Dave's Christmas Hypocrisy.

David Cameron took some time off from his official duties making Britain as miserable as possible to lecture us all yet again on what he calls "Christian Values." "Throughout the United Kingdom" he wrote, "some will spend the festive period ill, homeless or alone." What he forgot to add was that he was absolutely dedicated to making sure that the ill, homeless and lonely would also be a whole lot poorer next year. While the latest figures show that the much-vaunted growth for the last six months have been largely fictional, borrowing is much higher than the Tories would have us believe and the national debt is ballooning at an unprecedented rate, the Tories have made sure that it is the poor, the sick and the disabled who will pick up the tab. Meanwhile Dave has spent the last week stroking the slightly bruised ego of Rupert Murdoch and assuring him that hacking a murdered girl's mobile is no reason to think himself un-Christian. "The message of Christianity is clear," Dave would have written if he was being uncharacteristically truthful. "God only likes rich people, which is why they are rich, and has nothing but contempt for the poor, which is why they are poor. It is true that the poor will inherit the Earth, but only after we've finished plundering it, while the meek might be blessed in a Biblical sense but, if I have anything to do with it, they will be well and truly shafted. The Welfare State needs to be replaced by the more up-to-date 19th century model of charity given to those poor people who know how beg properly. It's time for us to forget about poor people having rights, especially those ridiculous human rights, and to return to the great British and thoroughly Christian principle of throwing pennies to them and then sitting back to watch them scrabble about in the dirt. I urge all poor people to embrace Christianity as I have done because, if I have anything to do with it, many of you will be meeting your maker before next Christmas. Keep warm this winter so my mates who own the privatised utilities can remain wealthy, be productive so I can tax you and give my rich mates more tax loopholes, be generous to bankers (not that I'll give you any choice) and, most important of all, vote Tory in order to punish those feckless welfare scroungers who live next door. Oh, and keep reading the "Daily Mail" so my pal Rupert can feel that he's still important."

Why Are So Many Tories Sociopaths?

What is it about the Tory Party that attracts so many sociopaths? While George Osborne deliberately impoverishes millions of hard working people, Iain Duncan Smith persecutes the sick, disabled and defenceless and Jeremy Hunt sells off the NHS to his rich pals, it has been revealed that they are quite happy to bully one of their own to the point of driving their victim to suicide. Bullying, of course, is a basic characteristic of Toryism which deliberately sets out to bully an entire country in which 63% did not vote for them. Bullying is how the Tory Party maintains itself as a political force in Britain, together with misrepresenting the past, lying about the present, promising a future they have no intention of creating and recruiting to their cause the greedy, selfish and plain stupid. A lack of empathy for others, manipulating the truth and a profound selfish outlook are the main characteristics of the sociopath and, for such people, there is only one political party that offers the kind of scope for the anti-social behaviour that they crave. Where else could they go? Not all sociopaths are criminals. Most are merely very unpleasant and many of us will have encountered them in our day-to-day lives. It has been estimated that up to 20% of the population are sociopaths and they are relatively easy to spot. They are the manipulators, those who will tell any lie and pedal any half-truth to get what they want. Often passively aggressive, they will deliberately provoke anger in others and then plead innocence while thoroughly enjoying the chaos they have created around them. What better description is there of the Tory Party which will deliberately pick a fight with a section of society and then blame the victims of their spite? Since sneaking into power through the back door in 2010 the Tories have vented their spleen on the sick, the disabled, the unemployed, teachers, doctors, nurses, the armed forces, the police, the fire brigade, charities and the BBC. In the meantime they have promoted the interests of the worst in our society, the banks, corporate tax-evaders and the right-wing press - all those organisations that, like themselves, are run by sociopaths. So why are so many Tories sociopaths? Because, by definition, the Tories are sociopaths, because their basic credo is that of the sociopath, because they are nothing more than the political wing of organised crime.

Death Cult Attacks Britain

A secretive and vicious death cult, based on an insane ideology and armed with a pernicious propaganda campaign, is poised to destroy Britain today. Having sneaked into the country hiding among thousands of tax exiles who have invaded the country by the simple expedient of never actually leaving it, these terrorists base their entire ideology on the medieval beliefs of a single prophet - the blessed Margaret Thatcher. Destruction is to be visited on the country through the medium of the Autumn statement through which George Osborne, the evil "mastermind" behind today's terrorist attack, plans to shovel huge amounts of money from the poor to the rich. Many among the electorate who were stupid enough to support Osborne's vile terrorist organisation, the so-called Tory Party, are now regretting their selfishness as they have come to realise that they are not members of the "hard working families" that figure so prominantly in Tory propaganda after all. Meanwhile it is the innocent, the sick, disabled and the old, who will be today's victims as they face the very real prospect of being executed by the state in order to satisfy the greed and selfishness of a rich elite. As the NHS is driven to the wall by one of Osborne's confederates, Jeremy Hunt, admissions through A&E of people suffering from malnutrition are rocketing even as Osborne plans to cut funding for food banks. Last winter a record number of old people died despite it being one of the mildest winters on record as millions refused to turn on the heating because they were afraid of soaring gas and electricity bills. But George is not entirely hard hearted and has found several billion pounds to fund "affordable housing" - houses as cheap as £250,000 so that hard up bankers can buy a second home in London. And he has been able to find another £10 million so that his mate, David Cameron, can have his own private jet and avoid travelling with smelly holiday-makers or sharing in the danger of being bombed out of the sky by less economically-minded terrorists. Osborne's family business has also been in receipt of his generous help, paying no tax for the last seven years despite making healthy profits and despite his "crack-down" on tax dodging corporations. In the end there is little ordinary people can do to combat such terrorism, or business as usual as so-called "Tory State" terms it, except, of course, to stop voting for them, stop reading their puerile propaganda in "The Sun", "The Daily Express" and "The Daily Mail" and stop pointing the finger at other victims of the Tory campaign of terror. The only other alternative is to arrange air strikes against the heartlands of the so-called Tory State but no one is exactly sure where that is as Tory voters refuse to identify themselves and now rarely summon the faithful to prayers at their local bank.

Austerity Vs Democracy.

Austerity is fast becoming the new orthodoxy, championed by millionaire politicians on behalf of billionaire businessmen who want the rest of us to believe that we are too greedy. The central message is that the world has only limited resources and ordinary people have been harbouring unrealistic expectations for far too long. We are told that we have been living beyond our means and it was because of this that the world economy crashed and burned in 2008. Like all propaganda this message has power because it contains a grain of truth. The world does indeed have only limited resources and some of us at least have been living beyond our means. But this is not a question of what resources are available so much as how those resources are shared out. The world economy did indeed crash and burn because of unrealistic expectations - the unrealistic expectations of the greedy, selfish and already too wealthy. It was the bankers, chasing unearned and undeserved bonuses, who crashed the world economy. It was the bankers who lied, cheated and ignored reality while greedy and corrupt politicians turned a blind eye and stashed their own equally unearned and undeserved "bonuses" in off-shore, tax free bank accounts. The central message of Austerity is, therefore, not about ordinary people being too greedy but how to disguise, excuse and explain away the greed and selfishness of a small elite. It is a difficult message to sell in the face of the facts and, quite often, the reality of what Austerity actually is becomes so clear that politicians have to take emergency action. Such emergency action has been recently witnessed in Portugal where new elections have delivered an absolute majority to a left-wing anti-Austerity coalition. To prevent this coalition from gaining real power Portugal's President, Anibal Cavaco Silva, has refused point-blank to allow it to form a government, telling a bemused Portuguese electorate that 'This is the worst moment for a radical change to the foundations of our democracy'. In other words democracy in Portugal can only be preserved by denying the democratic process. A similar message is also being heard here in Britain where the Tory plan to reduce tax credits paid to the working poor has run into trouble. Brushing aside the fact that Cameron and Osborne told a direct lie to the electorate in order to fool them into giving the Tories a working majority, the government has solved this dilemma by similarly undermining what passes for the democratic process at Westminster. Faced by opposition from the completely undemocratic House of Lords Cameron is threatening to close it down. Austerity is not and never has been about righting wrongs in the world economy. It is about preserving those wrongs and saving a greedy, selfish and ultimately stupid elite from the consequences of their own actions. It is all about ordinary people - you and me - paying for their mistakes and nothing, especially democracy, can be allowed to get in the way of that.

