The News In Shorts

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

Monday 30 September 2013

Does Cameron Aim At A Dictatorship?

Three years ago the question as to whether Cameron is aiming at dictatorship would have been laughable. Today the question couldn't be answered with any degree of certainty. The facts speak for themselves. Everything that has stood in the way of even his most outrageous policies have been swept away, laws have changed, no lie is too low or dirty to use, no life too important not to sacrifice, no sense of decency so basic that it can't be ignored, no demonstration so large it can't be discounted. Have no doubt, as the DWP's own statistics prove beyond doubt, the Tories are literally killing people to save on their personal tax bills. Of those disabled who have had their sickness benefit stopped by the DWP 10,600 have died within six weeks. Meanwhile the death rate amongst the elderly poor has rocketed since 2010 and is expected to climb even higher this winter after the Tories scrapped the Warm Home initiative. There are hundreds of thousand now living in this country who, without the charity of food banks, would be dead from starvation. In Britain, in the 21st century. Now, they would have us believe, Britain must withdraw from the European Convention on Human Rights so we can extradite foreign criminals. In other words every man and woman and child in the country has to forego the protection afforded by the Convention simply to save the Tories time and effort when they want to throw someone out of the country. The majority must suffer so that a tiny number of foreign criminals can be more easily dealt with. The truth is, of course, that the Convention stands in the way of the Tories and some of their more nasty fantasies, especially when it comes to employment law. This is disturbing enough in itself but we now hear that UKIP is poised to replace the Tories as the repository for all the nasty, self-centred and greedy right-wingers in the country. The question is what part of our democracy, if not all of it, will the Tories remove to prevent this? They are already talking in terms of another coalition with the two-faced Lib Dems, Tories by any other name, in order to extend their undemocratic grip on power beyond 2015 with or without a mandate. If that is not the definition of dictatorship what is?

BBC Barred From Filming Manchester NHS Demonstration.

Yesterday David Cameron and Grant Shapps were dragging their sorry butts around various BBC studios trying to explain why their disastrous and self-serving housing policy is a "good idea". They were also eager to point out that Ed Miliband's plan to freeze energy prices was unworkable because the energy companies won't let him. This was utter nonsense since the rest of Europe already caps the prices that energy companies can charge their customers and, as far as the News in Shorts can ascertain, the lights are still on over there. Today they have not been so keen on the BBC and have banned them from filming the 50 to 70 thousand NHS protestors outside the Tory party conference in Manchester. The BBC cameras were kept at bay by the Tory's favourite albeit incompetent security firm, G4S. They couldn't prevent the BBC from filming two elderly retired soldiers being escorted out of the conference for daring to protest against the Tory cuts for the armed services however. Tory attempts at censorship are still quite patchy and they are still finding it difficult to hide 50,000 plus protestors even from the BBC who are quite adept at ignoring stories that paint a true picture of Cameron's nasty party in action. Still, you would think that the BBC, who seem quite capable of filming in such places as Syria, would have tried a little harder or were they afraid that the G4S security guards would shoot them?

Sunday 29 September 2013

David Cameron And Grant Shapps Talk Utter Bilge.

David Cameron's big idea for winning the next general election, apart from pretending that Ed Miliband is actually Neil Kinnock in disguise, is what he calls mending the "broken property market." This consists of recreating the utter madness of over-priced housing being sold to people who are either priced out of the market and can't afford it or are so wealthy that they can afford to buy a second property they don't need. Only the Tories, he asserts, can thus produce a "stable" economy based on an overblown housing market. To ram home this idiotic message Cameron has sent his favourite moron, Grant Shapps, around the studios to explain to us thickos how pumping up subprime lending once again is good for us all. Of course it isn't. The only "cure" for the housing crisis in Britain is to build more housing, allow prices to fall to realistic levels that ordinary people can afford and prevent the financial sector from creating the fiat money that wrecked the world economy in 2008. There is an old saying that the acorn never falls far from the tree. With the Tories the acorns of their policies are never far removed from what is advantageous for them personally and this so-called housing policy is a case in point. It is designed to support the value of their own property portfolios and recreate the economic conditions that favour them while leaving the rest of us exposed to any bad debt that is generated. This policy has absolutely nothing to do with what Cameron and Shapps like to call "fairness" - it's about greed and protecting their wealth at our expense.

Saturday 28 September 2013

Will Larry The Cat Be The Tory's Next Victim?

Larry, No.10's official cat, is under threat tonight as it was revealed that David Cameron and his wife don't like him. We asked a Tory party spokesman to answer this shocking accusation as a matter of some urgency; "Look this bloody cat is a well known scrounger, living off state benefits and refusing to do an honest days work. Since he moved in he hasn't caught a single bleeding rat, even though the cabinet office is full of them. All he does is sit on a pile of blankets at the window. We're thinking of cutting his benefits since he has two blankets. I don't see why taxpayers should subsidise an extra blanket that he clearly doesn't need. We're beginning to think that he's not even British and maybe an illegal immigrant. Now if he was rich and got himself elected as a Tory MP that would be a different kettle of fish, or rats if you prefer. Being a bone-idle scrounger with more blankets than he could possible ever use would then be a positive advantage while his ability to ignore rats would serve him well in Parliament." Larry himself was unavailable for comment but his agent, Max Hastings, told us that he would be suing the government for defamation of character and unfeline treatment.

Tories Still Modernising Francis Maud Insists.

As the Tory party moves heaven and earth to force the country back into the mid-19th century, encouraging slum landlords, recreating workhouses for the poor and freeing capitalism to be as nasty and brutish as it can be, Francis Maud is insisting that the Tory party is still "modernising" itself. "Any party that ceases to modernise is a party that is going backwards," he told the Guardian today. "Modernisation is not something about realigning the Conservative party's principles," he added, "it is simply about making it current and making it contemporary." All of which begs the question, "Yes, and your point?" Meanwhile Cameron is hoping that a tax break for married couples, 66% of whom won't even qualify for it, will swing the election for him, Ian Duncan Smith is now talking about himself as the new William Beveridge even as he callously throws the poor, vulnerable and sick to the wolves and Michael Gove is hoping to recreate a two-tier education system in which only the children of the wealthy will benefit. If such 19th century thinking is what the Tories consider to be modern then one can only presume that they are still stuck in the 18th. But, if you really want to know what "modern" Toryism is all about then you have to look no further than Eric Pickles. Confronted by one of his own constituents who was abused as a child at the Kendall House care home and wanted to know why he and his party were ignoring the allegations, his reaction was to tell her to "adjust her medication." That is modern Toryism in a nutshell - callous, uncaring, selfish, self-serving and brutishly primitive.

