They mess it up, and we pay the price
CHANCES are, you are reading this while sat on the loo during your lunch break.
And it’s probably not the finest throne you’ve ever been on, but then Portaloos on wet and windy building sites rarely win Best Bog of the Year competitions. But at least you’re at work, eh? Building what needs to be built. Fixing what needs to be fixed. Earning an honest day’s crust. Then, at the end of the week or the month, you’ll be handed your wages and, as ever, wince at the amount taken out before you even get to touch it. We all know what income tax is. And thanks to recent events we are all starting to understand better how our National Insurance “contributions” are funnelled. We get it. State pensions need paying. Hospitals need funding. Doctors and nurses need keeping.
Motorways and railways must be erected or repaired or improved.
Upgrades
Then there’s also schools and universities also needing cash from the magic money pit, whether it’s for upgrades or pay rises or both.
All those fancy buildings in London’s Whitehall and along the River Thames need paying for.
Not just the bills, but the thousands upon thousands of staff within them.
Ditto in Edinburgh, Cardiff, and Stormont in Northern Ireland.
Plus COP27 and the G20 and the G7 and all the travel expenses and train and rail fares and more suits and more staff and more and more and more…
The vast number of people on the public payroll is both eye-watering and breathtaking.
All of it, and all of them, being funded by me and you.
And all that’s before we even start to look under the carpet where so much waste is stealthily swept, which is all the hundreds of town halls and their offshoot offices and annexes scattered everywhere across the UK.
Then there’s the quangos, and the advisory boards, and the bizarre organisations you have never even heard of doling out yet more dosh for arts, culture, business starts up… you name it. All paid for by you and me. But while you’re sat there, most of the people referred to a couple of paragraphs earlier are planning to strike.
They’ll agree to see airports close, trains stop, post delayed, and the sick die, if it means the Government bows to their demands and gives them pay rises the country can’t afford.
Except when they actually say “the Government” what they really mean is the Tory party.
As if a Labour administration would be able to find any more money down the back of the proverbial couch (spoiler – they won’t.)
Swish
That the country is f**ked is not in doubt.
What is in doubt is how any of those people in the fancy suits and chauffeur-driven cars and swish grace-and-favour country houses with butlers and caterers – all of it paid for by me and you – are going to do about it.
And we’re about to find out on Thursday from current Chancellor Jeremy Hunt, who has now decided whose fault this whole mess is – which is YOURS.
As reward for him and all his colleagues completely buggering up our lives with their mad lockdowns and free furlough spending, WE will now have to repay it.
Like it’s all our fault in the first place. Like we all locked ourselves up. Meanwhile, all those thousands of people sucking thirstily from the public teat are hovering like flies on shit around your pay packet, determined to take a little bit more. Enjoy your loo break while you can. Because these people are about to shit all over you.