No—I'm Squander Two!

Squander Two has penned a superb post outlining the reticence (or, rather, politeness) of many non-Lefties on Facebook. Often in the face of considerable provocation from the Lefty "echo chamber".

Some of my friends agree with me about lots of things, and we can have a good old eye-roll together about how people genuinely thought Ed Miliband was Prime Minister material. (No, really, they did.) Some of them agree with me about almost nothing but are perfectly happy to have a good-natured argument with no hurt feelings. And some live in the Lefty Echo Chamber, in which case I do the sensible thing and don't talk about politics, because disagreement confuses and upsets them, and — and this is the crucial bit — they're my friends. I don't particularly want to confuse and upset my friends. As the old proverb says, better to offer another slice of cake than to laugh about Ed Balls. (Though I understand Yvette does both.)

Facebook, Squander Two maintains, should be treated like your living room. However, many people are unable to do so.
But even most of my friends who are willing to have an argument still have one foot in the Lefty Echo Chamber. What else could explain their reaction to the election result? Not just disappointment or upset but sheer uncomprehending bafflement. They have almost no experience of the existence of Tories, yet it turns out loads of people voted for them. Who are these people?

These people are the ones nodding and smiling. You know lots of them — statistically, unless you're in Scotland, it is highly likely that around half your friends voted Tory. Hey, some of your friends probably voted UKIP. Yes, even though you've been calling them "evil stupid Nazis" for years, to their faces. They still did it. They just didn't tell you. Because they knew, with absolute certainty, that you'd be an arsehole about it.

Yes—we know at least one young lady who might fit that bill, eh?

Anyway, the whole thing is long and so damn right. I cannot recommend strongly enough that you read the whole thing...

Coddling Cosslett

The election result threw up an awful lot of self-righteous fury from the Left. But even those angry, war memorial-defacing arseholes are preferable to the kind of whiney, tedious bollocks spouted by Rhiannon Lucy Cosset [who she?—Ed] in a Grauniad article entitled "Why it's OK to cry about this election".

It's not just that what she says is so pig-ignorant—although it is. Let's take this gem, for instance...

I keep remembering and then forgetting; a welcome pleasant thought will be interrupted by the terrifying reminder of what they are going to do to the Human Rights Act.

The Human Rights Act is not human rights, Rhiannon. In this country, we've been quite good at human rights. For hundreds of years, in fact. And restoring the power of British courts as the final arbiters of our laws does not mean that we are going to suddenly abolish human rights.

But I digress. The real kicker is this particular section [Emphasis mine—DK]...

I finally broke down properly at around 6pm on Friday, when I allowed myself, finally, to think about my little brother, who is severely disabled, and what might happen to him. Whether I should grab him and run for the hills so that we could camp down together under warm, soft blankets and not come down again until the bad people have gone.

Well, that's not going to happen, is it, Rhiannon? Because that would mean that you would have to take care of your "severely disabled" little brother.

And the reason that you are worried about what this government might do to changes in state provision for the disabled is because you want the state to take care of him—because you don't want to.

(Although, of course, you will happily use his condition as an token anecdote to shore up your credibility in a woefully fact-free opinion piece for a national media outlet.)

And if you don't want to take care of him within the rather opulent confines of this society, with all of its attendant services, you certainly are not going to do so up on a poxy hill with a few mouldy, old blankets for protection from the elements, are you?

So, Rhiannon, let me just clarify what I'm saying here: I am pointing out that you are a massive hypocrite, and your hypocrisy is the entire basis of your argument.

Now, why don't you go and have a cry about that?

In the meantime, just let the rest of us get on with our lives without having to risk stumbling across your self-serving, shroud-waving drivel.

The Left: an utter failure of personal responsibility

Over at Forbes, Timmy has written an article about the difficult decision facing Greek PM, Alex Tsipras.

The general view is that the Greek endgame is coming ever closer.
...
The troika is insisting that Greece must not lower the pension age and also must liberalise some more the labour market. Syriza, seeing itself as the sort of left wing party that just doesn’t do those sorts of things is refusing: thus that red line argument. And it is fair to point out that Syriza are the democratically elected government and they were elected on a platform of not doing those sorts of things (or, in fact, those two specific things). 

But as I’ve pointed out before what you do with the money of the citizens who voted you in is one thing. Demanding to be allowed to do the same thing with money you’re borrowing from others is rather different. And if Greece is going to make the payments it needs to in the coming months then it needs that last tranche of that loan. But the troika refuses to hand it over while Syriza is threatening to do what it was elected to do.

Certainly, it's going to be interesting to see what happens—especially as the consensus seems to be that:

• the Greeks do not want to submit to the troika's demands;
• the Greeks can't pay their creditors unless they do submit to the troika's demands;
• the Greeks want to remain within the Eurozone.

Or, to put it another way:

1. the Greeks want all of the trappings and benefits of a massive, Leftist state that will allow them to sit about doing nothing much all day;
2. the Greeks don't want to pay for it through their taxes and, indeed, will avoid them where at all possible;
3. the Greeks want to remain within the Eurozone.

At least one of these things will have to change. Unless, of course, some miracle comes along (very unlikely). We live, as they say, in interesting times.

Anyway, the point that I really want to make is related to #2, above, i.e. the Greeks don't want to pay taxes and, indeed, will avoid them where at all possible. Now, many people will be outraged that I might suggest such a thing—except, perhaps, when I point out that a great many Greeks simply stopped paying tax at the end of last year in anticipation of a Syriza win.