Friday 27 September 2013

Tories Place Value On Their Latest Fraud.

The Tories are salivating at the amount of money they and their multinational pals hope to glum out of their latest scam. The sale of Royal Mail is expected to raise up to £3.3 billion in a three-step plan that the Tories hope will cover their tracks and avoid charges of fraud. In the first instance shares will be offered to "the public" - those who already own the organisation - although they will have to buy at least £700 of shares in order to avoid inadvertently selling any of them to those without substantial savings. These people, whom the Tories fervently hope will be mainly Tory voters, are then confidently expected to sell on their shares at a reasonable profit to multinational companies. With the shares now safely in the hands of a bunch of crooks the Tories can then look forward to some nice juicy "donations" from their grateful mates who will be free to rob the public blind in order to fill their already bulging offshore accounts. Thus at least part of the £3.3 billion will find its way into the Tory party coffers in what amounts to the money laundering of public money. With a straight face Business minister Michael Fallon told the BBC that the six-day-a-week delivery, or "universal service", was "completely protected". In other words the Royal Mail, or whatever its new name will be, will be "too big and too important to fail" and, while profits will be privatised, any losses will be nationalised with the taxpayer as the "bank of last resort." Sweet.

Thursday 26 September 2013

Tory Corruption Rolls On.

The Tories are beginning to scent defeat especially over Ed Miliband's pledge to freeze energy prices. So far there hasn't been a peep out of them on the issue. The reason? Because they can't match the policy and if, as the energy companies are threatening, energy prices are hugely inflated in anticipation of a Labour victory in 2015 what can Cameron do about it? Nothing, he wouldn't dare. And there's the rub because if his wealthy mates in the energy sector do raise prices the question will be why don't you do something about it Dave? Heads Ed Miliband wins, tails David Cameron loses. Nothing loath, however, Tory corruption is still rolling on, grubbing as much money in bribes as they can before being turfed out of office. Osborne is busy challenging the EU's attempt to cap banker's bonuses in the European Court to protect his banking pals. BT has been handed £1.2 of taxpayers money despite having a virtual monopoly in the provision of broadband internet. As Margaret Hodge has succinctly put it; “The consumer is failing to get the benefits of healthy competition and BT will end up owning assets created from £1.2bn of public money.” Meanwhile the Tory "reform" of the NHS is now leading to ever more health rationing while the bloodsuckers who have muscled their way into Britain's healthcare system courtesy of the Tory party are offering a "self-funding" option that allows those with the money to jump the queue. And, if you want to know how the Tory party is directly benefitting from all this you just have to look at the scandal involving the City brokerage firm ICAP. They were run by an ex-Tory treasurer who "donated" millions to the Tories even as his company was fraudulently fixing international interest rates. Of course the Tories are refusing to hand back the millions they have received from this crook. And so the Tory money-making scheme of accepting bribes from criminals and laundering public money through the private sector rolls on. Makes you wonder why 32% of the electorate still support these spivs and conmen doesn't it? Maybe they are just plain stupid.

Wednesday 25 September 2013

Lord Ashcroft, Tax Avoidance And Pretending He's More Than A Conman.

Lord Ashcroft likes to pretend he's not simply the greedy conman we all think he is. Of late he's gone to great lengths to persuade us that he's some sort of historian after getting one of his publishing mates to print his boy's own history of British heroes. Now the BBC are trying to make out that he's a "widely respected pollster and internet politics magnate". Despite this he remains a grubby and greedy individual whose only interest in life is himself. Listening to Ed Miliband's speech yesterday he saw that the jig might be up for the selfish and self-serving. He decided, therefore, that his only course of action was to try an elevate his greed and avarice to a higher level. "I'm proud to be a tax avoider" he told Labour delegates as if this makes him noble in some way. "I give away the equivalent of my tax bill to charity," he asserted, though he neglected to say that his favourite charity is the Tory party. So what does this add to our knowledge of Lord Ashcroft? First that his arrogance knows no bounds - only he knows what is good for society and how money should be distributed - and two, that he is desperate to show people that he's more than just a conman. He has the sheer brass neck then to lecture the Labour party and darkly suggest that the election is "Ed Miliband's to lose". Presumably this will come about if we fail to heed to his self-serving drivel. What Ashcroft is trying to do is highjack what he sees as a powerful political message, to surf a new wave that otherwise threatens to sweep him and his kind away. He remains, however, nothing more than a greedy, selfish crook and should be given all the attention that such people deserve - none.

Tuesday 24 September 2013

The BBC Steps Up Propaganda Against Labour

The BBC have been almost as eager to tear into Ed Miliband's speech at the Labour party conference today as the energy companies. Their reporting has so far literally dripped with loaded language as they have "analysed" Ed's speech. "Is this a backward step towards socialism?" they asked, as if the untrammelled capitalism that has propelled us backwards towards the mid-19th century is somehow a better idea. "Will the lights go out as they did in the 1970's during the "Winter of Discontent?" they asked, though they have never been heard to speculate as to whether the bedroom tax is Cameron's equivalent of Thatcher's disastrous poll tax. "How will they freeze energy prices if the energy companies won't let them?" they ask, as if the energy companies and not a democratically elected government actually runs the country. The BBC's reporting so far resembles a member of the blue-rinse set hiking up her skirt and screaming hysterically because she thinks she sees a mouse. "My God," the BBC are whimpering, "is that socialism I can see? What will become of us all if we have to live in a fairer society?" They have ignored the scandalous dependence on food banks for a growing number of people in Britain. They have refused to report the rising death rate amongst the elderly poor. They have turned a blind eye to the number of people under threat of eviction because of the bedroom tax. They have no time for stories about the growth of hate crimes against the disabled. They only have time to reiterate the Tory line that there is "no alternative." Now there is.

