Made in the EU

I am a Little Englander. There, I said it. I want my monoculture back. I don’t mind immigrants, I never have. But I resent being told that our identity must be sacrificed so theirs can flourish. So when David Cameron says that Westminster is too white he reveals that he really is the heir to Blair. For a while I was applauding what looked like a valiant standing up for principle when he opposed Jean-Claude ‘drunker’ Juncker’s coronation on the European throne but today I begin to wonder if that was merely a staged event to woo back Eurosceptics to the Tory fold.

Toothless, friendless and despised, the formerly independent country of the United Kingdom will soon become a mere region of communism’s grandest scheme yet – to subjugate half a billion people to the whim of a dictator figure chosen by a process about as legitimate as musical chairs. The EU will become ever more federal, presidents will be appointed – like Juncker – without concern for the workings of any recognisable form of democracy and today’s levels of profligacy and corruption will look like models of propriety to future eyes.

In short, we are pretty much fucked if we stay in. Forget the brain drain from Britain to Europe; as ever fewer high earners realise they are paying an increasingly large proportion of the welfare bill to keep ever more grunts in low-paid grunt jobs, subsidised by state handouts to remain low-skilled and dependent, the evacuation of talent is already extending beyond Europe itself. Yes, you heard it here first; watch as in a few generations the Chinese and Indians and Malaysians will joke about European sweatshops and cheap, shoddy goods ‘Made in the EU'.

And for what? I have always suspected it but just like everybody else I have never had the means to quantify the harm it has done to Britain to be part of the whole rotten edifice. On Saturday Ed Miliband repeated the same tired, fourteen-year old lie, beloved of Nick Clegg but repeatedly refuted by the report’s original authors, that three million UK jobs ‘depend’ on the EU. I can only hope that the latest finding by cross-party think tank Civitas, that far from benefitting the UK, EU membership has done little or nothing at all for our prosperity. Indeed, in some respects it may even have hindered us; it has certainly made it almost impossible for us to retain any semblance of self-government.

I’m just sick of it. Sick of being lied to, sick of being taken for a compliant cash cow, sick of being robbed by imperious governments pursuing lofty socialist ideals. I’m sick of being derided and called racist for wanting to be British, sick of being made to feel ashamed of being white, middle-class, male, in work and daring to hold opinions contrary to the liberal metrosexmopolitan effete. I'm sick to my back teeth, just like my ailing country.

Heil Juncker! (*hic*)

For decades Britain has been in a coma, but just as Michael Schumacher appears to be finally showing signs of consciousness maybe there is hope for us yet. It might not be easy – although I believe it will be much easier than the useful idiots want us to believe – but not only will we cope, detached from the placebo of EU life support, we will thrive. I hope I live to see the day when my country can once again hold her head high as the brains drain back in our direction from the pitiful, impoverished, United Gulags of Europe.

The Losing Side

I may be wrong - it happened once before - but I don't get all the politicking around David Cameron's so-called ‘surprise defeat' in the Commons yesterday. What I saw was a prolonged debate with plenty to think about, followed by a vote which was – if there was any surprise at all - much closer than I expected. The narrow result of 285-to-272 against the motion reflected a persuasive performance by David Cameron rather than, in my view, any support for Ed Miliband or his muddled message. If our Parliament truly reflected the mood in the country the outcome should have been more like two-to-one against.

Sure the doves are out, chanting victory and singing outside their tepees, ululating in joy and hugging the hell out of any tree in range, but nobody except the BBC is hugging Ed Miliband today. I expect he is waiting for his summons to Len McCluskey’s office to find out if he keeps his prefect badge for another term.

Yet today’s papers are full of views that this spells the end for Cameron. I really don’t see that. Why? He didn’t do what history suggests Tony Blair did and take the country into an illegal, unwinnable war on ‘sexed-up’ evidence. If anything, Cameron’s term in office may come to be remembered as the time that Britain finally gave up wanting to play world soldiers and got on with democratically rebuilding its own nation state. I only say ‘may’ because I believe there is still much to do.

