Nick Clegg, variously described as Deputy Prime Minister and Chief Clown of the Politically Correct State Circus, has used his Lib-Dem party conference speech to mock opponents of same sex "marriage". He described them as "dinosaurs". It remains to be seen if he will retract the insult as he did last year when he called supporters of traditional marriage bigots.
On that occasion he blamed his officials, claiming he would "never use such language" (although, of course, he did) and that he respected those who disagreed with him. There was precious little respect in his speech to fellow PC clones at their annual jamboree. The Coalition for Marriage has advised members to complain to their MPs, saying they are "disappointed" that Clegg would stoop to intemperate language and name calling.
The Coalition says polls show millions of people do not support the redefinition of marriage and that they should not be written off in contemptuous terms. Members are advised to tell their MPs they are personally offended by Clegg's ill-chosen remarks and intolerant attitude. All of which is far too feeble and deferential a response in my opinion.
I believe respect and politeness are wasted on this individual. He needs to be made aware that he does not have a monopoly of offensive free speech. Nor does he have exclusive access to the natural world when choosing his metaphors. He should be told directly: if we are dinosaurs then you are a dung beetle.
Friday, September 20, 2013
A double celebration
Yesterday saw two significant ceremonies at Grace Towers. My wife, Jean, and I raised a glass to celebrate our 59th wedding anniversary. Then we raised another to mark the switching-on of our central heating after a record-breaking lay-off of 10 weeks, thanks to the July heatwave and the late arrival of autumn.
Putting one over on our shyster energy supplier (a member of the notorious Big Six privatised progeny of Thatcher, the arch shyster) has become one of life's few remaining pleasures. We fondly imagine the money-grubbing sharks' cries of pain as they wincingly scrutinise our paltry quarterly bill. "What's to become of us?" they wail, reaching for their breakfast Bollinger and caviar canapes.
In their specious publicity material the privateers claim they made a loss of £62 million on residential business last year. If you believe that you'll believe anything. But even if true, the figure is swallowed up by total profits of £1,667 million! That is unlikely to be enough, given their insatiable greed. Stand by for their latest disingenuous excuse for raising charges.
At Grace Towers we know the thrill of victory will soon give way to the chill of winter and the enemy's sustained counter attack. We're stocking up early with thermal underwear, hot water bottles, scarves, gloves and blankets, reminiscent of the war years. If Hitler couldn't beat us, there's no way Thatcher's storm troopers will!
Putting one over on our shyster energy supplier (a member of the notorious Big Six privatised progeny of Thatcher, the arch shyster) has become one of life's few remaining pleasures. We fondly imagine the money-grubbing sharks' cries of pain as they wincingly scrutinise our paltry quarterly bill. "What's to become of us?" they wail, reaching for their breakfast Bollinger and caviar canapes.
In their specious publicity material the privateers claim they made a loss of £62 million on residential business last year. If you believe that you'll believe anything. But even if true, the figure is swallowed up by total profits of £1,667 million! That is unlikely to be enough, given their insatiable greed. Stand by for their latest disingenuous excuse for raising charges.
At Grace Towers we know the thrill of victory will soon give way to the chill of winter and the enemy's sustained counter attack. We're stocking up early with thermal underwear, hot water bottles, scarves, gloves and blankets, reminiscent of the war years. If Hitler couldn't beat us, there's no way Thatcher's storm troopers will!
Tuesday, August 20, 2013
A nation of suckers
Are citizens of the disunited kingdom especially gullible? Philip Johnston has asked in an touchingly naive article in the Buckingham Palace House Journal, aka the Daily Telegraph. His query concerned the alarming growth of scams operated by confidence tricksters and other low life against mainly elderly victims.
To answer your question, Philip, let's consider it in the wider context of institutionalised greed and dishonesty that has come to characterise 'Rip-off Britain'. Here are just a few examples:
* A social system in which 90 per cent of the wealth is controlled by five per cent of the population (approx figures);
* A monarchy with seven palaces and vast financial resources (most of them hidden) actually subsidised by its subjects;
* An endless influx of immigrants exploiting an already overburdened economy;
* Spivs running the banks and energy suppliers;
* An ever-widening polarisation between rich and poor, with thousands of working families no longer able to feed their children...