Faced, as he is, with this tension between keeping his promises or keeping the Greek state solvent (for a little while), it would not be entirely unreasonable for Alex Tsipras to say:

"Look, chaps: I did my best to stand up for the interests of the Greek people. But the trouble is that, at the first possible moment, the Greek people simply didn't bother paying tax. 

"Because of this, we have no other options: either we give in to the demands of the troika, or we exit the Euro (which won't solve much, but will get the Germans off our backs)."

He could then hold a referendum—but I doubt that the Greek state can afford it.

Anyway, the point is that the Greeks want lots of stuff, without actually reaching into their pockets to pay for any of it.

Which is, as we saw after the recent General Election, very similar to the Left in this country.

My various feeds were full of idiots wailing and gnashing their teeth, talking about how all the poor people were going to be put down and fed to the myriad urban foxes. Or something.

A great many of them were complaining about how the poor were to be denied their benefits.

So to help out these poor souls—riven by grief and guilt about the poor—I decided to point out that they could help simply by reaching into their ample pockets. I helpfully pointed out that not only can they donate their time and money to charities, but they can actually donate money to the Treasury—and specify what budget they want their monies to go to!

So, if you are a Lefty scared of what will happen to the poor, simply send your cheque to:

The Treasury
1 Horse Guards Road
London

Just convince all of your left-wing friends to do the same—this surely won't be difficult—and you can help out those causes that you care about. And, best of all, you won't be using the threat of imprisonment to force other people to pay towards these causes.

As an extra bonus, everyone can check online to see who has generously donated this cash to these good causes, so that we can praise you for your generosity and civic decency.

Or, of course, call you a bunch of fucking liars when you say that you'd "happily pay more tax".

This is the very definition, I think, of the phrase "put up or shut up."

Of course, many people will say that your humble Devil is being a little aggressive about this.

"Come on, DK," they might say. "You're a politics nerd—you cannot expect everybody to know about this voluntary tax thing."

To which I reply, "well, these people think that they are qualified to elect a government—shouldn't they know how that government works? They are prepared to use the law to force people to pay money to the Treasury on behalf of certain interest groups—shouldn't they show willing first?"

But, apparently, that's the thing with Lefties: they're very happy to reach into other people's pockets, and very reluctant to dig deep into their own.

Who knew, eh?

Murphy's Law #94,000

Yes, I read Timmy regularly, so it's only inevitable that I should decide that we should look at tax-avoiding accountant Richard Murphy's latest prognostications, shall we?

Google is tax avoiding: by definition that means what they are doing is legal, of course. And it may even be that what Google is doing is within the spirit of EU law, although that is to simply miss the fact that EU tax laws have now been spectacularly rigged to advantage companies over people so that the spirit of the law has itself been corrupted.

But even that is not the real point of why Google needs to be in the dock over its tax. The real reasons is that Google has set itself the motto “don’t be evil”. That means that Google explicitly recognises it has choices about the way it does business. And by choosing to do business as Google does, in a way that ensures it pays little or no corporate tax on its vast profits earned outside the USA in almost any of the countries where they actually arise Google is saying it is willing to free-ride our economies.

What that means is that in my opinion Google is saying it has no interest in giving a return back to the societies that are letting it prosper.

That’s doing evil in my book.

Look, I am no stranger to calling Google out on its somewhat optimistic catchphrase; but—via Daring Fireball—let's just look at another side to the company, shall we?

Instead, Bock, who joined the company in 2006 after a stint with General Electric, blew me away by disclosing a never-before-made-public-perk: Should a U.S. Googler pass away while under the employ of the 14-year old search giant, their surviving spouse or domestic partner will receive a check for 50% of their salary every year for the next decade. Even more surprising, a Google spokesperson confirms that there’s “no tenure requirement” for this benefit, meaning most of their 34 thousand Google employees qualify.

Now, someone like Richard Murphy will shriek and scream about this benefit. The money that is going to the widows of people who actually added value to the company—people like Murphy will say—is actually owned to the millions of people who have added fuck all to the company.

But that is because people like Richard Murphy are, in fact, fucking devil-spawn. They are scum-sucking shit-holes, fit only for fucking with the most rancid cocks; they are like a three-week dead vagina with maggots and an unhealthy cockroach infestation.

People like Richard Murphy—though not, necessarily, Richard Murphy himself, you understand—are evil little bastards who, having saved huge amounts of money through their own tax-avoidance practices, would now deprive a company's widows and children of benefits so that Barry Wiggins down the council estate can buy another mastiff.

To describe Richard Murphy as a disgusting, hypocritical little cunt with all the morals of a weasel would, you might think, be utterly beyond the pale. And, of course, I am not doing that.

I will merely let you draw your own conclusions...

Quote of the day #2...

... comes from the magisterial (and much-missed) Mr Eugenides, writing over at Think Scotland. [Emphasis mine.]

I am not a smoker. The first time I had an asthma attack was after a particularly smoke-filled birthday party in a long-gone student flat. These days, I am more careful; I carry my inhaler, open windows to let people puff away, avoid or ration my time in excessively smoky atmospheres. What I don’t do, and will never do, is tell other people how to run their damn lives, nor treat them like bloody children, nor give my backing or blessing to joyless, interfering busybodies who mistake pointless bansturbation for statesmanship. If there’s anything more loathsome than the smell of stale cigarettes, it’s the stench of hypocrisy and cant.

Quite.

And, taken with Timmy's fisking of this load of old crap by authoritarian medico and Tory MP, Dan Poulter—could there be a worse combination?—I find myself, once again, concluding that we could go a long way to removing said stench by preventing doctors from pontificating about anything at all.