There may be many reasons for Cameron to stand down as party leader, but I’m not convinced this was the decider. I’ve not been a great fan, but his performance yesterday was, I thought, impressive in huge contrast to the push-me-pull-you antics of Mr Ed. It is reported that some Labour MPs ended the day still unsure as to what Miliband’s position actually was.

So it seems we’re not going to war in Syria any time soon. That should be a decision to celebrate. It seems the much-vaunted but always abused ‘special relationship’ may be in doubt. Good. It seems like a victory, albeit a narrow one, for democracy; at least our version of it. And if democracy won on war, we might just have a chance of it winning in peace; it’s about time. Maybe now we can get on with deploying a bit of democracy at home and sort out our far more important relationship with Europe.

I wish you'd won.               I know. Loser!

Ed Miliband is today being bullishly myopic, claiming a victory and calling for Cameron to consider his position. Be that as it may, I know which of them looked like a leader yesterday and which looked like a bewildered youth way out of his depth. There definitely was a loser yesterday, but I don’t think it was David Cameron.

Jeux Sans Frontiers

There once was a great country called Britain and although the ‘great’ was added to distinguish the island containing England, Scotland and Wales from Brittany on the continent, in view of its former world be-striding position as a huge empire, many of its citizens and admirers took the great to be a compliment. Certainly when I was growing up, nobody ever took the time to disabuse me of this notion and it seems many today still believe that ‘Great’ is who we are, not where we are. It’s part of the problem.

Where once we needed a strong and efficient military to project firepower around the globe in support of our own colonial interests now, after a succession of world wars, trade wars and cringe-worthy appeasements of foreign powers our armed forces are stretched beyond what would normally be considered a joke. Nineteenth century cartoons often portrayed other foreign powers as a native dugout sent against a British Man o’ War. This is how the Royal Navy now, realistically, compares against the US Fleets (plural).

We no longer have an empire, but surely we still have a little bit of dignity? Enough, perhaps, to recognise that if we did end up going into Syria it would be, once again, as a flea on the USA’s back. Belligerent John Bull is no longer the towering world figure he once was – he is a little old retired fella in his tool shed, wanting more than anything else to be left alone to do quiet things. As Britain’s talent deserts our shores in droves, to be more than replaced by new colonists there will soon be nobody left to demand bloody action in foreign fields. Some ask if we even have enough firepower to repel a foreign invasion. No need. Look around you; it is a fait accompli.

All of which is why I am relieved that it seems we are not, for now, about to plunge into a prolonged and unaffordable conflict with Syria and its indeterminate allies. I am glad to see the climb-down from a David Cameron champing at the bit for his Tony Blair ‘legacy’ moment. And also a little bit annoyed at Labour’s prevarication throughout yesterday, playing party politics when several national interests were at stake and worse, threatening a simple abstention if they couldn’t get what they wanted – that’s like taking the ball away instead of playing the game. For a while, what was right for the people of Syria seemed the least important thing.

It’s good to see a decision in accord with (though almost certainly not because of) a decisive majority of UK citizens against action. But if clear evidence of the origin of chemical weapons had been, or is later found, I doubt very much that the democratic will of the people would hold much sway. Successive British Prime Ministers, including Mrs Thatcher, have too much been in thrall to the USA. Indeed it is this relationship that has hampered, probably more than others, our ability to get to grips with a priority far more important to our interests than Syria – Europe and our place inside or outside its cloying embrace.

So, I say “Phew”, for the moment. But there is another, far worse, outcome from all of this; one that has been overlooked in all the shouting and jostling. While politicians have been playing games with other nations' affairs has nobody considered the dread implication that possibly the worst thing about the whole Syria affair is that Diane Abbot will not now have to carry out her threat to resign?

