There is but one prediction for 2010

- Gordon Brown will cut his gains in 2010
Gordon Brown has never been one to sell UK investments at the top of the market. Remember his expertly timed sale of half the country's gold bullion reserves at a fraction of their current value? The tax payer avoided roughly 5 Billion in extra profits through this cunning ruse.

It is clear that the PM must follow this masterstroke in 2010 by offloading UK investments in the banking sector - before the share values rise too high. It would look great in an election year, and Brown could claim "we got our money back". But true to his convictions, we would not have got too much money back.

Then again, there is perhaps another reason for Brown to cut his gains: Maybe these gains are illusory in the first place. Maybe we are fooling ourselves into thinking that things are getting better and that the banks are out of the woods.

Remember: This is the man who would never have believed in anything as foolish as a gold standard, this is the man who proved that throwing money at a problem could solve it, and this is the man who is happy printing money until the sacred cows come home.

As the PM probably realised long ago: Value, like beauty, is in the eye of the beholder.

Government: tough decisions and mixed messages

Then did Gordon turn the hundred billion into one trillion and he went amongst the people telling them that the crisis was now over.

Then Gordon paid the moneylenders their thirty pieces of silver even though they had caused the crisis, secure in the knowledge that they would render unto him around ten pieces of silver in the form of taxation.

Or perhaps it would be less than ten pieces, if the moneylenders had properly sorted out their tax planning.

In fact some of these ruddy moneylenders actually walked on water and would therefore render unto Gordon absolutely zilch.

But it mattered not. For Gordon had saved the world.

The Narrative is dead. Long live the Narrative!

Gordon Brown has been advised that an election in the year 2010 offers him the perfect opportunity to construct a defining narrative for the next decade.

Out will go the "old" narratives signified by slogans such as "A New Dawn", "Things can only get better" and "Britain Forward Not Back".

In will come a set of more righteous and traditional, yet still new narratives such as: "In the Beginning," "It's always darkest before dawn." "Once upon a time'" and "They all lived happily ever after."

We have asked readers to vote for the slogan they would most like to see in this, the year of our election, Two Thousand and Ten. Furthermore in keeping with our democratic principles, you the readers are invited to offer your own thoughts and come up with your own narratives.

You might as well, readers. It's between you and the focus groups...

Innit?


Disclaimer: This blog is in no way suggesting that the word "innit" is going to be used as an election slogan nor as a basis for a narrative, and any suggestion to the contrary is entirely without foundation.

Innit?

Brown's Eton fixation

... Following on from his claims that Conservative tax policies were 'dreamt up on the playing fields of Eton', Gordon Brown was strangely reticent when asked, "On which playing fields were your tax policies dreamt up, Prime Minister..?"

Christmas Message

Virus warning
Researchers have identified a new strain called Cowell virus. This is what is termed a 'concept virus' and it has a corrosive effect on the brain functioning of infected individuals, causing stultification, lack of imagination and a moronic obsession with vacuous issues such as fame and celebrity.
The virus will spread in 2010 unless people reject the spoon fed diet of drivel - that includes celebrity chat shows, reality TV, talent shows, property programmes etc. These are known to be the virus's perfect host. The virus has already spread from independent producers to the BBC, and even the government has risked exposure to it on numerous occasions for the sake of free publicity. It is time to act.

Watch this space.

Or don't.

Message to Gordon Brown: Britain needs more investment bankers!

It is time for the banking industry to end the closed shop. Britain simply hasn't enough investment bankers. If it had, then salaries and bonuses would not be so crazy!

This week it was announced that some staff retained by the Lehman Brothers' liquidators have been paid seven figure sums to help with the fallout from the bank's collapse one year ago. "The problem is that you have to pay these numbers in order to get staff who understand and can unwind these complex trades."

And why? Because only a small number of people know how to engage in the dark arts of securitisation and derivatives trading in the first place. It is a straightforward issue of supply and demand. Yes, of course you are going to have to pay crazy numbers, if these guys keep the dark arts to themselves.

More on this later....

Stuff rich people ponder

During this religious festival, we'll be asking questions pertinent to believers of all faiths in the twenty first century. The first is particularly important at the end of a decade that saw a huge rise in the numbers of wealthy individuals - in both developed and developing worlds

We'll ask: given the dominance of global capital in the twenty first century are the banks now bigger than Jesus, and isn't it about time we started saying: Yes we can... take it with us?

Copenhagen – Ban Ki Moon calls it ‘The Essential Beginning’

When UN Secretary General Ban Ki Moon was asked whether he meant, the beginning of the beginning, or the beginning of the end, or the beginning of the beginning of the end, or the beginning of the beginning of the end of the beginning, or the beginning of the beginning of the beginning of the beginning of the beginning of the end, he replied, “I would go one stage further and say that by the time we get to the end of the beginning of the beginning of the beginning of the beginning of the beginning, we will have forgotten what the end was supposed to have been in the first place.”

Guest Bloggers

The serial killer blog will continue this weekend

Christmas comes early to Copenhagen

It was hardly thought possible just a few hours ago. But at the eleventh hour leaders attending the climate change summit in Copenhagen arrived at the draft text of an agreement which they hope will 'save the world'. And it appears that it is all down to the efforts of one man: Father Christmas.

Incensed by suggestions that Lapland was just an icy wasteland near the arctic circle, Father Christmas jumped onto his sledge and headed to Copenhagen. There, after having his picture taken with Gordon Brown, he implored leaders to lay aside their differences and to believe in Santa. In an impassioned speech he told delegates "All you have to do is close your eyes and believe... Believe that through the hope that has sustained you so long and that brought you to this make-believe world - the world of Hans Christian Andersen and his mermaid - Believe that through your will and through the striving that you will undertake..."

