sweasel.com

Labour minister Shahid Malik:

He submitted a bill for £2,100 for a Sony 40in flatscreen TV, only to be told that the maximum allowable claim for televisions was £750. He told the fees office that he was “very upset” at their stance, saying that no one had told him there was a limit on what he could spend. Internal emails between officials in the fees office show that civil servants were taken aback.

“I do not remember him asking if there were limits on a television, just if he could purchase one,” wrote one. “He did not say he was purchasing a £2,100 TV, let alone a 40in plasma one.” A more senior official agreed that “£2,100 for a television is luxurious by anyone’s standards”.

Mr Malik pursued the matter and wrote a letter in March 2006 in which he stated that because no one had told him there was a limit on what he could spend, “from a natural justice perspective I feel a justifiable exception would be the fairest manner to deal with the current situation”.

A 40″ plasma TV, natural justice! Isn’t that precious?

Tory minister Anthony Steen:

It was yesterday that Mr Steen, who blamed Labour for the furore over expenses because it introduced freedom of information laws, said: ‘I have done nothing criminal. Do you know what it’s all about? Jealousy.

‘I have got a very, very large house, some people say it looks like Balmoral. . . but it’s a merchant’s house of the 19th century. It’s not particularly attractive, it just does me nicely.’

Mr Steen, who will stand down at the General Election after 35 years, insisted he had behaved ‘impeccably’ and dismissed the scandal threatening the entire political system as similar to ‘an episode of Coronation Street’.

Mr Steen claimed more than £80,000 from the taxpayer over four years for work at his £1million Devon mansion, including for the treatment of trees.

Asked whether he believed his expenses claims should have been revealed, he said: ‘No. What right does the public have to interfere with my private life? None.’

For me, it’s the sense of oppression that calls down the red mist, at least as much as the realisation that we are being ripped-off.

It’s impossible to convey the sheer weight of government here – the deep reaches of its tentacles into every facet of your life. You drive in cities in the sure and certain knowledge that, sooner or later, you will be busted for something you didn’t even realise you had done. Or was even illegal.

You will have been spotted doing it on a cctv camera (monitored, inevitably, by a recent immigrant) and you will be fined directly by the local authority whose rules you inadvertently flouted. Yes, there is an appeals procedure. No, there is no court appearance and no one has a hope of fighting what they can’t even remember having done – let alone why they might have done it.

Try one tenth of what the right honourable leeches have been getting up to, meanwhile, and HM Revenue and Customs will toast the soles of your pretty feet over hot coals – as any self-employed person here will attest. Those bastards are cynical, merciless and (often, I suspect) enjoy far too much job satisfaction to be on the saintly side of Krafft-Ebing.

And that, really, is the nub of the problem. It’s not just that these porkers have had their snouts in the trough. It’s that they have sat there, purse-lipped neo-puritans, tightening the strings, day by day. More controls, more laws, more penalties, more disapproval. Bad public! Bad BAD public. And damned ungrateful, too!

I mean, who are we to think we know best how to live our lives?

It’s not just the money, as some are suggesting. It’s that we are fed up to the back teeth of being prodded and poked and pinched and fined and governed by these self-righteous, venal little pygmies, whose only qualification for being in government is a deep and abiding belief in their own right to govern.

Me? I’d dispense with the courts, altogether. We used to impale newly-removed heads on London Bridge.

In these dark times when entertainment is expensive and we are all newly poor, surely it would be a bright spot of inexpensive entertainment for the children?

Not to mention an instructive one.

Whoa. Dude.

What astounds me is that Parliament enacted the law (or whatever you folks call it–I’m a New Yorker, we would say “passed the act,” but who knows), and didn’t bother to exempt themselves from it! Possibly it’s just because I AM a New Yorker (our legislature has been ranked “most dysfunctional in the nation,” but they have a healthy sense of self-preservation)–but what WERE they thinking of?

I’m not sure how that happened, actually. I wasn’t here when they passed their Freedom of Information Act.

Umm…and sorry about the stray backslashes. It’s something WordPress does when there’s an apostrophe in a username.

That’s a good point! How could they forget that the freedom of information act would apply to themselves, too? D’oh!!!