Why The National Debt Is £1.5 Trillion And Climbing.

So why is the British national debt £1.5 trillion, the highest its ever been, and why is it continuing to grow? Well to begin with a bunch of criminal bankers crashed the world economy and then had to be bailed out by the rest of us to prevent them losing their jobs and ending up in prison. Then we had to pay their bonuses so they could continue to enjoy their film star life styles and the banking industry could continue to attract the best criminals available. Of course to help finance all this charity work the Tories (with a helping hand from the Lib Dems) decided that the "scrounging" poor (especially low-paid, hard-working "scroungers" who get tax credits) had to contribute their fair share, so benefits have been slashed and public services starved of funds. These savings were actually only a drop in the ocean of debts that the bankers handed us but every little helps right? To prove that "we are all in this together" the Tories then gave themselves a nice big tax cut and let their rich corporate mates (especially the bankers) exploit various tax loopholes that have proven impossible to close (especially if you're not really trying). Now these benefits for the rich, unlike the benefits taken from the poor, are not a drop in the ocean. In fact they are many, many, many times bigger than the benefits squandered, according to the Tories, on "scroungers". Following so far? The problem for the Tories now is how to divide one national debt by those who don't have the money to pay it back and still end up with a small elite that are even richer than before? The answer, in case you haven't been taking enough notice, is to sell the entire country to the Chinese. And to make absolutely sure that someone like Jeremy Corbyn doesn't come along and muck all this up, the Tories are going to outlaw Keynsian economics, making it impossible for any future British government to invest in our own country and put up taxes for rich people in order to finance such an investment. According to the Tories borrowing money from our friends to finance social and economic improvements for the majority is bad, but borrowing money from our enemies to finance tax cuts for the rich is good. Now do you get it? No? Well, you just keep voting Tory because you will get it in the end - probably right in the neck.

Tory Voters Wake Up And Smell The Coffee.

Michelle Dorrell voted Tory at the last election. She voted Tory because they told her that all her troubles were the fault of the Labour party and benefit scroungers. It was Labour and British benefit scroungers who crashed the world economy not the banks they told her. She chose the believe them because she couldn't be bothered to think too hard about the lies they told her even though what they were saying was patently absurd. How could the Labour Government and British benefit scroungers crash the world economy? She chose to believe them because they appealed to her basest instincts, to her fears and to her feelings of envy. When she thought about what the Tories consider to be benefit scroungers she imagined them to be the indolent, the work-shy and the lazy. She probably also imagined that most of them were immigrants only here in Britain to get handouts. She never imagined for one moment that the Tories meant her. How could they mean her when she works so hard? What she failed to realise is that when the Tories talk about benefit scroungers they actually mean poor people because anyone in this low wage economy who has to claim working tax credits is a scrounger to them. How did she think that the Tories were going to continue to finance the huge hole in tax receipts caused by their tax-dodging corporate mates and provide themselves and their rich pals with even more tax cuts in the future? The answer is that she probably didn't care as long as they left her alone. Well she cares now because the Tories have no intention of leaving her alone. She and millions like her who voted Tory at the last election out of pure stupidity will now pay the price for Tory greed and selfishness. The harsh reality is that she betrayed herself and her family and she has no one to blame but herself. She was warned but chose not to listen. She was told the truth but chose not to believe it. “The Moving Finger writes; and, having writ, Moves on: nor all thy Piety nor Wit Shall lure it back to cancel half a Line, Nor all thy Tears wash out a Word of it.”

Dementia Epidemic Threatens World Economy.

The epidemic of dementia amongst leading businessmen has now spread to the German car industry it has been reported today. Seven years after a similar outbreak in the financial sector was discovered and a mere two years after the shock outbreak in the Murdoch media empire, the plague that has already turned many of the world's politicians into zombies now seems to be completely out of control. We asked a leading health expert for his analysis; "A 30 second memory has plagued politicians since time immemorial," he told our reporter, "but the spread of this debilitating condition to the business world is now threatening the whole of industry. The number of chief executives who have absolutely no idea what anyone else in their company is doing is very worrying. Many seem to have no idea what their job actually is, have absolutely no idea what they were doing as recently as yesterday and can barely recognise people they work with every day. We now suspect that the agent of infection must be dirty money which politicians and captains of industry compulsively stuff into their offshore bank accounts without washing their hands properly. This latest outbreak at Volkswagen is particularly worrying since the Germans are usually very fastidious about washing their hands after doing something particularly underhand. The extent of the damage to executive brains can be judged by Martin Winterkorn's reaction to the latest scandal affecting Volkswagen; "I am not aware of any wrongdoing on my part." Essentially he admits that he has been doing something wrong but insists that he remains completely unaware of it. This is striking similar to Rebekah Brooks' condition which prevented her from knowing what her staff were doing and to that suffered by Iain Duncan Smith who remains blissfully unaware of the distress that taking all means of support from the sick, disabled and unemployed causes. Perhaps a more striking case is that of Sepp Blatter whose almost total amnesia is truly terrifying. I must emphasise, however, that it is probably misleading to label all these instances as dementia - "wilful amnesia with malice aforethought" is perhaps a better description though the much simpler term "corruption" is probably more accurate."

Now Dave Knows How Labour Leaders Feel.

With Lord Ashcroft's accusations spread all over the tabloids David Cameron has today learned what it feels like to be a leader of the Labour party. Such musings as to why Jeremy Corbyn didn't sing "God save the Queen" and, perhaps with more relevancy, Ed Miliband's tussle with a bacon sandwich have suddenly become small beer compared with David Cameron putting his naughty bits into the mouth of a dead pig. Now "Call me Dave" is about to find out why truth is such a precious commodity when no one cares if something is true or not. The false accusations in the right wing press that Jeremy Corbyn described the death of Bin Laden as a "tragedy" were a deliberate slur calculated to damage his reputation. Now, with Lord Ashcroft's tales of Cameron at University, the boot is very firmly on the other foot. The story about the dead pig is so memorable and so funny that it really doesn't matter whether its true or not - the damage has been done and will probably never be undone. The Tories love to deal in lies, half-truths and scurrilous accusations. Now we can all sit back and enjoy watching them deal with this one already dubbed "Piggate". But the whole episode tells us something much more important than the truth or otherwise about Cameron's behaviour at University because it allows us a glimpse into the mind of a Tory like Lord Ashcroft. Annoyed that his bankrolling of the Tory party didn't lead to an undeserved job strutting about making himself look important, Ashcroft has turned on his erstwhile friend with appalling nastiness. Cameron shouldn't be surprised nor even disappointed since this is what Toryism is all about - spite, nastiness and stabbing others in the back. Cameron should instead take comfort in the fact that Ashcroft is merely acting in character and is simply doing what any Tory would do when his or her ambition and selfishness are thwarted. Nasty is the name of the game in Tory politics and Dave is now reaping his just reward for being so nasty to everyone else. In the immortal words of that great philosopher of Western culture, Bart Simpson, "Eat my shorts."

David Cameron's Naughty Bits.

Lord Ashcroft, understandably miffed because he didn't get a nice lucrative sinecure after bailing out the Tory party, has turned on David Cameron with a vengeance. He has decided to tell the rest of us all about Dave's high jinks when he was a student. Much of this must, of course, be regarded as sheer spite. I mean, what student hasn't put his naughty bits into the mouth of a dead pig for God's sake? Certainly such behaviour is par for the course amongst the Bullingdon set where study, as the Tory cabinet's grip on their various jobs demonstrates, came a distant second to behaving like a complete twat. Dave's experience as a student has served him well now he's Prime Minister. How else could a Tory toff gain the disdain necessary to lord it over the rest of us peasants and the grit necessary to be such a total swine? Did putting his naughty bits into the mouth of a dead pig give Dave a sexually transmitted disease the symptoms of which include becoming a swine? Is this how all Tories become swine? Is that how Lord Ashcroft become a swine and a Tory? It would explain a great deal about the party in general and its members in particular. The question is can Dave survive this onslaught on his character? The answer, if the Tory party has anything to do with it, is a resounding "yes" since it has little interest in character and regards swinish behaviour as the main, if not the only, qualification for the job of Tory Prime Minister. But what about the rest of us? Is having a Prime Minister with a penchant for Necrobeastiality good for the country? Will other world leaders snigger behind his back? Are any animals, living or dead, safe in his presence? I'll never be able to enjoy a bacon sandwich in the same way again.

