The News In Shorts

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

Wednesday 30 April 2014

Yet Another Crooked Tory Resigns.

Patrick Mercer, the Tory MP for Newark, managed to get a reference to his service in the army and the word "God" into his announcement yesterday that he was resigning from parliament. He said that he was "ashamed" that he had attempted to cash in on his position as an MP and take money for raising questions in parliament. It was time to "fess up" as a good soldier should he told us. But, essentially, what he was saying was that he was sorry for getting caught. Like Maria Miller just last week, Mercer simply couldn't resist doing something illegal in order to stuff his offshore bank account with tax free money. Until he was exposed he had absolutely no intention of admitting his crime and no amount of crocodile tears now can wash away that fact. What he did was not only a criminal offence, it was also entirely dishonourable. You or I would go to prison but it is quite likely that Mercer, like Maria Miller, will get away with an apology and a bit of hand-wringing. This is how our so-called democracy functions - they get away with criminal activity and are licensed to grab what they can at our expense while we are told we are lazy scroungers for having no choice but to take the low-paid work they grudgingly allow us. We pay these people's wages and they should be regarded as what they are - mere hirelings, paid by us to perform a service. They are not, as they would like us all to think, our masters and, by-and-large, they are a dishonest and arrogant bunch of crooks many of whom belong behind bars. The question remains, how long are we expected to put up with this sort of shabby behaviour before we are forced to abandon what remains of our democracy and try to find something better?

Friday 25 April 2014

How The Unemployed Became "Entrepreneurs".

The Tory party's most successful scrounger, Iain Duncan Smith, has hailed the sudden increase in the numbers of the self-employed in Britain as the "result of the economic recovery this Government is delivering" and a "sign that the entrepreneurial spirit is alive and well in the UK.” In fact the increase is actually a reflection of the lack of paid employment in the country and the lack of any other choice for those being hounded by the DWP. 44% of the newly self-employed are actually in low paid, low skill occupations working for businesses that offer such arrangements, often actually zero-hour contracts, so they don't have to pay sickness benefits, holiday pay, overtime or national insurance contributions. Far from reflecting the "entrepreneurial spirit" of the British people, it is actually a reflection of the greed and selfishness of the already wealthy determined to increase their wealth at the expense of the already poor. IDS is willing to go even further than this, falsely claiming that the increase was a direct "reaction to benefit caps, changes in pension entitlements and rules surrounding access to in-work benefits.” In other words he is suggesting that these people were actually benefit cheats who have now been forced to reveal their real status to avoid prosecution. The Tories have now achieved their dream of reintroducing day contracts with workers forced to go cap in hand to potential employers and begging for a day's employment - a hand-to-mouth existence that the Tories think is all we deserve. It is the law of the jungle introduced by a political party whose philosophy is as primitive as it is absurd and self-defeating. Who in their right mind would believe that increasing poverty and insecurity is good for the economy and society at large?

Sunday 20 April 2014

Cameron Appointed Bankrupt To Run Public Finances.

David Cameron has come under increasing criticism today for reappointing a bankrupt as the head of the Public Works Loan Board charged with overseeing a budget of £60 billion in public funds. Although Tony Caplin was originally appointed by the previous Labour government he was confirmed in the job during 2012 within weeks of filing for bankruptcy. We asked a government spokesman how this could have happened; "Well, he is one of us isn't he? Obviously a man as important as Tony Caplin needs several hundred thousand pounds a year to live in the manner to which he's become accustomed. I should think that, being bankrupt, he probably needed the job, which might explain why he "mistakenly" forgot to tell us about it. But, let's face it, anyone can make a mistake - look at Maria Miller for instance, not to mention all the other MP's and public servants who are far too busy to make sure they're also honest." We asked if anyone in the government asked Mr.Caplin about his finances before confirming him in his position; "Certainly not! One does not ask a gentleman about his finances. Where did you grow up? On a council estate? I've never heard the like. What you people fail to appreciate is that important people like Mr.Caplin live by a different set of standards to the peasants, hoi polloi and plebeians. My God you'll be telling me next that we should pay taxes!"

