It explains everything

That cunt Twenty Major might be talking about an Irish phone-in radio programme in this excellent post but, let's face it, I shouldn't think that the Irish are all that different to the people in this fair country...

If you ever wondered why the people of Ireland seemingly ‘put up’ with crooked politicians, abusive clergy and all the other gobshitery that surrounds us on a daily basis then listening to Liveline will give you the answers you need. It’s because they are cretins.

Today’s ‘Video games are evil and should be banned because they are evil because I say so and not based on any evidence’ show was an extravaganza of ill-informed, half-witted, moronic fuckwittery of the highest order. Some of the people they had on were just so ridiculously ignorant of anything resembling a fact it’s frightening.
...

Honestly, these people are idiots who clearly have nothing better to do with their time. And these idiots are representative of much of Ireland because people hear the idiots on the radio and agree with the idiots and soon the idiots point of view becomes conventional wisdom and on we go.

It's fucking depressing, frankly.

Although what is more depressing is that the politicians are even more stupid—the only reason that they get to boss everyone about is because they are venal sycophants possessed of an exceptional but creepy animal deviousness.

Oh, yeah, and fat wads of our cash...

A Quick Reminder: The Government are Cunts

[NOTE: I'm not The Devil, and I know I'm late to the party on this, but fuck it. You can't have too many reminders.]

OK. We had an "asset bubble." Lots of things were overpriced. That house you bought for £200,000 was actually only worth £150,000. Share in a company were priced at £3.30 but were actually only worth £2.50.

These things happen. Sometimes speculators drive the estimated value of things up higher than they should be. Whether tulips, south sea trading rights or housing this stuff has been going since year dot and will happen from time to time pretty much forever.

When senses return and the bubble bursts, a load of people are left with assets that are worth less than they paid for them. In today's case, the 'victims are the banks'. Northern Rock doled out billions on pounds to people who couldn't afford to repay it, on the basis of properties that weren't worth their valuation. In order to "save the world", resident genius G. Brown stepped in with colossal quantities of cash to help the bank stay afloat.

As more institutions realised they were in the same fucking hole, so they turned to us—via our representatives—for help. Which would be great, except for the small detail that we can't afford the losses either. Consequently, no-one dares to lend money to anyone else all of a sudden. And when your economy is largely based on credit (who buys a sofa for cash these days?) that spells trouble. Anyway, because we "can't let these institutions fail" we're the ones stuck with all this shit.

So now, the Government is encouraging the printing of money. £200 billion of it thus far. This is supposed to be used so that the banks will start giving credit to people and they can spend it on stuff and then we'll all be happy and somehow one day we'll be able to pay the £200 billion back.

Only here's the rub: interest rates are 0.5%. That means if I lend you a hundred quid, you only have to give me £105 back in a year's time (or something, who the fuck knows how it works—read the small print and get back to me). That's not much return on my investment. On the other hand, stock markets were sent artificially low by the banking crises. So my £100 is going straight into shares instead because I can make more money there because I'm not a moron. So while every economic indicator from GDP to retail sales to employment continues to tank, the stock markets head in the opposite direction.

This is why the money the government is printing isn't reaching the 'real economy'. Instead it is feeding a stock market rally. We're creating another fucking asset bubble. Meanwhile, businesses and people are going to the wall because they still can't get credit. Worse, eventually we're going to have to deal with this £200 billion that has been created somehow.

Are we going to tax it back from corporate institutions who have benefited from our largesse? Pfft. The only answer is to accept that everything is going to get more expensive. With that much easy money floating around in the economy, that's what inevitably will happen.

For proof, you only have to look at Germany's Weimar Republic or modern-day Zimbabwe to see what happens. When there's a lot of cash, prices shoot up because money itself becomes cheap. It's a problem with modern economies that have decoupled their monetary systems from something tangible like gold. As our money itself becomes worth less, so people demand more of it in exchange for their goods. This is inflation, and it is a bitch. Because if your £15,000 a year is barely enough to live on now, how will you feel when the price of everything shoots up 10% in the course of a year?

Now to me, a no-mark in the middle of nowhere, knowing fuck all about nothing, it is baffling how the rich, mighty, connected and intellectually powerful people who claim to run this country can't see this. But then there's a lot of things I don't understand about them. Frankly, we'd be better if they went off to do something more productive. Like fucking stoats. In Iceland. Without condoms.

Rand, IP and being charitable

Mr Civil Libertarian has a long post up about his objections to Ayn Rand. Your humble Devil does not count himself as an Objectivist (although I think that the nightmare society that she posits in both The Fountainhead and especially Atlas Shrugged is gradually becoming a reality), but I felt that I should comment on what I saw as... not misconceptions, exactly, but oversights.

Re: the charity thing. Richard North raised a similar concern on the EU Referendum board—I include his sentence and my reply.

That [Ayn Rand] opposed private charity as well is a separate issue and one on which I part company with the lady.

OK, I have only read Atlas Shrugged, but as a manifesto of beliefs it is pretty comprehensive.

From that, I would not say that Rand opposed private charity, but that she opposed charity for certain reasons. You should give to charity if you yourself take value from the act of giving; however, it is incumbent upon you to assess those who you are giving charity to. If you give them charity because the person to whom you are giving demands your charity as a right, and they are unwilling to stir themselves but are merely content to live off alms, then it is wrong to give to them. It is wrong to give to those in these circumstances, regardless of your personal motives, because your charity will trap them in a cycle of evil because they will then never have to bestir themselves to live by their own talents and hard work -- a situation that Rand believed to be absolutely immoral.

If, however, your charity will improve their lot or you give because that person has given you value (they are a friend, or have performed some past service), then you can give to them -- as long as you wish to do so. You should not do so because you feel guilty about it, but because your charity will help them to reclaim their lives and to make more of themselves through their own efforts.

That, at least, is my reading of her views; and, given the amount talked and written about, for instance, the Benefits Trap, it seems an entirely reasonable stance to take.

Furthermore, you admit that the act of "helping people out often is in your own self interest- what better way to get the community to see you as a good person".

What Rand argued, as I understand it, was that you should not do it purely for your own interest. It might make you feel better to support someone on charity, but they then cannot get a job because they have been on support for so long (a big gap in working is one of the prime reasons for CV rejections) and you have thus impoverished yourself and harmed the other person by denying—or at least facilitating—their wasted potential.

As for the idea that Rourke court speech was a defence of patents... That's bollocks. Like Rearden, Rourke had actually made something and, when it was defaced, he destroyed it.

