Welcome to the Court of Jesters.

From time to time we will release our very private Minutes of what is going on with our rivals.

For you must BEWARE the CARNIVAL OF CLOWNS and the CIRCUS OF FOOLS who everyday distract us with their jolly japes and deceptions.

We shall identify their tricks, buffoonery and tom-foolery, so DON’T LET YOURSELF BE FOOLED.

They will cheat you of what is rightfully yours as soon as look at you.

-----------------------------------

As through this world I've wandered
I've seen lots of funny men;
Some will rob you with a six-gun,
And some with a fountain pen.

Woody Guthrie 

----------------------------------

Jesterminutes highlights a particular government policy area in each edition – this month: Housing; next month: NHS. In addition to this, it offers regular features:

• Whose nose is it anyway? – the Jesters monitor the Westminster gravy train
• Through the Looking Glass – Alice helps us to understand the Westminster world where, as Humpty Dumpty explains  “ (everything) means just what I choose it to mean - neither more nor less"
• Julian brays – ‘The pronouncements, philosophies and battle cries’ of Julian Brazier MP for Canterbury
• Great Minds Think in 140 Characters – Great Tweets from the past
• You do the maths – Jester  few numbers to crunch on
• The End is Nye  - Past heroes – past wisdoms  ‘ gone but never forgotten’.

Poor & Needy or Rich and Greedy

In the beginning there was Margaret Thatcher. At the time she was the most unpopular Prime Minister since World War II. She and her cabinet cronies hit on the ruse of selling off council homes. This would bring pots of gold into the Exchequer, while the real cost (£40billion) would be borne by Local Government. Thatcher thought, correctly, that it would also deliver much needed votes into the ballot box for the Tories.

So it came to pass that good quality, affordable housing, built up over a period of 50 years of public investment, was sold off; the stock was never to be replaced as the Tory government passed legislation preventing money from sale from being re-invested in new social housing.

Over time much of this property found its way into the hands of private landlords. Failure to build new homes meant that demand for houses both in the purchasing and rental sectors out-stripped supply. Insufficient rented accommodation inflated rents; those on modest incomes found that they did not have enough money to pay for a place to live so a state subsidy in the form of Housing Benefit was established. In other words, public money was, in effect, used to subsidize the high rents charged by property owners; money apparently ear-marked for the poor and low-paid was in reality used to sustain a new ‘rentier’, Tory voting class. If you had a portfolio of properties, like the Duke of Westminster (the richest man in England) Housing Benefit was a nice little earner.

So Thatcher not only found a solution to her electoral problems in Right to Buy but she established a blue-print of how enterprise could be conducted in future; a business model was established where the Public Purse picks up risk and cost while the risk-free Private Sector picks up profits and laughs all the way to the bank...ah, the banks...well, that is a similar story, but one in its own right.

Sing-a long with the Bullenden Boys – ( Whose nose is in the trough?)

Jolly Troughing weather

Jolly Financial wheeze

Fly like a feather 

And apply the jolly squeeze

All in this together

Your future  on your knees

All in this together 

Your future's down on your knees 

Cronies - why pay your taxes?

Just keep the loot off-shore

Jersey, Cayman, Bermuda

Avoidance’s not breaking the law

(Cos’ we’re) all in this together

Our future’s the Antilles

All in this together

Your future’s down on your knees

Through the Looking Glass

"Hatter, what is the Sub Prime?" enquired Alice. "Ah me!" said the Hatter, sounding wistful, "The Sub Prime was a wonderful, cheeky little fellow; everybody loved him...and he blew such beautiful bubbles. I heard tell that if you caught one of his magical bubbles, it would in an instant change your little house in Wongaland into treasure trove - riches beyond dreams." "So where do you think Sub Prime is now?" wondered Alice. “Alas he was found dead in a Wongaland hedge-fund...we will never see his like again." said the Hatter, tearfully. "Cheer up Hatter" said Alice brightly, "I am sure that the Sub Prime is really still alive. I heard Little George whispering to the March Hare that he is very much alive and flourishing; he has disguised himself as a cheeky leprechaun called 'Will-Garantee yo' Mahoney'; he's still blowing bubbles mighty fine". Hatter's mood lifted instantly. Pouring another cup of tea, he announced "This calls for a speculation!" Don't you mean a celebration?" corrected Alice. "No, I mean a speculation...What a funny girl you are," The Hatter said, looking quizzically at Alice.

Julian brays – the Wisdom of Julian Brazier MP

“Housing problems are one of the biggest issues in my postbag....it is unacceptable for Government to subsidize people to live in accommodation that is too big for their needs... (Is this a veiled reference to Buckingham palace? – Ed.)...I’m afraid this is a self-inflicted population crisis!”

“I do think marriage should be between a man and a woman...If you want to move away from that I can’t see... how you can then refuse Sharia marriage. There are more Islamic people than there are gay people in Britain and there are very, very serious problems indeed that would be thrown up with starting to allow the Sharia system to become part of our legal system...”

Brazzer goes local or is it loco?

Ruud Jester, our correspondent, ready with the finger, reports:

‘At mid-term hustings in downtown Canterbury, JB threw his ample weight behind a local Tory cabal’s decision to sell off Kingsmead School fields. Shrugging his shoulders in a ‘Nothing to do with me, Guv’ gesture, his Brazien response to challenge from the floor was ‘it’s a decision for the local council’. Ruud reports that Jules is ‘feeling kinda lonesome’ now that Canterbury City Council has abandoned its plan for building houses, deciding belatedly that Kingsmead flood plain should be left to...err... the floods.

Great Minds Think in 140 characters

@Karlfulmarx:  Loved @Proudhon  #’property is theft’. Keep it up, bruv!

@Prudhonanarchyisus48:  @Karlfulmarx  ‘the rich will do anything for the poor but get off their      backs’.  # Couldn’t have put it better myself, mate. Lol Prudy.

You do the maths

Ø  1.9 million council housing units lost to right to buy

Ø  £40 billion cost to public purse of right to buy under Thatcher

Ø  40% of council housing stock lost in the last 20 years

Ø  9 million people accommodated in ‘private’ rents

Ø  50% of disposable income for 9 million spent on housing

Ø  18% rise in house prices in London in the last 12 months;  18% real decrease  in local government  workers’ pay in Kent since 2010

Ø  £ 1,000,000 for a new- build 1 bedroom flat at the Battersea Power Station site

Ø  £1,000,000 roughly the amount the Duke of Westminster receives in housing Benefit

Ø  142 golf courses in Surrey, exceeding in acreage area covered by housing in that county

And away from housing...

Ø  33% under 30s earning less than £10k voted in 2010

Ø  80% over 55s earning more than £40k voted in 2010

Ø  £2135 your share of the austerity burden if you are from a socio-economic group less likely to vote (younger, mobile, low earning) 

Ø  £1850 your share of the austerity if you are from a socio-economic group more likely to vote (older, property owning, wealthier,) 

 

And finally......The End is Nye

“The Tories always hold the view that the State is an apparatus for the protection of the swag of the property owning classes.”