Koup Aid: Trump's Lethal Brand Of Soft Drink Has Killed Populism

The murder-suicide of Jim Jones' 900 cult followers in 1978 was "the largest single incident of intentional civilian death in American history" - until Donald J Trump began wreaking havoc on society with his own lethal brand of soft drink: 'Koup Aid'. Those of his MAGA cult followers who managed to avoid injecting themselves with bleach now face unemployment, wealth & pension evaporation, incarceration, deportation, bankruptcy and/or starvation, thanks to his mindless, lawless public cost-cutting and destructive tariffs. And you can add to that list the many politicians around the globe who'd pinned their electoral hopes on populism as a route to power. That's over now. A new political strategy is required. 

Trump's global distribution of Koup Aid has been undermining populist regimes the world over since Brazil's Bolsonaro lost in 2018. Argentina's very own chainsaw-wielding maniac faces his own net disapproval ratings. And right 'whinge' leadership hopefuls have just lost their national elections - and their own seats - in Canada and Australia.

While Britain's own Brexidiot populist provocateur, Nigel Farage, continues to enjoy modest electoral success, that's only in a few of his country's predominantly white constituencies who actually suffer little from the 'channel crossings in dinghies' that he ironically clings to for his own political survival (we fear the unknown, after all). Last year's Labour landslide shows that the rest of the country isn't fooled on that front. And the Australian populist parties' own doomed electioneering demonstrates that directly copying Trump's DOGE approach to government efficiency, the "Make [your country's name here] Great Again" slogan and the promise of 'border control' do not carry you into the nation's top political job.

Nope, the populists must find a new route to political power. Gone are the days when the blithering idiots in the Conservative Party, for example, could try to 'out-Nigel' Nigel. And they can only go so far right, anyway, before they meet the blithering idiots on the far left, as Corbynites revealed. 

Such is the nature of what I like to call the Political Opportunity Donut. The Trump experiment in America - and recent electoral victories everywhere else - highlight the political vacuum that has emerged in the 'centre' of western democracies. And 'nature abhors a vacuum', as Aristotle observed, so every aspiring political leader worth their salt is now rushing to fill it.

Of course, the political Centre is also a tough place to be, as Tony 'Bliar', 'Wavy' Dave Cameron and Nick 'Tuition Fee' Clegg all found to their eventual cost in the UK. It's only so long before populists with their phoney issues and respective lethal cocktails emerge on the left and right to try to reclaim the ensuing vacuums elsewhere on the Donut. 

So it always goes. We are where we are.

I must say that I enjoy this Centrist phase. It's when genuine problems get identified and solved. The decent political leader need only focus on that process and demonstrate progress, because it's hard to argue with actual solutions. People even generally enjoy helping. Morale is boosted, which brings its own tailwind.

Of course, there are inevitably heated arguments about which socio-economic problems to solve first, their root causes and potential solutions; and which get more resources than others. But those are political arguments worth having, instead of washing down meaningless slogans with Koup Aid.

Our mistake is to allow politicians to distract us from the problems that remain.

Starmer Makes A Spectacle Of Himself

No sooner did we rid ourselves of the crony Conservatives than it turns out the Labour PM, his wife and senior ministers accepted clothing and spectacles from donors. Not to mention all the football tickets and so on.

Never mind that they declared the gifts. The point is that they thought it okay to seek or accept them in the first place - at a time when others can't afford new clothing of their own - from political donors. 

Never mind that BoJo and his cronies did far worse and without declaring it. Starmer and Reeves promised an end to all that.

And it's all so petty! 

I mean, if Britain's Prime Minister can't buy his own specs and a half decent suit, how easily could he be bought by really big donors...? 

Look for Tory rorts that never get scrapped, like freeports...

Never mind that they've ended the free-clothing practice - that merely demonstrates the greed and stupidity of doing it in the first place.

You'll See The Tories' Last Stand On The Far Right...

