Thursday 29 November 2012

Pressing On

Pssst!

Wassat?

I got a story... what's it worth?

Can't say... what's it about?

Daren't say.

Okay... If I print it, will anybody go to jail?

Maybe.

If anybody were to go to jail... would it bring down the government?

I've said too much already. This could get me killed.

When you say 'me' who do you mean?

You'll have to guess.

Can I quote you on that?

No.


News Today. A judge, whose name might rhyme with Ryan Meveson may have proposed a change to the way in which press freedom is controlled... or not. I really couldn't comment. The rest of this story has been censored edited while the authors are being hunted down for clarity and then lined up against a wall and shot and accuracy the dirty, lying, low-life motherfuckers. Thank you for your patience. Die you journalist scum.

And now fuck off the weather...

Witch Project

Somebody today asked me, "Who the hell does Tony Blair think he is?" Bloody good question; clearly he doesn't regard himself as a mere fallible mortal, having fallen for the conceit of many a leader - believing his own PR. Untouchable.  Now I'm no bible basher but Matthew 7:16 appears to be apposite: "By their fruits ye shall know them." let's have a look at this particular Blairite bunch of grapes...

An unapologetic enthusiast for an enlarged, engorged European super state, who opened up the borders to unrestricted immigration and the subsequent displacement of hundreds of thousands of youngsters from entry-level jobs and thus from any chance of fulfillment? Reciting the mantra "education, education, education" who presided over a sustained erosion of education such that few of today's teachers would be worthy of the mere five O Levels they would have needed forty years ago, yet have qualifications they call degrees that are nothing more than socialist dogma disguised as erudition?

In the name of that same edu-dumbination, during whose term of office did the systematic downgrading of state education create over three thousand alternative subjects of study masquerading as qualifications to persuade young illiterates that they were worthy of a pointless university education and that remaining in school for a third of your life was a good thing?

Under whose watch did the noble aim of health and safety at work become a by-word for interfering non-job creation, instilling a fear of common sense and creating an entire industry founded on the premise that Big Brother knows best how you should take every working step? Much of the same thing happened to turn the largely crackpot green energy enthusiasts into iconoclastic world experts predicting the end of the planet and promoting the new religion of "do as you're told or we'll make you the enemy"? Has anybody noticed how much cheaper your energy is now that so much of it is produced by German wind turbines?

Who deregulated the licensing of alcohols sales so that twenty-four-hour, pissed-up party people have rendered the police barely capable of containing Friday night, let alone the rest of the week?  Who presided over the systematic criminalisation of society such that every action, every utterance, every opinion expressed is a potentially actionable offence? Who turned thought-crime into a real crime?

Who proposed that we compound the idle sickness of sloth with ready access to free money and round-the-clock gambling and who was more concerned with the prospect of legacy than of history? Some legacy; mountains of personal debt, fatherless children, state-owned lives, the culture of entitlement, the loss of individual responsibility, free speech, free press and any worthwhile prospects. Doublethink, thought crime, newspeak... Orwell was writing a warning, not an instruction manual. Double plus ungood.

And now, after lining his nest with mink and gold he has the audacity to say that withdrawal from the increasingly monolithic Soviet Socialist EU Republic would be disastrous. Yes it would be a setback in his bid for the presidency, wouldn't, it? Or do you still believe that nice Mr Blair has your interests at heart. Remember this poster? Doesn't look so far-fetched now, does it?


In January 1997, the Conservative Party tried to warn you. During his term in office the press repeatedly tried to warn you. More recently David Icke tried to warn you - and if David Icke is starting to look sane what does that say about the state of the world of politics? Too late to say it now... but I told you so.

Wednesday 28 November 2012

Opposing Farces

The job of opposition isn't easy... What am I saying - it's a piece of piss! You just run interference and endless criticism. Your job is to discredit the current government, whose job in turn is to prove you wrong and stay in office long enough to actually do anything useful; being slung out after one term is pretty much the worst thing that can happen to any administration because it looks like you were ineffective.

Of course, the usual sequence is one or two terms of relative contentment, followed by a final term where cockiness, sloppiness and a general wearing out of your welcome lets different policies appear appealing to new voters. This leads to electoral defeat and a term or so of jeering from the sidelines while the other lot blame it all on you, reverse your policies and set the whole thing on the opposite swing. Left-right, left-right... but now the choice is only between between left and further left. No wonder UKIP smells like a breath of fresh air.

The government is giving it a go, but with so little money left in the pot it's going to be an uphill struggle all the way. The news that IDS's scheme to get 'neets' into work for more than 6 months hasn't met its targets has naturally been met with derisory sneers by the party that spent all the money in the first place. It's almost as if Gordon Brown's role in the last Labour government was to screw up the economy as far as it could possibly be screwed. As if, because Labour weren't to rule the country any more they'd be fucked if they'd give anybody else a fighting chance. That's politics.

And it's where all socialist cycles bring us. It starts from noble beginnings; the working man, heavily exploited by ruthless mill/pit/foundry/shipyard owners from a bygone age of good old Christian brutality of man towards man, downs his tools, links arms and stands side by side with his fellow. They call each other 'comrade', for this is a war and the enemy are clearly defined. The have-nots versus the haves.

By the 1970s the Trades Unions, Labour's paymasters,  were calling the shots and crippling the country through ruinous restrictive working practices. Enforcing employment by double-manning, working to rule and threatening strike action at the drop of a flat cap. Destroying those very industries while imagining they were defending them. Those who weren't there have no idea how much they owe to the sainted Mrs Thatcher. (And repeatedly reciting, "Fatcha ruined vis cuntry" is a cast-iron indicator that you haven't a clue.)

But it's a war, remember? It's always a war and in war there are casualties and Labour can bear much of the blame. In ennobling the manual worker they were instrumental in building whole towns out of single industries and closing their minds to what might happen when the resources ran out. When those industries became bloated and inefficient and uneconomic, instead of looking to diversify, to educate, to broaden, they simply threw money at the problem and shored up a client state.

When the last Conservative administration fell out of favour the bright young Socialist things had a new messiah in the form of Tony Blair, who reaped the benefit of anti-Thatcherite rhetoric spewed from hateful mouths. With no big industries left, but with a booming economy, built on the back of taxing an entrepreneurialism that wasn't possible in the seventies, Labour set about building a new client base, opening the borders while driving their core supporters out of work and onto benefits.

Labour didn't build this; they tore it down.

