Shrink to fit

We have a housing crisis, by all accounts. And that’s not meant as a dismissive phrase; there are too many people here and too few dwellings to accommodate them. We will build more houses, cry politicians of all colours; then quietly forget they ever promised any such thing. Pledges to ease the squeeze all end up forgotten when the knee-jerk response later turns into an ‘ambition’, or an ‘aspiration’. Nothing changes, except the scale of the problem. And yet it is all so simple, at heart.

Too much demand, too little supply. If we can’t build more houses where people want to live, that they can afford to live in – and the evidence of decades seems to be that we can’t – then we need to turn this problem on its head. If we had fewer people we would need fewer houses; it really is that simple. The trouble comes in persuading people that our Ponzi economy is all wrong. We don’t need millions of grunts working at sub-minimum wage, propped up by the few truly productive. We need real jobs with real purpose and none of the bollocks. (You know who I’m looking, you there, in the offence-taking industries.)

Brexit may very well be a start. Maybe we do need to become a bit more prickly towards foreigners; dissuade the low-skilled from coming here, insist on payment for services consumed and repatriate immediately on conviction or unemployment. Britons-first really would have an effect and we should apply it to all areas: jobs, access to benefits, positions of authority, education, etc, etc. We should genuinely consider shrinking the population and actually become a littler Britain; our survival may depend on it.

Ponzi, you say? Yes. Ever increasing expansion of GDP comes at a high price – see today’s productivity figures - because you need ever upwards expansion and ever more public spending, so let’s do the reverse. Let’s actually put our own interests as occupants of an island of finite size at the very forefront of politics. Not individual happiness and fulfilment – that’s your problem to solve – but what works. Small state, a highly educated population, quality work, skilled, trained, productive and competitive. And we should aim to live within our means, as self-sufficiently as possible.

And if that means we have a little less variety, that we have to pay what it actually costs to produce food, that we need to take more individual responsibility for our welfare, well, you can take a commitment to diversity and variety and ‘equality’ too far. And I believe we have. If Britain becomes a much harder place to sponge off we will quickly become less attractive to those who would do so. If foreign investment pulls out then, fair enough; how bad would it be if we really did stand on our own two feet?

Too few houses? Or too many people?

If this means a smidgeon of xenophobia and a tendency to dissuade reproduction by the uneducated, so be it. If this means we regain a reputation as an aloof, unemotional, pragmatic nation of tacit, cold-blooded queue formers, fair enough. If we demand a fair day’s work for a fair day’s pay, a fair go for the little fella, help only for the genuinely needy and the meagrest of dole for the idle, what is so wrong with that? When you think about it, all we need to do to solve so many of our issues is to become more British about it.

Shaking it up..

It’s a mixed-up muddle-up shook-up world. They are talking of cutting defence spending when the security and safety of our realm hasn’t seemed so perilous in a generation. The NHS caters for a wider and wider variety of ever more exotic ailments, administering expensive treatment to all and sundry while pensioners freeze for want of care and attention. Cut-rate migrants work for a pittance, pay no tax and in return are treated with suspicion, while perfectly able Britons languish on welfare which is too generous to turn down.

The government spends fortunes on an army of advisory roles which tell us the many ways in which we can usefully hate ourselves: the diversity, equality and human rights industry doesn’t miss a beat in berating our values. Using the multiple clubs of gender, sexuality, ethnicity, national identity and a myriad other metaphorical pointy sticks they encourage us to beat ourselves up for being undeserving of any of our successes due to our imaginary ‘white privilege’.

Despite the numerous noisy campaigns, various ‘pride’ movements and the many concessions we ‘normals’ have been forced to concede to the – and let’s not be coy - ‘abnormals’. I see little evidence that any of it has made any significant contribution to the sum total of national happiness, productivity, usefulness, etc... It appears to be, much like communism, a zero sum game. Give and take always appears to operate in one direction; any increase in one person’s happiness coming at the cost of a corresponding reduction in another’s.

Take the Tory Party. No babies were barbecued at conference, no elderly care patients were sacrificed and at no point did the faithful don robes and hoods and chant at a black mass. The awful, unacceptable [to some] truth is that Tories are humans too. The difference between them and certain other parties is that they actually want to confront reality and while dreaming of a better future, they understand that we have to consult the nightmares of the present. What a shame then, that the court of public opinion has sentenced them to ape the largesse of the left, but water down the offerings to a few feeble sops which will satisfy nobody.

It’s time for a paradigm shift in society. We have too many people in the country, so the answer is to import more? We have a housing crisis, so we need immigrants to come to pay to build more? The NHS is overburdened? Solution – yep, bring in more people, their families and their dependents, to paper over the cracks. And all the time we are told there is an impending employment crisis... the robots are coming!

No party dare grasp the nettle, but it’s time for some radical change. Get the utterly useless diversity consultants out in the fields. Make the costly management consultants do a decent day’s work in the factories... for once their worth could actually be measured. Force Human Resources to provide an actual resource. Stop student Marxists from becoming educator/indoctrinators and impose some real rigour in schools Slash the numbers of university places in half and then in half again. Children who haven’t achieved some academic success by 15 should be working; everybody tells us how much more mature they are than kids of half a century ago – let them prove it.

