The Official Monster Raving Loony Party Is Too Normal

The OMRLP is short of candidates. Only 12 Loonies have been nominated for GE2017, the fewest since 1987. The problem is that nothing seems whacky anymore. Satire and irony are dead. There’s no competing with the idiocy of the major party manifestos, as the party political machines inhale more and more data from a population hooked on the Daily Mail.

"Shit in, shit out," as a data scientist might say, if quotes from such 'experts' were allowed.

But they're not, which is how Trump got to the White House and why Theresa May was there to sort of hold his hand. 

The "truth" is that the OMRLP could romp home in this election. It just needs to become truly loony. Here are some genuinely ‘strong and stable’ foundations on which to build: 

• Every university that accepts UK government funding must offer Creationism as a degree course, and as a compulsory module in Archaeology, Anthropology, Education, Geography, Geology, History, Medicine, Physics, Theology and Veterinary Science;

• The UK government should endow a new Flat Earth Geographical Society;

• All aircraft flying into or from the UK should be fitted with a ChemTrail monitor to measure the quantity of mind-control chemicals they are adding to the atmosphere (ignore these people);

• All academic research grants should be awarded by a simply voting majority of all the UK's local councillors.

Of course, the OMRLP must also recognise that it is competing with the sheer mendacity of mainstream politicians. It should therefore utterly fail to deliver on any of these cast iron commitments. This will inspire hope that they'll manage it next time, and guarantee progressively more electoral success at GE2018, GE2019, GE2020...

Labour's Idealistic March Into Oblivion

So, another political 'party' season slips by and the casual observer would think the Tories' policies must be more or less the right. There are no practical alternatives for anyone interested in the decisions actually required to drag the UK back from the abyss into which it's been staring for decades. Fortunately, that seems to be the majority of voters - the electorate finally understands that the UK reached the limit of taxing and spending sometime in the noughties and it's the Government's job to figure out how to do less of both.

Sadly, the Labour Party is giving up on such tough decisions, preferring the cosy bubble of idealism in which the air is a mixture of moral panic and dogma, and the 'answer' must fit on a placard. 

For instance, this week's 'news' that a single grammar school in Kent is expanding is said to threaten the quality of teaching at every school in the country, and Labour's 'solution' is that all children must go to state school. 

Trident costs too much? Unilateral disarmament. 

Steel plants to close through lack of demand for British steel? Nationalise them.

A living wage? Tax credits.

Unhelpful, impracticable, unrealistic, vacuous, dogmatic twaddle.

And since Liberal Democrat voters decided they, too, are sick of their party having to make the hard decisions, we are left with the Tories having to be their own conscience...  and do all the work.  

Let's hope they get it right - and remember, every country has the government it deserves.

2015: The Year Our Political Class Went Rogue

April passed in stunned silence on this blog because I was waiting patiently for the UK General Election to get real.

Instead, our political classes went rogue.

Today, all the way from Greece to Scotland, there are no politicians who believe it is their job to ensure that society lives within its own means.

James Palumbo hit the nail on the head in his article for the Evening Standard this week. "In place of facing hard truths, our leaders offer unaffordable and undeliverable promises." The Institute of Fiscal Studies promptly confirmed it.

You might think our politicians went rogue years ago, and some of them did. But I think the last coalition was formed by people in such a deep state of shock at how badly the New Labour machine had transformed Britain's economic plight that they were genuinely committed to ensuring the country did not go broke. 

Since then, the endless process of distraction, deception and spin has meant that even the dreaded Tory machine has realised it can 'extend and pretend' just like the Greeks. 

These days nothing in politics is real. The same effluent is cycled from the pollsters to the media to the party machines, out the mouths of candidates and canvassers and into the eyes and ears of the deceived, who feed the same crap back into the polls. Every 'issue' - from health, social welfare and education to immigration, foreign aid, devolution and higher taxes for 'non-doms', 'mansions' and foreign corporations - is debated on the utterly false assumption that the country can finance whatever policy is touted.

If you thought Gordon Brown has had a rough ride, just imagine what will happen to the Prime Minister in charge when the truth really dawns.