So things get done with a nod and a wink and a quiet word at the bar. That’s as old as human society. Sometimes it’s done for greed and the results are to the detriment of others, often it’s just thoughtless. Sometimes it’s efficient and all benefit. Official channels can be cumbersome, getting something done …
Tag archives: UK Politics
Budget Bits
Saint Rishi’s budget mostly seemed sensible enough. A Hindu’s very Augustinian approach: “Grant us tax to pay this monstrous debt, but not yet”. There’ll be quibbles: taking away the paltry £20 surplus to our stingy dole at precisely when unemployment is expected to be worst is mean, but probably stupid rather than pernicious. His numbers …
Do They Know It’s 0.2% At All?
Saint Rishi’s clawing back of a promised international development spend with a 60% funding withdrawl to what the UN is calling “the largest humanitarian crisis in the world” is callous in the extreme. Apparently Honest Boris’s clique have killed enough at home, time to move on. 400,000 children are an easy target. It’s OK. They’re …
Exams
Hail Gavin Williamson, who will save us from the evils of the dreaded ‘Algorithm’. And yea he shall make the teachers do a load of work, deliver us unto school result inconsistency and shall inflate the grades. Eh why? Last year was an inexcusable exam car crash, and it’s nice to see this year we’ll …
National Friends and Foes
Alex the Groper is causing trouble for Saint Nicola. If he succeeds his allegations would cost her job. Without her halo the Scottish National Party would be a less invincible body. People might notice they’d been making a mess of running a country; the one-party rule would be less attractive; getting a secession referendum (and …
Unlockdowning I
Honest Boris announced “Data not Dates”, then gave a list of dates. Actually the approach sounds sensible enough. Good to see there’s a monitoring period between each unwind (let’s see if he can stick to it). After a year of the rash optimism of someone with no scientific or mathematical education and a life of …
Nice to hear you Keir
After a very very very long period of abject silence and letting the UK’s most incompetent ever government get away with it Sir Keir piped up today. Hello! What he said wasn’t that impressive (from the news snippets I gathered), but better than nothing. Actually he does need to be sounding the statesman and proposing …
Two Million out of work
The Resolution Foundation reckons over 4 million were on some kind of furlough at the start of the year, and that 1.9 million have been like that or unemployed for over six months. After that long you lose the skills and habits to just walk into a new job. It’s not getting better any time …
Missing in action
It’s unusual for me to complain about the silence of others, but I find myself with two such gripes these days. The Johnson cabal is possibly the most incompetent government the UK has ever had, and corrupt to boot. But if nobody says so then nobody hears so. There was once a man called Starmer …
Why the Liberals should become the New Tories
Westminster politics is split into two groups: The Conservative Party and the Not-Conservative Parties. The latter traditionally fish in the same pool of votes. The Conservatives themselves are split into two: The Business-Friendly – a practical centre-right bloc, and The Little Englanders – a blend of nationalists, tub-thumpers and fantasists. On policyThe Liberal Democrats have …
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