And what’s so wrong with people starting at the bottom? - The people in those low-paid jobs don’t all stay there forever and a huge number of the low paid are hard-working youngsters on a conveyor belt of improvement. Today’s potato pickers are tomorrow’s foremen. Today’s burger flippers are tomorrow franchisees and today’s factory production line drones are tomorrow’s captains of industry. And some people are perfectly happy to stay on the bottom rung forever; let them.

If a real leader had the balls to stand up in front of the electorate and declare that the era of freeloading is well and truly over, they would almost certainly be out of office in hours. But somebody has to tell the truth and somebody has to break the spell of socialism. Theresa May had that platform and if she’d gone in hard, she would have been backed. But no, she had to go and promise to give people other people’s money. The shake-up will have to wait.

Party Piece

The party’s over, or should that be The Party is over? The Conservative conference has opened in Manchester and delegates have been welcomed to the city by banners suggesting they be hanged by the neck until dead, with effigies swaying in the breeze to hammer home the point. So much more detail than mere indiscriminate spitting; now we can be in no doubt that the spirit of revolution is in the air. And how.

The problem for No.10 and the Tory Party is that the revolution is not in their ranks. Shuffling, backstabbing, bickering dissent, yes – ‘twas ever thus - but no Conservative reformation, no firebrand, back to basics barnstorming... no vision. And a vision, if not a miracle, is what we need. Where is the confidence? Where is the spring in the step? Mrs May’s hunchback, drop-shouldered, palsied mouthed posture sits in stark contrast with the sharp-elbowed, gleaming-eyed predator we had in the last truly Conservative Prime Minister.

Where is the zeal? Wither the spunk? Who do we have to lead? Jeremy Corbyn is riding high on a delirious tide of juvenile adulation. Labour supporters, especially young Labour supporters, smell victory in the air and the more unsophisticated their political awareness the more fervent their support. Indoctrinated simpletons, yes, but indoctrinated simpletons with fire in their bellies.

In Catalonia the Spanish police have been wading into thousands of people only trying to make their voices heard. Right or wrong, legal or no, the voters were mostly peaceful, but the state responded with a level of force that would have been applauded to the rafters had it been applied to the islamic invasion of Europe. Ironic, isn’t it, that when the people ask to be protected the guardians lay down their arms and when the people demand to be heard they take up cudgels.

What is happening everywhere – France’s Front National, Germany’s Alternative für Deutschland isn’t ‘the rise of the right’. Nationalistic, patriotic, proud citizens craving independence isn’t ‘the return of fascism’. People trying to have their fears recognised isn’t anything sinister, it is the opposite; it is the two-way conversation that modern democracies are supposed to thrive on.

Jeremy Corbyn hasn’t cleverly captured the zeitgeist; he has, by an accident of the incompetence of the Labour Party over the last few years, become the only figurehead who appears to care for the dispossessed. That his policies, his entire politics are an unworkable mish-mash of simplistic populism is irrelevant. In an ocean of cold mediocrity, Corbyn is a transitory upwelling puddle of lukewarm relief and everybody is leaping into his warm, moist embrace for a few minutes of feeling... well, feeling there is something other than the cold.

The Tories are screwed right now. Theresa May is undoubtedly a woman of commitment and has paid her dues, but she can’t connect with the public. Boris Johnson can undoubtedly connect, but not with the grown-ups and he is not to be trusted. Phil Hammond is a snake. And all the rest are tainted by the ridiculous internecine squabbling of the last two years. There is no ‘right wing’ in British politics; all parties have been, wrongly, trying to occupy the centre ground and the Tories are still trying.

It doesn’t work. The wets have the centre, Corbyn has the left, so the Conservatives need to rediscover their roots; if the opposition insist the government is right wing, then to the right it should, unashamedly, go. And when it gets there it needs to fly the flag for honest, unabashed Conservatism. Don’t apologise for capitalism, cheer it. Don’t cringingly pray at the NHS altar, insist it ups its game. Don’t dole out benefits at the drop of a hat, make them the exception, rather than the rule.

Shy Tories? What is there to be open about?

If Mrs May’s motley crew really want to steer the UK through the Brexit negotiations; if they really want to be the party of working people; if they genuinely wish to hold onto power in order to see through their reforms they need to stand up straight, reassert discipline and bloody well say so.  Jeremy Corbyn preaches hope for a better future, based on a gloomy fantasy of never-ending government largesse; it’s about time the Tories also brought hope, based on the optimistic and achievable reality of self-reliance.

After the ball was over

Transcript: Victim Interview

Sergeant Copper: For the tape, my name is Sergeant Copper. Also present are Elspeth Socialworker and  representing Miss Young-Person is her solicitor Gloria Law. [pause, shuffling of papers, scuffing of chairs]

Now, Miss Young-Person, can you tell us, in your own words, why you are here today?