You might not understand this concept—I find that those who are not artists usually don't. However, I like to consider myself an artist in my vainer moments, and I would be seriously upset if someone took one of my pieces of work and bastardised it.

This is actually why, in many cases, artists tend to support IP instinctively: not because of the money factor (you'll find that it is the artists' backers, the music companies, etc. who squeal most about that), but because the idea of someone taking your carefully crafted work and then ruining it is painful.

The above is not, of course, an argument for IP—but you should not dimiss IP without considering it. That goes for you too, Charlotte [Gore—who also left a comment]: how would you feel if I copied your blog design absolutely but, instead of cats with glowing eyes, I put cats with glowing vaginas? And put signs in their hands saying "Rape is fun!" And kept the name "Charlotte Gore" at the top of the blog?

In application, IP is a difficult one to apply—I had a long discussion about it with a new member of LPUK on Saturday. But, since you are talking in practicalities, there is nothing wrong with the state protecting IP—just as there is nothing wrong with the state protecting physical property. As I said to you on Twitter, why is it wrong to steal a computer, but not wrong to steal the ideas that made it possible?

If you say it is because society gets richer, you are acknowledging the practical can override the philosophical and then your objection to state protection of property is on shaky ground too.

I could go on although, as I also said on Twitter, this is one of those subjects on which I have to be convinced either way. But I'll let you respond first...

Posted here for reference: I shall also post any reply. However, IP is a tricky one, I think—and a subject that I have had a number of conversations over in the last few weeks...

Eurosceptic: my fucking arsehole

As EU Referendum helpfully points out, a number of MSM commenters—including Benedict "Benny" Brogan, Danny "The Fink" Finkelstein¹ and Matthew "Fat Tit" D'Ancona²—have all proclaimed Dave's new strategy as a pragmatic and achievable Eurosceptic policy.

Pragmatic and achievable his policy may be—Eurosceptic it most certainly is not.

After abandoning plans to hold a referendum on Europe, following last week’s ratification of the Lisbon Treaty, Mr Hague said the Tories accepted that constitutional reform would not be on the EU agenda for some years.

And while the party remained Euro-sceptic, a Conservative Government would not get into a “bust-up” over its new policy of seeking to negotiate opt-outs in a number of areas of European policy and pass a sovereignty bill to stop further powers being repatriated for some time to come.

Until then, he agreed that it would effectively be “business as usual” for Britain within Europe under the Tories.

So, let's recap.

• No referendum on the Lisbon Treaty.


• No referendum on Dave's renegotiation proposal, i.e. something that would give Dave a strong bargaining position.


• No referendum on Britain's membership of the EU—the very proposal of which would give Dave an even stronger bargaining position.


• A policy for repatriation of powers that wouldn't fool anyone who knows anything about how the EU operates for more than 5 and a half seconds.


• No attempt to even bargain for repatriation of powers for "some years"—by which time the Tories hope to have their feet nicely under the table so that they can tell the EUsceptics to bugger off.

So, it really is "business as usual" under the Tories. So, more freedoms destroyed, a Westminster weakened even more by a bunch of traitorous spivs, and the usual round of hypocrisy, lies and thievery from the disgusting little bastards in an increasingly pointless Parliament.

I can't wait.

¹ The Fink, of course, is the disgusting apologist for the persecution and exposure of the blogger known as Night Jack on the grounds that his anonymity compromised trust in him. Nevertheless, The Fink is more than happy to use anonymous quotes when it suits him.

² Matthew D'Ancona is the Europhile Cameron sycophant who buggered up The Spectator until they (allegedly) sacked him.

Privatise the railways

Constantly Furious is absolutely fucking raging about the fact that many people were prevented from getting to Remembrance Services because First Capital Connect's drivers decided not to turn up for work this Sunday in "a dispute over pay".

The Unions are really starting to flex their muscles at the moment, and we are being reminded just what a bunch of cunts they are. Of course, people like myself couldn't give a shit about Royal Mail staff striking—which is why, I suspect, the CWU have come to an arrangement—and, now that I have a car, I don't take the train very often; similarly, the fact that BA staff are being balloted doesn't bother me one jot.

However, it is worth noticing that all three of the businesses cited above have something in common: they all used to be state-owned monopolies. And, actually, all but BA still are.

"What?" I hear you cry. "But the railways were privatised years ago!"

Um, no...

The railways are not run, in any meaningful sense, by private companies. Consider the evidence, m'lud:

1. The tracks are not run by private companies; they are maintained by a state monopoly called Network Rail. Yes, yes: technically it doesn't appear on the government's books, but it's £19 billion or so of debt is under-written by the state and the vast majority of its income is also derived from the state.


2. As regards the running of the train services, the government controls the franchises.
   
   • These franchises are made so short-term that—given the capital cost involved in so doing—there is little incentive for the private companies to invest.
   
   
   • A company can lose the franchise just like that if the government so wishes—and it often does, e.g. Connex South Eastern, National Express East Coast.
   
   
   • The private companies must pay a guaranteed amount of money to the government in order to run these franchises regardless of earnings, e.g. GNER (although one cannot ignore the fact that GNER negotiated spectacularly badly, such that they were about the only rail company paying a nett amount to the state. Which brings us on to...).


3. The state pays out a massive subsidy—currently sitting at about twice what it was under British Rail—to rail companies to operate these services. Of course, you might look at the whole thing a little differently if—instead of calling it "a subsidy"—you use the word "fees".


4. Of course, many of these subsidies are necessary because the state also broadly controls:
   
   • the train timetables: the companies involved cannot decide to axe or reduce the frequency of many services. (Remember that the biggest destruction of the rail services was carried out by the state.)
   
   
   • the price of tickets: the state sets maximum pricing, and many of the conditions pertaining to those prices (as the state has done almost since the railways' inception, by designating them a Common Carrier).
   
   
   • the relative priority of passenger and freight services.
   
   
   • the rental prices of the lines, through Network Rail.
   
   
   • The terms of employment (and many other conditions) by insisting that the companies that are picked for the franchises recognise unions, etc.

This is not to say that the private companies do not exploit the Simple Shopper—I am sure that they do. It is also not to say that, were the railways properly privatised that they would, in fact, be any better than they are now. (Indeed, since the railways are, like the banks, "too big to fail" they might be worse.)

All I am pointing out is that the railways, right now, are not privatised. What the Tory government did was precisely what Gordon and his merry men have done with schools, hospitals and many other public services: they have entered into a public-private partnership in order to run these services.

