Pointless

So, after all the misplaced fun of PastyGate yesterday - polices really should be run past think tanks of comedians before being announced -  it's time to repair our damaged chuckling ribs and have a look at the alternative.

Yes George Osborne and Shiny Dave were guilty of some dreadful PR cock-ups, allowing well-aimed jocularity at a poorly thought-out attempt to close a VAT loophole to completely smother anything good about the budget. Who gives a flying fuck, really, about when or whether the PM has ever eaten a pasty? But here's why they should be laughing inside.

Labour's five point plan.

Maybe I wandered into a parallel universe where the clouds are made of candy floss, all the houses constructed from gingerbread and the trees a-fruit with money and honey?

This is, apparently, the much-vaunted five-point plan that The Mr Ed show reckons will... will, what, exactly? (My italics)

1. Stop the Government’s raid on pensioners and block its £40,000 tax cut to 14,000 millionaires (hyperbole)
2. End rail rip-offs by capping fares increases on every route (which attempt will achieve the square root of fuck-all)
3. Force the energy firms to cut gas and electricity bills for 4 million over-75s (How? They're private companies.)
4. Stop excessive fees charged by banks and low cost airlines (already achieved by shopping around)
5. Defend working families from the raid on their tax credits by reversing the Government’s pension tax break for those earning over £150,000. (more hyperbole)

Apart from the disingenuousness of it all, where's the working out? No marks unless you show the working - any fule kno' that. For a start, how? How are you planning to do any of this? (Of course, as the Eds will never get the opportunity to govern, thank goodness, it's all just bluster... but it's still crap bluster) Where's the money coming from? You'll not get a penny from the bankers; they're too crafty to ever pay up and employ the same expensive financial expertise as many Labour MPs do, to avoid taxation.

For a second, is that all you've got? You're never going to placate Red Len[in] McCluskey with his dreams of Molotov mayhem and the country at a standstill because he's mired in the gory, glory days of Scargill's communist dream. We don't make stuff, Len, we don't exploit workers and nobody is dying of consumption any more. (I know, it's a shame. eh?)

And for a third, how will any of those measures produce the prosperity and jobs you keep going on about? How? Go on... tell me HOW?

But listen, you pseudo-lefty twonks, you have a zero chance of election and a sitting duck government, punch-drunk from its own blows. Don't you realise you can say anything you want without risking the seriously difficult possibility of having to make it come true? So why didn't you aim for the skies?

Here, in a surprising - yet tactically sound - apparent volte-face, I, the Great Batsby present to you the five points you could have made... if only for the sake of arousing a bit of a debate... or an exasperated chuckle.

Labour's NEW Five Point Plan

1. Everybody will get a free car. A magic jet car. That runs on air. For ever.

2. Ageing will be frozen at fifty. From now one nobody gets older than fifty. But that's okay because...

3. You can all retire at forty, to a life of leisure and luxury for the rest of your days.

4. Under Labour EVERYBODY will get a degree. It comes in the post at age 25, at which point you will get the job of your dreams.

5. This time next year, Rodney, we'll ALL be millionaires.

This plan has the major advantage that it is just as likely Labour will be asked to come good on these pledges as the other ones, but it gives everybody the warm glow of either false hope or a hearty belly laugh.

Labour. The party that doesn't know what the fuck it stands for!