Britain's voters need to be on guard against extremists in this year's elections, starting tomorrow. The divisive nature of British politics since 2015 has led to the collapse of the country's public services and infrastructure across the board. And we know from bitter experience that this is fertile ground for those on both the far left and far right who prey on the most vulnerable and dissatisfied. So we need a new set of politicians who focus on providing adequate public services and infrastructure rather than stoking 'culture wars' and spouting idiotic nationalism dressed up as patriotism. 

Starmer seems to have won the Labour Party's ideological battles and occupies relatively centrist ground. The polls suggest we're about to find out whether he's any more effective in government than the Tories have been. But anything can happen, so it's important to be alert to the threat of a Conservative Party in its death throes...

Last week, for example, a group calling themselves the Popular Conservatives (PopCorns) held a launch event in which speakers appeared to mimic the rhetoric from Germany in the 1920s-30s in rants against the judiciary and the courts. Dangerous stuff.

Worryingly, our Defence Secretary (who generally but not always goes by the name 'Grant Shapps') also recently attacked the British military's recruitment policies on "ethnicity, diversity and inclusivity" as part of his party's so-called 'war on woke'. This was alarming enough for the respected Royal United Services Institute to warn that neo-Nazi groups are trying to insert their supporters into Britain's armed forces and police (Evening Standard 14.02.24).

Sunak would likely have you believe that he represents the 'sensible' wing of Britain's Conservative Party (among many wings), but his sole remaining policy involves demonising asylum seekers and deporting asylum seekers to Rwanda (on which he publicly accepted a £1,000 bet) and he recently attended a far right rally in Italy. Bringing back David Cameron as Foreign Secretary was also perceived by some as a sign of centrism. But you'll recall that it was Cameron who moved the Conservatives from the centrist political bloc in the European Parliament to the far right bloc, and they've remained fans of Hungary's leader and Putin fanboy, Viktor Orban to this day. Sunak was also Cameron's go-to contact when lobbying for Greensill/Gupta, so you can see they're really a couple of peas in the same pod.

If you think I'm suggesting that Putin also occupies the far right of the political spectrum, you wouldn't be far wrong. In truth, that 'spectrum' is not so much a line running infinitely left and right as a circle that brings the far right and far left together, cheek by jowl. Make no mistake, both extremes share an authoritarian vision that results in a totalitarian regime controlled by a wealthy elite. German fascists chose the name 'National Socialists' as an appeal as much to the workers and those who leaned left as to those who preferred jackboots to sandals. Putin longs to reinstate the communist USSR or perhaps an earlier empire, but his Russia is effectively controlled by oligarchs with their own private security forces. 

Britain's politicians may have started out spouting idiotic nationalist slogans as a means of courting marginal voters, but we've seen how this ends in tears as well as outright collapse. It's time Britain's voters sobered up and elected people who want to get on with the job of governing fairly in the national interest.

Behind Every Major Public or Political Decision Is A "Private" Message... Release Them All

From FauxFoxNews' 'coverage' of Trump's "stolen election" claims to a seemingly endless list of British government decisions to police officers' own misconduct, access to the participants' "private" messages has revealed gross dishonesty on issues of critical importance to the public they are supposed to serve. WhatsApp launched in 2009. Given the evidence of such outrageous abuses of public trust can be found on that service (and no doubt others launched since), it's vital that government ministers and senior public officials should be prepared to publish their private messages on such platforms.

Of course, those in public office may - and must - hold opinions, but they must also be genuine champions of truth and honesty. The mere fact of the revelations cited above underscores the point. So, too, the consequences of the rampant dishonesty that many public officers seem to privately share. Witness the attempted slaughter on Capitol Hill on January 6, 2021 or the degree to which Britain's care homes unwittingly became a killing zone during the pandemic or the extent to which the country's police prey on women and minorities. 

There's an endless list of issues in relation to which ministers and public officials seem to have been less than frank with the public and I will not list them here. But I'm willing to bet that sustained pressure to release their private messages during the periods when they were deliberating on those issues will, if they survive in public office at all, help deter dishonesty when it comes to their next important decision. 

Who Will Rescue Britain?

