Miliband, UKIP and the 'I'm not racist but...' people.

Am fascinated 

by these 'I'm not racist but' people they show us. 

They say things like 'it's all got too much' 

and 'there's too many of them' etc etc 

So what do they think UKIP is going to do for them? 

Put people on trains and ship them out? 

And how will these people be chosen? 

And who is going to do the choosing? 

And if the people refuse to go? 

Will UKIP have special police to do that? 

And this is not racism? 

And UKIP isn't deliberately holding out hopes for people who say those things that that is precisely what they would do? 

And Labour can't say that about UKIP? 

And that Labour should keep saying that 'people have concerns' instead of saying what I'm saying here? 

For f.sake Miliband, it's what your parents fled from. 

Say it. Say it. Say it.

Hurrah for mortgages, say the zero hour contract workers.

You want a house?
You want a flat?
Do you want a mortgage?
Everyone should have a mortgage.
Do you want to 'get on the first rung of the housing ladder'?
Of course we do.
Do you want to be part of the property-owning democracy?
Of course we do.
Are we happy that this is what the Tories are doing for us?
Of course we are.

But at the same time
under Toryism there are many more people on zero-hour contracts
many more people on temporary contracts
many more people are low earning self-employed.

None of these people can get a mortgage.

Hurrah for that, we all say, that will ensure
that they don't become people who will default
they won't have 'sub-prime mortgages,
they won't 'trigger a crash'.

So what is this 'property owning democracy' then?
Ah it's the kind of democracy that is only available
to those with permanent contracts
and high enough salaries.

In the meantime, people have to live somewhere,
somewhere where they spend a huge chunk of what they earn,
such a large chunk that they can't save for a deposit
even if they ever did manage to turn their zero hour contract
or their temporary contract into a permanent one
or if ever the fees in the self-employed work
ever got big enough...

So, thank you Cameron for telling us on the Today Programme
of your thrill
that day you walked through the door of your first flat
knowing that it was yours.

Everyone on zero hour contracts
temporary contracts
and low earning self-employed rates
cheered when you said that.

Hurrah...hurrah...hurrah.

Farage and Clarkson - a new TV programme together.

You know those radio and TV programmes 

where people make up meanings for odd words 

or do a speech where they conceal something untrue? 

Farage and Clarkson could do a programme 

where they say racist things 

and then immediately afterwards say they're sorry. 

The job of the people in the other team would be to guess whether they meant to be 

a) genuinely racist or 

b) genuinely sorry or 

c) if it doesn't really matter whether they apologise or not because having said the racist stuff, the people who want to hear the racism are really quite pleased.

[when I posted this on Facebook, someone ("Micky Merch") said that it should be called 'Call My Nazi Bluff'. ]

Farage: the thoughts of the Great Leader

OK, I didn't mean to say, 'Who would want to live next door to Romanians?'
I didn't mean to say what I said that I meant to say which is
'All Romanians are thieves.'
I meant to say,
'Some Romanians are thieves.'

This is a fact.
It's worth saying because the fact that
some Romanians are thieves
is quite different from saying that
some Brits are thieves.

That's because
Romanian thieves are worse than British thieves.

I am not a racist.

I'm very glad to have cleared that up.

Sajid Javid plays the race card

The issue with Sajid Javid talking about migrants learning English etc is that:
 of course it's playing to the gallery while watching UKIP. 

First, of course most migrants try to learn English. Why wouldn't they? 

Second, if some find it difficult, even too difficult, it almost certainly isn't because they're being wilfully anti-British. It'll be because they find it difficult! 

Third, all the young offspring of migrants learn English at school. 

Fourth, it's not easy or free to get lessons in English. 

Fifth, it's a bit ripe Brits moaning about foreigners not learning English. A week in the south of France talking to emigre Brits and you soon find out that plenty of them can't be arsed to learn French. Same applies all over the world. 

Sixth, how many people are we actually talking about? How many people are not learning English? Typical of politicians to run up a flag about something without specifying dimensions or details. How many non-Brits are not bothering to learn English? 

How much of a 'problem' is it? So, for example, I hear Turkish people talking Turkish to each other in North London. This is while they are doing business - you know, that thing that the government say is wonderful - running shops - that sort of thing. What's the problem?!

Fascism: I sometimes fear...

I sometimes fear that 

people think that fascism arrives in fancy dress 

worn by grotesques and monsters 

as played out in endless re-runs of the Nazis. 

Fascism arrives as your friend. 

It will restore your honour, 

make you feel proud, 

protect your house, 

give you a job, 

clean up the neighbourhood, 

remind you of how great you once were, 

clear out the venal and the corrupt, 

remove anything you feel is unlike you...

It doesn't walk in saying, 

"Our programme means militias, mass imprisonments, transportations, war and persecution."

News in this morning: the rich got richer this year

Imagine:
someone in the Labour Party would dare to say
that the whole charade of this government
has not been about 'the deficit'
or 'getting the economy right'
but about the onward advance of capital -
that is, as part of the class war waged by capital,
to get for itself a larger and larger share of wealth
than that earned through wages.
The poor got poorer
and the rich got richer.
Either you're with that
or against it.
That's all.