It really is quite remarkable that, as power is increasingly transferred to Brussels, where more and more legislation is made, the cost to the taxpayer of our own domestic “legislators” continues to go up.

That we find from the print edition of The Daily Telegraph today, although a visit to the website reveals that this is recycled from the online edition, where it was posted on 17 December. The story, however, loses nothing of its force for being a few days old.

The thrust of the story is that each member of the House of Lords now costs us nearly half a million pounds a year, the total costs of running the "most exclusive club in London" now reaching £305 million in the last financial year. In 2002-2003, the total cost was £110 million.

View full article here

Then there's the US. Financial collapse, increasing unemployment, retail sales tanking, bailouts on a gargantuan scale and a new socialist administration, right? Congress just voted itself a pay raise.

Talking of Brussels:
http://en-gb.facebook.com/group.php?gid ... 467&ref=mf

NO TO LISBON MEANS NO TO LISBON!

JD

OK. We need to flesh out the details, but here's the plan in a nutshell, literally.



BTW I suggested the same sort of solution to the kommissar problem over at the fluffy bunny's blog 3 days ago but she has declined to put it up so far. Perhaps she took it personally.

As well she might. She's one of them and I'd make no exceptions.

It'll not be anyone here that does such a thing, but the way they are going, it is inevitable that it will happen, as we have observed before. I await now the announcements on the Council Tax, in the expectation of above-inflation rises, and wonder what it will take to bring people out in the streets.

Good.

I reckon they think 1649 was a one-off and they feel safe.

Well, it wasn't a one-off and they shouldn't. It was a limbering up exercise.

It seems we are destined to teach a series of lessons on the limits of power to an executive gone out of control.

But there's no need to make a great ceremony of it either. On the contrary, we won't need a scaffold or anything like that this time. That would accord them too much in the way of dignity.

No, we just do it in the street and as it comes. Casual, uncontrolled vengeance — violent and bloody, but above all characterised by banality, as if wiping dogshit from one's boot. Ugly and fitting for the times.

Then we can have a nice ceremony later well after the event when all the mess has been cleared up and things have calmed down.

The Queen can make a speech. I wouldn't get the job as her wordsmith but I'd hope the gist of what she'd say would be: "Nobody pisses up the back of My Subjects and tells them it's raining.... They are a law unto themselves. And I am their Queen. Stay out of our road."

On whom, precisely?
Who would be the victims of your cleansing violence?
Community Support Officers? Privatized Parking Collectors?
And what would it achieve?
The real bastards are far too well protected for violence to reach them, and any attempt to risks martyrdom.
Authority is built on respect and cannot handle ridicule.
Thus one moment James II is a nasty little scotsman causing havoc, then he's told to 'oppit. And becomes a silly little thing saying, "I'm the King, really!".

Quite happy to see Privatized Parking Collectors bite the dust ... and bailiffs ... and employees of camera partnerships ...

The point of what we do, is to try to prevent this ... but when government ceases to respond and is no longer accountable, violence is always the result - and yes, the wrong people get hurt.

Of course, you're both right. I got carried away with the spirit of the season and got overly sentimental.

Still, it was fun while it lasted. In any case, you never know your luck. One day circumstances might conspire....

That was the season of peace and goodwill to all men, was it?

Yeah. That's the one all right. It just doesn't apply to scum. Naturally.

I believe the correct translation of the Latin from which this "goodwill to all men" business came, runs:

"peace to men of goodwill on earth",

which is quite a bit different from "peace and goodwill to all men", so you may be right in saying it doesn't apply to scum, unless, of course they are scum of goodwill.

I very much prefer that version, with the caveat that "the road to hell is paved with good intentions". More damage than enough is done by "men of goodwill", especially when they are in government.

I stand corrected.

Yes, Wellington's 'scum of the Earth', for example, would make for fine exceptions, as would their latter day chav equivalents.

So you're right. It's not so much scum as such but traitorous scum who should be given no quarter.

I need to be more careful. Careless invective, I'm sure, could cause unintended offence. Consider me suitably tut tutted.

Offence, like goodwill, should definitely be intended.