One nation under a goon

Once upon a time there was a political party which gave a voice to the ordinary working man. Forged from the struggle for recognition of men who worked with their hands, they called themselves the Labour Party, then looked on what they had done and saw that it was good. And for a short while it was.

Last Friday night I went to see northern musical visionary Bill Nelson in a small intimate gig in Wakefield. The venue was an old warehouse on the riverside. Cast iron pillars and beams, hefty timber joists from a bygone age the hall itself was evocative of a simpler era; the era of toil and yes, labour.

As a prelude to the gig we were shown an unfinished biographical film of Bill’s early life, growing up in the nineteen-fifties; black and white photos and occasional cine clips showing a world long gone. The simple pleasures of sitting on a beach with a real family, eating ice cream for a treat and skipping innocently down a cobbled street without having to mug (in either sense) for the camera. It was a glimpse of the last time Labour had a purpose.

But today’s Labour Party is a spent force. As they struggle this week to launch an incoherent set of policies – driven more by the mere fact of conference than by any considered outcomes - their time would be better spent in working out how to quietly disappear from the lives they have blighted with their self-proclaimed goodness.

The big talking point right now seems to be the so-called black hole in Labour’s spending plans. Ed Balls was on the radio this morning, invoking the romance of the workers’ struggle of the nineteenth century, seemingly unaware that as a result of the very socialism he seeks to bolster, those who actually work for a living and yet still vote Labour are a dwindling band.

Well, don’t panic Ed, I have solutions. Here is how you pay for and retain your client base; or should we call voters customers these days?

Given the success of Labour’s “education, edyoocation, edukashan” policy, why bother? Save an absolute fortune and have school places in abundance by simply not bothering to even pretend to educate the offspring of the untermensch. They’ll learn some form of speech anyway but given that they rarely acquire literacy and will never have a use for it, what’s the point of all the expense?

Then suddenly there is no need for costly childcare either – the kids simply stay in the herd with their mothers. Fence off the sink estates, create mass employment for security staff and limit healthcare provision to disposal services only. No need for targeted child benefit either; inside the fences they’ll breed just like they do now without any financial incentive. They can be fed by firing weekly food parcels into the compound and kept docile by piping in 24-hour Jeremy Kyle, porn and booze. Skunk they’ll manufacture themselves; it’s one of the few skills they’re born with.

Soon every unthinking Labour voter will be removed from wider society where they can no longer cause harm and the Labour Party itself can get on with what it does best – keeping the poor and sick and stupid just the way they like them; poor and sick and stupid. No longer will Labour be able to use the poor as political human shields in the war against aspiration; when they see them up close and personal they will abandon their calls for equality and devote all their energies to keeping the fuckers from getting out.

Heil Harman!

Bill Nelson was born in 1948 - Labour's glory years under their most revered Prime Minister - a world of black and white, right and wrong and simple pleasures. Over the years he has embraced the future, mastered the new technologies and moved with the times; his music is as fresh today as when he first picked up a guitar. The Labour Party, on the other hand, is entrenched in that distant, Marxist past. It's time to leave the stage to parties of progress. 

At least my way Labour could finally fulfil its natural calling – to exercise total control of their one folk, their one nation, under their own, revered leader. One nation under a goon...