Saturday 19 April 2014

Spineless Creature Attacked By Jellyfish.

A team of ATOS assessors were flying out to Tenerife today to see if David Cameron, on holiday yet again, is fit for work after being stung by a jellyfish or is simply swinging the lead. "We have to find out if Mr.Cameron can still inflict untold misery on poor people while sitting in a wheelchair with a bandaged foot. If not then we might have to advise Mr.Cameron to take up a new job without access to public funds." Meanwhile journalists have caused a major inflation crisis in the local boat hire industry as they desperately seek to interview the jellyfish accused of attacking the Prime Minister. Our reporter managed to catch up with Stingy at a secret location where he is now in hiding; "It was an accident," the jellyfish told our reporter. "I saw a pair of feet walking across the surface of the sea and thought to myself "Is that Jesus bloke back again?" You can imagine my surprise when I found out it was David Cameron practising his latest publicity stunt. I placed myself under his feet after wondering what it would feel like to be poor in Britain as a sort of experiment and realised that all the British people have to do is evolve a sting. If they did that then Tories would give them a wide berth and learn to leave them alone. I'm thinking of setting up a school for British tourists to teach them self-defence if they find themselves attacked by a Tory. I could make a killing after 2015 if the British electorate are stupid enough to give them a majority since none of them would be safe then."

Thursday 17 April 2014

Coalition Wishes Everyone A Happy Deathday.

Steve Webb, the Lib Dem Minister for Pensions, has decided that it might be a smart political move to remind everyone that one day they're going to die. To prevent pensioners from spending their pension pots on wine, women, toy boys and song and then squandering the rest he wants to send each and everyone of us an estimate of our life expectancy. "People consistently underestimate how long they're going to live," he told our reporter, "and, under proposals to allow them access to their pension pots, they are in danger of spending their own money, ending up dependent on the state and threatening tax cuts for rich people like me. Of course if we and our Tory mates win another five years in power after May 2015 then this won't matter since most people won't live long enough to get their pension in the first place. The real danger is that Labour might win and completely derail Coalition plans to get rid of all the useless people in this country and prevent us from making it a land fit for the smug and self-satisfied to live in." Opposition to the idea has also come from the insurance industry whose spokesman told us; "These dick heads will ruin our best sales pitch if they tell people they're likely to live well into their 80's. How the hell will we be able to sell completely useless life insurance policies to young people if they know that the chances of dying before they reach 40 is practically nil? Profits will plummet and," he added darkly, "so will our donations to the Tories and Lib Dems if they carry this out."

Monday 14 April 2014

If You Sup With The Devil.

The picture above shows the most essential piece of equipment when supping with either the Devil or a Tory MP - a long spoon. We have become used to David Cameron claiming that he is the successor to Jesus Christ and that Iain Duncan Smith is the William Wilberforce for the modern age. Such ideas, imported wholesale from religious/political dingbats across the Atlantic, are now becoming common currency in the UK and can be regarded as the usual hypocrisy practiced by politicians since the beginning of time. However, as practised by the Tory party, this new enthusiasm for religious iconography seems to be rather more hypocritical than usual and a great deal more sinister. Iain Duncan Smith claims that he is saving us from evil scroungers and freeing them from a life of shame even as the victims of his policy are forced to choose between food banks and suicide. In fact all he is doing is providing the necessary savings to reward himself and his fellow Tory MP's with a nice juicy tax cut. In other words he is quite prepared to kill people for money. Likewise David Cameron likes to believe that his "Big Society" bears some sort of relationship with the teachings of Christ, though it remains very doubtful that Jesus was hoping to reward the Temple money lenders or that His Sermon on the Mount urged "hard working" people to vote for the Romans. While all this cant, hypocrisy and outright rubbish can provide some wry amusement, the latest round of Tory sleaze is far from a laughing matter. According to Colonel Bob Stewart, Tory MP for Beckenham, his Parliamentary colleagues are both "human" and "make mistakes sometimes" but are "paragons of virtue" when compared to those filthy foreign politicians. The question remains, however, as to why taxpayers money has been used to finance a gay orgy for Tory MP's at a Manchester hotel or why Tory party whips have been ordered to destroy incriminating evidence. Still, Tory boys will be Tory boys.