Energy Companies Threaten Shortages If Not Allowed To Rip Off Customers.

The fat cat multinational energy companies have been very quick to condemn Ed Miliband's promise to curb their rapaciousness. He had barely finished his speech in which he promised a 20 month freeze on energy prices before they were yelling from the rooftops that such out-and-out socialism would lead to power shortages and a collapse of the energy market in Britain. "How dare this man try to prevent us from ripping off our customers whenever we want," one energy company spokesman told our reporter. "Who does he think he is? It's a well known fact that British governments should support big business because otherwise we'll take our bat and ball home. How can we be expected to provide ourselves with eye-watering bonuses and shower cash on our shareholders without charging outrageous prices? It's not fair." The threat of deliberately creating power shortages is a real one and should be taken seriously. So, should Ed back off on his promise and knuckle under to the blackmail of the energy companies? Fortunately there is an alternative to this - re-nationalisation without compensation. Now that is a threat that really has some gravitas.

Monday 23 September 2013

Royal Mail Executives Stuff Their Pension Funds With Taxpayers Money.

In anticipation of the Tories sell off of yet another publicly owned industry the executives at Royal Mail are already stealing taxpayers money to line their own pockets with. Having already stolen £19 million to pad out their pension pots in December they then stole another £20 million in March as well as "negotiating" a further £10 million of extra cash every year until 2018. All in all they have effectively nabbed a cool £90 million of our money while rank-and-file workers have been forced to accept reduced pension rights. We asked a Royal Mail spokesman for an explanation; "The trouble with ordinary working class people is that they simply don't understand high finance. This is not theft in the accepted sense. I like to think of it in terms of an anticipation of bonus payments for all the hard work involved in the forthcoming privatisation. This involves such difficult decisions as how to get rid of unionised staff in order to cut costs, how to avoid paying out redundancy payments unless those being made redundant are executives and which offshore bank to stuff all our bonuses in order to avoid paying tax. I'm surprised that we don't get more sympathy from the public who must surely know that we're worth every penny we can get our hands on. I urge everyone to buy shares in Royal Mail so that we have access to even more cash. After all you don't want to miss out on buying something that you already own now do you?"

Sunday 22 September 2013

Tories Decide To Kill Yet More Pensioners This Winter.

The country's worst government since - well, forever - has decided that the soaring death rate amongst the elderly poor just isn't soaring enough and has quietly dropped the £20 million Warm Homes scheme to get the numbers up this winter. We asked a Tory spokesperson for a comment but they were all too busy padding out their expense accounts. So we asked a Lib Dem spokesperson instead; "You're lucky that I've finished filling out my expense form for the week," he told us. "As for this crafty, not to say nasty, policy decision I'm a Lib Dem so it's got nothing to do with me or my party. We just follow orders, so we're completely innocent of all charges. Now, it's obviously true that a great many old and useless poor people will die this winter because of this but they don't vote Lib Dem either so it doesn't really matter. We did promise to get a grip on the rising cost of fuel and I think we've delivered on that promise since prices have only risen by a measly 22%. That wouldn't have been possible without us in government you know. In fact I'm so delighted at our fantastic progress in the last three years that I'm confident that voters will flock to put us back into government in 2015. Not the nasty Tories obviously, but we can work with anyone as long as we can keep our nice cushy ministerial jobs. We're practically indispensable as far as I can see."

Tories Warn That Labour Would "Clobber The Rich".

Chris Grayling, the Justice Secretary who fiddled his expenses for £127,000, has warned the electorate in Britain that a Labour government would "clobber the rich". This would be a disaster, according to this well known crook, because rich people are the nation's "wealth creators". "We are on side of people who create jobs," he told the BBC "people who work hard and want to get on in life." A stranger to any kind of work, hard or otherwise, this Tory snake oil salesman then went on to claim that rich people would simply leave the country. After three years of clobbering the poor to finance their own luxury lifestyle this self-serving drivel is the only defence that the Tories can put up. The rich in this country are not "job creators" because, after three years of having everything their own way and getting ever richer, we are hardly awash with jobs. Nor are they "wealth creators", choosing instead to be wealth hoarders and to stash their cash in offshore bank accounts in order to avoid paying tax. Nothing could illustrate better what the Tory party is all about, peddling the lie that rich people are rich because they work hard whereas many simply inherited their money and that poor people are poor because they deserve it. Clobber the rich? After three years of this unwarranted and deeply unfair attack on the vast majority in this country on behalf of a privileged few I'd squeeze them until the pips squeak.

Thursday 19 September 2013

George Osborne Now Clearly As Insane As Nick Clegg.

Politicians will always bend the truth to suit their purposes - they called such lying by the much milder term "spin". Yesterday, however, Nick Clegg set a new trend by telling porkies that are such whoppers that no one in their right mind would give them any credence whatsoever. His lies were so extreme that he presented himself not as simply a politician trying to fool the public for private gain but as a man suffering from a pathological brain disease that causes extreme delusions. Nothing loath when he thinks he sees a good wheeze, George Osborne has taken a leaf out of Clegg's book and has now made up a story that is so far from the truth that you have to question his sanity. Talking to the Institute of Directors he told them that he was not deliberately inflating the housing bubble, though he plainly is, and that people should "not pretend there's a housing boom" even though that is clearly what we have. In other words Osborne is trying to deny what is plainly visible and telling people they should close their eyes and listen only to his voice. We expect politicians to be liars, we expect them to weave and dodge their way around inconvenient facts, we expect them to put a gloss on things to put themselves in the best light possible. However, what both Clegg and Osborne are doing is so creepy that you have to question whether they are fit for office any longer - if they ever were. These are not simply lies, they are deliberate attempts to deceive for what can only be regarded as criminal purposes. Both men should be sectioned under the Mental Health Act before they harm themselves and, more importantly, before they inflict even more harm on the rest of us.

Wednesday 18 September 2013

Nick Clegg Pleads For Another Term In Office.

