A Ramble through Beastleigh

So, there we have hit: modern social democracy in one easy-to-digest bite!

Despite losing 14% of their previous vote, despite an actual majority (53%) of people wanting a centre-right party, they got whatever it is the LibDems are this week. That's democracy based on party politics in action, right there.

But it's OK, because there's at least a 30% chance that the Lib Dems will be a centre-right party on any given day of the week. And still the yellow drones flock to them.

One thing, however, has been entirely misinterpreted by the Twitterati: "A lurch to the right is not a good idea for the Tories as their candidate was virtually a UKIPper" - nope, people weren't voting for the candidates, they were voting according to tribal loyalty or, in the best case, for what they saw as the parties' direction. The only thing a candidate can really do is fuck up their chances, like, say, wishing that a former Prime Minister had actually died in a bomb blast.

Effectively, Cameron's vacuous social democratic politics do not appeal to enough people, they only "won over" people who would vote for a Blue-ribboned dog turd.

People don't understand this "core vote" thing at all. The core vote will always vote for the party, it doesn't matter whether you lurch to the left or the right.

(I recently spent a weekend with some Labour activists and some of the stories they told me made even my hair stand on end. And yet, despite their very clear understanding that the people that they're supporting are bullies, sexual predators, backstabbers and people that they intensely dislike, THEY STILL VOTE FOR THEM AND WORK THEIR ARSES OFF TO SUPPORT THEM.)

As we say in Topeka, Kansas: "Da FUQUE??"

Having said that, everybody (even the tribal faithful) can see the yawning chasm of amoral, unprincipled emptiness at the heart of modern politics. People don't vote for Cameron in droves despite Gordon Brown's disastrous incompetence because he stands for absolutely nothing. He is the heir to Blair in that regard, but he lacks Blair's media control.

People yearn for politics where there are principles, where they vote for some thing. Politicians since Blair have set expectations that the "thing" they're voting for is all about throwing money from the magic money tree, and recipients of their "largesse" are quite understandably upset that this can't happen indefinitely.

Ultimately, nobody is happy with the way things are being run. It's much easier to accept austerity if there's a clear goal at the end of it. But since there isn't a clear goal other than "clearing up Labour's mess" and there is no apparent sign of the chosen path to austerity working, as raising taxes leaves people with less money in their pockets to restart the economy, everybody is unhappy with the Tory government.

The rise of UKIP is not entirely down to the innate bigotry of British people, it's mostly down to the fact that they appear to stand for something and they're not one of the current lot, all of whom are regarded as massive failures.

But for politics to have principle does not require a "lurch to the right", a "lurch to the left" or a "lurch to the middle". British politicians are fighting over a tiny patch of centre-right, authoritarian ground. Even the ostensibly less authoritarian, more left-wing Greens are just eco-fascists, who want to inflict their own particular brand of bullshit on the rest of us.

Why can't politicians take a stand based on less authoritarianism? It's clear since Blair what the economic sweet spot is, but when it comes to letting people live their lives, every government seems to be more and more authoritarian. How much further can they actually go before we start getting curfews and shit like that?

Why can't we get a party that says: "You know what? As a thank you for voting for us, we're going to get out of your face. We're going to stop micromanaging your life. We're going to trust you to do the right thing like you're trusting us to do the right thing"?

No, no, no!

Meet the new cunts, indistinguishable from the old cunts (emphasis mine):

The Identity Card Scheme and other biometrics work has already cost the taxpayer £292 million. The Act has saved £835 million in planned future investment.

No, you fucking cunts. An investment is spending you make in the hope of future benefits. Here is the definition, for any cunting civil servant who may want to learn that English words already have meanings, so stop fucking destroying our language with bureaucratic bollocks-speak!

There are no fucking benefits to pissing our money away on ID cards. This is more fucking civil servant distortion of the English language to provide cover of useless, inept, wasteful government profligacy.