Friday 11 April 2014

Cameron Teeters On The Brink Of Insanity.

First we had Michael Gove sending schools the King James version of the Bible. Then we had a delusional Iain Duncan Smith comparing himself to William Wilberforce. Now we have David Cameron claiming that his "Big Society" was originally trailed by Jesus while he, Cameron, is merely carrying out His wishes. Apart from the fact that Jesus was never recorded as regarding the poor as scroungers and deserving of their poverty, He also never advocated tax cuts for the rich either. Of course Cameron could be forgiven for telling a bunch of religious dingbats what they want to hear and provide them with an alibi for voting for the nastiest party in Britain. The problem is that it is quite likely that Cameron actually believes the rubbish he's been spouting. There is a worrying amount of religious cant seeping into British politics of late and it seems to be oozing across the Atlantic as the Tories attempt to ape those American smug fanatics known as the Tea Party. This movement has been striving to inculcate the ridiculous notion that an Aramaic-speaking first century Jewish Rabbi preaching resistance to Roman imperial domination and charity for the poor and disadvantaged was, in fact, a blond, blue-eyed Anglo-Saxon Christian preaching intolerance and punishment for those who neglect to amass large amounts of money. Politicians have, of course, subverted the principles claimed by Christianity even before Jesus was taken down from the Cross with varying degrees of success over the centuries and religion has enjoyed a somewhat limited resurgence in Britain over the last few decades. This has been to the advantage of the Tories whose irrational political beliefs are complimented by irrational religious beliefs. Undoubtedly some Tory madman will soon be claiming that Jesus was a monetarist who advocated "trickle-down" as the stairway to heaven. Thank God I'm an atheist myself!

Monday 7 April 2014

Cameron Defends Maria Miller.

David Cameron waded into the Maria Miller scandal today, telling the BBC that she "did the right thing." We asked Britain's first part-time Prime Minister what he actually meant; "When I say she did the right thing I am, of course, speaking from a Tory point of view. Theft, when practised by the peasants, is wrong and should be punished without mercy using the full power of the law. However, it is not wrong for a Tory to steal because that's what we were born to do. Maria's only crime was to get caught and I don't feel that is a sacking offence. Of course she had to say "sorry" to placate the peasants and those stupid enough to vote for us but otherwise I am quite satisfied with her performance so far. She has exhibited just the right mix of arrogance, unconcern and sheer brass neck to mark her out as a truly great Tory in the making. Keith Joseph once told the children of peasants who had inadvertently been allowed to attend university that there wasn't enough inequality in Britain and the furore over Maria Miller's completely understandable little fiddle shows that he was right. We have managed to create enough inequality to make sure that Maria will never be prosecuted for theft but the argument over her actions demonstrates quite clearly that there's still a long way to go. When a Tory can steal what he or she likes without comment, then we will have created the right amount of inequality and the blessed Margaret's work will be done."

Friday 4 April 2014

Yet Another Crooked Politician Gets Away With Stealing Public Money.