Young-Person: I want to give a statement. I want to tell my story. [pause] He promised me sweets if I went with him.

SC: Sweets?

Y-P: Yes. I like sweets

SC: Did he say what kind of sweets?

Y-P: No. He just promised me that there would be sweets; whatever I wanted.

SC: Did you take the sweets?

Y-P: No, because [pause, sobbing] well, I never saw the sweets. I mean, he sounded perfectly plausible. You know... whatever type of sweet I said I liked he said I could have. If I wanted mints he said he would get me mints. If I wanted toffees, then toffees I would have, he told me. But I never saw any toffees... or mints.

SC: I see. Did he ask you to do anything in return for these sweets? Anything for him?

Y-P: I don’t know, really. I mean, he didn’t ask us to actually, you know, do anything. Not as such. I think he just wanted us to love him. He smelled funny. Like camphor, or something.

SC: Us?

Y-P: Yes. At first I thought it might just be me; maybe I was... chosen. He made me feel special, you know, like a kind old grandad. And although he seemed a little lonely, as if he really needed me, he made me think it was all about me and that the world was there just for my benefit. He told me that no matter what I wanted, he would make it happen.

Gloria Law: It is. It is your human right that whatsoever your heart desires, you shall have it. Because it is your irrevocable human right to be happy and successful.

Y-P: Yes, but I thought he meant only me. He spoke directly to me, from my smart phone... at least, I thought he did. But then, when I went to meet him, I discovered I wasn’t the only one at all. There were thousands just like me.

Sergeant Copper: And what happened, when you met the others?

Y-P: Well, they were all very nice. All like me; just like me, in fact. They all had a sort of ‘glow’ about them, as if they – we – had all been drugged, or enchanted or something. I felt like I had no option but to do what everybody else did. I didn’t feel special so much then, more like we were all the same. I wasn’t sure I liked it, but I felt I had to play along because...

SC: Because, what?

Y-P: He held us in a sort of trance. It felt like we all knew the words to the song and if we tried to sing different words... well, it didn’t feel like an option I dared to try. You know, I sort of felt that even if I didn’t agree with what he was saying, I still had to sing the correct words, or else... I don’t know. We just all sang along, whatever we were feeling inside.

SC: You had to sing?

Y-P: He made us chant his name.

SC: Oh?

Y-P: [sings] Jeremy Corbyn...

Jeremy... not as other children.

Elspeth Socialworker: Well, you are safe now. Your parents are coming to pick you up after this interview. But we need you to do one last thing, before you go. Sergeant?

[indistinct noises. A box is placed on the table: video evidence accompanies this transcript]

Sergeant Copper: Miss Young-Person, using the doll, would you show us exactly where he touched you?

The Nazis are coming!

There isn’t half a lot of hoo-ha (should that be Haw-Haw?) about on the subject of the rise of the right. The steam is spouting from every orifice as the puffing and panting squawk boxes of the activist left gear up to the next level of screechery. They are all getting their knickers in a twist and equating the surge in support for the AfD in Germany and the prospect of Anne Marie Waters leading Ukip with a call for cattle trucks and gas chambers. Behave, the lot of you.

Far right indeed! You may not have noticed, possibly because from inside that shiny bubble all you can see is a soap-sudsy distortion of yourself reflected back at you, but practically the whole of politics in the UK is slap bang in the centre. The voters for both sides all want pretty much the same things – peace, prosperity, freedom from worry and disease – they just differ in how they think it should brought about.

The pragmatists on the right understand that none of this comes for free and busily crack on feathering their own nests as all of nature tends to do. The idealists on the left believe it should be enshrined in human rights and spend endless hours in their dream state imagining a world of infinite diversity whilst maintaining equality for all. The workers on the right know they have to pay for what they get; and the dreamers on the left also know that the workers on the right will have to pay for what they get.

It’s little wonder, then, that the backbone of the country simply cracks on and the mainstream political parties try to appeal to as broad a spectrum as possible; inevitably, this means they rarely stray far from the centre ground. Last night, in response to a comments about Ukip hardly being ‘far right’ a Tweeter posted the following graphic to ‘prove’ they were, literally Hitler. Quite apart from the alarming scale, which purports to show an extreme fascist tendency for the parties they don’t like, this is a simplistic and unrealistic model.

Well, two can play at that game. Given that some of my detractors readily and regularly call me a Nazi I was somewhat surprised when I honestly took the test some months ago and came out smack bang in the centre. (Okay, I was half a small grid square above and to the right of the line, but I was still devastated!) Anyway, as something of an expert now in these matters I took the liberty of creating an updated and far more accurate version of that graphic to suit the current political landscape. Here it is.

So, as you can see, labels aren't always helpful and memes can be used to illustrate, but never to prove, any point you care to make. And as I’m in charge of this here commentary, I observe that the difference between left and right in Britain is fag-paper thin apart from a few oddball extremists. The only fly in that particular analytical ointment is Jeremy Corbyn’s fan club, Momentum. Given half a chance they would be out hanging Tories from lampposts.