Doctors tend to be a bunch of arrogant wankers with a god complex as it is: we certainly shouldn't be electing the fascist little shits into positions of power.

Oh, do fuck off

Overweight Shadow Minister for Public Health, Diane Abbott: "I think it's quite shocking that McDonald's, Coca-Cola, Cadbury's, and Heineken are the main food sponsors [for the Olympics]".

This gross woman has decided that she is fit to lecture us all on our health: Chris Snowden disagrees in a fisking of yet another article by an example of the greatest threat to human freedom—a doctor.

Chris is right. Abbott is fat. Doctors are evil.

Next...!

A taste of their own medicine

After the expenses scandal a couple of years ago, the few actual convictions belied the fact that the entire body of our lords and masters were engaged in widespread fraud, in a scandalous conspiracy against the taxpayers who they are supposed to serve.

Further, all three major parties in this country have proposed spying on our every communication for no good reason at all, something that surely breaks the Data Protection Act's provision that all data held should not be excessive.

Given these two vignettes, it strikes me as being utterly hilarious that one of these corrupt bastards should complain about HSBC demanding that they hand over "sensitive information" in order to prove that they are not corrupt.

HSBC has targeted MPs with demands for sensitive private information as part of a crackdown by the bank on "politically exposed" customers. The move has left some feeling they will lose their banking facilities unless they comply.

A Labour MP who is a longstanding customer of HSBC contacted Guardian Money to say he had been asked by the bank to disclose information about his finances, including accounts he has with other banks, and his "sources of wealth".

At first he thought it may be a "phishing" scam, where fraudsters try to obtain people's private details by masquerading as their bank or an official body, but the letter was genuine, and was followed up earlier this month by a phone call. The MP, who declined to be named, says he explained to the bank that the information being sought was "inappropriate", and when he asked what would happen if he didn't co-operate, the suggestion was that his account may be closed.
...

The answer, it transpired, is that HSBC has decided the MP is in a category of high-risk customers known as "politically exposed persons", or Peps. Even though, according to HM Revenue & Customs, he definitely isn't one of those. And he hasn't been singled out for special (mis)treatment. It is understood that every MP who banks with HSBC is being quizzed – and, presumably, other public figures, too.

Aaaaaaaaahahahahahahaaaaaaa! Ahahaha. Ahaha. Ha!

How nice it is to see these thieving, snooping, authoritarian arseholes getting a taste of their own medicine!

But, of course, on a more serious note, you might be wondering what the fuss is about? After all, surely an MP is a politically exposed person—how could they not be?*

Luckily, retired international lawyer Tom Paine can supply us with the answer to that little conundrum.

When practising abroad as an international lawyer, I often had to raise with clients dealing with companies associated with local politicians the delicate issue of money laundering. You can imagine how the politicians concerned reacted when informed that English legislation required enquiries as to their past, and contractual provisions as to their possible future, misconduct. I rather tired of apologising for it. I can't quantify how much business was lost because of these laws, but let's face it, the counterparties had other, easier choices.

As I never had to deal with UK politicians, I did not realise until this morning that they had exempted themselves. Here is the HMRC guidance mentioned in The Guardian article (my emphasis);

In some situations you must carry out 'enhanced due diligence'. These situations are:

• When the customer isn't physically present when you carry out identification checks.
• When you enter into a business relationship with a 'politically exposed person'. Typically, a politically exposed person is an overseas member of parliament, a head of state or government or a government minister.
  Note that a UK politician isn't a politically exposed person.
• Any other situation where there's a higher risk of money laundering.

Yes, that's right: as with the tax on benefits in kind, our lords and masters have exempted themselves from the rules which apply to others.

Once again, that old saw of "one rule for us and a different one for them" seems utterly appropriate.

This must stop. An MP is quite obviously a politically exposed person: further, MPs have proved themselves to be a body of people who are entirely untrustworthy every respect—those who are not actively thieves or liars are criminally stupid.

So, when this anonymous Labour MP whinges that his "financial integrity" is being questioned, my response is "well, whose fault is that? Cry me a fucking river."

And, given their plans to spy on everything we do, when this same anonymous Labour MP then asks...

"Why should they want this information, unless there's some indication that there is something amiss?"

... my reply involves motes, beams and "how the fuck do you like them apples, you totalitarian piece of shit?"
So, bravo to HSBC for giving me an excellent belly laugh this morning.

And perhaps this anonymous Labour MP might take a lesson from this; perhaps this Labour MP will drop his anonymity and start campaigning vociferously against the Coalition's plans to monitor our communications?

Or, more likely, he will continue to complain in the Tea Room and quietly continue to use his expenses to steal money from his constituents.

Either way, I am thrilled that he has been insulted and inconvenienced—it is the very least that he deserves.

Rank hypocrisy

So, it appears that the Parliamentary Labour Party are going to force a vote on the bonus awarded to RBS CEO Stephen Hester.

Labour says it will force a Commons vote calling for RBS chief executive Stephen Hester to be stripped of his near-£1m bonus.

It will hold a debate early next month to pressure the government over the £963,000 shares-only payment.

So, let me get this straight: a vote on Hester's bonus is going to be forced by a Labour contingent which:

1. is almost entirely made up of MPs who were collaborators in the last Labour government,


2. the government, in fact, which signed Hester's bloody contract in the first fucking place,


3. and which overspent by billions of pounds a year (most of which was handed to Labour-supporting special interest groups),


4. but which now seems to believe that a vote on a million quid bonus is incredibly fucking important.

Seriously, are these bastards possessed of absolutely no self-knowledge...?