When the renowned diplomat, Niccolo Machiavelli, wrote his "Letter to Lorenzo de' Medici" 500 years ago he considered Italy to be "divided...leaderless, lawless, beaten, plundered, broken and overrun, ruined in every way". Thanks to poor government amidst successive crises, Britain now ticks all these boxes. If any Prime Minister since Blair had even read Machiavelli's entreaty, then they can only have done so in order to break every rule in the book; and Johnson's successor is already bound to follow suit. Who will ride to the rescue - and when - is anybody's guess. Yet, like Italy 500 years ago, the time is right. If only the next leader will heed Machiavelli's advice...

The best illustration of how not to become 'World King' (as he infamously fancied himself) has been drawn by Boris Johnson. 

While a man of his education and alleged intellect should have read The Prince, it would not surprise me if it turned out - very ironically - that he claims he has but, in fact, has not. 

If Johnson has read The Prince, then perhaps he believes that, like so many others, those rules don't apply to him...

Machiavelli advocated that a good ruler should strive to appear wholly compassionate, loyal, humane, honest and religious, yet know how to occasionally act otherwise when required. He or she must adapt their chosen strategy or tactics to changes in fortune or 'luck'. A ruler must not seize or steal their subjects' property or women/men; or be seen as "changeable, superficial, effeminate, fearful or indecisive." The ruler's choice of ministers will immediately demonstrate to the country either "good sense or lack of it." Ministers should be intelligent people with permission to tell the ruler the truth, rather than flatterers. The ruler should build a reputation for 'meanness' rather than generosity:

"...if you're determined to have people think of you as generous, you'll have to be lavish in every possible way; naturally, a ruler who follows this policy will soon use up all the wealth to the point that, if wants to keep up his reputation, he'll have to impose special taxes and do everything a ruler can to raise cash. His people will start to hate him and no one will respect him now he has no money... his generosity will have damaged the majority and benefited only a few..."

Above all, "a ruler must avoid any behaviour that will lead to [their] being hated or held in contempt."

Did Johnson follow any of these principles?!

While he began his brief tenure as Prime Minister already flawed in ways that soon became glaringly apparent, Johnson's earlier political moves were at least promising. He rightly spotted that Ken Livingstone's woeful performance as Mayor of London presented a golden opportunity to quite as an MP and seek mayoral office of the nation's capital to garner popular support. He adapted his strategy to luck. Winning a second mayoral term was also key to emphasising that popularity; and breaking his promise not to run as an MP in the next available general election was something that Machiavelli also would have applauded, since he stipulated that there are times when keeping a promise is not important as breaking it in order to survive. 

Yet, we now know that Johnson is incapable of 'being good', let alone generally keeping his promises, or even affecting any of the qualities that Machiavelli advised. His three word slogans were all a cover for doing the opposite.

One need only consider his delay in managing Covid, serial philandering (even during his then wife's illness) and dishonesty over the likely effects of Brexit. 

His choice of advisers, ministers and unwillingness to sack them (too late, if at all) showed a complete lack of good sense. 

His dithering and repeated U-turns showed him to be changeable, superficial, effeminate, fearful and indecisive.

Even while Mayor of London, Johnson had literally been sowing the seeds of his eventual demise by becoming embroiled with Arcuri, allegedly helping himself (again?) to other people's women and money. And even if that were not in fact the case, Machiavelli would say it's the appearance that counts. 

Taking up with Carrie while married, trying to get her a public job, setting up a 'VIP lane' for Covid contracts, appointing cronies to the Lords and grasping at donors' money to refurbish his flat only cemented Johnson's snow-balling reputation for poor judgement and plundering his subjects' money.

Partying during lockdown in violation of his own rules while exhorting others to comply in the most dreadful circumstances was exactly the sort of behaviour that would lead to his being hated and held in contempt.

Indeed, ultimately, Johnson's lavish misuse of public money did in fact use up all the wealth to the point that he had to impose special taxes and do everything he could to raise cash. And his people did start to hate him and lose respect when he had no money, his generosity having damaged the majority and benefited only a few. 

In fact, Johnson's misconduct has amounted to such a gross violation of Machiavellian principles that one wonders if his rise to Prime Minister was not, ironically, the successful application of those very principles by some other head of state... 

