They’ll always get it

“Greedy Bankers still don’t get it”, screamed the headline in the Daily Disaster. Wrong. As the story explained, they’re still getting huge wads of bonus cash. And what the government is failing to do is get compensation from their employers for the havoc they wrought.

Oh, well, that makes it all okay

According to the Squeaker of the House of Commons, MPs stole from the taxpayer with expenses swindles only because they were bored and feeling left out of things. Which means that MPs are the sort of people who turn to crime rather than looking for something constructive to do. No wonder the country is in such a mess.

New name, same scandal

I see that Plebgate has now been renamed Plodgate now that the Can’t Prosecute Service has decided it can’t stop coppers fitting up anyone they like and getting away with it.

More cash down the drain

How comforting to know that the DVLA employs gangs of people, who screen number plate combinations for imaginary offensive stuff. And which idiot reckons that 14 can be made to look like 1 or A? SO63OMY is in the eye of the beholder. Likewise AL14LAH. But it’s only public money that’s being wasted.

Plebgate whitewash

I wonder how many millions of pounds were spent on the year-long “investigation” into how the former Tory chief whip Andrew Mitchell was stitched up by the police? All of them wasted with the usual bucket of whitewash thrown over the whole business. Makes you proud to be British.

They do it all the time

Some mysterious company/person is getting on at Sainsbury’s for removing Typhoo tea from their shelves. Which sounds like an excellent idea, given that Sainsbury’s have a long history of stopping stocking things that people want just to annoy the customers.

You could see that coming

All the Labour Eds have been playing the victim card for all they are worth, claiming their Co-op Bank antics are nothing but smears invented by the Tories. Now, the Rev. Flowers is doing it. No one is to blame for nuffink. He’ll be wanting a peerage next.

Waste is the EU way

“We’re spending money we don’t have on a problem that doesn’t exist at the behest of people we didn’t elect.” – D. Carswell, MP, on the EU’s grab of an extra £1.5 billion from the British taxpayer to blow on climate change aid which won’t make a blind bit of difference.

Water off a duck’s back, mate!

N. Clegg (Liberal, especially with taxpayers’ cash) thinks that people who want Britain to leave the EU are unpatriotic. But is anyone going to be bothered about being called names by a Quisling, who can’t say anything bad about the EU because it would cost him money?

Universal ban

The European Union, and its stooges in the British government, are planning to ban the sale of anything which can be used in explosive devices. Alternatively, anyone who wants to buy things like hydrogen peroxide for dyeing hair, or acetone for removing nail varnish will have to pay for a licence. If the politicians get their way, expect washing up liquid to be added to the list of things needing a licence, as it can be used to make a form of napalm, and sawdust, which is an essential component of home-made dynamite, and everything else they think they can get away with.

It’s never in proportion

So the Rev. Flowers, formerly of the Co-op bank and formerly the best mate of E. Balls and E. Milipede, has been exposed as an expenses swindler? No wonder he was so at home in the Labour party, whose former Europe Minister, D. MacShane, is about to go to gaol for the same thing. He got away with only £13,000 whilst Flowers is alleged to have collected £150,000. So is Flowers likely to go to gaol for 12 times longer than MacShane? Or is he likely ever to grace one of Her Majesty’s custodial establishments? Probably not.

Who are the biggest crooks?

It seems to be a toss-up between the nation’s criminals and the police force managers, who think they have a divine right to make serious crimes vanish into thin air to meet targets for making the crime rate shrink. Naturally, no one is going to be arrested for fraud.

Gaze firmly averted

Under New Labour, the defunct Financial Services Authority cleared a coke- and meth-head to become the chairman of the Co-op bank, even though he had zero banking experience. Which almost makes you understand how Gordon Brown, the ruinator of the British economy, came to be touted as a future head of the International Monetary Fund.

It makes you wonder

Hardly a night goes by without someone asking for £3 a month to keep some endangered animal alive – a creature which is about to go extinct in the wild. But not extinct. It’s now fashionable for rich young men in the Gulf states to own a lion or a cheetah as a status symbol. And there are more tigers in private collections in the United States than in the Indian sub-continent. Which kind of puts the appeals into perspective.

What does the Coalition’s Green Deal mean to the taxpayer?

A loft insulation job worth £1,200 costs the taxpayer £2,700 after the cost of the government’s red tape has been added on. And the power companies, which were allowed to put their bills up to pay for insulation and boiler swaps, have raked in £870 million but only done work worth £420 million. So it’s a nice little earner for them.

Science comment of the Year

Question: How do you get rid of Daleks?
Answer: Get Prof. Brian Cox to bore them to death!
    Seen in yesterday’s Daily Mail TV review column

Oh, no!

The world is going to end on 22nd February next year, according to the Vikings. So everybody rush round to help me spend all my money before that happens. Please!

Some swindles are as old as the hills

Am I surprised to hear that sweet manufacturers are putting less in a box of Xmas chocs, which stays the same size and the same price? Of course, not. They’ve been doing it for years. I remember the row when they took one Rollo out of the packet but kept the price the same. And Mars bars used to be twice the size they are now. Less for More has always been the rule in the food industry.

