Child’s Play

Calling all parents; do you know what your children did today? Do you worry? Did they steal a car and kill three pedestrians in a joyriding spree? Did they knock off a bank? Have they raped an old lady? Or murdered a disabled man for his benefits? Or did they lash out and viciously say they hated you? Then worry no more – it’s a police matter now. Her Majesty's Inspectorate of Constabulary reports that police are increasingly being called out to discipline unruly children. Given that for some time now kids have been told they can have their parents arrested for looking at them in a funny way or not handing over enough pocket money, it’s only fair that the tables may have been tilted slightly.

The little fuckers have been getting things their way for far too long and the media indulge their delusions of adequacy. This story, for instance, describes an illiterate sulk as ‘hilarious’. Well, it’s nowhere near as hilarious as having the angry little bastard put back in his place would be. Children are effectively non-sentient slime, being slowly oozed into human-shaped moulds and gradually having the instinctive nastiness baked out of them. Without that process you have what we see all around us today. The ‘me, me, me’ generations who believe that the world owes them not only a living, but a bloody good one at that, with every sin excused and every transgression absolved.

In return they implicitly agree not to challenge the garbage they are fed by the media. Have you seen how, largely unopposed, the BBC uses words like ‘controversial’ and ‘radical’ whenever they have a story about something they don’t like, such as fracking, or immigration control, or suggestions that parties other than left wing ones have any ideas worth exploring? Media headlines warn of ‘deep’ and ‘savage’ cuts, instead of them being ‘necessary’ or ‘frugal’ curbs on unaffordable profligacy. We are systematically manipulated from cradle to grave into being the type of dependent drone the EU wants us to be: Compliant, terrified of causing offence and unlikely to fight back; afraid to challenge things such as multiculturalism because we are told it is good for us.

Our work here is done...

Words like ‘chilling’ and ‘concerning’ are used to herald the most tepid of announcements, while ‘amazing’ and ‘unique’ describe things that are neither. Because if you can remove our ability to use words rationally you lessen our ability to think rationally. So when those of us who refuse to fall in step with the somnolent majority voice our concerns we are labelled bigots and racists and other words to – ironically - engender an unthinking hatred amongst the sheep. Goebbels knew his stuff. Now, I must go… wouldn’t want to miss the Two Minute Hate.

Cutting Crew

So, on the drive to work what did I hear but yet another claim by Labour that the Conservatives are planning a ‘massive’ assault on public spending. Good, because ‘public spending’ has become a euphemism for brushing under the carpet the troubles caused at and by the arse end of society. Unemployable, uneducated serial breeders with entitlement fever; unsuitable, irresponsible parents bringing unwanted brats into a world of gang culture, drug abuse and moral turpitude; multiple generations with little aspiration beyond surviving to procreate in their turn. Raised by television and internet porn and outside the normal reach of good example and the influence of the work ethic it’s a form of cruelty to suggest they have rights beyond any enjoyed by other species of zoo animal.

For without making any contribution to society other than to be examples of how not to live your life, what else are they? Seriously, if they can’t learn and can’t work and can barely communicate; if they can only take and take and take and rely on the state for absolutely everything what can we possibly gain by effectively encouraging them to carry on? If public spending means bribing the illiterate with the promise of comfort and indolence without any demand for recompense then cutting it and cutting it again should be applauded to the rafters.

Public spending means police to control errant ways and contain their spread, it means healthcare to pander to their every tiny self-inflicted injury or imagined special mental impairment. It means an army of social workers and ‘care’ workers to mop up the detritus of their chaotic ways and another army of ‘classroom assistants’ to make believe they are achieving mediocrity when they are just being held back from rioting or stabbing their more able classmates. It means a network of prisons and probation officers, courts and a criminal justice system to maintain a separation between the sink estate denizens and decent society. And it means outreach workers to try and salvage a tiny few of the unfortunates trapped in the system, so it looks like there is genuine hope when there is none.

Room for plenty more!