It's Jeremy Corbyn Wot Won It!

Jeremy Corbyn has won the election for leader of the Labour by a landslide - beating off the opposition with a massive 59.5% majority in the first ballot. This has hardly come as a great surprise since his victory has been predicted in the press for weeks. So, what does the Corbyn victory mean? David Cameron has no doubts - sternly warning us all that if he becomes Prime Minister then we will all disappear down an economic black hole. This is strange coming from a man that has smugly trebled the national debt over the last five years and complacently watched as Iain Duncan Smith has persecuted the unemployed, the old, the sick and the infirm. Having witnessed the banks laying waste to the world economy he has happily rewarded them for their efforts. Having seen for himself the disastrous results of an economy based on pure greed and stupidity, he has patiently put it back together again. Knowing who was to blame he has deliberately sought out scapegoats to divert attention away from the real perpetrators, punishing the innocent in order to reward the guilty. Any thing else, he has told us, is "socialism" - a sinister conspiracy to destroy ordinary working people by paying them a living wage, providing a decent safety net for the unlucky, giving them a good education and re-establishing services that are fit for purpose rather than to provide an easy living for the already rich. For the rest of us believing in Jeremy Corbyn will be an act of faith since any facts about his policies will be deliberately distorted by a media whose bias is a national scandal. Get ready for stories in the press that Jeremy Corbyn is in fact an ungodly alien communist bent on world domination instead of the decent man he really is. There will rumours (unsubstantiated of course) that he has millions in off shore bank accounts, that he fiddles his expenses so cunningly that the evidence for it cannot be found (which just goes to show how cunning he is) and that he wants to sell our Monarchy to the Americans (not a bad idea if selling off public assets to private enterprise is so good for us all). The question is can he win a general election? The answer to that is a resounding "yes" though that will ultimately depend on whether we are a decent country or just a disorganised rabble addicted to selfishness and greed as the Tories would have us believe. The question is not if Corbyn is good enough to elect but if we are good enough to do so.

The Refugee Crisis

I have grandchildren about the age of this little Syrian boy washed up on a beach in Turkey and this photograph is truly shocking. Despite this I'm going to say some things that many people will be uncomfortable with. There is a great deal of breast-beating going on across Europe and especially here in Britain. It's all the fault of the US and Britain because we intervened in Iraq. It's all the fault of the US and Britain because we didn't intervene in Libya and Syria. Whatever the truth or otherwise of this the refugees desperately trying to cross the Mediterranean are not running away from the West but to the West. They are running away from fellow Muslims, Asad, ISIS, the Taliban and all the other barbarians that infest their countries. Having run away from these monsters, they are being exploited by other fellow Muslims and then left to die mid-ocean in leaky boats. ISIS, Asad, the Taliban and others in the Middle East are delighted that this crisis is putting pressure on Europe and are well satisfied that it is threatening European unity, undermining our democracies and putting strains on US-European relations. We might have many allies in the Middle East but the truth is that we have few friends. Their is little breast-beating in Saudi-Arabia, Kuwait, or The Yemen, they are taking few if any refugees or offering much support and few of the refugees are heading that way in any case. Our problem is that if we open the door to these refugees there are millions who may well soon follow them and force the door open wide. Our choice is an unenviable one. We can either accept that we no longer have any control over our borders and stand by helplessly as we are flooded with refugees with all that means for our infrastructures, political stability and social cohesion. Or, we can intervene in the Middle East to put a stop to this with all that means in terms of death, destruction and huge expense. Our enemies in The Middle East have struck at our greatest strengths - our compassion, our sense of fair play, our democratic principles - and turned them into our greatest weaknesses. Decision time is now here - you pay your money and take your choice.

I Want To Tell You A Tory.

I want to tell you a tory. My grandfather died in 1917 at the age of 31. He didn't die in the trenches because he was in a reserved occupation - he was a carter for the Great Western Railway. He died because he couldn't afford an operation for a condition that, even then, was easily corrected if you had the money. He died in a work house infirmary because, out of work because he was ill, he couldn't afford hospital fees. My grandmother, after her husband died, got no help from the state because he had not served in the armed forces and she couldn't get a war widow's pension. She died in 1932 from malnutrition after years of starving herself to feed her children. My father, their youngest son, had no choice but to join the Army in 1935 because when he turned 18 he couldn't get a job because employers didn't want to pay him an adult's wage. This is the kind of Britain that the present Tory party wants to recreate. An NHS flogged off to their rich mates at bargain basement prices so they can steal from the sick and pay off the Tory party with "donations". The welfare state dismantled so that those in distress can die early and reduce the excess population. A job market that doesn't provide a living wage so that fat cats can get fatter and provide the Tory party with yet more "donations." The question is - is this the kind of country that you want? The Tories will tell you that there is no alternative and, of course, from their perspective there isn't. How else can they maintain their privileged and pampered life style in a world wrecked by their criminal mates, the bankers? Is there an alternative? Of course there is, all we need is the courage to take it. Which is why the Tory's deal in fear and finger pointing. Frightened people vote Tory and Tory voters love to blame the poor, the underprivileged and the disabled. And the Tories are always frightened, frightened of losing their money, frightened of losing their undeserved privileges, frightened that one day, they too, might have to do an honest day's work.

Are The Tories Good For Anything?

David Cameron told us that, if we elected him into office, he would reduce immigration to under 100,000 per year. Despite this immigration into Britain has never been higher and is now topping 600,000 per year. This was their biggest selling point - devised almost exclusively to beat off the challenge from UKIP. So what went wrong? Nothing, actually, since David Cameron was lying through his teeth knowing full well that he could do nothing. But it did have the desired effect of persuading all the numbskulls in Britain to vote for him instead of Nigel Farage. So what have the Tories succeeded in doing? Have they saved the NHS as they promised? Well yes, if you count flogging it off piecemeal to their rich mates for next to nothing as "saving the NHS." They promised that they would come down hard the banks. Have they? Well yes, if you count flogging off our investment as taxpayers in them to other rich and greedy bankers at a nice hefty discount. Have they closed the tax loopholes for the rich and greedy? Well yes, if you count not doing a damned thing as "closing the loopholes." What, then, have they actually achieved? Well they have found that 2,650 people in the last two years were fit for week despite the fact that they were all dead within weeks and they've managed to breathe life into an economic system that was proven to be unfit for purpose in 2008. We asked a Tory spokesman for the party's reaction; "Well its win/win isn't it? We have shovelled huge amount of bullshit over the past six years and won a general election because of it. Now we can sit back, ignore all the problems and fill our offshore bank accounts with lots of lovely dosh courtesy of the taxpayer, the sick, the disabled and the poor. What's wrong with that?"

Here We Go Again.

After seven years of austerity which has seen the poor across the world paying for the mistakes of the rich and greedy the whole rotten financial system, it would seem, is once more on the brink of collapse. How, you make ask, could this happen? It's quite simple really. Neoliberal economics is mumbo-jumbo - nothing more than propaganda by the rich to fool the rest of us into handing over our money to protect them against their own greed and stupidity. In 2008 the world economic system, deregulated by corrupt politicians for their own advantage, was shown to be a complete disaster. Banks were shown to be little better than organised crime syndicates while the myth of "trickle down" was exposed as a "pouring upwards." Yet, though this was obvious to all, the rich and greedy were able to turn the argument on its head and persuade far too many of us that it was all the fault of the unemployed, the sick, the disabled and the poor. Punishing them for crashing the world economy, they told us, would cure all our woes. The wheels may have come of the financial system, but, they assured us, re-attaching the same broken wheels was the only thing we could do. So what has crashed the economy all over again? Is it the poor, the unemployed, the sick and disabled again? No, it's the bankers and financiers - the same bankers and financiers who crashed it the last time and then walked away leaving us to pick up the pieces. Undoubtedly the Tories will tell us that here in Britain what is needed is yet more austerity - for us, of course, not them. The NHS, they will tell us, is now totally unaffordable. More public assets will have to sold to their rich mates at knock-down prices to pay off the national debt that they have trebled in the last six years and to protect the tax cuts they are planning to reward themselves with. To all those of you who voted Tory at the last general election - are you enjoying having your noses rubbed in the soft, sticky brown stuff?

