Privatisation And Other Fairy Tales.

British politics is largely run on myths and legends. You know the sort of thing - low wages has no effect on demand, taxing rich people returns less revenue, disabled people are all secret Olympic gold medalists, unemployed people are all lazy and feckless. By far the most ridiculous one, however, is that privatised businesses are better and more efficient than publicly-owned industries. This so-called "efficiency" comes with a high price tag as your gas, electricity and travel bills show all too clearly. What has been largely hidden by all governments since 1979 is the added costs we are all paying. Rail privatisation has not only increased prices to eye-watering levels, it now turns out that we are subsidising it to the tune of £1 million per week while they happily pay their shareholders £305 million per year in dividends. Essentially then rail privatisation has turned out to be nothing more than an exercise in diverting money from the public purse into the pockets of the already wealthy. It is not only a rip-off it is fraud on a huge scale - and you are paying for it. This is not surprising since the nation's best orgainised crime syndicate - the Tory party - thought the whole scam up in the first place. The question that then arises is why succeeding Labour governments have failed to do anything about it. Today it was revealed that MP's have access to a "hardship fund" totalling nearly £6 million. How they might fall on hard times is difficult to imagine - especially since they don't pay for anything and fund their property portfolios by shoving their sticky fingers into the public purse. "We are all Thatcherites now," David Cameron told us last week but it would seem that what he was actually saying is that they are all crooks and shysters now. MP's might be out of touch, but they are certainly in touch with their criminal instincts and have absolutely now hesitation in helping themselves to your money - irrespective of whatever colour rosette they wear on election night.

Benefit Scroungers Cost Millions.

As part of his campaign to raise his own personal prejudice against the unemployed to the level of a political philosophy, Ian Duncan Smith wants a legal ban on them spending their money on such things as booze and fags. This, of course, makes the assumption that the unemployed, many of them thrown out of work by the Tories themselves, are all feckless scroungers whose selfishness knows no bounds. It also assumes that, as a group, the unemployed are different and simply don't deserve the freedom of choice that the rest of the population enjoy. "“There are people who are using benefits to fund a habit and children are going hungry," IDS slyly suggests in a blatant attempt to shift the blame for starving children in this country from himself to the victims of his vile policies. His bigotry is brought into sharper focus when the privileges that he and his fellow MP's get are taken into consideration. While the unemployed are being faced with a choice between a packet of cigarettes or a tin of beans, MP's are faced with a choice between a risotto of pea and broad bean with Golden Cross goat’s cheese or a roasted half spring chicken with stuffing for less than £3.00, while their cigarettes, cigars and booze can be bought without the taxes that the rest of us have to pay. Why? Because such items are subsidised by the taxpayer to the tune of a cool £5.8 million per year. That is nearly £10,000 a year for each and every MP - in addition to their basic salary of £65,738 - £175 per week, or three times what a single unemployed man or woman get in benefits to pay for everything. When it comes to scrounging IDS and his mates leave the unemployed in their dust.