If they can't hack coal, they can at least stay at home and do drugs and drink and watch Jeremy Kyle and jeer at their own. Always the same story - throw public money at dodging the issue, rather than attempting to solve it. So now it's a bit rich that Two-Eds-is-worse-than-one is heaping opprobrium on the current administration for throwing money at actual job creation, instead of Labour's traditional job-stifling practice.

It must be a more noble aim, but it hasn't gone well; getting the unemployable into work was never going to be easy, but Iain Duncan Smith has a far more comprehensive understanding of the problem than ever displayed by the Reds and let's hope he has the backbone and the time to see his reforms through.


Tuesday 27 November 2012

Homeless & Hungry

There is a VERY important lesson here... A business man was walking down the street when he was accosted by a particularly dirty and shabby-looking homeless man who asked him for a couple of dollars for dinner.

The man took out his wallet, extracted ten dollars and asked, "If I give you this money, will you buy some beer with it instead of dinner?"

"No, I had to stop drinking years ago," the homeless man replied.

"Will you use it to go fishing instead of buying food?" the man asked.

"No, I don't waste time fishing," the homeless man said, "I need to spend all my time trying to stay alive."

"Will you spend this on green fees at a golf course instead of food?" the man asked.

"Are you NUTS!" replied the homeless man. "I haven't played golf in 20 years!"



"Well," said the man, "I'm not going to give you money. Instead, I'm going to take you home for a shower and a terrific dinner cooked by my wife."

The homeless man was astounded. "Won't your wife be furious with you for doing that? 

The man replied, "Don't worry about that. It's important for her to see what a man looks like after he has given up drinking, fishing and golf.."

Feeling the benefit.

I saw a lot of bleating again today, from various quarters about 'nasty vicious Tory cuts'. Would those same people have complained of nasty vicious Labour cuts had Ed financially-illiterate Balls been making them, as he undoubtedly would have had to? I somehow doubt it, as the socialist hate rhetoric only applies to approved targets based on labels promulgated via some pretty smug propaganda. Where, for instance, is the deserved righteous lefty hatred that should be levelled at twice disgraced Peter (Lord, note) Mandelson who last year  bought an eight million pound house? Power to the people indeed.

You won't hear it because Labour have perfected the Orwellian art of 'doublethink' the ability to hold two contrary views at the same time. Thus, all Tories are bad because they make money and have cronies in the House of Lords, but when one of Labour's own attains high office and literally lords it over the rest of us, that is somehow acceptable. Or taxpayers must be squeezed till the pips squeak but taxpayers with children are better than the rest of us and must be given some money back.

This is dangerous territory, but I'd argue that those with children should pay more tax... or at least get no state assistance in raising them. Or, if that is unpalatable - which it will be - that I should get both Child Benefit and Working Families' Tax Credit. But, but, but... you'll splutter, we need that money to help raise children for your benefit. Well, if that were true, how come all the low end jobs, the ones that actually shore up a large part of the economy, are mostly taken by the tide of immigrant workers?

Your kids that gain no useful qualifications won't be wiping my arse when I'm eighty and your kids that get good grades will bugger off and work abroad, given half a chance, if the UK continues on its arse-ride to EU federal oblivion. At the very least, if they are successful, they will employ accountants to minimise their tax burden. So I'm not paying tax to maintain a healthy population top-up at all; I'm paying - the bit of it that you get back in benefits - for no useful purpose whatsoever. One way or another your kids are an investment on which the country is never likely to reap dividends. On top of that I pay for schools, roads, local services, healthcare and the like, all of which I use far less of than you breeders

Allowing unchecked immigration let the previous government suppress wages and opportunities for your young Britons while at the same time buying your silence and capitulation by showering on you the fruits of their magic money tree... until the bubble burst. It's effectively outsourced our breeding and rearing department. Now you want the state - that is, me - to keep paying you a stipend for something I already pay for anyway. That's like outsourcing your HR department, but not sacking your current in-house staff.


So, parents, it appears you are politically redundant so you can do your bit to help the country by giving up the bribe that no longer serves a purpose. Take one for the team and give it back, or let me have it as well. It's only fair.

Monday 26 November 2012

Secret Santa

Well the big story of the weekend was, of course, the UKIP babies, or should that be not the UKIP babies? Joyce Thacker - head of Rotherham's Children's Services - defended her decision to remove three 'ethnic' children from the foster care of evil racists who, in common with half the British population believe Britain would be better off out of the EU and that the separation of immigrants into monocultural ghettoes is a bad thing.

That would be same Joyce Thacker mentioned in page 81 of the document explaining the pilot ‘Local Links’ programme, run by Common Purpose in West Yorkshire, then? Indeed yes, prompting me to launch an ad-hoc search over the weekend to find out more about just what the flying fuck Common Purpose actually is.

Linked with extreme left wing views, or Communism to give it its officially recognised title, CP appears on the same frothing loony interweb conspiracy pages as the Fabians, Demos, The Bilderbergers, Skull & Bones and David Icke. look them up, but please do so with your tinfoil hat on.

Many recognise such organisations in the same way they see the Moonies, the Branch Davidians, the Manson Family and Scientology. But wait, surely not cuddly Tom Cruise and twinkle-toed John Travota? They wouldn't harm us?  No way! But maybe, just maybe, yes-way... What if all these conspirators are working together? What if, double bluff, they represent themselves as mad but not bad? Essentially harmless.

The aim of Common Purpose seems to be to spread instability, to ignore and override democracy, to take power away from the people and to spread the poisonous tentacles of unchallenged Socialism throughout the land; throughout the world. But surely, that could never work, could it? People are way too savvy to be taken in - that's what 'they' tell us, just before taking us in. Socialism sounds nice and fluffy and caring and egalitarian but it has never worked and in any country where it has been tried the population has had to resort to revolution to break free of its boundless generosity.

Surely in essentially Conservative Britain Common Purpose would be more aptly named Cross Purposes and have no effect on a healthily cynical nation. And yet... In the 1980s I hired an ex-police sergeant who told me, to no great surprise that the police voted "Tory to a man"; his words. But now, it seems, the majority vote in the police force is for Labour, most of whose leadership has connections with some of the wack-job Marxist organisations mentioned above. Is this the result of concerted efforts to shift their perceptions and allegiances?

Certainly many of the opponents of CP talk about their 're-alignment' sessions and courses. Owen Jones loves to talk about the demonisation of what he fondly likes to refer to as the working class, but what about the demonisation of everybody who aspires to create wealth? What about the systematic use of 'diversity' and 'awareness' and 'inclusion' terminology over the last twenty years, making it an offense to utter anything that somebody else dislikes? Where once British fair play held sway we now have play fair by edict.

