Telling it like it is

After a flat summer, Dellers has delivered a stonker, effectively calling for The Boy to go for an immediate general election. He (The Boy) won't, of course - he's far too wedded to the fruits of office to put those at risk.

With reference to this blog, some of our readers have taken exception to the belicose tone, only just stopping short of promoting physical violence against our rulers. But here, we have Dellers in a spoof letter from Cameron to Britain, telling us that, "if you realised just how totally stuffed we are you wouldn’t waste time getting to the end of this letter. You’d already be outside Number 10 with pitchforks demanding my head on a spike ... ".

We are where we are, writes "Cameron", through the pen of Dellers – and where we are is about as dire a place as Britain has ever found itself in in its entire existence. That includes ... even the darkest days of the Second World War.

Back then says Delleron, "however bad things might get, we were cushioned by an empire, by America, by a sense of unity and purpose, by a national character defined by resilience, self-reliance, patriotism, decency and an absolute determination – even unto death – never to surrender to tyranny in any form".

I think Dellers overstates that "sense of unity and purpose", but there was at least a common external enemy. Now, the enemy is within, the parasite classes indulging in the systematic looting of the public purse, while handing the legislative and governing powers of Parliament to the EU, unelected quagoes and a corrupt, dysfunctional local government.

And while that is all going on, we have a media besotted with the "bread and circuses" soap opera of Libya, one of those foreign adventures in which we should never have got involved and which now serves to divert attention from the real and pressing crises at home.

Thus, despite the fond wish of the Dellers, the general election – even if it was to happen – is not going to be the solution. Things have gone too far. We are on the edge of the precipice, but there does not seem to be anything capable of dragging us back.

Undesirable though it might be, it looks very much as if those "pitchforks" will have to be used ... it is just a matter of time. And getting po-faced and "precious" about this blog's strident tone isn't going to make it any different. As for me, I'd sooner be down to one reader and right, rather than play to the masses and join the ranks of the deluded and the ostriches.

COMMENT THREAD

Wholesale looting

As more and more detail comes pouring in, it is quite evident here that we have an epidemic of looting. By any comparison, the amount of money appropriated by the "looters in suits" far exceeds that stolen by the street amateurs. No one yet has pieced it all together, and at this stage it is probably not yet possible. But, when you take local authorities, civil servants, quango executives and the NHS, we are well into ten figures ... the billion-mark.

It may be only a few of us saying this, but that does not make us wrong. This is a crisis – more so than the street violence of a few weeks ago. Then, at least there were measures that could be taken against the perpetrators. Here, the thieves are in our midst, and walking away with their loot, unchecked.

Of course, there is also the Jacqui Smith farce, but that is small beer compared with this epidemic of official looting. It is the looting which is costing us the money, and our supine MPs seem powerless to stop it. But, reviewing this escalating situation, by what moral authority now do they claim any obligation to pay tax? And if there is no moral authority, we are not talking tax – but extortion and theft.

The really interesting thing, though, is that this seems to be an international phenomenon, with an outbreak in the Netherlands, Australia and South Africa. This institutionalised corruption is becoming the norm. We are all the poorer for it and, if it is not stopped, it has the potential to bring down civilisation as we know it.

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Another day, another looter

And so we have another one, another "looter in a suit", ripping off the public. And what must never be forgotten here is that, should you as a council tax payer decide that you want no part of this outrageous theft, and refuse to pay, you go to jail. If you resist, force will be used. You will be restrained, you will be handcuffed and you will be forcibly detained.

Slime like Kevin Lavery, therefore, line their pockets on the proceedings on extortion with menaces. But for his fine position, his title and the veneer of "democracy", this would be a criminal offence. Almost laughably, people get worked up about the tyranny in Libya. But we have our own version of tyranny, under our very noses. It is called local government.

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The corporate looters

As has been pointed out on our forum, the parasite classes are not confined to the state sector. They can be found in the private sector as well. Actually, though, this is a state-owned bank – even if it is not under direct state control. Arguably, therefore, it is part of the state sector.

Perhaps more to the point, it is a corporate ... a status common to state and private sectors, where there is no morality or sense of right and wrong. Everything is justified if there is a "procedure" for it, and there can be no wrong as long as the rules were obeyed – never mind who made the rules, or whether they are right.

In the case of RBS, this looks to be wholesale looting before the bank (and the economy) goes belly-up. The thieves are taking what they can before the whole edifice comes crashing round our heads.

What is odd is that people seem to be more ill-disposed to the amateurs than they are to the genuine article. Perhaps, though, this is simply a reflection of the way polls are framed, allowing the "looters in suits" to get away with their thieving Scot-free – so far.