Shirts & Skins

Well, there’s plenty of huffing and puffing about ‘Yerp’ this week, for today’s the day the Tory propaganda machine begins its four-year campaign to lie and spin and scare the Bejasus out of an electorate which, while it has no idea how food gets to its table, or how the muggle magic of mobile telephony could possibly work, nevertheless holds, each one of them, a precious vote in its otherwise insignificant, tiny hand.

Many a mickle makes a muckle and Europhiles everywhere are happy to get their hands mucky in this dirtiest and shabbiest of all tricks. For, while all the time double-speaking about democracy, they plot to deliver the citizens of the United Kingdom, shackled and hamstrung into tyranny. Our laws, our economy, our very history is intended to be bought and owned and altered by an unelected secretariat who will answer to nobody as they wreck millions of lives, while pulling the strings of The Press to spread happy lies. 

For his part, Cameron thinks he just has to do enough to scare the shit out of everybody and they'll vote for the devil they think they know. Buoyed up on lovely Labour welfare for decades and not yet seeing any of the supposed cuts that are resulting in a massive increase in public spending, the average Joe will only know he was quite well off for a while and now he risks losing the lot. 

But losing the lot of what? I imagine a civilised and prosperous country has wide, clean city vistas of tree-lined boulevards, where throngs of contented folk gambol in easy harmony as they go about their pain-free lives. They work in safe, clean environments and return to modern, happy homes where they relax by indulging in whatever leisure pursuit suits their mood and later retire to live long, restful days in the dappled rural sunshine. 

I struggle to see where ethnic gangs, roaming our filthy back streets, fit comfortably into this picture. I don’t see a happy country having overcrowded mono-cultural ghettoes in between sub-cultural slums, where pregnant teenagers and verminous illiterate young men choose drug and dole dependency over dignity and purpose. In my imaginings, worthwhile people don’t seek amusement in violently abusing the emergency services they fraudulently call to their aid. 

Either version of Britain comes at a cost, but who’s going to pay for it? You gotta pick a pocket or two, so you have to have some pockets to pick. And those whose pockets are worth a dip are wise to events and eager to have a say in the manner of their ransacking. David Cameron is going to spout off today, in his much-vaunted and leaked speech, that he doesn't want Britain to leave ‘Yerp’ but that he wants a renegotiation of our relationship. 

Well, that’s just not good enough for a huge proportion of working UK citizens and it’s time to pick sides. Shirts or skins? We’ll play shirts; big, bright, Union Flag shirts, on our side of the English Channel. The rest can wear whatever multicultural skins they want, but they can stay on the continent. 

Back off, Barroso!

When we eventually secede from the European Union (if it doesn't happen now, or in four years, it will happen, possibly by bloody means at some time in the future) we can still have a relationship with Europe. They can be our poor neighbour. 

Say again?

I am no enemy of ‘green’ technologies. I say ‘green’ in quotes because it’s rare that we use any of the Earth’s resources in ways that are truly wise and don’t have an overall negative impact on somebody along the way. Often, Green proponents are dreamers, just as hell-bent as other causes on forcing their policies on those who don’t agree and rarely managing to make a real case. But, if there IS a case for using a low-impact energy source, I’m all for it.

This weekend a story about EU green energy policy caught my eye: Apparently, David Cameron backs the EU's grand design for energy. I’m not entirely sure what his backing of that ‘grand design’ really means, so I am inclined to try and find somebody who really knows. But I know that’s not going to be possible; nobody with interests in the green energy industry will tell you the objective truth. 

Some of you know that I teach electricians for a living. They don't, in the main, understand what electricity really is, how it does what it does and alarmingly, how to make it safe. Although they may do an excellent job of repeating what they have been shown, they REALLY don't understand generation, transmission or storage of electricity. So there’s no point in you asking an electrician. 

