A Pavlovian response

At the risk of sounding troublingly like a particularly hysterical Daily Mail headline, why is it that just about everything this Government announces makes one groan with baffled dismay, before expectorating a vivid "fuck you"?

Police may get more data powers

Jacqui Smith has set out plans to give the police and security services more powers to gather phone and e-mail data.

The home secretary said police risked losing the ability to fight crime and terrorism without new laws.

Reports suggest the government wants a single database to store details of every UK phone call and e-mail sent.

Ms Smith stressed the "content" of e-mails would not be stored but she said consultation would be launched in the New Year on what the new laws would be.

Plans to collect more data on people's phone, e-mail and web-browsing habits are expected to be included in the Communications Data Bill, due to be introduced in the Queen's Speech in November.

Ah, yes, this is why.

Please consider this my response to your consultation: "fuck you".

Two silver linings..

Grim days. Unimaginably vast companies are up shit creek, the economy's knacked, British banks are teetering - so let's give our thanks to two moments of comedy on an otherwise unlovely day. First up, Nick "Cleggover" Clegg, leader of the Liberal Democrats:

"I can't tell you every step on the road for us as a party, but I can tell you where we're headed - government."

Aaaaahahahahahaahahhaaaa!

What a plucky chap. What a sweet boy. Bless his little heart. Don't you just want to ruffle his hair and tell the little scamp to take ten pence to the sweetshop and treat himself?

Now it's Labour's turn:

...a MORI poll tomorrow showing the Conservatives at 52%, Labour at 24% and the Lib Dems at 12%.

Bwwwwaaaaaaaaahhahhahahhahahhahahhahahahahaaaaaaaaa!

Just for fun (heh), let's see how this figures would play out if repeated across the country, using just these raw figures:

National Prediction: CON Majority 336

...and Labour wiped out, possibly forever. Now THAT'S funny.

Is it 1979 already? I

I hate trade unions. A lot.

Of course, the Blessed Margaret stamped hard on these bastards a long time ago, and it seemed like the threat had largely dissipated. Not so, and perhaps we celebrated their demise a little too early, however. For just like Noel Edmonds, football hooliganism and cancer, brain-dead socialism fuckwittedness never really goes away.

For now we hear the TUC bleating on about strikes if their members are only given a 2% pay-rise, which it rather creatively termed "unfair and unjust". They're not there yet...but they will be. Trade unions are notoriously immune to reason, logic and fairness, and unless their demands are not met, they will strike.

And as in the late 1970s, a Labour government will end with the money running out, the threat of industrial action from hysterical unions parading their economic illiteracy almost as a badge of honour, and the whole country seething at socialist mismanagement. Back in June, Tory MP Michael Spicer nailed it perfectly at PMQs:

"Why are there always so many strikes at the end of a Labour Government?"

Look at this man

This is Gordon Brown, Prime Minister of the United Kingdom, as pictured in today's Times.

Do you look well, Gordon? Are you enjoying the job you've schemed and plotted your whole life for, Gordon? Do you realise we all hate you, Gordon?

The answer to all three must be a resounding "no", although in time, once he's left office in the most complete misery, me may realise that we all do hate him.

Yet looking at that, I almost feel sorry for him. Yes, he's a hateful, vengeful socialist whose ideals would impoverish us all, shackling us to his nightmarish vision of a Big Brother surveillance society where only officially authorised behaviour is permitted, and only when people like him say so, economically and emotionally tied to the state.

But...the sun is shining, my workload for the day is pleasingly modest, and looking at this shattered image of a man facing ruin and derision for centuries to come, I almost - I said almost - feel for him.

Just go, Gordon. Go now, for "health reasons", and while we'll all know you went because you couldn't stomach an electoral apocalypse in 2010, at least we might feel a bit sorry for you, rather than dancing on your political grave in a couple of years.

Stamp them out

The Government is terribly vexed about house prices. They're falling, you see - and much of the pyramid scheme upon which Gordon Brown built our economy depends on this not happening.

So what do they propose?

Something peculiar called a "stamp duty holiday". This isn't even a proper tax cut, and we all know there's no such thing as a bad tax cut. Rather, it's a temporary cut. Oh, but only if the property in question is £175,000 or less.

This will apparently cost £600m, which has not been accounted for and sounds terribly dramatic, but in a trillion-pound economy, it's tantamount to losing 50p down the back of the sofa.

No; the obvious problem is more mundane - what happens if you're trying to sell a house for about £200,000 today, having been trying to flog it for a year or so? Chances are you've already cut it be 10% to match falling prices. Who on earth will now offer anything over £174,999 for anything? So your £220,000 house is now likely to sell for£175,000, or it won't sell. A drop of around a quarter, hastening the national drop in house prices they're so anxious to avoid.

You stupid, stupid bastards.

"An end to boom and bust"

Or so went Gordon Brown's favourite saying, rattled off in that dreadful monotone so reminiscent of Soviet era politicans droning about increasing tractor production while the people starved.

Now we see an end to "an end to boom and bust":

UK economic growth ground to a halt between April and June, according to the latest official data.