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Sod the Arab Spring

We can do without second-rate politicians grandstanding on issues over which they have little control and of which they have less comprehension, spending money we haven't got, while neglecting domestic issues.

Whether or not the politicals and their gormless claque realise it, we have enough crises over here to be going on with, not least local authority management taking the piss.

The latest example is Hammersmith and Fulham Council's highly paid chief executive. As his council was presiding over the biggest cuts in living memory, Geoff Alltimes saw his pay rise by £11,193 to 281,667 in 2010, making him the second highest paid local authority boss in the country.

We then get Essex County Council boss Joanna Killian cutting £4,000 from her salary - only to receive a £6,900 bonus. Accounts show Killian took home £289,173 in 2010/11 - £147,000 more than the Prime Minister - despite previously agreeing to take a five percent wage cut. The pay was topped up with a £6,900 bonus and an extra £1,100 towards her pension, despite County Hall having to make £98m worth of cuts.

On top of that, we have County councillors in Norfolk rejecting suggestions from communities secretary Eric Pickles that the chief executive's post is a non-job. Pickles is keen on councils saving cash by sharing top officer posts and has previously questioned both the value and substance of the chief executive's role, with the present post-holder David White taking a basic £205,000 a year in salary. But members of the county council's corporate resources overview and scrutiny panel has given the idea the "thumbs down".

Then we have a ghastly situation over in Northern Ireland, where convicted murderer Mary McArdle gets a job as a SPAD on £90K – an insult to the victim's relatives and their community.

There are so many of these sort of episodes that it would be unwise of ministers to ignore them. Whether it is hospital bosses getting away with murder, obscene compensation payments, officials living high on the hog, or just wasting money, people have had enough.

Despite the determination of the politicals not to take the riots and looting as a warning sign, we are not alone in seeing them as a response to organised looting by the parasite class, which is seriously pushing its luck - witness the political cartoon in the Independent.

The Boy maybe today rejoicing in the ransacking of Gaddafi's compound, but if he lets the sores here fester, his compound will be next. It won't then be an Arab Spring he is looking at but a British fall.

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Hackney looters hit the jackpot

While their less skilled partners-in-crime are being banged up by the plod, two lucky Hackney looters have already walked away with jackpots worth a total of nearly £300K - and they get to keep their loot.

The lucky pair are Sue Primmer, former assistant chief executive, communications & consultation at Hackney Council, and Belinda Black, former corporate director (customer and corporate services), also of Hackney Council.

Sue is an exceptionally lucky lady. On a pay scale of £33,666 pa in 2009, she left the employ of the council, handbagging a severance package worth £106,603. Her position has since been filled, so the payoff could not have been attributable to redundancy and the lucky, independent-school-educated Primmer has gone on to work as marketing & communications director at Excelian, a company that says it "services niche vendor technologies".

Lucky looter Belinda fared even better. With her job title of corporate director (customer and corporate services), she took £45,211 from the council coffers for less than five months' work. Then, on leaving, she was paid an extra £135,462 as, says the council, "compensation for loss of office".

Belinda added to the pay dirt with another £6,438 in pension contribution to bring her total loot to £187,111. But, not content with this, she is extending her looting career as "interim director" for "customer services and transactions" at nearby Newham council.

This is the official, incidentally, who had to apologise last summer for Hackney call-centres telling enquirers that no Conservative candidate was standing in the borough's mayoral election, even though Andrew Boff, a Boris Johnson aide, was standing for the Tories. Her incompetence, though, is not reflected in her ability to feather her own nest.

And all of this goes to show that, if you want to do a really professional job of looting, don't bother breaking shop windows. That is soooooo naff. Get yourself on the council payroll and do it from inside the gaff with an ID pass hanging from your lovely neck.

COMMENT THREAD

I'm alright Jack

First, it was this: Hospital bosses have outlined new approaches they said are needed in the face of "enormous" and growing financial pressure. The trust had slipped almost £7million behind on the year's £27.5million savings target.

Hospital chiefs said the already-huge target needed to be increased to £40million to tackle rising costs, balance the books and prepare for future savings.

Then it was this: Paul Roberts, chief executive (salary £170,001 - 175,000) said: "There is no doubt that it will be a tough year. "For the first time in a decade the Trust will receive less money in 2011/12 than it has in the previous year. "But whilst we will have to make very significant savings this year, our priority remains to provide safe and effective care to our patients."

The salaries of senior managers, incidentally, run to £1.46 million - with pensions on top, of course.

