Category: Austerity

Prime Minister for the time being, Theresa May, has gone one step further than her illustrious predecessor, Margaret Thatcher. Thatcher displayed her common touch on a number of occasions. Now May believes she has perfected the out of common touch, with the help of a crack committee.

A simple quote was all it took to demonstrate this confidence. Discussing books and pictures and security with an illiterate nation of insecure Philistines was a masterstroke.

We’ve all been there, haven’t we? The relief of finally landing one’s own first des res after saving up for a few months. The joy at marrying an investment relationship manager. The naughtiness of chasing straw men through wheatfields.

May herself was too busy laying down platitudes for her elitist audience to speak to us, but we did manage to contact press officer Willie Toldwater to explain the situation.

“Theresa has been working very hard behind the scenes. Almost as hard as David Davis,” he said.

“Let me be very clear, the out of common touch is a gift granted to the few, not the many. Theresa has now mastered this art, with the help of a handpicked collective.”

We can think of a few of her colleagues who already possessed this gift before, like overgrown public schoolboy Boris Johnson. But Toldwater has more information.

“She has been searching for the magic bullet,” he disclosed. “She has been receiving private tuition from none other than occult specialist Jacob Rees-Mogg!”

Yes, the man who votes people into poverty while enriching himself, contrary to his proclaimed Christian beliefs. The man who dresses and speaks like a Victorian throwback. The man who gives his unfortunate progeny names like Sixtus.

“One considers it a privilege to work with the Prime Minister and her lackeys,” said Rees-Mogg. “My coaching has encouraged her to speak of her low birth among the ruling classes, to rally the natives. One hopes that, in time, she will feel confident enough to speak to this great nation of the impending joys of the workhouse, and the return of feudalism.”

That should give you food for thought the next time you send the butler to Harrods for a pint of milk and twenty Bensons.

The housing shortage comes to the top of the agenda today. Affordable housing is in short supply, and ministers are anxious to be seen to be doing something. Anything.

The massive experiment of privatisation and deregulation has finally produced negative results that even its ardent supporters recognise. Private developers will build high value homes because it is more profitable to sell to rich people. Rich people then buy lots of these houses and sell them or rent them to other rich people. Everybody wins. Well, everyone who matters.

This leads to an inflation of house prices and rents. This means that most people are priced out of the market, so investors suffer. To address this problem, developers are going to be obliged to build lower priced homes, so that poorer billionaires will be able to afford them.

“It’s only reasonable,” said Raisa Drawbridge, mouthpiece of Sajid Javed. “For too long we have neglected the needs of the second tier of wealth producers. Housing should then trickle down to everyone who deserves it.”

‘Deserving’ meaning poor people in expensive yet inadequate houses?

“No, they are not deserving,” retorted Drawbridge. “They obviously don’t work hard enough, and need to suffer in order to be taught a lesson.”

It is clear that an Englishman’s Castle is his Home, as more and more budget moated mansions come on to the market.

Before long, even people who drive BMWs will be able to get a foot on the property ladder.

The problem is most acute in London. House prices here are sky-high, instead of merely exorbitant as in the rest of the country. An average three bed semi here will fetch seven figures, and a disused urinal next to a congested dual carriageway recently sold for £750,000.

“That’s fine,” says Drawbridge. “Londoners are paid more than the provincials out in the sticks. It helps slow the current rate of inward migration.”

And truly poor people? Government advice is, there is plenty of mud and straw around, build your own and stop whingeing.

The recent spell of cold weather has led even people from Newcastle to put the heating on. Supplies of natural gas have become depleted, and the government needs YOUR help. You are requested to produce your own gas by consuming beans on toast.

The Department for Business, Energy & Industrial Strategy, which made the pronouncement, put forward spokesman Blaise N. Saddles to explain.

“Natural gas is mainly methane, which is produced by decaying organic matter,” said Saddles quickly, before his audience nodded off. “This gets trapped underground, and, years later, may be extracted and burned to keep us all in profit.”

Why, then, are we being advised to eat beans?

