Peace Off!

The 2015 General Election campaign is finally underway, although you could be forgiven for thinking that we have had five long years of it, every day bringing some bleak foreshadowing of the horrors to come. Labour announce a pledge of some kind, desperate to look like they have the first inkling of the clue they never demonstrated in all their years in office. The Tories respond with ridicule and both sides look like quarrelling schoolkids, turning on Ukip as the stig from the wrong prep school. Meanwhile the LibDems do a cowardly lion and ‘put ‘em up’ from behind the big boys' backs.

It’s been a depressing few years, but entertaining for all that – if you like black humour, that is. The truth is the country is, in real terms, neither very much better nor very much worse off than it was five years ago. If you lost your job it was the Tories’ fault. If you got a pay-rise it was through your own hard work… and if you work in a public sector entitlement-culture non-job you absolutely have to back Labour or else you may well be found out one day. Nobody knows how it’s going to turn out – I sort of feel a slim Tory victory in sight but another five years of unexciting coalition government ahead.

So, amid the gloom and doom and mud-slinging politics as usual it was an absolute delight to hear the Peace Party’s Guildford candidate, John Morris, chatting on LBC the other night. Knocking on for eighty, Johnny Boy is a died-in-the-wool fantasist of the faeries, unicorns and magic money tree variety and he was an absolute hoot! He has all the credentials too: anti-Vietnam War in the sixties, ban-the-bomb marches, CND, stop the Falklands War, Quakers’ Peace Testimony, Peace Pledge Union and the pacifist Fellowship Party before helping to found the Peace Party in 1995/6 and in 2000 the Guildford Stop the War Coalition and the Guildford and District Peace and Justice Network. I am sure he is partial to the odd lentil, too.

With an average age of about 76¾  the Peace Party is the geriatric gift that keeps on giving. They are practically the poster boys for rip-off-able pensioners. They appear to believe in the unfailing goodness of all people except Tories, natch, and believe we can live together in peace and harmony and happy-clappy joy, with flowers in our hair and sweet, sweet grass between our toes. In their world ISIS would put down their weapons and join hands in a circle of love for all mankind. And if they came to power they would lead by example and disband our armed forces altogether. What could possibly go wrong?

The Magic Money Trucks deliver the spondoolicks

But lest you think they are a one-trick pony with only peace in mind, no, they have an economic policy as well. And it’s a doozy; Ed Miliband would do well to give it a listen because it makes Labour look like a mature and sensible custodian of the nation’s finances. Are you ready for this? This is what John Morris told LBC: The national debt is a scam, because the government owns all the money anyway and all it has to do to pay off its creditors is to print a trillion pounds and hand it over. There. Done. I hope you’re listening George Osborne. Vote Peace!