But then this happened: Richard Thompson, 42, was due to undergo the operation at Derriford Hospital, Plymouth, but was delayed because a previous patient's treatment overran. Six days after Mr Thompson's surgery slot was cancelled for a second time due to lack of beds, he was found dead in a ward toilet after suffering a fatal heart arrhythmia.

But never mind. Paul Roberts is alright. He was already in the process of leaving for pastures greener. ABM Health Board chairman Win Griffiths, said: "I am confident Paul will provide strong leadership to our executive team and all our staff as we face the challenges of providing better healthcare and improving the health of the people we serve".

Mr Roberts will start work on Monday, September 5, and in the interim, ABM's deputy chief executive, Alex Howells, will be acting chief executive. It is not known how much Mr Roberts will be paid, but his predecessor was on between £185,000 and £200,000. Nice work if you can get it, and Mr Roberts obviously can.

So every story has a happy ending. It's a pity about Mr Thompson, but there you go.

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Everywhere you look

In virtually every economic sector and sphere of activity, we are seeing examples of wholesale looting. The rot was spreading to "charities" by 2009, although these also included some very dubious operations.

One such was the Riverside Housing Group. Chief executive Deborah Shackleton walked away with £231,000 in 2008-9. These housing association are very suspicious, basically no more than jumped-up council housing departments, ripping off their "clients".

Ironically another parasite was Gillian Guy, the group chief executive of Victim Support. This is the outfit that rings you up with platitudes when you get burgled. Yet she got to take home a cool £100,000 ... much more than most burglars net.

Generally, we have the parasite class taking the piss, as the Daily Mail is once again reporting. Yet, strangely, while this newspaper is pre-eminent in reporting the machinations of the corporate looters, it is most strident about the street amateurs.  It still hasn't got the point.

And speaking of corporates, Raedwald has come up with a beauty. Writing of the quango WRAP, he notes the need of that loathsome organisation  to justify CE Liz Goodwin's salary of £194,000 and the quango's cost to taxpayers of some £79m a year. Try to read the piece and not feel angry.

These fools clearly cannot realise that this is the stuff of revolution ... as the recession bites, and the lights go out, even our sheeple will be out on the streets looking for blood. The Daily Mail, the political and all the rest of them can moralise for all they are worth but, if parasite classes keep taking the piss like this, some of them are going to die.

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Can they really be serious?

" ... we fully understand that journalists are under extreme time pressure to produce copy and to make it appealing to their readership. But in an age where traditional journalism is under threat, where unregulated information can be found widely on the internet, and where the taxes spent on scientific research fall under ever increasing scrutiny, a focus on getting the facts straight is more important than ever".

Like I said, these people have no self-awareness.

COMMENT THREAD

Nuff said

Cameron faces "serious questions" over claims his former communications chief received several hundred thousand pounds from News International while he was employed by the Tories. And, with that, it is difficult for me to add anything new to my earlier piece. The Boy lacks judgement. This is the consequence.

Anyone with any sense or political savvy would have steered a country mile from Coulson. But the "bubble" has its own rules, and the denizens think they can suspend the laws of gravity. They can't – sooner or later they hit dirt. He's doing the political equivalent of Todd Green's stunt, and the eventual outcome will be the same.

If Cameron had any sense (which he hasn't), he'd pin the above picture on the wall of his office, to remind himself of his eventual destination.

COMMENT THREAD

Only one part of the picture

The Failygraph is making a welcome issue about salaries council chief executives. However, it falls short of making the obvious point, that these people are the more serious looters – far more so than the amateurs out on the streets.

Nor is it at all correct, as the paper says, that this is one corner of the public service that appears oblivious to the fact that we are facing the most difficult economic conditions since the 1930s. What about the quangocrats and the out of control civil servants? And nor is the NHS without its problems.

It is not clear, therefore, what game the Failygraph is playing. Like the Daily Mail, it is getting some good reporting in, but is failing to join up the dots. Our rulers are looting the public purse on an industrial scale – billions of pounds are draining out of the system.

Important though they are, local authority CEOs are only one part of the picture. The looters have taken over and the entire system is out of control.

COMMENT THREAD

Wanna date?

The "sister" is a little loud, methinks.

COMMENT THREAD

Hitler would have been so proud

Cash-strapped, bus pass cutting Cornwall council, we are told, is offering a 20k job for a bureaucrat to help carry off the Olympic Torch festivities in 2012. The position is being advertised on the website of the "Cornwall Development Company" – one of the many names the public authority gives itself.

The blurb for the fixed term contract offers a "starting salary" of £19,689 pa and says the post runs from as soon as possible until 31 May 2012. The torch will be held aloft through Cornwall for one day – May 19th next year.