“It’s something WordPress does. . .”

Whew! (dashes sweat off brow) I thought it was something dumb I did, and I thought “well, so much for first impressions!

The American Congress knows enough to exempt the Federal Government from burdens it is willing to impose on everyone else. . .Federal government (and related agencies like the Post Office) is exempt from most (possibly all) of our civil rights laws. . .

S. Weasel and Uncle B, do I hear a hammering noise in the background? Like the sound of guillotines being built?

The question is [and this probably would go more to Uncle Badger] is what are Brits going to do about it? As I understand it, your PM is unelected, and is stalling mightily to avoid having to call elections, perhaps in the hopes of the Lisbon Treaty giving Britain’s sovereignty to the EU before he loses power. You really don’t have an electoral alternative as the Tories believe pretty much the same as Labour. I don’t see any Guy Fawkes’ on the horizon, and y’all seem to be both disarmed and cowed.

I don’t have any solutions, but I am curious what a Brit living under this government might see as a solution.

Subotai Bahadur

Asked whether he believed his expenses claims should have been revealed, he said: ‘No. What right does the public have to interfere with my private life? None.’

WTF?

Sounds like our dem congress and their parasitic constituents.

I listen to them and wonder aloud, ‘Seriously, did you just hear what you said?’

And what Subotai asked.

I get a vague sense that Uncle Badger has some feelings and thoughts on this subject, but is somewhat reluctant to share them. Come on Uncle B – tell us what you really think!

Sounds like our dem congress and their parasitic constituents.

Only moreso. I honestly can’t imagine even the most callous of our current crop of dems being quite so brazen about it.

This guy’s so dense he’s affecting the freaking tides.

Also:
self-righteous, venal little pygmies

This is quite nice.

Subotai Bahadur – you’ve put your finger right on the problem.

Just to clarify, when people speak of Brown being unelected, it’s a little more complicated than it sounds. For those who don’t understand our system, what happens is that we vote for MPs, not a party (in theory at any rate). MPs from the party that wins then elect their leader, who becomes PM.

So Brown is an elected MP – albeit for a Scottish constituency.

Where it gets tricky is because his party, Labour, never had the chance to vote for or against him. He was elected unopposed when Tony B. Liar shuffled out of the back door, to the sound of a shredder furiously destroying any documents that might incriminate him.

So Brown is unelected by his own party and his party has never stood for election with him as the likely PM.

As to what we can do, the tendency here is always to dismiss ourselves as too easy going and placid to do anything at all. By and large this is true. Heads should have rolled for any number of things done in this country by a succession of lying traitors, since Harold Wilson in the 1960s (the blessed St Margaret being the sole, shining exception).

That could be a dangerous assumption, however, as on the rare occasions anything moves us to action, we tend to get rather serious about it.

There will not, of course, be a revolution. We aren’t French, after all. What is most likely to happen is that a large number of us will vote for one of the minority parties – possibly even the British National Party (BNP) – a hitherto fringe nationalist/socialist party with some nasty antecedents and the scourge of the BBC and liberal-Left, who still, ignorantly, refer to it as a ‘far Right’ party.

Others (myself among them, quite likely) will vote for the UKIP, which campaigns to get us out of Europe and tends towards libertarianism.

The UKIP won’t win and, if they did, would almost certainly be as useless as their predecessors, but it will send a chill through the marrow of the three main parties and the political classes in general.

And, yes, what that means is we will, in effect, achieve nothing, because there is no viable alternative for which we can vote – a feeling I recognise from her Ladyship’s agonising over the choice between McCain and the Obamessiah.

If I’m wrong and we do decide to stage a revolution, I’ll let y’all know in good time, as we will need to borrow that magnificent constitution of yours to copy.

Might need a few guns, too, if you could spare them.

Well, I don’t know that our Congresscritters even bother to play the victim card for their expenses anymore. This last pay raise was basically a “bend over, bitch” bit of thuggery that is breathtaking in its assumptions. Self-survival? It’s the American Way. None of that wussy whining.

And to think: our Congressional Cossacks do it to an armed populace. That takes some kinda moxie.