When they say the Conservatives want to take public spending back to 1930s levels that is an ambition we should all get behind. Of course, we need an overall reduction in the unproductive classes or else that target will never be achieved and in the late 1930s, good old Europe provided us with a pretty effective means of keeping the numbers down; what a shame our armed forces are being run down so that there will be nobody to oppose Jean-Claude Juncker’s barmy army. But there’s hope for population control yet; "We need an EU Army to show that we are serious about upholding the values ​​of the European Union," says Juncker. Who harbours any belief that an EU ‘defence’ force would be deployed against anybody but its own people?

The secret Diary of Edrian ‘Mole’ Miliband

Friday 06^th March 2015:

Well, what a smashing week it’s been. After I demolished David Cameron at PMQs by calling him ‘cowardy custard’ a hundred times in front of all his Eton chums, I came up with a brilliant idea. I’m a genius with fantastic levels of superior intellectual confidence, so it isn’t really that unusual but I was surprised it took me so long. When I am king Prime Minister I will make it a law that Cowardy Cameron must do a telly debate with me every week and then the electorate will all see how brilliant I am. It’s not for nothing the Tories call me their secret weapon.

Saturday 07^th March:

We really must do something about the press. I told them of my excellent idea and being the intellectually inferior class that they are they just didn’t understand and said some horrid things. Well, I’m standing up to them because it’s the right thing to do. Honestly the gutter press are so out of touch with ordinary people, it’s no wonder they are all racists and homophobes. If only we could get more people to read the Guardian, the only honest and honourable mouthpiece for the working man, there would be many more informed voters and they would see that we are right. About everything. Maybe I will ask the editor if he would run a ‘Page Three’ for a while - the proles seem to like that; we could have a topless picture of, say, Rachel Reeves and have her say a few words about everyday sexism or something. That would help spread the message, I’m sure.

And if that isn’t enough we need to work on the immigration problem; we must have more immigration because as every intellectual knows, immigration can never be bad and, besides, immigrants are much better than British people because we know we can buy their votes. Our useless specimens just seem to want more and more benefits to keep them quiet. That’s all well and good and happy to oblige and all that, but who’s going to pay for it, eh? And then they don’t even bother to turn up at the ballot box, so we need as many low-paid, uneducated, unskilled bods as we can lay our hands on and then tell the chavs we need them. Believe me, I understand the ways of the working class; my own butler is one of them.

Monday 09^th March 2015:

So today it’s back on the campaign trail and we have some super new policies to unveil. I can’t wait until Wednesday when I can smash Camermoron again with all my brilliance. The Labour Party really is the only party in touch with what this country needs. I have noticed that people are unhappy; well that is going to stop. We are going to make it illegal to be unhappy and as we all know, if you make something illegal it can’t ever happen again. So if people don’t cheer up they had better prepare to have something to be unhappy about! It’s much the same way with taxation; if you keep on taxing the wealthy they get used to it and happily wait to be taxed some more.

Bill and Ed's Excellent Adventure

Which reminds me, I must catch up with our economic policy; I’m a little behind schedule pointing at things for Ed Balls to tax and I really must tip my hat to Myleene for giving me the idea. And also I have a wizard wheeze to make sure we can enact all our plans and put me on the throne in Number Ten. I have a secret meeting with the Wee Free later this week. There’s no way Cameron and his cronies can beat a Labour/SNP coalition and Eck will do exactly as I say. Flawless thinking there, Eddy boy! Now, be excellent to each other – by law.

We need a debate about these debates...

So the broadcasters are to go ahead with their leaders’ debates with or without the Prime Minister. They have been quite barbed about David Cameron exercising his prerogative to pick his battles and have elevated these flimsy showpieces of shallow, sound-bite, reality TV jousts to being essential bulwarks of our unwritten constitution. But do we really want the election being decided on this presidential format, by how well a single representative from any party does on the day?

I have to admit the thorough thrashing that Nigel Farage gave Nick Clegg last year was comedy gold, but this is serious. And surely the Labour Party must be cringing at Ed Milibland’s assertion that he is up for all three debates; any time any place anywhere… anybody? The proposed Cameron-Miliband, head-to-head would probably have been the only one worth watching and I reckon this extended PMQs without the braying of the back benches would benefit Cameron far more than the juvenile idiocy of his Marxist opponent, but in playing this puerile gamesmanship card I think Cameron has handed the opposition a gift.

