He's in the brewery: what can he organise?

What shall we do, said the Tory adviser. We tried to cosy up to the plebs by marketing tax breaks for gambling and brewing companies as a little tip for them:

and it didn't really work because everyone found it patronising. What we need is to get the Chancellor into a pub, enjoying a decent pint of beer with the proletariat. Like this:

On second thoughts, perhaps not. People don't seem to warm to George. Let's arrange a date in a pro-Tory brewery's tap bar so there aren't any inconvenient members of the public to cause any unpleasantness. Better still, let's hold it in a marginal constituency to give the cannon fodder a boost. 

And lo! It came to pass that we lucky punters were blessed with a painfully awkward photograph of the Worst. Date. Ever. 

There. Doesn't Paul Uppal look beatific. And as for George: well, there's a man who likes nothing better than to settle the whippet at his feet, loosen his cufflinks and sup up a refreshing pint of the working-man's brew. Honestly, he looks like a hawk that's spotted a mouse, or an Action Man having his eyes toggled by some unseen child, or just like a man who can't quite manage to make his face do what the PR man says it should.

What a shame that the symbolism doesn't quite work: usually it's the banks taking the piss out of him,  but now he's managed to extract a pint from Banks's, the beer that tastes of…

Old McOsborne had a farm, EIEIO

There was once a Conservative MP called Gideon, though his friends called him George and his superiors called him 'Oik' because his school only charged £30,000 per year.

He was a very rich man, with a £4m trust fund and a big big salary. He lived in an agreeable Cheshire farmhouse which cost £450,000, and the yokels paid the interest on his mortgage.

Which was nice. But George didn't just want to be a politician. Lots of his friends had (or borrowed from the Metropolitan Police and Sun editors) ponies, and he wanted one too. 

So he bought a field for Dobbin, and the land was recorded with the Land Registry as separate from his very agreeable house. But one day, Farmer George realised that the field could be a big present to him from the villeins of the country. So he paid for the field by increasing the mortgage on his very agreeable house and 'flipping' his two houses to qualify lots of lovely taxpayer carrots - and the straw-chomping peasantry paid Mr Banker the interest on the mortgage, to the tune of 100,000 carrots. This was very pleasant for Farmer George. He spent all day riding round and round and round the field on his Shetland pony, which he called Clegg.

Until one day, poor Farmer George realised that all his friends weren't riding ponies any more. They all had toy boats with heli-pads and mini-submarines. So George sold the very agreeable farmhouse and the field for 1 million carrots. And even though we churls had paid all the interest on the mortgage to help him buy the house and the field (which was essential for his Very Important Parliamentary Duties), we didn't get any of the 500,000 extra carrots George got for his estate. He packed them all into his saddlebags and rode away into the sunset. 

And everyone lived happily ever after. At least, all the important people did. Everyone else got their benefits cut. 

Mr Burns' guide to economics

Having just sat through an Autumn Statement in which the poor and unemployed have been hit viciously while corporations' taxes have been cut, this Simpsons clip - while focussing on American politics - handily dramatises our Chancellor's dumb, partisan and selfish approach to the national economy.

Cutting back on the luxuries

I watched David Cameron's speech about the economy yesterday and agreed with his main point: that 'spend spend spend' is not the way to get out of a recession partially caused by rampant consumerism. Inspired by his message of hair-shirt self-denial, I invite you all to join me in promising to never again indulge in high-end accessories and decor, particularly those retailed by Smythson of Bond Street (director: one Samantha Cameron - gifts available under £100) and Osborne and Little, the source of Gideon 'George' Osborne's wealth. 

Unless, of course, you think that Mr. Cameron's point is that government should stop spend spend spending money on poor people (public transport, infrastructure, the environment) so that the rich can pay even less tax, and so that Cameron's gloriously retro monetarist/small government/Friedmanite plans can be implemented. Naomi Klein's latest, The Shock Doctrine, points out that disasters are merely opportunities for these bastards to seize power. If you don't believe me, watch Niall Ferguson's appalling recent documentary, The Ascent of Money. Sponsored by a tax haven (!), he praised the Pinochet dictatorship for its embrace of monetarism, repeatedly referred to Allende's 'communist' 'regime' (e.g. its democratically-elected socialist government), but couldn't find enough time to discuss the thousands of deaths, torture chambers etc. etc. etc.