nothing apparently, at least by the Tory party which has gone to great lengths this week to defend the idea that greed is good and that the neoliberal economic mumbo-jumbo is still the only way. Worse yet it has been revealed that, since 2008, pay for bankers has risen by 35%. The criminals then are still in charge and are being aided and abetted by that criminal organisation known as the Tory party. The price for all this is the shameful rise in the numbers of ordinary people having to rely on food banks, less and less security for ordinary working people, the theft and sale at knock-down prices of publicly owned assets and the wholesale murder - there can be no other word for it - of pensioners as they succumb to the cold unable to afford winter heating bills. Voting Tory kills and guarantees nothing better than worse to come as they and their rich pals grab all the lifeboats and leave the rest of us thrashing about in the ice cold water.

Thursday 28 November 2013

Is Boris Johnson The Most Odious Buffoon On The Planet?

The annual Margaret Thatcher lecture has long been the venue for the swivel-eyed loony right to express their most outrageous and idiotic ideas. This year it was delivered by Boris Johnson who took the opportunity not only to show how stupid he and his fellow Tories are but also to demonstrate how odious they can be. Declaring that envy and greed were the only foundations for economic expansion, he went on to tell his appreciative audience that the poor were poor because they are too stupid to be anything else. Apart from displaying a complete ignorance of how capitalism works by misunderstanding the concept of demand, Boris also managed to completely forget that most rich people are rich not because of their outstanding intelligence but because most of them inherited their money. Boris himself is an outstanding example of this since it is quite unlikely he would amount to a row of beans without his inherited money and his access to the privileges that this has bought him. Under normal circumstances he would be regarded as an ignorant buffoon. As a major player in the Tory party, however, he ceases to be a harmless idiot and is transformed into an evil clown. This is what the Tory party does - it elevates the moronic to positions of influence simply because they have money and turns their most idiotic ideas and basest prejudices into policy. By these means they destroy our society, undermine our most successful institutions, wreck our future and reduce the vast majority of us to the level of serfs. They are a shameful blight on this country, a drain on our economy that we can no longer afford and represent a streak of lunacy amongst us that harms the very vitality of the country. It is time for us to be rid of them.

Tuesday 26 November 2013

Voting Tory Kills.

Since the Coalition government came to power three years ago the number of elderly people admitted to hospital suffering from hyperthermia has risen by a staggering 40%. This shameful statistic starkly demonstrates the level of sheer barbarity to which Britain has sunk since the Tories seized power by the back door in 2010. The poor, especially the elderly poor, are the hapless victims not only of rapacious and greedy energy companies who are quite willing to kill for profits but also of a government policy of austerity designed to save criminal bankers and the property values of the rich. There can be no doubt that the Tories are deliberately sacrificing people on the altar of their all-consuming greed and have elevated selfishness to the level of a political philosophy. The government, far from being ashamed of themselves, continue to preach austerity for us and unlimited riches for themselves as if this represents a force of nature instead of a deliberate and calculated act of barbarism. Worse yet they have noted the profits made by their unscrupulous pals in the banks, payday loan and energy companies and have devised ways to rake in the cash themselves. No longer satisfied with relying on the bribes they receive from big business and which they smugly describe as "donations" or the juicy tax cuts they have allowed themselves, they have decided to steal from the poor by more direct means. Iain Duncan Smith - who else? - has installed 0845 premium rate phone lines at the DWP so that those applying for crisis loans, maternity allowance, benefits and help finding work have to pay through the nose for help from this shameless and greedy government. In one of the most shocking instances of the DWP deliberately ripping off the public, more than 150,000 people alone were charged a top rate to ring the DWP's Bereavement Benefit number. What kind of government is it that allows elderly pensioners to die unnecessarily and deliberately steals from the poor, the vulnerable and the bereaved? A Tory government that's who.

Monday 25 November 2013

Is Truth Finally Catching Up With The Finance Industry?