Iain Duncan Smith: "Work Is As Good As Health Treatment."

Iain Duncan Smith, Britain's nastiest politician, has defended his vicious attack on the sick and disabled by explaining that working is as effective as health treatment. "Look at me." he told our reporter, "I'm as mad as a bag of snakes, suffer from delusions of grandeur and am a well-known sociopath, but work has been marvelous for me. Without my job at the DWP I would never have been able to do all the nasty vicious things to the poor and vulnerable that I've always wanted to do. Before I was given the position of Fuhrer at the DWP I was deeply depressed by my total incompetence as a politician and by my total failure as a human being. Now I'm full of beans because my psychopathic tendencies have been given free rein. I'm a new man, worse and more sadistic than ever before it's true, but a new man nonetheless." We asked IDS's former psychoanalyst for his reaction; "Iain is quite right - he is as mad as a bag of snakes. To be honest he's completely beyond help and should be locked up as soon as possible before he destroys the lives of many more people. What really bothers me, to be honest, is what kind of an electorate would give any political party with this nutter in its ranks a majority. At least 37% of the electorate in this country are in urgent need of psycho-analysis."

Labour: "We Don't Like Democracy After All".

Certain parts of the Labour party are in turmoil today as they begin to realise that democracy doesn't always give you the result you might want. But, as events in Palestine, Libya, Iraq and Afghanistan have amply demonstrated, that is the trouble with democracy. Many are now crying "foul" and suggesting that diabolical Tories are infiltrating the party in order to foist a completely unwanted Jeremy Corbyn as the new Labour leader. So convinced are they of this that they even banning real Labour supporters "just in case". What they fear is that the socialist party founded by Kier Hardie might be "taken over" by - horror upon horror - socialists! Calls have been heard to halt the election because it's all "going the wrong way." There are dark mutterings that, if Corbyn wins, the revolutionary and Tory wing of the party will stage an uprising or, perhaps more likely, throw their toys out of the pram. This is the unhealthy place that British politics now finds itself in - a place where neoliberal economic mumbo-jumbo has become the new orthodoxy, where socilaism has become a dirty word and democracy is now a dangerous idea. Well, as Franklin D Roosevelt once observed, "We have nothing to fear but fear itself." What, after all, is the worst that can happen? A Labour government will borrow some money, something that the Tories have been doing for the last five years with absolute abandon, but, instead of giving it to bankers and the already far too wealthy, they will invest it in those things that the country needs - mainly housing. The NHS will be saved from the clutches of various giant American health corporations who are slavering to get their hands on assets for nothing that belong to you and me. Education will become less expensive for our hard pressed children. The railways and utilities, plundered by the rich and greedy for decades, will be returned to public ownership where service, rather than profit, will be the aim. And, after five years, if Corbyn should win a general election but fails to improve the country, we can all vote him out of office. That's what democracy is supposed to be about isn't it?

The First Casualty Of War.

It is well known that the first casualty of war is truth and, in the war that the Tories are waging against the weak and vulnerable, the truth never stood a chance. Iain Duncan Smith, undoubtedly the most evil creature amongst a whole gaggle of evil Tory creatures, was an accomplished liar even before he had a war to give him an excuse for lying. His entire life, from his claims about his education, his military service and his time on benefits has been one long catalogue of lies. Now we discover, as if many of us didn't already know, that he has been lying through his teeth about how thankful benefit claimants have been for the sanctions imposed upon them. Leaflets produced by the Department for Work and Pensions have "suggested" that many claimants have positively welcomed these sanctions. People like "Sarah" who was inspired to discover that Holy Grail of all the unemployed - the "killer CV" - because her benefits were cut. People like "Zac" who gushed about how wonderful the benefit system is now that IDS has "reformed" it. All lies, of course, since the Department has had to admit that none of these people actually exist while their so-called "stories" were for "illustrative purposes only." These were not simply lies, however, but something far more invidious - they were propaganda - the favoured technique of the morally bankrupt. It would, under normal circumstances, be difficult to find anyone who is more morally bankrupt than Iain Duncan Smith but, in the present Tory cabinet, he is merely primus inter pares - the first amongst equals. No wonder people are flocking to support Jeremy Corbyn in his bid to lead the Labour party. People long for an authentic voice amongst the daily gaggle of lies, evasions and sheer spiteful vitriol that most of our so-called politicians deal in.

The Legend Of The Killer CV.

As the gap between average pay and that of company executives continues to accelerate the Tories have stepped forward to "help" the young into work. This includes extra training in such vital skills as interview techniques and the writing of the "killer CV". The "killer CV" is one of those modern myths that have sprung up in recent years to excuse governments for their lack of ability to create real jobs in the real economy. The "killer CV" is supposed to consist of a single-sided resume of past achievements so cunningly written and startling interesting that employers will fall over themselves to give a job to the applicant. Those who have written hundreds of CVs and applied for hundreds of jobs with no result have no one to blame but themselves for failing to compose the "killer CV" The real problem is, of course, that there is precious little left of the "real economy" which has been largely replaced by various Ponzi schemes, confidence tricks, scams and outright criminality. The Tories will never admit this so they have come up with yet another initiative that, myths aside, also contains what they call "incentives". These "incentives" include the usual bag of horrors such as working for nothing, low-paid "apprenticeships" and having benefits cut if a job - any job - is not promptly found. Naturally such considerations don't affect their own children since they have been taught at such places as Harrow and Eaton how to make crime pay while there is no need for a CV when Daddy gets you your first job at his merchant bank where tea-making is a highly skilled profession attracting an annual bonus of several hundred thousand pounds at Christmas.

The Past Is A Foreign Country.

There are many people in Britain today who will fail to recognise the above photograph. It is a ruined factory - a place where people used to go, make things and earn money. Young people who didn't have the aptitude to be a banker, a property speculator or diversity coordinator would get apprenticeships at such places, learn a trade and get a proper job at the end of it all. In 1979 Margaret Thatcher and her Tory henchmen decided that we didn't need manufacturing industry any more and that we could base our entire economy on banking and shopping. Apprenticeships in factories were replaced with training for a life of crime in banking and finance. The working class was essentially exported abroad to India and China where their votes don't count over here in Britain and the Tories looked forward to a new generation who would have no idea that an alternative to neoliberal economics was possible. And it worked. Even the Labour party, the traditional party of the working class, went along with this idea. The economic insanity of "trickle down" became orthodoxy and , in times of famine, it became normal to present the rich and greedy with ever-increasingly bigger meals. Those who didn't fit into this new world, the ill-educated, the sick, the disabled and the unemployed became "scroungers". Those who argued against it became "dinosaurs" or, as Liz Kendall recently put it, "a throwback to the past." That, apparently, would be a terrible thing. Jeremy Corbyn as leader of the Labour party, or heaven forefend, as Prime Minister would reverse all the "progress" of the last 30 years. Just imagine it. Ordinary people with full time well paid jobs. Hospitals well funded by the taxes paid by these people in full time well paid jobs. Entire industries such as gas, electricity, water and railways dedicated to creating public services instead of ripping off their customers. A society more equal in which the rich pay taxes as well. A society in which the sick and disabled are treated with a measure of dignity and the unemployed are helped back into real jobs that pay real money. Awful isn't it? "The past is a foreign country; they do things differently there."

Can The Tories Waste Any More Taxpayers Money?

It is the great political and economic dilemma of our times - how can the Tories waste even more taxpayers money while still benefiting themselves? Selling off RBS at a loss of £1 billion to the Tories rich mates in the City is a doddle. All George Osborne has to do is to stand up in Parliament and tell everyone with a straight face that this "is a good deal for the British taxpayer." Child's play for an accomplished conman like George. Explaining away the hundreds of millions lost to the NHS by Jeremy Hunt has proven a bit more tricky. Softening up the NHS for privatisation is, of course, the aim, but how to explain it? Cue Jeremy who now has the sheer brass neck to turn the argument on its head and suggest that the NHS cannot control its shrinking budget. "NHS spending is simply unaffordable" he tells the public while he gloats over the tax cuts for his £1 million mansion and congratulates his rich mates for their ingenious tax-dodging scams. Meanwhile, sniggering up his sleeve, George Osborne has asked public sector workers "for their ideas on how to deliver public services more efficiently" since he doesn't have a clue. "We need to save at least £20 billion if Dave and I are to get our next tax cut," George told our reporter. "Asking public sector workers to cut their own throats saves me the trouble and, when it all goes tits up, I can simply point the finger and remind them it was all their own idea. Brilliant! But its true that political scams and con tricks are becoming increasingly hard to pull off. In the 70's and 80's things were much easier when the world's most successful peadophile ring - Parliament - was bullet proof. Now we have the likes of Tom Watson and Jeremy Corbyn swanning around telling everyone the bloody truth. Thank God for offshore banking is all I can say."