So, maybe David Icke's lizard theory doesn't seem so far fetched now? My initial 'investigation' has thrown up all sorts of connections, tentacles, dodgy dealings and the like and while I'm still loathe to believe that humans are capable of being that clever I know they are entirely capable of being that devious. And where does it all stop? As more and more decisions are made that defy the overt will of the people. As the costs of government rise and rise and rise with no discernible purpose. As political correctness makes criminals of us all before we even open our mouths, you have to wonder if there isn't something sinister going on.

We are ready for them!

But it's okay because we are protected by friendly aliens in the sky with special plasma lasers which will shield us from harm. Yet there is one looming threat to which nobody seems alert. Christmas is just around the corner; an event so insidiously inserted into the nation's psyche that few are able to resist its persistent urges to spend money we haven't got, on products we don't want for people we don't really like all that much. If you think the EU is a plot then wait for this bombshell...

Santa is an anagram of Satan! (Dons tinfoil hat.)

Sunday 25 November 2012

A little bit more...


Well, enough requests for more - I say 'requests', when what I mean is nobody objected too vigorously - and I'm persuaded to post up another sneak preview. The working title 'Kingsway' has been in existence for at least two decades and attached to many projects. I only just noticed yesterday how it chimes with the title of the blog. It can only be destiny. Anyway, you don't need to have read yesterday's offering for this snippet to make sense.. or not. I only hope you enjoy it.
----------------------------------------------------------------------

Night

The air is thick and damp, heavy with menace and lit by a sodium gloom which casts deep shadows into crevices inhabited by the population of the night. Night brings out the dark people, those for whom daylight is too big a risk.

At night the facial recognition cameras, the technology of law and order function less well. Deep contrasts and faces half-concealed by hoods work to foil the computers and throw up ambiguity and confusion. And ambiguity is a thief of time, time left behind, not enough in the race to identify the bearer of a face.

In the high contrast, near-monochrome world it is not only lack of light that aids and abets wrongdoing. Sounds clatter from surface to surface, unabsorbed by clothed masses going about their businesses. Sounds from afar come near and soft treads in the nearby shadows echo from far-off walls.

The night hides terrors and all those who fear are off the streets before the evening’s entertainment begins. As the last buses and trams and trains clatter away from city centres the cloak of night embraces all and eerie mists arise, steaming from stranded pavements. Cobbles gleam yellow in the damp embrace of the early hours.

Too early for work, too late for play, the night’s foreplay begins with a shuffle here, a footfall there. Fragmented sounds and movement betray little of intent. That’s the way we like it. At night we are all anonymous and unreadable.

A shift in the shadows, an outbreak of footsteps and the smash of a window is followed by silence. The night floods around that silence, holding its breath. No response… then a sudden cacophony of smashing and grabbing, running and hiding. The deed done.

The police headquarters are surrounded by night; officers huddled inside strain their eyes at gloomy monitors. Too few in number to patrol effectively, they are dependent on the technology; the same technology that will let them down with the CPS. Too vague an image, too few fingerprint points, inconclusive DNA... the criminal walks free, as certain of the justice of his release as the police are of his guilt.

Policemen can smell criminality, they can smell criminals. The police rarely get the wrong man and even if it is the wrong perpetrator for this particular crime, society would benefit from his being removed for a time. A long time.

Deny everything, refuse to make a statement, don’t grass. The criminal mantra is easy to follow - it takes no effort, just as they have made no effort to live a decent life. And society is so tolerant, so determined to be good, so concerned to not make mistakes, that society makes mistakes in justice every single day.

Violent criminals convicted multiple times get no more than words. Fines are unpaid and that crime in turn is punished by more fines that will also never be paid. Community work orders are ignored, curfews unobserved, tags removed with impunity. And against this impossible backdrop the police struggle to contain criminality within too-lax bounds, forever criticised by those they are supposed to protect, forever thwarted by a criminal justice system that is exactly what it sounds like; justice for the criminal.

Collar number 2451 treads softly through the night, his radio silenced, his breathing stilled to a shallow, steady flow. Ahead of him, arm raised, brick in hand, Derek, a known felon approaches a chemist’s window, intent on the narcotic haul he imagines he will both find and understand inside. There are no drugs, nothing at least which will net him any real profit to fund his own habit, but he’s doing it anyway; it’s just another habit. Along with sleeping until noon, spending the day in night clothes, eating brown, fried food and smoking continuously.

He could no more not go on the rob than he could turn off the TV in daytime; the always-on accompaniment to his life, a goggle-box displaying events and images he will incorporate into his own memory as if they were real. In court he relies on the scripted pleas that he is a prisoner of his own wrongdoing, that he wants to follow his dream; that he is, at heart a decent, law-abiding, misunderstood member of an oppressed society. That he is one of society’s oppressors would surprise him, so far has he swallowed the social-workers’ delusions about the basic decency of humanity.

2451 knows different. He knows that the feral scum before him is a kind of vermin. He is representative of an underclass fuelled by a sense of righteous entitlement. A parasite that needs to be isolated from its host and crushed.

Human nature is survivalist. In large measure humans survive in numbers and in bigger numbers they thrive still more. But the natural borders of a society have long been exceeded and the 150-some-strong settlements of the Iron Age have blossomed into thousands, millions, within which rigid rules need to be enforced. Only, as humans have grown fat and lazy in their easy existences they have become complacent as well. Unwilling to face facts, unable any more to stomach the actions necessary to curb the excesses that threaten harmony.

Early police forces, known to the whole parish, herded errant people back along the straight and narrow, the laws defined by those who followed them. Stray from the path, get a warning, do it again, get a punishment. But now the police are so far removed from the societies they strive to control - indeed they MUST be for fear of reprisals - that they can only be seen as an outside force. Those whose taxes pay for them demand ever-more effective control; those who are supposedly controlled seek any way to escape their punishments.

And because the law-makers are just as corrupted by their insular upbringing and disproportionate rewards, they suffer none of the hardships of those wronged-against. They cannot see what those on the streets see, that human beings are NOT equal, they are NOT all equally deserving and they are NOT going to stop behaving badly because of a few harsh words.

Words have never done anything to control wrongdoers beyond the school gates. A timely intervention by a stern teacher may have prevented a basically good kid from going off the rails, but for those who are parented by television, a repeated affirmation of their rights has dulled any memory of words.