There are encouraging signs that, despite the Tory party's best efforts, the finance industry is gradually cleaning up its act after 30 years of running riot. George Osborne has told us that, in the wake of public disgust for loan shark companies such as Wonga, he will legislate to cap the eye-watering rates they charge to desperate poor people. Of course he hasn't even suggested what that cap will be since he fears that Wonga and other criminal organisations might cap their "donations" to the Tories in return. In fact Osborne's initiative has all the hallmarks of being window-dressing with lots of warm fuzzy words and very little in the way of actual cold prickly measures. Stand by for the Tory's favourite "voluntary code of conduct" confidence trick. It has also been revealed that RBS has been operating a scam that would make the Mafia blush. They have been in the habit of moving perfectly good viable businesses into remedial measures in order to bankrupt them, purchase their assets at knock down prices and then flog them off at a profit. Essentially they have been mugging small businesses in much the same way as they have been mugging the public for the last three decades of the neoliberal economic "experiment". Stand by for yet another raft of banking executives resigning and walking off with lottery-sized pay-offs as they weep all the way to their offshore banking accounts. Who says that crime doesn't pay?

Sunday 24 November 2013

Tory Evil Continues To Fester.

The Tories have certainly pulled out all the stops to retoxify their brand this week. Not that Cameron's much vaunted "detoxification" ever amounted to much more than telling outright lies, twisting facts and smiling as they wielded the axe. They seem to have given up the hopeless struggle of persuading us that they're not the nasty, greedy, vicious bunch of crooks we know they are and have, instead, tried to smear Labour over the Co-Op Bank/Paul Flowers scandal. Yet even this is backfiring as it has been revealed that George Osborne deliberately blocked "health checks" of the banking sector to weed out rogue executives. The reason for this is not hard to understand - the Tories were protecting their criminal allies in the finance industry who bankroll their corrupt political machine. Meanwhile, Iain Duncan Smith stepped up his pogrom against the sick and disabled by targeting the benefits paid to those so seriously ill that no real human being would expect them to work. Having cancer, apparently, is now no longer sufficient excuse for not working and enjoying the film star lifestyle available on benefits. Having secured their income and persecuting the sick so they can reduce their tax liability, the Tories turned to their next money-making scheme. This involves selling off your health records, supposedly protected under data protection legislation, to their mates in the private healthcare racket. They are able to do this, they smugly informed us, because "technically, medical records are owned by the secretary of state for health". In other words they are "technically" owned by Jeremy Hunt, the Tory party's most successful slime on the top of the pond. They seem to forget that, technically, they work for us and are little more than the hired help on a par with all those other public sector workers they hate so much.

Friday 22 November 2013

Serco And G4S Too Crooked Even For The Tories.

The Tory party has had to shelve its plans to privatise the prison service because the two preferred companies for the lucrative million pound deals are too bent to take them up. Both Serco and G4S - (you remember G4S, the company that failed to fulfil its contract to provide security at the Olympics but was paid out of taxpayers money anyway) - are being investigated by the Serious Fraud Office because they've been committing some pretty serious frauds. Apparently they've been charging us, the taxpayer, for tagging criminals who were dead, already in prison or never actually existed at all. Even the Tories would have a hard time explaining why they would shovel taxpayers money into the pockets of a bunch of crooks - well, more taxpayers money that is. We asked a party spokesman for the Tory view of all this; "This is absolutely scandalous," the spokesman told us. "Why, because the two companies are so corrupt?" our reporter asked. "No, because the silly arses were found out so easily. We simply cannot be seen to be dealing with such incompetents. Failing to fulfil a contract but being paid anyway is one thing, but getting caught deliberately defrauding the public purse is another. How many times must we tell these people, if you're going to be as corrupt as we want you to be then at least be clever enough to hide it from the plebs. They should have asked for out advice - we've been pulling the wool over the eyes of the electorate for over 100 years. I suppose now we'll just have to privatise something else."

Wednesday 20 November 2013

Tories Plan To Disguise Themselves.

The Tories, worried by the fact that no sane person will vote for them in 2015, have come up with a cunning plan to fool us all into supporting them without realising it. They plan to set up a bogus party, perhaps called "The National Liberal Party", and hope that none of us will realise that it is just a front for the greedy and selfish, neoliberal and insane right. "It's either that," a Tory spokesman told our reporter, "or not allow northerners to vote next time around. To be honest we can't make up our mind which way to go. A bogus liberal party has its advantages since it might persuade Johnny Foreigner that Britain is still a democracy, but disenfranchising the north would be far more effective. Plus, we've enjoyed tearing away the mask since we won the last general election in a landslide and would like to continue being openly nasty. It's wonderfully liberating to be able to treat most of Britain like the bunch of feckless peasants we believe them to be. Most of us are sick of having to explain ourselves to those too thick to realise that there is no alternative to our safeguarding our wealth at their expense. But, on the other hand, we Tories do have some genuinely liberal ideas such as flogging disabled people with a birch rod, sending the unemployed to gulags in the Outer Hebrides and turning the NHS into death camps for the elderly."