On top of the cost of employing the new member of staff, the council paid Northcliffe newspapers at least £420 for just four online ads for the post. The council advertisement explains: "We are seeking a Project Officer to assist the Festivals & Events Coordinator in the successful delivery of the Olympic Torch Relay. The Project Officer will help to raise awareness of the event throughout Cornwall, encouraging substantial community engagement".

However, one wonders whether the council realises that, while the Olympic games go back into antiquity - as does the Olympic Flame - the torch relay is a fairly modern innovation, stemming from 1936, to be precise.

Those with some knowledge of history will, of course, be aware that this was the year of the Nazi Olympics, when Carl Diem devised the idea of the torch relay, which was then organised by the Nazis under the guidance of Joseph Goebbels.

At the time, Hitler saw the link with the ancient Games as the perfect way to illustrate his belief that classical Greece was an Aryan forerunner of the modern German Reich, and used the games as an advertisement for the master race.

How appropriate is, therefore, that the modern-day master race should continue the grand tradition first embraced by the Nazis, funded from the taxes of people who have no choice but to pay, on pain of imprisonment. Hitler would have been so proud.

COMMENT THREAD

A matter of judgement

With the media going into "super-hype mode" over Libya, one can only observe that, had it now to report the proceedings on the Second World War, most of the detail with which we are now familiar would have been left out. The newspapers would have run out of space.

Despite this, however, the Daily Mail still finds room to squeeze in a story about Cameron's favourite "supercop", Bill Bratton. It transpires that he was forced to leave his last public appointment under something of a cloud.

The affairs recounted by the newspaper underline the unsavoury nature of this "celebrity cop". But, more to the point, they strengthen the view that, as a judge of character, David Cameron is singularly lacking. Already having burnt his fingers with Coulson, we now see The Boy make a similar mistake with Bratton.

Politicians can never hope to cover adequately all the issues with which they are confronted, which means they are reliant on their advisors. The test of a modern politician, therefore, is his skill in picking the right advisors – and listening to them. In this, as in so many other departments, Cameron is again found wanting.

COMMENT THREAD

Chutzpah

The irony of Dannatt pronouncing of Libya that: "We must learn the lessons of Iraq" is almost unbearable. It is rather like Neville Chamberlain declaring to the world at large that we must learn the lessons of Czechoslovakia.

Bizarrely, the former soldier argues that the future of Libya is a matter for the Libyans themselves – despite The Boy having supported an intervention which has ensured that, up to press, the future of Libya has largely been determined by outsiders.

But now, with the drama of Libya approaching the end game, the Dannatt blithly tells us, "We can support and encourage but we should not go where we are not invited". He then asks "surely our memories of Iraq are not that short?"

His memory, though , seems to be on a par with a senile goldfish. Having interfered throughout the uprising in Libya, he now wants Britain to walk away and leave the mess for someone else to sort out – just as we did in Iraq.

It might thus be better for a man who contributed very significantly to the humiliation of the Army in southern Iraq to keep his opinions to himself. That he does not says a great deal about him. Like so many of our ruling class, he lacks self-awareness. That the Daily Failygraph then gives him a platform says a great deal about the newspaper.

Nevertheless, we are going to see much wise-after-the-event counsel from people who should know better. The truth is, though, that we as a nation have very little influence and even less control.

The Boy might like to give the impression of being at the centre of events, rushing home from his fifth holiday of the year (in stark contrast to his reluctance to be disturbed when England was in flames), but the game now moves to Brussels where the "colleagues" will be calling the shots.

At least we can draw some comfort from that. When the situation deteriorates into a bigger mess than it is already, we can at least say that we do not bear sole responsibility for it. Unlike Iraq, we will be able to spread the blame - the EU does have its uses.

COMMENT THREAD

Jailing the wrong looters

"A social fightback means instilling in our children and young people the decency, discipline and sense of duty that make good citizens", says arch hypocrite, David Cameron, a man trying to convince us that he has a handle on the recent riots and looting.

Another pretender is Tony Blair, who at least has a point when he rails against the "muddled thinking" of those on the Left and the Right. Both, he claims, "miss the point" about the cause of the riots. Neither social deprivation nor a lack of personal responsibility is at the root of the problem. Instead, he says, Britain, like "virtually all" developed nations, needs to deal with a group of people who are beyond the pale.

"The big cause is the group of alienated", he says, "disaffected youth who are outside the social mainstream and who live in a culture at odds with any canons of proper behaviour. And here's where I simply don't agree with much of the commentary. In my experience they are an absolutely specific problem that requires a deeply specific solution".

