"Knock, knock."

"Who's there?"

"Jesus."

"Jesus who?"

"Jesus Christ."

"Oh, for Chr... Can't you see I'm busy writing my Christmas sermon? I'm the Archbishop of Canterbury, you know."

Happy Christmas

... to one and all. Including the socialists.

Dear Santa

I am sorry that I have not been a good boy all year but please let me off because I promise to behave myself in the New Year. Please may I have a bottle of Growing Up Elixir in my Christmas stocking? And Nick says please make it big enough to let every LibDem MP have a big swig. Thank you very much. Your mince pie is on the dresser. I am sorry there is no sherry but Nick does not allow me near the booze. He says I cause enough trouble sober and he can't imagine what I would do if I got pissed.

Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year.

Love,

Vince

Two more shopping days to Christmas

Don't panic! (Oh. You weren't.) Here's the perfect last minute gift for your swivel-eyed wingnut buddy. And for mad old Polly Toynbee if by any chance you've forgotten to send her something this year.

No, I don't own shares in the Mash or shotdeadinthehead but am proud to say I wear this genius T-shirt. If I had the money I'd buy a million of them and give them away free, starting with you, dear reader.

And this is precisely the sort of lazy, knee-jerk, malign, beeboid, Fisk-Pilgerist 'campaigning journalism' which ensures that the Guardian retains the Prodicus Crap Hackery Award year after year, with the Indy the regular runner-up.

That piece at ConHome also provides a clue for any Amnesty officials who may be reading this (well, OK) as to why (among other, similar reasons) I tell your chuggers to piss off these days, whereas years ago you had a standing order.

Compliments of the season to commenter Jack Pershing at ConHome who inspired this blogpost.

Janet and John learn about C-O-A-L-I-T-I-O-N-S

Much foaming at the mouth over at CH over what the consensus there deems 'Cameron's weak decision' on St Vincent of Cable.

Tosh.

Of course, the kiddiewinks currently doughnutting the temporary 'leader' (excuse me... wait... ah, that's better... *snork*) of the Labour Party and young I-forget-his-name himself will be shrieking with laughter and gleefully texting all their little hackery friends like mad.

Even one or two grown-up journalists think this is some sort of Christmas present for young fellah-me-lad.

Tosh.

Cameron is a pragmatist who sees the trees and the wood. He has an awful lot of very large fish to fry; quickly making sure that the Coalition's daft old uncle's not allowed to touch the controls any more but stopping short of publicly castrating the old troublemaker (as he deserves) is the pragmatic way through yet another of Cable's delusional episodes without getting everyone even more excited about what, outside the deluded one and some bored hacks, amounts to fuck all.

Given all the shite copy, you'd be forgiven for thinking anyone in the real world actually gave a fuck about Vince's opinions, or even listens when he drivels.

As for Cameron telling Cable to step away from one of the Big Buttons instead of making the old fart walk the plank... this time... sigh.

Let's start again at the top, shall we, children?

This government is a C-O-A-L-I-T-I-O-N. Now off you all go and hunt for the Big Book Of Difficult Words.

Ah, well done little Jimmy.

A COALITION, children, is where two Political Parties agree to hold hands in order to stop the Naughty Party from being In Charge.

Now what do we know about Political Parties, everyone?

Yes, that's right, Dor-Reene. They are big groups of grown-up (mostly) people who don't agree about Everything but who promise to be nice to each other because they do agree about Lots of Things and want to do those things to make things better for everyone.

No, Shirley-Valentine, they don't always know what they're talking about but we must be kind to them because they want to be good. Most of them. Most of the time. Well, some of them. Some of the time. No, not Vince. He is a Very Naughty Boy. But we'll come to that.

Well, children, sometimes two Political Parties decide to be a COALITION. This means that everyone in the two Political Parties promises to be on their very best behaviour all the time so that together they can do some Good Things which the other party - the Naughty Party - would stop them doing if it could. Yes, Wayne, exactly like the football team where you hate Colin but have to put up with him in order to win against Rotters United - very good! Would you like to present Newsnight?

And what does this mean all the people in the two Parties have to do? Anyone?

Yes, Obnoxio, exactly. It means they have to keep their fucking mouths shut and stay onside or they will rock the sodding boat and then we all fall out and we get the bastard socialists back and so we face the final fucking curtain. Yes, dear, quite right. Give your Daddy my regards would you?