David Cameron won’t have asked any electricians either. Neither will he have consulted any engineers, because politics and cold hard facts just don’t mix. No, he will have been advised by ‘advisors’ (again, in quotes) and who will those advisors ALWAYS turn out to have been? That’s right, lobbyists for the technologies they promote… Directors of ‘green’ technology companies, or their willing dupes. 

Humans are on record as being profligate, poor decision-makers. We barely listen to the arguments and then return to our knee-jerk first choice. Or we work out we can’t afford that car/jewellery/suit/suite… and buy it anyway. It’s partly because our true nature is reactive, rather than contemplative, but even so that’s hardly an excuse in government. 

With my sparkies I tell them, tell them again, get them to repeat it several times, then tell them again. Then when I ask them what I just told them they often reply, “Sorry, what?” It’s the calculators in primary school argument all over again; there is no substitute for hard graft and if you don’t grasp the fundamentals you just aren’t ready for the rest. 

A politician is unlikely to be able to grasp the technical principles behind policies he is being lobbied to promote. But he can at least ask again. And then again and again until that chink of light appears. 

So, Mr Cameron, before you engage in yet more unnecessary spending of money we can’t afford in pursuit of ideals we generally don’t hold, achieved by means we don’t really understand and making profits for anybody but us, you might want to hang on to this handy crib-sheet of questions for the green lobbyists:

DOES it work? HOW does it work? Can you PROVE to me that it works? How much will it COST in total to set up? How long will it last? What will it save? If it doesn’t save anything, why should we consider it? How many jobs will be lost? How many of the jobs created will go to British workers? Can you prove all of that? If not, why are you here? Now, tell me again why you’re asking for public money? If it’s as good as you claim it is, surely you can get private funding? Next! 

Next... Ah yes, the European Union. Tell me Mrs Merkel, “DOES it work? HOW does it work? Can you PROVE to me that it works? How much will it COST?...”

Europe, in or out?

A very easy decision to make? Or a logistical nightmare?

Politicians afraid of making decisions will lead you to believe the latter. So much of this or that is dependent on European stuff an' t'ing. If we pull out we risk exclusion and worse. Our trade will be affected, our world standing will be eroded... will we sink forever or just thrash about in the shallow end? How will we feed ourselves, defend ourselves, feel good about ourselves?

The plain and simple answer is right there in the midst of that thrashing about, shilly-shallying and dilly-dallying like a procrastinator's wet dream. The time is not right, they say. It's what they've always said. If you put off until the day after tomorrow what you should have done the day before yesterday, pretty soon it's the middle of next week and before long a month of Mondays has passed you by like the flicking corners of a school exercise book stick-man cartoon and you're starting all over again on page one.

Sometimes (often) it is far better to make a decision and live with the consequences than to agonise about whether to make the decision at all. Occasionally procrastination is fortuitous - wait long enough and the problem goes away. But Europe isn't going anywhere and for better or for worse it has declared its hand. The Nazis Eurocrats want nothing less than a fully fledged Federal Superstate.

~~> And we don't. <~~ 

Right there. There's your answer.

We don't want what Rompuy wants, what Barroso wants, what Merkel wants.We don't want to be involved with it and we don't want it imposed on us. The only real option is out, right out and stay out. Daniel Hannan has been pushing and prodding at this for yonks; it's about time somebody listened.

Britain on its own would have no hiding place, nobody else to blame, nobody to pick up the tab, nobody else to bail out. We could stand on our own two feet, as we have for centuries. Britain on its own could finally start to make a real difference for its people, unshackled by the Über-Socialism of an aspirationally challenged European Juggernaut. (Did you ever notice how much German you need to describe Europe?)

If only we had what the balls for it.

All Prime Ministers want to leave a legacy but few of them have a real choice in what that legacy is. David Cameron has a real opportunity here to do the right thing for Britain and be remembered, possibly even revered, as a deliverer. Churchill saved us from the Nazis, Cameron could save us from their natural successors. Gotta be worth a punt, eh, Shiny Dave?

Or shall we put off the procrastination for another day?