Someone once likened the British people to a cow, which spends all its life standing placidly in a field chewing its cud. Except every once in a while when it completely loses its fcuking mind. (I once saw a very nice young heifer take exception to a running tractor and charge it head-first).

It’s pretty apt. I’m amazed at the placidity with which the British public accepts insult. And yet. You get hints of what it is capable of.

The fuel protests of 2000, for example — in response to swingeing fuel taxes, truckers and farmers rose up and blockaded the refineries. It was swift and disruptive and it looked like it might get nasty.

As it happens, it didn’t (and subsequent re-enactments have been duds). But the government backed down at the time. I was here then, and it felt…full of scary potential.

“What is most likely to happen is that a large number of us will vote for one of the minority parties – possibly even the British National Party (BNP) – a hitherto fringe nationalist/socialist party with some nasty antecedents and the scourge of the BBC and liberal-Left, who still, ignorantly, refer to it as a ‘far Right’ party.”

Something much more likely to happen now that the furore has blown up over the Queen’s Garden Party invite.

Not content with just letting the queen deal with guests she may not care for in her own, inimitable fashion (something she’s spent her life doing, after all), the Mayor of London has weighed in with suggestions that Nick Griffin be somehow ‘disinvited’.

Big mistake. Goes against the English ‘fair play’ concept. The idiots should have kept their mouths shut. Now they’ve given the BNP more publicity, and cast them in the role of underdog…

Uncle Badger [and her Ladyship],

You may know from news reports that weapons and ammunition are considered high value items and their sales are about the only things not adversely affected by the recession here. However, if we are not actually busy using them at the time, I suspect that some might wander your way.

As for St. Margaret; I have thought well of her since we first heard of her over here. However, when she rendered Royal Honors at the funeral of the last real president my country has had; it became love.

Subotai Bahadur

[…] S. Weasel MP’S ARE SO VERY FUCKING TONE DEAF. I cannot believe how badly these bozos are playing it — all whiny and butthurt. They compare themselves aloud to “other professionals” like doctors — yeah? What exactly are the qualifications for MP again? — and I guess their fantasy doctors live like rock stars and premier league footballers. Alternating snot-monsters and victims; the worst possible reaction. The only major figure who seems to understand how scary-mad the public is is David Cameron (mixed feelings on this; I can’t stand him). […]

The analogy of the British people to a placid herbivore that goes spastic when sufficiently provoked is apt. In 1939, there were questions raised in Parliament about the propriety of the Bomber Command’s tactics as regarded private property in Germany. By 1945, we were laying waste to entire cities every night.

There is, of course, a deal of ribaldry creeping in when it comes to our porky little solons. But the mood has been curiously subdued. Polite, even. And that, my friends, is a perilous sign. As Kipling put it, Et Dona Ferentes.

…

Oh, my country, bless the training that from cot to castle runs
The pitfall of the stranger but the bulwark of thy sons
Measured speech and ordered action, sluggish soul and un-perturbed,
Till we wake our Island-Devil – nowise cool for being curbed!

When the heir of all the ages “has the honour to remain,”
When he will not hear an insult, though men make it ne’er so plain,
When his lips are schooled to meekness, when his back is bowed to blows
Well the keen aas-vogels know it – well the waiting jackal knows.

Build on the flanks of Etna where the sullen smoke-puffs float
Or bathe in tropic waters where the lean fin dogs the boat
Cock the gun that is not loaded, cook the frozen dynamite
But oh, beware my Country, when my Country grows polite!

At the risk of seeming to pile on:

“Lacrimatus est Iesus”, is everyone in the government over there on the take for cheap? Is this guy going to stand to be the new Speaker of the House of Commons?

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/uk/article6353894.ece

In the past I have been involved in security clearances. For things to get this bad, the rot has to start with the government officials in charge.

Uncle Badger, we may have to send those requested items soon, because time is getting short.

Subotai Bahadur

To be perfectly fair to them, MP’s were strongly encouraged to use the allowances and think of them as “supplemental income.” And none of them thought the actual paperwork would ever be published.