Oh, sorry. No, don't write any of that down, children. Where was I? Ah, yes.

Now, if someone, let's call him Uncle Vince, breaks his promise and says rude things about people behind their backs and tells other people that he's in charge when in fact he's just an unbelievably lucky chancer whom some silly grown-ups took seriously when he told them he knew Everything but was actually only allowed to join in to shut him and his little group of friends up, what should the grown-ups who are REALLY in charge do about him?

No, Tracy, that would be very wrong indeed and I am shocked that you even know words like that. Yes, I know your Daddy is a member of the Revolutionary Workers Collective and got his face on the telly during the riots but still, let's have no more of that please.

So, Uncle Vince is a very silly old billy indeed but - oh, look! He has a lot of friends on his side of the COALITION and they would all burst into tears if Uncle Vince got the thorough kicking in the nads *cough* he so richly deserves, and no-one would get anything done so what on EARTH can the COALITION do?

Well, I am not at all surprised that nobody has their hand up for that one! Some of the cleverest people in the whole world have made complete arses ... this really is an awful cough, I must be going down with something... of themselves trying to think of the right answer. So I shall tell you.

He must have his toys taken away from him and be told to sit on the Naughty Seat and not touch anything and do exactly what he is told and if he does not, he will have to go home. There will be no more big toys, no more rides in nice cars, no more nice 'holidays' in faraway places, no more swanky parties and dressing up, no more pocket money, no more special treats. At all. Ever. And everyone will know he is unreliable and they will point at him in the street and laugh and call him a Silly Old Billy. Now he wouldn't like that, would he, children?!

But it would be very mean to just throw him out in the cold and make all his little friends cry, wouldn't it? That's enough of that, Obnoxio. I won't tell you again.

No, no. Much better to leave him in the on the Naughty Seat and keep a stern eye on him, and then his little friends can get on with doing all those Good Things they have to do, without having to stop to worry about poor Uncle Vince.

Right, next time, we will have a new book called Camping for Big Boys and Girls, and we will read the first chapter together. It's called On the Inside Pissing Out.

Ah, there's the bell for Break. Thank fuck for that.

Bastards

When are all these liars going to stop lying to me?

Let us not forget that this Conservative-led Government is selling off Royal Mail because the EU has decreed that they must. The European Postal Services Directive (2002 and 2008), which was agreed by Labour, forces the liberalisation of European postal markets across the EU to permit EU nations to compete in national mail markets. - Cranmer (my emphasis)

Remember Jack Straw (among many others) and all his lying Cabinet colleagues posing for local newspaper pics with their constituents outside their local Post Offices? Campaigning to save them? The same POs which they had already sold down the river when they, led by Labour Prime Ministers Anthony Blair (piss be upon him) and James Gordon Brown (shite be upon him), bent over for the usual tender ministrations of our real government?

So, no more of that, please. From any of you. And that includes you, Dave and co.

Labour sold this country down the river for thirteen solid years and the Conservatives in government are doing the same by conspicuously failing to live up to their promises to repatriate any of our sovereignty. And let's not forget the Human Rights Act. Yes, I know it's not part of the EU law-machine, except that it is, of course.

If, as it seems, I have to put up with being governed by the most-equal-pig class of free-loading, lying, hypocritical, dirigiste marxoids and unelected foreign and British Huhnes, Cleggs, Mandelsons, Strauss-Kahns and Ashtons Socialist fat cats who piss in the faces of the peoples of Europe in between their sluicing and troughing in the restaurants and bars of Brussels and Strasbourg, Mr Cameron, at least don't insult me with any more Labour-style lies to my face.

Thin ice...

'Lapsed'? Well, yes.

CoffeeHouse:

The permanently outraged Chris Bryant says it is a ‘disgrace’ that politics will sully the ‘major Christian festival of the year’ – the lapsed cleric seems to have forgotten the election’s proximity to Easter.

Wikipedia:

He trained for the priesthood in the Church of England at Ripon College, Cuddesdon in Oxfordshire, where he obtained a further degree in theology. Although initially a member of the Conservative Party, and an elected office-holder in the Oxford University Conservative Association, he joined the Labour Party in 1986 after leaving Oxford. From 1986 he served as a Curate at the Church of All Saints, High Wycombe and from 1989, as a Youth Chaplain in Peterborough.