P.S. Could I just take this opportunity to point out something else? The bailout of RBS was performed by buying RBS shares; if the shares do well, we taxpayers can get our money back. If the bank doesn't do well, then we won't.

As such, if you are a stupid fucking protester wanking on about the money we threw into bail-outs, then I suggest that you start protesting for big bank profits—because then we can all get our cash back.

Understand? Good.

The Devil's Manifesto

Your humble Devil has been a busy man, and he has been unwilling to blog (unable?) for a little while—partly because I was going to give the Coalition a chance. They have blown that chance, and now it is time to lay out the manifesto on which I plan to engage their failures.

Luckily, this is quite easy because the Coalition laid out a number of aims when they came into power, and it is relatively easy to measure how they have done. In the meantime, please forgive my lack of links—I shall fill these in as I write about the separate areas. So...

1. Reduction of the deficit: it is important to note that the deficit is the difference between government income and government spending—the Coalition have never promised to reduce the debt.
   
   But, nevertheless, even by the rather less ambitious measure they set themselves, the Coalition has utterly failed to reduce the deficit: they spent more this year than any government before.


2. Increased GDP: the way in which the Coalition planned to reduce the deficit was not absolutely, but relatively: they intended to reduce government spending as a proportion of GDP.
   
   In order to increase spending whilst reducing its proportion of GDP, it required that the government ensure that GDP grew faster than spending: they anticipated increasing GDP by 2.5% per annum.
   
   They have absolutely failed to do so: we will be lucky to get 1% this year (which is a loss against inflation)*.


3. Why has the Coalition failed to increase GDP? Because they increased taxes: the higher the taxes, the lower the GDP—in almost every single case.


4. Restoration of Civil Liberties: the government has utterly failed in this. It is true that they have removed threats such as ID Cards: but these had never been introduced legally—all the Coalition did was to stop something that had never been introduced.
   
   In the meantime, the Restoration of Liberties bill has no teeth and will restore precisely no liberties what-so-fucking-ever. If you doubt me, simply look at the government's weasel words over the retention of DNA for innocents.


5. Listening to the people: the Coalition promised to listen to people's opinion on various issues. They even set up a website admirably quickly.
   
   But they failed to listen: the two biggest issues were a relief of the smoking ban and the legalisation of drugs.
   
   The Coalition ignored this. Nick Clegg issued a video stating, in no uncertain terms, that the smoking ban would not be repealed. The drugs ban had the same response.
   
   The site disappeared into the Coalition's memory hole.

The Conservative-LibDem Coalition has failed by every major metric that they set themselves: your humble Devil intends to call them out in precisely the kind of language and rage with which I called out NuLabour.

Onwards...

* Thanks to those who pointed out that GDP is already inflation-adjusted.

Hacked?

Your humble Devil is having a nice holiday in Edinburgh at present but I thought I'd pass some comment on this phone hacking lark.

Others have made this point, but I think it's important to remember, amidst all of the furore and moral outrage, that the state doesn't need to hack your phone—they can simply demand that your supplier hand over all of their records.

And your mobile supplier, and your Internet service provider (ISP), keep extensive records of everything that you do—because the state demands that they do so.

So, if some tabloid arsehole wanted to get details of your conversations, or your browsing habits, or your emails they would be far better off simply paying a public servant to get them instead.

And with over 900 police officers and staff were disciplined for breaching the Data Protection Act between 2007 and 2010, I wouldn't imagine that such a person would be so terribly hard to find...

Strangely, I've not noticed that nice Mr Cameron announcing a "probe" into those figures...

Black racist decries racism laws shock!

Shirley Brown: former LimpDumb councillor and racist.

The Daily Mail today carries a heart-wrenching puff-piece for a LimpDumb councillor—the appropriately named Shirley Brown—who called a Conservative councillor* a coconut and was then prosecuted for racially aggravated harrassment (whatever the fuck that is supposed to be).

Last July, magistrates in Bristol found her guilty of racially aggravated harassment under the Public Order Act for using ‘threatening, abusive or insulting words, with intent to cause harassment, alarm or distress’. In March, she lost her appeal against the conviction.

The court case followed a heated city council debate that Shirley, who was then a Liberal Democrat councillor, had with an Asian Conservative opponent. The public row culminated in Shirley calling the other councillor, Jay Jethwa, a ‘coconut’.

The word is used as slang to describe someone who is believed to be betraying their ethnic roots by pandering to white opinion – referring to a coconut being brown on the outside but white on the inside.

It is, without doubt, a crude term that many would find offensive, and one Shirley regrets using. Although she insists the remark was not intended to be taken in the way it was, she now realises it was unacceptable.

But what she still cannot comprehend is the lengths to which the legal system was prepared to go to ensure that she was punished.

Jay Jethwa: poe-faced, miserable old baggage.

Well, cry me a fucking river. Shirley Brown is precisely the kind of person who wanted these disgusting Though Police style laws brought in—and now she really has been hoisted by own petard. Or, as MummyLongLegs put it so superbly...

Funny old thing, Law. It applies to everyone. If you need a law to stop your feelings from being hurt you should be aware that others are entitled to use that very same law if you hurt theirs. It's called equality.

The reason you were so roundly turned upon Shirley is that, in your career working to help ethnic communities in Bristol, you will have used those very same laws to punish, silence or force into submission any who stood in your way. No one likes a fucking hypocrite.

‘When I think of all the time and money spent on my case, which could have been spent elsewhere, I just feel so sad. I’ve always been proud to be British but I feel that something has gone very wrong in this country when political correctness comes ahead of basic common sense.’