Tuesday 19 November 2013

Tories Set Out Their Stall For The Next General Election.

Elated by the most recent polls that they are now less popular than a dose of the clap, the Tory party has begun to set out its stall for the next general election. Building on such wildly popular policies as abusing disabled people in the streets, forcing the unemployed into slave labour, increasing the number of homeless people and murdering pensions by freezing them to death, they now propose that we should all pay just to see a doctor, that we should pay a hotel fee for staying in hospital and vat should be placed on food and children's clothing. As tax dodging by large corporations has soared to seven times the entire budget for unemployment benefits, these policies they feel will galvanise the British electorate into supporting the cause of unending austerity for everyone except the already wealthy. We asked a Tory party spokesman if they had gone collectively insane; "Insane? Us? Certainly not. We have talked to ourselves quite extensively about these policies and have come to the conclusion that they will be outstandingly popular. Ian Duncan Smith, the most popular politician this country has ever seen, has assured the party that his figures conclusively prove that we have never had more support amongst the peasantry. The electorate simply cannot wait to sacrifice their future, as well as that of their children and grandchildren, just to make sure that we remain to smug, self-satisfied bunch of posh boys that the they love so much. Such patriotism gives one a warm glow all over and brings a tear to the eye. The Blessed Margaret would be so proud!"

Monday 18 November 2013

Tories Take Yet Another Step Beyond.

The Tories officially detached themselves from reality today and took what can only be considered as a spin around cloud-cuckoo land. First on the blocks for a sprint into Lalaland was Boris Johnson who demanded that people should stop "bashing" the super-rich and then compared them to an oppressed minority like the homeless, Irish travellers and ex-offenders. The super-rich, he claimed, should have our "humble and hearty thanks". Unfortunately he was completely at a loss to explain why we should all be so grateful to people who steal our money, refuse to pay their fair share of taxes and seem to believe that bribing Tory politicians is a form of democracy. After this spirited defence of Tory values, or crimes as the rest of us would understand it, David Skelton writing in the Guardian seriously argued that the Tories are actually the party of the working class. The party should, he suggested, "make it part of their core message that their reforms are explicitly designed to help the poorest." How they could possibly do this while simultaneously persecuting the unemployed, the poor, the disabled and the sick remains unexplained. Better yet, he went on, they "should be seen as the party of housebuilding, tackling the housing crisis head on." Finally, he said without a trace of irony, the Tories should be "helping the low paid and standing up for working people." In other words, he seemed to say, the Tories should become the Labour party. One is tempted to ask what drugs Skelton is on but the truth is that, like most Tories, he is mainlining on delusion.

Sunday 17 November 2013

Union Accused Of Intimidation By Leaflet.

It was Francis Maud's turn today to slither around the TV studious and push the party line. While energy companies, payday loan companies and the banks regularly hold the public to ransom, the Tories are outraged by Union tactics at Grangemouth. The Unite Union was, of course, doing what it was supposed to do - protecting its members pay and conditions - but the Tories have accused them of using intimidation. This apparently consisted of union officials handing leaflets to managers and their families. "This is very serious," Francis Maud told the BBC, "and calls for public floggings and life sentences for evil union members who seen to think that they have a right to put their side of the argument. It's despicable and we are contemplating a new offense of "Aggressive Argument". This forms part of our long-term plan to ensure Britain remains a low wage economy and to secure an economic recovery for hard-working millionaires like myself. We believe that unions have a right to exist but feel that they should be part of consensual partnership in which management does as it likes and the unions do as they are bloody well told. I remain confident that, once we return the country to the paradise that was the early 19th century, then everything will be fine. You know, the rich man in his castle, the poor man at his gate, that sort of thing." We had hoped to speak to Unite union officials but our reporter was warned that we might then fall foul of the "Listening to both sides of the argument" laws which will outlaw any view that contradicts the government and which the Tories hope to make retroactive. "This is part of our legitimate efforts to change history," Maud explain, "together with the recent purge of everything any Tory has said, promised or lied about since the reign of Henry VIII".

