Snouts in the Trough

Congratulations to the captain and officers of the sunk Italian cruise ship – they have confirmed all our worst prejudices about Italians. Lazy – they didn’t bother doing an emergency briefing for passengers. This is required on all cruises. Bad drivers – instead of taking the safe (deep water) route to the west of the island, the idiots zoomed through a (too shallow) shortcut between the island and the mainland. Irresponsible – while doing the shortcut, the captain should have been on the bridge, he was actually in the bar. Dishonest – they told the passengers that the problem was an electrical failure. Cowards – it seems most of the Italian crew were the first off the ship, saving their own skins and abandoning the passengers. Chaotic – the evacuation of the passengers was a complete shambles. Badly made in Italy – the cruise ship was the pride of Italian shipbuilding. But like most things ‘Made in Italy’ it was stylish but so badly designed and built that it went down the first time it had a small bump.

Anyone fancy a holiday on an Italian cruise ship?

Travelling around the world. I’ve always been surprised at the passivity of the poor. I don’t mean the British “poor”. In the UK any fat, ugly. lazy, pig-ignorant slag can easily get £20,000+ a year in benefits by producing children and playing the system. Similarly, lazy, uneducated, useless British men can make a good living from benefits. Most British “poor” probably have more large flatscreen TVs and X-boxes in their homes than the people who work and pay taxes.

I mean the real poor in South America, Africa and India. People who have no hope of ever escaping remorseless, grinding poverty. Of course, religion helps keep them down. Conveniently for the rich, most religions preach that suffering in this life will be rewarded in the next. I’m surprised that these poor don’t rise up more often and slaughter the rich and corrupt who unnecessarily keep them in poverty. I know I would if I was in their position.

Couldn’t stop laughing when I heard that France’s credit rating has been downgraded. For about three years we’ve had to put up with the sight of the nauseating arrogant little creep Sarkozy strutting around on his high heels posturing and posing as a great statesman who, with the help of fat Aunt Angela Merkel (and of course obedient German taxpayers), would save his precious euro. Now France can’t even save itself. With any luck France’s May election will see the end of Mr Sarkozy’s political career and there’ll be no more Merkozy summits where these two decide the future of 350 million Europeans without ever bothering to consult Europe’s voters.

As for the hopeless euro – it will survive. Our euro-leaders like Barrosso, Merkel, Van Rompuy and our own Nick Clegg would rather bankrupt Europe than admit their great plan of a EUSSR with a single currency is flawed.

Wouldn’t it be wonderful if we lived in a democracy and the English were allowed to vote on whether they wanted  Scotland to be independent. The result would probably be a resounding “YES!” Then the Scots could bugger off, adopt the euro and become a miserable rain-sodden insignificant little lump of land ruled the the corrupt and wasteful Portuguese fool Barrosso and his equally corrupt and wasteful cronies. We’d also save millions by getting rid of all the useless, arrogant, ignorant, expenses-fiddling Scottish MPs.

But imagine if we’d let the Scots go twenty years ago. Then we would never have had the lying, economically-incompetent, financially-incontinent buffoon Gordon Brown destroying our economy. Instead he’d only have been able to destroy Scotland’s economy. Independence for Scotland? Absolutely! The sooner the better! Perhaps we can also sue the Scots for all the damage liar Brown did to England?

We all know that Islam is a religion that promotes tolerance and peace. But why do muslims in Thailand like killing buddhists? And why do muslims in Nigeria, Indonesia and Egypt like killing christians? And why do muslims in India/Pakistan like killing hindus? And why do muslims in the Middle East want all jews killed? And why do many muslims hate each other so much that sunnis and shiites are forever killing each other?

It’s all very strange. Perhaps there are some muslims who have not understood that Islam is a religion of tolerance and peace.

So who does Nick Clegg actually represent as he goes around grovelling to anyone and anything “European”? Is this why the people of Sheffield voted for him? To brown-nose the utterly corrupt eurocrats like Portuguese fool Barrosso? Do the people of Sheffield really want to have further public services cut while the corrupt, wasteful EU siphons off their money? I doubt it. In fact multi-millionaire Clegg only seems only seems to be representing one person – himself. There are many who believe that Clegg is desperate to get a nice well-paid EU job for himself. Perhaps that’s why he continually undermines Cameron on Europe. Perhaps that’s why Clegg shits himself at the thought of Britain upsetting Europe’s power brokers – Merkel, Sarkozy, Barrosso, Van Rompuy. Because Clegg knows that an isloated UK means no cushy Brussels job for Mr Clegg when he gets thrown out at the next election as even the stupid voters of Sheffield realise what a selfish little lying waste of skin Clegg is. 