Obviously, we are especially gullible. Only a nation of suckers would meekly tolerate such gross anomalies. Get a grip, dear boy.
Friday, July 26, 2013
Born to be king?
Hi, George, welcome to Britain's most dysfunctional high-profile family. You couldn't have timed your arrival better -- right in the middle of the silly season when the media traditionally go overboard on non-stories in the absence of real ones.
Sycophants described as journalists at the Buckingham Palace House Journal, aka the Daily Telegraph, certainly went OTT over your birth, with some 20 pages on 'the boy born to be king', plus a grovelling pull-out souvenir section for the benefit of gullible London readers. Although widespread apathy gripped the rest of the nation, the paper's hysteria continued next day with 16 pages of fatuous royal trivia before the hacks finally got round to reporting the real news: the Spanish rail disaster with its horrendous death toll.
The magic went on and on. Two days later the monarch oneself, having recently received a £5 million pay rise, made it a double celebration by favouring you with a visit, followed by good old Uncle Harry, the playboy prince, with his infectious grin and a widely publicised promise of having fun together when you grow up. How everyone larfed!
And what a life of pampered privilege awaits you...elitist prep school...automatic entry to Eton (a college for boys not thought bright enough for Winchester)...then up at Oxford...membership of the Bullingdon Club...trashing proles' property with impunity...obligatory commission in the Guards -- culminating in your glorious destiny as His Majesty King George VII.
There's only one snag, dear boy, which your media cronies don't seem to have noticed. By the time you're old enough to be king, the monarchy will have been long abolished in favour of a more equitable society. The only throne you're likely to sit on will be the loo, albeit a posh one with an ermine-trimmed seat. Born to be king? In your dreams!
Sycophants described as journalists at the Buckingham Palace House Journal, aka the Daily Telegraph, certainly went OTT over your birth, with some 20 pages on 'the boy born to be king', plus a grovelling pull-out souvenir section for the benefit of gullible London readers. Although widespread apathy gripped the rest of the nation, the paper's hysteria continued next day with 16 pages of fatuous royal trivia before the hacks finally got round to reporting the real news: the Spanish rail disaster with its horrendous death toll.
The magic went on and on. Two days later the monarch oneself, having recently received a £5 million pay rise, made it a double celebration by favouring you with a visit, followed by good old Uncle Harry, the playboy prince, with his infectious grin and a widely publicised promise of having fun together when you grow up. How everyone larfed!
And what a life of pampered privilege awaits you...elitist prep school...automatic entry to Eton (a college for boys not thought bright enough for Winchester)...then up at Oxford...membership of the Bullingdon Club...trashing proles' property with impunity...obligatory commission in the Guards -- culminating in your glorious destiny as His Majesty King George VII.
There's only one snag, dear boy, which your media cronies don't seem to have noticed. By the time you're old enough to be king, the monarchy will have been long abolished in favour of a more equitable society. The only throne you're likely to sit on will be the loo, albeit a posh one with an ermine-trimmed seat. Born to be king? In your dreams!
Monday, May 20, 2013
Easy come, easy go...
One of the great joys of becoming an octogenarian is that on reaching your 80th birthday you receive a special gift from her majesty's government. It's an increase in the state pension of 25p per week (five shillings in old money), an amount that has remained unchanged since last century and possibly the century before.
No doubt when the princely sum was introduced it could pay for a night on the town with change left over for a fish and chip supper but sadly today it won't even buy a second class postage stamp (50p). I did think of saving two weeks' increase for a postcard to send to her majesty, at whichever of her seven palaces she happened to be residing, thanking her for her largesse. But I'm having second thoughts on reading that her government plans to scrap the gift as part of its "reforms" of the state pensions system.
You can only marvel at the malice motivating this ludicrously mean-spirited action. It is the ultimate expression of what Pope Francis recently described as the tyranny of free market capitalism. In his first major speech on global finance, the Pope warned that the growing worship of money was making life a misery for millions, many of them old, frail and powerless.