Pity the children

We all know people who lie and cheat and steal. We are surrounded by them and more are arriving every minute. They infiltrate our society and demand more and more of our time and resources just to keep them fed and warm and to keep them under control. But, being the tolerant souls we are, we let these liars, cheats and thieves trample all over our carefully woven fabric of civilisation.

That's kids for you. As mere clothed monkeys of course they have only one aim in life and that is life itself. Left to develop without guidance they would continue to act amorally and outside the laws that keep the rest of us in check. One of the first essential parental duties is to steadily inculcate the behaviour expected of a fully-functioning, contributory member of society. And then, in adult life, it is our individual duty to maintain those cultural norms. Our prisons are full of those who have been unsuccessful in curbing their natural animal instincts.

But it's not just the prisons, is it? The infantile mental state of believing you can lie and cheat your way through life extends throughout our society. In fact, it seems, the higher you climb - you monkey you - the closer you get to your animal instincts to lie and cheat and steal.

So is it any wonder that those who constantly lie to us about everything believe they can continue to get away with it because history appears to vindicate this course of action? We are lied-to about taxation and spending. We are lied-to about educational performance. We are lied-to about our involvement in foreign affairs and we are lied-to about Europe on a daily basis as if WE were the children.

Shiny Dave will do everything to avoid a meaningful referendum on the gravy train. And in his twisted book, 'everything;' includes a promise to hold such a referendum. A promise which - like all the others - will be broken. But it doesn't matter, does it? Because despite your iron resolve to vote us out of the expensive monstrosity you (and no doubt, I) will meekly accept the lie of a renegotiation.

There IS only one way to deal with the Europe question. We either accept it, go along with its subjugation and become part of a monolithic Marxist state, or we leave it to its own rotting demise and return to happy self determination. Belief in any other option - as has been shown for almost four decades is denial of the plain truth. When children do this - saying they haven't lied or cheated or stolen, we have ways of correcting their behaviour.

So, where's the naughty step for politicians?

Ain't you got homes to go to?

Damned if you do and damned if you don't. Hot on the heels of his condemnation of Jimmy Carr's tax affairs (somehow commentable-upon where Philip Green's were not) Shiny Dave floats a raft of ideas for welfare reform. And predictably enough the shrill notes of righteous ('lefteous'?) indignation echo across Twitter like banshee wails for the dead. Not content with the ever-rising social tariff the flag-wavers for totalitarian statism will rest at nothing until the entire country is yoked to the despotic wheel of welfare.

David Cameron has a tricky budget to balance. He wants people to pay more tax, but he also needs people to claim fewer benefits. Only a fool could believe the two are not linked in a desperate spiral of positive feedback. In the boom years the high tax take was spent bribing ever more families to become reproductive rather than simply productive. Labour's time in office has seen the rise and rise of procreation as an industry and a not unprofitable one at that. Under the socialist creed, sacrifice and endeavour have been punished by ever-increasing tolls, while the cult of idle individualism has been feted and rewarded.

It simply cannot last forever. If Jimmy Carr has paid 1% tax on £3m, he has at least paid £30,000 into the system while almost certainly taking very little out - I am pretty sure he doesn't rely on subsidised housing, public transport or hospital services. In the same period an idle household has been granted the same amount in welfare payments, plus they will have liberally helped themselves to schooling, medical care and anything else going without any thought other than that it is their due.

Choosing welfare dependency over work is as much an abuse of the system as tax avoidance - in fact it's worse. The tax avoider is intelligently - if slightly immorally - using the wealth he has earned to buy himself the expertise to avoid the penalties levied on those who do well. It is outrageous to demand that those who take virtually nothing from the system pay an even higher percentage of their income, so that those without the wit or wisdom to earn their daily bread can continue in their infantile state of dependency.