The idea is that the private sector puts capital into the services, and the government pays them a massive fee for running those services. The fee has to be pretty massive because private companies cannot borrow at the same favourable rates that the state can: however, the state gets to keep the capital investment off the Treasury's books since the fees count as expenditure rather than capital investment (the reasons why the state would want to do this would make up a whole other post).

And that's all I wanted to point out: that the railways are not privatised. But maybe, just maybe, we might look at whether proper privatisation could work.

But it would have to be proper privatisation—without the constant and crippling interference and condition-setting, occasional nationalisation (e.g. WWI) or commandeering (e.g. WWII) or the companies and network that the state has indulged in almost since the very inception of the rail industry.

Just a thought...

Gordon and Darling: insane bastards

The BBC—even the BBC—is reporting that the latest stupid idea from Brown and Darling has received a "lukewarm reaction".

Prime Minister Gordon Brown's idea of a financial transactions tax has received a lukewarm response from G20 countries.

The proposal, which took delegates by surprise at the meeting in St Andrew's overshadowed other items on the agenda.

Naturally. Gordon's idea of being "statemanlike" is just throwing in ideas that are not on the agenda. This one-eyed Scots idiot seems to equate lobbing in stuff that no one has prepared for to being "radical". It's this silly fucker's standard tactic.

The US said it would "not support" a transaction tax and Canada added it was "not an idea we would look at".

The Conservatives said that Downing Street had previously "poured cold water on this proposal" and that the Treasury had called it "unworkable".

But what is the standard protocol for by-passing silly little local governments...?

Chancellor Alistair Darling said the leaders had agreed the International Monetary Fund should now consider the possibility of introducing an international transactions tax, which would be used to create a fund for bank bailouts.

That's right: you submit it to a supranational body who will attempt to enforce it on everyone anyway (remember Blair trying to get the EU to force ID Cards on us?).

He said governments should consider whether it would be possible to develop a tax that would be universal, comprehensive in scope and compatible with financial stability, as well as fair and which would not "distort things".

Taxes always distort things, you stupid fuck.

He described the idea as "clearly work in progress, it will take time to develop but it is, I believe, an important piece of work".

Yes, yes it is an important piece of work—if, by "important", you actually mean "completely fucking insane".

Look, the government now owns most of our banks; it has a duty to ensure that they can make a decent profit so that we taxpayers—those of us who pay for our government's profligacy—can get some of the money back. This Tobin tax would, quite obviously, make that long climb back to profitability considerably longer and harder.

Now, I am no economist, quite obviously, but some people do have the relevant training. So, first up, Timmy discusses the reasons why Tobin suggested such a tax—to "throw “sand in the wheels” of turbo-charged capitalism" in a world of fixed exchange rates (which ours is not. Until the world currency anyway)—and how it would have unintended consequences (surprise sur-fucking-prise) in penalising those who are not eeeeevil bankers.

We now have the Austrian Government making the decision about whether my trades on the currency markets are necessary or not? As just a very minor example, my income is variously in $, £ and €. My expenditures are similarly, variously in $, £ and €. Incomes in one corrency rarely match with outgoings in that same currency so there’s a certain amount of shufling things around month by month. But according to the Austrian Government I should be taxed because, umm, well, apparently I’m some bastard international bank who deserves to be screwed.
...

You can levy a tax wherever you like. But just because you levy it somewhere doesn’t mean that that’s where it stays: there is this thing called tax incidence.

And as the report says, we do have a transaction tax on financial transactions in the UK: Stamp Duty on share transactions. And who actually bears the economic burden of that tax? The wheelers and dealers? Actually, no: a report back in 2002 pointed out that it was individual’s pension funds that bore part of the brunt, the other major effect being a rise in the cost of equity capital to UK based firms. And as we know, a rise in the cost of capital shows up in the workers’ paycheques as a reduction in them.

So far from a Tobin Tax screwing the bankers, it, once again, screws the workers.

And Chris Dillow expands on all of this, helpfully pointing out that the bastard tax wouldn't bloody work anyway—and, just to ram home how fucking nuts this is, outines why it wouldn't even have stopped the current problems.

1. It would have done nothing to have stopped this financial crisis, and might even have made things worse. The two markets upon which a tax would impinge most - FX and stock markets - played little role in this crisis; they were, as near as dammit, innocent bystanders. The tax would not have stopped RBS overpaying for ABN-Amro, would not have stopped HBOS making bad loans, and probably wouldn’t have stopped Northern Rock funding its mortgage lending by borrowing in wholesale markets.
   What the tax might have done, though, is reduce the liquidity of mortgage derivatives. But this was, for many banks, precisely the problem. As Alistair Milne describes in The Fall of the House of Credit, the problem with many “toxic assets” is not so much that they were devalued by defaults, but rather that they became illiquid, untradeable. A transactions tax might have exacerbated this problem.

...


2. A transactions tax does not necessarily stabilize markets. It might do the opposite. As Andrea Terzi points out (pdf), such a tax doesn’t so much reduce short-term trades as trades with low expected gains. However, these trades are often stabilizing trades - those done by arbitrageurs hovering up pennies.
   If the tax bears more heavily upon these than it does upon noise traders, then it might make bubbles more likely, not less.

Which all goes to show that Gordon Brown—a Labour historian^*, by the way, not a fucking economist—and Alistair Darling (a total fucking ignoramous Trotskyite cunt of a lawyer) know less than fuck all about economics, and that the pair of them are barkingly insane.

Unless, of course, all that they are interested in is taking control of the entire money supply and thus ensuring complete control over the British nation—in which case, they might just be evil genuises.

UPDATE: Capitalists@Work have dubbed this The Worst Policy of New Labour, Ever.

What really staggers me though is that Badger and Brownstuff could promote this idea in the very week in which they confirm the UK taxpayer is to own the largest international bank in the world by assets and 43% of another top 20 bank.

So the UK government now owns banks and is advocating a policy which will cripple their recovery. This is beyond stupidity, it really is.

In years to come the political world will have a new lexicon for all this Government;

'as stupid as a Brown plan'—for a truly appalling policy announcement

'even Brown would not have done that'—for a real turkey of an idea

ad infinitum.

Doesn't everyone already use these phrases...?

^*The title of his PhD thesis—which took him ten years to complete—was The Labour Party and Political Change in Scotland 1918–29. The man is a fucking twat who knows bollocks-all about most history that isn't couched in Labour Party terms.