But even Putin appears to have lost his touch.

The End Of 'CovidBrexidiot' Johnson

Well, finally Johnson has gone, albeit with veiled threats of a comeback ("for now" and "hasta la vista, baby," alluding to Terminator). He was easily the worst Prime Minister in British history, for perpetrating a seemingly endless array of havoc and unlawful conduct that came way too depressingly thick and fast for these pages. So let's hope there's no sequel. 

Yet Johnson's parting reference to the Terminator is quite apt. Like the unstoppable android, Johnson himself morphed from one 'side' to the other and is a character of pure fiction.

Well, almost.

The facts we know do not favour this man, and it is to be hoped that one day he atones for at least some of his misdeeds, as do his ministerial minions. One wonders why Britain bothers having the offence of Misconduct in Public Office if Johnson and his cabinet cronies aren't going to be prosecuted for it.

Maybe one day the full story of Johnson and his Tories' vice will come oozing out, like pus drained from an infected wound. But I won't be joining any hospital queue for that. The events of the past six years has taught us that the British state is both weak in constitution and morbidly corrupt, and there's no institutional longing for a cure.

Even now we're witnessing the unedifying display of the wealthy, old, Tory faithful tossing up between Richy 'the Dork' Sunak and a store mannequin for their new 'leader' as if it even matters whose snout goes into the public trough next, given the parlous state of the kingdom.

With any luck, the next incumbent will also succumb to revelations about their role in the rorts wrought by the Johnson regime, accelerating the next General Election...  

That's not to say that the state of the Disunited Kingdom would necessarily be improved if the so-called 'Opposition' were voted in. But there's at least a natural hygiene effect in changing the party in government at every election, like changing your underwear daily to get rid of any foul accumulations. 

It's probably inappropriate to switch this metaphor to the idea of a 'hung' Parliament, but it's worth doing so to ram home the lesson that nothing good seems to come of allowing either of the major parties to linger for a second term.

At any rate, let's hope for a quick end to Tory government No. 94...

 

The Latest Designer Drug: 1D10C

Drug classes A, B and C to remain

UK drug enforcement officials say a new drug has taken hold in Britain, pushing 'traditional' class A drugs aside.

Code-named "1D10C",  the new drug comes in powdered and liquid form, and can be administered through any external body orifice, with many even preferring to receive it in the form of inhalers, eye drops and ear drops, making detection almost impossible.

Effects include unexplained euphoria, self-confidence and loquaciousness - the tendency to be overly talkative.  

Side effects include paranoia, delusional episodes, lack of concentration, the inability to grasp complex problems, lack of empathy and poor verbal and non-verbal reasoning.

While not yet classified, officials have begun investigating the sources and usage patterns of 1D10C in Britain. Recent admissions of drug usage among political candidates has drawn officers' attention to their ranks, as well as individuals working in media, public relations and political lobbying organisations, as well as large political donors.

While declining to give further details or to be named, one senior investigator said, "We see the flow of political donations in support of projects that are obviously flawed or based on a mistaken understanding of how certain processes or industries work as likely indicators that this drug may be being distributed and abused in large quantities." She declined to say when the investigation would end, or the likely outcome, but one possible result would be a recommendation that the drug be classified in order to restrict its availability.

Both the Conservative Party and the Labour Party declined the opportunity to comment.

Brexit, Syria and The Political Opportunity Donut

There are many ways to draw the political spectrum, but most of the time we talk about "Left" and "Right" as an endless series of tiny but increasing differences stretching in both directions - a political continuum. 

And most of the time that works - especially for "Yes"/"No" issues - since voters' views will be similarly grouped. There's not much pressure on the tiny differences or cracks among the political views on each 'side'.

Then something very complex and uncertain comes along - like Brexit or the latest chemical weapons attack by the Syrian government on 'rebels' as well as its own citizens that highlights all the problems in the Middle East in one hit. 

Suddenly those on the "Far Left", like Jeremy Corbyn, find themselves sitting cheek by jowl with those on the "Far Right", like Jacob Rees-Mogg or Nick Griffin. 

