A thought has occurred to me, whilst watching lefties witter on about the “awful waste” that was the Diamond Jubilee celebrations.

This was government spending, the kind of spending the same lefties are calling for more of, to build bridges to nowhere, Potemkin villages and “infrastructure” that no-one needs or want.

How is pissing money away on a Jubilee celebration any different or any less wasteful than say, the HS2 railway line? Public servants are still being paid to man the streets, fly planes, drive horse and carriage, etc. The fuel for the jets is still being pad for. Businesses lining the Thames have made a killing.

I can’t really see why how government pisses your money away in something pointless makes any difference – it’s either all waste or it’s all investment, surely?

Or is it, as ever, that when it’s pissed away on “approved” things, it’s good, but when it’s pissed away on things that you don’t approve of, it’s suddenly recognised for what it really is?

1
Clarissa
June 6, 2012 at 13:26

And as Spain is finding out, infrastructure for the sake of infrastructure isn’t a panacea.

2
Backwoodsman
June 7, 2012 at 05:55

FFS don’t tell the people behind HS2 that, it would really spoil their day.
If you want an example of how a dedicated group of local companies can put some seed capital up, get regional development money to expand the idea and create their very own tax paxer funded Frankenstein monster, an officially funded steamroller , look no further.
Leaving aside the massive environmental damage caused to our already decimated countryside, you are supposed to believe that £32.7 Billion, or whatever the current projected costing is, is somehow going to be magically recouped by saving 20 minutes on a journey to liverpool.

3
KJ
June 6, 2012 at 13:58

It was great wasn’t it? All those unemployed scroungers, policing the streets unpaid so the nation’s biggest benefit scrounger who shakes hands for a living (and is paid £8m p.a for her troubles) could have a good old jolly up at taxpayers expense (again)

I just can’t understand what all those lefty whingers find to moan about, really I can’t!

4
Clarissa
June 6, 2012 at 14:28

If you think Brenda is a scrounger, would you like to do her job: http://obotheclown.blogspot.co.uk/2012/06/monarchy-in-uk.html

5
JuliaM
June 6, 2012 at 14:37

I wondered when some utter cretin would show up in this thread, and here’s KJ, right on cue….

6
Backwoodsman
June 7, 2012 at 05:57

**claps**

7
Ian
June 7, 2012 at 17:01

Ah, name calling. What a great way to avoid critical thinking.

8
JuliaM
June 8, 2012 at 07:01

Sometimes, there’s no point wasting valuable debating time and energy with an obvious cretin.

Far better to just stick to the facts, i.e that he’s a cretin.

9
Brass Monkey
June 10, 2012 at 17:04

Listen Dimwit. George IV made a deal with Parliament over 200 years ago to let the Treasury have the income from the Crown Estates in return for an annual income. The average income from those Estates is currently over £200 million per year, and The Queen gets, according to you, £8 million. Seems like a good deal to me. How many other benefit recipient families have given money making properties to the treasury in return for a fraction of the income they generate?

10
David Hadley
June 6, 2012 at 14:27

As contemporary Left-Wingery is the latest iteration of that eternal Middle-Class preoccupation – Oneupmanship (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/One-upmanship) – it is not about problems or solutions, but scoring points against one’s opponents by being the most politically correct that matters in these situations.

11
sackcloth and ashes
June 6, 2012 at 15:20

For me, the perfect illustration of the long weekend was Joey Barton’s sneering tweet about how many medals the DofE had, and how he’d got them.

Joey is clearly the Graun’s idea of a top footballer, because all though he assaults people on and off the pitch his Twitter page quotes Orwell. But it seems that although Barton can use Wikipedia to find artificial erudition, he can’t actually find out what Phil the Greek did during WWII.

12
Alice
June 6, 2012 at 19:25

I heard that the lovely Joey got beaten up outside a gay club recently. If there is such a think as karma, then let us pray that this was at the hand of some fragrant stylish queens of the muscle mary variety.

Joey, summing up most of what is wrong with England in the last 25 years. Ignorant overpaid little ****.

13
Brian
June 6, 2012 at 17:08

The Diamond Jubilee celebrations bring to mind the conclusion of Arnold Bennett’s “The Card” when the book’s hero, Denry Machin (The Card), is discussed,

“And yet,” demanded Councillor Barlow, “what’s he done? Has he ever done a day’s work in his life? What great cause is he identified with?”

“He’s identified,” said the speaker, “with the great cause of cheering us all up.”

Isn’t that reason enough?

14
Ian R Thorpe
June 6, 2012 at 18:54

Stop this waste!
More drop in centres for dyslexic, black, Irish, one legged, lesbian alcoholic, dwarf single parents NOW!

15
Daz Pearce
June 6, 2012 at 19:56

Scrounging is scrounging, whether those involved are rich or poor.

That said, I can’t help but think that much of the ire these Guardian types have with the monarchy is because it’s the one British institution they haven’t yet managed to wreck.

The Army? Drowned in PC bullshit. Education? Prizes for all took care of that one. Healthcare? A land fit for heroes, assuming of course that they lost.

It’s ironic that the least deserving symbol of the old order is the one that is holding up the job and stopping the flag from being stuck in the ground?

I’m almost tempted to become a monarchist, so had better wrap it up there.

16
Mudplugger
June 6, 2012 at 20:47

What is missed is that the proposed ‘great infrastructure projects’ won’t work in stimulating the economy now.

Back in the 1930s, any big project could only be achieved with vast numbers of manual labourers using picks and shovels, hence the likes of the Hoover Dam, Empre State Building etc. as employment and economy stimulation devices.

Any similar project now would merely involve a handful of men and a vast amount of expensive capital equipment, almost all sourced overseas.

So you end up spending billions of borrowed funds on railways to nowhere (HS2) or vanity runways (Heathrow 3) or pointless technology (fibre broadband everywhere), but virtually none of the cash spent on them will ever trickle-down into the real national economy. Keynesianism didn’t quite foresee that.

17
Noise
June 7, 2012 at 12:44

Because I have no doubt in my head (not backed up with real facts, but this is how it usually works), HS2 will be financed with capital from the banks. The larger technology companies involved, will make a healthy profit, and are probably also owned by banks. Just so politicians find it slightly quicker to get from Liverpool to Westminster, and on to Brussels.

£33Bn investment @ a typical 20% APR means a nice healthy interest rate of just under £7Bn a year. I wonder whether that bank will be JPM, GM, Barclays, Rothschild..?

18
Criminonymous
June 7, 2012 at 16:57

Surely “investment” is about the ability to get use from whatever it is in the future. In this sense, I think there are probably some differences between financing infrastructures and financing parties!

19
patently
June 8, 2012 at 14:39

That assumes that the infrastructure in question will have a future use that cannot be obtained from existing infrastructure – which is rather uncertain when politicians are making the decisions.

Equally, a party today has a use tomorrow, because you are happier tomorrow because of the party today.

20
patently
June 8, 2012 at 14:37

It’s obvious, surely? The Lefties think this kind of pointless spending is bad whereas their types of pointless spending are good, because people enjoy this type of pointless spending. Therefore it must be less worthy.

21
Brass Monkey
June 10, 2012 at 17:14

Absolutely! Anything that gives enjoyment, be it smoking, drinking, playing conkers, throwing snowballs, eating fried food, driving a car et al is always frowned upon by the the good old left wingers because they always produce spurious “evidence” that it is bad for you and anyone else within a thousand miles of where you happen to be enjoying it. Prodnose lefties p**s off!