Oh well. One thing is for sure; the seven-headed beast of a format that will include the Prime Minister will be nothing more than David Dimbelby’s Question Time without the less partisan panel members that normally help to anchor it in reality. Instead it will be a slagfest, a slanging match, a shouting contest, a gainsaying festival of fantasy, hyperbole, hubris and dodgy sloganeering which will have exactly the effect that has driven so many to flirt with Ukip. The best thing Nigel Farage could do on the night is to simply shrug and point at the others, slagging each other off.

But will it re-engage the electorate with politics? No. Will it enlighten us as to the detailed policies of the respective parties? No. Will it help us narrow down our allegiances? No. Will it even be entertainment? Only to those who are wondering when the DNA test results will be announced. In fact I forecast it will be watched by an oddly mixed audience; some who are genuinely interested in the outcome of this, the most important election in the UK for almost forty years, but also it will attract the ghouls, hoping for a scent of blood. It certainly won’t aid the cause of democracy.

At ninety minutes, minus the questions and interventions, there is probably less than ten minutes per participant to develop momentum and bring their arguments to a climax. So, is it polite to watch a bunch of strangers mass-debate live on television? And will they all come out of it looking like nothing more than a bunch of grunting, gurning tossers?

Good Neighbours

With immigration once again in the headlines and the startling statistic that our porous borders have been leaking at the rate of one immigrant a minute for many years now, few can credibly say that it is not time to control our borders. Not from any sense of insularity, nor from our incipient xenophobia, but simply in the interest of stability. As Robert Frost states in his 1914 blank verse Mending Wall, “Good fences make good neighbors”

What works for the common man – an Englishman’s home is his castle – ought to work equally well, if not better, between nations. But sometimes even a well-kept boundary fence is not sufficient to maintain good relationships, as my own neighbour reminded me a couple of days ago. Just as in the poem we had been patrolling and patching up our common pickets; I doing the mending, he making good with the Cuprinol ™ and between us putting the world to rights with idle chatter and much speculation on the forthcoming general election, when suddenly a breeze sprang up.

It being an unseasonably warm day and with the winter sun shining clear and bright, he had donned a summer hat to shade his bald spot. But the zephyr lifted it from his crown and bore it aloft to land somewhat out of arm’s reach in the apple tree from which we both generally benefit. I laughed, but he was not amused – funny how the smallest of incidents can sow the seeds of discord. Still a bit grumpy, he demanded I do something about it, as it had caught on a branch on my side of the border and I happily agreed. From a low stepladder and using a broom handle I managed to reach it. He admonished me for my rough and ready approach and insisted that an expensive Panama hat should not be the subject of such indelicate treatment.

I suggested he try it himself, at which point he grabbed the broom from me and used it to hook the branch and bend it to try and dislodge the errant titfer. I laughed once more and his cheeks began to puff and redden with the effort and the indignation. He saw it as my fault, somehow and began to get more irate, but I couldn’t help smiling as he worked the branch. Meanwhile my dog, an excitable little long-haired Jack Russell began to join in, yapping up at the hat and running in excitable circles. I retired to my garden bench to watch the scene unfold.

My formerly affable friend-next-door began to get more agitated and then suddenly, the hat fell free. Before I could do a thing, Jack leapt up and snatched it from the air, and ran off, sniggering, I thought, giving it a good shake as he chewed on the Ecuadorian straw. Soon the hat was in tatters and all I could do was laugh. My neighbour – no longer a friend, I feared, was incandescent and demanded I buy him a new one. I refused and a stand-off began; he insisting that I was to blame and I that it was stupid hat anyway. Jack began digging a hole to bury the remains.

That was the last straw, as it were, and my neighbour was clearly at the end of his tether. He began to rant and rave and all I could do was laugh at the absurdity of it all. He gathered himself up and looked me in the eye. “I don’t like your attitude!” he growled and I know I should have tried to mend the bridge but I couldn't help myself. “But see, it’s not my attitude," I explained, "... it’s your hat ‘e chewed!”