Memo to Mr Clarke, cc. Mr Cameron

Dear IMF,

I understand that you have received an application for employment from a Mr James Gordon Brown.

Mr Brown will probably tell you, not completely truthfully, that his last salaried position was that of Prime Minister of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland.

While it is true that he was indeed so employed for a short time, his last position was, in fact, that of Member of Parliament for Kirkcaldy and Cowdenbeath, Scotland, which employment has not been terminated: he is, not for the first time, absent without leave.

Prior to taking up the position of Prime Minister, Mr Brown was employed by the people of the United Kingdom as custodian of their economy. When the people gave Mr Brown the keys to their Treasury it was full and in excellent health, as the Civil Service informed him, providing exhaustive detail. Mr Brown immediately decided to spend all the people's treasure, and in addition to borrow a great deal more.

When, to the almost unanimous relief of the British people, Mr Brown was dismissed from their service - at the first opportunity - he left them not only an empty Treasury but an historically unprecedented debt which they will be repaying with extreme difficulty over three generations, living in penury - with concomitant strife - the while. In short, Mr Brown ruined the lives of millions of his compatriots who regret ever having made his acquaintance.

The prosperity and peace of hundreds of millions would, I fear, be jeopardised were Mr Brown to be employed within your esteemed organisation.

Therefore, gentlemen, I beg you to consult widely on Mr Brown's career to date and not to take at face value the references which he will present. They are likely to be entirely fictitious and written by himself. (He has acquired something of a reputation as a writer of fiction.) Genuine references from his former employers may be found here and here.

Yours, etc.,

Prodicus of Ceos

MEPs approve Swivel On This Directive

Question

To Gordon Brown, at CNN (thanks Guido):

When are you going to apologise to the people of the United Kingdom for creating our biggest ever boom and worst ever bust, during which you borrowed billions which our grandchildren will be repaying long after you are dead, and how do you see your place in British history?

Don't suppose it will get through moderation...

Nice pair of Socialists you've got there

Photo: Reuters

A fine political analysis from our Prime Minister in Waiting

“Because he’s a Tory.”

In the total absence of coherent political thought or policies from himself and his 'party', this was Ed Miliband's reflex (and comically North London Marxist Royalty) offering in response to a press question this morning about David Cameron's alleged, er... oh, does it matter?

Miliband's answer is the all-purpose disparaging, not to say hate-filled, response of Britain's Left politicians and your common or garden agitprop destructionist to the Conservative party in government. Cameron could stand, dressed by Primark, at the Downing Street gates, handing out gold bars to all and sundry. Miliband and his associates would still spit think, 'Fuck you, Tory scum'.

There is no essential difference between the 'thinking' of wannabe commissars like Miliband and that of ignorant gits like Gilmour junior and the violent, nihilistic haters of the SWP and Black Bloc.

The violence of recent days, and the coming days, is all "Because they're Tories". Government policy, political thought, democracy, the Common Good and the will of the people have nothing to do with it.

Britain has become Animal Farm where the loudest and least human noises come from very nasty pigs.

Bang on, Boris

Politics made the euro, and politics can destroy it, especially if electorates start to feel it is a machine for German domination and the destruction of benefits and wages; or if the German electorate feels that it is a machine for fleecing Germany.

In the meantime, all those snooty Europhile politicians and journalists who sneered at us for our doubts should be forced to crawl in penitence to Dublin Castle, scourging themselves with copies of the Maastricht Treaty.

Sound. Very sound.

Wrong target. Look to your Left.

Some sociologists have emitted the British Social Attitudes 27th Annual Report. At the Speccie, Pete Hoskin delineates his vision of intergenerational conflict based on its findings.

I weep for the demise of conservative thinking at the Spectator and its supine collapse in the face of the Gramscian revolution. Do get a grip, Nelson, or do you accept that we are all Socialists now? Perchance even you, soi disant Thatcherite, are falling for the charms of Sweden's version of Socialism?

Time and again, Spectator writers (with the shining exception of the increasingly invisible Theodore Dalrymple) accept not only the diagnosis but also the nostrums of Socialism while paying lip service to the philosophies which deny its veracity and quite rightly accuse it of inhumanity.