The Office for National Statistics said economic growth was unchanged in the second quarter from the first, revising an earlier estimate of 0.2% growth.

This also renders obsolete another of his beloved sayings: "x consecutive quarters of growth", where x is a very large number whose origins (unspoken, of course) are under the last Tory government, who can take credit for those on their own watch and probably all of them under Brown's time too.

But now the house of cards of is crumbling:

"The figures are very weak and suggest the UK economy is already in recession," said George Buckley, an economist at Deutsche Bank.

Your humble scribe is no economist, and will leave the more forensic destructions of Gordon Brown's abysmal record to them. Although I probably know about it than Gordon Brown, who for some unfathomable reason appears to think that he, and he alone, can make socialist tax-and-spend fuckwittedness work, despite the overwhelming evidence to the contrary.

Now he must reap what he has sown. A perfect economic storm awaits - the economy is likely to worsen for at least another eighteen months, which will neatly incorporate the next General Election. Labour is certain to be obliterated, and Gordon Brown will take his deserved place at the head of future lists of "Really, Really Shit Prime Ministers".

His personal and professional destruction will make for enjoyable viewing - but only for those who manage to ride it out. Unfortunately we must all reap what he has sown. And while seeing this shower of shits out of power for a generation is an appealing prospect, the pain the country must suffer in order for this to happen may not make it worthwhile.

What an absolute twat.

Two little letters

We've mentioned before the difficulty the EU had in comprehending Ireland's response to their invitation to ratify the Lisbon Constitution.

It appears that stupidity is contagious.

In common with over 26,000 others, I signed a petition asking the Government to take the scarcely contentious decision to respect the decision of the Irish and decline to continue with our own ratification.

They've responded:

In the UK, the Lisbon Treaty has now completed its passage through both Houses of Parliament in the UK following 25 days of debate. The Bill received Royal Assent on 19 June and the UK ratified the treaty on 16 July.

We believe the treaty would be good for the UK and good for the EU. This treaty adjusts existing treaties, in the same way as previous EU amending treaties.

If it's that great, why not set and the case and then ask us? You know, as you promised in your own manifesto?

However, European treaty change rightly requires unanimity across all EU Member States. That is why the ‘no’ vote on the treaty in the Irish referendum on 12 June is important, and needs to be respected.

You don't respect someone's decision by ignoring it. That's so obvious one marvels that it requires pointing out.

The Irish government has made it clear that they need time to analyse the result and its implications, and to consult widely at home and abroad.

The Irish Government, pro-EU, apparently needs time to analyse the word "no".

The British Government is apparently sympathetic to this desire for additional time to decipher a two-letter word.

Further comment seems entirely superfluous.

Some auntie

I hate the BBC.

Most people don't; it continues to enjoy a fuzzy sense of admiration from many, and enduringly misguided loyalty.

I have absolutely no idea why. Imagine hearing of an equivalent elsewhere: a left-wing state broadcaster employing 28,000 people, possessing an annual budget of £4bn, funded by a compulsory television tax. You'd snort with derision. Yet here, we speak warmly of "Auntie Beeb".

Its bias is so obvious it has even been forced to admit it. In spite of the principles of public broadcasting, it engages in the same mad dash for ratings that makes ITV wholly unwatchable. The crucial difference is that we don't pay for ITV to exist - it pays for itself, and while its schedule is filled with abysmal lowest-common-denominator rubbish, at least it does this off its own back.

So should the BBC be privatised?

Why not. Just to see what happens. Just to see how this fat, lazy, complacent organisation copes when exposed to the real world. Just to see how many of those 28,500 staff it actually does need. Just to see whether £4bn is the actual cost of its operations. Just to see the wails of horror from its pro-EU, AGW-fantasy-propagating, Tories-are-all-evil correspondents.

And best of all, having spent so long rubbishing the Conservatives, their backs are up. It's too late to back-track and make amends. Any right-wing party worth its salt should be opposed to a monumental waste of public money such as the British Broadcasting Corporation, let alone one that so palpably hates it. Revenge is in the air, and the Tories are likely to have a long time in office in which to settle a few scores.

This would be a great place to start.

Better the devil you knew?

Tony Blair won three General Elections as Labour leader. This is a feat without precedent; given the likelihood of a Conservative government occupying most of the 2010s, it's an achievement some of us may not be around for the next time it happens. Indeed, if you follow the gloomy predictions of Fraser Nelson and Ian Martin, Labour may not survive the next decade as a serious party of government, an deliciously amusing prospect. Now more comedy comes from a Telegraph poll feasting on the richly entertaining despair of Gordon Brown, observing:

In fact, the only Labour figure who could significantly narrow the gap with the Tories is the man the party forced out of office last year: Tony Blair. Yet even with Mr Blair as leader, Labour would trail the Conservatives by 32 per cent to 41 per cent.

I do not much care for Tony Blair - a vain, shallow man with a messiah complex whose legacy may be starkly at odds with his own view of himself. But his capacity for charm is incontestable. Eleven years on from the first of his two landslides, a slightly revisionist view has crept in that he was only awarded such a handsome victory because of the revulsion shown for John Major's Tories.