Votes at 16

I can't find a link for this (please put one in the comments. UPDATE: link found thanks to John Pickworth), but I heard on the radio a couple of days ago that Gordon Brown had re-affirmed his belief that people should be allowed to vote at 16. This is presumably because Gordon believes that teenagers, being generally ignorant, would be more likely to vote for a socialist party.

Or perhaps Gordon genuinely thinks that a sixteen year old is, in fact, adult enough to understand the issues. The trouble is that this government has, in fact, removed more and more rights from this group, as The Heresiarch eloquently amplifies.

But in other ways, at sixteen many youngsters are much less "adult" than they were even a generation ago.

That's certainly the message that is coming from the government. New restrictions on the freedom and capacity of teenagers have been brought in continually under New Labour. The age at which it is legal to purchase cigarettes, knives or fireworks has been raised from 16 to 18, as has the age at which one can obtain a licence for such firearms as are still legal for anyone. The age for purchasing alcohol is still 18, but there's a growing campaign in some quarters for Britain to follow the repugnant American policy of raising it to 21—and, in any case, the severity with which the law is now being enforced has effectively raised it, in practice if not in theory.

And this legal extension of juvenile incapacity in many areas has gone along with an ever more protracted adolescence. By the time they reached the voting age of 21, many people in the past would have experienced several years effective social adulthood. Leaving school at fifteen or sixteen, they would have been working, paying taxes, and, in many cases, marrying and starting a family (and, provided it was done in that order, with less disquiet about teen pregnancy than would be caused today). Many died for their country before reaching the age at which they could vote for its government. Today, it is expected that young people remain financially dependent at least until they finish university at 22 or thereabouts. The government that is contemplating a reduction in the voting age is also in the process of raising the school leaving age to eighteen. So whereas in the past many 16 year-olds had no say over the politicians who were deciding their tax rates, in the future they may have a say, but have much less moral claim to it than their predecessors. A paradox indeed. But is a quinquennial ballot really much compensation for the loss of the independence and trust they once enjoyed? Or, to put it another way, if adolescents can be trusted with a vote, why should they not be trusted with a penknife?

Because, of course, personal freedom is a massive responsibility and should not be granted to anyone unless they have shown themselves in some way capable of dealing with it.

Whereas any old (or young) fucker—no matter their ignorance of the issues, no matter whether their personal enrichment is involved, no matter whether they are simply biased or stupid—can be allowed to oppress and restrict the freedom of others.

That's democracy, innit.

They died in vain

Of course, we should remember all those who died for our freedom—but perhaps Remembrance Sunday should, from now on, represent something different. For, as EU Referendum points out, we have lost what all of these brave men fought for.

Yet it is indisputable that those freedoms for which they fought and are fighting have been steadily eroded, to the point where we are no longer an independent nation. We have lost that ultimate freedom—the freedom to govern ourselves.

This, however, will be the last Remembrance Day before the Lisbon Treaty comes into force. Next year, we will be remembering not only the lives that were expended in the cause of our freedom, but the fact that we have, despite the sacrifices, lost that freedom. Those who died have died in vain.

So, I propose that Remembrance Sunday becomes a day when we try to remember not those who died, but what it was that they died for.

In the future, Remembrance Sunday should be the day when we all try to remember what this strange thing called "freedom" actually was.

UPDATE: notwithstanding the theme of the above, this poem always affects me—not least because I played Wilfred Owen in a production of a play (which we performed on 11/11 many years ago) that took on a life of its own in our minds.

Anthem For Doomed Youth

What passing bells for these who die as cattle?
Only the monstrous anger of the guns.
Only the stuttering rifles' rapid rattle
Can patter out their hasty orisons.
No mockeries now for them; no prayers nor bells;
Nor any voice of mourning save the choirs,
The shrill, demented choirs of wailing shells;
And bugles calling for them from sad shires.

What candles may be held to speed them all?
Not in the hands of boys, but in their eyes
Shall shine the holy glimmers of good-byes.
The pallor of girls' brows shall be their pall;
Their flowers the tenderness of patient minds,
And each slow dusk a drawing-down of blinds.

If we are to remember the many dead, let us remember that they died to ensure that Britain could continue to rule herself—they fought (amongst others) Napoleon, Kaiser Wilhelm and Hitler to ensure that simple power that our government has now voluntarily signed away.

May the dead soldiers live on, and may the living politicians die in pain.

UPDATE 2: that last line's almost poetic. I wonder...

Hope

May all of those soldiers who bravely died—
All those who're maimed, who cursed and cried—
Live on and inspire us with their pain
And encourage us to be great again.

Those soldiers are shamed by politicos
Whose vanity ensured those deaths in vain;
And quiescent people, not bellicose,
Who deceive and steal for petty gain.

May we who sleep, our anger quelled,
Rise up one day, cause rightly held,
And taking these traitors, rope in hand,
Hang them from each tree in the land.

Hmmm. I never was a poet, but it'll do for now...

Minette Marrin: "we need fewer MPs"

I have to say that there is very little for your humble Devil to disagree with in this Times article by Minette Marrin. Here are some of the highlights...

In these dark days we all try to find little moments of amusement. Fortunately there is plenty of laughter still to be had at the MPs’ expenses comedy. Now that Sir Christopher Kelly has published his plans to punish MPs for their greediness and their silliness, and consign them to miserable backstreet bedsits, we can all sit back and enjoy their squeals of unselfcritical outrage.

Absolutely true. Whenever I feel a little down, I think of the way in which MPs are being harried and hounded and I have a little smile to myself. I even like to think that maybe I helped to contribute to their discomfiture.

Although we still haven't seen any convicted for fraud, as they should be, and we have—let's face it—only exposed a single year of their rampant corruption, the opprobrium heaped upon these thieving bastards is thoroughly entertaining—as are their squeals of protest.

The funniest thing of all, though, is so many MPs’ passionate protests at the unfairness of all this. “Well,” the rest of us can say, grinning widely, “now you know what it feels like. You, at our expense, have been imposing unfairness upon all the rest of us, in all aspects of our lives, so fast and furiously that we could hardly keep up with the growth of our resentments and your injustices. Of course there’s been a great deal of unfairness to MPs. But if you can’t take it, you shouldn’t dish it out.”

Quite. Because, for your humble Devil, the most disgusting part of the whole affair has been the way that MPs excused themselves from the laws that they make for us proles to live under—MPs voting to exempt themselves from tax on benefits-in-kind in the Income Tax Act 2003 is not only a prime example, but also one of the main factors that made their repulsive thieving possible (after all, if you have to pay tax on the sofa for your second home, are you going to buy a cheap one or a John Lewis one?).