But back to the present insult. At CoffeeHouse, I commented thusly:

Don't you dare blame baby-boomer me - I voted Tory. It is not the modest self-interest of the (majority) earning classes, now ageing, which put us where we are. Every one of these complaints can be laid at Labour's door and those of their Fabian (and worse) cheerleaders and brainwashers in Labour-funded think-tanks and the 'education' establishment - and their USA equivalents. And of course ruthless, cynical Socialists in government who ALWAYS create bubbles and massive debt spirals (under a ‘caring/fairness’ smokescreen) to make it impossible for their political enemies to govern by other philosophies, without bloodshed. The evidence is on our streets right now, exactly as predicted. It's Labour and its friends who did and still do the damage. Then they produce reports like this which cast the blame on their political enemies: the producing/earning/saving/self-supporting classes who typically vote against them and will not bend the knee. Soviet methods, tried and trusted.

Age/generation has Rockall to do with the state the young are in. And they're *still* Labour leaning. A 40 per cent Labour vote? Incredible – until you remember the size of Labour’s client vote, bought by taxing productive but politically naïve and narcoleptic citizens. Gramsci was right. Unseen revolution by stealth through the key institutions is extremely effective. So naff off with blaming my 'generation'. You're making me angry. The blame for the disaster of our infantilised and impoverished society belongs wholly to Socialism and its evil philosophers.

I mean, there must BE an explanation, right?

see more WTF Pictures and WTF videos by Picture Is Unrelated

You spoil us, Ambassador

Angry baby boomer to "students": Macdonalds is hiring.

Guilty? For what "my generation did" to the "students" who are breaking up my country's capital, along with their Hard Left and foreign Black Bloc anarchist friends?

Er, no.

Are you sitting comfortably? Then I will tell you a story. Let me take you back to The Olden Days, when I got a grant to go to university.

The average income back then was £1,750 per annum, gross. My year's grant was £325. It was enough to cover tuition and nothing more. My parents, who both worked and earned less than average, were assessed as having sufficient means to pay for my accommodation, food, clothes, travel, books & study materials, field trips, and social life - whatever that might mean. (It meant beer, to a large extent, and membership of various clubs.)

If I didn't already suspect (I did) that my parents did not have the means to support me before the letter came telling them what they were supposed to pay, I knew it the moment I saw my mother go pale and my father put his head in his hands after reading it.

But - I did have a gap year. I had to. I needed it, to earn some serious money before I started studying so, no, I didn't go travelling the world. I worked, stashing away every penny I could and getting as much overtime as I could. I worked wherever I could find someone to take me on, in shops and bars (useful later for running the student bar) and all sorts of offices in all sorts of industries among all sorts of people. It was hugely instructive, a real eye-opener. It felt good to be earning, to be independent, to take the strain off my parents.

I was presentable, having been taught decent manners by my parents and at my grammar school in the poor district where we lived. I had good 'literacy and numeracy skills' which rather went without saying for an A Level student then, though it doesn't now. I had been taught to speak clearly and fluently. I was untrained in anything special but I was willing to learn and therefore employable. I manned phones, soothed customers, filled in forms, wrote letters and worked with figures (no computers). I made tea and coffee and sandwiches - and friends. I packed stuff. I delivered stuff. I swept floors and emptied bins. I took orders and complaints. I got to work on time and worked hard, five and half days a week, week after week, month after month. I learned about bookkeeping (very useful) and sales and service (even more useful). I got a few promotions to higher pay despite being only a 'temp'. My employers trusted me. Later, after university, a couple of my vacation job bosses offered me permanent jobs, one of which I took while I worked out 'what I really wanted to do'. It proved a superb gateway, as it turned out.

I made friends that year, fell in love twice, and had a ball. (I could write a book...) And I earned enough not to have to ask my parents for a single penny. Ever.

Like 90 per cent of my student friends and contemporaries, I fully expected to work as soon as I left school, on top of studying, and that I would pay my own way through university. It was normal. It was what you did. Actually, even the rich kids worked in the vacs, mostly. Their parents didn't allow them to idle their lives away. It's just how people were.

And so, on the first Monday of every vacation, I looked for and got a temp job. Apart from a few long weekends and one deliciously unforgettable three weeks (mind your own business) those four years were spent working hard and studying hard. Oh, yes - there were some student riots back then... I seem to remember... couple of blokes called Straw... Trevor Phillips?... but I was too busy and the rioters and their friends were arseholes. Still are.

And today's students? Do me a favour: please don't tell me there are no jobs for them.