Only punishment is effective and 2451 has the means and the opportunity at his disposal. As Derek brings back his arm to heft the brick, 2451 catches it and catches him off balance. As Derek stumbles he has a brief moment to see the face of his assailant. “Awright, mate?” he offers, expecting to be released with a caution, ready to offer a plea of innocence. But he sees something in the eyes of this familiar face. Something entirely unfamiliar.

It is the last thing he does see, as the Taser renders him insensible. Moments later 2451 tidies up the scene and makes his exit, the supine form of Derek concealed in the shadows, his dark soul draining into the road, making yellow-lit islands of cobbles in a black sea of blood.

Neat and tidy, a crime prevented, a criminal neutralised; a case that will not be investigated beyond the inevitable family outcry. The press conference at which the bereaved family will mourn their lovely boy, their shining star and their gift to the world with so much potential they did not see any need to bring him up decently. The right political noises will be made, the acceptable number of doors knocked upon until the next case steps into the light and allows this one to be quietly buried.

One at a time, thinks 2451, one at a time. It’s the best he can do, but he knows he is not alone. Out there are many individuals doing the same thing - taking out the trash. Police, private citizens, other criminals. Bit by bit the undesirable elements of the world are being eliminated. A good job, well done.

He makes it to the police station in time to start his shift. In an hour or so he will alert a foot patrol to something not quite right, seen on CCTV, could you investigate?


 The foot patrol will call an ambulance, the body will be removed to a hospital morgue and a host of people will be gainfully employed at no risk to themselves. No crime will be detected and solved, no lawyers will get paid. 2451 is cutting out the poisonous legal middle man and putting society back on the rails. For which he will receive no thanks, earn no accolades. Just the satisfaction of knowing he has done his bit.

The night mists reclaim the scene and the world carries on. One scumbag down.

-------------------------------------------------------------------------

So, what do you think? Want to read more? Fed up already? There's a comment box down there, look... go on. You know you want to. :o)

Saturday 24 November 2012

Kingsway (working title)


In a break from the usual bile and in the interests of a little light relief, I thought I'd post up an extract from the novel I'm supposed to be working on. You don't have to like it, but if you do a comment would be lovely, ta! Here goes nothing!
--------------------------------------------------------------

Chapter 4

Pete had always been a bit of a rascal. Well, ‘rascal’ was too kind; he was a frigging nightmare. He used to steal from the kids at school, then from his parents and then, when he’d been kicked out of both of those institutions, he’d steal from casual acquaintances and passers by in the form of begging, bag-theft and burglary to feed an escalating drug habit.

Still in his thirties, Pete nevertheless looked more like a middle-aged roadie, his attire that of a twenty year-old, his face approaching fifty. Most days Pete was clean though, in both senses of the word. He rarely used these days and if he did it was usually only a smoke or the odd pill. Injecting was firmly in his past and he often went days at a time without even touching a drop of drink. Today wasn't one of those days though and he strode to the bar in the Kingsway Arms.

“All right Miles” he greeted the barman, “pint of Stella, please?”
“You sure?” said Miles; Pete usually came in for a lime and soda in the afternoon.
“Yeah” confirmed Pete, “It’s me birthday!”
“Dare I ask?” Miles expected a number but not this one.
“Fifty-five” said Pete, with a grin, then “Yeah, yeah, I know… don’t look a day over forty-five. I’ll settle for forty-five.”
“So, congratulations and what else is new?”
“I’m moving out of the squat.”
“Yeah?” Miles was curious as to how this had come about.
“Yeah, I got me act together and the social’s sorted me out some dosh. I’ve got me own flat.”
“Fucking hell!”
“Yeah, I know! Me wiv me own gaff!”

This wasn't really helping. Here he was, Miles, with a half-decent income,  for a doss-around type, and he had to make do with sleeping on his sister’s couch while druggie dropout Pete was helping himself to the state’s largesse.

“When I say ‘flat’, I really means bedsit, is what I mean,” interrupted Pete. 

Miles felt better, then immediately felt mean. Why couldn't he just feel happy for Pete without automatically feeling resentful of his good fortune? Might have to work on that one, he thought. Maybe he could blog about it?

“Still though,” said Miles, “your own crib, man!” he grinned as he poured the beer.

Miles and Pete had become quite good friends considering their only normal contact was over this bar, but he was always interested in Pete’s theories. Pete had a theory about almost everything.

“So, c’mon then Pete. Tell us. I can see you’re dying to.” 

Three pints down and Pete was getting agitated. He could summon up a thesis at the drop of a hat but this time he appeared to have given it some real thought.

“You know them police cameras everywhere?”
“Course. The cameras that are there for our safety and well-being!” Miles repeated the words of a local Councillor defending the peppering of every public space with surveillance equipment.
“Yep. Them’s the ones, " said Pete and then lowered his voice in the best traditions of Hollywood movie trailers, "They, my son, are only the tip of the iceberg.” He tapped his nose and indicated that another pint would go a long way to ease the telling of the tale.

Pete went off into a reverie about the visible cameras being more or less decoys, with the real technology being disguised into everyday objects. It had some merit. “See, while you’re worried about being caught by the camera up a pole, you’re secretly being recorded, being worried, by the camera at eye level, hidden in a screw head or a road sign. They've got retinal scanners and facial recognition built in and they can triangulate your position to a few millimetres.”

Miles stopped him. “Whoa whoa there boy, why would they need to pinpoint your position?”
Pete grinned, “To coordinate the sniper systems.”
“Oh, fuck off Pete!” grinned Miles, “that was last month’s theory”
“No mate,” Pete was deadly serious, “Last month I told you about the police snipers with shoot-to-kill commands. This is more sinister.”
“I thought the police snipers were pretty sinister.”
“No. This is worse.” Pete was on a roll now. “See, what happens is this. You get in trouble enough times for petty stuff the CPS won’t touch, but you’re still a blight on society, right?”
“Right,” agreed Miles.
“So, your personal details are fed into the computers and all that has to happen then is you get identified, automatically, like, by these new cameras and if you’re in range of a fixed unmanned sniper station and there’s nobody likely to get caught in the cross fire…”

Pete did a mime, which involved the raising and aiming of an imaginary rifle. “Click.”
“Click? Just like that?”
“Click. Just like that.”
“You’re fucking mental, Pete” opined Miles.

But did he have a point? There were certainly more unsolved shootings these days. Always petty criminals and always those who had gone unpunished by the authorities. Everybody assumed it was some form of vigilantism and that this was their past sins being visited upon them by the victims. It was easy enough to get hold of a gun as well. Since the scummy council estates had been, to all intents and purposes, converted into open prisons it was certain that much home-grown crime was concentrated within those walls and it was equally certain that the police were not remotely concerned with what went on inside, so long as it stayed inside.

