November 22, 2007

Kakistocracy, noun
Government by the worst citizens

"Oh, come off it," said Nipper. "Next thing you'll say, ooh, I don't know, that they didn't notice that £24 billion - and then some - would have to be used to prop up a bank that will still eventually make a profit when their City mates are allowed to buy it for a bonus-busting song, rather than nationalise it - which would be the fair thing seeing as its taxpayers' money - as a temporary measure!"

"Well, er-"

"Hang on! Or, like, how about, something like they want to spend billions more on a totally unnecessary and unworkable ID card system to - gulp - protect our identities, and then they'll go and give a world-beating 25 million of them away, national insurance numbers and bank account numbers and dates of birth and all, to anyone who wants them anyway!"

The buzzard roared with laughter.

"Look-"

"Stop, stop," waved the buzzard, eyes filled with bleary tears of mirth. "You're killing me! You're killing me! No way!"

"Erm-"

"Shut up! My sides hurt! What next? Police assassinating innocent men in broad daylight and no one getting the blame? Going to Remembrance Sunday services with a solemn face even though you know perfectly well that the poor proud bastards with no legs just a few metres away can barely afford to live? Mate, you do make me laugh. This is Britain. We're not like that!"

"Nipper-"

"Really. Honestly - you'll believe anything. I suppose you think the Tories had a point when they described Brown and his band of lickspittle hypocritical bandit bastards as 'pathetic' for blaming all the so-called fuck-ups on the previous Tory Government of, um, pre-1997, when half your blogging mates were still at school?

"Or, say, clearly vulnerables getting let out of prison to kill? I suppose that's the Government's fault, too, isn't it?

"I bet you don't even buy Mr Broooooon's assertion that his superb bet-for/hope-for-later running of the economy has led to an inevitable slow down, having relied as it did on the belief that American bounty would last at least until his term is over and then it's someone else's problem?"

But Zeds had had enough: "Or how about this very afternoon a single-mum of 32 being locked up for six weeks for overclaiming benefit because she had a part-time job making £82.75 a week extra - in fact a grand total of just £291 extra over a four month period, if she'd declared it?"

"Bollocks," said Nipper. "They wouldn't do that to someone on the breadline. Not this Labour government. Not while their City mates earn millions in bonuses year in and year out without paying a penny in tax, because, like L'Oreal fucking shampoo, they're worth it?"

"Sorry," conceded Zeds. "You're right. We live in a wonderful place. Not, admittedly, as wonderful as Saudi Arabia, though, where a seven-man gang-rape victim aged just 19 years-old faces 200 lashes - for fuck's sake - for being in an unrelated man's car at the time she and her frend were attacked."

"Christ," said Nipper. "Now that's barbaric."

"Well, yes. But they are our allies, you know. In war and stuff."

"Ah."

"Ah indeed. And it doesn't matter that 80 percent of the 9/11 assassins came from, well, Saudi Arabia and not, bizarrely, from either Afghanistan or Iraq. As in, where the bombs still land. Every day."

"Well, no. Thank crikey, eh?"

"Yeah. We're brilliant. We got rid of the oppressive woman-hating Taleban in Afghanistan and, even more brilliantly, carried on sending cut-price bombs and planes to the extraordinarily wealthily Kingdom of Saud where they still strap a teenage rape victim to rough bark, in front of a baying mob, and whip her until she's blooded, half-naked, and half dead. Great, eh?"

"Don't we give them kick-backs on those military deals, too?"

"Yeah. About $40 billion at the last count. But it keeps America happy."

"Then praise be to McDonalds and appalling foreign policy."

"Agreed," said Zeds. "Shall we put our Union Flags up now?"