Maria Miller, the Tory MP for Basingstoke and Culture Secretary in the Coalition Government, bought a house in Wimbledon in 1995 for £234,000. By 2008 she had a mortgage on the property of £525,000. In other words in 13 years she had borrowed an extra £291,000 based on the increasing value of the property and pocketed the money while the taxpayer paid for the interest on the loan. Not content with this nice little earner she then "accidently" claimed for £44,000 more than she was actually paying on the mortgage and moved her parents into the house in breach of Parliamentary rules. To top this she then sold the property in February this year making a cool £1 million profit on the deal. After all this came to light she refused to cooperate with the Parliamentary Standards Committee, failing to "provide the commissioner with the substantive information and supporting documentation required." All this means that she used public money to pad out her bank account, lied to pad it out even further and then tried her best to hide what she had done. By any definition of the word this is blatant fraud and if you or I had done something similar we would now be facing a long prison sentence. Despite all this the Parliamentary Standards Committee failed to find any evidence of deliberate fraud and has chosen not to see what is obvious to the rest of us. Her "punishment", therefore, consists of paying back a measly £5,800 and apologising, not to us the taxpayer, but to her fellow crooks, spivs and wide boys in Parliament for being found out. Nor will she losing her job since, according to David Cameron, she is "doing a fantastic job" and has his "full support." Meanwhile "a source close to Maria Miller" is quoted as saying "It is not surprising that London houses go up in value well over a decade after they are first bought. It is also not unusual for people to move house." They might also have added "It is not surprising that yet another crooked politician has fleeced the taxpayer and got away with it."

Wednesday 2 April 2014

Lib Dems Suddenly Horrified By Tories.

With the next general election only a year away the Lib Dems are now busy trying to distance themselves from some of the nasty things they've done over the last four years. After total silence on the subject, the Lib Dem president Tim Farron, has suddenly discovered that the Bedroom Tax has caused "huge social problems". "The onslaught of divisive rhetoric that demonises the poor can never help us to create a fairer society," he warned an all-party committee of MPs as if he's just woken up after spending the last four years in a coma. The electorate, he warned, "will take the side of anyone who has the backbone to stand up for them" - appealing to the Lib Dems to look everywhere for theirs. Meanwhile the Tories, also keen to pretend that they have been in opposition since 2010, are talking in terms of a brighter future with George Osborne promising full employment and Michael Gove promising to "abolish illiteracy and innumeracy". All of which rather begs the question; "What the f**k have you been doing for the last four years?" The answer is that the Coalition has been busy transferring money from the poor to their rich mates in return for bribes, persecuting the unemployed, disabled and sick, wrecking the economy, softening up the NHS for privatisation, stealing national assets to line their own pockets and padding their expense accounts. In political terms at least both the Tories and Lib Dems have blood on their hands and stuffing them in their pockets and whistling while staring at the sky cannot make them clean again. The Tories are evil and nothing they can say or do will ever change that, but the Lib Dems have happily collaborated with them in return for the illusion, if not the substance, of power - happy to be the Tories political rent boys.

Tuesday 1 April 2014

Crooked Coalition Defrauds The Country.

Vince Cable, pictured above appealing to heaven to save his tattered reputation, has been trying to defend the abysmal Royal Mail deal he has foisted on the country. The bottom line is that he and his Tory pals deliberately undervalued Royal Mail so their rich mates could make a killing and pass some of the stolen money on to the Tories and the Lib Dems in "donations". The banks who "advised" on the sales and promised they wouldn't buy the shares simply to flog them on for a nice profit did exactly that as fast as they could and pocketed a cool £750 million of taxpayers money in a single day. Vince's criminal boss, David Cameron, tried to come to the rescue by telling the country that the sale was "a good deal for the taxpayer" but failed to explain how losing three-quarters of a billion pounds could possibly described as "good" except in terms of public money being laundered by a criminal government intent on asset stripping the entire country. The Labour party is demanding Cable's immediate resignation but this hardly going far enough - both the Tory party and the Lib Dems should be hauled into court and prosecuted for fraud before they turn their malign attention to the privatisation of the NHS. These people are no better than common thieves hiding behind the threadbare alibi that privatisation is good for the country. Privatisation is nothing more than a scheme thought up by criminal bankers and criminal politicians to divert taxpayers money into their offshore tax free bank accounts. It inevitably leads to rip off prices, worse services and a loss of tax revenue and is deliberately designed to transfer money from the poor to the greedy, selfish and already far-too-wealthy. This is not a political principle it is a crime pure and simple.