Saturday 16 November 2013

Cameron Voices Horsemeat Concern.

David Cameron voiced his worries today that consumers might follow Princess Anne's advice and start eating horsemeat. "It's very worrying," he told our reporter. "I have almost no money invested in horseflesh and I consider Princess Anne's intervention a gross breach of competition laws. I must also add that the thought of poor horses being sold for meat is quite distressing. If we're not careful some of the hoi polloi might end up with real food and that will never do. My God they'll be eating beef, lamb and pork next. Worse yet the habit might spread to the upper classes and turn them all French! We, the upper classes that is - not the plebs obviously, are British after all and should avoid compromising our stiff upper lips by consuming evil foreign dishes. Much more of this continental nonsense and I'll call for a referendum on our EU membership - probably." We sought the opinion of the Tory party as a whole and was told by a spokesman; "The Tory party does not eat foxes, hunting hounds or horses". We asked Princess Anne is she would like to rebut the Prime Minister's view, but all she said was "Neigh".

Cameron And Hunt - Still Ducking And Diving.

Part-time PM David Cameron and the loathsome Jeremy Hunt have been giving a master class this week in the art of ducking and diving. "Call me Dave" was first up with his threadbare explanation for attending the Commonwealth Conference in Sri Lanka despite that country's dubious human rights record. Distracted from his busy round of flogging arms to various Sri Lankan government gangsters, Dave took time off to carefully explain why his presence at the Conference was all Labour's fault. "Ed Miliband, who as everyone knows was Prime Minister at the time, agreed in 2009 that the conference should be held in Sri Lanka despite the fact that his crystal ball was telling him that the government there would soon be guilty of human rights abuses. This left me with no choice but to attend the meeting since it was pencilled into my diary and my bags were already packed. I feel that, with good will on both sides and with the new guns I've just flogged to the Sri Lankan authorities, the problem will soon be resolved as the hard-working government finally gets rid of all the scrounging shirkers in the Tamil community." Meanwhile, back in Britain now officially renamed "Tory World", "Jeremy stop calling me C**t" has called for negligent doctors and nurses to be jailed for up to five years in order to cover up his own record of neglect and mistreatment of the NHS. While A&E departments continue to close for the winter and the incidence of postponed operations increased by 40%, Mr.Hunt felt he had no choice but to use the time-honoured Tory tactic of blaming the victims. "Despite all our efforts to persuade them otherwise," Hunt told the BBC, "doctors and nurses in the NHS still continue to deliberately kill patients for fun. If I could fully privatise healthcare in Britain then, of course, all these problems would vanish overnight. Doctors and nurses would then act in accordance with their oath to do no harm because they would be guided by the higher morality of the market place. I have to add, however, that the real problem with the NHS is all those selfish pensioners who resolutely refuse to die quietly so I can reduce my tax bill."

Friday 15 November 2013

Tories Extend Principle Of Killing People For Money.

Having established the principle of forcing the disabled and unemployed into destitution to aid criminal bankers and killing pensioners to aid greedy energy companies, the Tories have now extended the principle of the euthanasia of plebs to the NHS. Our healthcare is now, in all but name, fully privatised and is now subject to competition law - the charter that allows greedy executives to ignore competition so they can fill both their pockets and the pockets of their shareholders. The NHS is now obliged to spend millions on competition lawyers to avoid being sued by the Competition Commission and avoid litigation by the corporate bloodsuckers who are also the recipients of lucrative contracts forced on the NHS by this so-called government. Two NHS hospital trusts in Bristol have already been stopped from rolling out a unified cancer pathway to save lives in order to follow the rules of competition. Meanwhile the wage bill for top NHS executives has exploded since the Tories got their snouts in the trough even as ordinary health workers have seen their wages frozen and their increments have come under threat. Essentially the NHS has been turned into a three-ringed circus in which the corporate clowns are the main beneficiaries. The Tories, having starved the NHS of funds and thrown it to the wolves, is now pointing the finger at failing A&E departments and trust managers desperately trying to hide the truth from the public and bellowing "See, we told you it needed reform." But make no mistake this is murder for money masquerading under an all too convenient ideological commitment to the "market place." Far from creating a new "market place" for healthcare the Tories have created their own version of Pol Pot's killing fields complete with a nice new shiny price tag.

Monday 11 November 2013

Halls Of Residence For MP's? Not Likely!

