Aspirational party...

Politics. Blurgh. Politicians even more so. Just mere days into the thrill of a new year and they grind us down with their meaningless. ineffectual ramblings. Gordon Brown, who isn't likely to be PM come the general election, vowed (on the Andrew Marr show on Sunday, as it happens) that Britain will enjoy an "age of aspiration" should Labour be re-elected. What a lovely soundbite. An age of aspiration. Listening to Radio 4's Today programme in between making toast for Finn this morning, I laughed out loud (or LOL'd as the kids'd 'ave it) when the presenter reminded listeners that one definition of aspiration is "the act or process of drawing breath" (OED). Prompted by this, I sought more definitions and found that the medical definition of aspiration is "the process of removing fluids or gases from the body with a suction device". What an age this will be! An age that will signal the death knell for these mainstream political dinosaurs, with any luck. May they all have the hot air removed from within via a suction device.

Flipping heck...

Hmmm. Yes. A lot of news to digest. All the same story, mind.

I see nothing else for it - Parliament should be dissolved and each and every MP with so much as a question mark over their expense claims - and shut up saying you thought you were operating within the rules - should exit politics. For. Ever.

These people are lying, cheating, thieving scum. They're certainly not fit to rule over anything or anybody. They're not fit to legislate. They are no longer fit to be our servants. They have spent enough of our money. They've made enough profit out of us, bought enough toilet seats, ladies blouses, dog food, light bulbs, gardeners and cleaners. It can't carry on. Enough is enough.

Quite where we go from here I dunno. Quite obviously the political system is something else that's broken in this country. This, folks, is Thatcher's true legacy - a legion of careerist politicians in her dreadful image who have forgotten that they work for us, not the other way round, where greed is the norm, where morals and ethics mean nada. Labour, Tory, Lib-Dem, you're all the fucking same. Nothing to vote for, not there.

Time for a radical solution? Yes please.

And I never thought I'd say it, but well done the Daily Torygraph. Their full list of those 'investigated' here.

Fear and loathing on the campaign trail...

The Tories rule in Haltemprice and Howden, the now famous constituency of the East Riding that's snaffled up all of the wealthy suburbs that might, under a more sensible aministrative make up, belong to poverty-stricken, oft-derided Hull. Willerby, Kirk Ella, Anlaby, Cottingham, Brough, Elloughton, South Cave, North Ferriby, Swanland, Gilberdyke, Newport, Welton, Melton? Not a Labour councillor in sight. And there's every reason to believe that David Soddin' Self Serving Media Whore Attention Seeking Debate Demanding Rent-a-quote Davis will be re-elected as MP for Haltemprice and Howden in tomorrow's by-election. I'd like to see a zero turnout, with people turning their backs on this whole fiasco. Failing that, it would be lovely if Miss Great Britain, Lord Biro of the Church of the Militant Elvis or even David Lizard King Icke subjected Davis to a humiliating, career-ending defeat. The back benches are too good for him. Haltemprice and Howden is the 10th most prosperous constituency in the country, it is scarily, alarmingly, white. The last place on earth, perhaps ironically, where the police would need to detain a terrorist for either 28 or, gulp, 42 days. "We'll have no ethnic minorities here" would be a fitting Haltemprice and Howden strapline. Actually, the constituency deserves a right wing (don't let his nonsense about civil liberties get in the way of that fact) megalomaniac like Davis. But please, one of you 25 other candidates, please, please, please beat this objectionable, smug, narrow-eyed man. I am, I hasten to add, anti-42 days.

Scone free...

John Prescott suffered from bulemia? That takes the big, chocolate-coated sugary calorific biscuit, that does. He's had some of the symptoms with none of the vomiting, from the look of him. Poor John. Someone was telling me about John when he went to an event at a Hull school last year and they'd laid on hot buttered scones as refreshment. John ate one, commented on how great they were and then ate another three as people stared on gobsmacked at his impressive intake. Then, scones scoffed, it was time to depart - as he left the school he swung by the kitchen. Everyone thought he was going to congratulate the kitchen staff for their fine baking but no, he came trotting out seconds later with a carrier bag full of scones. "To eat on the train!" he shouted as he squeezed out the school doors. What a guy. A fine ambassador for Hull and its many chubby folk.

Listening: Portishead - Three, The Last Shadow Puppets - The Age of the Understatement