Government Enforced Giving

Longrider comprehensively fillets this pile of shite here, and I've not got a lot to add. All I would like to highlight is in relation to this idea:

The Government will also launch a ‘major campaign’ to promote payroll giving, where employees are encouraged to commit a slice of their monthly pay cheque to charity.

I would just like to point out that I already give up - without being given the choice - about a quarter of my monthly pay cheque to the government. It's a bit like charity but with me having the choice to (a) give up the money and (b) choose what it is spent on. But that's not relevant. My point, rather, is this - if the government wants me to give more to charity, they should substantially reduce the amount the extort from me each month. Economics plays a crucial part in all this, see? I only earn a certain amount of money each month, which means I can only ever give a certain amount to others. You want me to give more, Mr and Mrs Coalition? Let me give more by letting me retain more.

But this is the problem with the Big Society, and it is the logical fallacy at the very heart of David Cameron's spurious, ill thought through project. He expects more from the people of this country - he expects them to go an build a big society. But he won't reduce the burden that the state places on them. This is why the Big Society will fail. At its heart, it could be about a radical redistribution of power in favour of the people of this country. In reality, it is little more than a fig-leaf to disguise the fact that the money has run about but that the Tories are afraid of the genuine spending cuts and tax cuts that would really make a difference to this country.

So, yeah, by all means ask me to give more from my monthly pay cheque. But until you reduce the tax burden, you can frankly whistle for it.

Spending Cuts - A Suggestion

To all those complaining about the scale of the spending cuts, in particular those relating to welfare, here's a suggestion - if it bothers you that much, then find an applicable charity and donate money to it. That way you are doing your bit to help even though the government is no longer in a position to afford to help. And if you don't want to do that, then I'd like to politely suggest that you shut the fuck up.

Chuggers

God, I hate them. Seriously, they do my head in. And thus make me even more misanthropic than usual.

It isn't the concept of giving to charity - I'm all for that. It isn't that they're raising money in the street - if its for a cause they feel passionately about, then of course they're going to use every means possible to make money. No, what bothers me is the *zany* types they have doing the chugging. You know the ones I mean - the ones who give idiots a bad name. Those who dance around in front of you even if you're pretending they don't exist. Those who get in your personal space believing that's a good way to get you to part with your hard earned cash. And those who shout out a crude description of you in order to get your attention ("beardy!"). Fuck off already! If I was in any way interested in your charity, I would give to it online. A prancing prig with a clipboard is not going to make me more likely to give to your charity. In fact, the opposite is true.

And there are now so many of these lacklustre, attention-seeking goblins on our streets that it has become a veritable epidemic. It is like certain areas in certain cities have developed a strange disease - a form of veneral disease for particular streets. "Don't go down Main Street! It's got herpes chuggers!" I think there is some sympathy from some for these people as they are collecting for charity. Well, I don't share that symapthy - these people are paid to act like dicks in public.

So here's the deal - I'm not going to give to any charity that employs a chugger who irritates me. If charities want to collect money on the street, that's fine. But employing jumped up little shits with all the people skills of a spoilt toddler is not good enough, and won't be a way to get any money from me.

Pay Gordon to work for free

Gordo’s doing charity work. And he’s keen to highlight that he’s doing it for free:

“Each of these positions are pro bono and Mr Brown will not accept any remuneration. He will continue to write on global issues, as he has been doing recently with articles on the desperate plight of those in Pakistan and Niger."

The narrative is as obvious as it is tedious; good ol’ Gordon is doing charity work for free, while evil Tony charges for his post Prime Ministerial work. What a shit, eh? Just as well Gordon is around to be genuinely charitable.

Except, that’s not quite the case when you think about it. Sure, Gordon may be doing his charity work for free, but it’s not like he doesn’t have a healthy income. After all, he is still an MP, although not that you would know it given his criminal lack of attendance and therefore neglect of his constituents since he lost the election. So Gordon may be doing charity work, but he’s doing it at the taxpayer’s expense while ignoring the job he was actually elected to do. So you’ll have to forgive me if I don’t praise him too much, or think that he’s in some way better than Blair – who, while be may be raking it in now, at least isn’t an MP anymore.