Santa continued in this vein for three hours until the delegates caved in. They have so far agreed to the drafting of a preliminary text. It is thought that this text might lead to a more extensive document by early tomorrow and one that is politically binding. Although precise terms have yet to be finalised, we know this much:-

1. You don't need a scientist to tell you Santa Claus is real.

2. Only through consensus will agreement be reached, only through talking will dialogue occur.

3. The world leaders convened at Copenhagen have to return home with their heads held high. They must look the kind of guys who save worlds.

4. Even if nothing concrete and binding is agreed at Copenhagen, it really does not matter. Any country that wishes to wriggle out of the agreement will do so unilaterally anyway.

5. It must appear that there was a point to Copenhagen. The world leaders must wave pieces of paper around when they arrive home, and proclaim something along the lines of, "This is peace in our time."

6. This is peace in our time.

Thought for the day

A spectre is haunting Europe... We're calling it a spectre because it is transparent, perhaps not terribly profound. This spectre will be, if you like, a way of moving on from the old discredited political hierarchies to a new, yet to be discredited 'Jerusalem', where you, the people, can sleep nights, secure in the knowledge that those old hierarchies will be given a makeover, a new name, a new direction for the coming decade. This spectre is certainly one with a modern, and I mean modern, agenda.

Now what shall we call it, this spectre? I don't know, let's call it 'Green Democratic Christians' for want of a better name (Although I doubt we'll come up with a better name.)

However, we can say this, if nothing else: If you, the tired, jaded people of this continent - who have lost faith in the political establishment, but who nevertheless still face a "global warming catastrophe that will make The Big Bang seem like a friggin' turkey shoot" (cf. G.Monbiot) - if you can come up with a better name, then by all means, be my, be our guests. Why don't you tell us what the future holds for this 'busted flush' that you cynical people all call politics? And if indeed you can tell us, then please... can we have them, these names, even any ideas you have... send them, on a postcard to us... if you'd be so kind. Really, we'd appreciate it.

And then, together, we'll make this spectre The People's Spectre!

That was a party political blog on behalf of the 'Green Democratic Christian' Party

Silo of the Lambs - Serial Killer Blog

So Jesus comes back to earth and takes one look at all the institutions that call themselves 'Christian' and he says What the F-... and turns round and heads back home....

Nah! I'm not going to do one of Ned's Christmas Cracker jokes... any more than he would dare to re-write one of my posts to suit a particular agenda. Would you, Ned? Would you?

However, there's a serious point here, which is that institutions rarely do what it says on the tin(s). That is to say, religion isn't really about morals or teachings or prophecy. Religion is just a form of politics, a handy marketing tool. You take a figurehead, a mascot, what-have-you, and staple it to your own agenda - you know, that agenda you were developing to keep the people 'on side'. And, Bob's your uncle, everyone thinks you have a moral, rather than a control agenda. Been happening from time immemorial... Constantine is to Christ, what Mao is to Marx.

I'm not about to go all deep and shit. But as we all know, governments kill more people than serial killers. They often claim to be doing this killing for some moral purpose. But of one thing you can be sure: They're certainly not doing it on behalf of some prophet or political thinker they've never met and whom they'd probably chuck in jail for subversion were they to. They're doing it either to consolidate power or to please some guy called Arnie who runs a multinational. So children, when a stranger comes up to you and offers you some political theory or belief system, don't buy it. It might not be all it's cracked up to be.

Let's face it, you've got to be cynical to be a serial killer. I know that I could kill far more people were I calling the shots, were I the main man... what with war and shit. But I like being in control of my own destiny... oh, plus the destinies of one or two other poor souls, I admit. I operate my own hours... I don't pretend to be all things to all pond life. And I don't hide behind some moral bull. I kill because, well, sometimes there is a lot of killing to be done... and I'm hungry for it.

Now here's the problem: I don't get the same buzz from it as I used to. As any serial guy will tell you, the first time you kill it is absolutely fucking awesome - adrenaline pumping, heart racing, your thoughts going crazy. It's like your first time on crack or meth or junk. Second time its good but not quite as good... and after that happens, once you acknowledge that difference, you are from then on simply chasing the first high. Eventually you just do it, you just kill in order to stay level, to stay sane - it's a maintenance dose.

Ok, so, much of that has been endlessly recounted by psychological profilers and crime novelists and the like, I imagine. But when at lunch, I start relating all this to suave Sonya in her pinstripe suit and with her 'Eton crop', she says, come and work for me. I am speechless - would an outfit like yours hire pond life like me? Oh, most certainly. Pond life always know what is going on down on the street, you know with their ears to the ground and all that... In fact, much more than your poor, spoon fed suburban punters who wander through life thinking that only two worlds exist - the right world and the wrong world. We need pond life... as long as they're smart enough always to know on which side their bread is buttered. And know who to double cross and who not... and, of course, that if things go tits up at any time, you're on your own, hung out to dry etc.

So, that was quite a lunch. I don't know exactly what kind of outfit it is she works for yet. I asked her, is it something to do with HM Gov...? She said, not quite but, well sort of. I asked, well then, which department in particular might that be, if you don't mind my asking. She gave me a withering look and said, what the fuck? Department of culture. media and sports. What's with the dumb questions? For God's sake.

And now I am thinking... I wonder if there is a moral angle. She kind of did hint previously that there was a higher purpose to her job, or at least, there could be. But I really do not think that it is the right time to ask - despite all that stuff I was saying earlier about killing with a moral imperative and shit. I'll take it one step at a time, I think...

But... By God, I do hope that I'm not about to become just a teensy weensy bit of a hypocrite.

By George, serial, soon to be, contract killer