clawsfour

It's not over 'til the referee has played six minutes of injury time...

Once again everyone writes us off prematurely.

Obviously we have the age and experience. The opposition are youthful and energetic.

We have a little bit of guile. They are brash and in your face.

We shouldn't be the underdogs, but we find ourselves behind. A long way behind.

But then we get our act together. Our leader plays a blinder. We begin to draw level.

And finally we beat Torquay 5-3 on penalties in the Johnson's Paint Trophy.

Next May/June the stakes will be a little higher, but the Tories have already given us - and more importantly the public - enough ammunition to start eroding their temporary lead in the polls. And Tory lead councils up and down the land are doing their best to help, showing that when Tories say "we're all in this together" it really means that we bear the brunt of their cuts in services they never use.

The philosophy was set out by the Tory Leader of Southampton Council, Alec Samuels:

We do not in principle favour ‘free this and free that’, such as swimming or transport, school meals or computers or whatever it is.

Southern Daily Echo, 17 Oct 2008

Cllr Eddie Lister, Tory Leader of Wandsworth, says local councils should hike up the prices of local services as far as they can go:

We will look to increase charges as far as possible beyond inflation so that consumers of the services are bearing the full cost without any hidden subsidy from the taxpayer. 

It is worth taking a trial and error approach to see just what the market [I presume he means residents like you and me] will bear.”

Big Ideas, Building on Conservative Fundamentals, Localis 2008

So when George Osborne says, "we're all in it together" just think carefully about who the 'we' are. Are you part of the 'we' made up of nurses, and police and teachers and other public service workers on £18k a year or more who face a Tory pay freeze? Or are you part of the 'we' made up of the 3,000 most wealthy people in this country who will have their inheritance tax cut paid for by the pay freeze for public service workers?

And when you've thought about that for a bit, think about how many people you know who are thinking about voting Tory this time. You have around six months to make sure they know who 'we' are.

Torygraph loses its cherry

In Labour's 1997 manifesto there was something tucked away about judging a country by how it cared for its natural world. Another measure of economic and political priorities could be gleaned from the Theatre critics it would appear.

Just in case you've forgotten why you must never, and I mean never, vote Tory, the Torygraph gives us this little gem in its arts pages with the review of Chekov's 'The Cherry Orchard';

But there is little hope in Chekhov's play, unless you are a rabid Marxist, which sees a family we have greatly come to care about heading for the most desperate of futures.

Which translates as, "In a credit crunch, let's support the land-owning classes, even if by their wilful negligence they have brought themselves to the brink of ruin, and by the way we don't give a stuff about the people who who used to have jobs working for them."

The Torygraph is enough to make anyone into a rabid Marxist, and given that I'm really only a lovable leftie, that's saying something. Grrr.

Money for nothing

In today's Times. 

Sir, Rather than query what is or is not allowed in terms of MPs' expenses, the pertinent question may be to ask whether there are any aspects of day-to-day life that MPs actually pay for themselves.

I won't embarrass this fuckwit by naming him (obviously) here. Look it up yourself.

However, the point is that MPs have fallen so far in public esteem that people can get away with this low humour. You can tell it's meant to be humorous by the gratuitous use of the word 'pertinent' - never used in this way outside the broadsheet letter pages.

There is not a single person in the country - or anywhere come to that - who 'actually pays for themselves' in the fatuous sense of this letter. Whether your money is earned, claimed, inherited, won or found under a rock it always comes from someone else. Exactly like MPs' salaries and expenses.

The target here should not be the claimants - a very right wing view, always blame the claimants - but a system which has grown like Topsy. And that is where parliamentarians are justly criticised.

It shouldn't have taken them so long to start to reform a system which, even if it is right, doesn't smell right.

Commenting on the necessary reform would be a better use of the letter writer's ink than the impertinent use of misplaced outrage.

Although it wouldn't be his ink if someone hadn't given him the money which came out of the price I paid for something.

And for those of you want a slightly more thoughful positon than my little rant try Luke Akehurst's piece here.

Boris bigs up the economy

The London economy continues to show very interesting signs of what can only be described as credit crunch denial in certain important sectors. And it is worth stressing this and getting this across, particularly in view of the newspapers which are providing an unremitting diet of gloom. 
Some parts of our economy really are thriving and I single out obviously the theatres, the tourism sector, but across the board there are amazing pockets of resistance to the problem.

Boris Johnson

Conservative Mayor of London

Looks like Boris has been taking lessons from Ken Livingstone about how to be several paces out of step with his own party.

However it is encouraging, even from this unlikely source, to hear some positive messages about the economy. Governor of the Bank of England - take note.

Hat tip to Paul Waugh for the link.