There are about three million jobs of precisely the sort that paid my way through university. They are currently filled by foreigners because British 'students' are one or more of the following:

(a) unemployable

(b) too fucking lazy

(c) too fucking grand and 'entitled' to do them

(d) swanning around the damned globe on their gap years (another new 'entitlement' since my student days).

And since my university days? No, I did not become a banker. Neither am I rich, in anybody's terms. I have supported myself and my dependants by working (in the productive, not the state sector) at stuff which, thanks to my school and university education, and my hard work, pays somewhat (not vastly) above average. I have paid my taxes and paid off the mortgage on a modest house which I bought before the insane politician-engineered boom. I have stashed away as much as possible in pension funds which are invested in the markets and so support productive industry and will, assuming all goes according to plan and the selfish, the ignorant and the self-indulgently anarchic don't tear the state down, ensure that I am not a drain on the young in my declining years.

Sympathy my arse. Guilty? No.

If you are lucky enough to have the chance of an education, be grateful. It's not a natural entitlement. This is not the Garden of bloody Eden and there are no fairies at the bottom of it.

Education is available to you, you lucky lucky bastards, because of people like me and my parents and those whose memorials you're merrily pissing on and smashing up, on your shouty, innit-fun away-days when you should be working.

And there is a a price-tag on it. You have to pay. And you have to work in order to earn the money so that you can pay. That's the deal. You pay. Either before and during as I did, or after, as in the present offer: £7 a week. To pay back the poor suckers in Macdonalds who are paying for you at the moment.

So enough with the paint balls and the iron bars and off you jolly well bugger and get a fucking job. Macdonalds is hiring.

That'll teach me

Sunday lie-in... half awake... reach out... on button... try Radio 4... it's been months... surely they can't still...

Student vox pop 1: 'I wanted to go but all that violence... they're right, though. I've never been political but maybe I should...

Student vox pop 2: 'It's primitive behaviour, but they want to be heard. They won't stop now.'

Non-student vox pop 1: (house painter with Polish (?) accent', laughing): 'Painted the royal family? That's good. If someone needs painting, paint 'em.'

Non-student vox pop 2 (painter's carpenter mate with 'urban culture' accent): 'I know where they coming from, like. I got three kids meself... educating them... expensive... well like yeah.'

Studio: 'So, money men making immoral deals that no-one else in the room is smart enough to understand, or the iPod generation finally woke up and took the earplugs out? Here in the studio to discuss recent developments are Emily Benn...'

OFF! SWITCH IT OFF! OH MY HEAD! MY HEART! SWITCH THE FUCKING BASTARD FUCKERS OFF!!!

'... and James Delingpole.'

Oh fuck. How I hate sodding Radio 4.

Sent from my iPad

Greens: watermelons. And this lot, of course.

With thanks to a bloke whose name escapes me on a blog I read this morning though I can't remember which one. And because I like it.

Every town should have one

The following is not Prodicus talking, but the work of a man with vastly greater skills.

***

I arrived home today spattered from head to foot with gunge from a WDU (commonly known as a waste disposal unit). The smell was awful. I'd received a 'help' call from a distressed eighty year old lady, who'd been told by two 'experts' that her WDU was dead and in need of replacement. She didn't believe them and called me, and so, changing into my alter ego, I became "Superhandyman".

With my underpants pulled up over my Lycra leggings, my stomach (sorry that should read 'sinews') bulging under my skin tight vest I sprang into action. In a flash I flew down Upperton Road and arrived at the high rise block of flats known as Hamilton House. In my younger years, I would have scaled the side of this building to get to the distressed damsel; but today I am older and wiser; and so I decided to take the lift to the top floor instead.

The smell of rotten everything filled the air. The lady was clearly upset. The smell brought tears to my eyes too.

A waste disposal unit is a fine thing when it works, but a nightmare when it goes wrong. This one had been in situ for 30 years. A quick intake of breath and I dived under the sink. But wait! First I had to clear out all the bottles of toxic chemicals that lie buried in the depths of her kitchen sink cupboard. The labels were faded; over the years the liquids had congealed to a glutenous substance of indeterminate use. Here a tin of 'Duraglit', there a tin of 'Vim', at the back, a box of rock hard 'Tide' washing powder. It's amazing what a trip down memory lane you can find in an old ladies drawers.