Every now and again a politician comes up with a good idea that is designed to make his fellow politicians more honest. Such politicians usually end up being buried under an avalanche of special pleading and, "Ah yes, but....." Today Chris Williamson, Labour MP for Derby North and Shadow Minister for Communities and Local Government, suggested that MP's should live in halls of residence like students to put an end to them speculating on the London property market and using taxpayers money to make huge profits for themselves. "There is a block of flats opposite the House of Commons," he then pointed out. His suggestion has been largely ignored by other MP's, presumably because they hope the idea will quietly go away, but one couldn't resist putting her head above the parapet. Dame Margaret Beckett, a fellow Labour MP for Derby North, immediately told us that the block of flats referred to by Chris Williamson did not exist. "You would have to build one," she claimed, and added; "Prices are enormous in London so I don’t think it would work out cheaper. Also, there is no space around Westminster so you would have to build it further away and then MPs will be incurring travel costs." Even worse, she continued; "MPs are not students – many have families and need more room. One of the things we’re starting to see is fewer women and fewer people with families wanting to become an MP. If you put MPs all together in a block of flats that trend will get worse, not better.” Oh dear! Still she failed to address the central question which is why should the taxpayer fund speculation on the London property market by MP's who then pocket the profits? Nothing to do with the fact that Dame Maggie claimed £72,537 between 2004 and 2008 on a house in her own constituency that was already paid for and had no mortgage on it whatsoever while she stayed in a grace and favour flat in London, courtesy of the taxpayer, and rented out her own flat then?

Sunday 10 November 2013

Full Steam Ahead On Planet Tory.

Every Prime Minister has a good week now and again and this has certainly been one of David Cameron's best so far. His programme to demolish three-bedroomed houses in Britain is going well as the bedroom tax makes them unaffordable for most ordinary people, the pay of so-called "super managers" in the NHS has shot up despite a 1% pay freeze for everyone else and Tory MP Nadhim Zahawi has agreed to pay back the money he claimed for heating his stables. All this was marred only by Jeremy Paxman finally noticing what many of us have known all along - that David Cameron is a really nasty piece of work. Paxman's epiphany came about because of Cameron's plan to celebrate the outbreak of World War I. "What kind of idiot would celebrate the outbreak of a war that saw the slaughter of an entire generation of young British men?" Paxman asked. The News in Shorts might understand celebrating the 100th anniversary of the end of World War I which, of course, would occur in 2018. And that's the problem as far as Cameron is concerned. By 2018, if there's any justice, Cameron will be out of office and be languishing on the Tory back benches listening to the latest swivel-eyed loon to lead the Tory party in opposition. He needs a celebration in the run up to the general election of 2015 that will create a "feel good factor" and, hopefully, give him a majority in Parliament so he can carry on persecuting the unemployed, sick and disabled. Unfortunately the only one he can find is the one that celebrates the mass murder that occurred after August 1914 during which people like him shoved people like us "over the top" to die in our millions in no-mans land. Enter the Tory spin doctors determined to make a calamity for this country into a jamboree for those right-wingers who think that the wholesale slaughter or working-class people is a really, really good idea and an excuse for "a jolly good party." So is Cameron really an idiot? No, just another cold and calculating leader of the nasty party determined, if he gets the opportunity, to be even nastier after the general election in 2015.

Saturday 9 November 2013

Iain Duncan Smith: The Smeagol Of British Politics.

Iain Duncan Smith, pictured above in characteristic pose, has been many things in his life - a benefit cheat, a liar, a failed leader of the Tory party and now a failed minister. This week his cherished policy of creating a single benefit designed to make it easier to force the unemployed, disabled and sick into complete destitution has crashed to the ground with a price tag of £425 million. The Parliamentary Accounts Committee has now issued a report that details the extent of his utter failure. The Department of Work and Pensions stands revealed as lacking in leadership, in which bad news and contrary evidence are routinely ignored and in which bullying is regarded as a legitimate management technique. This is hardly surprising since IDS himself has no leadership skills whatsoever, his only response to evidence proving him wrong is "I have a belief I am right," and who has demanded that MP's pin the failure of his policy on his permanent secretary, Robert Devereux. In many ways he bears a striking resemblance to Tolkien's creation Sméagol or Gollum as he is also called. A sneaky creature filled with resentment for his own failures, Sméagol is locked into a monomaniac search for his "precious" - the ring of power. IDS is similarly locked into a monomaniac search for power, jealously having to stand to one side as Cameron wields the power IDS feels should be his. Sméagol's catch phrases are tailor-made for IDS, "What's it got in it's pocketses?"; "We wants it. We needs it."; "You don't have any friends; nobody likes you"; "Come on Hobbits. Long ways to go yet. Smeagol will show the way"; "They do not see what lies ahead, when Sun has faded and Moon is dead". Uncanny isn't it?