You wouldn't have given a tuppenny fuck how much it cost the taxpayer if it had been a white person in the dock, you know that and we know that. You care not a fig if political correctness overrides common sense, only that it does so when you want it to. You're pissed because you got called out for the racist you are, and the laws you can use to intimidate others bit you roundly on the arse.

Well them's the breaks Shirley. There's not a person in the world that would have taken your comment as anything other than racist. The law may be an ass but grab it by the tail and it can still kick you in the teeth.

Indeed. And I think that "tuppenny fuck" might be my new favourite phrase.

JuliaM also comments pithily on this case.

It's the Britain you and your ilk in the left-wing progressive movement created. It's a wee bit late to turn around and say 'What? Me? No, no, it's not supposed to be me...!'

‘I was proud to be a member of the council because I wanted to be a role model to young people from minority backgrounds,’ she says.

You were, love. That's just the problem, though; you were a role model for how chippiness, grudge-holding and waving your supposed trump card in Victimhood Poker was the way to win.

And you relished it right up until the time someone else laid down their own hand and said 'That beats yours, doesn't it?'

Don't get me wrong—I think that these race laws are absolutely abysmal. However, it is absolutely fucking hilarious to see a woman like Shirley Brown get kicked in the teeth—and even funnier to see her whinging about how she has been "publicly humiliated and [her] reputation has been ruined".

You see, that's what happens when you bring in these kinds of laws: as Shirley puts it...

It was a mistake. Everybody makes mistakes though...

Yes, they do. But thanks to people like you, they can now be prosecuted for those mistakes. As you have—hilariously—found out. Will you be campaigning to have these laws repealed now? No?

Well, fuck off then.

UPDATE: thanks to Anonymous in the comments, who points out that I may have been a little harsh on Ms Jethwa: this little nugget comes from the Mail article...

The row happened on February 24, 2009, during a Bristol City Council budget debate. Top of the agenda was the city’s Legacy Commission that had been granted £750,000 of taxpayers’ money to fund ethnic minority projects and was created in part to atone for Bristol’s historic role in the slave trade.

Shirley, the daughter of Jamaican immigrants, believed passionately in the initiative.

During the debate, Mrs Jethwa, who moved to Britain from India 24 years ago and whose husband Nick is of Ugandan origin, stood up to say she did not agree with spending public money ‘righting the wrongs’ of past centuries.

I would like to apologise to Ms Jethwa who is, quite obviously, an excellent councillor and a decent councillor. On the other hand, Shirley Brown comes off as being even more of a desperate, ghastly racist crap-bag.

* No, I don't support that miserable, whining cow either. I mean, for fuck's sake, look at her.

Scientists hoist by their own petard

Now, as we all know, there is a pressing problem that we have—all this carbon dioxide in the atmosphere is warming the planet and we are all going to fry unless we severely reduce our output of said gas.

Unfortunately, nearly all of the effective ways of generating the energy that makes our world go round emit CO₂ to a large extent; but, so severe is the problem, our politicians have responded to the urging of the scientific experts and put in place a number of measures to make carbon emission—and thus energy generation—much more expensive.

Now, do remember that this is all climate scientists because, of course, there is a "consensus" on the climate change topic. And almost all other scientists have urged us to listen to the climate scientists because they know what they are talking about and we laymen—even those who have a rather more specialist knowledge of statistical analysis or computer model programming—have no idea at all.

So, basically, we can say that the vast majority of the world's scientists back urgent action on carbon emissions: energy must be made much more expensive. Oh, wait, we didn't mean for us!

World-class research into future sources of green energy is under threat in Britain from an environmental tax designed to boost energy efficiency and drive down carbon emissions, scientists claim.

Some facilities must find hundreds of thousands of pounds to settle green tax bills, putting jobs and research at risk.

Altogether now... Aaaaaaaaaaaaahahahahahahahahaha! Aaaaahahahaha! Ah-ha! Ha!

Wait—let me catch my breath.

Aaaaaaaaaahaahahahahahahahaa! Aaaaaahahaha.

Whew.

Right. I... Aaaaahahaha. Ha.

OK, no, really, I'm sorry. I haven't laughed that much since Chris Huhne admitted that he drove a car.

Anyway, so, what are these scientists going to do? Could it be that they are going to cough up gladly, pointing out that this is precisely the outcome that they wanted? Ah, no.

The unexpected impact of the government's carbon reduction commitment (CRC) scheme is so severe that scientists and research funders have lobbied ministers for an exemption to reduce the bills.

No, absolutely not.

Alright, I admit that a good deal of the satisfaction of the above is based purely on spite: you bastards (as in the scientific community) insisted that we take action on climate change—and you got it. I don't see why everyone but you should suffer.

Yes, it might seem counter-intuitive that government-funded initiatives should have to pay government taxes (in the same way that it might seem odd that government-funded jobs need to pay taxes) but there are, as Timmy points out, a couple of valid reasons (i.e. ones not based on spite) why scientists should not be exempt.

1. It would be a subsidy. And we want subsidies to be out in the open. We want to be able to add up what whatever rule or regulation, tax or charge, actually costs us. So we don’t want any hidden subsidies at all. This applies to everything: council house rents should be full market rents, even if that means everyone gets housing benefit. We can then look at the benefit bill and see how much housing the poor costs us. Trains and farmers should pay full whack on fuel duty, even if that means we then have to send them a cheque to compensate. We want to be able to see, exactly, what their subsidy is.


2. We absolutely do not want things run by politicians and bureaucrats to be free of the rules politicians and bureuacrats impose upon the rest of us. It’s our only hope of reducing the complexities, that they have to struggle with their impositions as we do. Note the screams from MPs as their expenses are doled out in the same manner the dole is doled out. Quite bloody right too.