He may have had in mind the millions of UK pensioners systematically persecuted by sociopaths running her majesty's financial institutions and energy suppliers. For them the cult of money has become pathological -- more important even than blood. They can keep their 25p. Who needs a birthday present from vampires?
No doubt when the princely sum was introduced it could pay for a night on the town with change left over for a fish and chip supper but sadly today it won't even buy a second class postage stamp (50p). I did think of saving two weeks' increase for a postcard to send to her majesty, at whichever of her seven palaces she happened to be residing, thanking her for her largesse. But I'm having second thoughts on reading that her government plans to scrap the gift as part of its "reforms" of the state pensions system.
You can only marvel at the malice motivating this ludicrously mean-spirited action. It is the ultimate expression of what Pope Francis recently described as the tyranny of free market capitalism. In his first major speech on global finance, the Pope warned that the growing worship of money was making life a misery for millions, many of them old, frail and powerless.
He may have had in mind the millions of UK pensioners systematically persecuted by sociopaths running her majesty's financial institutions and energy suppliers. For them the cult of money has become pathological -- more important even than blood. They can keep their 25p. Who needs a birthday present from vampires?
Wednesday, April 17, 2013
A funny old world
As the old girl herself declared, it's a funny old world. The problem is that not everyone shares her sense of humour. Margaret Thatcher robbed the nation's infants of free school milk, miners' families of their livelihoods, sold off essential public services to profiteers, opposed sanctions on South Africa, suported apartheid, branded Nelson Mandela "a terrorist", sheltered a fugitive Pinochet from justice, before finally being deposed by her own party. But at her £10 million, taxpayer-funded funeral she was acclaimed as "a force for good".
David Cameron's description of his far-Right mentor called to mind Humpty Dumpty's assertion in Through the Looking Glass -- "Words can mean whatever I want them to mean." There was more of the same doublespeak in a rambling eulogy by the Dean of St Paul's, David Ison, but the presence of the Queen invoked the most embarrassing irony of all. At her accession in 1952 the monarch pledged: "I shall always work to advance the happiness and prosperity of my people." A pity that Thatcher got in the way. Brenda's presence at her funeral will have alienated at least half of her subjects, if they were not alienated already. A royal own goal? Let's hope so.
The so-called Iron Lady's pathological contempt for the working class was not confined to her disgraceful and brutal suppression of coal miners fighting for their jobs, it extended to all trade unionists who were indiscriminately demonised as "the enemy within". Officials were monitored like common criminals by her secret police. Even the National Union of Journalists did not escape the harassment. NUJ offices were illegally entered and searched. Never any sign of a break in -- spooks always use keys -- but papers and other items left in special positions were disturbed. Yes, there was an enemy within during the industrial mayhem of the 1980s. It was her.
Her toxic legacy remains with us in the shape of vast industrial wastelands, millions permanently unemployed, major banks controlled by spivs, and cold-blooded sociopaths running the energy companies -- the price of their recently doubled profits measured in 25,000 pensioners' deaths from hypothermia every year. No amount of hypocritical casuistry can disguise the devastation and human suffering caused by this arch enemy of the people.
But it won't deter Cameron, her natural heir, from trying. Another of his nauseating soundbytes was "We shall never see her like again" -- to which most of us living in the real world would add a heartfelt "Thank God".
David Cameron's description of his far-Right mentor called to mind Humpty Dumpty's assertion in Through the Looking Glass -- "Words can mean whatever I want them to mean." There was more of the same doublespeak in a rambling eulogy by the Dean of St Paul's, David Ison, but the presence of the Queen invoked the most embarrassing irony of all. At her accession in 1952 the monarch pledged: "I shall always work to advance the happiness and prosperity of my people." A pity that Thatcher got in the way. Brenda's presence at her funeral will have alienated at least half of her subjects, if they were not alienated already. A royal own goal? Let's hope so.