The longer these situations last, the greater the pressure on the usually tiny cracks between politicians and voters on each side. 

And as the pressure increases, those tiny cracks widen to the point that politicians begin to worry about which way they might need to leap for their political survival...

Hardliners toughen their stance, looking for ever more extreme views to hold. This rams home to the more moderate politicians just how far from the centre they've drifted, and causes them to look for ways to move back that way.  So, for example, you have growing numbers of Brexit 'rebels' in both the Labour and Tory parties, with the Liberal Democrats offering to scuttle Brexit altogether...

Here's what a former master of centrist politics, Tony Blair, said today:

"If you leave that vast, uncultivated centre ground,

someone is going to come along and cultivate it."

In other words, don't ignore the other side of the donut.

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.

Another Hung Parliament, Please

With the UK general election looming in May, I thought I'd declare my apolitical hand: I'm hoping for another 'hung' Parliament and a coalition government.

I've been a fan of the idea since the opportunity presented itself in the last general election. I think the beast has worked pretty well for the pragmatic amongst us, and is well suited to dealing with the nasty challenges ahead. As I hoped in April 2010, politicians on both sides of the coalition have had to behave much more reasonably and responsibly in seeking solutions to the root causes of our problems than their party-political dogma would have otherwise dictated. This has spiked the guns of an extremely dogmatic opposition. And even the media's doom-mongering about instability and chaos has proved groundless. Sure there have been U-turns and major disagreements between the coalition parties, but the democratic progress should be dynamic, open and messy - not engineered, top-down, by a party leader with a Whip.

The same form of government is needed over the next five years because the long journey out of the tunnel has barely begun. That light up ahead is not looming economic recovery, it's an on-coming train laden with vast public sector debt, slowing Chinese growth, savagely low oil prices that might rebound higher than before, the Russian Problem, insanity in Greece, negative real interest rates and a stagnant Eurozone. Oh, and a new global financial crisis, as Hank Paulson infamously forecast in 2010:

"...We'll have another financial crisis sometime in the next 10 years because we always do.""

The public finances are still in a parlous state. So all the UK political parties face the need to cut public spending, whether they like it or not. Raising expenditure is out of the question, because it would mean borrowing more - and higher taxes won't bring in any more money. The total UK tax receipts have hovered at or below 40% of GDP for over 40 years. We're bumping along the ceiling, people! Raise taxes, the economy grinds to a halt and the best you'll get is 40% of a smaller pie. Cut taxes to around 35% of GDP,  the economy roars into life and you get a smaller slice, but of a much bigger pie.

But, hey, if you think the UK should drift into the next financial crisis with even higher debt and taxes, why not simply move to Greece?

What's left to cut? There's no end to it: we need our politicians and civil servants to remain focused on making the public sector more efficient, by removing waste and insisting that services be designed to operate more efficiently in future, particularly in the major spending areas. The defence budget, for example, is a rounding error on a more efficient tax and benefits system and a leaner, better co-ordinated public health and social care sector (20% of hospital beds are occupied by people who aren't even sick!). Money could also be saved by addressing root causes instead of their many symptoms. For instance, would more social housing have helped ease the pressure on first-time buyers, avoiding government subsidies to them and pre-empted the policy battle over immigration levels? Similarly, we must continue financial reforms to increase the sources of funding and the range of payment services for consumers and small businesses (who create half of all new jobs) because the economy is still too dependent on a few major banking groups who remain a millstone around the country's neck.

Some people will say this is dry, boring and unimaginative. But if you want entertainment, head to the movies. 

Others want something to believe in. For instance, they accuse David Cameron of lacking political ideology or a 'pattern of belief', an '-ism'. Yet they claim that his "legacy will be a collection of tactical manoeuvres, with as many prominent surrenders as victories." Apparently these people have never heard of pragmatism. But they've also unwittingly hit on the benefit of the hung Parliament in restraining coalition parties from implementing their more extreme policies. By contrast, the 'believers' expect us to cling to the idea that Ed Miliband is "in politics for the right reason" (just the one?) or "propelled by something more noble than the salvation of his own skin", which you could choose to mean anything that gets you through the day. But beware words like 'right' and 'noble'. They are the cloaks of dogma and moral panic - rallying cries for the likes of Tony Bliar's weird crusade or Gordo's crash, in which Miliband (and Balls) played key roles - not to mention the ballooning cost of the Security State. So, actually, if we believe anything in this vein, then it's surely that such 'noble' ambitions make Labour governments the kind of luxury that only a much wealthier country could afford. 