Our lords and masters have—quite deliberately—abused their position of trust; they have happily stolen our money, raped our liberties, murdered our fellow citizens (and those of other countries) and lied, lied, lied though their teeth for the whole time.

They're getting off very, very lightly.

And what are MPs really for? Well, a few months ago, I told Kerry McCarthy—who was whining about how she couldn't scrutinise law because her constituents took up so much time—exactly what MPs are for.

Thirdly, and most importantly, MPs should not primarily be social workers; for that, we employ... well... social workers.

You are legislators: that is your prime function. You are, in fact, one of only 646 people who can make law in this country.

And it seems that Minette Marrin has come to the same conclusion.

In my view, MPs waste huge amounts of their time and our money in their surgeries, doing things other people should be doing, and doing better: advising people on their problems with planning, healthcare, social services, schools, racism and sexism, dealing with minor grievances and eccentrics and acting — in some places — as paralegals for large numbers of constituents who are having citizenship difficulties with the Home Office. MPs should not be social workers or amateur therapists, or ombudsmen or paralegal outreach workers. They should be something different. But what?

Well, they should be legislators. Because—and I cannot stress this enough—they are the only 646 people in this country who can make law.

Members of parliament once had a function in making Westminster listen, occasionally, to the voice of the shires, the pits, minorities and the concerns of the people they represented. With mass communication and focus groups, that’s no longer necessary: such things can be better done by professionals, and are.

MPs once had the function of thinking and voting independently, according to their best judgment. With the parliamentary whipping system, that is now impossible, at least for anyone aspiring to real power above the back benches.

MPs once had the function of deciding the main policies of the country. With the growth of the European Union, most of that has been ceded to Brussels.

This is quite correct, especially the last paragraph. As EU Referendum have pointed out (along with Christopher Booker), with the Lisbon Treaty finally ratified, the EU has achieved what it has long aspired to: creating a supranational government that "we can never dismiss".

But there is another commonality with Labour and the Lib Dims. Cameron is entirely at one with his counterparts in that none of them must ever admit or explain just how much of Britain's governance has already been given away, leaving Westminster with little more power than a rather grand local council.

None of them will ever discuss this because they all belong to that new Europe-wide political class that governs us from behind its wall, without ever having to ask us for our consent.

So, our MPs cannot even be legislators—not in any meaningful sense. They will exist simply to transcribe EU law into our own, for just as long as the European Union decides to maintain that fig-leaf.

It will not take long, I suspect, for the EU to decide that it can do away with this coy illusion of national governments' supremacy and simply hand down laws directly.

Not only that, but MPs has given away most of the few remaining powers that they have through the mini-Enabling Acts that I have previously described: acts that allow ministers to push through more and more illiberal laws through Statutory Instruments that need not be debated in Parliament at all.

And that is pure laziness: the laziness of those who couldn't be bothered to scrutinise these acts, and the laziness of those who did, but welcomed the Enabling Acts because they would have to do less work in the future.

Our MPs have given away the power that we lend to them, and none of the Big Three have any intention of giving it back to us—they are traitors and should swing from the nearest tree.

And, given all of this, what is Marrin's conclusion?

The truth is that the constituencies don’t need them and Westminster doesn’t need them, or at least very many of them, and there’s no good reason we should pay so many so much.

We do need more of the best minds on select committees, and more of the ablest from the real world outside. But generally we need fewer MPs, much less of their time and a great deal less of the expense of them. That is a cheering thought.

It is not—not really. Whilst the fact that the present incumbents have ensured that they have no value to us is amusing, the fact that our own government has been rendered impotent and pointless is a horrifying situation.

Nevertheless, that is the situation: we no longer govern ourselves, not even through the fat, lazy, useless cunts in Westminster. We are now part of a federal European Union—a union whose unelected government will, from December 1, start flexing its muscles in a big way.

And Booker throws a final thought into the conclusion of his column...

As a final thought, since the EU is to become a government with "legal personality" in its own right, how long will it be before its President, under the constitution, is accorded international precedence over the Queen as our head of state? Like much else in this sorry story, our new rulers will start by denying that they are even thinking of such a thing. But now they have their constitution, I bet it can't be long.

Whether or not you are a monarchist (and these days, I'm swithering), shouldn't the decision to replace the head of state be the preserve of the people of that state?

It may be, of course: because we are no longer citizens of Great Britain—we have, instead, become citizens of a federal European superstate.

And without a shot being fired.

Pedantry on Cameron

[This is a guest post by the excellent and sorely missed Pedant General.]

Patently Rubbish argues, largely correctly IMVHO, that Cameron's withdrawal from his cast-iron guarantee is essentially reasonable now that the EU Constitution Lisbon is a done deal.

The only politician who has, throughout, kept to his promise that he would hold a referendum, is David Cameron. Every other party has dropped us in it. What is worse, they have dropped us in it so thoroughly, and so deeply, and so irrevocably, that they now actually dare to criticise Cameron for acknowledging that the promise he made is no longer deliverable.

However, I think perhaps a cheeky consideration of the counterfactual is also interesting.

Cameron was, as per this analysis at least, right. His real problem is, was and has always been, one of realpolitik. Ever since he gave the guarantee, every single interviewer has asked the question "what will you do if it has already been finally ratified?" and he has always been utterly unable to answer that credibly. His problem is that if he were to give any actually workable answer to it, he would have done two things:

1. He would have essentially hoisted a massive flag in Brown's direction bearing the words...
   

   "Hold out Brownie: all you have to do is deny us a General Election until Lisbon's in the bag and the job's a good 'un"

   
   ... which I submit might have been counterproductive.


2. He would have been hung out to dry on his putative policies toward the EU and branded an utterly barmy little Englander seccessionist and what have you. Imagine, if you will, Cameron in 2007 discussing "repatriation of powers" in, at that stage a hypothetical, post-Lisbon world. The BBC would have destroyed him. Besides it would have been defeatism of the first water—it would be a clear signal that the game was indeed (see point 1) as good as over. He would simply never have been able to make the counter point stick—that he was forced into this position by the shameless behaviour of the Government.

However [you knew it was coming...], this is where Patently Rubbish and I part company. Cameron's supporters are bigging this up as realism. Unfortunately, a realist would see, and as our humble Devil has eloquently pointed out, that all his subsequent proposals lack that certain grain—scratch that: any passing sniff—of plausibility. Realism dictates that we are now either in or out. There are no half measures and the failure to address this will be, as it always is, the thing that causes Conservative governments to unravel and the "colleagues" to rub their hands with glee...