The so-called Iron Lady's pathological contempt for the working class was not confined to her disgraceful and brutal suppression of coal miners fighting for their jobs, it extended to all trade unionists who were indiscriminately demonised as "the enemy within". Officials were monitored like common criminals by her secret police. Even the National Union of Journalists did not escape the harassment. NUJ offices were illegally entered and searched. Never any sign of a break in -- spooks always use keys -- but papers and other items left in special positions were disturbed. Yes, there was an enemy within during the industrial mayhem of the 1980s. It was her.
Her toxic legacy remains with us in the shape of vast industrial wastelands, millions permanently unemployed, major banks controlled by spivs, and cold-blooded sociopaths running the energy companies -- the price of their recently doubled profits measured in 25,000 pensioners' deaths from hypothermia every year. No amount of hypocritical casuistry can disguise the devastation and human suffering caused by this arch enemy of the people.
But it won't deter Cameron, her natural heir, from trying. Another of his nauseating soundbytes was "We shall never see her like again" -- to which most of us living in the real world would add a heartfelt "Thank God".
Friday, March 29, 2013
Malice aforethought
It happens every Good Friday. The BBC choose the holiest day of the Christian year to vilify Jesus Christ. Their attack invariably takes the form of a documentary presented by an atheist/humanist/secular weirdo. This year's offering was no exception. Step forward Lord Braggart, aka Melvyn Bragg.
The Right Honourable The Lord Bragg, to give him his full splendid title, is perhaps best known for an amateurish novel about lust on the Yorkshire moors that earned him the Bad Sex in Fiction Award, so why not try his hand at a similarly crude exercise in amateur theology? In an hour-long BBC1 diatribe, the charmless churl tried to persuade us that Mary Magdalene was "the wife of Jesus", with the obligatory prurient sub-text. He based his argument on discredited Gnostic writings excluded from the New Testament centuries ago. If there was such a thing as the Bad Theology Award, his lordship's erudite-sounding but poisonous dross would surely win it.
The former Anglican bishop of Rochester, the Rt Rev Michael Nazir-Ali, described the programme as "hugely offensive" and asked whether the BBC would treat other religious groups in the same way. "I am concerned about the misuse of very obscure Gnostic gospels to impugn the integrity of the Bible. This is going out at 12 o'clock on Good Friday, which is exactly the time that Christians are thinking about Christ on the Cross."
Precisely. Our so-called public service broadcaster's anti-Christian vendetta is well enough known to be almost boring. But here was a new twist, a tightening of the screw. Their electronic sacrilege did not simply materialise on our screens at the appointed time. It took months in preparation. The premeditation gives the game away -- date and time being deliberately calculated to inflict maximum pain and distress. They knew exactly what they were doing.
As the late Cardinal Basil Hume observed, the world is in the hands of fallen people. It seems there's no shortage of them at the BBC.
The Right Honourable The Lord Bragg, to give him his full splendid title, is perhaps best known for an amateurish novel about lust on the Yorkshire moors that earned him the Bad Sex in Fiction Award, so why not try his hand at a similarly crude exercise in amateur theology? In an hour-long BBC1 diatribe, the charmless churl tried to persuade us that Mary Magdalene was "the wife of Jesus", with the obligatory prurient sub-text. He based his argument on discredited Gnostic writings excluded from the New Testament centuries ago. If there was such a thing as the Bad Theology Award, his lordship's erudite-sounding but poisonous dross would surely win it.
The former Anglican bishop of Rochester, the Rt Rev Michael Nazir-Ali, described the programme as "hugely offensive" and asked whether the BBC would treat other religious groups in the same way. "I am concerned about the misuse of very obscure Gnostic gospels to impugn the integrity of the Bible. This is going out at 12 o'clock on Good Friday, which is exactly the time that Christians are thinking about Christ on the Cross."
Precisely. Our so-called public service broadcaster's anti-Christian vendetta is well enough known to be almost boring. But here was a new twist, a tightening of the screw. Their electronic sacrilege did not simply materialise on our screens at the appointed time. It took months in preparation. The premeditation gives the game away -- date and time being deliberately calculated to inflict maximum pain and distress. They knew exactly what they were doing.
As the late Cardinal Basil Hume observed, the world is in the hands of fallen people. It seems there's no shortage of them at the BBC.
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