Taxpayer Can You Spare A Dime?
In some situations I’ve always reckoned it’s better to leave your emotions at home; it’s more difficult to deal with somebody who’s seething with rage or deliriously happy (which can make someone reckless through overconfidence).
However, in the strange and fascinating world of blogs some of the best pieces I’ve read have been where the author has channelled anger about a story of injustice or oppression into their writing, in short they’re seriously pissed off.
I won’t embarrass Anna by naming the blog where the best examples have been seen…
Let’s do some angry. One of the main stories in the news is the proposal to provide state funding for political parties. Frankly I couldn’t watch the item, the TV screen isn’t brick-proof and my veins aren’t rated for 200 psi.
There’d be the usual cant about “serving their constituents” and “everyone accepts the need for effective democracy” blah, blah, blah. I won’t type the Anglo-Saxon words that come to mind, but feel free in the comments. These people make estate agents and used car salesmen look unbent.
Let me open some old wounds from the expenses scandal-
The LibDem MP who charged the taxpayer £1k for a luxury reclining chair (now kicked out by her voters but back on the LibDem payroll as some sort of ‘adviser’).
The Labour MP who needed several £k-worth of antique bookshelves ‘in order to carry out his work’ and whose response when interviewed reminded me of the football hooligan chant “We’re hated and we don’t care!” (still an MP although so ancient he probably advised Pugin on the decor).
The Conservative MP who always had to travel 1st class as “I can’t be expected to mix with the great unwashed” (not an exact quote but that was the message; he’s now retired to live off the massive pension we generously fund for
these heroes of our time).
The tip of the iceberg; if I listed every example you’d be scrolling through it for hours, but it lives on for ever on the Web (search under crime and scroll past their predecessors like Crippen and Lizzie Borden).
So, the politicians haven’t won the argument and that means it can’t happen? If you follow the history channels on Freeview you’ll have seen what it’s like to be in an occupied country. Arguments about justice and natural rights become irrelevant. The occupier defines what’s just and whether you have any rights; insurance companies, and presumably the French, call it force majeur.
I used this analogy a while ago and was accused of over-reacting (it wasn’t in this blog), so I need to defend the argument.
If politicians are determined to do this despite massive public hostility to it what can the man on the Clapham omnibus do? He can write angry letters to The Times in green ink, he can do what I’m doing and object in blogs, or he can threaten to change his vote at the next general election (how does that work when all political parties want to suck at the taxpayers’ generous dugs?).
In short he’s in the same position as someone unjustly accused under martial law, plead all you like, the outcome’s going to be the same.
Another analogy, the coiled spring, and this is where I’ll self-censor a bit. I shouldn’t have to self-censor but I’d be stupid to mention lamp-posts and piano wire.
Instead I’ll quote Popeye, it’s safer. One of his catchphrases was “I can stand so much, I can’t stand no more!” The spinach would be downed and the muscles would swell enabling mountains to be moved and battleships to be twisted in to knots. It’s fantasy, but at times like these I eye the spinach and wonder what Parliament would look like if you had the strength to twist the building in to knots…
-
1
November 25, 2011 at 08:25 -
Advert…..New Lord Protector Needed….prepared to lay down own life and work all the hours God sends. Rewards excellent based on the minimum wage and 24 days holiday a year, NHS healthcare and defined contribution pension scheme……
-
2
November 25, 2011 at 08:39 -
Can we negotiate on the NHS bit?
-
3
November 25, 2011 at 09:53 -
4
November 25, 2011 at 10:40 -
Trouble is, the British don’t really ‘do’ anger, do we? (Well, other than racial bigots and a small minority of unwashed students.) We write mildly sarcastic letters to the papers, we fold our arms and frown a bit, we sign petitions and grumble to each other at the bar.
Should we change our ways? Should we wave our arms about and gabble loudly like the Italians, or torch the nearest Macdonalds as the French are wont to do when peeved? Should we hold mass rallies with much whooping and hollering like our American cousins, or issue forth streams of inventive invective like the Ockers from Aussie?
No sir, we should not. We’re British, dammit. Stiff upper lip, and all that.
As for this cock-eyed notion of taxpayer funding for political parties, I gather that Kelly’s report has been slung by all the main parties into the bottom drawer of a dusty filing cabinet, and there it should remain. If any misguided individual should consider unearthing it, dusting it off and reading it, the drawer should be slammed shut again immediately, preferably trapping the idiot’s fingers.
Ha. That’ll tell ‘em.
-
5
November 25, 2011 at 14:03 -
Interestingly while we don’t get angry as a matter of course when we do rather interesting things happen – such as overthrowing governments, standing down armies, toppling nations. That sort of thing.
Other countris shout and scream. The British get things done. So here’s a suggestion. We find a Saturday sometime next year and go to London. About five million of us decent, law abiding, tax paying fed up people.
-
-
6
November 25, 2011 at 11:32 -
The Parties already have their hands deep in our trouser pockets.
Last year Labour’s ‘Short’ money was £5.2 million of ours. This year it will be nearly £5.5 million + travel. All allegedly to enable the opposition to perform its duties.
How many months did they sit back before the unions selected Milliband minor to lead their incisive and challenging opposition?
My thanks to wiki. -
7
November 25, 2011 at 13:24 -
“I shouldn’t have to self-censor but I’d be stupid to mention lamp-posts and piano wire.”
This is the kind of irresponsible comment that really gets me angry. Do you know the carbon footprint of Piano Wire!
No. If you you are going to string them up, which is an excellent idea, then may I suggest the environmentally friendly and easily reusable “Hemp Rope”
It is carbon footprint positive, reusable, easily disposed of and biodegradable when we have finally rid the country of the worst parasites in our history.
I would also like to provide an appeals application pack of 400 pages, that asks totally irrelevant and intrusive questions that must be filled out by our elective members to claim Immunity from the rope.
Obviously every appeal will be turned down I just want them to feel the helplessness of an unfair system that shits on them before the end.
May I also suggest that we make them form a queue in alphabetical order for their execution so that it is being done with typical British style.
For the record I am joking… I am quite happy to use piano wire.
-
8
November 25, 2011 at 17:38 -
helplessness of an unfair system that shits on them before the end. shat on them!
-
9
November 25, 2011 at 23:49 -
Surely that was the wrong tense. The idiots have taken over.
-
10
November 26, 2011 at 11:43 -
Not all of us accept the need for representative democracy.
{ 10 comments… read them below or add one }