Will British politics ever sink lower than having Barrosso’s whore as Britain’s deputy PM? I hope not.

Rupert Murdoch’s bitch David Cameron really had us all laughing when he claimed “we’re all in this together.” How could we “all be in this together” when our MPs were stealing our money; when Cameron had just stuffed the Lords with his cronies so they too could steal our money; and when out-of-control bankers (and generous donors to the Tories) were drowning in bonuses as the economy nose-dived?

Now the leader of utterly corrupt Nigeria has gone one better than David Liar Cameron. While announcing the removal of a fuel subsidy, Nigeria’s ruler claimed “I feel your pain”.  Ha, ha, ha. That’s a good joke. Liars, crooks, conmen and thieves – with Britain’s rulers just as rotten as Nigeria’s. What a sad state of affairs.

If it’s true that William Hague’s wife Ffion gets money from Barclays Bank, what does that make multimillionaire Foreign Secretary William Hague? A tough, independent-minded public servant who will fight for those who elected him and push for tighter regulation of our out-of-control, tax-avoiding, recidivist mis-selling banks? Or a greedy chancer and whore, lining his own pockets, who doesn’t give a toss about ordinary voters and will do whatever he can to protect his banking paymasters like Barclays’ Bob Diamond?

This is a tough question – but I think I know the answer.

With its recidivist mis-selling of almost worthless junk (often to hard-pressed pensioners), its swindling of millions from its ordinary customers and its network of 300 companies set up to avoid tax Barclays is one of Britain’s most ruthless and profitable banks. But can we expect the government to act against this predatory monster? Hardly likely when so many members of our political elite are feathering their own nests with money from Barclays and the other big banks.

For example, as far as I understand the situation, Foreign Secretary William Hague’s fragrant wife Ffion has a close and probably very lucrative relationship with a division of Barclays. This means that a little part of all the money Barclays squeezes from its hapless customers and avoids paying in tax ends up in the welcoming pockets of the already multimillionaire Hague household. That’s why William and Ffion Hague are probably happy that so many of us bank with Barclays.

I recently had two revealing experiences with Barclays. First, I was in a branch waiting to see the manager when I overheard two Barclays “financial advisers” (salesmen) laughing and joking about what they were going to say to a pensioner who had just lost almost half his life savings after being encouraged by Barclays to put the money in a supposedly “cautious” fund (probably the disastrous Aviva Cautious Fund which was far from cautious). The results were pretty serious for the pensioner but utterly hilarious to the Barclays staff who had conned the poor sod into risking and losing his savings. Secondly, I put some money in a 2-year fixed interest bond with Barclays. As I would be away when the bond matured, I went into my Barclays branch with written instructions about what I wanted done with the money. Three weeks before maturity Barclays contacted me and tried to persuade me to leave my money with them. I refused. Sure enough, when the bond matured, there was no sign of my money. At first Barclays tried to claim I had never invested with them – but I had the documentation. Then they tried to claim my letter with my instructions had got lost in the post -  but I delivered it by hand. Barclays then said that the destination account number I had given them was wrong – that was a lie too. Then Barclays tried many more tactics, like saying it could take weeks to find my money, all designed to prevent me getting my money. When I showed all their attempts to keep my money were lies, they finally relented and paid up. But when I asked for compensation, some arrogant shit at Barclays wrote saying that Barclays “refused to get into any further correspondence about the matter”. These are just two incidents, but they are probably repeated hundreds of thousands of times each year as Barclays staff try to increase the bank’s profits by taking as much customers’ money as they can.

Bob Diamond, Head of Barclays, has given interviews where he has said bankers can be “cuddly”, banks have ”to be better citizens” and “have to balance being responsible with being competitive”. But while he cries huge crocodile tears in public, as far as I can see he actively promotes business practices within Barclays Bank that are little short of outright fraud and theft. So is Bob Diamond a liar and a thief? I know what I think.