Category: Austerity

DIY PENSIONS : THE HOME OFFICE seems never out of the news cycle these days. If it’s not the Windrush Scandal, it’s the treatment of millions of EU27 citizens (who naively thought settling in the UK under one legal system wouldn’t see their lives upturned by retrospective immigration law changes), and now it’s accusations of bullying by Priti ‘knuckles’ Patel. But mercifully the DWP is here to help.

And the help is coming in the form of changes to how pensions are paid to Britons as we regain our edible sovereignty, clench our blue passports tight and wave our upside down, plastic Union Jack flags.

“From 2021 all pensions in the UK will be paid in fallen fruit,” the DWP Secretary, Whoever ’tis Today MP, told a packed press conference, alongside a cheerful looking colleague from the Environment Agency.

“And this positive change will alleviate any strain orchard growers in the UK will feel as we sever their relationship to economically viable sources of labour from across the Channel.”

The neat twinning of needs will see pensioners ferried about the apple and pear orchards of GLOBAL BRITAIN and picking that fruit, so it doesn’t rot, and the farms stay in business.

“Any fruit that has already fallen will be available for collection by patriotic, working pensioners (up to a stipulated bag limit) and consumed in whatever way they see fit as a pension. Once this trial has been deemed a success it will be expanded across the payment of all benefits (that economically inactive Britons currently drain out of the state). Funds that would be much better paid to the owners of companies receiving contracts as a result of the outsourcing of all remaining public services.”

The only snag in the plan appears to be at what distance from the ground does a falling apple become a pension apple? And will pensioners collecting an airborne apple that has only just left a branch, perhaps in a sudden gust of wind, be charged with theft?

“Such minor details will be worked out in the trial period.” Never mind.

And people say this government doesn’t have a plan. Oh it does. It just doesn’t want to show us.

WHAT GOES AROUND COMES AROUND AND KEEPS ON GOING : IAIN DUNCAN SMITH, aka Irritable Duncan Syndrome, is said to be furious today after his knighthood was downgraded to an MBE.

An MBE is of course a worthy gong for anyone, especially someone who has done so much to punish people for being poor. But you don’t get to call yourself ‘Sir’ and there’s little point getting measured at the tailors for a pair of chainmail pantyhose if receiving one.

“It’s not Iain’s fault,” an insider in the Irritable household told LCD Views, “it’s a scandal. Iain has done more than most to make people born into much less fortunate circumstances than himself feel worthless. While entitlement and privilege, a life of succour on the public purse too, make Iain feel great. He really earned this honour. He’s going to appeal.”

The reason for the sanctioning of the gong appears to be Iain being just a couple of minutes late to his knighting. He can appeal the decision, but it will take many weeks and there’s rumours that the appeal process will be undertaken by a third party contractor incentivised to reduce the number of knighthoods, regardless of circumstances.

“They’re also making him wait five weeks for the MBE!” the insider added, “just because of a clerical error in his paperwork that he isn’t responsible for. What sort of a monster would design a system so inhumane, so bereft of holistic thinking, so incentivised to punish and browbeat? He may as well be on Universal Credit, that’s how pernicious and punitive this feels.”

We hope Iain is successful in his appeal. What use is an MBE to him when he’s already a member of the British Empire, 1.0 and 2.0.

Nothing will do more to encourage the poor to choose to be born into better circumstances than a man getting knighted whose only perceivable virtue appears to be accident of birth. And this after devising a scheme that has seen millions of less well born individuals suffer.

In other news, the honours system itself has been declared fit for work by ATOS, in spite of clearly being anything but…

BULL(SHIT) MARKET : The newly elected Conservative MP for Giving-a-Kare, Mrs Marry Grates, has been revealed as the UK’s first food bank millionaire.

Mrs Grates wouldn’t comment over the rumour (none of this is confirmed, it’s all speculation) that she is the first person to become a millionaire by developing an app charging charities to find food, so we had to make up the comments for her, just as we have imagined her.

“It’s a virtuous circle,” she told LCD Views, “the food bank sector is booming. If left wing types weren’t so bloody busy wringing their hands together all the time, they’d see the money to be made. The Conservative government brings in laws which fuel the growth of the food banking sector, I run a business on the back of that demand, and now I’m in the government too. I wonder what my motivation for decreasing the demand for food bank apps will now be?”