And it wasn't this government that "invested" the money. So it's perfectly ok to describe it as "spending" or even "pissing away taxpayers' hard-earned on corporatist crap".

Unless, of course, the people who rule us, who's reputation needs salving, are not the useless motherfuckers we elect.

That's not abuse!

The deputy leader of the London Assembly Conservatives has insulted Liberal Democrat deputy leader Simon Hughes on Twitter.

James Cleverly wrote: "We may be coalition partners but it doesn't stop me thinking Simon Hughes is a dick."

In fuller comments, made on his blog, Mr Cleverly called Mr Hughes a "fool" and said the idea was "bone-headed".

He added: "Simon Hughes clearly feels that he is the 'real' voice of the Lib Dems.

"He isn't."

This is abuse:

Simon Hughes is an arrogant, overly-entitled cunt with shit for brains and filled to the brim with fucking impractical, statist bullshit ideas. He deserves to meet his end impaled and screaming, followed by the mounting of his fat ugly head on a pike outside the Houses of Parliament as a warning to the other troughing cunts to get their own fucking house in order before trying to tell the rest of us how to live our fucking lives.

The cunt.

It comes as quite a shock, I tell you!

Dizzy examines the proposed graduate tax scheme:

The fact is, when you actually look at the graduate tax proposal it's clear who will really gain from it. The Political Class.

It will be the bag carrier greasy pole types, the policy wonks, the NUS presidents and the assortment of other "never done a proper job" politicos on crap money with great quality degrees who'll be subsidised by the graduates from crappy ex-polys with a Desmond, who then work their balls off to earn as much as they can in an area with no relevance to their education.

Well, bugger me! Who would have thought it, eh?

But no, it's all fine, because the increasingly libertarian Tories and hugely "liberal" Democrats are in charge, so they will definitely not be doing anything to buttfuck the ordinary man.

So, not only frightened to death of repealing shit Labour legislation, but also quite happy to introduce new cuntishness for the benefit of the political class. Oh yes, I can definitely see how the new lot are completely different from the old lot.

That campaign to modify the Tory party from the inside is clearly paying benefits.

Hallelujah! Rejoice!

The biggest problem bloggers have had with the ConDems is that there is no bumbling fuckwit that displays the monumental incompetence and blatant vacuous mongosity of Gordon "The Nose Picker" Brown.

But now, bloggers, we can rejoice, relax and feel rejuvenated: we have our bumbling basket case!

Ladies and gentlemen (and bloggers!) may I present the new Master of Disaster, the Mong of the Moment: VINCE "TWAT" CABLE!

Bankers are to be forced to lend to businesses or risk losing their bonuses under plans to be outlined by Vince Cable, the Business Secretary.

Oh yeah? Well, let's just stop there for a second, shall we? Banks shouldn't be "forced" to do anything, let alone fucking forced to lend money to people they don't want to lend money to.

Let's just rewind to a couple of years ago and the banking bailout, shall we? Why were the banks in a position that required them to be bailed out? Could it possibly be that "constrained" by government- and inter-government-decreed levels of liquidity, they lent out money to people who might not have fitted their normal risk profiles.

In this, they were not at all encouraged by a number of governments running wildly expansionist monetary policies and using artificially low interest rates to encourage more lending.

The nett upshot of all this was that people who couldn't possibly repay loans were given money on ludicrous schemes like self-certification. And when it all went completely tits-up, banks got given huge amounts of our fucking money and told "this better not happen again".

Right in front of the jeering crowds was Vince "Twat" Cable, arguing for tighter regulation of banks and bonus control. The taxpayer, he sonorously proclaimed, should not have to bail out the greedy banks again.

And what is the fucking twat saying now? He's saying "lend more to struggling businesses or you will lose part of your bonus". Struggling businesses are actually businesses that are more likely to fail Vince. Which means that the banks will lose money, and also increase their risk, possibly to unsustainable levels. Which could precipitate another crash. Which will lead to more bailouts. Which will lead to Vince "Twat" Cable calling for more regulation and smaller bonuses.

Look, Vince, you're a fucking idiot. You are a fucking danger to shipping and you're my number one candidate to replace Gordon Brown as "Asshat of the Decade".

Can somebody get shot of this useless fucking mongtard before he causes some real damage?

Update: Timdog and the Angry Teen weigh in.

The end of the war on the motorist

I distinctly remember iDave promising this, to great cheer and delight. So what was the first thing these cunts did for the motorist? Yes, that's right, they tried to introduce a blanket 20MPH limit in built-up areas. So it was left to the useless fucking civil service to finally grow a set and tell Norman "Twat" Baker to fuck the fucking fuck off:

Calls by parliamentary under-secretary of state for transport Norman Baker to reduce all urban speed limits to 20mph on safety grounds have been dismissed by his own department.

Baker was quoted in the national press saying that ownership of urban roads should be 'shared by motorists, cyclists and pedestrians'. He cited studies and test schemes which had seen significant reductions in pedestrians and cyclist casualties who are hit at 20mph are less likely to be killed than at 30mph.

However a spokeswoman for the Department for Transport said there were no plans to change the 30 mph default speed limit.

"To do so would have huge resource implications and place additional burdens on local authorities who are already free to implement 20mph limits where they decide it is appropriate," she added.

Can I just add a message of my own to Norman "Twat" Baker here?

Norm: go fucking fuck yourself, and then fuck the fucking fuck off. You fucking fuck.

Oh. One other fucking stupid thing

And it's so fucking stupid, you know it was a Limp Dumb thing: this bank levy.

Fucking bad idea, George. Fucking bad idea. The Irish are going to seriously love this.

Update: Timmy disagrees. I remain unconvinced.

Budget thoughts

Well, it was pretty inevitable that I was going to say "not nearly enough", but I do have to say I have a grudging respect for Boy George after today. You can see the limp-wristed hand of the Limp Dumbs in some of the stupider aspects (a green bank, for the fucking sake of fucking fucking fucking fuck!) but by and large, I think he did the business.

For a statist social democrat, anyway.

There's no way I would have left that room alive, but I would have ripped the beating heart out of the state and pissed all over it if I was in that position. George really didn't go nearly far enough in my opinion. There's fucking tonnes of savings he could have made and if he was going to renege on VAT he might as well have gone for broke and butt-fucked the useless NHS as well. And international aid? FUCK OFF!

And even if he did ring-fence those two, he could have easily slashed the same again off the budget. Well, I could have, anyway.

Mark my words: the NHS is going to become a flashpoint in years to come, with tales of waste, overpaid execs, jollies and all sorts of other shenanigans. George should taken those fuckers roughly up the arse.

And I really can't see why we should be giving the fucking Indians money to buy our steel industry.

Cunts.

And they're off!

I had been hoping against hope, I must confess. I really had. I was prepared to give them every chance, prepared to view every initiative without the immediate scorn that I'd pour on useless "New" Labour.

Alas, alas...

The Tories said:

"A Conservative government would "dismantle" central NHS IT infrastructure, halt and renegotiate NPfIT local service provider contracts and introduce interoperable local systems."

The Lib Dems said:

"The Government needs to end its obsession with massive central databases. The NHS IT scheme has been a disastrous waste of money and the national programme should be abandoned."

So both parties wanted to shitcan this abomination, yet now they're both in power together... why, they going to take it forward! Did I miss some mass public uprising where people were demonstrating in the streets, demanding that the NHS should be allowed to lose our private medical records like HMRC loses our financial records? Did I miss some compelling statement of importance from the Labour Party that made the government change its mind?

I don't think I did.

So, for entirely hidden and opaque reasons, the New Politics has decided to carry on with an expensive, wasteful, pointless and unnecessary IT project. Oh, and the "announcement" thereof was rather handy as well:

it was "announced" by brief Written Answer, without debate, on the day of the statement made to the House on the Cumbrian shooting, so it didn't get picked up anywhere. A Jo Moore 9/11 situation writ large, but after weeks in power rather than New Labour's years in office by the time of Moore's disgrace. New government, old tricks. No change, and no shame.

The "civil liberties won" headline has gone out to the people, but the reality, the outcome of this policy is completely different. Just like "New" Labour with their endless announcements of "good things" that turned out to be poisonous.

The heir to Blair? I cannot think of a more fitting epithet for this slimy politician.*

Update: This. Fucking Jesus, here we FUCKING go again...

Update 2: Oh for the fucking sake of fucking fucking fuck.

*Apart from "cunt", obviously!

Questions to which the answer is...

... no.

Tim Carpenter dissects that Clegg speech

Here.

You have to read it.

A thought on PR

I was reading this flaccid hissy fit, which contained the immortal lines:

A month ago we loudly bemoaned the presence of a Labour Prime Minister whose party had 35% of the vote. Today, we have a Liberal Democrat Deputy Prime Minister with 23% of the vote.

What aspect of PR is going to make it more likely that any Prime Minister will have more of a mandate than Brown ever did?

The 55% solution?

Hm. Well, this was an interesting issue. The Lib Dems have evidently found more common ground with the Tories on fixed-term parliaments than on proportional representation. in order to make it more difficult for the sitting Prime Minister to call an election at an opportune moment rather than the end of the fixed term (when they could be at the mercy of "events"), the Lib Dems have proposed that such a call for an early "voluntary" dissolution would have to attract the support of 55% of the Commons.

In other words, by accepting this, Cameron actually makes it harder to call an election at a time that suits him.

But either because they're stupid or because they're tribalist baboons (or both), lefties have been screaming blue, sorry, red murder about Cameron trying to stitch up democracy. Maybe they're already thinking ahead to the time when they might be in charge again and how this would fuck them over, but I doubt it. It really looks like straightforward FUD-spreading to me, trying to tar Cameron with a gerrymandering brush.

Look, you don't need to make shit up. Cameron's got more than enough flaws that you can slaughter him for that you don't need to make shit up. Pick on the things he's actually doing wrong and you'll get more sympathy. Here's some stuff to be getting on with. How liberal does that yellow-tied twat sound now?

At the moment, you just sound like a bunch of angry, desperate losers. Yes, Tom Harris, I'm looking at you.

Assuming iDave is honestly casting the Limp Dumbs a bone here, one thing that nobody has explained to me is: why do we want fixed-term parliaments anyway? What is a fixed-term parliament going to give us that we, as voters, actually want or care about? How often do we have a substantially shorter than 5-year parliament anyway and what difference would it make to us if we always had a 5-year parliament?

This sounds like changing the rules for the benefit of some politicians, certainly not something that's going to help us at all.

Update: This.

I wonder how long it's going to be before the wheels come off?

So, iDave has cobbled together a coalition, him and Nick are having sticky biscuits for breakfast, Vince Cable is safely out of harm's way, some liberal bloggers are very happy -- and some social democrats aren't.

And as for me? Well, I'm obviously pleased that one-eyed son of a bitch has gone as leader of the country, displaying his Prime Mentalist pus and poison for all to see one last time, although I'm slightly less thrilled to see that he's still going to be taking money off me. Mind you, I think it's fantastic that he's going to sit on the back benches dripping poison onto every move the new Labour leader makes. He will continue to divide the Labour Party far better than the Tories ever could.

But how do I feel about the new "leadership"? To be fair, in what they have announced in terms of things that will be shitcanned, I'm very happy. All sorts of neo-Stasi projects shitcanned and the Great Repeal Bill hasn't even been cracked open. So hopefully, more shit will go. That's all very good.

If it actually happens, of course.

It's what they haven't announced that sets my pucker flapping. The elephant in the room that they haven't said a word about yet, is the economy. What's going to happen here is going to make the cuntry collectively shit itself. I don't think Osborn's got the stones or the nous to do some really savage cutting for fear of upsetting the fragile coalition too much. Which means only one thing, folks: drop your trousers, lube up, and grab your ankles. Tax rises are imminent. And we're not talking about a penny in the pound here. This is really, really going to hurt.

Gordon Brown must be pissing himself at having gotten out at the very last moment before the shit really hits the fan. And to think, the fat fuck will be sitting on the opposition benches jeering at how the Tories and Lib Dems are killing the country.

Truly, there is no justice in the world.

So: farewell then ...

... you fat, blithering, incompetent, venal, mendacious, arrogant, unpleasant, cowardly, greedy, power-hungry cunt of a freak.

And so the mighty New Labour project draws to an end, not with a bang but merely a shambolic whimper. Gordon was unpleasant and utterly self-centred to the fucking end. Imagine saying how being a father and a husband was more important than running the fucking cuntry. Listen you monocular mong, there are fucking millions of fathers in this country, there's no fucking way I'm swallowing that shit that what we all do is more important than running the fucking cuntry. No wonder it's such a fucking Christless mess!

In my opinion, Labour have fucked the Tories good and proper one last time, bowing themselves out to regroup, let the Tories take the flak for the impending clusterfuck and then charging back in on their white horse, taxing and spending to save the world.

I think a Lib-Lab coalition would have flushed both these odious turds down the shitter of history. Although it may have taken two or three flushes to get the enormous turd that is the Labour Party round the u-bend.

I think the Lib-Con coalition will probably flush the useless Cameroons down the toilet of history instead -- which is no great loss.

So, what can iDave salvage from this catastrophe? Well, he could do a lot worse than implement the Limp Dumb £10,000 tax-free policy for the poorest. He can use the Limp Dumbs as an excuse not to ringfence the NHS (or anything else.) He could stick a Limp Dumb into the Home Orifice and get huge swathes of illiberal Stasi state repealed without offending the Turnip Taliban, or whatever the fuck they're called.

He can have a referendum on PR while it's fresh in everyone's mind just how fucking democratic that is. And he can use the Limp Dumbs to give us that old "in or out" EU referendum he promised us in such a cast-iron way.

Yeah, right!

Time for the LimpDumbs to hang tough

So, from what I've seen today, I reckon the most painful short-term outcome is the best. LibLab coalition along with 17 other parties causing a national upchuck. People will look at the resulting clusterfuck and take a massive shit on the idea of PR. Markets will tank. The IMF will be called in. The government loses vote after vote. Eventually another general election is called.

Labour will be crucified even further, Limp Dumbs will be flushed down the toilet and hopefully Dave will realise that this social democratic shit doesn't fly any more.

Either that, or the Tories will apply the boot and we'll get a proper economic Tory. Because fuck all the other shit: a serious evisceration of government bloat is what we need above all.

So, my heartfelt plea to the Limp Dumbs: reject Dave's offer, even though he's offering exactly what the Gorgon will offer you ... if you're lucky! Get into bed with the people you feel most comfortable with. Go on, do it.

You know you want to.

Is the ConDem tearing?

Scuttlebutt on twatter suggests that the Caring, Understanding New Tories and the Limp Dumbs are not able to reach an agreement.

Sounds to me like iDave has offered the LimpDumbs weekly fellatio from his wife along with a trombone from the rest of the Tory cabinet once a month and they haven't, um, swallowed it.

Now I have heard some theories that suggest that he knows what he's doing and he's playing the long game, but frankly I reckon this is just another in a long list of Mongolian cluster fucks by the Forehead of Doom. He fucking raced in to the Lib Dems, dropped his rods and grabbed his ankles with astonishing alacrity.

The even more socially democratic LimpDumbs have decided that they really don't fancy foregoing their chance to increase their slice of the electoral pie, so they've told iDave to go fuck himself, they rather want to get into bed with the Labour Party.

In a sense, I guess iDave is lucky. Imagine if he'd managed to get 57 people that utterly fucking stupid that they, as losers, want to pucker up to an even bigger bunch of losers on some ludicrous promise that they're not going to get fucked into a cocked hat by Mandelsnake and company, on board. Can you imagine anyone that dumb having a significant say in running the country?

Watch the markets. This isn't going to be ugly.

This is going to be Greek.

@iaindale AND @charlottegore AND @devilskitchen get it wrong

Iain is, of course, masturbating himself into a furious frenzy over the idea that the forehead of doom and his tribe of blue-tie-wearing liblabcon artists might get their hands on the levers of power anyway, by offering some minor concessions to the yellow-tie-wearing liblabcon artists.

But at least Iain's "wrongness" is just tribalism. I'm a lot more worried about what has happened to two of my favourite bloggers.

Charlotte and DK, on the other hand, are frigging themselves into a coma because they think that by combining liberal social policies with conservative economic policies, we will get an ideal government. And well, you might, but the key issue is that the Lib Dems aren't liberal and the Conservatives aren't conservative.

The Lib Dems are a social democratic party, which is why so many liberals are disaffected and why, I'd like to remind Charlotte, she resigned from the party. The chances of them actually being more liberal (in the classical liberal sense) than any of the other parties is wishful thinking. The Tories are not small government, "classical liberal" on the economics front, either.

And as for DK, I can only assume he was pissed out of his bracket if he forgot all this.

What's really going to happen if we get a Con-Lib coalition is that the natural social democratic agreement between the parties will lead to loads more shit policies that are entirely indistinguishable from Labour's cuntwittery for the last 13 years.

I remain entirely unrepentant, I agree entirely with Hitchens: the electorate (apart from the client state) despise Labour, people rejected the Limp Dumbs and they were entirely unenthused about Cameronism.

We've fucking had 13 years of Cameronism with red ties and it's visibly fucked the country. Dave, why the cunting fuck would we vote for five more years of Cameronism with blue ties this time? Why is this so fucking hard to grasp? You pissed huge sums of money into this election, you tried every trick in the book, you had a fucking open goal with Cyclops going out of his way to fuck the election up and you still couldn't fucking win a simple majority!!!

The only reason you did as well as you did was because people are so fucking sick of the cunts with the red ties and the "progressive consensus". If you'd offered something different to the progressive consensus, you'd have walked this. But because you're entirely indistinguishable from a Labour apparatchik, you screwed the pooch.

I'm off to start my day by hitting myself in the face with a ball-peen hammer. It's got to make things better.

St Nicholas and public scrutiny

CF nails it pretty well here. And considering how he's been playing the "new politics" card, it's hard to deny that his followers have been indulging in comments and counter-claims that are completely indistinguishable from Tory and Labour tribalist cockwaffle.

It's like the Woking Wombats making it from the 75th division to the premier league and then claiming that they represent the "new soccer". They don't. They're playing the exact same game, following the exact same "rules", diving the exact same dives, indulging in exactly the same off-pitch spit roasts ...

Nick Clegg may be winning the beauty contest because he's a fresh face, but he's no William Webb Ellis.

And really, all the other parties are ploughing the same tired old social democratic, statist, corporatist, special-interest-group furrow. There's only one party that really believes that you know what is best for you, that puts your liberty ahead of the best interests of the political class, the needs of the media and the "wisdom" of the chattering classes.

So if you're lucky enough to live in a constituency with a Libertarian candidate, vote for some real change.

Update: Bless those Lib Dems, they're just so fucking different from the others, aren't they?

Too true

Having just received my quota of LimpDumb junk mail, these fuckers aren't breathing a word about proportional representation any more. And they're suddenly also very happy to use the two-horse race idiom.

Cunts.