But it is very entertaining, nonetheless, to listen to the various sob stories highlitedby the Grauniad article...

Among the worst hit is the Culham Centre for Fusion Energy in Oxfordshire, a facility for research into almost limitless carbon-free energy. The lab faces an estimated £400,000 payment next year, raising the spectre of job losses and operational cuts. "Considering our research is aimed at producing zero-carbon energy, it seems ironic and perverse to clobber us with an extra bill," a senior scientist at the lab said. "We have to use electricity to run the machine and there is no way of getting around that."

And that is different from other businesses how, exactly?

Oh, by the way, you're flogging a dead horse: you may have the largest fusion reactor in Europe but if it actually generated, you know, any electricity then you could offset the costs, eh? But it doesn't.

Another Oxfordshire laboratory, the Diamond synchrotron light source, expects a £300,000 bill under the CRC. A spokesman said the lab hoped to offset the bill by investing in better climate control and motion-sensitive lighting.

Well, that's what the government is telling private businesses to do—why should it not apply to these scientist types?

At the Daresbury laboratory in Cheshire, the CRC bill will worsen financial woes that have forced managers to draft redundancy packages and consider cutting back on equipment. "Science is already struggling here and now we are being charged an additional premium to go about our everyday business while working to address the government's own stated grand challenges in science for the 21st century.," said Lee Jones, an accelerator physicist at the laboratory.

Well, we are all doing that, Lee: after all, some of us have to try to "address the government's own stated grand challenges" for GDP growth over the next five years—also in the face of rising costs and taxes.

So, with all due respect, o science types, you can take your exemption and stuff it up your pontificating arseholes.

Marred by his own hypocrisy

Andrew Marr: a face only a mother and two desperate, lackwit MSM slappers could love (occasionally).

You would have to have the sense of humour of a socialist not to laugh at the recent travails of Andrew "arsehole" Marr.

BBC presenter Andrew Marr has revealed he took out a super-injunction to protect his family's privacy - but says he will not pursue it any further.

Mr Marr told the Daily Mail he was "embarrassed" about the gagging order he took out in 2008 to suppress reports of an affair with a fellow journalist.

"I did not come into journalism to go around gagging journalists," he said.

Really? Then why did you do it—is it because you are a disgusting hypocrite?

Yes.

After all, this is a journalist who questioned and harried MPs (as long as they weren't NuLabour ministers) over stupidity, corruption and hypocrisy—and yet who tried to gag his fellow hacks from reporting on his own faithless behaviour.

After all, it wasn't as though Guido hadn't let us all know some time ago.

At the time he believed he had fathered a child with the woman, but later found out through a DNA test this was not the case.

Yes, Andrew Marr spent seven years allegedly paying child support to Alice Miles—only to find out that she was, apparently, quite as unable to keep her genitals in her knickers as he was.

That alone made me laugh for nearly half an hour. I wonder if Marr will be asking for his money back...?

Lest we forget, of course, this is the same Andrew Marr who decided to have a go at "socially inadequate, pimpled, single, slightly seedy, bald, cauliflower-nosed" bloggers.

As such, I thought it worthwhile digging around The Kitchen archives (not least because some 6,000 people seem to have had the same idea) in order to dig out my encomium to this "nightmarish Fraggle".

Andrew Marr, however, is a bald, jug-eared, media whore whose pathetic and slavish devotion to NuLabour may or may not be influenced by his employment by the extortion-funded BBC and his marriage to Jackie Ashley, the raddled-looking harridan daughter of a life peer who writes for both The New Statesman and The Grauniad.

But, Andrew Marr is at least correct when he accuses bloggers of ranting. After all, whilst many of us are very angry about how our country has been systematically destroyed and our futures mortgaged by his favourite party, we are—alas—unable to use taxpayers' cash to get our points across. This leads to a certain amount of frustration and, inevitably, more than a soupcon of cathartic ranting.

But, as Anna Raccoon shows, we in the blogosphere can do some genuine good by providing crowd-sourcing and expertise to those oppressed by Andrew Marr's favourite little technocrats.

Furthermore, many blogs provide an invaluable insight into certain professions because they are written by people at the sharp end—people who genuinely know what is happening on the ground, or have a specialist knowledge of the subjects that they write about.

Which, for me, provide far more useful information about the true state of affairs than Andrew Marr reading some generalised crap—written by some underpaid graduate with a 2:2 in English Literature—off a fucking autocue. No amount of ridiculous arm-waving, Andrew, can substitute for a coherent piece written by someone who actually knows what they are talking about.

Still, I suppose that Andrew can write with some authority about super-injunctions, eh? It's just a pity that the same does not apply to honesty, truth, faithfulness, straight-dealing and not being a cunt.

The shorter NHS reform debate

Now, I know that the whole NHS reform debate is pretty complicated and no one quite knows what's going on—so, your humble Devil has decided to provide a handy cut-out-and-keep guide to the whole issue...

All doctors (most especially GPs and GP bloggers): "The reason that the NHS is crap is because it is run by managers, not medical staff who know best about their patients' treatment."

All doctors (most especially GPs and GP bloggers) on the news that medical staff are to get the ultimate say on how the NHS is run: "We didn't mean us!"

Meanwhile, as 0.12% of the RCN membership passing a vote of no confidence in the Health Secretary is reported as 99% of nurses pass a no confidence vote in Lansley, your humble Devil reports that 99% of nurses starve their patients to death.

Hey! Don't thank me—I'm here to help...

It's still one law for them...