Mile shook his head and laughed as he towelled a glass dry and shiny. He’d almost fallen for one of Pete’s demented ravings. What a joke. His phone rang and he took the opportunity to make his escape from Pete's nightmare world, still laughing.


---------------------------------------------------------------------------

There you go then. Is Pete right? Why would Miles blog about it and what might the consequences of that be?  Police ignoring crime and shooting to kill? Wanna read more? Let me know: comments below...

Friday 23 November 2012

Choice Cuts

I spent yesterday deep-cleaning the carpets in my house. The one recently vacated by the verminous tenants. I say verminous for indeed there was evidence of rodent infestation among the debris. Further intelligence from neighbours, the old lady in the corner shop and 'accidentally' opened correspondence reveals a tale of recreational drug abuse, children in trouble, others taken into care and lives lived in their entirety on the largesse of the state.

And despite that a large part of the population want to believe these people have no choice, the simple fact of the matter is that there is always a choice of sorts. You and I choose to go to work, pay our taxes and then choose how we spend what's left over. This means doing without some of the things we'd like in order that we can have more of the things we need. It means limiting our family size, our discretionary spending and our leisure in terms of both time and content.

We can choose to buy and cook and eat sensible food or pig out on ready-made obesity bombs and then complain about the consequences. We can realise that there is already way too much stuff to watch on Freeview and forego the Sky subscription, or we can bow to peer pressure and put two fricking satellite dishes and a cable feed into MY house, drill holes everywhere and mount boxes on MY skirting boards. We can decide to lead a clean and decent life and look after our kids, or we can invite in a succession of dodgy men and spend our days smoking dope in front of TV day and night. (None of this is conjecture. I learned a lot yesterday.)

My brother has recently started working as an electrician for a company which maintains local authority and housing association property. He has a list of tales that would make a tax-payers blood curdle. Whole legions of unemployable scum who scoff at the choices of decent people because when you're deemed 'vulnerable' (for which read: thick, lazy, degenerate, immoral, worthless bottom feeders leeching off the social funding intended for the genuinely needy) your choices never seem to involve consequences.

For instance, pay-as-you-go meters were installed for energy because of former unpaid bills, I learned. The choice there then, between paying your way or buying more skunk. I found the electricity meter to be over £50 into emergency credit, but when I called British gas they simply arranged for that to be erased. They have no doubt learned that there is no point in pursuing such people for payment so they simply pass the cost onto the rest of us, who choose to actually pay our bills.

There's always a choice, but isn't it interesting how the choices of decent working people are different from the choices of those we pay to maintain in their 'vulnerable' little lives. Oh yes, when the state picks up the tab for everything your choices are very easy indeed. (By the way, I am fully aware there are perfectly decent people struggling to get by and raise decent kids on pitifully low incomes. Those people are not who I'm writing about here - but they all know families like this.)

So... Don't civilise your children, that's what school is for. Don't bother cleaning, if it gets dirty enough they'll send in a clean-up crew. Don't worry about rent, council tax, Sky subscriptions, paying bills or fines; when you run out of credit just plead poverty and 'vulnerability' and somebody else will pick up the tab. Don't look after your health, that's what the NHS is for, innit? Oh and don't worry one bit about the shape of your daughter's fanny; the NHS will sort that out too.

All over the world, people get up and do what they have to do to survive. Indira, the kid in the picture below,  is seven years old and has worked at the local granite quarry since she was three. She works five or six hours a day and then helps her mother with household chores. She also attends school, which is 30 minutes' walk away. (You can read more in James Mollison's photo essay here.)


David Cameron is away today, supposedly negotiating the EU budget. Good luck, Dave, but when you get back have a good hard think about where previous governments choices have led us. And then think about the choices you need to make, with or without Europe. And when you've done that, give Iain Duncan Smith a slap on the back and tell him to cut, cut, cut...

Thursday 22 November 2012

To be fair...

Let me state first of all (and for the umpteenth time) that humans are simply not made equal. Bloody hell, if you can't feel superior to somebody else, what's the point of it all? We come in large or small, short or tall, attractive or pug-ugly and in all manner of shapes and colours. We have adapted to live in savannas, jungles, up trees, in caves and even in space. We have histories involving conquest, discovery, opulence, poverty, great endeavour, enormous industry or just sitting about on our arses.

Art, science, architecture, literature, agriculture... manufacturing, organising, debating... building dynasties, waging wars, forging alliances. Getting it wrong, then starting over and getting it right; these are the things that produce mature, rounded, wide-horizoned civilisations and they all take time. Lots of time.

Look what instant wealth did to the Arab nations. See how African despots plunder and pillage and murder their own people. Witness what a violent disaster Islam's access to the modern world is. Why do you think everybody is shitting themselves over Iran and Syria and nuclear weapons? Holy lands? Who knows what further ungodly hells those nations that cleave to superstition have yet to wreak?

But even then, within a single supposedly advanced culture, equality is impossible and attempts to impose it have brought nothing but misery and death to millions via the disastrous failed social experiments of the Soviet Union, China, Laos, North Korea. Cuba... and Tooting. There are no fast fixes, no instant righting of wrongs.

Which is of course why ruling power in one of the most civilised countries on earth is not in the hands of first generation neophtyes, but vested mainly in a small number of privileged families who breed to lead, balanced by the background chatter of an envious proletariat. It's how it is and in the main it works very well indeed; the appearance of a democracy but with a firm-ish continuous hand on the tiller.

All of which makes yesterdays student protest amusing in the extreme. Bleating about making the rich pay so that they in turn can become rich (they imagine) through a superior education. Bunking off from their studies to stand around in the rain and growl trite slogans at the very police they will expect to protect them when the nasty uneducated people ransack their grubby bedsits while they're out at play.

Offered the option, who do you want running the country?

Yeah! Fuck off, rich boy!

If history teaches us anything, gradual change is always better and more permanent than violent swings. Put a toddler in charge of the ship and who knows where we'll end up. And when it comes down to it, few people want to lead in any case; it's far too much like hard work. So, let the children have their day, let them feel like they made a difference and then let them see the ferocious struggle to become more than equal that they will invest in their own children.

There are only so many silver spoons to go around and soon enough they'll be stabbing each other in the back trying to get their hands on one. Sounds fair to me.

Wednesday 21 November 2012

I'm a nonentity, get me out of here!