Some people are easily surprised

Was I surprised to hear that young people have no idea where to find a local branch of their bank? Nope. I used to have a local branch, but the bank closed it years ago – “for the convenience of its customers” – and I’ve had to use the internet and the Post Office every since. In fact, the bank misses me a whole lot more than I miss it. It keeps sending me letters full of elementary mistakes telling me that someone has been trying to contact me (not true) but hasn’t managed it, so would I kindly drop in at my local branch, or any branch in the country, so that they can discuss my financial state and try to sell me products which I don’t need.

Wrong, after all

You get the feeling that the Universe does work sometime when the papers dig up a piece of research like this. After years of strident badgering by the free-range lobby, a study has found that chickens living in cages indoors are less stressed and less pecked than their free-range counterparts, who run around in a pack outdoors.

It’s good to have quick-thinking friends!

I liked the story about the Scottish golfer, who was attacked by a crocodile on a golf course in Mexico. He survived because a friend kept running over the beast in a golf buggy until it let go of him. Apparently, the course has a history of croc attack, but there are no warning signs – presumably because they would be bad for business.

It’s only taxpayers’ cash again

It comes as no surprised to learn that the Tory MP who sets world records with his expenses has been exposed as a swindler. N. Zahawi has been sticking the taxpayer with bills for things like heating his riding stables and a mobile home. All as a result of an complete oversight, of course; strange how these things never happen in the taxpayer’s favour. All of which explains why Mr. Zahawi is so keen to bring in Press censorship.

It’s only taxpayers’ cash

The government has just admitted that use of coal-fired power station soared last winter. This was mainly because low wind speeds meant that wind farms were unable to generate power. So having 25% more turbines cost the nation a lot of money but delivered zero benefit to the country. Which is pretty much the definition of government, come to think of it.

Same old story

I happened to catch a programme featuring Prof. Brian Cox yesterday: Can we make a star on Earth? Prof. Cox was pretending that generating power from fossil fuels is causing dangerous warming of the planet (which is isn't). As none of the alternatives; wind, solar, biomass, etc.; can bridge the gap, he asked what about nuclear fusion? Which was the Next Big Thing in the 1970s but things went very quiet on that front decades ago. He visited a laser-fusion experiment with a target of a result in 2-3 years (i.e. in 2011 – so what happened to it?) He also visited a team hoping to create fusion using plasma. But results are not expected for decades. Pretty much the same story as in the 1970s.

Sounds like a silly question to me

The question of the day is: Are mutant super-rats taking over the Commons? We are told that the management of the Parliament building is spending over £6,000/month on the pests but they are feared to be poison-resistant. Which indicates that something more drastic is needed to cut the numbers of thieving scroungers – like small, tactical neutron bombs?

Paid to oblige

It comes as no surprise to hear that some forensic accounting on the case for the government’s H2S rail link has made the wheels come off. The accountants were paid (taxpayers’ cash) to come up with BIG benefits. The only problem is that they got overly creative with their statistics to generate a profit of £16 Billion. But that’s politics all over. The taxpayer is screwed and the politicians come up with a load of hot air.

Just how gullible do they think we are?

DfID, the department for shoving British taxpayers’ cash into the pockets of dictators and spivs, would have us believe that we made no contribution at all to India’s launch of a Mars orbiter. But it they hadn’t received the cash, they wouldn’t have been able to afford a space programme. So DfID is lying again.

Scroungers’ Charter

It seems that 340 out of 655 MPs think they have the right to stick the taxpayer with the bill for heating and lighting their 2nd home on expenses. And some of them are demanding thousands of pounds – four times the average punter’s bill in one case – because they have an overdeveloped sense of entitlement and an underdeveloped sense of decency. So much for public service.

Another reversal of fortunes

How wonderful it is that the latest research has shown that butter is better for you than all the polyunsaturates in the artificial concoctions the “health food” industry has been trying to foist off on us for years.

Stick him in gaol!

Failed prime minister Gordon Brown is now claiming to be an ex-politician. As he’s still a Member of Parliament, and drawing a salary from the taxpayer, shouldn’t the Old Bill be heading round to his gaff to feel his collar for fraud?

It’s a start

A writer book, no doubt trying to remind everyone about his latest book, has complained that all they taught his kids about at school were the Nazis and global warming. He should count himself lucky that he found a school which actually taught them something!

That’s okay, then

His mates describe the bloke who went on the rampage and shot up L.A. airport as a “nice guy”. Which makes everything all right, doesn’t it?

Me neither

Did you find any cash in the envelope in today’s Daily Mail? One of my relatives, who wishes to remain anonymous, believes that you will get some cash only if you are related to the editor!

No, we’ll just carry on

Will we be cancelling Bonfire Night because the fire brigade is going on strike this weekend? No, because we’re having our bonfire party next Tuesday, on November 5th, and we have our own arrangements anyway.