The News In Shorts

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

Monday 23 February 2015

Straw And Rifkind Defend The Indefensible

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

Monday 16 February 2015

Are The Fatcats Getting Desperate?

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

Wednesday 4 February 2015

Selfish And Greedy Line Up To Knock Labour.

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