Which is a good question. Because we do not know Mrs Grates’ motivations, it could be that she is actually driven to alleviate suffering. Has seen it first hand and learned more about it through the development of her app, and will now push famous humanitarian, Boris Johnson, to reverse the policies that have fuelled the demand? Happily putting herself out of business for the common good.

“You’ll have to wait and see,” Mrs Grates shrugged imaginatively and smiled, “I may move out of the food bank sector and into the next bull market to come in the United Kingdom. Organ sales. After all, those rising rents in an intentionally malfunctioning, landlord heavy housing market, aren’t going to pay themselves in the supercharging of the gig economy.”

It’s grim up north! And it’s set to become grimmer now that Westminster has decided to use The North as a dumping ground for its rubbish.

“It’s great news for The North!” bubbled Number Ten’s Tufton Street mouthpiece, Paul Oozers. “It’s a fantastic opportunity for the lazy, feckless, unemployed Northern bastards to learn new skills. Where there’s muck there’s brass, as they say up there!”

LCD Views’ Colliery Brass Bands correspondent asked, innocently, where Oozers thought The North was.

“You will have to ask Dominic Raab’s office,” he replied. “He deals with The North.”

Hang on, shouldn’t that be Priti Patel? She is Home Secretary after all.

“Home Secretary, Home Counties,” replied Oozers. The North is another country. That’s a good point, we need to locate The North and build a wall to keep it out.”

Expect concrete around the perimeter of the M25, and checkpoints at every junction.

Dominic Raab was reported to be nervous, sweating and stammering at the news that The North was within his remit. “They have… black pudding… and drop their aitches,” he panted, white as a sheet. “The North is another country. I hadn’t quite realised the significance!”

The North is not too happy about this development. “The southern politicians always dump on t’North,” opined professional Yorkshireman Bart Att. “Ilkley Moor has never been t’same after t’bloody Londoners got ‘old of that bloody song!”

Att claimed that if The South can close themselves off, so could Yorkshire. “There will be a 157% tariff on bin bags, new or used,” he said. “Yorkshire will claim independence, and stop bloody Lancashire pinching all t’bloody Wensleydale!”

Yorkshire will be able to survive indefinitely on Pontefract cake, Whitby scampi and Yorkshire tea – and Wensleydale of course. Rumours that Yorkshire is seeking southern investors for a series of treacle mines are, so far, unconfirmed.

There is no rationing of the good news flowing from Boris Johnson. Brexit will be a breeze, he says, we survived rationing before.

“The storm clouds are not gathering,” he assured the nation from the back door of Arlene Foster’s place in Belfast. “It will all blow over very quickly. It’s a storm in a teacup, and we should all just go home and, err, yes, yes, that’s it, have a nice cup of tea! Jolly good!”

Independent observers believe that the wiffling windbag is full of hot air. “Boris Johnson is being very flippant about food shortages,” remarked Eaton McCurry. “Brits will not be happy that their traditional diet of biryani and pizza is being replaced by powdered eggs.”

There is concern that the blue ration books will not be ready in time. “The War Cabinet has bigger fish to fry,” reveals Westminster bureaucrat Una Lected. “Like securing sufficient donations from international proto-fascists to ensure that supplies of vintage champagne are maintained.”

There is also a logistical problem. “The ration books are being printed in Poland,” said Lected. “Like the new blue passports. They will be shipped to the UK via the Dover-Calais route, which, according to Dominic Raab, doesn’t exist. They will be held in bond in France until the UK settles its account with the EU, which Johnson insists won’t happen. There may be adequate food, but nobody will be able to claim it.”

We return to the Prime Minister, who was still hanging around Arlene Foster’s back door, more in hope than anticipation. “We need to be a bit more can-do and a bit less gung-ho,” he wibbled, weakly. “We are British, after all. We must tap into the Blitz Spirit, the Dunkirk Spirit and the potato spirit! The water won’t be drinkable, of course. Rationing for the many, not the few, I say. Good, good!”

The UK is officially at war. With the demons inside the heads of men like Boris Johnson.