Who's Afraid Of Jeremy Corbyn?

So let's get this right. Jeremy Corbyn is a leftie. Jeremy Corbyn is a socialist. Now, forgive me for perhaps missing the point here, but what is so strange about a left-wing socialist party being led by such a man? Unless, of course, the Labour party has now decided that it is not left-wing and is no longer socialist. This seems quite likely given their track record over the last twenty years or so. Perhaps then they should change their name to Tory Lite. Their argument seems to be that socialism is dead, that right-wing neo-liberal economics has won and that the British electorate cannot be persuaded that there is something wrong with greed and selfishness. They may be right but shouldn't some one at least be making the counter-argument? What is wrong with politics being about principles? Why can't a political party take a principled stand, argue the issues, seek to persuade and then win an election when public opinion finally catches up? We have spent the last twenty years watching the Labour party argue that they must win power no matter what the cost, ditching all their principles and then finding themselves unable to do anything worthwhile because they "don't have a mandate". How about this for an idea? Why not point out that the Tories are a bunch of lying crooks and hammer home the point until the electorate realise the truth? Why isn't Labour shaming the Tories on a daily basis for murdering the disabled, for preying on the sick and infirm, for a corrupt economic policies that amount to fraud and for protecting their kiddie-fiddling predecessors? The Tory party is nothing better than organised crime and we need some body to stand up and say so. Labour supporters have been abandoning the party in droves because it no longer represents their views while most of the electorate can't be bothered to vote at all. And why is this? Because a growing number of people see quite clearly that there is nothing for them in the modern political system and that corruption and lies are all they get in return for their support. Those who like corruption and lies vote Tory in any event so what is there to lose by having a bit of backbone and having principles? So who's afraid of Jeremy Corbyn? The Tories are.

Tories Keep Their Promise To Reduce Inequality.

George Osborne has been outlining his plans to reduce inequality in the country. "The first thing we are going to do," he told our reporter, "is to abolish inheritance tax on houses up to £1 million for those people unfortunate enough to own a mansion. Many of these poor souls are huddled in tiny seven bedroomed houses surrounded by depressing open fields and with only a single drawing room, wine cellar and library between a whole family. Now, of course, this has to be paid for so I've decided to take it from selfish sick people who simply refuse to get better and the unemployed who enjoy a film star lifestyle on benefits. Just in case some of those who happen to own a £1 million mansion by accident in London and are, through no fault of their own, unemployed, I am going to reduce the amount of benefits that northern scroungers can claim outside of London. As you can see I am not afraid to make tough decisions, especially if they are tough on some one else and I am absolutely convinced that these policies will be very popular with those 37% of voters selfish and greedy enough to give us our overwhelming majority. Isn't democracy a wonderful thing!" Convinced by this erudite and convincing argument we asked a working class Tory voter for his opinion. "Oooh, he's just like the Blessed Margaret Thatcher. What wouldn't I give for him to spit in my face. Wonderful people the Tories."

The Conservative "Thinker"

Recent research has thrown light onto to how those with liberal and conservative beliefs think about the world. Essentially subjects with strong political beliefs were placed into a scanner and their brain activity was monitored while they were shown various images to consider. In the brains of those with liberal beliefs it was those areas associated with analytical thinking that lit up. In those with conservative views the part of the brain that lit up was the amygdala, part of the limbic system associated with memory, emotion and decision making. So what does this tell us? Liberal thinkers tend to look at information and then consider what it means before reaching a decision about alternative views. Conservative thinkers compare what they are seeing to information stored in their memories, react to it on an emotional level and then make a decision about it. While liberal thinkers use abstract reasoning when considering a decision, conservative thinkers rely on concrete reasoning. Abstract reasoning is the ability to look at a problem and then imagine alternative solutions, considering the various alternatives before alighting on the most likely solution. It is an ability that some people, though by no means all, develop around the age of sixteen. Those who never make this transition from concrete to abstract reasoning are forced, because a lack of imagination, to investigate problems on a trial and error basis and tend to rely on what they already know from direct experience. If that experience is limited then they lack the intellectual equipment to consider other possible alternatives of which they have no direct knowledge. They are forced, in other words, to choose between the limited number of alternatives stored in their memory. Given a novel situation outside of their direct experience they will attempt to shoehorn into place a remembered solution to a different problem and lack the imagination to see that this "solution" is probably quite inappropriate and unlikely to work. Worse yet conservative thinkers will also tend to react on an emotional rather than an intellectual level, imbuing their simplistic solutions with an emotional element that can be both forceful as well as wildly inappropriate. The Tories in Britain, for instance, have been very successful with their "the British economy is just like a household budget" mantra. This appeals to conservative thinkers because it is something that many have direct experience of and it has a high emotional content. At the same time they lack the reasoning skills or imagination to see that the statement is actually economic mumbo-jumbo. It is hard to believe that the leaders of the Tory party could be as unintelligent as those who vote for them and this leads us to a startling conclusion. The Tory party are not conservative thinkers in the true sense and must understand that their "beliefs" are nonsensical. Rather they are cynical manipulators who, motivated by greed and selfishness, deliberately mislead the hard of understanding for their own advantage. They are, in other words, chancers, snake oil salesmen and confidence tricksters cloaked in the respectability of a political party.

Cameron Pledges To End The Welfare "Merry-Go-Round"

David Cameron struck his favourite "holier-than-thou" pose today and promised to end the "welfare merry-go-round." "It's ridiculous," our intrepid leader lectured, "that poor people keep getting something for nothing paid for by the taxpayer. I propose, therefore, to end the tax credit system so that the low paid can take pride once again in their poverty and rich people like me can get a tax cut. There are too many bone idle people in this country working every hour God sends for a pittance and expecting rich people like me to be grateful. Well let me tell you we're not. If the poor are too stupid to negotiate higher wages without the benefit of trade unions, then they deserve to be poor. They should take a leaf out of my book and vote themselves a pay rise when they need to buy another London mansion. If you're going to rely on state handouts then you should at least make a good fist of it and scrounge enough to send your kids to Eton, form yourself into a political party to pass laws that favour you and make you rich enough to lecture everyone else about being feckless. I didn't get where I am today by letting the grass grow under my feet - you have to be fast on your feet to make the kind of money I do for doing sod all. It is my mission to recreate the poverty that made this country great and the kind of unfair society that this country deserves. To get the ball rolling I have also decided to spend several billions refurbishing the Houses of Parliament so that hard-working, tax dodging and expense fiddling MP's can continue to pretend that we're all still living in the 14th century. Britain can only move forwards by looking backwards and can only guarantee a prosperous future by encouraging more poverty."

Osborne To Outlaw Keynesianism.

Britain's leading economic ignoramus and the Tory party's idea of a genius has set out his plan to outlaw Keynesianism during his Mansion House speech. For those of you who don't understand what Keynesianism actually is it was the method by which the Depression of the 1930's was ended and works because it stimulates a floundering economy by putting money into the hands of those who need it the most - the poor. This is in contrast to the preferred Tory method of cutting taxes for the very rich who then proceed to hoard their money hoping that things will get better all on their own. It was this Tory method, now called "austerity", that prolonged the Depression of the 1930's for the entire decade and destroyed the lives of millions to benefit a tiny minority of the rich and greedy. Now George Osborne wants to pass this economic insanity into law to benefit himself and his rich mates and to ensure that, in any future economic downturn, it will be the poor who will pay for it. The rich, during times of boom, will get richer and, when they screw it all as their natural propensity for criminality is given free rein, it will be the poor who will be forced to pick up the tab. As such it is nothing more than the usual "heads we win, tails you lose" ideology that the Tory party favours. That they will get away with it reflects two unfortunate political realities. First, there is no real democracy in a Britain where 63% of voters did not vote for this sorry excuse for a government and, second, because the British people will completely fail to understand any of the issues involved. Osborne is also eagerly awaiting the response from the Labour party to his carefully laid trap. If Labour agrees with this idiocy Osborne will have completely neutered the opposition, forcing them to accept what will amount to a new economic orthodoxy. If they don't agree he will gleefully paint them as "economically irresponsible" and, once again, saddle us all with his "heads we win, tails you lose" confidence trick. Having lost our soul to those who have turned the war against poverty into a war against the poor, we are now being invited to lose our wits.