Thursday 7 November 2013

Political Corruption And The Art Of Coalition Government.

Tory MP Brian Binley has been boasting about political corruption in Britain while on a taxpayer paid junket to Malta. Gleefully describing himself as a "political hanger on" Binley told the Bank of Valetta that he will push their interests in Britain confident of success because British politicians "are totally corrupt." In the meantime Nick Clegg was happy to defend MP's claiming the energy bills for their second homes on the basis that the cost of living was increasing while he and his wife both has "jobs" and, therefore, deserved the money because they are "hard-working." The arrogance and sense of entitlement displayed by these two corrupt, self-serving and greedy politicians amply demonstrates the extent of the political corruption in Britain. Our politicians are now so corrupt that they don't even understand what the word means any more. They honestly believe that they are entitled to unlimited access to public funds simply because they are "important" public figures. They can't even be sacked for a total and unmitigated failure to do their jobs as Iain Duncan Smith's less than glittering career as the Work and Pension Secretary demonstrates quite clearly. Having totally wasted £140 million on a useless IT system, wasted even more millions on a mandatory work scheme that has proved less successful than doing nothing and pushed hundreds of thousands of people into utter destitution, David Cameron is still insisting that IDS is "doing exactly the right thing". The corruption is now so pronounced and the government so inept that PricewaterhouseCoopers (PcW) is warning that austerity in Britain will have to last until at least 2030 and that the electorate will just have to get used to a standard of living not experienced since the 1950's. Punished because the banks were run by criminals, we are now being punished so that politicians can keep the gravy train moving and to provide the "savings" necessary to fund their tax cuts.

Sunday 3 November 2013

Tories Plot To Steal State Pensions.

While millionaire Tory MP's are claiming over £5,000 a year on expenses to pay the energy bills on their second homes George Osborne's favourite right-wing think tank, the Policy Exchange, is plotting to steal our state pension. They are trying to defend this by pretending that the state pension is a benefit. It is not - we pay for it throughout our entire working lives and are lucky if we live long enough to get back even a small portion of what we've paid in. The real reason for this move is that Tories don't like paying tax and are willing to pauperise or even kill as many ordinary people as it takes to get what they want. Having taken our money they now want to divert it to fund even more tax cuts for themselves. Not content with fraud they are now willing to contemplate outright theft, not content with pauperising ordinary people they now want us destitute. They have declared war on their own citizens - the people they are supposedly paid to protect. They can, therefore, no longer be regarded as a political party but must now be seen for what they are - a criminal organisation dedicated to greed and utter selfishness. The Tories seem to want to take the gloves off. Let them do so and then we, the electorate, can give them such a kicking at the next general election in 2015 that they will never recover. They need to be smashed so completely that they will never again rise to threaten this country with their own brand of state terrorism.

Recovery? What Recovery?

George Osborne would like us all to believe that we are out of recession and that he has the figures that prove it. Yet, despite his apparent confidence, the recovery is not obvious to most of us and that includes the head of the CBI, John Cridland pictured above. He thinks that British business is in such a parlous state that workers should accept lower wages and tax payers should even pay their employee's energy bills. Yet he also claims, to try and persuade us all to vote Tory again apparently, that there is a recovery underway and business confidence is growing. How does this square with the rest of us feeling no benefit whatsoever while business, known to be cash rich, is avoiding investment like the plague because of uncertainty? The News in Shorts has talked about the new "heads we win, tails you lose" capitalism before but John Cridland seems to want to take it to an unprecedented level. He believes that we all have no choice but to accept higher prices and lower wages while he gets a tax cut and the taxpayer pays his bills. Who does he think he is, a Tory MP? Meanwhile Ed Miliband feels he has no alternative but to try and bribe business with yet another tax cut to persuade them to pay living wages. Why do businessmen, who should know that higher wages leads to greater demand, have to be bribed to do the right thing? We know that business executives are pathologically greedy but do they also have to be so unutterably stupid? Is greed and stupidity the only qualifications needed to become a business leader? Apparently so if John Cridland is a typical example. Yet the answer is quite simple. If business leaders are so utterly useless and find that they lack the ability to do the job they are so grossly overpaid for then their businesses should be taken into public ownership and they should be given jobs more commensurate with their limited abilities - stacking shelves at Tesco for instance.

