Prayer for the Dying

The European Union has been described as an out-of-control juggernaut, crushing dissent beneath its irresistible wheels as it trundles blindly on to... where?  What is the eventual purpose of this unaccountable monster which ignores democracy even while claiming to promote it? Immune to criticism and deaf to expressed concerns it staggers intemperately on, eating up independence and subjugating peoples; all the while proclaiming itself a force for good even as it practices its evil.

The EU while saying the opposite is following the well-trodden path of all dictators; Robespierre, Hitler, Mussolini, Ceaușescu... the list is long. How much rope do we give the unelected Über-burghers of Brussels before we have to fashion that rope into nooses? For only a revolution will prevent their pressing forward with Common Purpose to the inevitable bloody end. It didn't matter who voted for what, yesterday, the EU budget will only ever go in one direction - up.

The European Union already has rulers, palaces, parliament... a flag, an anthem, a mission and firmly embedded corruption. In an insincere tribute to the new Pope, I offer the EU a daily prayer.

El Presidente, which art in Brussels, 

Hated be thy name; 

Our kingdoms crushed; 

thy will be done, 

in the EU as it is in Moscow. 

Give us this day our daily pittance. 

And forgive us our thought crimes, 

as we forgive them that brief against us. 

And leave us not as a free nation; 

but deliver us from liberty. 

For thine is the federation, 

the poor, and the gory, 

for ever and ever. 

We’re fucked.

Gawd 'elp us.

Mansion Polish

So Labour’s Mansion Tax motion is defeated. Champion of he poor and downtrodden, Saint Polly Toynbee, must be devastated. She talks in The Guardian about the ‘gilded few' “siphoning off national wealth into palatial properties, gold-plated pensions, bulging share portfolios, fine wines and fine art” Well, so what? They genuinely are ‘a few’ and they already paid plenty.

Those who create such wealth pay huge amounts of tax and provide employment and thus more tax payers on the way up and those who inherit that wealth tend to spend and squander it like drunken monkeys over a few generations until they’re broke and the ‘spoils’ are redistributed anyway. Wealth is already penalised, but the Toynbees of this world will never be satisfied until it’s a pants-down-in-public punishment.

Tax high earners unfairly on the way up and you will lose their enterprise and their money. Try and tax them on the way down and they'll just find a way of disappearing all that wealth by such measures as, say, buying property abroad, eh Polly? Then it’s gone for good.

But who are the so-called super-rich you and the voracious Labour Commissars want to punish so much? You will never really touch the properly super-rich, those you describe in such envious tones; they can afford to piss all over your punitive plans or else just piss off somewhere where they are welcomed. You must know this, so you must have your sights set somewhere lower – on altogether easier targets, such as those who genuinely want or need to stay in Britain. You’d prey on the very people Peter Mandelson praised?

Hypocritical Champagne Socialist poster-girls like Polly don’t ever seem to grasp the essential relationships between effort and reward, aspiration and the accumulation of wealth.

We create a poverty of effort when there is nothing to be gained by working harder – the higher tax rate is an insult to those who find that their reward for finally earning enough to have the same take home pay as a benefit capped feral family of deadbeats is to have their tax rate actually raised for daring to work harder or smarter, or be luckier. That’s like the attitudes in the old nationalised industries; the jobsworth mentality where a curtailed tea break becomes a national strike.

We create a poverty of aspiration if - having put up with being continually robbed by the state we nevertheless manage to live frugally enough to save for an uncertain future; investing, building and spending wisely in fear of old age, frailty and that rainy day - we are still in danger of being plundered. Having survived income tax, national ‘insurance’ tax, stamp duty, capital gains tax, corporation tax, council tax, road tax, fuel duty, value-added tax, beer tax, tax tax and carpet tacks, we are still not safe and our little Englishman’s castle, is broken into, broken up and taxed yet again.

Tax is theft, but it’s a theft we tolerate because we like to think we care about society and besides, there but for the grace, etc... But as tax taking becomes a mission, then tax avoidance becomes a game worth playing. And the people who MAKE money are inevitably better equipped than those who can only TAKE it to circumvent the taxman’s schemes and come out on top. And the ultimate tax avoidance scheme is to flee the coop.