Football, Corruption, The Couch Potato And Business.

Football is essentially a mindless pastime with adults playing a children's game for vast amounts of money watched by other adults with nothing better to do. Because of this, in our upside-down topsy-turvy world, it has grown into an industry worth billions. Players, most of whom find it difficult to articulate a meaningful sentence, are paid more than brain surgeons to bounce a ball from one end of a football pitch to the other. Fans will pay huge amounts of their income to watch this inane spectacle and will travel the world insulting local populations as they go while often remaining utterly ignorant of the local culture. With this amount of boneheaded, knuckle-dragging ignorance amongst football fans it is hardly surprising that corruption is a way of life to those organising it all. After sixteen years in charge with absolutely zero progress being made in stamping out graft, bribery and corruption, Sepp Blatter has yet again been re-elected as the president of FIFA. A bunch of crooks have put back in charge the man who has allowed their criminality to go unchecked. Not really so surprising given the level of corruption and racketeering in the rest of the world's business community from international banking to local market stalls selling fashion "knock-offs". Andy Burnham, in his campaign to win the leadership of the Labour party, has described businessmen as "heroes". This would be true if said businessmen were the entrepreneurs of yesteryear, men risking their own capital in pursuit of a dream of excellence. Unfortunately business today seems to consist all too often of slick confidence tricks, double-dealing and misdirection at the expense of a public too busy watching football to realise what's going on around them. The so-called "beautiful game" is neither beautiful nor a game, it is an ugly multi-billion pound business and a poster child for the corruption inherent in the neoliberal economic system.

"I'm All Right Jack" Britain.

George Osborne will reveal his smash and grab raid on the poorest members of our society on July 8th. Only 37% of Britain's voted for this, though another 14% voted for UKIP who are probably even worse. Essentially then 51% of the British electorate have revealed themselves to be as selfish and stupid as the Tories wished them to be. It would be easy to say that the right-wing press that infests Britain stampeded a gullible and ill-educated electorate into voting the wrong way. The problem with this analysis is that the shameful press we have in Britain wouldn't exist if it wasn't supported by enough people to make it highly profitable. It could be argued that it was all Ed Miliband's fault for being "too left-wing." This too is utter nonsense since, if the British electorate were not so selfish, they would have given him a fair hearing and refused to be swayed by a bunch of rich people pleading for permission to make themselves even richer at some one else's expense. Some have suggested that what swayed the electorate was fear. Fear of what? The main bone of contention seems to have been the economy and a non-existent recovery suddenly evaporating over night. The fact that the Tories were simply offering tax cuts for themselves and austerity for the rest of us hardly made a dent in their vacuous arguments. If the electorate did vote out of fear then, on July 8th, they will know what fear really is. This budget will be designed purely to restore and extend the privileges of a tiny wealthy minority with a few crumbs for the middle classes to grease the wheels and an assault on the poor, the sick, the disabled and under-privileged unprecedented in modern times. The Tories plan to put the final nail in the coffin of the post-war consensus that our fathers and grandfathers spilt blood to establish. We should be ashamed of ourselves but I fear that far too many of us are gloating instead. You asked for this so enjoy, but don't bleat while the NHS is stolen from under you, your children become the first generation to be poorer than the last and you suddenly find yourself landed with huge bills as private companies charge outrageous premiums for services that used to cost very little.

So, Why Did Labour Lose The Election?

Ed Miliband is a decent human being who put forward a simple message - we deserve better than eternal austerity and should be entitled to a fair shake of the stick. David Cameron's message could not be more different - we deserve nothing better than eternal austerity because it was the British welfare state that crashed the world economy and anyone who can't afford a £1 million mansion cannot be anything other than a scrounger on benefits. One was the politics of hope, the other the politics of despair. The problem for Ed Miliband was that he struggled to get his message across. This is hardly surprising given the rabidly right-wing press in Britain, but there is a deeper underlying problem that Labour just could not overcome - an ill-educated and largely unintelligent electorate that is simply unable to grasp even simple facts. They have little understanding of economic history and cannot fathom the deep mystery of how a hugely destructive world war with its massive government spending could drag the world out of recession. By 1945 it was obvious to even the dimmest voter that Keynesian economics with its deficit spending actually works. By 1979, when Margaret Thatcher managed to wipe the collective memory, this had been forgotten and was replaced with simplistic economic theories that were apparently easy to understand even though they were utter mumbo-jumbo. Throughout the long dark years of the 1980's and 90's Labour spent a great deal of fruitless energy trying to re-educate the British electorate to no avail. They learned the truth contained in the old maxim; "Never try and teach a pig how to sing. You waste your time and you annoy the pig." Ed Miliband's mistake was the most basic of all - he tried to teach the pig how to sing. He had to try I suppose but, to be honest, the British electorate (or at least 37% of them) now have the government they deserve. The rest of us too now have the government we deserve. We had to chance to change the voting system for one that was fairer but allowed Rupert Murdoch and other right-wing snake-oil salesmen to talk us out of it. The News in Shorts has a message for all those who voted Tory - "Oink, oink." - its about the only thing you understand.

It's Official - Britain Is No Longer Civilized.

David Cameron has won the general election with a majority of 12. The man who gave us an economic recovery indistinguishable from the recession, who has hounded the weak, the disadvantaged and the disabled, the man who has rewarded the undeserving rich with yet more riches, the man who has all but destroyed the NHS, the man who imposed the bedroom tax and encouraged yet further growth in the number of slum landlords, the man who told us that he would put an end to uncontrolled immigration and then failed to do so, has won the election and seen off all his political rivals. How? Primarily this seemingly bizarre result was the work of a right-wing press that mounted an effective propaganda campaign against the electorates own best interests at the behest of an insane old man who hates Britain - Rupert Murdoch. Second, David Cameron did a creditable impression of the invisible man and dodged all efforts to force him into an open debate so that we could see the vacuous nature and utter barrenness of his political beliefs. The campaign that the Tories mounted was the most negative in modern electoral history, relived only at the last minute with a series of "sweeteners" and promises that Cameron has absolutely no intention of honouring. How else could he possibly sell the idea of unending austerity - a long dark tunnel of despair for the majority with a light at its end promising only greater riches for an already pampered minority? The real villain, of course, is the British "first past the post" system which has allowed 37% of the voting population to impose a Tory government on the the majority of 63% who didn't vote for them at all. Whatever the reason for this disaster one thing is clear, Britain will now abandon all pretence that it is a civilized nation while the Tories mount an unremitting and vicious attack on the poor, sick and weak on behalf of the rich, greedy and selfish.

Why Labour Cannot Refute The Austerity Argument.

There are few economists in the world who do not recognise that austerity as an economic principle is utter nonsense. Ever since the 1930's it has been known - known that is and not simply believed - that the only way out of recession is to stimulate the economy by deficit spending. The Tories understand this like everyone else but continue to wield the axe because they would rather the poor paid for the present recession, caused by criminal bankers, rather than themselves and their rich mates. And, it must be said, it has worked to a certain extent - the rich have grown richer while the poor have grown poorer and those in the middle have all but stood still. So why has Labour not pointed this out and advocated an end to austerity entirely? The problem is that in order to refute austerity some sophisticated arguments are needed and these immediately run into the simplistic argument that the Tories have deployed - that the British economy is just like a household budget. The British electorate, largely unintelligent, ill-educated and led around by the nose by a right-wing press, think they understand this argument and lack the attention span necessary to hear about the alternative. Labour, recognising this but unable to tell the electorate that they are thick, have no choice therefore but to pay lip-service to this Tory cliche in order to prove their economic credentials. Labour, in effect, have ducked the argument on the very sensible grounds that they cannot win. If they argue for an end to austerity they will appear dull and uninteresting and be open to the accusation that they are "out of touch". The Tories, meanwhile, will trot out the "just like a household budget" argument knowing full well that this is simply short-hand for "you're too thick to understand". Paul Krugman, the American economist, has described the Tory obsession with austerity as a "delusion" but the truth is that it is a confidence trick perpetrated by the greedy, selfish and dishonest and accepted by an electorate too dumb to walk and chew gum at the same time.