The poor little rich boy is planning the announcement to coincide with the next outbreak of Brexit Party idiocy. The living wage will see no increases under his leadership, he will say.

Unfortunately he is also on record for claiming that he could not survive on a cabinet minister’s salary of £141,000, or roughly £50 an hour. Someone must have been spaffing money up the wall.

LCD Views’ Root Of All Evil correspondent contacted Boris Johnson’s office to find out why a living wage of £8.21 an hour is plenty, but £50 isn’t.

“Obviously Boris misspoke,” dissembled spokesnumpty Fay Sparm. “But he has a point. When you tot up all the amounts he has to pay, it comes to a fair whack. Especially as he can’t claim it all back on expenses like in the old days.”

Surely that’s why an MP gets paid more than most people.

“Boris isn’t most people,” says Sparm. “His hush money, I mean child maintenance payments, are astronomical. He had to take the writing job on the Telegraph just to make ends meet, and to make sure he has sufficient vintage champagne for breakfast.”

Hardly a man of the people, then.

“Depends which people you mean.”

Fair point.

But how can he expect his subjects to get by on £8.21 an hour while he can’t survive on £50?

“The rules don’t apply to Boris,” claimed Sparm triumphantly. “He can be charmingly incompetent, and insult all and sundry, and everybody loves him. It puts him in the same bracket as the Duke of Edinburgh!”

And I suppose the other expenses are totting up, too.

“Well obviously the recent incident with his lover, Carrie Onfighting, has cost Boris dear,” admitted Sparm. “Sofas and laptops cost money, and people like Boris don’t just pop down to IKEA like the rest of us. And Harrod’s delivery charges have gone through the roof now all the immigrant labour has buggered off!”

That’s OK, then. Carry on spaffing.

GROUND ZERO: A NEW MOD STUDY has revealed that both Chris Grayling MP and cockroaches would survive a nuclear war, and not even the detonation of the Earth’s complete nuclear arsenal would be enough to remove him from government.

“We started on the premise that Chris Grayling was made Secretary of State for Defence,” an MOD spokesman revealed, “in the likely scenario that Penny Mordaunt has a diving contest to attend and an emergency replacement is required. Additionally, all other ministers will have deserted Theresa May’s government after the 7th attempt to pass her Brexit deal. It was pretty straightforward from there. Within hours he had accidentally launched missiles at a nuclear armed foreign power while attempting to change his MOD email password.”

While it’s no surprise that he continues to enjoy the perks of ministerial office, in spite of destroying every brief he touches.

“He’s exceptionally good at moving taxpayer money into the pockets of private companies,” the spokesman noted, “this is why he is still in post. He is actually a high achiever in terms of modern Conservative aims. The outcomes aren’t important. How much you get out of the public purse for private interests is.”

But it’s not clear what the cockroaches would think, should they find themselves finally rulers of all they surveyed, freed from having to hide and scurry about, only to discover the same applied for Chris Grayling.

“I suspect the cockroaches will be smart enough to work it out,” the spokesman mused, “they’d probably privatise Chris Grayling himself, put him in charge of the operation himself and wait for his complete destruction.”

VITAL SIGNS : Health Secretary Matt Handmemyrooster has hit back at claims the government is killing the NHS today, amid figures showing zero nurses left and only one GP to cover the entirety of the UK.

“It’s all going to plan,” someone claiming to be Matt told LCD View’s Health Correspondent, “I’ve paid an American based digital design firm, who specialise in apps for the health industry, £5bn to come up with an app that solves any demand and supply issues for NHS customers.”

Under the plans, revealed here today, British health customers will be able to access an AI GP with a new app, fitting called AIGP (pronounced Aaargh).

“Aargh will take the UK’s health sector into the profit margins of the 21st century,” Little Matty enthused, “customers simply have to download Aaargh from the app store and away they go, professional consultations at your fingertips for a small subscription fee.”

The design team have really excelled themselves, LCD Views agrees, by combining the retro-style of 80’s counterculture classic Max Headroom, with the functionality of Siri.

You will feel right at home the moment you open the app for the first time. Next you just respond to prompts for symptoms, these are needed so Max can adopt the right level of (Tory) manic cynicism to prescribe any treatment, from antibiotics for a raging skin infection to surgery to remove excess cerebral material prompting brain worms like ‘wtf fuckin’ Tories’ and ‘this is bullshit’.