So we should welcome the fact that we have a Prime Minister at least willing to acknowledge the formerly unsayable - that some people simply do not deserve the free ride they've had for the last thirty years (the Conservative Party has been just as guilty of appeasement of the masses as Labour) and that it has to end. But it's all just empty words because the part of the population that contributes the least is growing the fastest and the part that provides all the funding is shrinking.

Those who can are getting the hell out, one way or another and as always it's the backbone of our society - ordinary working people - who are taking the strain. How many more straws can this particular strained backbone take?

Euro Scepticaemia

I heard a rumour the other day that the Labour Party was considering offering an in-out referendum on Europe should they win at the next national apathy competition we call a general election. As the number of disenfranchised and thus voting-averse indigenous Brits grows in comparison with the rising tide of politicised incomers, whose presence here is gifted by the EU’s interference in our right to determine our own demography, there’s a good chance of that idea backfiring on them.

We’ll see. I think it a fair bet that nobody other than UKIP will dare offer that option and support for UKIP will dangerously damage not-so-Shiny-now Dave’s chance of getting back in for a second term. Something even his own side seem to be determined to prevent; Nadine Dorries courting popular opinion in a daring attempt to... what? Claim a scalp before she crosses the floor? It was certainly a brave resignation speech!

Whatever happens, however, I am resolutely for ‘out’ in the same way I was resolutely against ‘in’ in 1975, when they wouldn’t even let me vote. And here’s why. (You should note that, in the absence of any concrete figures, I’ll be making up my own, picking and choosing my ‘facts’ as I please, just as any government or opposition does. My numbers might not be accurate, but they ‘feel’ about right and until anybody actually tells us the truth – and they haven’t in knocking-on forty years – my numbers are just as good as anybody else’s.)

Based on this accurate set of statistics and my estimated inflation factor, the annual cost of being in with the in crowd is about £70bn.

In return we receive ‘inward investment’ of about, oh, I don’t know, let’s say £75million, mostly in the form of sports halls, ‘multicultural’ community centres, council tax brochures printed in Urdu, a few floral clocks and the VAT on MEP’s expenses spent over here on imported foie gras, caviar and champagne.

Membership of the EU creates minus-200 jobs each day for British kids and allows a million non-English speakers to run our hospitality and health industries, sending an invigorating £10bn per year back home to fund sex and drugs based crime academies in eastern Europe, its practitioners to be illegally re-imported into Britain in the backs of Norbert Dentresangle trucks. Or by simply walking through our border controls, brandishing unchallenged false passports.

So, taking all of this undeniably fact-based data into account, on balance not only would we be better off out, but we’d return to surplus in under ten years, drive our population down to a sustainable 50 million and build a powerhouse economy while Europe staggers under the weight of its malignant hypocrisy. Go on. Prove me wrong.

Do we want a referendum? Do we bollocks. Do we want to negotiate an undignified, shambolic, apologetic, shuffling retreat? No, sod all that. Sack all the traitorous human rights lawyers, who are at the heart of much of what is wrong with Europe and then march into Brussels, pull up our tent pegs, pack up our kit bags and in the wise, wise words of Malcolm Tucker, fuck the fuck right off. United Kingdom, I dare you to grow a set.

Taxing times

Well I've read a lot of stuff over the last two days regarding the so-called "cash-for-access" affair, like it's any sort of news. One side calls out names, the other side replies, "Yo' momma!". Then the newspapers get in on it and, of course, it's a free-for-all which has the delightful effect of utterly obscuring right and wrong whilst simultaneously polarising opinion further. 'The Left' gleefully points and shouts, "same old Tories", 'The Right' starts naming Labour millionaires and counter attacks with "cash for honours". And of course, just as one columnist argues for the status quo, more or less, another argues for public funding.

Amid the din the losers are always the same losers. The people paying for the party, whichever party they believe in; the tax payer. Income tax, national insurance, corporation and capital gains taxes. Import taxes, export taxes, road fund licence, VAT, stamp duties,  television licence, council tax... Then there's the tax you pay on income you've earned from savings and investments (if you can afford to save) from money you've already paid tax on and even when you're dead there are numerous ways the exchequer can get its hands on your dosh. If you die with no net worth then your ultimate tax rate was 100% as every penny has gone back into circulation.

