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.) 

Craving common sense

Yesterday, long before the eleventh hour, at which the majority of the nation - the exceptions being some juvenile idiots and some contemptuous Islamists - observed the time-honoured two-minutes of silent contemplation of the only true 'ultimate sacrifice', I encountered an article about sugar addiction.

Alice Smellie [yes, I know!] says she used to consume six stones of the stuff a year, admittedly not by direct addition but by ignorance of how much sugar is hidden in everyday food and drink. Okay, we all eat too much sugar, but 'addicted'? Come on! She claims withdrawal symptoms ensued after she regulated her intake, but then homeopaths claim their remedies - and not just the placebo effect - can cure cancer!

Disengagement from habitual over-indulgence in pretty much anything will cause withdrawal symptoms. Teenagers get bored when their ration of mind-numbing computer time-wasting comes to an end. Parents get hangovers the day after they've had a couple 'to take the edge off'. The news media are going to have one hell of a jolt back to reality when all the millions of prowling paedophiles have been finally rounded up. But, addiction?

I'm not knocking what Alice has done; far from it. I know we eat way too much added, processed sugar. But I'm buggered if I'm going to stand idly by and let yet another 'addiction' enter the national consciousness. How long before some doctor, somewhere, writes a sick note for sugar addiction withdrawal, prescribes diet Coke and bed rest and spawns a whole new avenue for skiving off and claiming disability?

When it comes down to it, true addiction is rare and what most people imagine as addiction is nothing, more or less, than lacking the will power (or inclination) to give something up. From chocolate, to cigarettes, from coffee to alcohol, from gaming to gambling and from pain-killers to heroin, we use and sometimes abuse; because we can, because it gives us pleasure and because, in the main, it doesn't do a great deal of harm.

But once we recognise we have a habit we are reluctant to eschew, we all too readily rely on 'the guvmint' to do something about our habit. Calling it an addiction legitimises what may otherwise be shameful. Use the word 'addict' and suddenly it's not your fault any more; you're a helpless victim of a cruel and uninvited assault on your feeble body and mind, powerless to resist without plenty of soothing public money to dress your wounds.

Maybe the sign of real addiction is denial. The people in trouble who do need help are those who don't ask for it, - not those who embrace it as an excuse. For the record I am NOT addicted to Twitter!

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?...”

Life's hard... then you die.

I just caught a snippet of what passes as 'news' on BBC Breakfast as I sipped coffee and planned my day.

Former schoolboy crush, Maggie Philbin was earnestly discussing the use of calculators in primary schools with a no-doubt lovely, but a bit wet and dithery teacher of the sort we'd have eaten for breakfast, back in the days when schools were for education rather than indoctrination. I believe the cases for and against the use of calculators are both settled and a matter of common sense; over-reliance on tools before you understand what they do is palpably not helping.

But the more interesting aspect of the discussion was their use of words; words and phrases like 'enjoy' or 'make lessons more fun' which put the emphasis on the teacher to entertain, rather than teach. Is it any wonder we have people who grow up to expect life to be one endless round of giddy delights, instead of the mixture of pain and pleasure we actually endure?

Some animals on earth seem to have a life of pastoral ease, grazing away until the predator pounces or old age or starvation or drought takes its toll. They shudder, roll over and die. Did they enjoy life? Do eggs taste better from happier hens? [Bad reversed joke alert: What's a hen do? Practice the oldest living religion - baboom-tish. Sorry.] What's the point of life? There appears to be no point whatsoever other than that which we make for ourselves.

And I believe we get more pleasure and reward in every sense from that which we achieve by our own efforts. People put up with unimaginable hardships to cross frozen continents, to climb airless mountains or starve themselves in search of enlightenment, truth and triumph. Schooling, formal and otherwise, should give us the personal tools to set out on our own journeys. Education should prepare us to meet the world, a world where shit happens and sometimes there is nobody at our back.

So, sod the fun. Teach them the skills and teach them that life isn't a bed of roses, a basket of cherries or a box of bloody chocolates. The fun comes after you've learned to deal with the other stuff.

Then you die.

English. Don't let it die of ignorance

Every day we mangle our precious language. We use words we don’t understand, or use the wrong words to describe what we might not mean. Occasionally, hilarious clangers, such as ‘escape goat’, remind us how little care we take over verbal expression, or how reluctant we are to challenge received Norman Wisdom.

Other examples of misused phrases include ‘for all intensive purposes’, ‘play it by year’ and ‘that’s a mute point’. Add to the mix the proliferation of so-called management speak - meaningless pumped up expressions that allow corporate clones to miscommunicate with each other - and we are perilously close to little more than grunting… albeit in a form of English. 

If I ever hear utterly redundant phrases such as ‘going forward’, or tautology like ‘me, personally’ or the ridiculous ‘from the get go’ I know the speaker has nothing to say and will use too many words to say it. I’ve already closed my ears and pretty soon my eyelids will follow suit. I’ve been known to snore loudly in meetings and not miss a single important thing. 

We also use phrases from the past whose origins are lost. How can ‘now then’ mean ‘hello’, for instance? But, English changes; all languages change with common usage. Useful phrases from one age – ‘balls out, ‘big-wig’, ‘dyed in the wool’ – often survive with their meanings intact, while others die out altogether or change their meaning. I’m not against change; I’m against wrong. 

And the wrongest of wrongs must surely be the ubiquitous ‘should of/would of/could of/must of’ and any other variants you can think of. Wrong because it is simply incorrect; but even more wrong because users don’t seem to realise it. You hear it pronounced ‘of’ instead of have, which is bad enough but far too often you see it written down, even in newspapers and official documents. It’s only a matter of time before the OED lists it as acceptable. 

This is how propaganda works. Say it often enough and loud enough and eventually people will accept as true something which palpably isn’t. The Conservative political philosophy is as far from being evil as you can get, but Tory may as well be pronounced ‘Lucifer’ for many. Labour’s fiscal policies are demonstrably unworkable, unfair and destructive, yet somehow ‘welfare dependency’ is interpreted as caring. 

If you can’t even be bothered to check whether what you say means what you intended, what are the chances you’ll bother to check the provenance of the news of the day? Ignorance breeds more ignorance and eventually the truth is lost altogether. How else did the gigantic despotic experiments of the twentieth century get off the ground? 

The USA has just had its say and produced an outcome many disagree with and some even fear. But at least the USA IS one nation with no real threat to its identity. But a United States of Europe? English isn't just a language, it's a whole way of life. We should of got out when we had the chance...