Iain Duncan Smith: The Face Of Modern Toryism.

"He will claim divine authority as he works all kinds of counterfeit miracles and signs while doing all kinds of evil." I am not religious, in fact I am opposed to all forms of organised religion, but this description of the Antichrist makes you think. The only question is does Iain Duncan Smith know his Bible as much as he'd like us to believe? He certainly likes to claim divine authority, happily telling us that if he believes something then it must be true. His "solutions" to problems that only have reality in his imagination could be seen as "counterfeit miracles" and he is certainly "doing all kinds of evil." In truth he is simply a delusional oaf, a serial liar and an incompetent. That he could obtain a position of power in Britain tells the electorate everything they need to know about the modern Tory party - which is little more than a ragbag of would-be petty dictators and a bunch of frustrated fascists for the modern age. As Ed Miliband told us so tellingly; "Britain is better than this." I'd like to think that is true. I'd also like to think that we have progressed enough at the beginning of the 21st century to finally put the Tories behind us once and for all. They once represented the spirit of the age - the 19th century with all its brutal and primitive disregard for ordinary working people and its condescending attitude to the rest of the world. That age is long past as is the Tory party's place in modern British politics. Surely we should have outgrown them by now?

Saturday 2 November 2013

Fraud Is The New Harmless Hobby.

Welcome to Britain in the 21st century - a country where it is perfectly legal to lie, cheat and steal as long as you are rich and powerful. This new "morality" has now infected every aspect of business, politics and the press. The finance industry can happily manipulate the markets, deliberately sell products they know will bankrupt their customers, charge interest rates that are nothing short of immoral and avoid paying tax with total immunity. Politicians take backhanders that are euphemistically called "donations", routinely twist the facts to suit themselves, regard the electorate as little better than potential marks for their latest confidence tricks, fraudulently pad their expense accounts and kill people so they can cut their own tax liabilities. Yet few of them are ever called to account and are allowed to pursue their criminal careers with little fear that legal action will be taken against them. The only exception to this is the press whose phone hacking was so outrageous they upset other rich and powerful people and provoked a reaction - eventually. Yet even in the fourth estate it is highly unlikely that those at the top - the Murdoch's for instance - will ever have to face charges in court. It will certainly be a cold day in hell before you see a leading politician charged with crimes against humanity, a banker or energy executive charged with theft or a Murdoch charged with invasion of privacy. Grant Shapps is a case in point. This is a man who sets up internet businesses whose expressed purpose is to plagiarise other people's work and commit fraud. Ashamed to be associated with such an obviously illegal business and to avoid prosecution Shapps operated the company under an assumed name - Mike Green. Despite this amateurish ploy which wouldn't fool anyone, Shapps has avoided prosecution. Why? Because he is the Chairman of the Tory party and is, therefore, immune. Have no doubt about it, Britain is one of the most corrupt countries in the world and would put many third-world tin pot dictatorships in the shade.

Thursday 31 October 2013

Coaltion In A Spin.

Francis Maude has been defending the spending of £7.2 million in taxpayers money by the Coalition on spin doctors this year alone. "It's very difficult for us to present our most vicious and nasty policies as reasonable, especially when we have to deal with namby-pamby Lib Dems and the lefty press such as the Daily Mail. We've found that murdering pensioners this winter is a particularly difficult policy to sell when Ed Milliband, for some reason, wants to save them. What can you do with such unreasonable opposition to our logical and perfectly humanitarian policies? Then there's the vexed question of doing nothing whatsoever. You have no idea how difficult it is to do nothing and then pretend that we've taken decisive action. This has been particularly difficult when it comes to closing tax loopholes where we've made magnificent and masterly efforts to do avoid doing anything at all. But the real difficulty is staying on message. We are spending millions on spin doctors to sit under desks in TV studios whispering "It's all Labour's fault" while ministers struggle to avoid answering any and all questions posed by commentators. I've got one under my desk at the moment - which reminds me - spin doctors were invented by Labour you know and this is all the fault of the last government."