But, who knows, maybe being trapped in a coalition would even convert Ed to pragmatism.

Whichever way you look at it, we need a government that's forced to focus on resolving the root causes of society's actual problems - not one driven to distort the facts to suit its own dogmatic solutions. And my sense is that only another hung Parliament will ensure we get it.

Will This Book Stop The Dogmatists Waving Their Fallacies Around?

As one who loathes the use of party-political dogma to muddy the waters of sensible debate, I was delighted to read Tim Worstall's list of the top "20 Economics Fallacies" that political types wave around to justify some of their weirder ideas, and exactly why they're false. Maybe this book will help focus debate on the real issues.

At any rate, with the next general election less than a year away, you'd do well to keep a copy by the armchair to guide you through the evening's political interviews. So long as you can resist the urge to throw it at the screen.

Labour's Rocky Horror Show

As the Labour Party took it's "jump to the left" this week, we saw firsthand how "madness takes its toll."

Things turned ugly when the faithful realised there'll be no pot of gold at the end of the 2015 campaign rainbow - brutal medicine for a party infamously free with the public purse. So the furious mob turned its sights on the private sector, just like in the bad old days.

Gordo's lieutenants did their best not to disappoint the baying crowd, smashing in a few shop windows in an effort to claw back some of the profits they'd gleefully handed out when their old boss proclaimed the end of boom and bust. But the private equity boys are a vicious crew, and they were waiting. They went after those dogmatic party geeks like a bunch of Paras on PCP, strangely trailed by Lord Mandelson waving a socket wrench.

The geeks took a hiding, but they weren't giving up, or venting their sterile rage on public sector waste. Or gnashing their teeth about the six ways 'the System' is in a worse state than in 2008. No way. Back in the safety of the Hilton Metropole they were hell-bent on re-nationalising everything this country's sold off in its vain attempt to keep kicking the economic can down the road: "railways, power, water, Royal Mail." Savagely yearning for the return of British Leyland. A time when the State could do no wrong and Jimmy Savile ruled the BBC.

As the great Gonzo once said, "when the going gets weird, the weird turn pro."

Doomed, you might think. And so too is the old Labour rort of hiring public sector employees so they can automatically join the unions and unwittingly subsidise the party's lust for power. Snubbed by these ingrates, Milibore now wants to slip his hand into the public purse to fund his dreams, and is tempting the other parties to follow suit. He might be onto something there. Party political types are united in greed, if nothing else. But the Tories know there'll be nothing left by 2015 anyway. Soon they'll be sewing patches on the elbows of their suits...

You'd think that should mean a blissfully quiet election. But based on this week's performance I reckon Labour's rocky horror show has only just begun.

We're in for a mind flip.

We'll be into a time slip.

Labour will do the Time Warp again.

The Reform Of Our Institutions Won't Come From The Top

It's been a difficult month to finish this post. Every day another dollop of decrepitude is revealed amongst our rotting institutions. Systemic slaughter in the NHS. The convenient collapse of a major police corruption trial through 'missing' evidence. Police concealing the misuse of private investigators and spying on victim's families for the chance to undermine public sympathy. Sunlight on vast pay-offs to the departing management of the Savile-stricken BBC. The lengths to which the unions will go to control the Labour Party and use it to enshrine their own power. The Church of England deciding to turn money lender. And, surprise, surprise yet another massive bank fine...because, yes, any bank that relies on a public guarantee of its liabilities and massive tax subsidies through ISAs and so on should regard itself as a public institution.

It's a core theme of this blog to contrast the decline of faith in institutions that have evolved to suit themselves at our expense, with the rise of facilitators who exist to help us solve problems more effectively for ourselves.