We pay public servants out of taxation and then take back some of that pay... as tax. We pay tax on purchases of goods by those same departments. We tax private sector workers to pay pensions, then tax those same pensions. And the state employs extra people to collect the taxes from people paid by the state, which includes themselves. And on top of all that the treasury takes in tax from every possible source, then hands it back to the very same people as tax credits, child benefits, etc, and employs still more people to work out how much goes where. And it's all Napoleon's fault.

So, what went wrong? Why do we pay so much frigging tax? The first question, surely, has to be, if it's not for fighting Napoleon, what is it all for?

"From each according to his ability," plagiarised Marx, "to each according to his needs." A laudable sentiment, you might think, coming from a time when peasants were starving (although the soundbite was an alteration of an earlier call for rewards to be commensurate with effort). This seems to have transmuted into "You work your balls off, because you can - and we can make you - while he sits on his arse because he feels like it."

Instead of thinking "what can we spend all these taxes on?" governments should be thinking,"Is Napoleon still out there and can't we cut back a bit?" When 'need' covers such things as TV subscriptions, the classification of obesity as a disability and broadband for all, something radical has to change. And, yes, we're neatly back to population control.

Given that a large part of the tax take is spent paying people to pay it back to people who gave it in the first place. And that large government departments spend fortunes on themselves, their advisers and their advisers' advisers. And a large part of government time seems to be spent on justifying how they got the cash, where it's gone and why, isn't the solution obvious? The tax burden can reduced across the board by reducing the part of the population most responsible for wasting it.

So, a call to arms against a sea of troubles. Once more unto the breach, dear friends. Yes, my loyal subjects, in the United Dingdom there will be no need for big government. The cull begins in Westminster!

Follow me! I'll be right behind you!

Sartre was right!

People on prescription drugs. People on illegal drugs. People on religion. People peddling so-called new-age claptrap. People peddling old-age claptrap. Believers in ghosts. Believers in spirits. Believers in some form of universal truth. Believers that all men are created equal? All deranged.

The young are helpless and naive and the old often appear gullible. Wisdom may come with age, but it also needs a bit of practice as well. Those who have relied on others throughout their lives are hardly likely to suddenly acquire oracle-like insight as their minds descend into the nightmare of dementia.

But, young or old, the continued existence of absurd beliefs in provable untruths is astonishing unless you also see human nature for what it really is. Opportunistic, simplistic and fundamentally selfish. Tribally we may form associations and alliances for life but our apparent altruism is often revealed to be based on self-interest or just blind instinct. So, much for the milk of human kindness.

There are many kind souls, yes, but their moderate voices get drowned out amidst the clamour for attention of the multitudes who refuse to display any sense of personal responsibility. And the rest of us are treading water, waiting for the day the floods recede... not any day soon it appears.

So, while we're all really busy - making money, taking money, being deluded, being feeble, being kind, being stupid - the idiot political classes engage in their own set of delusional behaviours. David Cameron is implicated in - gosh - party fund-raising, while the Labour lot feign apoplexy as if cash-for-questions never happened. The government increase taxation and decrease spending and the opposition attack that strategy before saying they would do the same. Meanwhile a lefty idiot tweets that she rejoiced on believing Margaret Thatcher had died and we righty idiots get all pompous about it. Yes, the country is in dire economic straits, by all accounts, but people still have plenty of time to spread dirt and gossip.

Despite all that you might want - or even need - to believe in, the truth is much more simple. There IS no big conspiracy. There IS no right way to govern. There IS no single set of magic measures to make it all better. But one thing's for certain, if you sit around waiting for somebody else to sort out your life you're gonna end up with one mighty sore arse.

You could save yourselves a bit of time with this: