You're doing it wrong...

Everybody is blaming the wrong people for the "weakness" of our Brexit strategy. Let us rewind a little.

In January 2013, David Cameron gave a speech in which he committed to an in/out EU referendum if the Tories won in 2015. This should have put this on everybody's radar. If you trade with the EU or are responsible for implementing EU regulation, this would affect you.

In 2015, the Tories won, much to everyone's amazement. This should have been the alarm klaxon. How did Cameron improve his position, despite his milquetoast record? It was the promise of the referendum.

At this point, people should have started making serious plans to cope with a possible Leave win. And the people who would face the most immediate consequences would be lawmakers. The people who should have been preparing for a possible Leave win are the civil service.

Do you believe that ANY minister actually has a proper grasp of their remit? Of course they don't. They are reliant on briefings prepared by their department. Do you think a minister would or could decide on their own how to put in place Brexit? It would never happen. No, the mandarins and their lackeys would come up with their strategy. They would create a narrative so that what they wanted sounded like the minister's views. The minister is their human shield.

The civil service is Europhile, if only for pragmatic reasons. The UK has lobbied for some of the most draconian EU regulation. Are you aware of what your MEP actually votes on? Unlike our laws, EU regulations are opaque and almost unreported. This means that civil servants can hide behind the EU.

Our civil service gold plates them on implementation. No other country implements EU regulations to this extent. The civil service has also taught us to believe that we have to accept EU regulations. We can't ignore them, or part apply them. Other countries do!

The reason for any bureaucracy is to feed and grow itself. The British civil service is the very acme of this. The EU is a very useful cover for the civil service to grow. You could almost see it as rent-seeking by bureaucrats. They've become too lazy to justify their plans and aspirations to the public. It's much easier to lobby the EU and do a deal in a smoky room.

The civil service sabotaged Cameron's half-assed negotiations with the EU. They removed any meaningful compromises from Cameron's wish list to make it easy for the EU. This make him feel like he got everything he asked for.

The civil service made no plans whatsoever for a Leave win. They had no intention of of leaving the EU. They still have no intention of leaving the EU. They are fighting a desperate rearguard action to try and stop it ever happening.

The resources of the civil service are being brought to bear: briefings, research (that we pay for!) and ready access for pro-EU journalists. They are also scrambling to come up with a half-assed plan for Brexit. It would not surprise me in the least if some last-minute excuse came along.

The civil service has already briefed that we're not losing any EU regulations. They are being cast into law, so that their precious empires are not destroyed, the way they should be.

Furthermore, David Cameron ran away like a faggot when he lost. He had promised to put in place Brexit if he lost the vote. He didn't. He ran away and left the mess to someone else.

Shouting at Boris and Gove for not having a plan is fatuous. They had no authority or remit to make such a plan. If they had a plan, the civil service would have ignored it or briefed against it.

Shouting at Theresa May is stupid. She inherited this situation. She wouldn't be making the plans anyway.

No. Look at the faceless mandarins if you want to be angry with someone for the lack of Brexit preparation.

I'm sorry, what??

Sometimes, it's the little things in big stories that make you stop:

Bimlenbra Jha, chief executive of Tata Steel UK, told the Business select committee that the UK had "structural weaknesses" that made the UK steel industry uncompetitive.

Business rates and high energy costs were top of the list.

On energy, he said that if Tata was operating in Germany, its energy bill would be £40m a year lower. The Tata chief defended the company's decision to put the business up for sale saying that the company and its shareholders could not continue to bleed. The business is estimated to be losing £1m a day.

OK, let's break this down. The civil service think man-made climate change is a big thing, therefore the government has instituted massive energy taxes to discourage people from making stuff that needs a lot of energy. Making steel takes a fucktonne of energy. Closing down Port Talbot will be a non-trivial step towards meeting our civil service approved emission reduction targets.

In other words, whether or not you agree with climate change being a thing, and our fault, and something that we can fix, and are fixing in the right way, the fact of the matter is that saying "tata to Tata" is exactly the the kind of outcome you would expect and want from our climate change policies.

However, despite the fact that it's only Morlocks losing their jobs, of course, there are votes to be had here, so now everyone has to panic and pretend to care. It's the usual fiasco of a planned economy.

Hidden away further down, though, was this little nugget:

Mr Javid said steps had already been taken to help on energy costs with £130m paid out since 2013 to compensate high energy users who incur environmental surcharges.

Just think about that: the glorious state has decided that we need saving from ourselves, so let's make energy more expensive. We start to get saved from ourselves, but suddenly we need to compensate businesses who have to pay the environmental surcharge.

What the actual fucking fuck is that all about? Make someone pay a tax and then give them a fucking handout to say sorry? I'm really dying to know which fucking retarded spastic cunt thought this was a remotely sensible fucking idea.

#Brexit - yea or nay?

Some things we need to bear in mind, before we start:

• I don't think Brexit is going to happen, because the people who count the votes don't want Brexit to happen
• I was calling for Scottish independence, so could the zoomers please fuck off
• I'm not inherently more against a federal government than any other model - in fact, I think federal Britain (as opposed to Britain part of a federal EU) would be a better thing than what we have now.