Polishing off our wealth for generations

Polly Toynbee’s version of Socialism is a tax on one of our nation’s former finest resources, our character. Let people improve themselves in a modern economy and you will get prosperity and yes, fairness. Try to force them to be ‘equal’ and you will lose everything. We very nearly have. Polly, the champion of poverty creation talks about people hoarding “pyramids of gold”. The only place those pyramids are ever likely to stay safe is tucked up inside another pile. In Tuscany, perhaps?

Good old Benny

It’s a busy old day for news: Huhne and ex-Huhne wake up in chokey, the tattered remnants of the Catholic church begin the quest for a new high priest of whatever it is they stand for and – who knew – yet more evidence is revealed about Jimmy Savile’s ‘colourful’ past. Liam Fox is acting the spanner in Shiny Dave’s machine and the Limp Dems are pushing ahead with a ‘back of a fag packet’ mansion tax plan against all reasonable advice. Oh and a tiny part of the southeast appears to be having its own mini ice age. Passing curiosities against the backdrop of good news from the south. 

In a brilliant demonstration of actual democracy the Falklands referendum attracted a 92% turnout of which only three individuals voted against remaining a part of a heritage treasured in those cold South Atlantic seas far more than here in the UK itself where, if we ever were to get a referendum on the EU, the result would simply be manipulated or ignored if it went ‘the wrong way’. 

Meanwhile, to get a head start, the EU Propaganda Machine targets children in the hope that come 2017, if there IS a vote, the infants will have their brainwashed say. Way to go, Uncle Joe (Goebbels). Of course, the most successful way to stifle debate is the recent rise in accusations of racism at the merest hint of a likelihood that you may be about to use the name of another culture. Even to mention ‘Bulgaria’ makes you a racist; against Wombles, presumably. 

So, by that measure the Falkland Islanders are brutal colonial racists. No wonder they all voted in that nasty nationalist manner. We must send an invading force of sociologists to re-educate them. They will surely pay for their rash choice when our democratically elected leaders sell them to Argentina for the price of a kind word. 

Back in 1982 British troops were chastised for their use of the word “Benny” – after the simpleton Benny from the now defunct soap opera Crossroads - to describe the islanders. Soldiers are one of the last bastions of political incorrectness, but shared adversity and a bit of time has relegated what was once an insult to merely a gentle term of almost affection. 

Well I want to reclaim Benny for entirely pejorative use; I want one of my own. As a sort of pet... or better, a slave. I don’t mean I want a Falkland Islander - no, those worthies are no trouble at all. In my lexicon the new Bennies are those who live entirely on state benefits when there is no reason whatsoever why they couldn’t work. The NEETS and the feckless, amoral scum who breed like rats and take benefits away from those who genuinely need them and are in no way a part of the solution. Well I reckon my taxes pay for a whole one... so I want him/her/it to be a slave to me, rather than the other way round.

This is a brilliant idea now I think of it. If you pay tax you should be given a breakdown of what you pay for and have the opportunity to benefit from it. If you pay enough for a nurse, for instance, that nurse should be at your beck and call 24/7. If you pay for a day's worth of gritting, they should come round and clear your drive when you need it. I see no reason why this shouldn’t be extended all the way to the top. 

Now everybody gets to be a Miss Dianne

The Chris Huhne’s of this world should be accountable to the taxpayer. So, if you pay enough tax to fund an MP’s salary he should be yours to command! Oh, sorry, I just realised we’ve been doing that for donkey’s years.

Going for a song.

In Aladdin, there is a fundamental flaw in Abanazer’s plan to get his hands on the magic lamp. New lamps for old; something for nothing? It makes no sense - who would fall for that? Well, every year we all do, willingly, as the familiar scenes of yore play out on the stage. “He’s behind you!” we cry and “Oh no he isn’t!” What a hoot and how illogical it all is. Thank goodness we don’t conduct our everyday lives like that. But wait, someone’s coming!

