BODMAS

It don't add up! Welcome to Tesco academy where 50% off means 5% on! It's a topsy-turvy world all right! Polls, for one. Polls - even exit polls - mean sweet FA. If you're a Tory at heart but you voted UKIP at Eastleigh yesterday you may be ashamed to admit you sincerely wish the best for your country. Similarly, if you voted Libdem you're hardly likely to admit you haven't a bone in your back as you slither toward the school hall doors.

Nobody in their right mind could possibly admit voting for the party who spent thirteen years and ALL of our money creating a haven for Islamic terrorists and establishing thought crime as a real and present risk for anybody un-lobotomised and suckling from the state teat. Admitting to voting Labour is like admitting to liking Harriet Harman and surely NOBODY is that deranged. Oh - some 4088 people people appear to be in  urgent need of medical attention. May I suggest trepanning?

Lucky to retain their seat, the loss of 14% of the Libdem's vote is being hailed as 'a great night' as all sides except UKIP claim losses as victory of a sort. It reminds me of my students when I asked them to calculate 3 + 2 x 2. They saw their failure to get it right not as a being incorrect as such, just as being different - a bit like our general treatment of failure. Go on, do the sums... If you got 10 you're wrong. The answer is 7 and if I have to tell you why there is already no hope for you... you may as well vote Labour because your maths is all Balls.

It's all down to the order of precedence. If you are now wearing a blank stare you're mirroring the reaction I got from a mixed class of electricians yesterday upon realising that Ohm's Law was a step too far. Back up three days: "You mean you didn't know there was a correct sequence for your calculations?" Oh. My. Fucking. Good. God. I have wasted three days teaching all the shades of green to the colour-blind - no wonder they all saw only red.

Anyway, the Limp Demics win at Eastleigh only demonstrates that despite the abject failure of 'progressive' polices in education, work, infrastructure, public finances and the NHS, the turkeys will still vote for Christmas. Fuck the country, they say, sod society; give me my benefits - leading me to redefine the order of precedence as follows: Bugger, Only Dependent Mendicants Applaud Socialism.

Mind you, I'm looking forward to seeing all sides declaring 'historic'results in one way or another. Yes,comrades, the chocolate ration will increase for all and we have reserves of bullshit to last us a lifetime.

Gone Fishing

Give a man a fish and he’ll eat tonight. Teach a man to fish and he’ll be gone all weekend. So, let’s talks about the price of fish... specifically Eastleigh fish. Right now a host of fishermen have assembled in Eastleigh, all eager to over-fish the same depleted stock of votes in the hope of making a career-best catch. The little fish of Eastleigh, meanwhile, are desperately hiding anywhere they can from the attentions of earnest canvassers and media crews eagerly recording vox pops of the most pointless kind.

Looking at the motley band of anglers dangling their wormy charms into the waters it’s good, yet somehow depressing, to see that hope springs eternal – according to Wikipedia, no fewer than fifteen deluded nutters are standing, representing... well, gawd only knows what they represent. Here, in no particular order I present to you a voter’s guide to the parties at the, er... party.

Liberal Democrat – the big trawler, churning up the sea bed, desperate to catch every fish, no matter how insignificant and with no regard for what anybody thinks about their decimation of political stock in ever murkier waters. This may be the last full net they ever land.

English Democrats – the rarest of breeds, taking to choppy seas in a leaky old rowing boat and looking to gaff one or two the last surviving examples of a near-extinct species.

Wessex Regionalist – Far from the madding crowd, Gabriel Oak is no longer smiling... Bathsheba is long gone, so he may as well dangle his fictitious lure far and wide; plenty more fish in the sea.

Elvis Loves Pets – no shit, seriously - obviously on the hunt for the rare little British goldfish but more likely to land one of our more numerous little brown fish.

Peace – fishing with an unbaited hook; the barb filed off and the point blunted– they may as well be using a stickleback net and a jam jar. Peace? Gertcha!

Monster Raving Loony – now a mainstream stalwart of the fringe and trying a little too hard to corner the mermaid market.

Beer, Baccy and Crumpet Party – actually catching the odd mermaid... the odder the better.

Conservative – the purse seiner of the local fleet, delicately skimming the surface; trying not to cause unpleasant ripples. The trouble is, the fish here are cruising deeper waters, though they are a LibDem stronghold so obviously not all that deep.

UKIP – They are OUR fish – hands off! Will readily throw back any non-native species and throw a cordon around our shores. Only true British cod will fit the bill. British fish are, after all the finest species in all of Europe.