“Humans also can produce natural gas,” said Saddles. “Beans promote the production of a vital resource which may then be tapped. This will also help to cover the fact that the privatised energy companies value short-term profits above contingency planning. Add a spoonful of curry powder and a large pinch of salt for maximum effect.”

Consumers are advised to collect the gas in hastily-produced bags. The gas-bags, already dubbed cul-de-sacs by witty linguists, will be given away free with every 24 cans of baked beans purchased.

“It’s recycling at its best!” claimed Saddles. “And it will turn an embarrassing moment into an instance of national pride. Our slogan is, Trump for Britain!”

Meanwhile, the public in LCD’s local supermarket were less than impressed. “Trump for Britain? What a ghastly notion,” said Anna Mazingpump, putting 24 cans of beans into her trolley. ”I mean, can you imagine, walking around with one of them bags on? I’ll have one for my husband though, he could supply the whole street.”

All practicalities to do with feeding this new source of natural gas into the national network have been waved aside by a government obsessed with waving aside the practicalities of Brexit.

More news on this story as we discern which way the wind is blowing.

We have all heard Jacob and his daily chant in TV interviews of cheap food, clothing and footwear for Britain post brexit. So we decided to send I P Standing over to meet Jacob at his favourite Westminster tea room for more detail.

He managed to grab 10mins with the Moggster over an earl grey, before Jacob had to get all powdered up for his next exclusive and filed the following report.

“Jacob”, I asked, “where do you buy your food? ”

“I get a hamper from Harrods delivered once a week. Great big basket filled with items bearing the Queens crest. If it’s good enough for her majesty it’s good enough for me. Any family who manages their budget can easily do the same.”

A frown did crease his brow momentarily.

“Although I have noticed a marked increase in price recently. I called El Fayad to ask why. He told me that he had to import the baskets from India and since the referendum and the fall in the pound, the cost has rocketed. He assured me the contents were legit and he hadn’t been fiddling with the labels.

I save all the labels for reuse when marking my staff, before I let them in the field for exercise.”

I next asked Jacob had he ever heard of Asda, Aldi or better still, Lidl?

” No,” he replied, “although my wife has shopped once in Waitrose. Like being in a cattle market she said to me… never again! ”

I said, “Asda, Aldi and Lidl offer some of the cheapest food in Europe!”

“They sound foreign, I don’t do foreign,” replied Jacob, “well, unless it’s an emerging market with a sensible approach to rule of law.”

Fair enuff.

“Clothing what about clothing? ”

“I get my suits from Saville row. I have one for every day of the week and I have my name tag sewn into the collar, JRM.

It reminds me of school and the fun we used to have in the dormitories. When the other boys would hide my silk satin jim jams.”

“Jim jams?” I asked.

“Pyjamas, the boys, Cameron and Johnson used hide them behind the gin and tonic vending machine. But I’d always find them because they had my name tag sewn in them. Well, my man would find them. But that’s the same thing.”

“Shirts what about shirts?” I asked.

“Shirts from my tailor, usually with a thin pin stripe….. although at weekends at home I wear one of those photocopier salesman ones. You know, blue with a thin white pin stripe and a white collar and white cuffs. It makes me feel………. dangerous.”

And ties?

“I like to wear a military style, something with a pretend insignia or coloured regimental stripe. I like to keep in tight with the military, you never know when I might need them post brexit. Always be prepared, that’s my family motto, always be prepared to order low born chaps to lay down their lives.”

“Jacob, have you ever heard of Matalan, H&M or better still Primark?” I asked, “You can buy trousers in there for a tenner and a couple of shirts for less than that. They have some of the cheapest clothes in Europe.”

“Matalan, H&M and Primark sounds like a group of invading vikings,” said Jacob. He looked a bit flushed.

“Well what about footwear, where do you buy your shoes?”

“I have a cobbler in Cheltenham he makes superb handmade brogues. Although he recently said he would have to increase his price as the leather is imported from Spain, and due to the weak pound he couldn’t hold his prices down. He also asked if I would settle my previous invoice? All in good time my man, all in good time.”