Our institutions won't align with the interests of the those who rely on their services while they suppress evidence of their ineptitude, or while trustees and management quibble over their extent of their responsibilities, or while politicians spend their time blaming each other for the mess. These are sure signs that our institutions are stuck in denial and that the MPs and Ministers whose job it is to supervise them are stuck in their own cycle of blame.

Until our institutions understand and accept the need to align with the consumers of their services, rather than the desires of their pompous managers, they will not evolve into efficient, facilitative organisations worthy of our trust and respect.

But I don't believe that our so-called political leaders or the managers of our institutions have either the self-awareness or the skills needed to achieve this evolution. They are merely products of 'the system' that so desparately needs to evolve.

Sustainable reform will only come come from the grassroots rather than the top down. It will only come when each of us takes personal responsibility for turning things around, whether by exposing institutional failings or genuinely working to solve other people's problems rather than merely our own. 

In other words, both the problem and the solution are in our hands.

BubbleAid

A Conservatory Dream

Last night we were treated to the story of a family who can now achieve their dream of building a conservatory, thanks to a generous donation by UK taxpayers. 

But the story goes way beyond enabling home improvements whose name bears a cunning resemblance to the leading UK political party which spawned the spending programme. 

In fact, even the name "Help to Buy" is misleading, because this scam scheme unlocks plenty of other fantasies at the same time: the home owner couldn't even afford the house, much less an extension; the building company wouldn't otherwise make a profit on building it (and wouldn't build it at all); the bank wouldn't have the mortgage on its books; and the Treasury wouldn't end up with a 20% 'investment' in overpriced residential real estate. 

In short, we simply couldn't have another housing bubble without this scheme. 

So the least we can do is call it "BubbleAid".

While the economic justification of BubbleAid is maybe a little er... soft, it's difficult to question its political brilliance, coming as it does right out of the Fabian Society playbook. I can't think of a single middle class person who wouldn't want to realise their dream of a conservatory at other taxpayers' expense. We're talking a tsunami of greed rolling right across the entire United Kingdom, coast-to-coast.  

And nobody will ever vote it down because they won't believe that killing the programme will ever see a reduction in their taxes. 

Besides, UK taxes will never go down. The UK government will never spend less. Those are pipe dreams. 

Haha. Tax and spend less. Imagine it...

Are you smoking crack?!

When we need more money, we're just going to get those vicious, good-for-nothing global corporations to pay more in UK taxes. Simple. 

I mean, clearly other countries don't need the extra tax revenue, otherwise they'd be making those evil death stars pay more already, right? So it's open season. Britain can charge the bastards whatever the hell it likes. Nobody can stop us.

Don't pay any attention to that lunatic Senator Levin and his mutinous crew. Their demands that the United States should get a fair share of Apple's revenues will never take precedence over every Briton's right to realise the Conservatory dream.

So dream on!

Long live BubbleAid!

Playing The EU Fiddle

You know you're being played like a fiddle when Westiminster erupts over something as nebulous as Britain's membership of the Europe Union.

It doesn't matter what anybody thinks about the sustainability of the EU and whether Britain should be in it or not. The issues are too complex for anyone to be "right" about them. We may as well have a referendum about whether there is life somewhere else in the Universe. One day it might be clear, but not now. Today, in the FT Wolfgang Münchau calmly says that Britain could achieve all the current benefits with bilateral trade treaties, while in the WSJ Simon Nixon argues it's a matter of in or bust. Does either position truly reflects how the whole EU disaster will play out, who will lose and who will gain?

Nobody knows.

But this we do know: Britain's membership of the EU is an ideal topic of argument if you're trying to distract the population from the fact that your party has no idea how to resolve the current economic disaster right here at home. So, rather than fall for a faux controversy generated with the help of has-been Tory grandees, let's lock the current lot in the House of Commons until they get the country back on track.

Image from History.com.

Political Clarse

The term 'political class' is being waved around at the moment like a loaded pistol at a poker game. 

It's not clear whether Ken Clarke started it while pompously woofing about UKippers, or whether Farrago reached into his arsenal when counter-jibing about the "ossified elite".  