The obvious thing is: I want Brexit, because it's a layer of government and taxation removed from us. Despite all the pro's of remain and the cons of Brexit, ultimately we would be a bit freer than we are now.

This is not to say that aspects of the EU are not convenient. Visa-free travel, only one currency to worry about, getting jobs abroad easily, etc. - these range from "making your life a bit more convenient" to "genuinely life-changing opportunities".

There is an economic component, too: although we are a nett contributor to the EU and even the money we get back must be used for things the EU wants us to do, so it's probably not allocated well, it cannot be denied that there would be SOME uncertainty upon Brexit. This could lead to at least a short-term economic downturn - I don't know, it does seem more likely than a sudden boom. Both are possibilities though.

And for bleeding hearts, there is the ECHR and Human Rights Act, so hated by the Daily Mail it can't be all bad, especially when you look at Theresa May and her apparent insatiable urge to spy on us and the curiously regular occurrence of miscarriage of justice.

But ... and there are several buts here:

• Underlying the law in most (all?) EU states apart from us is the presumption that anything that is not explicitly permitted, is not permitted at all. Even the presumption of innocence is not standard practice. As convergence comes about, I can see Britain becoming even less free than it currently is.
• Being in the EU makes it exceptionally easy for the unelected and entirely unaccountable REAL government of the UK, the civil service, to push through all sorts of crap that they believe we need and coincidentally builds their little empires and gives them more authority to fuck us around.
• Many of the more invasive and unpleasant EU rules that exist have actually come about at Britain's behest. Somehow, Remainers think this is a reason to stay. But the truth is that Civil Servants really love the EU, because it gives them an "arms-length" reason to implement their shit. If it came out that a civil servant wanted us all spied on or whatever, there'd be an uproar. But because "the EU" wants to implement it, we might grumble but we know we can't convince the rest of Europe to see things our way. So it just happens.
• The opacity of the European Project is something that any fan of good government should worry about. (I'm not a fan of any government, but I realise I'm in a minority!) People are forever confusing the ECHR, EU, European Commission and all the other various arms, legs and other appendages and quangos - it's not just lazy thinking that leads to this. The interaction of election process, finances, accountability and responsibilities of these bodies is largely incomprehensible and way beyond the control of British people - or any other people.

I'm almost certain that even if by some miracle we vote for Brexit, it'll never happen because the civil service will drag its heels and find a million reasons not to do it. And don't think that a Brexit would lead to them rescinding acres of intrusive, hectoring law - that's never going to happen.

If you're still not convinced about the Civil Service, think about the Home Office: how come apparently sane politicians become illiberal Nazis as soon as they enter the Home Office and then become sane, reasonable people when they leave? It's because illiberal Nazis run the Home Office and they control what actually gets put forward and what gets done.

Ever wondered why David Cameron floated policies that got shot down when Gordon Brown was in power? It's because the same guy is actually still in charge and want to see if he can get by with some bullshit he believes we need to live by and he's hoping there won't be a fuss.

Ever wondered why Jeremy Corbyn suddenly backs remain? He's had a chat with a silky mandarin who's told him him in no uncertain terms that if he backs Brexit, he'll never get anything through into law, even if he wins an election.

And that is pretty much why I want Brexit - it's to keep the British Civil Service in check, not because of some xenophobic hatred of foreigners or even a particular belief that the EU is less democratic and accountable than our parliament. Being part of the EU makes OUR bureaucrats less accountable, that's the real danger here.

The Downfall of Camila BruceWayneJelly

I'm amazed. So someone who was fêted by a series of Prime Ministers and unaccountable bureaucrats, assisted by over-entitled Beeb management, troughing on taxpayer money, went from being a helpful charity doing important work to an overstaffed, completely unaccountable quango with overly lavish offices dishing out benefits on the whim of the founder?

What did you think was going to happen?

And what do you think is happening at all those other "charities" that exist solely because our tax money is shovelled at them?

The five-knuckle reshuffle

So, with dreary inevitability, we have a mid-term Cabinet reshuffle.

I can (vaguely) remember a time when such a thing might genuinely have meant something. A handful of departments, a handful of ministers and a change could possibly have a fairly dramatic change in policy.

However, this is no longer the case for two reasons: firstly, there are so many ministers and secretaries and departments and sub-departments that shuffling the whole lot around is going to change nothing because no role carries any actual power; secondly, every single member of parliament, Tory, Labour or Lib Dem is nothing more than a troughing makeweight, none of them have a useful idea in their head or the stones to make them happen.

Quietly, possibly not even with malice aforethought, the power in the country has slipped from the elected politicians' grasp into the quiet, sleek hands of unelected civil servant mandarins. This is not a new thing, the more venerable among you will remember "Yes, Minister" which, even then, was more factual than fictional.

The personal prejudices of entirely unaccountable, anonymous apparatchiks define how we live our lives, while tribal warriors on all sides froth vacuously over people who are carefully placed as lightning rods to take the heat over decisions that are made by people far from the limelight.

Not one of the minister's ideas or plans will ever see the light of day unless the civil service think it's a good idea and even if they do, they will not happen while that person is "in charge" of that area.

But crucially, it doesn't matter who you vote for or how angry you are - you're shouting at the shop-window display. The clerks inside are the ones who decide what you're getting.

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.