Nick Clegg climbed onto the stage at the Lib Dem conference today and gave not one but two speeches. The first speech was addressed to the party itself. He began by claiming credit for the non-existent economic recovery even if he described it as "the wrong kind of recovery." He then went on to claim a string of victories in stopping the worst excesses of the Tories including preventing a tax cut for millionaires that went ahead anyway, "closing down the debate over Trident" even as that debate still rages and profit-making in schools even though those profits remain a nice little earner for several educational multi-nationals. Having re-written history to his own satisfaction he then turned to persuading the electorate that the Lib Dems deserve to retain their nice cushy jobs in the government. His chosen method of persuasion was a mixture of wishful thinking and unsubstantiated threats. "We have destroyed two-party politics in Britain" and "coalition government works". "If the Tories get a majority they will give us an unfair recovery. If Labour get a majority they'll mess it all up." The truth is that Nick Clegg was begging for his and his party's political life. He managed to get a foot in the door of No.10 by a campaign of outright lies. He has either ignored, reneged on or simply failed to achieve nearly all of his stated aims. He has betrayed every principle he told us the Lib Dem party stood for. He has actively cooperated with the most reactionary, self-serving and downright evil manifestations of the Tory creed this country has ever seen. Yet, despite all of this, he has the sheer brass neck to tell us all that he would do it all over again, or change tack and support Labour if it suits his purposes, simply to retain his cushy job. What he did was to announce a new Lib Dem party - shorn of any principles and ready to be as expedient as is needed to retain power.

Manu Tuilag Apologises For Making Cameron Look Like A Prat.

Manu Tuilag, the Somoan-born Johnnie Foreigner rugby player, has apologised for making David Cameron look like a complete prat. He turned a photo-opportunity for Cameron to make himself look like a winner into a farce with a "bunny ears" prank that ruined the photo. We asked a Tory spokesman for his reaction; "This is disgusting. Poor David is daft enough without some bloody foreigner making him look as stupid as he actually is. What this Johnnie Foreigner doesn't seem to understand is that sport in Britain is merely an adjunct of politics and is only there so that politicians can parade in front of cameras basking in the reflected glory of people with real achievements. I suppose you can understand it when you consider that Tuilag is a bloody foreigner and has no real grasp or understanding of British culture. Deference is what the British do best and I suggest that Tuilag grows a forelock so that he can tug it at appropriate moments. We have no truck in this country with people who make politicians, especially Tory politicians, look as foolish as they actually are. We didn't go to Samoa and shoot its people when they threatened us with pointed sticks for nothing. We went there to civilize them and this is all the thanks we get."

Tuesday 17 September 2013

Vince Cable Nails His Colours To The Mast.

Nick Clegg spent much of yesterday trailing around the TV studios trying to defuse in advance whatever Vince Cable might say about the Tories and the Coalition government at the Lib Dem conference. He needn't have bothered. Screwing up all his courage Vince told the Lib Dem conference that the Tories are "ugly" and "blinkered", he suggested that the Tories had made scapegoats of the unions, benefit claimants and immigrants and that they had "reverted to type" as "the nasty party." He darkly intimated that he had several private "red lines" which, if crossed, would trigger his resignation from the Coalition government. Unfortunately he then went on to tell the conference that the Lib Dems are right to support the deeply unfair and entirely selfish economic policy of austerity for the poor while millionaires are rewarded for their greed. Nor did he reveal what his personal "red lines" might be. In fact any analysis of Vince Cables speech will find it long on rhetoric and very, very short on anything that might pin him down in the future. Essentially he blamed the Tories for every nasty, spiteful policy sponsored by the Coalition government while mounting the Nuremburg Defence for himself and the Lib Dem party. He and the rest of his two-faced Lib Dem colleagues will not shoulder any responsibility for the last three years because they are only following orders.

Monday 16 September 2013

Vince Cable Spends Entire Day Pretending He's Still Vince Cable.

Vince Cable has had a terrible day today. Should he go to the Lib Dem Conference and confess that he's actually a closet Tory like the rest of his party or denounce Nick Clegg for the two-faced hypocrite that he is? Should he stick to the line that Tory economic policy is a disastrous ideologically-driven load of old self-serving tosh as he did when in opposition, or support austerity for the poor and powerless and keep his nice cushy money-for-old-rope job? It was a moment of supreme political tension, a titanic struggle between self-interest and doing the honourable thing. Should he sit quietly as the leader of his party betrayed everything that the Lib Dems are supposed to stand for or take the rostrum and rouse the party in revolt against an austerity policy that serves only the interests of the greedy, selfish and self-serving Tories. What a dilemma, what a challenge to any man's conscience. In the end, of course, dear old Vince did none of these things. He arrived at the conference one hour late and sat well away from Nick Clegg to signal the strength of his opposition and then voted for every nasty measure the Tories demanded as the price for giving the Lib Dems snout room at the trough. Vince Cable not only betrayed the country and the liberal principles he pretends to believe in, he also betrayed himself. Having spent years building an image of himself as the people's champion and an economic guru, he now stands revealed for what he is - just another confidence trickster on the make, a man for all seasons, a limp rag blowing in the wind. Like Richard III, he can exchange shapes with Proteus for advantages.

Benefit Cheats To Get 10 Years As Corporate Tax Dodgers Get Kinghthoods.

The Tory junta, with the eager support of the turncoat Lib Dems, has announced that prison sentences for benefit cheats will be extended to 10 years. In the meantime corporate tax dodgers such as Lord Ashcroft and Lord Freud will continue to get away with it as the Chancellor resolutely refuses to close loopholes in the tax laws. We asked the Chancellor why this is; "Benefit cheats are ordinary people and their crimes are minor compared to those of corporations. It is fitting then that punishments for benefit cheats should be Draconian while those for Tory party donators should be non-existent. After all it is unreasonable to suppose that a benefit cheat will donate to the Tory party isn't it? We have to be fair about this and it is only fair that those who bribe us should be given the advantages that they want. We have proven, to our satisfaction at least, that it was benefits cheats that brought down the world economic system and that all unemployed people and cripples are actually benefit cheats. It's quite simple - all benefit cheats are unemployed, therefore all the unemployed are benefit cheats. On the other hand all tax dodgers are Tory supporters, therefore all Tory supporters should be able to dodge tax as a right."

Sunday 15 September 2013

The Tories Are Revolting.