That’s Gordon Brown – even as he works for free he still expects you to pay for it.

Share the Wealth, Share the Nominations

There is something really rather pathetic about contenders in an election begging their rivals for help, but that's exactly what is happening in the Labour leadership contest. Here is a video containing the risible Diane Abbott complaining about Miliband Senior getting lots of nominations (which is the point, surely, at this stage of the election), and here you can see the begging e-mail from McDonnell to the other candidates - clearly, he's realised that the best way for him to get on the ballot papers is if someone else does it for him.

Maybe they're right; maybe the Labour party does need to have a broad selection of candidates to choose from. But I can't help but think that if McDonnell and Abbott (and possibly Burnham and Balls) can't get the support from their fellow MPs to get on the ballot paper, then that sends out a message about their credibility. And I also reckon that relying on the goodwill of your rivals to get you on the ballot paper maybe placing too much faith in their philanthropy. The Milibands are in this to win it - they're even prepared to run against their siblings. I can't see either one of them helping out a floundering rival.

And even if they did, what would be the point in that? If Abbott/McDonnell can't even get the support from their peers, how the hell are they going to get the support of the party members? And in the highly unlikely event that either one of them gets on the ballot paper and wins, what sort of a leader are they likely to be? After all, they can't turn to Cameron and Clegg at the next election and say "look, you're both going to get more votes than us, so how about we share those votes in order to make things fairer, eh?"

It is typical of the complete lack of reality of the Labour left that they are seriously proposing this. More than anything now, the Labour party needs someone who can win an election. Not someone who needs fucking charity just to get them on the ballot paper.

Bankers, let Facebook tell you what to do with your bonuses!

Ooo, looky - another stupid fucking Facebook group. Ladies and gentlemen, I give you Bankers Bonuses to Haiti. Here's their stated aim:

We believe that the undeserving bankers who are being or have been awarded obscene bonuses a mere18 months after precipitating the worst financial crisis for decades, resulting in countless people losing their jobs and homes (not the bankers though!), should pay all or a percentage of their ill gotten gains to the Haiti Earthquake Relief effort.

Let's break that angry, crass blurb down a bit. First of all, "undeserving bankers"? Who says they are undeserving? The people who pay the bonuses certainly don't think they are undeserving. Otherwise they wouldn't get the bonuses. Because, err, that's how bonuses work. And did every banker precipitate the financial crisis? Or just some of them? And here's a crazy idea - perhaps other people have some sort of complicity in the crisis. Like politicians, and those morons who took out 125% mortgages on their home. And obscene - what, pray, constitutes an obscene bonus? 1%? 10% 100% 200%? And is it obscene even if the company who employs the banker believes that person is worth that money?

Moving on - do we really believe that no banker has lost their job and/or their house because of the financial crisis? Because a lot of people working for Lehman Brothers did lose their jobs. And, for all we know, their homes. And "ill-gotten gains"? Again, you need to understand that companies don't pay bonuses if they don't believe the person is worth it. Hell, sometimes they don't pay bonuses even if they do think the person is worth it. There is nothing "ill-gotten" about someone accepting a bonus offered to them by their employers.

Don't get me wrong, I think that people should give money to Haiti. If they want to. Which is the point of charity. Bankers should give their bonuses, or part of their bonuses, to charity, if they want to. However, if they don't, then they should keep their money and spend it on whatever they want. Even if it is coke and cheap hookers.

Because, again, that is the point of charity. It is voluntary. Charity is not enforced by yet another tedious fucking Facebook group. So, bankers, do whatever you want with your bonuses. They're for you, after all.

A Doctor Who Clip

For anyone who, like me, finds the concept of Children In Need very worthy but the actual programme One Of The Worst Things In The World, I give you the most important part of the annual telethon. Yep, here is the clip from the forthcoming Doctor Who adventure The End of Time. Enjoy!