So Why Won't Dave Debate?

It's the burning political question of the day - why is David Cameron so afraid of a public televised debate? First and foremost, of course, is his record in government. How can Cameron answer when asked "Why are you allowing Iain Duncan Smith to kill British citizens for money simply because they are disabled?" The closest anyone has come to this is when Jeremy Paxman asked the PM about foodbanks. What was Cameron's answer? Evasion. Then there is the embarrassment of Grant Shapps. Why is the Tory election campaign being led by a confidence trickster who trades under the assumed name of Mike Green and then lies about it? Meanwhile the Tory campaign is firmly mired in the dirt with the spectacle of Afzal Armin trying to do a secret deal with the English Defence League to steal the election in Dudley and Ed Miliband being physically threatened by Tory activists in Rotherhithe. Faced with such questions that touch upon both his integrity and honesty it is hardly surprising that Cameron would shy away from a direct debate with the leader of the Labour party. Instead he has resorted to dirty tricks, name calling and false promises. The whole debate-ducking debacle was nothing more than a dirty trick in itself, designed the shield Cameron from direct questioning about his shameful record as PM. As an alternative Cameron offers empty accusations such as describing the Labour party as "hypocritical holier-than-thou, hopeless, sneering socialists”. What is this if not sneering? The Tories told us that they would not raise VAT and then promptly did it. They promised no "top-down reorganization" of the NHS and then did exactly that. What is that if not hypocrisy? And what is more holier-than-thou than pointing at the working poor, the unemployed, the sick and the disabled and telling them that they are nothing more than an expensive liability? As for being hopeless simply look at the state of the British economy which, despite Tory claims, is now geared to deliver only for the rich. The truth is that David Cameron is trying to hide from the electorate. A shifty, double-dealing conman with no possible way to defend his disgraceful premiership is hiding from you and me, hoping against hope that we won't notice his cowardice.

Inside The Tory "Mind".

Every now and then a Tory MP manages to avoid his party whip and tells the media what he really thinks. This week David Tredinnick, Tory MP for Bosworth in Leicestershire, did just that and revealed, as if we didn't know already, that the Tory party has just as many dingbats, nutters and morons in its ranks as UKIP. While the BBC News website is carrying a story that homeopathy has finally been shown to be the ridiculous idiocy it always was, Mr Tredinnick has been championing it on the basis that "Ninety per cent of pregnant French women use homeopathy". So its science nil and 90% of ignorant uninformed pregnant French women one! Case closed. Not content with this stunning revelation Mr Tredinnick then went on the outline why astrology - that's right, astrology - could solve many of the problems facing the NHS. "Astrology," he tells us confidently, "is a useful diagnostic tool enabling us to see strengths and weaknesses via the birth chart." To clinch his argument he also informed us that "Hippocrates once said, 'A physician without a knowledge of astrology has no right to call himself a physician.' Unfortunately Hippocrates (c. 460 – c. 370 BC) also believed that "the body contains within itself the power to re-balance the four humours and heal itself." In other words patients, no matter what their infirmity, should be immobilized and left to get on with it. None of this would be of much import of course - after all irrational thought processes are to be expected in a political party that believes that taxing rich people returns less revenue and in times of famine rich people should be fed bigger meals - but it just so happens that Mr.Tredinnick is also the chairman of the All-Party Group for Integrated Healthcare. This, as I'm sure you'll agree, is a bit like making Scarlet O'Hara a relationship councilor. Still when you have a government with Iain Duncan Smith in charge of the DWP, Michael Gove in charge of Education, Jeremy Hunt in charge of the NHS, George Osborne in charge of the economy and Boris Johnson as mayor of London, its probably not that unthinkable after all.

Devious Dave Dodges Debate.

David Cameron, according to Jacob Rees-Mogg speaking on Channel Four News, is avoiding a televised debate during the forthcoming election campaign because the media is full of "left-wing people". This might come as a shock to the Tory party but, after five years of their right-wing lunacy, so is the rest of the country. Most of us are used to the Tories avoiding debate of any kind and simply pursuing their insane slash-and-burn policies at the expense of everyone else, but it seems that the media and the other political parties are bemused by Cameron's complete refusal to engage in democratic debate. There are two very good reasons why they shouldn't be. First and foremost is that David Cameron, like all Tories, doesn't like democracy too much and would prefer to return to the good old 19th Century system of only allowing rich people to vote. Second, and far more important, is Cameron's reluctance to defend his record in government. Pretending that the country is recovering economically, that unemployment is down and that wages are now beginning to grow will only get you so far it seems - especially when none of these things are actually true. The reality - the explosion in the need for food banks, the shame of growing homelessness, an entire wasted generation (yet again), the cancer of zero-hour contract low-paid work, fewer policemen on the beat, fewer doctors and nurses, the lack of a credible defence, rising immigration, tax cuts for the rich and spending cuts for the poor, the selling of the country's assets to various organised crime syndicates, and the all too evident greed and selfishness of the Tory party - is difficult, if not impossible, to defend. Cameron's solution, it would seem, is not to bother while, at the same time, dangling carrots in front of the electorate that he has absolutely no intention of honouring after the election. To say, as much of the press and all of the opposing political parties are doing, that Cameron is "chicken" misses the point entirely. Cameron is no more "chicken" than any other confidence trickster, shyster or snake-oil salesman. Avoiding any meaningful debate about his disastrous premiership is simply part of his make up and stems from his insufferable upper-class arrogance and complete disconnect with the rest of us lesser mortals. The fact that the Tories have to wheel out the aristocratic (in his mind at least) Jacob Rees-Mogg of all people to defend themselves tells us all we need to know about the public school "Boys Own" London club that the Tory party have always wanted to be. The Tories are and always have been a complete disaster for this country. Masquerading as the friend of business they have always sought to undermine commerce by attacking the very basis of its success - demand. The Tories are no more interested in the capitalist system than was William the Conqueror, Ghengis Khan or Vlad the Impaler. Their vision is for a kind of updated 21st century feudalism in which the rich, greedy and selfish do as they please and the rest of us peasants gratefully tug at our forelocks.

Cameron: Why Children Should Be Taught To Be Greedy And Selfish.

David Cameron has been outlining his thoughts about the proper way to bring up children to the Institute of Directors Magazine. Children, he told the magazine, should be taught "how to turn a profit" in order to combat the evil "job killing regulations" coming out of the European Community. "The arts and science are as nothing when compared to making money," Cameron told our reporter when we quizzed him about his interview. "We must instill in our children a love of money above all else and rid them of any fanciful ideas that they might become astronauts, pop stars, painters, sculptors, novelists, scientists or, God forbid, charity workers. Its time we turned our children's eyes away from the stars and back to the gutter where I and my rich mates live. As for protecting the rights of ordinary working people, or the peasants as I like to call them, why bother? Anyone whose interests are not solely concerned with making money doesn't deserve any protection. Bankers, on the other hand, need all the protection we can give them whether its actually legal or not. Where would we all be if bankers had to answer for their criminal activity? The Tory party wouldn't exist for a start and that, as I'm sure you'll agree, would be a tragedy. Greed and selfishness are the core values we need to instill in children before they even start thinking about such rubbish as the meaning of life, what constitutes good and evil and what the future might hold. Once greed and selfishness have taken hold such questions become irrelevant. What is the meaning of life? Making a profit, obviously. What is good and evil? Good is being richer than your neighbour and evil is missing an opportunity to turn a decent profit out of someone else's misery. What does the future hold? More and more money - what else? The real strength of Tory philosophy is its "Can do - if I can get away with it" attitude and in its complete disregard for thinking instead of simply grabbing what you can. As Descartes once said; "I'm greedy, selfish and don't think too much, therefore I am."

