"What's it all about, Alfie?"

I take my title from the famous 1960s song but it would do as the heading to Janet Daley's column in today's Telegraph which asks, rather plaintively, "Does anyone really know what this election is all about?"  Sorry, Janet, I haven't a clue!  A few weeks back I begged 'Dim Dave' to come up with one or two 'Big Ideas' but, alas, it is obviously quite beyond him and all those alleged 'clever dicks' who surround him.  And that includes that useless Aussie adviser who is costing the Toy party a fortune and whose advice seems to be limited to telling 'Dave' not to say or do anything except slag off Labour.

The current chatter seems to be on the possible necessity for Tories and Labour to form a coalition government after the election in order to keep the Jocks out. This, of course, would delight 'Dave' because it would provide him with an excuse to back out of the very few real conservative pledges like holding a referendum on Europe.

Sometimes I despair!

 

Comments

[Backofanenvelope]

I can't resist pointing out that I suggested this outcome to you some months ago. Just after the Swedes formed their new government. And of course, the Germans have done the same. Standby for an outburst of nausea as YMD AND Miliband kiss each other in the rose garden!

[Lawrence Duff]

Speaking of Dave's big ideas, remember "the Big Society"?

What that meant was: -

(1) Pay us more tax than you lawfully have to, or else we, the executive, will harass you through the media, mob hatred, and any other way our power grants us. This is in spite of the fact that you hope to live in a society where the arbitrary use of power by the executive is curtailed (see "Enlightenment" for more info), and in spite of the fact that we pay the executive a small fortune in salaries and expenses to propose some decent tax law to the legislature and get it on the statute books, which the executive is now not bothering to do (see public sector productivity problem discussed earlier) for this small fortune we pay them.

(2) Pay homage to unaccountable, unelected Social Justice Czars, arbitrarily appointed by the executive with extra-judicial powers. Meet my current boss, for example. He's a very busy man trying to run a business that's endeavouring to compete with a ex-Nationalized business that's become a large private sector corporate monopoly. And recently he gets dragged in to the Houses of Parliament to be told, basically, more or less: "We, the executive, are too fucking useless and lazy to put any decent Social Justice legislation on the statute books, in spite of our six figure remuneration packages (again, see Public Sector productivity problem discussed earlier). So we're going to chuck it over to you, boss, unelected and unaccountable that you are, and stuff your "enlightenment". We want you to pay your workers more than the market rate, even though there is no legal reason why you should do. You're now boss, and Social Justice Czar, and we're off to the H of P bar for a well earned jaw rest".

(3) If you're working flexibly enough to be considered self-employed and a "freeman", free from certain taxes and with rights to offset expenses against tax, watch out. We're going to get our buddies in the HMRC to harass you into zero hour PAYE contracts and destroy your freedom and rights, because we know you don't have the means to fight us, the executive, through the legal system.

So, imho, Dave should do what he, and the Tory party as a whole, do best: Having no ideas whatsoever, and sticking to a small state and low taxes.

SoD

[Lawrence Duff]

The more I reflect on this, the more I wonder about an interpretation of Dim Dave that makes me think he might not be so dim after all.

The Big Society thing; might that have been a sort of false flag, spoiler, call it what you will, that appears to consume a leftish slant into his agenda, thereby neutralizing the damaging notion of the "Nasty Party", while meaning nothing? Now I know the above 3 items are hardly nothing, particularly to those directly affected by them, by they are what Dave considers a small price to pay for ridding his party of the "Nasty Party" canard, and they are easily reversed (the executive can simply stop doing it; there's nothing on the statute books officially obliging the executive to continue in this harassment).

But most particularly, "false flag ideas", like "The Big Society", distracts the electorate's attention from the quiet job in hand: Shrinking the proportion of GDP run through the state, and reducing the public sector headcount?

If correct, ironically, the only movement who could fuck this sly and righteous strategy up are those splitters in Ukip.

SoD

[Lawrence Duff]

And finally, speaking of Ukip, they explain why "Not-so-Dim Dave" won't even bother with another false flag idea in this election, thank God.

We've got a new "Nasty Party" to take all the heat! :-)

SoD

[jimmy glesga]

Lawrence I would like to meet Nigel and have a bevvy with him. We should get out of the EU and get rid of the pariah lawyers who would be redundant and have to work for a living.