National Health Action –coughing and wheezing and lying in dirty bandages in their bivouacs on the bank in a fever-ridden stupor and listening to the real action on Radio Free Tooting.

Christian – fishers of men – Simon, who is called Peter – never use your real name - cruising the gay bars and looking to net whatever he can. If he’s not successful this time he can always come back another day... as Paul.

TUSC - Trade Unionist and Socialist Coalition – All fish are equal, but some are more equal than others, brother. Unlikely to ever leave harbour as long as champagne and smoked salmon sandwiches remain.

Independent – a bloke with a bamboo can and a bent pin. He’s only out fishing because his wife seemed so keen he should take up a hobby. I mean, really keen. Meanwhile her latest ‘hobby’ is the talk of the cul-de-sac.

And finally, the rusty old tub that is Labour – dipping into everybody else’s catch while nobody is looking, then lying about it. It’s worked so far, you never know, but the joke’s wearing thin. They need new scriptwriters and might as well field a comedian –anything for a cheap laugh.

 There you have it. Good luck Eastleigh; you'll need it. Not long to go now; just grit your teeth, cling on to the rocks and do your very best to not get caught in the wrong net.

Decisions, decisions...

In fear, trapped animals kick and lash out at the hand that brings aid. They bite and scratch and cry out for comfort and protection even against the benevolence that seeks to untangle them from the snare and set them free. In blind panic they will trap themselves deeper still and cause even more distress until, sometimes, they die directly from their ignorance. Even if freed they flee their rescuer with not a hint of gratitude or comprehension, ever more fearful and ever more wary. Even domesticated animals, habituated to benign human presence will revert to wild instinct when threatened. 

I was reading this article by Melanie Phillips, regarding the first jury in the Vicky Pryce trial: She wrote, “...there have long been concerns that juries are not sophisticated enough to cope with highly complicated trials such as fraud cases. But the short trial of Vicky Pryce was hardly a complicated case.” and “In less enlightened times, the right to sit on a jury was restricted to the property-owning classes on the basis that the poor were considered too inadequate to sit in judgment...” 

The Labour Party and its progenitors fought for the rights of individuals; the right to vote, the right to fair treatment, equality in the eyes of the law and the right to sit in judgement on transgressors. It fought for better education and social mobility, decent wages, housing and dignity. It was a decent fight and necessary, to raise aspirations and spread democracy. I truly applaud what they did in all these regards... all those years ago. 

All those years ago... because that same party now does its supporters the grave injustice of assuming that it, alone, knows best what they need. It doesn't, but neither do they. Essential support for those down on their luck has mutated into a lifestyle choice for a multitude; basic healthcare for all has become abdication of individual responsibility for your own body. And universal suffrage is useless and irrelevant unless you understand, engage in and value what it offers you. 

Because, whatever the rhetoric, we really are all in this together; there is only one pot to piss in or to empty out. Yet those who only ever take lack the basic understanding of how it all works and haven’t the means or the will to contribute. They have been enabled into their disability and given votes which, if they are deployed, can only make things worse. Just like the jurors, those whose opinion we should value may not repay the faith placed in them - they just don't know what they don't know. I don’t hate such people, much as I don’t blame children for their innate naivety and ignorance of the world. But I do believe that anybody who relies so utterly on a system should necessarily be disenfranchised from making decisions about it, for the good of everybody. 

Incredible as it sounds, people will believe almost whatever you tell them - if you tell them what they want to hear often enough. The wounded animal that is Labour’s remaining support knows only how to cry out in pain and bite the hand that feeds it. Labour no longer speaks for the workers. In truth, since its early victories it has diminished in relevance for many years in succession, yet its core voters still blindly gather to worship.

When all the earners have quit and your parliament is stuffed to the gills with those with no allegiance to Britain and sleazy, conviction-spent fraudsters, don’t come running to me when the roads go un-mended, the power gets cut, the water runs dry and your policemen behave like the Afghan security forces reported this week on Panorama. 

The real trouble is that whatever way you vote, you will get some form of Socialism, all three of the major parties afraid to cut the apron strings of state. 

The country values your vote.

On Thursday there’s another cornered animal to free; I wonder which way instinct will make it jump. So, voters of Eastleigh, if you don’t know how to vote for the good of the country, then do the decent thing, admit it, stay calm and don’t vote at all. There. That should be the whole rotten LibLabCon-trick consigned to the scrap heap. But I’m not holding my breath