Tory backbenchers are threatening to revolt again as David Cameron refuses to live up to his responsibility to be as nasty, vicious and right-wing as he should be. The latest row centres on Cameron's plan to turn the British army into a small police force and staff it with part-time soldiers on zero-hour contracts. "This is completely unacceptable," a spokesman for the revolting Tory backbenchers told our reporter. "How will be able to tromp about giving Johnnie Foreigner a jolly good thrashing if we don't have enough boots on the ground and in their faces? It's simply not good enough. We haven't sacrificed all those useless unemployed and crippled people at home simply to give up our ability to beat up a bunch of foreigners whenever we feel like it. Cameron is planning to retire some regiments with a long and proud record of beating up nearly every foreigner in the world at one time or another. And it is as well to remember that some of these regiments have been the personal property of Tory families for centuries. What are we going to do with all those educated at Eton but too stupid to enter politics or the church? Where would we all be now if responsible government hadn't spent the years between 1914 and 1918 thinning out the ranks of the unwashed and thoroughly undesirable working classes? Imagine what the unemployment figures would look like today if we hadn't killed off two million of the buggers and their unwanted descendants. We believe that Cameron has failed to understand what the British Army is actually for and demand that he reconsiders before we really begin to sulk."

Nick Clegg Defends His Record In Government.

Nick Clegg came out of hiding today to tell the BBC about his plans to betray the country once again after the next election. After telling us that we quite liked coalition government despite all the evidence to the contrary, he defended all the policies that he failed to get past his Tory pals and claimed that any future Labour government would "wreck the current economic recovery for the rich". Britain, he confidently asserted, would not give either Labour or the Tories an overall majority at the next general election and he would make absolutely sure that we would all benefit from another five years of Tory government. "We must finish our work of killing of the unemployed, useless cripples and poor people," he told the BBC. "I have become very comfortable here in cloud-cuckoo-land," he added, "and would like to extend my term in a cushy job that pays well, gives me unlimited expenses and doesn't demand much in the way of effort. If everyone in Britain got off their idle arses and got themselves a job like mine just think how happy they would be. That is the trouble with this country. If we all became as vicious, self-serving and greedy as my Tory mates we'd all be much better off." Meanwhile Clegg's party, delighted by his divorce from reality, were busy distancing themselves from both him and the Tories as 90% of the party expressed their wish to get as far away from the Tories as they can. A Lib Dem spokesperson told our reporter; "We are gratified that our leader is so complacent and we wish him well after his retirement from politics three years ago. We have found the experience of being emasculated by the Tories very exhilarating but feel that we shouldn't repeat the experience anytime soon. We are now looking forward to Labour reversing all the welfare reforms before we too find ourselves out of work."

Saturday 14 September 2013

Eric Pickles Too Important To Embarrass.

It has emerged today that Eric Pickles, pictured above, is far too important to embarrass. The civil servants working in his Department of Wrecking Communities and Local Misgovernment have suggested that the ministry should be exempt from Freedom of Information requests because Pickles is so stupid he might be embarrassed if his emails were made public. "Exposure of his routine communications would reveal that Mr.Pickles is depressingly thick," a Ministry spokesman explained to our reporter. "Most Ministers are to be honest but very few of them are so dumb that they would risk revealing this by actually committing their innermost thoughts to paper. We believe that publishing his emails would bring the whole of government into further disrepute and this would be grossly unfair. It's not his fault that he was born with a mind so limited that he was forced to become a Tory MP or face starvation. His latest piece of utter tomfoolery was to try and stop union dues being voluntary paid through the wage system. This constituted a breach of contact since the union members were not consulted or their permission sought. Faced by the utter idiocy of his idea Mr.Pickles then went on to try and defend his decision in the courts and succeeded only in costing the taxpayer £90,000 in legal fees. Personally I think the money should be stopped out of his wages." We asked if Mr.Pickles would make a statement but were told that the Minister was too busy "trying to find his own arse with both hands."

Nick Clegg's Shock Discovery.

Nick Clegg is reportedly suffering from shock after discovering that no one in their right mind will ever vote Lib Dem again. We asked Mr.Clegg for his reaction to this astounding news; "I simply don't understand it. I thought that if we ditched everything we pretended to stand for we would at least remain as popular as the Tory party. How can this happen when I've been explaining to everyone this week that the economic recovery we are now enjoying was all because of me? I have single-handedly saved both the Royal Mail and the NHS and, in addition to my many triumphs, I have also got the trains running on time. Now I find that, despite this, 75% of people will not vote Lib Dem no matter what we do while the other 25% simply didn't understand the question. The fact that we haven't polled more than 23% of the electorate in any election since the 1920's is neither here nor there. I thought that after selling the country to the Tories for ministerial cars and an unlimited expense account we would be at least more popular than a banking executive. Where did it all go wrong?" We asked a spokesperson for the party view; "It is difficult to understand. You'd think that a catamite for the Tory party would be more popular wouldn't you? It just goes to show that modern politics is more complicated than wearing a clean shirt and smiling a bit. One of our focus groups has mentioned those "principle" thingies but we can't find anyone in the party who understand what they are exactly. There have been some disquiet about "policy" as well but we don't understand that either. We're Lib Dems and leave things like "policy" to the Tories. We asked them is we could borrow some of their "principles" but they told us that they haven't got any either."

MP's Continue With Their Scrounging.

Westminster MP's, despite the government's love of austerity for the rest of us, have continued with their money-grubbing scrounging at the expense of the taxpayer. Their claims for "expenses" have increased by a staggering 7% over the last year as they struggle to find new ways to steal public money to fund their luxury lifestyles. They have also increased the number of their freeloading family members getting paid for doing nothing in particular with one unnamed MP paying his daughter £60,000 per year as a "political advisor", while Nadine Dorries is paying her daughter £40,000 per year as her "office manager". Corruption is an ugly word but is the only one that comes even close to describing the scrounging that is going on in Westminster and which costs an estimated £98 million per year. While the Tories are wringing their hands over the "scrounging" of the unemployed and disabled, MP's are even busier picking the pockets of taxpayers as they themselves scrounge on an epic scale. Double standards and hypocrisy have been a constant feature of the British class-ridden political system and have been allowed to continue because of the historical and craven deference of the electorate. Criminality, however, is a relatively recent development made worse by a government that sees the state not as something to give service to but as something to be plundered for private gain. That is what austerity is actually all about - the diversion of money from public services into the pockets of a greedy, utterly selfish and already wealthy minority with an overweening sense of entitlement.

