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?

Cunctatious Claptrap

Once upon a time, I had a job where desks had to be cleared at the end of the week. No drawers, no hiding places; all in-trays to be emptied and processed, no question. It didn't take long for one bright spark (not me - dull as a dishwasher[sic] me) to come up with a cunning plan. Like all the best plans it was devilishly simple. You scooped the detritus from your desk into a large envelope, addressed it to yourself and sent it to the post room, where the drones, who never thought to question the destination, duly franked and despatched it.

The mail being what it is, said envelope often didn't return to sender until the following Wednesday, by which time it was inevitably too late to respond to some items. Disgraceful, I hear you say... outrageous. Ah, but stick with me. Anything that genuinely needed doing would usually trigger a follow-up call, the response to which would be an innocent declaration that you'd not received the original request. It was an eye-opener to discover just how many formerly "utmost urgent" requirements could nevertheless stand a fair bit of delay.

But here's the best bit of all. The vast majority of un-actioned items generated no response whatsoever. Nada. Zilch. Sweet F-A. In other words, an awful lot of what passed for 'business' was simply somebody else's way of wasting my time. Filling quotas, ticking boxes, yada-yada-yada. For me the sound of that particular penny dropping was deafening.

When I later learned that certain management gurus even preached about the principle of managing by delay - do the urgent, important stuff now; the stuff that must be done, else the world ends, and leave the rest. If it's important for 'them', let 'them' do the prodding. If they don't, it clearly wasn't that important. Subsequently I have met a great number of people whose grasp of the strategic importance of their job to the company is feeble to say the least.

Am I implying that a significant proportion of workers care not about what they do? That in their absence the organisation notices not one jot? Am I implying that despite the billions pumped into the Euro experiment, virtually nobody can really justify their tax-free salary or properly explain their job? Am I implying that some of the European leaders are fully aware of this and that management by procrastination is their game plan? Stifle debate, stall and obfuscate and hope that in the end it will all come good? Damn right I am.

One way or another people have to eat. In the case of Greece and Spain, followed by Italy and France it probably matters not whether they remain an integral part of the Euro confidence trick; they'll get fed. If it takes uprisings and civil wars, the very thought of which should signal abject failure of the one feeble justification for the whole project, the Eurozone apparatchiks will shrug, do nothing and call it a re-balancing or some such meaningless aphorism. They'll all still get paid, out of our money, for performing their important function of remaining motionless on their shiftless arses..

The European Union is a huge white elephant. Like the United Nations it has rarely achieved anything of worth. Its history has been one of endless rounds of discussions and its edicts have either been prohibitory (the disastrous CAP) or damagingly liberal (human rights, open borders). The EU is the political equivalent of one of those 'premium' bank accounts that takes your money in return for doing fuck-all while looking and sounding important. The Emperor has new clothes, or so they say.

A bunch of cunctators doing fuck-all

Which brings us, neatly, back to the title. We are not lead by dictators, instead we have replaced them with a bunch of Cunctators. And it really doesn't matter how you pronounce or mispronounce that word it still contains all the right letters to express just exactly what a bunch they are.

An Expert Opinion

I am no expert. But feel free to quote me as the antithesis of expertise

The climate change experts told us we'd have progressively dryer summers in the UK. Water Board experts (not the Guantanamo type) suggested a hosepipe ban - in one of the wettest developed countries on earth - just before we received a whole summer's worth of rain in two weeks. (And a British summer can be alarmingly wet anyway)

Educationalists can't agree on the best way of educating kids, although the average ill-educated parent can still reason that all the tinkering is counter productive and potentially damaging. Criminologists are routinely off the mark in their reading of criminals and criminality, crime and punishment - subjects at which you'd think - hint in the name - they should excel.

Judges often lack judgement. Philosophers often fail and fall for sophistry and electrical engineers gave us the energy saving light-bulb... which saves energy by the duh-er expedient of not producing any light until several days after you wanted it.

Security 'experts' came up with this Big Brotheresque nugget of surveillance wisdom:

"Under provisions in the draft communications data bill, published by the Home Office, Royal Mail and private postal services could be required to store "anything written on the outside" of letters, postcards and parcels for up to 12 months so they can be accessed by police, MI5 and other enforcement agencies."

Really? You didn't consider what the effect of publishing this would be? Stand by for an onslaught of anti-government sentiment expressed on envelopes; expect to see S.W.A.L.K. replaced with such gems as MILF (M.I.Filth) or the rather more prosaic "Snoop on this, fuck face!" I think I'll address all my mail from now on to "Big Brother, c/o Keep the fuck out of my business. Ya Big Bastardshire, UKSSR.

So, in the face of all this expertise it should come as no surprise to learn that the Greek election outcome is being hailed as victory and ignominy, as both triumph and disaster by the political and economic experts responsible for the whole Euro-shambles. While helpless onlookers treat those two impostors with the disdain Kipling knew they deserve, our political classes still claim expertise in matters fiscal and sovereign.

Meantime the ordinary citizen looks on with rage at the havoc wreaked by inept policy, advised by experts, accepted by idiots and forced, roughshod, over common sense. In the real world, the repeating of mistakes is seen as foolhardy. In the world of the expert, it's the only way ahead.

How's that never-ending, conveyor-belt Greek bailout policy working for you now, Eurotwats?

Marathon Man

That the sacred Olympic flame sputtered and died before it could light the torch last week might be seen as a prophetic sooth for Greece itself.

Stock markets tumble yet again as Hellene stumbles in her marathon, brought to her knees by greed and corruption and the utterly fraudulent behaviour of the Eurocrats. Unable to form a government - wrong answer from the first vote - the bewildered electorate are going to be asked to vote again. In the cradle of democracy, democracy is being asked to fix something it isn't able to do.

As other people's money pours in to the bottomless pit that is Euro-wide false accounting, the politicians appeal on platforms built from the answer they seek , rather than the answer they need. Wrong answer? We'll keep asking until we get the number we already thought of. But the people don't have the answer. If they did and if the elected ones allowed, we'd all be celebrating blue skies and a return to sanity.

Instead, the politicos are wedded to a future they appear to have no control over and little faith in, yet they universally feel incapable of acting in the interests of their countrymen. The European monster lumbers on and on, making its own mythology and  lurching into ever deeper crisis while the voice of the populace goes unheard.

While the world predicts the utter collapse of European democracy, the inquisitor Angela Merkel and her cabal will persist in asking Greece - and then others -  the same question,over and over again, until the exhausted demos gives them the answer they want to hear. "Is it safe?"