Rich Seam Of New Labour Dross
Is there anyone alive today who can remember what that funny, old fashioned Labour Party did?
There was something about helping the poor and acting as a safeguard against the ravages which the rich might inflict upon them if left to their own devices. It was a party which stood up for the weak and made the voices of ordinary people heard against the clamour of the rich and privileged.
None of that nonsense now applies, of course, in this rich and brave New Britain, where everyone is on the make and only wants to be given “opportunity” and “empowerment” to exploit their “talents” to make money, or so says John Hutton.
As far as he is concerned, the rich should have no obstacles placed in their path to amassing more and more money and if poor people get in the way, they can just be mown down by the onslaught to create more and more millionaires.
“Over the coming months and years, we must be enthusiastic - not pragmatic - about financial success.
“We are, for example, rightly renewing our historic pledge to eradicate child poverty in Britain. But tackling poverty is about bringing those at the bottom closer to those in the middle.
“It is statistically possible to have a society where no child lives in a family whose income is below the poverty line - 60 per cent of median average income - but where there are also people at the top who are very wealthy. In fact, not only is it statistically possible - it is positively a good thing.
“So rather than questioning whether high salaries are morally justified, we should celebrate the fact that people can be enormously successful in this country.
“Rather than placing a cap on that success, we should be questioning why it is not available to more people.”
To be enthusiastic, rather than pragmatic, sounds like a formula for idiocy, which is probably what John Hutton hopes will propel the rich to become richer. Pragmatic simply means guided by practical experience and observation rather than theory. The pragmatic experience of everyone trying to get rich quick is that the process tends to devastate both the body politic and the lives of the poor.
So, John Hutton, the one who has not heard that Thatcher’s wonderful world of market forces has been discredited, even amongst those foolish enough not to spot the gaping holes in the theory first time round.
Still, crazy guy, crazy, stupid ideas.
So, enjoy New Labour while you still can.
Come election time, it will not be coming to a town near you, but will be more forgotten than the old version is now.
Jacqui Smith: ID Cards Are Safe And Well, Ha! Ha! Ha!
In the wonderful and wacky world of surreal politics which is the happy hunting ground of New Labour, there is never a dead horse which cannot stand yet more flogging.
Jacqui Smith is trotting out the usual stuff and nonsense to what must be a very bored or very credulous audience at the Demos think tank, although there is precious little to indicate actual thought happening, just the normal dirge-like repitition of a tired and discredited mantra as New Labour treads water before its forthcoming electoral defeat.
Read the full text of the snake-oil saleswoman’s patter over here.
Official: MPs Would Rob Taxpayers Blind, Given The Chance
The leeches and bloodsuckers who make up the assortment of otherwise unemployable has-beens and no-hopers of the mother of all Parliaments cannot be trusted with knowing how much their pilfering allowances might be, for fear that they would not be able to control their own lust for money, it has been revealed by one of their own number.
Commons finance chief Andrew Walker, in refusing to say what an MP could spend on one item an still get away with it, said: “My concern is that if we say the maximum price it will become the going rate.”
It is quite possible, therefore, that the tin of baked beans which MPs can buy with public money could, despite being available for between about 15 and 55 new pennies in a variety of shops, be claimed for to the tune of £249.99, as MPs are not required to submit a receipt for items valued at below 250 squid.
How many times a week can MPs make these spurious claims for non-existent expenditure at just below 250 pounds sterling? Nobody seems to have asked and probably nobody knows, but Andrew Walker admits that a system of oversight, checks and balances is not actually there at all.
“You don’t check they have actually spent the money on what they say they have spent it on - you just check the paper trail.”
We all know that MPs are not the cleverest people around, but perhaps somebody needs to tell this particular incompetent that if there is no need to offer a receipt, the paper trail goes pretty cold before it even starts.
But you knew that they are not really interested in controlling their own fleecing of the taxpayer, didn’t you? Whatever enquiry Michael Martin and his mates set in motion, you can be sure that it will conclude that everything is above board and satisfactory, but also noticing - quelle surprise! - that MPs are actually severely underpaid and need extra buckets of taxpayer swag to soften their arduous lives.
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