Thursday 12 September 2013

Councils Plunder Art Collections For Cash.

Councils up and down the country are eying what they consider to be "their" art collections as a possible source of cash. Starved of funds by the Tories these councils are having to make a calculation between keeping valuable public art collections or flogging it off to the very fatcats who created the financial crisis in the first place. The fact that these collections actually belong to the people who paid for them - the taxpayer - is neither here nor there. We asked a spokesman for the Tory party for their reaction; "All property is theft - if its owned by ordinary people that is. Working class scum in this country should not be allowed to own valuable art works that they can't appreciate any more than they should have extra bedrooms. Such things should only be owned by the rich because their huge amounts of cash stored in offshore bank accounts proves that they have more refined tastes. It's all a matter of fairness. Its fair that rich people should have many bedrooms as they like and the walls of these rooms have to be covered with something. Big canvasses will do the job nicely but there are not enough to go around. Taking paintings from public galleries, where they are merely gawped at by a bunch of working-class thickos, and flogging them off to rich people like me and my mates is a far better idea I'm sure you'll agree. The money raised can be used for more urgently needed things such as converting art galleries into offices for those engaged in administering our more than fair withdrawal of the bedroom subsidy - which is fair despite what a bunch of United Nations pinko do-gooders might say."

Wednesday 11 September 2013

Tories Looking Forward To Bumper Crop Of Backhanders.

The Tories are drooling tonight over their latest scam, the privatisation of Royal Mail, and the "donations" they expect to receive from grateful "investors". "I can't believe that we're going to get away with this shit again," an anonymous Tory party spokesman told our reporter. "The electorate in this country really are as stupid as we've always hoped they are. Swindling the British public is child's play - it's a bit like shooting fish in a barrel. By this time next year stamps will cost £10 a pop and we've already begun to think about legislation that will force people to use the post whether they want to or not. I particularly like the idea that children will have to be posted to their school every morning and rail and bus passengers will soon be regarded as freight. It's a dream come true and we're looking forward to an increase in backhanders from the various crooks and spivs who'll be getting yet another national asset for next to nothing. Mind you we fully expect this little £3 billion scam to pale into insignificance when compared to the privatisation of the NHS next year. That will be deal of the century - for us and our crooked mates at any rate. People often talk about "rip off Britain", but they haven't seen anything yet."

Grant Shapps Defends The Indefensible.

In the wake of a damning United Nations investigation into their bedroom tax, the Tories came out fighting today in the form of Grant Shapps. He is apparently scandalised that the United Nations would have the sheer nerve to look into such a nasty, self-serving and unfair policy since he is a Tory and, as everyone knows, is therefore above considerations of humanity. "The United Nations have no right to do this," he told the BBC, "because we are not Arabs or some other Johnnie Foreigner. And they sent a Brazilian for Christ's sake. Obviously no South American can be trusted since they share a continent with the Argies. Their representative has constantly referred to our policy as a "tax" when in fact it is nothing of the sort. It is simply withholding benefits from people we don't like and don't vote for us. Nor did the investigator consult with us. It's like us bombing Syria without first consulting with Assad. It's not cricket and puts us in a bad light - something we don't deserve because we haven't finished bullying the working-class scum in this country yet. I shall be writing to the UNited Nations warning them that we will not stand for them investigating us when we breach human rights. We are Tories and therefore reserve the right to be as nasty, vicious, greedy and unfair as we can get away with."

The Evil Priority Of The Tories.

There has been some confusion amongst the electorate as to what the Tory party actually represents, what the true nature of its creed really is. Does it stand for family values, social justice and the benefits that honest hard work bring? They would certainly like the electorate to think so, but the truth, as so often with the Tory party, is far more grubby. Much of their efforts over the last three years have concentrated on "revitalising" the property market and, in this at least, they have had some success. House prices are now rising at a faster pace than at any time in the last seven years. Yet who does this benefit? Certainly not a younger generation that finds it impossible to get on the property ladder. Certainly not those forced to rent as they stand by helplessly while private buy-to-let landlords pick their pockets. Certainly not those hard working ordinary people whose savings continue to attract zero interest rates. It benefits only those who have investments in property, especially Tory MP's whose property investments have been obtained courtesy of the taxpayer. Eager the extend their property empires and their offshore bank balances the Tories have cast envious eyes on those properties that are in greater demand, two and three bedroomed houses, and hit upon the perfect scheme to get their sticky fingers on them. The bedroom tax was specifically designed the "free up" such properties, to throw ordinary people onto the streets simply to assuage the insatiable greed of an already wealthy minority. The electorate was first softened up with tales of unemployed "scroungers" and the dishonest disabled, of people who are poor because they deserve it. Cutting state aid to such people had the added advantage of financing a tax cut for millionaire "donators" to the Tory party. The bedroom tax was the killer blow - designed specifically as a naked land grab for the greedy and selfish and cynically disguised as "fair". Unfortunately the Tories, in their greed and stupidity, failed to take into account how the rest of the world would regard such a travesty of justice. The United Nations has investigated the effects of the bedroom tax and concluded that it breaches the basic human right to housing as enshrined in the UN Charter and that Britain, like so many other third world dictatorships, is in breach of human rights. And what is the Tory excuse for persecuting an estimated 660,000 victims of its nasty, vicious and self-serving policy? That it will "save" £500 million a year. It is clear, however, that these so-called "savings" will not benefit the ordinary hard-working people of this country, but are designed to finance yet another tax cut for those who will benefit from the land grab in the first place. That, then, is what the Tory party represents in a nutshell - greed, injustice and an unequal division of society between the undeserving rich and the disregarded poor.

Monday 9 September 2013

Osborne Declares Victory Over The Dead Body Of Britain's Economy.