Imagine a future without the European Union...

NB I am not the Devil (but I am offering you a free book).

Part of the problem for eurosceptics has been that we have too often only engaged in one half of the argument. To be fair, we've all made a pretty good case that the EU is a costly, harmful, antidemocratic monstrosity - so much so that the public are in great majority convinced of that.

It is the second half of the argument which has been somewhat lacking - what is the positive alternative? Convincing people there is a problem with the current situation is not enough; we need to lay out what life would be like without the EU, how things could be better and, crucially, how it is perfectly feasible to get there.

To that end, the TaxPayers' Alliance is publishing a new book, Ten Years On: Britain without the European Union which lays out a vision of what Britain could be like in 2020, governing ourselves and with the freedom to cooperate and trade with whomsoever we like.

Even better, it is available free to pre-order through this link!

The book, by Dr Lee Rotherham, also features a foreword by legendary Sun political editor Trevor Kavanagh and an epilogue by bestselling author Frederick Forsyth. As well as a fictionalised "history" of the next ten years, it also explores how life could change for real people, from MPs and city boys to fishermen, farmers and small business owners.

Enjoy!

MPs should be paid less

In an article about Professor Nutt (about which I shall write in due course), Dan Hannan says the following... [Emphasis mine.]

He’s plainly right, this Nutt, when he says that the government’s attitude to cannabis is counter-productive, ill-informed and vote-grabbing. But that is what governments do: they grab votes.

So, Dan is saying that politicians go for the most populist policy—hence the government's stance on drugs.

How fortunate, then, that Chris Dillow makes a logical argument for why this means that politicians should be paid much, much less.

On the one hand, there‘s the Burkean view, that MPs should exercise independent judgement:

Your representative owes you, not his industry only, but his judgment; and he betrays, instead of serving you, if he sacrifices it to your opinion.

On the other hand, there’s the notion that MPs must follow public opinion.
Now, the Burkean view suggests we should pay MPs the sort of salary good professionals command, as Philip Stephens proposes, because we want them to have similarly good, independent judgment.

However, if MPs merely follow public opinion, there’s no need for such high wages. Any pub bore can echo the prejudices of the mob.

Which brings us to Johnson. In rejecting scientific evidence, and pursuing a drugs policy that merely panders to the most base and ignorant public opinion, he is rejecting the Burkean view in favour of the populist one.

As does Dan Hannan, apparently.

But if our representatives are to do this, why should we pay them as if they are taking complicated decisions? I can see a case for paying people good money for sifting scientific evidence, weighing arguments and making tricky judgments under uncertainty. But if they are just reading Daily Mail editorials, we should pay them as much as this skill demands - which is peanuts.

Good. Pay these fuckers peanuts and they will be so busy scrabbling around for the money to live that they won't have time to pass any laws.

Pay these betraying MPs less: it's the right thing to do.

Quote of the Day...

Thieving fuckwit. Sans thieving wife.

... comes from troughing cunt, Nicholas Winterton MP. [Emphasis mine.]

Sir Nicholas Winterton, the Tory MP for Macclesfield, said that “the way MPs are being treated is quite despicable”.

He added: “Mr Kelly is a senior civil servant on a generous index pension link who is trying to reduce MPs to abject poverty and I don’t know why.”

Really, Sir Nicholas? Do you really not know why all of this is happening to you? Shall I explain?

It is because all of you lied to the people, cheated the taxpayer, raped the public purse and treated our money as your own personal slush fund—and you did so quite deliberately.

And now, because you abused the trust that we placed in you, you are now being far more severely punished than you might otherwise have been. You have shown us that you will steal and lie at every possible opportunity and so we are now renouncing all of your privileges.

You think that this is "quite despicable": whereas I think that you should be very fucking grateful that you haven't found yourselves in the dock at the Old Bailey, frankly. If I had had my way, you thieving shits would be being prosecuted for fraud.

And by "you" I do, of course, mean all MPs. But I also mean you and your thieving wife.

After all, you have been stealing money left, right and centre: you're famous for it.

Have you got a fucking clue yet, you venal bastard, or shall I go and get my cluebat...?

Dan Hannan resigns his front bench post

As Keep Right Online notes, Dan Hannan MEP has resigned his front bench job.

It seems that as of this evening, Mr. Daniel Hannan, a true Conservative and libertarian (if he wasn’t so famed, I’d be lobbying him harder for regular guest posts) has stepped down from his position as appointed just two months ago on the front bench for Europe for the Conservative Party. And we fully understand.
...

Of course, many would call the move foolish- and more the foolish they are for that. The United Kingdom is severely lacking in principled politicians such as Mr. Hannan...

Ain't that the truth. Although that sentence could simply have read "the United Kingdom is severely lacking in principled politicians", full stop (we are, of course, heavily burdened by corrupt, self-serving bastards).

Here's Dan himself...

It’s not chiefly about Europe – it’s about democracy. Regular readers will know that I have always seen the repatriation of jurisdiction from Brussels as a means to an end. Having got the powers back, we should pass them down to local authorities or, better yet, to individual citizens. I want decisions to be decentralised, diffused, democratised. I want open primaries, popular initiative procedures, elected sheriffs, self-financing councils, an end to quangos, recall mechanisms and, yes, referendums – lots and lots of referendums.
...

We need a broad movement within the Conservative Party that will push for referendums, citizens’ initiatives and the rest of the paraphernalia of direct democracy. I don’t just mean a referendum on Europe - though, naturally, that is the obvious place to start. I mean full-on Helvetic people power, as adumbrated in this best-selling publication. I have returned to the back benches in order to concentrate on building such a movement.

Don’t misunderstand me: I voted for David Cameron as leader, I like him, and I reckon he’d be a million times better than Gordon Brown as Prime Minister. One of his strengths is that, unlike Gordon Brown, he doesn’t mind people disagreeing with him. Well, then. This Conservative is for a referendum: a proper, deep-cleansing referendum that will settle whether our country remains subordinate, or becomes self-governing. Now who will stand on either hand and keep the bridge with me?

You can count me in, Dan. Apart from that bit about being a Tory. Because, let's face it, you're in the wrong party.

You belong with us...

A Tory EU-turn?

To be honest, one of the best posts on David Cameron's breaking of his "cast-iron guarantee" comes from Stuart Sharpe.