“Is there a good time to buy shoes?” I asked, thinking shoes maybe an emerging market.

“I always go when the Cheltenham national hunt festival is on. I like to be surrounded by all those Irish priests betting the sum of their annual church collections on the horses.

I like to be around like minded Catholics. Over the winnings we sup a Guinness and revel about anti abortion, anti gay and anti contraception. I feel so at home with them in that week in March.”

“Have you ever heard of Clarkes?

“No, what’s a clark?” replied Jacob.

“They are in Street, Somerset I think they are in your parliamentary constituency, they make shoes.”

“Shoes you say?”

“Yes shoes at very reasonable prices, all styles, you can even get brogues with a rubber sole.”

“I’m not wearing rubber soled shoes, dear boy, who do you think I am, Ian Duncan Smith? Creeping around the corridors of Westminster?

I only wear leather soles so people can hear me coming as I stride over the stone floors of Westminster.”

“Well thank you Jacob for sparing the time,” I said, touching the forelock and seeing in the buff shine of his shoes the future of Brexit Britain.

“I understand now why you would think Britain needs cheaper food, clothing and footwear. But what about your underwear?”

Jacob blushed. It seems a gentleman likes to keep some secrets under his hat.

Secretary of State for Privatising Health, Jeremy Hunt MP,  has been asked to stop patting himself on the back for the worst winter ever for the NHS.

“He’s having trouble concealing his joy,” LCD’s health specialist reports,

“Apparently he brought cupcakes in for the entire department this morning, even the cleaners, who he normally just orders to leave any room he enters.”

With accident and emergency waiting time targets abandoned, Hunt has reason to be pleased, so too the recent news on the regional variation in waiting times for hip operations.

“Just imagine how the under resourced NHS is going to cope with hard Brexit?” our health correspondent asks,

“another sudden crash in Sterling, an administration desperate for revenue, Jeremy’s suspected long term aim is so close to hand.

He wasn’t actually a Brexiter. But the will of the people has allowed him to speed up his plans like they’re turbo charged. He’s now a convert. Brexit means Brexit.”

It seems he is drawing further inspiration too from the work done on the UK Border Agency, when austerity was first rolled out to transfer taxpayer’s money to banking friends of government ministers.

Sacked so many that the service was unable to cope and under resourced and it’s then a public emergency and then…

“You hire all that staff back from via the private contractor they now work for. It’s sheer genius.

That way you’re still running the same service on the surface, but actually you’ve increased costs and funnelled tax money into private hands?

See how it works? It’s really pretty simple. People should try it at home.”

But why the concern that Jeremy shouldn’t be crowing, if everything appears to be going to plan?

“People are sentimental about the health service. Something to do with it being born in the aftermath of the death of a massive amount of people and the social conscience that awoke.

But we’ll take care of that once everyone is fighting over chicken bones on the pavement, post Brexit and the collapse in food supplies.

You’ll be thinking about yourselves first.

That’s why the US system works by keeping so many of its citizens desperately poor, even more than here, because it encourages the ‘me first, sod the rest of you’ attitude that you need to properly provide a modern health service that has profit as its primary aim.”

And what sort of cakes did Hunt bring in?

“All sorts. Whatever was marked down at the local supermarket.”

How did the cleaners react when he gave them a cupcake each?

“He didn’t give them one each. Don’t be silly. He’s still Tory Type A. He gave them one to share and told them to leave the room because they hadn’t worked hard enough to be there.”

Great news for supporters of Brexit this evening with the revelation that British prime minister, Theresa May, will sell the British Royal Family lock, stock and barrel. to China during this week’s little work trip, and hope they’ll consider a leaseback deal.

The rumoured asking price for the country’s best china will be £500 billion pounds, which will be a bargain, given China no longer has a queen.

LCD Views spoke to our only royal watcher, Purtle Bertle Turtle Mertle Dertle, to learn the finer details.