She woke, cold and shivering in the dark and lay still amid the jungle noises. A nearby rustling warned her of rats and she shuddered, remembering the last meal - a bush tucker trial of insects and noisome animal parts that made her gag. She couldn't eat it and nothing else was on offer. All she could do now was avoid the rodents and wait for dawn when they could all breakfast on cold porridge and stale tea.

The jungle was hard on her, but not as hard as life had been getting back in the UK. She'd spoken out about privilege and gained a little support, but more often the press, which had at first hit out at austerity measures, now sided with the establishment against her. But what had she done to deserve this?

They said it was Australia, but as they had encountered nobody other than their keepers, it could be anywhere on Earth. Well, anywhere 'jungly'. She settled back into an uneasy sleep and dreamed of waking up in her own bed, in her own house back in England. At least, she reasoned, they would all be rooting for her back home... she drifted back into an uneasy sleep.

Daylight dawned and with it new hope. It was a television show after all, although they had done a remarkable job of hiding the cameras and microphones. And now she thought of it, weren't Ant & Dec supposed to be here? And how come she'd never heard of any of the other so-called celebrities? For the first time, suspicion mingled with the fear she'd felt since arriving here. In fact,,, how had she arrived here?

It was suddenly very, very quiet.

Trusssst in me!

Back in Britain the nation watches, enthralled, as Jeremy Kyle's guests and audience are gassed to sleep, loaded onto trucks and delivered to Heathrow Airport. As the live action unfolds, a sum of money appears on-screen. For the first few days the figure will be in red, as it clocks up the cost of the operation, but over the coming weeks of the twenty-four-seven show it will go into the green as the total money saved is displayed.

In voice-over, Simon Cowell unveils his plans to eventually include the long-term idle, the welfare-driven baby machines, violent, unrehabilitated criminals, students attending ant-cuts demonstrations when they should be in lectures and all the other lying, cheating, drug-addled, alcohol-soaked, uneducated slackers and ship them out to a rat-infested, mosquito-plagued tropical hell hole. These jungle 'contestants' are never coming back.

Nadine Dorries should thank her lucky stars.



(When Channel Four takes up this format, I want the dosh in Swiss Francs, please.)

Tuesday 20 November 2012

Mansion? What mansion?

Charles Dickens had Mr Micawber say, "Annual income twenty pounds, annual expenditure nineteen pounds nineteen and six, result happiness. Annual income twenty pounds, annual expenditure twenty pounds ought and six, result misery." Decent parents tell their children that if they work very hard at school, they can get a good job, save up their money and buy a nice house to live in.

In anything like a civilised society you work, you pay the tax you have to, you live within your means and you save what you can. Then you get to do what you want with what's left after you have already paid your share. Pretty soon, you learn that the harder you work, the more you pay, but even that is bearable if, at the end, with a few sacrifices along the way, you get to lead a comfortable retirement.

Unlike some parts of the world  nobody is going to fire rockets at you, or shoot you, or drive you from your home with pitchforks and fire. We used to use the phrase, "An Englishman's home is his castle". Not any more, it seems. Because, once again, having run out of other people's money, the spectre of a mansion tax has raised its ugly, spiteful head.

If anything epitomises the politics of envy that is the main plank of Socialism this is surely it. The thrifty, working, middle classes pay and pay and pay. But they also take less; they tend to use less in terms of public services such as transport, health, education and legal aid. They cost the police and the courts system less because they behave. All in all it's this so-called 'squeezed middle' that bears the brunt; being penalised yet again, in order to cover the endless costs of the huddled, ignorant masses that teem and breed like vermin.

The mansion tax principle is nothing less than state-sponsored theft. To extract yet more from those good citizens who have strived to better themselves; who may be just as cash-strapped as those who have squandered - are they now to be punished for their thrift? Vince Cable said: "There needs to be a sense of fairness, and these best-off people in society have got to contribute more.

No, Vince, no. It's not fair. They have already contributed far more than is fair. You've already extracted all the tax you were due or were able to. The tax system is far too complicated and every change delivers yet more legal opportunities to opt out of paying. The tax credit system is ludicrous - take with one hand and appear to give back with another? Isn't it about time the government took responsibility and sorted that out?


Mr Micawber also said "something will turn up". I can only hope he's right... and that it's the next flight out of here.

Monday 19 November 2012

At the end of our Teather?


Over the weekend a former minister condemned Government plans to cap household benefits at £500-a-week as 'immoral'. Sour-faced Libdem, Sarah Teather, accused the government of seeking to 'gain popularity at the expense of children's lives', claiming it as a purely political ploy to pit one class against another, or some such whining drivel. Ah, that would be the popular political ploy of bringing the ickle children into your argument, would it?

“But what about the child?” is the policy discussion equivalent of Godwin’s Law. As soon as you mention the little fascist, you have lost the argument just as surely as if you’d said “Hitler”. The kids are collateral damage in the war between granting freedom to individuals and then restricting what individuals will do to demonstrate that they don’t deserve such freedom. The children are not relevant here. They’re really not.

What is relevant is the whole way our society is structured. Some people work long hours in demanding jobs for little monetary reward. Some earn colossal salaries by dint of specialist knowledge. A lucky few inherit their living. But most of us would hope to be able to earn a living wage for a fair sacrifice of our time and talents; anybody objecting to that would surely find it hard to argue a realistic and reasonable alternative. By our joint endeavours and by our contributions to the communal pot we should be able to also help those less fortunate and run our society fairly with a bit put by for a rainy day.

Of course, there will always be a small number who will take what they want without regard for the rightful owners’ losses, but those people are called criminals and we generally frown on them, censure them, penalise them and ultimately lock them up. Depriving somebody of their hard-earned possessions is considered wrong from almost any perspective and rightly so.

I would have left it there, except, on Petrie Hosken’s show on LBC973 on Sunday afternoon, there were callers who argued that Ms Teather was right and that it was, indeed, ‘immoral’ to consider limiting the amount of unearned benefit a family could claim to a level higher than a majority of ordinary, full-time workers could ever dream of earning. What? Has the country gone stark, staring mad? (Don’t answer, it was rhetorical; of course it has. The UK lost its plot many years ago.)

But what we should be getting mad about isn't the idea of a benefit cap – there HAS to be a limit - but that such a high ceiling of benefits are being paid not to those who have fallen on hard times, not to those who need a helping hand to get back to work, but in the main to the least employable in society; those who could never command more than the minimum wage and yet have been allowed to breed uncontrolled an entire class of citizen who in turn will never work.