Either way, it's alarming. 

Mosca, Weber and other students of the political animal may have used the term in a derogatory sense, but we run the risk that petty politicians struggling under the weight of grandiose delusions will ignore the irony and claim it as a badge of honour. We are talking, after all, about a bunch of cretins who will clutch at any brick they can add to the wall between 'us' and 'them', even if it means building a duck house with a moat. They are desperate, in fact, to ossify any elite they can lay their hands on. 

So let's have no more loose and dangerous references to 'political class'. If it must be written down, then at least spell it in a way that reveals the true meaning. 

Image from BucklesAndTees.

What Happened To 'Class A' Political Journalism?

My appetite whetted by this week's local electoral melodrama, I've been searching for some Class A political journalism to feed my lust for pragmatism. 

There were little flashes of it from a few of the TV people. Michael Crick, who blew the lid off the Andrew Mitchell stitch-up, was rude as hell to Farrago, no doubt furious at having stuck to him like a leech in the hope of discovering anything coherent and coming up empty-handed. That left the usually mild-mannered Gary Gibbon to go after the rest of the gang. Desperation set in after the AutomEtonian responded to every single question with the line that this week was simply about local councils. He genuinely seemed to forget he was the Prime Minister, and I guess it's easy to see why. This seemed to put Gary in such a foul mood that he went after Flash Nick and Millibore like a mortar crew on speed. Each prevarication was interrupted with a fresh round down the tube, and another explosion of disbelief at the factually-twisted response. 

The only problem with the Gibbon assault was the apparent premise of the questions on capital spending: that it's the job of the state to fill every hole in the infrastructural landscape. Creating a whole new mountain range out of UK public debt is strange medicine indeed, whatever the cause. Ironically, Flash Nick went closest to a straight response, saying that while they'd barely invested a bean of new public money, the coalition has done a great job of attracting private capital to public projects. If that's true, then let's hope they've overcome the planning fallacy, and the PFI vultures leave a little flesh on the state carcass for the rest of us. 

As for Ed, well... 

In the end, the howling in my soul could only be quieted by re-reading "Fear and Loathing on the Campaign Trail '72". Forty years on, nothing has changed. The vicious wheels of the party political machines are still flattening the best interests of the citizens into the road in the rush for power and patronage, and Thompson's substance-fuelled take on the political animal is so brutally right that the recognition will make you laugh like a hyena. This, for example, could have been written today:

"This also reinforced my contempt for the waterheads who ran Big Ed's campaign like a gang of junkies trying to send a rocket to the moon to check out rumours that the craters were full of smack."

Now why doesn't anyone write about politics like that anymore?

Is it merely because today's journalists are sober, or have they abandoned hope that we can produce anything different to the current stage-managed pantomime?

Farrago

You've got to hand it to Nigel Farage. I don't know whether it's the cigar, the pint-fuelled interviews, that he survived a plane crash caused by his own campaign banner or the fact that the UK's leading proponent of immigration controls is an elected European official with a German wife. Whatever it is, Nigel Farage has breathed some life into UK politics.

Not that I'm a Ukipper, as it were, or a "clown", "fruitcake", "loony", "closet rascist" or anything else that the Autometonians have surprisingly labelled Nige's new best friends. And I'm no supporter of the other guys either. The Lib Dems are strangely inert, apart from some genuinely helpful peers. And anyone familiar with my take on Nude Labour will certainly gather that I'm no fan of the Two Eds. Old wounds from the Brown Years begin to seep whenever their mugs fill the screen - especially that of Balls. There's a terrifying zeal in those eyes...

Nope, I can't bring myself to support any of the current crop of politicians or their pantomime parties. But that hasn't prevented the rise of a certain grim fascination with their squabbles, especially now that Farage has joined the fray. And recent trips to the Interior have demonstrated that I'm not alone. I reckon it'll be tough to round up a four-ball on polling day.

So Nigel, too, needs a nickname. And a word I learned for a university revue suddenly comes in handy. A "farrago" is a "confused mixture". That will do nicely.

Image from the Guardian.