Nonsense. Tony Blair was genuinely popular to point of being beloved, and those who seek to claim otherwise are letting his subsequent failure to live up to his own promise impair their recollection. Even in the midst of the Iraq war, New Labour's growing sense of tarnishment, increasing frustration with the government, Tony Blair remained a winner in 2005. People voted for him time after time.

Historians will mull over this and think "just what the fuck were they doing when they kicked him out for Gordon Brown?" A flawed winner, replaced by a serial election-dodger, a moody, uncommunicative socialist automaton, whose answer to everything is either sulking, hiding, lying or dully churinng out tractor production figures. Or a combination of the three.

And it's not as though there wasn't ample evidence of his unsuitability BEFORE he took office. The superb Political Betting shows quite clearly that he was not the public's favoured option when up against David Cameron. This data will have been known to Labour MPs. And still they crowned him, without a vote, and sent him out to a distrusting and restless public which is beginning to realise it didn't mind that nice Mr Blair so much after all.

Truly, they reap what they sow. And as for Tony, he has kept his counsel well. But you can almost see the old rogue's winsome smile as he surveys the post-Blair Labour party.

If you've got nothing to hide...

I've just finished reading this book:

Readable. Not much more, but more than I've ever done, so let's not start off in too curmudgeonly a fashion. The premise is excellent: set in 1937, Mosley becomes Prime Minister after the King refuses to abdicate, Britain becomes fascist and cosies up to Hitler's Germany, and only one heroic ex-Tory MP and Great War veteran can stop him.

Sadly what doesn't follow doesn't quite do this premise justice. However, there are some neat touches. The portrait of 1930s Britain is excellently drawn - and it is this that produces the book's most arresting situation. It is when a policeman, the archetypal 1930s English constable, now plunged into the nightmare of working for a fascist madman, compels our hero to produce "his papers".

Imagine it - the friendly neighbourhood copper, helper of old ladies, scourge of local ruffians, sporter of luxurious moustache, barking out commands at the behest of a crazed fascist dictatorship. Ugly isn't it?

Which makes this Government's intention to introduce ID cards, and a colossal accompanying database, even less appealing.

• They cost a fortune - some say £18bn, at a time when the economy is in poor shape
• They failed to stop the Madrid bombings, the Conservative point out
• The giant database storing our details will be a hacker's wet dream

Those are compelling reasons to halt this idiocy now. Any vaguely intelliegent government would have done so. But I am more vexed by the fundamental alteration in the relationship between state and citizen.

This is a free country, despite the palpable hostility of numerous Home Secretaries down the years. I do not have to prove my identity to the state or any its agents. Compelling me to do so makes this a less free country. It really is a simple as that.

Perhaps the ex-Communists in the Labour Party think that's a good thing though.

And still they ponder...

There's no constitutional requirement for Labour to call a General Election if they replace Gordon Brown. We vote for MPs aligned (usually) to a political party, the largest of which then chooses a leader and Prime Minister.

When Labour decided it'd had enough of Tony Blair (General Elections won: 3) and summoned its king over the water, he was annointed without anything as troublesome as a General Election, or indeed an internal party election. He was simply foisted upon us, and we were expected to be grateful.

Some observe that a repeat of this exercise, even if garnished with a Labour leadership election, would again mean there'd be no need of a General Election. Technically this is correct. Morally? Take your pick. Practically? No chance.

In such an event, the most common refrain would surely be "look at what happened last time you lot inflicted someone on us without bothering to ask." Deposing the leader without then submitting themselves to the country may not lance the boil. If anything, it may make the eventual day of reckoning an even ghastlier as the country punishes the whole party for its arrogant refusal to consult the electorate - a heavy defeat could become near-obliteration.

Would the Parliamentary Labour Party really choose a course that could see them out of power until the 2020s, and would that be a good thing? The sensible part of me thinks that lengthy reigns by one party are inherently unhealthy for any democracy; but most of me wants the bastards out for as long as possible. Sometimes, sadistic pleasure is too just much to resist.

Gordon is a Moron (see what I did there?)

So, after the carnage of Glasgow East, Gordon Brown is finished. Or so runs the convential wisdom, which often tends not to be very wise. On balance, I fancy he'll cling on - a lifetime of scheming and plotting has gone into him becoming Prime Minister, and so obdurate an individual is unlikely to yield his position over something as inconsequential as everyone despising him.

William Hill presently offer just 8/13 on him being out by the end of 2008. I'd like to lay at that price, if only because his Cabinet and backbenchers are afflicted by excessively soggy spinal equipment and, like a gaggle of timid children whose ball has landed in the garden of the neighbourhood ogre, they're all fearfully eyeing each other and silently imploring someone else to go sort it out, please.

A pitiful spectacle - but ironic in its own darkly amusing way: to think that the infamously cowardly Gordon Brown could survive just because his colleagues in the Parliamentary Labour Party are even more cowardly than him should provide comic relief for future generations.

Though not, admittedly, as much as archive footage of his wobbly jaw flapping around in disbelief as the men in white coats gently prise his fingernails from the door of Number 10. will entertain them. And to think we're of the generation that'll get to enjoy it happening live - aren't we lucky!