What’s to do? Well, I reckon two birds, one stone. Teather says we are at risk of demonising them; I say criminalise them. As many of them have subsisted all their lives on benefits – always taking and never contributing, never considering the losses of their victims, the tax-payers, they can be considered by any objective measure as thieves. And as a large part of the cost of their upkeep is housing way beyond their worth, we can redress all the wrongs by bringing back the work house.

Sorry love, the foie gras is off. Damned cuts!

Work for your keep, support your interned community, reclaim the council houses for key worker accommodation. Don’t pay, won’t pay? Welcome to Don’t work, don’t eat. Seriously you guys, you should make me King now!

Saturday 17 November 2012

Top of the Pops!

Well, it's been a record-breaking week for the blog. On Tuesday we hit the best one-day view count with the Denis McShame interview thrusting into the number one slot at 409, for which many thanks to Rob and his co-bloggers at I like being right. But every day this week has seen well over 200 views and at the time of typing When I'm King has welcomed over 1500 visitors for the week.

There's a long way to go to beat Bora Bora at 2833 all-time views, but from a standing start at the end of July 2011, I'm pretty chuffed. To think that I can enrage a couple of hundred people a day. And what's more, it's a been a bit of an international affair.

United Kingdom
21793
United States
8753
Germany
2044
Russia
1944
France
410
Ireland
385
Canada
358
Australia
308
South Africa
171
Turkey
163

So, a great big, hearty thank you to all my regulars and welcome to anybody who's stumbled onto this stinking pile of malodorous malcontent by accident.

I'll be back with more bile after the weekend! You can count on it...

Friday 16 November 2012

For the love of Paed...


Let’s look at the facts – or failing that, let’s leap to a few conclusions. First, Jimmy Savile seems to have been a right wrong ‘un. Quickly thereafter the Feds knock on the door of the nation’s favourite go-to paedo, Gary “do-you-wanna-be-in-my-gang” Glitter and before you know it, nature-lover Freddie Starr is engaging lawyers.

Bloody hell, we thought, who knew? Then the whispers… John Peel and his ‘Schoolgirl of the Year’ competition and of course the BBC (who in the main appear to have employed or otherwise paid lots of dosh to the majority of the accused) gleefully touted the unsubstantiated ‘Tory-peer-who-shall-remain-nameless-but-it-was HIM’ story. In the oh-so-apt Twitter phrase, *facepalm*.

And now, just as it seemed to be settling down, The Hairy Cornflake, Dave Lee Travis is having his collar felt and all of a sudden it’s the Seventies in flashback. Flowers, flares and fanny could have been the mantra of the post-pirate DJs and ‘popsters’. Jonathan King had some sort of fling, around the time Chuck Berry was singing about his ding-a-ling.

Aargh, I need mind bleach! It’s everywhere! Every famous person I remember from my childhood is in the frame. If I was Simon Bates, or Mike Read, or Noel Edmonds, I’d be getting out the Cillit Bang and making sure all my records were scrupulously clean. (I’m betting David ‘Kid’ Jensen is starting to regret that chirpy nickname now.)

And what of poor old ‘Whispering’ Bob Harris… Even as I say his name – and, dear God, please don’t let this be true – you can’t help yourself imagining a dark room, a hand on the shoulder and a gentle “don’t worry, I won’t hurt you…” before a new talent is subjected to the Old Grey Whistle Test.

In the Seventies (thanks, Marilyn French) all men were declared rapists. In the Noughteens (I'm baggsying that word) we’re all paedophiles, guilty whether innocent or not. Careers will be wrecked and reputations ruined as this most emotive of accusations turns good lives bad and idols into monsters. Once you pin on the paedo badge you’ve branded somebody for life.

Kangaroos in bondage, Rolf? Noooooo!

So what can we expect over the weekend? Were you paid by the BBC in the seventies? Have you ever had a hit record? Did you appear on Top of the Pops? Have you ever presented a show in which children were featured? If I was Rolf Harris I’d really be shitting myself right now… If only those Two Little Boys could talk?

Thursday 15 November 2012

Stop Thief!

There's been a fair bit of news these past few weeks. We've had paedos and press mobs and pandemonium at the barricades of the BBC. There have been resignations and accusations and allegations of racism in refereeing. We've had  a brand new Archbishop of cant and rubber bullets in the bull rings as Europe pursues its impossible, jackbooted dream.

Yes, some pretty terrible things have been going on, but forget Savile and Starr and Entwistle and Patten. Put aside fears for the future of France and Italy and Spain. Dixon of Dock Green has far bigger fish to fry, Rebus must face his biggest case yet and Morse must remorselessly face down an evil as great as ever seen in the groves of academe.

For a monster stalks the halls of Westminster. A rapacious phantom strikes, then fades into the shadows to bide its time and strike again. Such an audacious crime has rarely been seen outside the campuses of the bright young things. A disease which formerly only affected young people living in crowded, unhygienic ghettos, or lowly office workers crowded into cubicles, has spread its deadly tentacles into the very heart of government.

And the first of its victims spoke out yesterday. Shadow Minister Liz Kendall, MP for Leicester, wrote "Someone has stolen my lunch from this fridge." She went on to say, "I do not appreciate this and warn other people don’t leave anything in here unless you’re happy for it to go missing." In a sane and normal world the travesty would end there but no, the nightmare continues, for the wrongdoer is without shame or decency and replied, "I took it… AND I’D DO IT AGAIN!"

Oh. My. Fucking. Good. God. She is forty-one years old! She's a member of bloody Parliament Has she never seen The Thick Of It? She's the shadow Shadow Care Minister? CARE? There's a minister for care?  It's easy to see what she cares about; well I bloody well don't unless the culprit turns out to be Gordon Brown, leading a Phantom of the Opera existence in the secret places of the palace, living off scraps and feeding his soul from the despair of his party.

You never see them in the same room, do you?

The Daily Mail calls the note 'hilarious'. I think it's downright hysterical. Anyway, whoever would have dreamed there could be dishonesty in the Houses of parliament?

Wednesday 14 November 2012

Moira and Me


It’s a tough old life, this being a beacon of hope and enlightenment in a dim and dismal universe, but what’s a future King to do, eh? A couple of days ago, a random visitor to my blog - we’ll call her Moira - had this to say, by way of comment:

“…you appear to be a merciless, pitiless person.”

