Walk the Line

"We all know about people trying to cling onto power... the Lib Dems are first party to try to cling on to trappings of opposition"

(from Harriet Harman in her riposite to the Queen's Speech)

The Eight-Year Decade

Still on the subject of Slasher, it was both predictable and profoundly depressing to see his recent speech to the CBI could have been written at any time in the last 15 years....  deregulation, tax cuts etc. etc (he even found time to bang on about the fall of communism).

No mention at all of the staggering failure of the world's financial system. None. Not a squeak. In fact, it's as though it never happened... as though the whole of 2007 and 2008 just disappeared into a huge wormhole.

All we get is the old mantra - private good, public bad.

This blogger can't be the only one that has a small part of him that wishes that Gordo and Darling should have let the whole system go crashing down.

Say cheese!

So, the first round of cuts are upon us. Amongst the statistics, the financial figures and the percentages, one question sticks out above all others - why does Osborne always have that fixed grin on his face?

We all know that most Tories get a secret thrill about watching public sector workers lose their jobs, but most have the decency to declare so only in the company of their kind down at the Carlton Club or on the message boards of Tory-supporting blogs.

I'd hate to see him deliver a eulogy at a funeral.

We have angered Him again...

If an alien arrived in the UK today, it could be forgiven for thinking that the market was the deity of our very own primitive pagan religion. Turn on any news programme or open any paper, and the same fears and threats propagated:

From Garry Jenkins, soothsayer at GDC Partners:

"We must act now and provide a sacrifice (normally public sector workers, hurled into the volcano - well, the job centre anyway) lest The Markets punish us"

"If we don't do this The Markets will be angry", claims lead Necromancer at the CBI.  

Our PM - who has a direct line upstairs himself (well, to be fair he's probably related to half of them) - uses these fears in a different way: "You the people must accept gerrymandering... sorry, I mean, innovations in our constitution and our political systems in the name of 'Stability'"

The crazy thing about all this is that the complete collapse of the world's financial system in 2007 (has everyone forgotten already??) was a demonstration about JUST HOW RUBBISH our 'markets' and the supposed experts that trade in them are at running things.

You see - there's no-one upstairs. Just a bunch of guys who are very very, very wealthy indeed and are gambling with our money.

And having the last laugh.

Again.

Time's Up!

So there it is. The dawn of a new age of trusting the people, of Big Society (it's back again, even though no-one has a clue what it means) and of freedom from state control.

How is this new age going to be marked? That's right, by stopping people having a quiet drink in a pub after 11 o-clock, even if they want one.

The British people, you see, can't be trusted. Okay, when I say 'British people', what I mean is the plebs that can't afford to be part of a members bar (somewhere like the Carlton Club, where people like us go, chaps!).

A dark day indeed for those of us that were hoping to drink our way through a guaranteed 5 years of Dave, George, Blotto, Tarquin, Barnaby and the rest...

Where is that Post-It gone?

New Tory Schools Minister Nick Gibb MP has made the cardinal sin of saying out loud what most of his colleagues secretly think.

This is merely a less polite way of expressing the same views as those of his colleague Michael Gove, who  has made earlier references to 'good universities'.

In both cases these 'good' and 'rubbish' institutions are defined not through undertaking something as dull as wading through impartial reports from HEFCE and the Quality Assurance Agency, and coming to an informed conclusion... but rather an arbitrary list of universities jotted down on the back of a Post-It over whisky in the Carlton Club.

Danny Alexander - a first-class, grade A **** (insert letters as appropriate)

The first political rule of any incoming government, of any hue, is to find Daily Mail-friendly examples of public spending waste (laptops for disabled lesbians, or whatever) and to act 'outraged' (and also to infer that these anaemic examples are symptomatic of a huge government-wide problem and not a bunch isolated incidences of poor spending decisions). The mythical 'wine cellar' of City Hall, supposedly uncovered by BoJo in 2008, is a prime example.

The second rule of any unsuccessful negotiations is to blame the other side for willing them to fail.

Minister for Paper Clips, Danny Alexander MP, has helpfully combined both of these into one nugget of political bullsh*t.

He is our **** of the week. I'll leave you to fill in the gaps.

I DEFINITELY didn't say that...

.... where's Malcolm Tucker when you need him?

Nick Clegg’s speech to the Liberal Democrat Spring Conference 2008:

“This talk of alliances comes up a lot, doesn’t it? Everyone wants to be in our gang.


So I want to make something very clear today. Will I ever join a Conservative government?


No.”

A New Dawn has broken, has it not?