For example, nobody actually submitted a receipt for Tampax or a 5p grocery bag. What they did was submit a whole supermarket receipt under the food allowance, and things that were not food appeared alongside food. It’s outrageous that their food was comped at all, of course, but the way the claimed it wasn’t as shabby and petty as the individual items made it seem. And many of the silly claims were turned down.

That said, some MP’s made claims that were clearly fraudulent, while others didn’t claim anything at all. So it is a genuine scandal.

Heh. From this side of the pond, the whole thing looks pretty funny. But as to Uncle Badger’s complaint regarding oppressive government intervention in every facet of life, increasing daily, we have a phrase to cover that over here…

You’re F***ed. And you did it to yourselves. Don’t get me wrong – I’m not being smug. We’re right behind you on the road to hell. But I must say that you Brits have a sense of silliness that we Americans truly admire.

Testing. testing 🙂

😛 🙁

Hurrah!

🙂

Yay! Smilies are fixed! I finally booted up my desktop machine — and hooked it up to our big-ass TV! w00t!

You should SEE HalfLife2!

To be perfectly fair to them, MP’s were strongly encouraged to use the allowances and think of them as “supplemental income.”

Their income should then be adjusted or their days needed in London reduced or they should have ‘dorm’ of some sort. The fewer days in government = better for everyone.

Open-ended ‘allowance’ is a recipe for more corrupt and ‘entitlement’. That is just insane.

I really should come here more for the edumacation.

Thanks S Weasel!

also I am making my way back up to the hinterland northeast next month, and it makes me sad that you won’t be there to tell me you’re a chick.

I shall buck up, as buckaroos do.

Best,

Awww, Dave. I left for Jollye Olde the day before the first Connecticut moronapalooza with lauraw. I may never see New England again 🙁 (I don’t have any ties to the area, bein’ a Tennessee weasel and all).

Would have been awesome to meet you, O Stoaty One.

never see new england again!!? how can you give up the land of six month winter, the home of the only senator to openly commit murder and leave me as one of the few registered republicans north of the mason-dixon line?!!

Sounds like the good people of the Home Islands need to start attending local government meetings en masse. Then you get out the guillotines.

We Yanks enjoy articles such as these, if only to pick up British slang terms while learning how your MPS are hard at work screwing you — just like here!!

Who do you think, for example, paid for Botox Pelosi to travel to Shanghai for Dim Sum? (She probably does not know that Dim Sum means “I am dim” in Latin.)

We don’t use the word “butthurt” here in the colonies, but I will do my part to see that it enters the American language.

Carry on smartly.

“To be perfectly fair to them, MP’s were strongly encouraged to use the allowances and think of them as “supplemental income.””
Well, sure. But, um, er, just who encouraged them? “They were encouraged to” is an excuse only if the person doing the encouraging was in a position of superior authority. These (although I concede I don’t know all that much about the United Kingdom government structure) pretty much are the superior authority, yes? As with “I was just following orders,” the explanation is unsatisfactory once you move above the cannon fodder level.

Having said that I’ll concede that, as a Yank, I can’t brag on pretty much anyone in office at the State or National level throughout my adulthood as a model of personal responsibility with respect to chowing down at the public trough. But it’s surprisingly fun to be able to make snide remarks about politicians who can’t (directly) affect my future. Probably bad for the soul, though.

“We don’t use the word “butthurt” here in the colonies”

Lolwut?

“It’s impossible to convey the sheer weight of government here – the deep reaches of its tentacles into every facet of your life. You drive in cities in the sure and certain knowledge that, sooner or later, you will be busted for something you didn’t even realise you had done. Or was even illegal.”

So when are you moving here? (Or to Alaska…)

one of the few registered republicans north of the mason-dixon line?!!

Never been to Central PA, huh?

But seriously, the remaining conservatives in New England and NY need to move to PA to help us take back the state!

[…] Stephan Tawney S. Weasel has it all broken down for us Yanks. It’s quite a bit more serious than I had imagined. You really need to read the […]

S. Weasel, between your original and U. Badger’s scalding rejoinders, you’ve truly delivered the mincemeat here. (The authentic kind, not the fruitcake-in-a-pie imitation.)