So far, so good. But Moira had more:

“With all your rage against [the world] I came to the conclusion that it is YOU who feel the self-pity you so readily scorn,”

Nah, not really, love, you’re kind of missing the point. What you don’t like, my dear, is me having opinions which don’t chime with your chakras.  Although she did then redeem herself by signing off with:

“I expect you will reply to this with your usual rapier sarcasm…”

Oh good. At least she’s sort of getting it. But you should never assume I don’t mean what I say; I prefer to think of my rapier as being more sincerely sardonic than merely sarcastic. You can make up your own mind, but maybe Moira cannot. She came over not so much despairing as simply humourless. A bland and predictable response to a world she fears, full of merciless, pitiless people spoiling it for everybody. Maybe she believes in the human spirit, free of reality and deadly earnest in its mission to bring peace and contentment to all?

And that’s the trouble, isn’t it? Had she read further she may have seen that I harbour little in the way of spite (way too much effort) more a resignation to the simple and often humorous realities of human frailty. You want nobility? There’s plenty of bloggers regularly posting feelgood, aphoristic nonsense out there; happy, clappy, hippy shit about being lovely to one another. If it only it were true. Life in Britain may have taken a downward turn but not because people are nasty, rather because people have let themselves become helpless.

The DPP, Keir Starmer, has had to be brought in to give his verdict on Twitter prosecutions – the more followers you have, the more guilty you are, apparently. Of what, you ask? Of causing offence, naturally; the big crime explosion of the decade. Since when did the police and courts system become our moral shepherds? I thought their role was to nab the bad guys, not police our beliefs – that’s the job of community, not coppers.

Yesterday I heard Labour’s Margaret Hodge on Radio Four bleating on about tax avoidance being unfair and an abuse of the system. I’m sure the many who owe their livelihoods to the tax regime in the UK, or are directly involved in assisting and advising companies and individuals would be delighted to hear her wringing condemnation of their legally playing by the rules. Who makes those rules in the first place? What a pity Labour didn’t have the luxury of office in order to bring about the great social changes they now demand. Oh, wait…

The BBC is current undergoing a period of hand-wringing self-immolation over the McAlpine affair for which George Entwistle has paid the ultimate sacrifice of having a wad of cash stuffed in his back pocket. The ensuing expensive inquiry circus will conclude, as everybody else already has, that the BBC should stick to reporting the facts, unadulterated by partisan views. The Beeb should be the voice of the nation, but why does it feel the need to be our conscience as well? (I much preferred it when Mr Entwistle wore a skeleton costume and played bass for The Who!)

The NHS is full of willing, dedicated staff who will cut you open, take out stuff, put stuff in, stitch you back together and ply you with ‘care’ until you get better. But, just like any other bloated behemoth it is also somewhat self-serving. The job of any industry is to find new markets and medicine is no different. As the list of physical illnesses nears a finite total, there are much richer pickings to be had on the mental bandwagon, where barely credible research ‘discovers’ things for people to feel bad about. Is the medical profession partly the CAUSE of mental illness?

Whatever happened to Individual responsibility? It seems to have sunk beneath a sea of collectivism, where what we do and what we say and how we feel about things is no longer in our hands. The more we expect other people (society) to direct us and protect us, the less happiness and freedom we achieve and far too many people now rely on the state to take care of every aspect of their lives. (I believe they tried that in Russia in the last century… how did that turn out?)

Yes! We are ALL individuals!

THAT, Moira is what happens when you lose your sense of perspective, your sense of humour, your grip on reality. I see my role in all this as the small boy in the crowd, pointing out what is plain to see if you only look properly. Merciless and pitiless, Moira? I prefer to believe I’m being cruel to be kind.

Tuesday 13 November 2012

Oh the shame!

Who says searing political analysis is dead? While everybody else is distracted by the BBC and the so-called Newsnight scandal, the newsroom here at "When I'm King" has bagged the one that seems to have quietly slipped away in all the fuss. Today we have an exclusive interview with Twitter sensation and serial expenses offender, Denis MacShame ( follow @DenisMcShame ) of Flimflam Towers, Rotherham


So, Denis, are you sitting comfortably?
Yes thank you, Your Magnificence*. Glad to be here.

You were born in Glasgow as Denis Matyjaszek, to an Irish mother and Polish father. Would you say this actually makes you a European, rather than British?
Aby upewnić się, aby mieć pewność, I consider myself European. But we are all Europeans, small parts of the greater whole that is the glorious European Union. Britain is just a state within the United States of Europe in my opinion. Slowly but surely the EU have taken more and more control over our daily lives for the better - and long may it continue.

You changed your name when you worked at the BBC as reporter and newsreader from 1969 to 1977. But then you were sacked for using another fake name to call a radio phone-in. Would you say you make something of a habit of deceiving people?
I prefer to think of it as magic; hand quicker than the eye stuff. What you have to understand is that this isn't just a habit, it's a way of life. I no longer realise I'm screwing people over, not that I care of course.

Tell us when you first learned how trusting the public were of MPs with public money?
Instantly. The system was so flawed that trust was never an issue. Only after the big scandal caused by the evil, Nasty-baby-eating-Tories did things get harder. I became creative but sadly the BNP managed to... well, you know the rest.

Are you Labour by conviction, or did you just go with the party most likely to believe your lies?
I believe that the state knows best for the little people. So big government, pro EU, pro union and loose morals, Labour were a great fit.

Would you say the people of Rotherham were wrong to trust you to represent them? Or did they get what they deserve?
When I first got the Labour nomination I visited the area and one thing was clear, the people were dumber than spit. Honestly it was shocking, like I had found the missing link on one occasion  People this stupid get what they deserve.

What would you say to Mrs Esther Gorenny-Dosh of Eckerslike, who is is struggling to provide iPads and smart phones for her four children, while subsisting only on benefits?
Vote Labour, they will increase benefits for them. In the meantime I might have a couple spare they could buy on a good second hand deal.

Have you any advice for the millions of others out there who don't have access to easy unearned incomes?
Become an MP or civil servant. Part time hours, if you know how to swing it, higher than average pay. Great pension and no one can touch you even if you are rubbish at what you do.

How, exactly, do you make a claim for money not spent by an organisation that doesn't really exist?
With great skill and dedication. I wouldn't expect you to understand, you're just a writer after all.

Do you think you should serve a custodial sentence, Mr MacShame?
Of course not, I have been set up by the BNP, Nick Griffin should go to prison.


Mr MacShame, do you believe in unicorns?
Of course, I once claimed expenses for one.

And finally, are you still receiving repeat fees for Lovejoy?
Piss off!


(*Your Magnificence* <~~ This is how I am to be addressed until my coronation.)

(Bloggy thanks to Rob off of that Twitter for standing in for Denis, who was unavailable for comment. It was his idea not mine. I was merely a naive dupe, sucked into his fantasy world and I have been advised by my lawyers to keep schtum.)