Having cleared the cupboard it was time to tackle the problem. Removing a recently fitted WDU is simple enough. Removing a WDU that has sat undisturbed for 30 years is a whole different ball game. Years of expensive technical training in the world's leading academies has given me skills beyond the measure of mere mortals. However, when finesse and clever solutions fail, reach for a big hammer.After ten minutes and a skinned knuckle the WDU was sitting on the worktop. The stench was unrelenting. Superhandyman was covered in sweat.

The real advantage of 'old' equipment is that it can generally be repaired. Taking the WDU apart I quickly discovered the problem. A dish cloth was wrapped around the crushing, cutting, grinding, shredding blades of the WDU, which meant that the blades couldn't crush, cut, grind or shred. The cloth was buried under a mound of broken egg shells, disintegrated tea bags, and fats and gristle of indeterminate age. The stink level was now into the danger zone, and Superhandyman wanted to retch. With a strong tug on the cloth the blades came free - and so did the gristle, teabags and eggshells. Being a superhero I took the full force of the blast. The sink now looked like an example of modern abstract art fit for a Turner Prize exhibition. Tracy Emin would have been proud to have it in her portfolio. The look of disgust on the lady's face told me I would not be allowed to use her good towels to clean myself up.

The rebuild took only a few minutes; the refitting of the WDU a few minutes more, and then came the moment of truth... The sound of a thirty year old WDU coming back to life was music to Superhandyman's ears. The clean up took another 15 minutes.

Super handyman had done it again. Soon he was on his way home to clean up and return to his day job certain in the knowledge that he had left a serene smile of contented satisfaction spread over the old lady's face.

Jim'll Fix It blog, 2007

They don't like it up 'em

So tell 'em nothing. Just do it without warning. Being one piece of sound advice in a long list in an excellent ASI article on How to leave the Euro.

... one should not underestimate the willingness of the continental European political elites to inflict pain on their peoples in pursuit of what they see as ‘the greater good’.

Cancun latest: 'Wa' evah, innit.'

It is unfair for developing countries to be tied into making legally binding cuts when industrialised nations is largely to blame for global warming

Grown-up politics. It's not the LibDem way.

Clegg’s internal critics are blindly refusing to accept the logic of coalition – even though that is something they have argued for all their political lives.

Oborne.

I seem to hear... ancestral voices...

As I watch the impasse of the Euro crisis develop into a complete disconnect between the purblind political elite of Europe and the poor bloody peoples of Europe, punished by their masters in the name of a dogmatic Grand Project, I begin to fear that the prospect of war in Western Europe in my lifetime is no longer merely the stuff of nightmare.

It would seem that I am not alone.

How long do they think the serfs will put up with paying for the economic incompetence and political ineptitude of their remote and indifferent lords and masters?

It beggars belief, even as the EU faces financial Armageddon, that politicians like Ken Clarke can sit on a Question Time panel and pontificate infallibly that the Euro is not to blame for the present morass into which Europe is sinking. “This crisis is not caused by the euro,” he proclaimed ex cathedra.

You don’t need an A-level in Government & Politics to understand that the single currency was always destined to founder without political union. Remove from a nation the right to set its own interest rates to suit its own domestic economy, and in times of turmoil it is left either to tinker with taxation or slash spending.

Or both.

But what it needs to do it cannot do: control its own interest rates. There is no mechanism for anaesthetising the patient to ease the economic pain, and so the agony diffuses throughout the whole body; crippling, disabling and stifling the life out of even the poorest and most vulnerable in society.

Since the people are not particularly disposed either to high rates of taxation or to cuts in their public services, disquiet turns into protests; protests become marches; marches become riots; riots become social turmoil.

And social turmoil slips into civil war.

Lord Flight's analysis is equally dark:

... the necessary economic solution is gridlocked and the problems can only get worse in waves. There is the danger of political instability, as the weaker economies are increasingly ground down...

His solution is the departure from the Euro of Germany, which makes economic sense although the price which Germany's political elite would have to pay, personally, would seem to make it unlikely in the extreme. Unless the German people decide that they have had enough, refuse to shoulder - for the sake of the hated Euro and for the incontinent nations of Europe's periphery - a burden many times more painful than that which they accepted for the reunification of their own country, and actually overthrow their political elite (beyond the bounds of possibility... isn't it?) Germany will not leave the Euro.