... and another for us, as MPs exempt themselves from the latest laws on tax avoidance. [A tip of the horns to Samizdata.]

MPs have had specific provisions made for them regarding tax avoidance rules introduced in the Finance Bill, Accountancy Age has learned.

Legislation to prevent the practice of disguised remuneration, which uses trusts to provide non-repayable tax free loans and offshore pension schemes to avoid tax, was included in the Finance Bill.

However, section 554E (8) says the legislation "does not apply by reason of a relevant step taken by the Independent Parliamentary Standards Authority (IPSA) in relation to a member of the House of Commons".

Lest we forget, MPs are still exempt from the laws surrounding benefits in kind too.

It seems that our Lords and Masters simply will not learn—until, that is, they are adorning 646 good-looking lamp-posts.

Then they might just begin to work it out...

UPDATE: following his comment, I am reminded that one of those who would escape the air tap-dance is DK mascot, Steve Baker MP—who declares himself furious, over at ConservativeHome.

I am furious. Who could possibly think that special tax treatment for MPs is a good idea? Who could possibly think that MPs would get away with it if they tried it?

But wait. Who drafts Government bills? Not back-bench Members of Parliament... In whose interests is it to keep Members of Parliament up to their armpits in the brown stuff? I smell a rat.

The implication seems to be that IPSA might have some advantage in making MPs look like self-serving shysters: I would suggest that one could actually ascribe this motive to the entire Civil Service. Which is why I have always maintained that the first thing that I would do, were I ever Prime Minister, would be to sack—instantly and with immediate effect—at least the top three grades of Civil Servant.

There should be no special treatment for anyone before the law, least of all those who make it.

Unfortunately, as anyone who has read Hannan and Carswell's The Plan will know, this isn't the first example of special treatment for MPs. Beyond the freedom to speak in Parliament with impunity, all legal privilege for MPs must end. We must suffer the same pain and inconvenience as the rest of the people of this country.

Well, I entirely agree with that...

I have written to the Chancellor, asking him to remove this provision. I hope colleagues reading this will do likewise.

Good luck with that...

Penny's dreadful

It will hardly be a surprise that, like The Appalling Strangeness, I had a bit of a giggle when Guido highlighted the rampant hypocrisy inherent in Laurie Penny's advert for a researcher.

The job is to “find statistics and quotes and case studies, talk over what I’m writing and hunt down sources and stories for me, and keep meticulous notes of all sources in academic format.” For this the lowly researcher will be paid the grand sum of £500 for 85 hours work. As a fearless left-wing campaigner for higher living standards for the workers surely Laurie must know that £5.88 per hour is short of the minimum wage and far from the “living wage” she publicly supports (£7.85). Apparently the job would “suit someone who is currently out of work, working part-time, or parenting”. What planet is she on that she thinks parents can afford childcare on £5.88 per hour?

Even more controversial than the flouting of minimum wage legislation is her contempt for sexual equality legislation. She clearly states: “I’m probably looking for a female researcher”. The EHRC clearly says: “Stating a preference for a man or woman in a job advertisement is unlawful sex discrimination unless the requirements of the particular job mean that it is lawful to employ only a man or a woman”. Form an orderly queue…

All jolly hilarious but, to be fair to Laurie, she does point out that the research could be done at home and, in the main, through the internet—as such, it's not as though a parent would necessarily need to get childcare.

Although, of course, if one is not working alongside the great Penny Red, then it is going to be extremely difficult for Laurie to make good on her offer to "make you tea at any hour".

What really grips my shit though, is that darling Penny says that "this will be a lump sum coming out of my own not terribly well-stuffed pocket" and that she wishes she...

... could afford to pay the living wage for this rather than just minimum wage, but that's not an option for me at the moment.

First, £500 divided by 85 hours works out at £5.88—not the minimum wage of £5.93. So, not much of a problem: you just need to work fewer hours. After all, Penny is paying a lump sum for a certain amount of work to be done, not a certain number of hours.

However, if Laurie Penny cannot afford to pay £7.85 an hour, why the living fuck does she think that anyone else can afford to? Does she think that every else's pockets are considerably more stuffed than hers? Is she, as I suspect, one of these utter morons who imagines that companies—or, indeed, individuals—have vast amounts of magic money that they can just splurge around with gay abandon?

Yes, she probably is.

Because, like most socialists, she will be unable to connect her impecuniousness with anyone else's. After all, in Laurie's world, everyone is considerably richer than her, eh?

Second, as I did with the equally delectable Kezia Dugdale, it is worth looking at this "living wage"—because it is a complete and utter nonsense.

1. A person working a 37.5 hour week on the minimum wage earns £11,563.50 yearly. Once tax is deducted, that person takes home £9,903.02.


2. A person working a 37.4 hour week on the "living wage" earns £15,307.50 and, after tax, takes home £12,486.38.

As Timmy has repeatedly pointed out, we could practically eliminate the difference between the minimum wage and the living wage simply by extorting less money from the poor.

Then we have the living wage enthusiasts, those who would insist that wages should come up to the £7.60 an hour which constitutes the pre-tax income needed to live not in poverty as defined by the public through the Joseph Rowntree Trust. That’s 58% of median wage.

Now, I’ve long contended that there’s a trick being missed here. The difference between £5.91 an hour and having a personal allowance for tax and NI of £12,000 and £7.60 an hour under the current tax system is, for post tax income, if I remember my calculations properly, something like 3 pence an hour. So we can achieve our (joint, yes, I desire it too) desire of taking the working poor out of poverty simply by not taxing them so damn much.

Quite. Plus, of course, we will avoid all of those unfortunate undesired consequences discussed in Timmy's post.