Tuesday 29 October 2013

Osborne Fails To Close Tax Loopholes Again.

George Osborne, the world's worst financial expert, has again conveniently failed to close yet another tax loophole. His apparent bid to raise £3.2 billion by way of a tax levy on Swiss bank accounts has brought in only £443 million as the tax avoiders, given ample warning by Osborne himself, have moved their stolen fortunes to other tax havens. Many of these other tax havens, such as Belize, Jersey and Bermuda, are British-run one way or the other and are, therefore, completely beyond the reach of the British government. George Osborne is said to be utterly devastated by this unfortunate turn of events and has been heard to explain that it all happened because tax avoiders are just too clever for him and have the uncanny ability to anticipate his every move after he tells them what he's going to do. "Their intelligence network is very sophisticated," he told our reporter. "Many of them own television sets and watch the BBC on a regular basis especially when I am bellowing my intentions from the rooftops. I've even moved my own fortune to another tax haven after I accidentally tipped myself of. It's all very disheartening." We asked a tax avoider who recently moved his own fortune out of Switzerland for his view; "It was a narrow escape I can tell you. If George hadn't broadcast his policy well in advance I might have been caught out. Fortunately, like many of my rich pals, I'm not stone deaf and can take a hint when I hear one. I just feel sorry for all the little people who failed to have rich ancestors and who can't move their fortunes about because they haven't got one to move."

Energy Companies Defend Exploitation Of The Poor.

A survey published by the Children's Society has found that there over 3 million children growing up in poverty in this country and of those more than half are living in homes that are too cold and too damp. These figures, it is generally conceded, are set to rise as the government's policy of impoverishing more people year on year gathers pace. It is deliberate, it is intended and it is based not on any real need for austerity but on sheer spite. Since the Tories, with help from a supine and opportunistic Lib Dem party, instituted their policy of unlimited rewards for themselves and austerity for everyone else they have managed to more than double the national debt. But they are not alone in this vicious and entirely needless campaign. The energy companies are just as eager, it would seem, to pauperise the already poor though, in their case, the motive is not ideological but sheer greed. The figures speak for themselves since, over the last year, wholesale energy prices have risen by a mere 1.7% while the "Big Six" energy companies have more than doubled the profit they take out of each household from £45 to £95. Stephen Fitzpatrick, managing director of Ovo Energy one of the smaller energy companies, told MP's that he couldn't explain why the "Big Six" energy companies had put their prices up year after year since his own company was paying less for gas now than it was in 2009. He then added; “We're all trying to track down where this money is going. But you will never find it - these guys are the best filibusters in the business.” In other words he was accusing them of being crooks and, as as the evidence shows quite plainly, he is absolutely right.

Sunday 27 October 2013

Who, Exactly, Is Grant Shapps?

Grant Shapps, certainly the oiliest Tory amongst a pretty oily bunch, has been making coded threats today aimed at the BBC. The reason for this is fairly straightforward - the Tories want the BBC to keep their opinions to themselves in the run up to the next election. The Tories have done some pretty despicable things in the last three years and intend to do a few more before 2015 but they don't want anybody to know about them. "The BBC," Shapps said, "faces cuts unless they rebuild public trust." Which of course is code for "The BBC faces cuts if they badmouth us and we win the next election." The idea that Grant Shapps should lecture anyone on "rebuilding trust" is pretty rich considering his own rather murky past. It would seem that Mr.Shapps uses another identity when visiting the United States where he poses as a web advertising expert under the name Mike Green. His reasons for doing this are somewhat obscure but seem to have something to do with the fact that he doesn't want anyone in this country to know about his rather dubious business practices. One thing is known, however, and that is that his network of websites have been blocked on Google for "breaching its rules on copyright infringement and encouraging customers to plagiarise content." The Tory party has issued a statement that Shapps "no longer has any involvement" in the business. That is technically true since Shapps transferred ownership of his business interests to his wife Belinda who, apart from being married to him, has absolutely no connection with him at all. All this would be mildly amusing if it wasn't for the fact that this crook is the Tory party chairman and is in charge of their re-election strategy. Little wonder then that he's so keen to gag the BBC and hide from the electorate the rotten heart of the Tory party.