The Czech’s in the post

“I never!” Ah, the good old innocent days when a small child believed all he had to do was deny outright any wrongdoing and hope the trail of crumbs leading from the cooling cake all the way to his jammy lips would be ignored. But we all grow up and in doing so we either become models of propriety, realising that if we always tell the truth it’s easier to stick to the story, or else we become much better liars.

Of course, sometimes a white lie is kinder than the truth: “He wasn’t good enough for you”, “Business is down, we’re going to have to let you go”, “The judges were biased – you should have won!” but most of us know where to draw the line. And we also know that to repeat a lie in the face of all evidence to the contrary is borderline madness. And yet we’ve actually come to expect it from our ‘elected representatives’.

It always takes an expensive academic study to prove what people have known for years. And for years, parts of the country have been crying out for help because they have been inundated with aliens. The government’s response for over a decade? The accusatory, “You must be racist.” And even now, in the face of an official report that grudgingly admits some partial truths they still feel they have to maintain the simple lie that immigration is unremittingly good.

The report admits that the rise in immigration was largely due to deliberate Labour policies designed for political gain and has resulted in the no-skilled, low-skilled job market becoming 'saturated' by foreign workers. Wages in these sectors are now down considerably on their pre-millennial levels. Approaching ten percent of our population is now foreign-born, apparently, and many towns struggle to cope with housing, health and other public services. The truth is that low-skilled immigration has benefited some business disproportionately, but has had far greater impact on the nation as a whole.

Fit, working age, native Britons have been displaced to become entirely dependent on benefits. Many Brits in work are being kept afloat by tax credits, other benefits and costly public services that far exceed what they pay in taxation themselves. And benefits are paid to low-paid, thus minimal tax-paying migrant workers and their families who – quite rightly – take advantage of their EU rights and lap up the roast beef of Merry Olde England. This isn’t just a regional issue, as the Home Office likes to paint it, this is a national crisis.

And yet while, for years and years, ordinary people have pointed out these obvious truths the response of governments of all colours has been to maintain the lie that immigration into Britain is a net financial benefit. That’s like glibly pronouncing the climate of planet earth to be benign while people perish in floods, droughts, fires, earthquakes, tsunami and landslides.

What? No, it's always been like this...

When will the liars get it that this is not an economic issue, but a political one? Not a question of averaged-out figures but of specific, destructive, localised effects. Like the housing market; while the average numbers say there’s a boom, in many parts of the country there is the opposite. And talking of maintaining a lie; David Cameron still thinks we believe he will give us a fair referendum. The cheque’s in the post you say, Dave?

True Lies

So now it turns out that eating animal protein gives you cancer. Yes folks, we’re back in the realm of the ‘expert’. What’s the betting that this is the work of mutant ninja vegetablists with a mission to save the human race from itself by enacting a twisted form of benign vengeance? You have to be cruel to be kind, they say. No, you don’t; never mistake cruelty for kindness even if the ends are honourable. It has to get worse before it gets better and it’s always in the last place you look? Ermagerd, what is wrong with you people?

The darkest hour is just before dawn? Bollocks. Many hands make light work yet too many cooks spoil the broth? People live their life by these contrary, contradictory and downright inaccurate rules. No wonder some of you greet the start of Lent with such glee – you just can’t help but find pleasure in imposing prohibition on yourselves and others in pursuit of some unattainable reward in the fictional hereafter. I believe you are the foot soldiers of the inexorable march of socialism, scatter-gunning self evidently incorrect assertions under the guise of authority until an unsophisticated population accepts everything at face value and complies without challenge.

"For every additional 100 immigrants … 23 British workers would not be employed". So said the Migration Advisory Committee in 2010, a report that informs Theresa May’s views and efforts in regard to immigration. Oh no, says a different analysis, neatly bifurcating British public opinion depending on which ‘expert’ guidance you want to hear. Does nobody do the sums for themselves anymore? And then we’re straight back to that blanket proclamation: ‘immigrants are a net benefit to the UK economy’, or as Vince Cable is now dancing a joyous jig to: ‘immigrants are an ENORMOUS net benefit to the UK economy’. But of course, like the curate’s egg, immigration is good only in parts.

Unlike the nineteen fifties we have no population shortage. The displacement of unskilled UK workers in favour of foreign, cheap labour is near 100%; it benefits large employers and traffickers of illegals only. At the top of the tree it may well be true that we have a skills shortfall that can only be met by immigration but at the arse end of humanity, there is no benefit, net or otherwise to the people reared here. You have to earn over £30,000 per annum before you pay more in taxes than you receive back from the state, apparently. But yet again that is an average figure and taken at face value means that the vast – and I do mean vast – majority of UK citizens are a drain on society. How then can minimum wage immigrants, who suddenly seem to be doing ALL the shit jobs, ever attain the status of net contributor?

The moral is of course, don’t believe everything you hear, read, or have thrust down your metaphorical throats. Look around you for the real evidence and pretty soon you’ll realise that most of what you are force-fed is agenda-drive bollocks, often delivered by willing dupes. Earnest juvenile planet-savers, union-roused teachers, flash mobs of the pale and sickly walking wounded class warriors of the Hundred Years' War that is the NHS and well-paid ‘experts’ producing paranoia-inducing propaganda to order.