“It’s making the best of a rum job,” Purtle said,

“no one else knows this, but Brexit is actually going to totally tank the economy, it’s actually already started doing it.

The construction industry has a cold.

Carillion is the first of a series of dominos.

We need to sell some of the family silver to pay for it or we can’t keep going to the sort of absolute ruin Jacob Rees-mogg believes will allow him to keep indentured fieldworkers like his gran did.”

Have the royals been consulted on the sale? And potentially leaseback?

“Who cares? Remember when the Queen trolled May with that EU themed hat?

Or maybe it was the EU Flag Mafia guy who did it?

Doesn’t matter. Theresa has been planning this since that day.”

It’s not yet certain if the Chinese will accept the asking price.

“They presumably would rather wait until April 2019.

But if they do they run the risk of Trump and other American neocons getting in first and cheery picking the best royals.

If I were them, I’d take the job lot. Then lease them back to us. They can loan us the money to pay for the leasebacks while they’re at it. Brilliant deal.”

But what about the loss to the economy from the tourists who only come to see the Queen? If we can’t lease them back?

”Economy? Have you read the forecasts for Brexit. Exonomy. Don’t be silly. We’re not going to have an economy. Fat lot of good the royals will do us then.”

Any royals returned by China as um, well, perhaps having poor taste in jokes, will be offered for private sale on eBay to interested parties also buying munitions, resident in the Middle East.

Corporate Cuisine is the latest strand of the celebrity chef genre. Disgraced conglomerate Carillion has lent its notoriety to this latest gastronomic gem.

In fact, the book was written by a disgruntled whistleblower. Author Priti Brastoft has compiled an awe-inspiring raft of recipes inspired by the fallen giant.

“I wanted to give an insider’s view of Carillion,” said Brastoft. “Who doesn’t like picking the bones out of a hash like this? Carillion’s goose was quite obviously cooked, like their books, some years ago. It has been simmering away for ages.”

The cookbook is divided into a number of sections. These include, “Tarts And Fancies”, “Dishing the Dirt”, and “Halal (Bleeding The Little Men Dry)”.

The Carillion Cookbook contains many mouthwatering recipes. For example, Corporate Fudge. LCD Views has been permitted to reproduce this recipe in full, to give readers a taste of what is to come.

“Corporate Fudge
Ingredients: 1 large multinational corporation
6-10 crooked directors
2 Pension Funds (unsecured)
4 risky projects
Unlimited arrogance
13 crucial infrastructure contracts
A succession of laissez-faire Trade and Industry Secretaries
Bullshit (for garnish)

Method: Install the crooked directors in the corporation. Allow plenty of access to the pension funds. Ensure the Trade Secretaries award the lucrative, crucial infrastructure contracts to the corporation. Leave on the back burner until the coffers swell. Stir in the risky projects and flavour with plenty of arrogance. Continue cooking even after the funds have long dried up. Extract the directors along with any remaining cash. Serve with lashings of bullshit. Clear off and let the Nanny State clear up the mess.”

“I couldn’t put it down,” Secretary of State for Transport, Chris Grayling, enthuses. “I read the whole thing hiding in a cave on Orkney. Unfortunately I’m struggling to remove all the Corporate Fudge from my fingers.”

Coming soon: Donald Trump’s Bigly Book Of Laundering.

Theresa May was forced to clarify, during PMQ’s today, that the NHS is not in crisis, but in an “orderly and managed decline” and further, the “NHS will no longer have a winter crisis once we have a successful crisis all the time.”

The frank admission of the classic Thatcherite method for looking after publicly funded institutions, built over decades of public investment and effort, into a parlour state to be sold off for a fraction of their holistic value, was welcomed by traders.

“I’ve been telling my clients hold off,” Mr A S.S. Stripper told LCD Views,

“you don’t want to go rushing that cash back from Panama too soon, just to find a piece of the NHS pie is going out the door even cheaper, if you’d been a little more patient.

What’s the point of going to all the effort and expense of avoiding tax, if you’re too hasty to ‘reinvest’ in your future.”

