Yes – the blood of a unicorn foal for breakfast, for
everyone over the age of 63 ¾ born in a crop circle on a Wednesday.
Miliband pledges to make a job for everyone under 35
with his toenail clippings and Miriam promises to show us how to sauté Nick’s
cojones.
If you wondered why the electoral promises are sliding
off political tongues like manure off a hot shovel or a bad production of
Romeo and Juliet - it’s the coalition stupid.
Clegg proved (see last week’s blog) that faced with
the possibility of government without a majority you can say whatever you
bloody well like. Even the most clear and obvious statements of political
commitment can be ditched later on the basis that you want to be in power.
Simple.
So Cameron attempted to top trump the others by
claiming everyone would be allowed 3 days off a year to volunteer –
contributing to his BIG SOCIETY. BS(!) is a Tory marketing term thrown
out to counteract Maggie’s curse that there’s no such thing as society (for you younger bleaders) which was
tantamount to claiming that human beings have no humanity.
Having not switched off the radio quickly enough I
heard a bit of the blather on Question Time. The Tory wheeled out to defend
this ridiculous notion claimed that people would feel better about themselves
and the cost of – for example – losing a million working days, from nurses
alone, in the NHS would be balanced by less sick leave. SERIOUSLY that was what
was said. They would feel better about themselves because they would be
contributing to society and helping people. Most of us think that is what
nurses are supposed to do within hard-pressed hospitals anyway. Maybe they
spend their shifts playing roulette and no one told us.
I half expect to turn on the radio and find that
Cameron has promised to paint the sky turquoise every other Sunday and Miliband
is going to make manna blow in from the sea. Clegg is going to make the birds
sing at precisely 7am every morning but just at a level to sooth you and not so
loud as to wake you up if you are having a lie in.
Politics was never a straightforward business but
the smoke and mirrors are working overtime in the absence of anyone with a
spine.
Osborne’s fatuous claim that we are doing great and
are better off yada yada yada – just doesn't equate with the world most of us
live in. I can, for example, count a handful of close acquaintances (and I
really don’t know that many people and don’t do any modern social media) who
have had to apply for their OWN JOBS at least three times in the last 5 years.
They are made to feel ‘lucky’ to still have a job albeit with more
responsibility for less pay.
Recently it was revealed that a significant
proportion of supermarket workers have to claim benefits to live. So all that
cheap produce that makes us feel we’re managing is actually being subsidised by
the tax payer. You may be able to get a pint of milk for less than a bottle of
water but it is being paid for elsewhere.
Bankers et al, who wrecked the economy, quietly re-grouped
having never been punished for putting us all in the mire. Meanwhile, the acid clamour
against immigrants and benefit claimants gets louder and more entrenched.
Challenges are not made where they ought to be (blog111.)
It’s the conjurers, con-men and cojone exhibitors who
have us by the short and curlies.