So now, with the Lisbon Treaty ratified, David Cameron has ended up a little stuck in the mud. Realistically, he has only two options. He can break his ‘cast-iron guarantee’ and leave the Lisbon Treaty ratified without a referendum (with some token attempt at ‘renegotiating our relationship’ with the EU), in the process upsetting a large amount of his party. Alternatively, he could hold a referendum which would effectively decide whether Britain remains part of the EU or not. In the process this could further alienate him from the other EU countries, and put him in something of a lose-lose situation, in the long run.

The juxtaposition here, between the pussyfooting and dishonesty from Labour and the Lib Dems, and what I genuinely think was a sincere and well-meant promise from David Cameron is quite eye-opening. I’ve written before on this same point, but happily Patently Rubbish has written along similar lines with much greater eloquence than I managed:

The only politician who has, throughout, kept to his promise that he would hold a referendum, is David Cameron. Every other party has dropped us in it. What is worse, they have dropped us in it so thoroughly, and so deeply, and so irrevocably, that they now actually dare to criticise Cameron for acknowledging that the promise he made is no longer deliverable.

For those parties, now, to taunt and tease Cameron and make him out to be the dishonest one in this situation, is just disgraceful. It is a showcase of British politics at its lowest, at it’s most venal an crass. All involved should be thoroughly ashamed of themselves.

Quite so. David Cameron didn't really have any other realistic options as regards the EU Constitution Lisbon Treaty and it is all a bit of a sideshow anyway.

Douglas Carswell has called for a referendum on whether or not we should be part of the EU at all, which is something that I'd love to see. However, I do suspect that the British people would end up voting for EU membership—not only have people yet to understand just how much of their lives the EU controls, but also the amount of money thrown at the pro-EU campaign would be colossal.

I do have to take Douglas to task on one issue though, and that is over the Tories' tradition attitude to the EU.

We Conservatives opposed not merely the Lisbon treaty, but the transfer of powers made by Amsterdam and Nice.

Yeah, sure, Douglas. The trouble is that when the Conservatives were in power, they not only took us into the EEC through the 1972 European Communities Act, they also pushed through both the Single European Act and the Maastricht Treaty.

It's all very well to talk the talk in opposition but, frankly, the Tories have utterly failed to walk the walk when in power.

Which leads us neatly onto what Cameron has promised today. And instead of simply pointing out that what he has announced is—to use a technical term—fucking bullshit, I shall helpfully point out why. Now, Iain Dale has published the whole of Cameron's speech, so let's cherry-pick the words from the man's own mouth, rather than from the horse's arse BBC.

The Lisbon Treaty has now been ratified by every one of the twenty seven member states of the European Union, and our campaign for a referendum on the Lisbon Treaty is therefore over.

Why? Because it is no longer a Treaty: it is being incorporated into the law of the European Union.

Erm... Well, sort of. The way that it works is that the Treaties are agreed and then the member states incorporate the law into their own legislative frameworks. So, we could turn around and stop doing that—although there would be ramifications, of course.

First, we will make sure that this never happens again.

Never again should it be possible for a British government to transfer power to the EU without the say of the British people.

If we win the next election, we will amend the European Communities Act 1972 to prohibit, by law, the transfer of power to the EU without a referendum.

And that will cover not just any future treaties like Lisbon, but any future attempt to take Britain into the euro.

We will give the British people a referendum lock to which only they should hold the key–a commitment very similar to that in Ireland.

This is a major constitutional development.

Look, you fucking numpty, the Lisbon Treaty is self-amending—there will not be "any future treaties like Lisbon", as I have pointed out quite frequently and EU Referendum has done explicitly.

But I believe it is now the only way to reassure the British people that powers cannot be given away without their explicit approval in a referendum.

It is not politicians’ power to give away–it belongs to the people.

Riiiiiiight. So, could you please remind me, Dave: what about the power that you and the other corrupt politicos have already given away? It's fine for these powers to remain with Brussels, but giving away any further powers is not on?

I call "bullshit" on your rhetoric. Bullshit, bullshit, bullshit.

Oh, and did I mention "bullshit"?

There is therefore a danger that, over time, our courts might come to regard ultimate authority as resting with the EU.

Um, Dave...? Are you aware of the Factortame case? In the areas in which it has competency—which is now pretty much everywhere, by the way—"ultimate authority" does rest with the EU.

Do you understand that?

So as well as making sure that further power cannot be handed to the EU without a referendum, we will also introduce a new law, in the form of a United Kingdom Sovereignty Bill, to make it clear that ultimate authority stays in this country, in our Parliament.

This is not about Westminster striking down individual items of EU legislation.

It is about an assurance that the final word on our laws is here in Britain.

It will make piss all difference, Davey Boy, as my peripatetic Greek friend has pointed out to such good effect.

There must be plenty of lawyers in the Shadow Cabinet. If our media are truly the guardians of democracy that they claim to be, I assume they'll be asking them if they've heard of Factortame - as even the most hungover, unshaven, wearing-the-same-pants-for-the-third-day-in-a-row law student has - and whether they think it was Mr Cameron or the noble Lord that was talking out of his arse. I'm not holding my breath.

By way of postscript, I remember asking my European Law professor whether there was any way of overturning the decision, or otherwise reasserting the sovereignty of Westminster. "Oh, yes", he replied breezily. "All you have to do is repeal the 1972 European Communities Act".

But Dave isn't going to do that. So, what is he going to do...?

But people will rightly say that the Lisbon Treaty does not just transfer powers to Brussels today.

It allows further powers to be transferred in the future, because it contains a mechanism to abolish vetoes and transfer power without the need for a new Treaty.

We do not believe that any of these so-called ratchet clauses should be used to hand over more powers from Britain to the EU.

Furthermore, we would change the law so that any use of a ratchet clause by a future government would require full approval by Parliament.

The laws can already be voted through by Parliament. The problem is not that our Parliament cannot vote down these laws: the problem is that they don't.

So, Dave, what about the powers that you have already given away?

A Conservative Government will address some of these problems by negotiating three specific guarantees with our European partners guarantees over powers that we believe should reside with Britain, not the EU.

First, social and employment legislation.

Of course, Britain used to have an opt-out from the Social Chapter: but Labour foolishly gave this up.

And today, too much EU legislation in this area is damaging both our economy and our public services.

So we will want to negotiate the return of Britain’s opt-out from social and employment legislation in those areas which have proved most damaging to our economy and public services for example the aspects of the Working Time Directive which are causing real problems in the NHS and the Fire Service.

The second British guarantee we will negotiate is over the Charter of Fundamental Rights.