“It should be noted though that this app will only work on iPhones, so anyone possessing an android will need to enter the new National Lottery prize draw for a consultation with the last human GP left. Which is ironic, when you consider the app based service is an android. Funny old world.”

As a side note, it’s believed the change in terminology from patients to customers is a key plank of preparing the NHS for the future. Don’t say you haven’t been warned.

“Need your appendix removed?” Matt adds, “there’s an app for that. Smiley face with wink.”

No Matt, actually there’s not, but good luck with that tie up with private health.

https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/nhs-privatisation-health-secretary-contracts-companies-matt-hancock-jon-ashworth-a8857021.html

 

PUBLIC MONEY IS FREE MONEY : Transport boss Chris Grayling has announced he is to pay the cancelled No Deal Brexit emergency ferry contract fees with actual NHS nurses.

https://m.huffingtonpost.co.uk/entry/no-deal-brexit-ferry-contracts-cancelled-at-cost-of-ps50-million_uk_5cc96df5e4b0913d078adece?ncid=fcbklnkukhpmg00000001

“I want to correct you there,” the Transport Guru said, after hearing we were writing this in-depth analysis of his work, “we won’t only be paying the shipping companies with NHS staff, some of the £50m owing will be paid in teachers and school meals that would otherwise have gone to underprivileged children.”

It’s presumed this manner of paying contracts owing solely out of attempts by the executive to bully MPs and frighten voters is only possible because of the hard work the public unified to undertake with austerity?

”Yes. The entirety of the United Kingdom tightened their belts, well, under a certain earning threshold, and this built in huge reserves of economic units, like nurses and teachers, that would otherwise have been squandered by poor people in our communities. Austerity was not a con.”

But how does he counter accusations that he can’t settle government debts, no matter irresponsibly created, with actual people? That it’s incredibly medieval.

”All the teachers and nurses will be free to sub-contract and be actually employed in our hospitals, via private employment agencies specialising in recruiting for the NHS, and for increasing the cost of running the service to the gain of Conservative Party supporters. So there is nothing to worry about.”

But shouldn’t the ministers, and the prime minister, responsible for this appalling and wasteful exercise pay for it out of their own pockets?

”Oh, don’t be silly. This is all part of the Brexit the British people overwhelmingly voted for. And I don’t think that the Kremlin linked figure paid quite so much for dinner with the prime minister on Monday,” Mr Failing chuckled, “it was a much more modest fee.”

Starvation Minister Amber Rudd refused to rule out introducing charges to use food banks. Non-essential items, such as potatoes, would become chargeable under new regulations.

This came about as Rudd linked food bank usage to the success of Universal Credit. “Thanks to benefit changes, waiting times for food banks are down to as little as five weeks,” claimed Rudd’s spokesfatty, Eaton Pye. “I don’t think that’s unreasonable. After all, the average overweight benefit scrounger can survive for 35-40 days without food, with only a small chance of physical or psychological damage or death.”

Universal Credit failures are cited as one of the reasons for food bank use in the first place. “And that’s why charging is essential,” said Pye. “It will eliminate the freeloaders, so that only the truly needy will be able to obtain vital supplies of own-brand tinned marrowfat peas.”

LCD’s Food For Thought correspondent researched the charging schedule more closely. The list of chargeable items was surprisingly long. All fruit and vegetables will be paid-for (except Brussels sprouts). Bread, rice and biscuits all attract payment (“Let them eat cake!” chortled Pye), as do many other common foodstuffs like eggs and cheese.

“Cheese, unfortunately, cannot be exempt,” said Pye. “As one of our most popular items, a tariff must be applied to stifle demand. Customers may instead obtain bottles of milk way past their sell-by date, and produce their own cheeses.”

We put it to Pye that food banks were becoming, in essence, supermarkets in all but name. “No, not at all,” Pye retorted. “We are literally giving away food. All claimants have to do is to turn up and complete an application form only 32 pages long. Time to process this must be allowed, and if a claim is upheld, then claimants may choose from all the items we stock that Aldi can’t actually sell.”

“Please, can I have some more?” “No, of course not! What do you think this is, Dickensian London?”