"New Politics, people! New Britain! A New Kind of Government!

(Also a new change to the constitutional arrangements that have been in place since 1792 to ensure that a Tory minority government can soldier on without having to call an election, but we'll mention that one very quickly and hope no one notices)

"... anyway, as we were saying, New Politics is here, a New Way Of Capitalising Random Words (and a new stone cold silence on the Big Society idea, that everyone has hopefully forgotten about).

"Nick Clegg and the Liberal Democrats have joined with us. They have agreed to compromise - and drew a hard bargain! They have managed to secure TWENTY proper jobs (and definitely not sidekick roles, non-jobs and joke positions) in exchange for merely jettisonning every single principle and belief they supposedly held! My, how Geroge, William and I had to think hard about that one!

"Together, Nick, George, William, Blotto, Felix, Barnaby, Cornelius and I will work hand-in-hand with all of you plebs and we will secure a brighter future! We'll appoint an anti-abortionist with a track record of voting against gay rights to be responsible for equalities! We'll appoint two hardline neo-conservatives to be Foreign Secretary and Defence Minister! We'll appoint a man who is slightly to the right of Ghengis Khan to be Work and Pensions supremo!

"Together, we'll march forwards! (You won't as you'll be phoning the outsourced job centre trying to find yourself a new job, but that's life). Together we'll make smarmy, slightly forced jokes in front of a adoring press! Together we'll forge a New Politics that definately isn't just a desperate marriage of convenience. Not at all!"

[Cue another rendition of Rule Britannia, a couple of Chris Rea tracks to satisfy the Lib Dems and a final blast of Rule Britannia]

Bye Bye Big Society

So that's it then.

He (mostly) blew it. Big Society didn't exactly play well on the doorsteps - people aren't on the whole sold on the idea of working 9-5 and then being asked to run their local school / fire station when they get home. In fact, it came 97th on a list of 'things I'd rather do after spending a day in the office', behind watching re-runs of QI on Dave, trying to find the hoover attachment that you lost sometime in 2008 which you haven't seen since and playing the game that they do in Aliens where you try to stab between your fingers with a knife (you know, the one the android does a really good job at?).

Still, Dave tried, and we didn't listen. Now, armed with a majority of minus 20, a gaggle of disgruntled MPs -  and a Tory press about as happy as you would be if you spent over a year bellowing in someone's ear (in this case that of joe public) telling them repeatedly to vote for the blue team, only to have then turn round, shrug their shoulders and yawn - our shiny new PM is ready to have a go anyway - to change Britain for the better!

Which involves, erm. What?

Well, in no particular order, these are the goodies that the country can look forwards to over the next parliament:

• Tax cuts for the hard-working people that have suffered most over the course of the recession - people whose hard graft, ingenuity and drive need to be recognised in this bright new dawn.... that's right  - it's people set to inherit a seven figure fortune! Hooray for them. They've certainly earned it - and any nurse taking a pay cut to cover the cost of this should stop moaning and accept that this is the correct decision. Logic go back in your box - you are going to be staying there for a couple of years.
•  An end to red tape. Anyone that experienced the last couple of years KNOWS that it is too much regulation that has damaged this country. In fact, I can't think of a single example of where we haven't over-regulated. And neither can you.
• Free schools! Lots of 'em. There is no way in a million years that anyone dodgy will try to take advantage of the chance to run them. None at all. In fact, allowing everyone - bar the people trained to do it - to run a school is an efficient use of money in these troubled times - and don't go throwing any facts in my direction or anything to try to prove otherwise. In fact, a black man I met in Plymouth yesterday agreed. And I had this email from a woman from Cleethorpes, who is going to set one up herself! She penned this passionate piece just the other day - she clearly is (along with that woman from Rochdale whose name I have already forgotten) a sterling example of true British values:

"I realy wont to set up a free School. I am fed up of NuLieBore and the EUSSR telling us what too do in this Great Country. We need a return of Christian Values, the cane and no Political Correctness and immigration. I am going to set up a school to teach this and also to help with making sure that Our Children learn proper subjects like Grammer and not islam and homosexuality".


So - a bright new future has arrived. No longer will we have to subject this country to the terrible crimes of the last decade, like paying our public sector workers a reasonable wage or being fair to people! No more shall the silent majority like Richard Littlejohn and Melanie Phillips be silenced by the weight of the liberal establishment! And no longer shall Britain be forced to take a pragmatic and sensible approach to Europe!

[Cue full-length rendition of God Save the Queen and Rule Britannia (punctuated by the sound of James Murdoch kicking the wall outside]