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.

Ze Chermans

Look, I like a good bit of casual racism and xenophobia as much as the next man, but can we PLEASE stop this shit that Her Maj is German?

She was born in Mayfair, in London, in the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland. If she's German because of that, does the fact that my dad was born in Hammersmith make him fucking Spanish? And what I'm I? Icelandic?

Cunts.

What really fucked the "Big Three"

Christ on a trike!!!

Just remind me again about how hard-done-by union members are?

A Basic Requirement for a Libertarian Government: THINK!

The papers are full of this:

A stark warning that Britain’s worsening economy will cause “difficult social issues” heaped fresh pressure on Gordon Brown yesterday, as more members of his Government broke ranks to demand a windfall tax.

The Prime Minister faces the prospect of the resignation of at least one ministerial aide if he fails to impose a new levy on energy companies’ profits, The Times has learnt.

There are just so many things wrong with this, I can't be sure I'll get them all:

1. What did the government expect to happen to energy prices in their quest for green-ness? The whole idea of their green taxes are to make energy more expensive so that people use less of it. So why moan when the price goes up? What did they expect was going to happen?

2. The government has already already netted more than £1 billion in extra taxes due to the increase prices. It seems a bit fucking churlish to demand some more.

3. The windfall taxes will steal from the businesses' capacity for investment in other things that might help energy costs, such as research into alternative energy sources, exploratory drilling, etc., etc.

4. Windfall taxes damage business confidence overall. Why would I execute on this brilliant new business strategy when all it's going to do is wind up getting the arse taxed off it?

5. The "outrageous profits" are not really outrageous at all. As a Return on Investment percentage, they're pretty shit, really. It's only because there are so many consumers that the number looks big. The costs are commensurately eyewatering, indeed, more so.

6. The government already takes more tax out of the energy companies than the energy companies take profits. If it were at all possible, I'd be looking to move my business elsewhere, where the tax regime was sane.

I swear, these people really do seem to think there is never an unintended consequence and there is also an infinite supply of cash for their latest wizard wheeze. Bunch of wizard's sleeves, more like.

Whole lotta shite

Via the leg-iron, I see this:

It has been delighting fans for almost 40 years but Led Zeppelin's rock classic "Whole Lotta Love" has been deemed too racy by Olympics organisers.

After choosing the song for the closing ceremony on Sunday they decided that some of the lyrics would have to be omitted or re-written amid concerns that they could cause offence.

Cause offence? Cause offence? For the fucking love of Jesus H. Fucking Christ the cunting song has been out there for nearly 40 fucking cunting Jesus-fucking years. If it was going to fucking cause offense it would almost certainly have done so by now.

The song was chosen as the centrepiece of an eight-minute £2.5million British segment at the event in Beijing at which the Olympic flag will be officially passed to the London Mayor Boris Johnson.

I'm sorry? Did you say TWO AND A HALF MILLION BRITISH POUNDS FOR EIGHT MINUTES? FIVE THOUSAND TWO HUNDRED AND EIGHT POUNDS A SECOND???????????

What the fucking fuck are you fucking doing with our money, BoJo?

Organisers of the London 2012 Games commissioned the band's guitarist Jimmy Page to record a new version of the song to be performed on top of a special red double-decker bus accompanied by Leona Lewis, winner of the ITV reality television show The X Factor, with David Beckham looking on.

Just savour that concept again. Smell its glory.

...to be performed on top of a special red double-decker bus

accompanied by Leona Lewis, winner of the ITV reality television show The X Factor,

with David Beckham looking on.

Jesus. With David Beckham looking on. That's everything wrong with this cuntry [sic], right there.

But, according to London 2012 officials, Lewis - who grew up in east London close to the Olympic site - requested a change to the song's second verse because she was worried they would not make sense for a female singer.

£2.5 million. Eight minutes. David Beckham. Jumped-up fucking useless talentless nonentity tells master of classic rock to screw up his song.

Leona Lewis, help yourself to a flying fuck at a rolling doughnut. Boris, you fucking too, you moron.

First, they came for the pie-munchers...

Jesus. Whatever next?

Specialist nurses will call unannounced at obese youngsters’ homes in a bid to sign them up to a weight loss programme.

I mean, I know this is all just for pie-munching Northerners, but you just know that after this it's going to be the Morlocks, the sweaties and the web-footed Anglians. And sooner or later this shit is going to infest civilisation as well.

Why can't these fucking cunts just leave everyone alone?

Update: This is what's next. Quite unexpected, of course!

Social services may have to take action over children who are overweight if the UK's obesity problems continue to grow, council chiefs have warned.

The Local Government Association (LGA) questioned whether parental neglect should include child obesity, in the same way as under-nourishment.

Look, you fucking busybodying cunts, you fucking tax us to death, take the money, be grateful and shut the fuck up.

Fuck it, I'm going to say it!

Via the ever-amusing Mark Wadsworth comes this marvelous research:

1. Migrant workers are more likely to be working as temps or in insecure work (for example not having a written contract) than any other workers.

2. Recent migrant workers are more than twice as likely as other workers to be earning less than the appropriate NMW for their age.

Wow. I'm stunned. Leaving aside the fatuity that is the minimum wage (which actually makes it more difficult for someone at the bottom end of the payscale to better themselves) -- who'd have thunk it, huh?

But then he goes on:

Anyway, I'm not allowed to say "They can always go home, can't they?" without risking arrest or losing my job. So I won't.

Well, fuck that. If people don't like Britain, they can always just fuck off. They should have known what they were getting into when they got here, and if they only discovered things that they didn't like when they got here, they can either fuck off back to where they came from or they can try some other shithole (despite the fact that any other shithole is likely to be just different, rather than better.)

I'm sick of being told that I can't say this or think that. You chose to come live here. Fit in or fuck off.