Germany IS the Euro. To admit the failure of the doomed and now deadly currency is more than the German (and French) political elite is prepared to countenance. They would rather drive the peoples of Europe to despair and tragedy than admit they were wrong and try to rectify a dangerous situation entirely of their making.

I curse them for their lies and their lethal arrogance. Whatever fate awaits them, they have already brought upon themselves.

But...

... Ed Miliband is entirely representative of the Labour Party as described by David Laws:

... too disorganised or divided even to table clear positions on tax, education spending, pensions or the deficit.

The stink of failure surrounding the son of Jonah

'An uncertain policy prospectus'.

Thus does Pete Hoskin describe the offering to the electorate ("a blank sheet of paper") of the man who is, as far as I know, still the nominal 'leader' of the Labour Party.

'Ed' Miliband's astounding public admission that his party has nothing to say, nothing to offer, no policies at all, was both political suicide and the coup de grace to the Labour Party's electoral credibility. With one lethal phrase, he ensured his own failure and consigned his party to political irrelevance for the foreseeable future. God knows how long it will take for Labour to recover from the disaster that is Ed Miliband.

Every time he opens his mouth, Miliband provides acres of vicious copy for a contemptuous press and sufficient cause for his comrades to set about him as Caesar's 'friends' set about their emperor.

Whatever Ed 'Glottal Stop' Miliband is, he is not a leader of anything and possibly not even a politician. He has never had to do anything or prove anything. He was raised by Marxist parents in the Dutt-Paukerite salons of Hampstead to believe himself Righteous, superior and destined for greatness. He followed the well-trodden path of the bag-carrier whose devotion to a successful man ensures his own eventual preferment to the nomenklatura.

In time, he talked Red enough for the hard men of the unions to put him, faute de mieux, in his present post for their own purposes, against the will of those in Parliament who know him best.

They knew him and they did not want him. They will get rid of him. They have to. This is about survival: him or them. It won't be him.

No experience. Lightweight. Fake.

How many commentators, whether ambassadors or central bankers, might thus have described Anthony Blair, before he took office in 1997 and became, indisputably and regardless of one’s estimate of his contribution to the common good, a heavyweight global figure? Inexperienced? Certainly, like all politicians when they first take office. Lightweight? Clearly not. Fake? Only up to a point.

Ambassadors are well advised to take a long look before judging young, unknown politicians. They’re only unknown because they’re on their way up. Give ‘em time. Astute politicians learn very fast indeed once they take office and can amaze their critics who wonder how the hell they could have missed such obvious talent.

American ambassadors to the smarter capitals are rarely career diplomats like those of HMG. Washington’s most prestigious embassies are often dished out by successful presidential candidates as rewards for massive campaign support. American ambassadors are shrewd men (yes, usually men) with brains, charm and (usually self-made) wealth, Ivy League alumni accustomed to portentousness and theatrical solemnity in politicians of significance. Americans respect portentousness. They equate impenetrable language with wisdom and depth of insight.

A man like Gordon Brown ticks all the boxes of such ambassadors who will report to their masters that this is a heavyweight, a man to be reckoned with, to be listened to with respect. Well, initially, until his disastrous incompetence in office and general weirdness become apparent. But initially, the Gordon Brown type looks like what Americans want a senior politician to be like.

David Cameron, on the other hand, looks like an Ivy League preppy, all money and charm but with no substance. Fully house-trained, delightful manners, acceptable anywhere, even a possible suitor for one’s daughters. No threat, but no weight either. Not to be taken seriously.

Ha.

There are plenty of subtle and observant Americans. They just don’t want to be ambassadors.

Vodafone: Whose Money? (Part the second)

Re. what I said, what he said, sound fellow. (Do go and read it all.)

Why is it that these campaigners to change the world don’t bother to find out how the world works before trying to change it?

...

Corporations do not pay tax: they might hand over the cheque but the economic burden must be carried by [...] shareholders in the form of lower capital returns, customers in the form of higher prices or workers in the form of lower wages.

The only solution: revolution. Right on. OK, let's us grown-ups start one of our own with a whip round to buy the 'students' some economics textbooks. Admittedly, the whole idea of reading books, let alone the basics of economics, will be novel for many of them but look, they think 'investment' means government distributing money grown on state money farms. Oh, and whatever it takes off eeevil capitalist bastards because it's-only-right-innit. Sigh.

So, textbooks, then? What? You already gave? Oh, OK.