We must be absolutely sure that this cannot be used by EU judges to re-interpret EU law affecting the UK.

Tony Blair claimed that his Government obtained an opt-out from the Charter.

But what he got – as the Government have now admitted - was simply a clarification of how it works in Britain.

We will want a complete opt-out from the Charter of Fundamental Rights.

The third area where we will negotiate for a return of powers is criminal justice.

We must be sure that the measures included in the Lisbon Treaty will not bring creeping control over our criminal justice system by EU judges.

We will want to prevent EU judges gaining steadily greater control over our criminal justice system by negotiating an arrangement which would protect it.

That will mean limiting the European Court of Justice’s jurisdiction over criminal law to its pre-Lisbon level, and ensuring that only British authorities can initiate criminal investigations in Britain.

Fucking hellski.

I recognise, of course, that taking back power in these areas, or negotiating arrangements that suit the UK, is not something we can do unilaterally.

It means changing the rules of an institution of which we are a member – changing rules that Britain has signed up to.

If we want to make changes, we will need to do that through negotiation with our European partners, and we will need the agreement of all twenty seven member states.

And the chances of gaining their agreement...? Pretty fucking low, I should have thought. What happens if you cannot repatriate these powers?

Nothing.

I'm bored of this, I really am. I am just going to point you to EU Referendum's assessment which is pretty much spot-on as far as I can see.

On you go, Cameron-baby.

Telling porkies

(nb. I am not the Devil's Kitchen)

Three years ago, the government predicted that:

 One million children will be obese by 2010 if no action is taken

We were assured by the BBC that:

The government says it is the "most accurate estimate so far" of future obesity rates.

It was nothing of the sort. All they did was make the bone-headed assumption that a straight line could be drawn from the past, through the present and into the future. And then add some. It was never anything other than a wild guess designed to coincide with the appointment of Caroline Flint as "minister for fitness" and to generate some support for the campaign to force school-children to eat Jamie Oliver's horrible cooking.

Naturally, the fake charities and the rent-seeking vultures began to circle. For the National Obesity Forum, it offered another excuse to push their pharmaceutical pay-masters' "shit-yourself-thin" weight-loss drug Alli.

For that fat fascist Liam Donaldson, it provided proof that there was an "obesity time bomb" ticking away (he claims to have coined the phrase in 2002).

For cranks like Harriet Harman it provided another reason to demand more interfering bloody laws, starting with a watershed ban on 'junk food' advertising:

"Childhood obesity is one of the great challenges of our age. Many parents tell me that it is increasingly difficult to help their children to eat healthily because of the constant bombardment of adverts for junk foods."

There was never any chance that obesity would rise so quickly in such a short space of time and, today, with 2010 just two months away and the earlier scare having served its purpose, the government has issued new figures. In every case, the estimates have dropped, in many instances dramatically. 

They originally predicted that 30% of 12-19 year old girls would be obese. That figure has now been downgraded to just 9%. The prediction for boys in the same age bracket has been reduced from 19% to a mere 6%. 34% of girls between the age of 2 and 11 were supposed to be overweight by 2010. Now, they say only 17% will be - half the earlier figure. Bear in mind that these forecasts were only made three years ago. How can anyone - even these hopeless pecker-heads - get it so wrong?

The BBC describes this as a "levelling off" of childhood obesity rates, as if these figures were ever anything other than figments of the imagination. And rather than admit that their earlier estimates were pulled out of their overpaid arses, campaigners and politicians are claiming that this last-minute reassessment vindicates their policies. 

Gillian Merron, Minister for Public Health, said:

"The encouraging news that child obesity may be levelling off is thanks to the hard work of families, schools and the NHS, supported by government initiatives such as 5 A Day and Healthy Schools."

"But obesity levels are still too high and we need to keep the momentum going – that's why I'm delighted to see our campaigns such as the Change4Life Healthy Towns being so successful."

Christine Haigh, of the Children's Food Campaign, didn't miss the opportunity to demand further coercive legislation: 

"These figures are good news and seem to show that some of the initiatives on childhood obesity are working. But despite the speed of growth in obesity seeming to slow, the numbers of obese children is still rising [that's a lie - Filthy] and these figures suggest that the government will miss its current obesity target in 2020."

"This is not the time to go slow on our efforts to cut obesity and there is still an urgent need for government to do more to protect children from the worst excesses of junk food marketing, stop product placement of junk food on TV and tell industry to improve food labelling."

Headlines such as 'Child obesity is levelling off' and 'Child obesity has peaked' reinforce the impression that the Change4Life campaign (start date: Jan 2009) and other cash-burning projects have finally defused the time bomb. 

What goes unsaid is that child obesity rates peaked way back in 2004. Office National Statistics figures show that even while the panic was being generated in 2006, childhood obesity was not just "levelling off" but falling.

This closely mirrors the situation with Sir Liam Donaldson's other bête noire, binge-drinking. Just as alcohol consumption started falling in 2004, so too did rates of childhood obesity. In both cases, the supposed epidemic began to subside several years before these clowns started passing stupid laws and spending vasts sums of money.

It's the same old story. Come up with a fantastically pessimistic prediction which requires urgent and enormously expensive action and then claim credit when the nightmare scenario fails to materialise (see also swine 'flu). What goes unmentioned - because it can never be conclusively proved - is that the nightmare scenario was never going to happen in the first place.

How PMQs works

Your humble Devil must admit to wondering how, precisely, the questions are chosen at PMQs—especially since so many seem not to be, in fact, questions but assorted back-benchers toadying to the government.

Luckily, Kerry McCarthy has explained it all for us (she does, occasionally, write some quite interesting stuff about the processes of the House).

Backbenchers (which includes all the Lib Dems except Clegg and all the Tories except the Shadow Cabinet) have to submit their question for PMQs by 12.30pm the Thursday before. They don't have to actually specify what question they want to ask, other than 'what engagements the PM has today'. Then it's down to pure luck, whether your question comes up in the shuffle conducted by the Table Office. I don't know how they do the shuffle but it is entirely random. This week, for example, there are five Lib Dems on the order paper as well as Stephen Pound, who was called by the Speaker at last week's PMQs, and Karen Buck, who has been down the bottom of the order paper twice in the three weeks that Parliament has been back. Maybe they'll get round to her this week; she just missed out last time.

She does go into a lot more analysis—using tomorrow's PMQs as an example—which is worth having a look at. Amongst other things, it might be worth noting who the toadies are so that you can be sure to ignore them from now on...