Straw And Rifkind Defend The Indefensible

Jack Straw and Malcolm Rifkind have been defending their corruption and money-grubbing today, both telling us that they've done nothing "improper". While Jack Straw was recorded in an undercover press sting informing us that he "works under the radar" to influence policy decisions that favour the rich, greedy and immoral, Malcolm Rifkind was telling us that his working day in Parliament is only 75% of what we pay him for. "You'd be surprised how much spare time I have," he told the reporters. "I spend much of my time reading books and walking." Both men admit that they can earn between five to eight thousand pounds per half-day for selling their "influence" and seem amazed that taxpayers might object to paying these clowns 100% wages for 75% effort. We shouldn't be surprised though. Corruption is so widespread in Westminster that a reporter cannot throw a rock without hitting a crook. We have had years of "accidental" expense scams, tax-dodging, bribe-taking, law-breaking and scrounging off state funds from MP's and so-called Peers of the Realm. This is how the British political system works. A bunch of spivs, confidence tricksters and petty criminals tell us lies about their sense of "public duty", we vote them in hoping against hope that maybe they mean it and they then plunder the public purse while bleating about how they don't get the respect they deserve. Respect? They are thieves, pure and simple, scroungers, albeit very talented ones, two-faced crooks with all the moral fibre of a dead whelk. Yet no sense of shame, no inkling that what they are doing is wrong can be discerned as they strive manfully to defend their nasty little scams. Commentators often ask why the electorate seem so apathetic. How can they be expected to be enthusiastic about this continuing tale of corruption or about the unedifying spectacle of MP's fighting to get their greedy snouts in the trough? What is the point of voting when the choice is between one petty criminal or another?

Are The Fatcats Getting Desperate?

As the General Election in the UK looms ever closer there are signs that the selfish, greedy and anti-social are beginning to panic. We've already had the usual suspects being wheeled out by the Tory party to warn the electorate that voting Labour will "threaten the recovery" and that bankers, those heroes of the economic battlefield, will leave in droves if they are regulated to stop their crime spree. Meanwhile HSBC has apologised for being found out, yet again, breaking the law and has promised that it won't do it again - honest. The BBC, with their accustomed impartiality, have tried to tar Ed Balls with the "out of touch" label over cash payments to small businesses while asking various Tory ministers if they'd like to explain why they are so wonderful and so in touch with ordinary people. Andrew Marr sat with undisguised admiration while Iain Duncan Smith explained why persecuting the unemployed, sick and disabled is the Christian thing to do and how his multi-billion pound single benefit scheme has come in under the budget he snatched out of thin air five minutes before. Asked why wealthy tax dodgers are treated with kid gloves while ordinary people who simply get their complicated tax form wrong are criminally prosecuted, Iain Duncan Smith explained patiently that rich people pay more tax if you're nice to them while ordinary people deserve harsh treatment because they're peasants. That would explain why the Tories have ignored the evidence presented to them over the last five years outlining HSBC criminal activity while simultaneously blaming Labour for not doing something before the evidence of the crime became known. Little of this has washed with the electorate who now know beyond doubt that the Tory party is an organised crime syndicate, so Cameron & Co have called in the big guns in the form of Merrill Lynch, one of the USA's most successful bunch of crooked bankers, to warn us that we will all turn French if Labour wins the election. A Labour government, they warn us, would create "an economy structured like France, which has strict laws on working hours, minimum wages and contracts." Quelle disaster! "How will criminal bankers and greedy business executives finance their film-star life styles if ordinary people get decent wages and are given rights?" a spokesperson from Merrill Lynch told our reporter. "If they are forced to pay their fair share of taxes as well it will be disastrous for the British economy. You have to understand the difference between an honest profit, which is very difficult to achieve, and the much easier money to be made through the kind of exploitation and extortion that we prefer. Profit involves hard work, something we are complete strangers to, and risk, which we are completely averse to. It will much better for all concerned - well us at any rate - if we keep the present system of crime licensed by an understanding Tory party."

Selfish And Greedy Line Up To Knock Labour.

As the general election campaign gets under way the selfish and greedy are busy queuing up to tell us all why voting in a Labour government would be a disaster. Orchestrated by Lynton Crosby so-called "celebrities" such as Gary Barlow are bleating about the possibility of a mansion tax while the likes of Stefano Pessina, the acting head of Boots, and Digby Jones drone on that Labour will be "bad for business" because, as we all should know, business is the be-all and end-all of everything. When it was pointed out that Stefano Pessina is nothing more than a greedy, selfish tax dodger, Boris Johnson leapt to his defence by pretending that it is Pessina's sacred duty to dodge UK taxes in order to make his likewise greedy and selfish shareholders happy. Boris did at least have enough political common sense to add that it was "disappointing" that neither Boots nor Pessina pay tax, but rather spoiled this by adding that "to have a strong, healthy society, you have got to support the businesses that create the tax revenue and employ people and put bread on the table for people, otherwise you can't begin to pay for the poorest and neediest, for the welfare state and hospitals and everything else." So how does that work when they refuse to pay taxes then? Essentially the Tory message couldn't be more clear - greed and selfishness is here to stay and it is our duty to sacrifice our standard of living in order to support the film star lifestyle of the undeserving rich. Of course the Tory party is entirely funded by these greedy tax dodgers who see their "contributions" to the party as a cost-effective investment to guarantee the continuation of fat juicy tax loopholes. This is sold to hard-of-understanding Tory voters through the medium of press propaganda which paints all the unemployed, elderly, sick and disabled as "feckless scroungers". The truth is that it is the Tory party and their fellow-travellers who are the real scroungers, eager to take everything they can get their sticky fingers on and avoid any real contribution to our society.

Is The Tory Party A Haven For Sociopaths?

A sociopath is defined as someone who is utterly selfish, has no empathy with anyone else and will ruthlessly exploit other's weaknesses for their own benefit. There is no lie they will not tell, no despicable action they won't take to get what they want and, when caught out, will move heaven and earth to distance themselves from the consequences of what they've done. I'm tempted to say at this point "I rest my case", but more needs to be said for the benefit of those foolish enough to vote for this vile political party. The telling of lies by politicians is common to all parties if they have any hope whatsoever of being elected into office within a democracy. That is the greatest weakness of democracy - the electorate don't like bad news or unpalatable truths. Telling the truth for a politician is all too often nothing less than career suicide and can be so damaging that, even if proved right, they will never regain the confidence of the electorate. What it comes down to then is the motive behind a politicians lies. The politician who genuinely wants to do something for his country will lie in order to get into office where he can do some good. The politician who thinks only in terms of his or her own career will tell lies that will get him into office so he can line his or her own pockets irrespective of the damage it does to the country and the electorate he or she are supposed to represent. The difference between the two is entirely dependent not on the lies they tell but how they behave when in office. Putting aside the lies that the Labour party were responsible for the banking crash of 2008, that poor people are all feckless and deserve no favours, taxing the rich produces less revenue, tax loopholes are impossible to close and privatisation is the answer to everything, what have the Tories actually done? First and foremost, of course, is that they have made themselves and their rich backers even richer than they were in 2008. Second, they have made the poor much poorer than they were in 2008. They have deliberately undermined the NHS, starving it of funds and destroying the morale of its staff while remaining completely unmoved by the total chaos they have created or the danger to those in need of health care provision. They have vilified the sick, the disabled and the unemployed, lumping them all together under the heading of "feckless scroungers." They have kicked into the long grass any meaningful investigation of organised child abuse by an elite group of politicians and establishment figures, probably because it's true. They have done everything they can to demonstrate quite clearly that they are utterly selfish, have no empathy with anyone but themselves and have been eager to exploit the weakness of others for their own benefit. So is the Tory party a haven for sociopaths? Of course it is. Unfortunately it also seems to be a haven for those a little further along the spectrum of anti-social behaviour (and don't forget that the Tories believe that society doesn't actually exist at all) - the psychopath. Psychopaths are those who are evidently sociopathic but are also quite willing to murder those who get in their way because they have no fear of being caught or punished. Given the number of deaths that can be directly attributed to such lovely Tory policies as the bedroom tax, denying vulnerable people benefit payments on flimsy grounds and the destruction of the NHS, now I rest my case.