Oh, it’s okay, it’s just the ugly sisters, Harriet and Yvette, spinning some poison against poor old Baron Osborne and being mean to Nadine. The Labour Party, in the role of the broker’s men eagerly grab whatever small victories they can and meanwhile Boris ‘Buttons’ Johnson takes up the slack as comic relief. It’s a right pantomime is British politics and currently playing the dame, David Cameron is desperate to give his Twanky a good airing in Brussels. What a crock. (I said crock) 

How about new MPs for old? Or better yet, why not go for OLD MPs for new? Because all any of them seem to do nowadays is spout the same old rubbish and as far as I can see, the next election will be fought entirely on the same tired old stereotypes with hardly a policy to be seen: Labour will be portrayed as the fiscal simpletons who believe in magic beans, while calling every government policy a tax. The Conservatives will be the potless Toffs, hooraying it up as the manor roof falls in and blaming the previous owners. The Libdems will provide noises off and the occasional pratfall and the Greens will play the part of ‘a tree’ all the way through the second act. 

UKIP will, of course, be cast as some form of throwback pirate racist, sporting an eye patch and cutlass and leading a Blackamoor on a leash. Secretly, the audience will want to cheer for them and subvert the plot, but the conventions of pantomime are etched in stone and they must instead boo and hiss, lead on by Bonnie fucking Tyler as Dick Wittington. Or is that Eurovision? As if it makes any difference. 

Because in politics, as in pantomime, even though we all know how it’s going to end, we suspend disbelief for the duration of the performance. We know Nigel Farage doesn’t eat roasted black babies for breakfast. We know George Osborne doesn’t dine on swan, probably, and we’re damned sure Ed Miliband doesn’t know one end of a Findus crispy pantomime horse pancake from the other. (Nobody knows what Clegg stands for - he's a LimpDem, after all.)

The propaganda machines of the three main parties will concentrate not on the truth, not on what is best for Britain, but whatever maintains the good old traditions of the political pantomime. They will swashbuckle their way into the final act, knowing that, even when somebody fluffs their lines or misses their cue, the audience will cheer them on to the same old ending – the one where Brussels always wins and we remain Britain Hardup in perpetuity. 

So you lot out there - yes, you - if a vote for Lib/Lab/Con is a vote for the EUSSR and this time you don't want the same old ending, you have a duty to listen and learn and wise up. Don't let the curtain fall on British sovereignty.

But who gets your vote?

So, come on Nigel, buff up that eye patch, shampoo your parrot (not a euphemism) grab a flagon of grog and let’s go for a last act with fireworks. If the EU is going to win anyway, we can at least give them a bloody nose in the process! 

The Future

This snippet, which I wrote ten years ago, was published in a BBC project called The Book of the Future. William Hague was leader of the Conservatives and, of course Tony Blair was on the throne, but the imagined time of writing was 2020. It appeared under the following title.


Statistics Vaguely Blurred

I was thinking about writing an article for the 2050 Book of the Future. My mum says she did it when she was my age. She made me laugh when she said that only 5% of articles made the grade! Mu-um! Who believes in percentages any more? She said it was all the rage back then. Damlise and Statistics she calls it.

Apparently, the aptly named Blur government used to use statistics to tell people how happy they were; 65% were 10% happier for 12% more time than they had been before the Blur party came to power. And advertisers were 24% more likely to use focus groups on 56% of occasions for 35% of clients something-or-other. I asked, how did you get 35% of a client? Mum got sulky then and wouldn't answer.

Thank goodness the Vague years changed all that. It must have done their heads in, all them numbers. It would mine, but then they used to do something called maffs in schools back then. Yes, Prime Minister Vague did us all a favour getting rid of numbers. Not entirely of course, I mean some people still use them, but they’re not like us. The people who attend superversity don’t even live in the same world as us normal graduates.

I mean, what’s with them, right? Everybody gets a degree when they leave Gala Bingo University at twenty-five, yeah? But them eggheads just aren’t satisfied. And get this – they actually leave home to go and live in these weird communities called campers in places like Durham and Cambridge and whatever and what do they study? Not leisure and furnishing like normal people, oh no. They do stuff that nobody’s ever heard of any more, something called fizzics and syens and that maffs and they actually pay for the privilege!

Mum says they've got a 40% better chance of being in the top 10% of earners. I say they’re welcome to it. Who wants to be a damlise? Or a statistic? I’m glad I never had to learn about percentages. I’m quite happy being more or less all right about half the time and not so bad the rest. I reckon my guess is as good as the next that most people think pretty much the same about the majority of stuff.

But will they think the same in 2050?

Welcome to the future!