Do we see her backing lower government spending in order to afford lower taxes for the poor?

Do we fuck.

What we do see is Laurie campaigning for everyone else to be forced to pay a certain wage level, whilst crying crocodile tears because she, herself, cannot—or, more likely, will not.

Why doesn't she follow the example of her favourite Labour government and put it all on someone else's credit card...?

Austerity hypocrites

Brendan O'Neill has a rather excellent article up at The First Post, pointing out that the Greens (and their Islington-dwelling useful idiots) are screaming hypocrites.

Liberal, left-wing and green-leaning commentators are outraged by George Osborne's spending review, claiming it will lower people's living standards and throw thousands on to the dole queue. Which is a bit rich, considering that many of the liberal intelligentsia have been agitating for austerity for years.

Time and again, liberal thinkers have told us that we must learn to live with less "stuff", for the sake of our own sanity and for the good of the people-plagued planet.

So don't be fooled by their crocodile tears today—they laid the cultural foundation stones for this age of hardship.

These austerity hypocrites have short memories. This week, the Guardian's George Monbiot wrote an angry piece about the Tory-led cuts agenda, claiming that it will help the rich and hurt the rest.

"When we stagger out of our shelters to assess the damage, we'll discover that we have emerged into a different world, run for their benefit, not ours", he said.

This is the same Monbiot who wrote a piece in 2007 titled 'Bring on the recession'.

"I hope that the recession now being forecast by some economists materialises", he said, because only a recession could give us "the time we need to prevent runaway climate change".

A recession would hurt poor people, he acknowledged—but that was a price worth paying to halt out-of-control economic growth.

Do go and read the rest—taking note of the names on the roll-call of shame...

Chutzpah

Richard Murphy—a man retired from a profession only slightly less despised than that of lawyers—waxes lyrical about the right-wing blogosphere again.

[The "right wing blogosphere"] seem to be the ultimate definition of negativity—talk, and obstruction to all action for the common good.

I wonder if they ever actually created anything?

I'm sorry but... What?

I am a software designer and general creative artist. I have created hundreds of pieces of artwork for theatre shows, businesses, think tanks and charities, and designed and created a lot of software that enables people to be more productive in their work.

Richard, on the other hand, was an accountant.

And he is wondering if I have created anything...?

Timmy, of course, has a reply too...

Too much information

Tom Watson MP: a man who has, clearly, Eaten All Of The Pies. I assume he became an MP simply because he realised that only by sponging huge amounts of money off the taxpayer could he possibly feed a pie addiction this large.

Now, obviously I don't condone the phone-hacking by the News Of The World, but am I the only person that thinks that Labour MPs—and their pathetic hangers-on at the Grauniad—are a bunch of fucking hypocrites?

I mean, this is a party which, when in government, passed legislation to enable them to intercept and examine every, single iota of our communications—and now they are kicking up a stink about the fact that the appointments of a few no-nothing, colossally stupid 'slebs (who were, apparently, incapable of taking even some basic security precautions) were revealed in a tabloid rag?

Sure, cracking the voicemail accounts of such worthless individuals is pretty bloody pathetic but, to my mind, the rampant hypocrisy of those currently spouting streams of false outrage (that we have to pay for) is pretty sickening, frankly.

Oh, and a note to Our New Coalition Overlords™: any time that you want to start repealing some of NuLabour's authoritarian and intrusive legislation, you just go ahead, yeah? Anyone?

Bueller...?

What a strange hero

Margaret Hodge: "I love the sound of children screaming in the morning."

In a depressingly self-serving article, Brown's pollster and shyster, Deborah Mattinson, wibbles on about immigration.

Most insultingly, however, she builds Margaret Hodge MP into some kind of people's champion.

Mrs Hodge was a local hero: here, at last, was a politician who was prepared to listen to voters and speak out on their behalf.

Obnoxio points out that she was, essentially, just someone who said what the public wanted to hear—which is, of course, being a politician through and through.

However, long-time readers of The Kitchen will know that your humble Devil has a loathing for Margaret Hodge for entirely another reason—one that is laid out in this Telegraph article at some length (and also in this Grauniad timeline).

All right-thinking people like to imagine, when hearing stories of the maltreatment of children, that they themselves would guarantee sanctuary. But often they simply don't. A senior social worker, Liz Davies, and her manager, David Cofie, first told Margaret Hodge, then leader of Islington council, in 1990 of their suspicions that there was widespread sexual abuse of children in Islington care homes.

Ms Hodge instead believed senior officials who assured her that nothing was the matter. In 1992, the London Evening Standard published extensive evidence of the abuse, which Ms Hodge denounced as "a sensationalist piece of gutter journalism". In 1995, an independent report found that the council had indeed failed to investigate the allegations properly.

As the author notes, in 2003 Tony Blair appointed Margaret Hodge to be the first ever Minister For Children which remains, in my opinion, possibly the cheekiest "fuck you" that Chuckles ever doled out to the British people.

That Margaret "la-la-la, I can't hear the screams of the children being raped" Hodge would accept such a post is adequate enough to tell you what a shameless little shit she is—even without her dog-whistle, BNP-aping whining in previous elections.

So, whilst Margaret Hodge was prepared to "prepared to listen to voters and speak out on their behalf", she was not, apparently, prepared to listen to staff members who told her that there was systematic child abuse going on in the care homes run by the Council that she headed up. And so she just let it continue.

There is no real point to this post, other than to remind people what this disgusting woman actually stands for: to keep foremost in people's minds that Margaret Hodge represents BNP-style immigration laws and systematic child abuse.