Timing is key to any investment strategy and we advise our readers to follow Mr. A. S. S’s. advice and hold the line, not only while waiting for treatment at any A&E.

“It’ll all be there for the taking. Pay on the nail style. Just wait until 2019. The good news is it won’t matter which major party is the party of government either, assuming both stay committed to Brexit,” Mr A S. S. continued.

It’s sound advice.

With any luck Chris ‘Midas touch’ Grayling will have lumbered across to health secretary before long and the contracts available will best be described as,

“Plums. Juicy. Ripe plums. Low to the ground. Easy to pick. Worded so you can get public subsidies if things get sticky and sue the public purse if your luck runs out, because you siphoned off the tax dollar back to Panama too quick. Around and around.”

The only risk is if the entire May government is in managed decline.

“No fear on that score,” Mr A. S. S. added, “no one is managing anything in May’s show. Curtains to close any time. And that’s not a problem as another publicly committed Quitter is next in line!”

Michael Gove took to the stage today in a sorry mood to announce the plastic bag tax will rise from 5p to £1,000 a bag by the end of the year in order to pay for Brexit.

“It’s the prime minister’s idea,” A despondent Mr Gove explained, “You understand it’s not my idea. As minister for merchandising the environment this charge falls under my remit, but it’s not my idea. I hope that is really clear. I still want to be prime minister one day.”

It’s thought the minor increase in the charge will be staged throughout 2018, as bad economic news related to Brexit lands in big, steaming chunks across the country.

“I’m doing everything I can to make it easier for shoppers,” Gove added, “It will not go up to a rio grande all at once. I’m going to raise it to £999.98 in May and then £999.99 in August. This way people will have time to adjust before it goes to £1,000 just before Christmas.”

Environmental activists have cautiously welcomed the increase in the tax, but expressed concerns that the extra money raised won’t be spent on environmental causes.

The treasury though was said to be less sanguine about the prime minister’s plan.

“Hammond fears the dramatic increase in value of plastic bags will lead to bags replacing the new plastic notes as currency. We spent a lot of time designing those nostril cutting notes. It would be a shame if it was wasted effort. Although I suppose, we could legislate for plastic bag manufacturers to print famous women’s faces on the bags, thus doing our bit for equality?”

At either rate, people will have to be careful, once the levy increases, not to tear or otherwise damage the bags while shopping.

“I wouldn’t use the plastic bags for shopping anymore, right now,” Michael Gove advised, quietly, “I’ll start storing them at home somewhere dry and safe. It’s likely, once we’ve finished with you, they’ll be the only valuable item you’ll be able to bequeath to your children.”

The Tory leader of Windsor Council, Simon “the dud” Dude-lie, has introduced an enterprising initiative to tackle tax evasion amongst the areas pavement tax evaders.

“They are a plague,” the Dud told LCD Views, “it’s really embarrassing. Other counties don’t have the problem of wave after wave of people choosing homelessness as a commercially viable way to evade business rates and taxes. Any respectable tax evader uses an offshore protectorate.”

The Dud went on to suggest that a proposed charge on cardboard coffee cups should be expanded to all cardboard.

“That bit of cardboard that lazy bugger has chosen to use as a mattress, someone else paid VAT on that. This is a scandal. It’s basically theft and it’s very unsightly having such scam artists littering the area with their inhuman shapes. Especially the genuine homeless, although exceptionally rare, no tourist needs to see that.”

Other plans by ‘the Dud’ include expanding the spraying of pavements to get rid of discarded chewing gum. They’ll now get rid of discarded people too.

“If we buy water cannon we can go about pre-dawn and wash the undeserving poor off the streets. Imagine if we go as far as to enlarge the street drains? We can just wash them right into the gutter and gone.”

He’s a genius. Let’s hope his brain waves extend as far as the return of workhouses where voluntary homeless can be forced to rent commercial spaces and sub-contract the job of being homeless to orphans and can really turn a profit making matches.

LCD suggests the Dud is included on next year’s honours list for services to public awareness of just how deep the rot is.