I don’t know the whole truth. You don’t know it. He, she and we don’t know it... and neither do they; to conjugate the truth all you have to do is put ‘don’t know’ in front of it, which means that, unless you want to slavishly believe all the claims and counter claims that are tubed to you daily with little or no provenance and drive yourself slowly mad in the process, you are going to have to do what most of us used to be able to do before the advent of 24/7 infotainment. Look around you, read some books, take an interest in history. For instance, we are all several inches taller than when food was harder to come by... I know it’s difficult, but just think for yourselves. And eat plenty of meat.

Evidence, Watson? What evidence?

The European Commission says there is no evidence migrant workers take jobs from locals. No evidence? If that is the case then everywhere that migrant workers serve coffee, sweep streets, pick crops and clean offices there must be virtually no young people without work. Or is that just the wrong sort of evidence?

Or, if the numbers of British unskilled workers on the dole isn't evidence that migrant workers take jobs, particularly unskilled jobs, from locals, what exactly is it evidence of? Because no matter how you lie and spin, it's pretty tangible evidence of something, isn't it? There they are, not doing the sort of jobs anybody can do, yet the Eurocrats see no problem with that because it's better than it is in some other places.

Tony Blair was ushered into power after two decades of growth and rising prosperity for all who would look themselves in the mirror and decide to do better. Everything and I mean EVERYTHING was cheaper than it had ever been in real terms. Ordinary people owned homes, took foreign holidays as a matter of course and owned goods of hitherto unimagined luxury and sophistication An entire generation who had never seen a Labour government wanted even more; they wanted a slice of the new Cool Britannia. (Anybody remember Harold Wilson cosying up to The Beatles?)

A mere thirteen years later, after a disastrous stewardship of the economy, a reluctantly nominated coalition was elected to right the wrongs. But of course, they can't. We have no say in the matter and if the EU Politburo says we must redistribute the workers so that everybody can own slaves from former Eastern Bloc, then so be it. The EU needs to allow poorer and poorer countries entry to our labour markets because somebody has to pay to keep the young people of richer countries idle, while those with money flee to fairer tax regimes.

The last statement of that article is telling: "Only 1.1 per cent of working age Britons - 330,000 workers - are currently employed in other EU countries." In other words, free movement of Labour only works in one direction. No evidence that unrestricted migration lowers wages, keeps people trapped in welfare, lowers standards, causes strife and actively increases xenophobia? If the EU says it, we must see it. 

You know the bastards are winning when they can look you in the face and tell you the sky isn't blue, the earth is above you, you are happy and joyful, comrades, and despite the evidence of your very eyes you've never had it so good.

Lies, damned lies, statistics and politics

Who can you trust? It's a really important question.

Do you trust the weather forecasters? Do you trust the economists who alternately say cut or borrow or tax or spend or save? Do you trust the newspapers - ANY newspapers? Who DO you trust? Because if you can't trust anybody, the political classes have you exactly where they want you.

There are few outright political truths. We've rubbed along with a mixture of oppression and liberty, private and public, business and personal, war and peace for centuries without learning any outright truths. Would a truly unfettered economic system lead to prosperity? Would a truly controlled system lead to equality and fairness? The evidence is that neither has all the solutions, so we swing slowly this way and that, relying on the negative feedback of public opinion to determine the direction of the wind.

My perception is that the breeze is blowing from the West and setting our course towards the right after a prolonged period of intrusive leftist interference in people's lives. But from the East come the chill winds of opposition and the current opposition are masters of the bait and switch. All for one? Or every man for himself? As these air masses of ideology meet, Britain is trapped under a deep depression.

We are gearing up for the big race to the bottom; to the landfill where truth and integrity, principals and morals go to be buried under a giant mound of steaming bullshit. The big prize is a win in the 2015 general Election, seats on boards, snouts in troughs. The losers, as always, will be the British population at large because politics has long ceased to mean anything other than the least-worst choice between competing evils.

They would rather not compete for your vote - one day they will do away with your annoying interference in the grand plan - but for now (maybe not for long) they need you to choose sides. If they can't convince you of their merits they can turn you against the other side. If that is a dangerous proposition they can try and steer you to a third option that least badly affects their share of crosses in boxes. It's a dirty game and as in war, truth is the first casualty.

So, on the heels of UKIP's outstanding surge in Eastleigh it came as no surprise to find that Labour had planted Amy Rutland, a Labour skivvy, as a stooge in last night's BBC Question Time audience to vilify Farage's forces as racists and imply this was the view of the majority. The wee dupe was brought up short by the ever-rational Melanie Phillips' spirited and rational adjuration to grow up and stop the rot.

It won't happen, of course. Andy Burnham and Jeremy Hunt will trade lies about the NHS's fortunes under their relative administrations. David Cameron will tell lies about holding a referendum on EU membership. Ed Miliband will lie about Labour's contrition and weep crocodile tears as he apologises, fingers firmly crossed, for everything Tony Blair did and Ed balls will say "Flatlining!" every PMQs till polling day.

Lies, lies, lies. So who DO you believe? All you can do, I reckon is wake up, take a long hard look at yourself and decide if you want to be part of the solution, or part of the problem - they are both legitimate, if unequally meritorious viewpoints - and vote for the candidates or parties whose actions (not rhetoric) chime with your beliefs.

When I'm King, I will rule with a light touch and a benevolent hand. Honest ;o)