George Osborne, the world's least qualified Finance Minister, was triumphant today as he declared economic victory over his detractors. "Those in favour of Plan B have lost the argument," he boasted and then declared that Britain had "turned a corner." So what is the extent of this recovery? His "recovery" is the weakest and slowest for 100 years. The economy is still 2.9% smaller now than it was in 2010. Unemployment has not fallen for six months. He has borrowed £245 billion more than he said he would. The average person in this country is £1,500 per year worse off, even as the average millionaire is £100,000 better off. And, just for good measure, Osborne has managed to breath life into the same failed economic system that got us into this mess in the first place, including a new property bubble and a resurgence of sub-prime lending. If that is winning the argument them what does losing the argument look like? Tacitus, the Roman historian, once described the reaction of Caratacus to the conquest of Britain by the Emepror's legions; "You create a desert and call it peace." Osborne has done much the same, flattening the British economy to save the money of the already wealthy, making the poor pay for their mistakes and then declaring that he has saved the day single-handedly. He may have saved himself and his self-serving wealthy pals, but he has singly failed to save the rest of us. He is not only the worst Chancellor that this country has ever suffered, he is also the worst liar.

Friday 6 September 2013

Government Fading From Sight.

Alarm bells are ringing in Westminster as the Coalition Government becomes ever more invisible and fades into the background. The trend was first noticed when Michael Gove appeared on the BBC and all viewers could see was an empty suit. Then IDS became invisible as he tried to defend himself against accusations that he's a brainless idiot who lacks any moral compass whatsoever. Now David Cameron himself is beginning to fade away in the wake of his self-inflicted debacle over Syria. In every case the so-called Ministers involved have tried their level best to pretend that none of this has anything to do with them. All of them, after making complete arses of themselves because they are inept and utterly brainless, have sought to blame the last Labour government and pretend that the have no recollection of what they've been doing for the last three years. That is actually less surprising than it might first appear since their entire term in office has been spent fantasising about the nasty policies they would like to inflict on the British people for not voting for them. The latest piece of tomfoolery, concerning Cameron, Syria and his amateurish attempt to bounce Parliament into a war, seeks to blame his richly deserved beating on Tony Blair. The reason? Because Cameron tried to copy Blair and failed to pull it off because he's too dumb to walk and chew gum at the same time. All governments eventually discover what the limits of power are, but it is very rare that you find a government finding out what the limits of their collective intelligence is while also discovering how low the bar is set. Evil you can understand from a Tory regime, farce is a relatively new development within the party. The only good news in all this is that this collection of misfits and freaks would be far more dangerous if they actually possessed a brain. Thank God for private education!

Thursday 5 September 2013

IDS: "Everyone Is Pathetic Except Me."

The National Audit Office has damned Iain Duncan Smith's universal credit welfare scheme as suffering from "weak management, ineffective control and poor governance". They could, of course, have added "morally reprehensible" but instead confined themselves to noting that the whole debacle has cost the taxpayer £300 million so far and that IDS seemed to have no clear idea how his new scheme might work, or not as the case may be. IDS, having described himself as the "quiet man" of British politics, was anything but, blustering about ineffective Civil Servants deliberately sabotaging his plans and calling those asking questions about his inept performance "pathetic." Admitting that the IT meant to make his fantasy scheme work was "a write off" he then went on to claim that it would also "be delivered on time and budget". It has been clear for some time now that Iain Duncan Smith is at least one pork pie short of a picnic, that he entertains some strange ideas as to what constitutes "good" and "evil", is a scrounger of epic proportion and is so inept that only the Tory party would employ him. However, it now seems that he has some difficulty in understanding the English language when it suits him. Not to put too fine a point on it, IDS is nasty, inept and a liar of staggering brazenness. So far this week we've seen a Prime Minister, an Education Secretary and a Minister for Work and Pensions who have no grip whatsoever on the jobs they are supposed to do. No change there then.

Tories Whinge As Media Acknowledges United Nations Investigation.

The United Nations investigation into the Tories bedroom tax has finally made it into a mainstream newspaper today. The Daily Mail Online has been running a story in which they whinge about "meddling bureaucrats" and lecture the UN that they must surely have better things to do. They also point out that the chief investigator, Raquel Rolnik, is Brazilian and presumably, therefore, nothing more than a lefty agent working for the dastardly Argentinians. In truth, of course, the UN is conducting a perfectly legitimate investigation under their Charter which sets out national government's responsibility to provide adequate housing for its citizens. The lack of housing in Britain has been a national scandal for over 20 years but only a Tory government would seek to cash in on the shortage while deliberately attempting to re-inflate the property bubble in order to enrich themselves. What the UN is investigating is a breach of basic human rights in a country that has always been regarded as civilized. The Tories are dragging that reputation through the mud for no better reason than to assuage their endless greed and, in the process, turning Britain into a good imitation of a third world dictatorship. What has really got the Tories jittery, however, is not the spectre of "meddling bureaucrats" - who is more bureaucratic and meddlesome than a Tory trying to reduce his tax bill? No, what has them shaking in their cowardly boots is the thought that they might face prosecution and actually end up behind bars, which is where they belong, for crimes against humanity. The United Nations is pointing out that the Tory government, despite its arrogance and selfishness, are as subject to international law as any other vicious dictatorship with no legitimacy, mandate or support of the general population.

Tuesday 3 September 2013

Cameron Pledges Help To Anyone As Long As They're Not British.

While United Nations investigators are considering whether the Tories have breached the UN Charter with their bedroom tax, David Cameron has been trying out his new impression of Mother Theresa of Calcutta. "Britain, as ever," he told the BBC with a straight face, "is a world leader in helping those who need help and the people of Syria are right up there at the front of that right now." We asked the PM why his charity does not extend itself to his fellow countrymen. "The suffering of the Syrian people offers me the opportunity to demonstrate my credentials as a statesman on the world stage. The suffering of the British people, on the other hand, offers me an opportunity to pay less tax. If Parliament won't allow me to bomb the Syrians then throwing £320 million of taxpayers money at them might just salvage my reputation and that, I'm sure you'll agree, is the most important thing. It has the added advantages of not being my money, since I don't pay tax, and diverts funds away from such immoral things as supporting idle cripples, the unemployed and sick people at home. This is humanitarian aid and, if I can turn it to my political advantage, then this is justifiable since I am human too. Not human like the working class scum of this country you understand, but human in a superior Tory sort of way."

Michael Gove Now Entirely Absent.