We’re in Canada for the year, and the experience of living outside the country has given me pause with regard to how much more kleptomaniacal a government can become under the guise of fairness and with the benefit of a docile (& unarmed) population. But what I am coming to realize is that Canada is only on the halfway point of the curve, and, worse, that it would be oh so easy for the U.S. to end up EXACTLY where this country finds itself.

In terms of venality and corruption, Jakeman, the US wins hands down. I’ve lived in two of the most staggeringly corrupt states in the Union (Tennessee and Rhode Island) and I became accustomed to the Feds hauling off big chunks of the legislature (and occasionally the executive) every few years. The former mayor of Providence was re-elected to the post after his first stint in prison for kidnapping and assault (and I’ve got a side-bet with a friend he’ll be elected again after his second stint in prison, for conspiracy and corruption).

Modern Brits are complete virgins at this. Though a few MP’s have done things that are illegal enough to come to the attention of the cops, most of these guys are acting well within the rules. It’s the rules that are fucked.

Yikes. I’ll defer to your perspective on that; I grew up in Taxachusetts, did a little time in CT, but moved to Phoenix shortly after college. AZ is by and large a live-and-let-live type of state. Perhaps I’m being naive and being robbed blind without even knowing it. I know what’s happened to my stock portfolio. But I also clearly see what Canada is going to take from self-employed me in taxes, and it gives me angina.

So, I’ll bite: Do you think that the rules can actually be changed (UK or US), or are we just raging against the machine?

[…] Sounds a lot like the sort of things you’d expect from Congress. […]

If the election were held today, estimates are about half the six-hundred-forty-something bastards would be voted out of office. That is HUGE.

Brown has some latitude here — he doesn’t have to hold an election until this time next year, at the outmost. But rumor has it he may be pressured into calling the general election in October.

Anyhow, yes. I think this will have profound effect on the very narrow issue of MP’s expenses. Whether it has such an effect on the creeping tyranny of nanny-staters and greenies, I have less hope.

The next thing to watch are the European elections in early June. The EU is a corrupt, venal body beyond the wildest wet dreams of a South American banana republic or an African kleptocracy. Since this election doesn’t ‘matter’ — the EU will be the same den of thieves and scoundrels no matter what — bets are the British electorate is going to show its displeasure by voting in surprising numbers for the minor parties.

“The former mayor of Providence was re-elected to the post after his first stint in prison for kidnapping and assault…”

Really..? Good grief, our blokes are amateurs then!

And weasel has never lived in Chicago, where term limits is an FBI corruption investigation, or Los Angeles where being jailed for a felony doesn’t even mean you have to leave office.

Yes, a sitting city council man was sitting in jail.

Well, he didn’t dirty is own hands with the kidnapping, Julia. Buddy Cianci is a big shot, after all. He got a state trooper to kidnap his ex-wife’s new boyfriend so he could stub out cigars on the man’s chest.

Before he was elected the first time, there was a credible rape accusation against him in Texas. It never came to trial. But when I moved to Providence in 1978, someone had made up bumperstickers in the style of Cianci’s campaign stickers, with the word “rapist” substituted for “Cianci.”

Thirty years ago this was, and he’s out of prison now and hosting a radio show in town. People in Providence love this guy. Don’t ask my why.

Anyhow, Oldcat wins the prize: Chicago is the most famously corrupt city in the country. And our new president is a product of that legendary political machine. Not all that corrupt himself, I’m guessing, but an empty suit groomed for purpose by some pretty evil dudes.

Reading someone’s comment, and researching the term further, I am so….butthurt!

I turned my back on the home place and refused to raise my children in England for the very reasons you stated so eloquently above; oppressive regulations and a national lack of any sense of self preservation. (and hooliganism!)
Now with my roots firmly in my beloved America I find the incursion of the nanny-state mentality is spread throughout. This latest presidency is scary! I dread the thought of national health and fear what the government thinks is good for me. I say throw both parties out and start all over again. We’ve become too civilized – I feel an attack of my Mad Cow Disease coming on again. Get the root vegetables out, I say we pelt some govt lackeys! I know, we’re none of us French, thanks be to God, but…
Aaargh!
Thanks for your take on the mess, Ma’am.