The BBC interviewed what appeared to be an empty suit today about the shortage of school places. Michael Gove could just be made out as he did his best to disappear into the background and deny that he is in any real sense the Education Secretary. "I can't remember where I've been for the last three years," he told the BBC. "There has been some speculation that I am the Education Secretary but, to be honest, I wouldn't know. Everything that has happened in my alleged Department in the last three years has been entirely the fault of Labour who, it would seem, are still secretly in charge of Education. I remember going to bed the night before the General Election but, after that, it's a complete blank. I know I've been taking swift action but I can't remember for the life of me what that action was. I blame the British people who should have voted Tory in the last election. If we'd won I would now be the real Education Secretary and, believe me, things would be a lot different. Examination results would be better, every child would have their own personal tutor, teachers would be better trained and all this would have been delivered at half the present cost. Its tragic that I was never afforded the opportunity to do something about this mysterious mess in the education sector. Still, at least with the new lobbying law going through Parliament today no one will be able to talk about it during the next General Election.

Media Blackout On UN Investigation Of Britain.

From the Orkneys in the north to Dover in the south a black curtain has descended across the country. While the British media, especially the BBC, reacts only to the Tory agenda, stories that reflect very badly on Britain are being deliberately and systematically ignored. First and foremost amongst these stories is the one about Raquel Rolnik, an investigator for the United Nations, who has arrived in Britain to look into the bedroom tax. One of the basic human rights enshrined in the UN Charter is that people have "the right to adequate housing" and the Tory regime is ignoring this for the sole purpose of lowering the tax demands on their rich pals. There is now a clear link between the bedroom tax and the rising suicide rate in Britain and this constitutes a basic assault on human rights and the government's duty of care to its citizens. They are too busy awarding multi-million pound contracts to companies who "donate" to the Tory party even when, as in the case of the Hospital Corporation of America, these companies already stand accused of fraud. The Tories are far more concerned with maintaining their taxpayer's money laundering scam to care about the health or well being of those they profess to govern. Meanwhile Lord Freud, who owns an eight-bedroom country home in Kent and a £1.9million, four-bedroom townhouse in London, has told disabled people suffering from motor neurone disease that they should get a job if they want an extra bedroom for the specialised equipment they need simply to survive. Britain is fast becoming an embarrassment to the United Nations as it abandons all claims to decency and embraces the principles more normally associated with a third world dictatorship. Perhaps the Russian fleet will soon turn up in the Channel and threaten London with cruise missiles unless it improves its human rights record?

Monday 2 September 2013

Boris Johnson Calls For New Syria Vote.

Boris Johnson, pictured above with his latest girlfriend, has called for another Parliamentary vote on military action against Syria. We asked the Mayor why; "Well, we didn't get what we wanted the first time around. The vast majority of the country might not want it and the Labour party might not what want it, but so what? The Tory party has done pretty well so far ignoring public opinion and discounting democracy, so why not carry on regardless? Nick Clegg has said that such a vote is not on the cards but what does he know? We have to consider poor David Cameron in all this. Not only has been exposed as politically inept and unable even to organise a fairly routine vote in Parliament, he's also been made to look like a complete pillock on the world stage. This must and can be reversed in the interests of Britain which, as far as I am concerned, are identical with the interests of the Tory party. The vote has re-established a dangerous idea in British politics that Parliament is sovereign and this must be reversed before the country becomes ungovernable, trade unions take over and we all sink into an abyss in which voting actually means something. At the same time a new vote would re-establish the political principle that, when under fire at home for unpopular policies, launch some cruise missiles at a Middle-Eastern country. All good reasons, I'm sure you'll agree, to start World War III and unleash a nuclear holocaust."

How Football Has Stopped Human Evolution.

Biologists working at the Department of Human Cognition at Oxford University have made a landmark discovery in terms of human evolution. A spokesman for the university told our reporter; "After extensive experiments with chickens we have come to the conclusion that playing and watching football, or soccer as the Americans amusingly call it, actually arrests the evolutionary process. We were so shocked by the findings that we repeated the experiment with human volunteers and were even more shocked when that experiment reduced PhD students to bumbling idiots." We asked the spokesman how these findings have been reflected in the real world. "Perhaps the best example is the recent transfer of Gareth Bale from Tottenham Hotspur to Real Madrid for a record £85,000,000 and for a record weekly wage of £300,000. This in a country where 50% of 18-24 year-olds are out of work and the average wage is 17% below the European average. Even in Britain he will earn every day more than most people earn in two years. This is not only clearly insane but demonstrates that, when it comes to football, normal human critical thinking no longer functions. Real Madrid fans are actually excited by this obscene transfer and have been filmed chanting his name and drooling into their beer as they do so. While football seems to prevent the normal functioning of the human brain amongst fans we have found that it also hyper-stimulates the Greed gland in those directly associated with this otherwise mindless pastime. Its all very worrying." We asked if the same thing can be seen with other sports; "To a certain extent. However watching cricket seems to be relatively safe since all it does is put people to sleep."

Sunday 1 September 2013

Osborne Compounds Yet Another Error.

George Osborne, the world's most ignorant and least qualified finance minister, has revealed today that he also a political ignoramus. Having reinforced economic failure for three years straight, a record that even the most stupid neoliberal economist would envy, he has now decided to throw his inconsiderable weight behind his leader and declare that Cameron was right to call for a Parliamentary vote on Syria when he did. More evidence that the Syrian government was responsible for the gas attack last week would not, he maintains, have made any difference to the outcome in Parliament. More evidence? Any evidence would have been a miracle since, when the vote was taken, the UN team in Syria had not yet completed its investigations. Essentially what Osborne is saying is that evidence is of no real import as far as he and Cameron are concerned and that they expected Parliament to support them without a shred of it. It was all because, Osborne seems to believe, Parliament was "sceptical of another foreign entanglement". That might well be true, but Parliament would probably have been content to listen to a cogent, well-thought out and fact-based argument in favour of military action. The fact that Osborne and Cameron are simply too stupid to understand this speaks volumes about this pair of dilettante politicians. The Tories deserve this pair of idiots leading them but Britain deserves better than a talentless slapstick comedy duo with a bad repertoire of one-liners.