This polarisation gives the MSM exactly what it wants, as it can now turn the post-mortem analysis into a biff-bam soap opera, a genre it can cope with.

Blair is right in one thing, though, in asserting that the disaffection noted on the streets of Tottenham and elsewhere is an international phenomenon, with the car burning in Berlin continuing. It is causing as much puzzlement and anguish as the unrest over here. And, with a recent outbreak of street violence in Hamburg, we are seeing some awfully familiar TV pictures.

The British plod, though, are charging that some of the violence was orchestrated in Birmingham, with a similar charge in London, where it is alleged that outsiders were bussed in to do the business.

Where that applies, it rather knocks into a cocked hat the theory that we are dealing with "mindless violence" – the preferred meme of the Right. If it was "organised", it could hardly have been mindless. But what escapes both Right and Left is any clear idea of where the causation really lies - another thing Blair has got right.

However, while Cameron prattles about "decency, discipline and sense of duty that make good citizens", he and his predecessors (including Blair) have presided over an epidemic of organised looting which relegates the efforts of the street gangs to the minor league.

Even this weekend, we see Peter Mandelson put in a bid for an £8 million mansion, and no one is even attempting to pretend that this sort of money was gained by honest toil. We also see that more than half of the highest paid council chief executives have enjoyed pay rises as services are cut, despite orders from the government to slash their salaries.

This comes on the back of other examples of organised looting, where council credit cards have been used for spending on £1.5million of items which included furniture and designer jewellery and, yes, plasma screen televisions. Councillors and town hall officials have also spent more than £4 million on luxurious trips around the world.

As examples of "decency, discipline and sense of duty that make good citizens", these positively stink, but no one seems to want to join the dots. Nevertheless, it seems that Cameron might be more right than Blair in defining a cause of the riots as "moral decline". Where The Boy goes wrong is in looking in the wrong place for his decline.

Too easily is attention focused on the street violence and looting, when we should going to the top to find the rot. From the look of it, we are wasting our money by jailing the wrong looters.

COMMENT THREAD

They shoot looters don't they?

Rather ironic, all those "tough guys" calling for the Army to be brought in to deal with the looters ... when it turns out that amongst the biggest looters of them all are the military top brass - one helo trip equivalent to two wide-screen plasma TVs (PTEs).

Mind you, there is little new about this. The Brass have a history of ripping off the taxpayer – here, to the tune of nearly 1,700 PTEs .. for the servants (many, serving soldiers). That, it seems, is in addition to the 1,200 PTEs for the limousines .. call it 3,000 plasma TVs, including discount.

Success, it seems, it being able to sit in your luxury office and get your serfs to do your looting for you. Why bother breaking windows when one can delegate your looting, and do it wholesale? One can even get the loot sent directly, or get one's servants to pick it up for one.

COMMENT THREAD

Look in the mirror Dougie

No further comment needed. These people have no self-awareness.

COMMENT THREAD

A herd of Myrtles

The Sunday Failygraph is making a big deal about an old story, one we covered well over a month ago. This is how those mythical creatures, "eurosceptic" Tories, are going to get together to do something or other.

Of course, this has nothing to do with the coming euro-elections, and the Tories wanting to avoid utter humiliation as the voters show they prefer even the dysfunctional UKIP to them. Thus, do we have Myrtle the Judas goat, but now in herds, as the Tory claque collects together their licensed dissidents, a grouping with all the credibility of the people's front for the liberation of Judea. When all is said and done, they are still Tories.

The more substantive point, though, is that euroscepticism is old hat. Given its current travails, there is little chance of the European Union surviving in its present form to the end of the next decade. The better odds are on a complete collapse.

Moreover, as it becomes increasingly apparent that our membership of the EU is a symptom of a greater malaise, and that leaving the EU would not actually solve anything, given the corruption and incompetence of our political élites, the idea of Tory Boys (of both sexes) getting worked up about the EU frankly lacks appeal. In truth, though – as Wittering for Witney points out - they are taking the piss.

Even if we take the initiative at face value, this is a case of generals fighting the last war. We have the advanced guard of the politicals fighting yesterday's battle. One should perhaps be grateful that they can deal with such an advanced concept, but even that has little more than academic interest.

The real battle is elsewhere. This parliament has had its day. It has become little more than a self-interest pressure group.

COMMENT THREAD

Madness "is far too polite a word"

At the moment, writes David Shukman, BBC Environment & science correspondent, "price is the great weakness of offshore wind". Right now, he continues, in a report about the new Ormonde wind farm, "it's the most expensive means of generating electricity, costlier even than nuclear".

Then, and only then does he concede that the power companies "earn" an attractive subsidy for power produced this way, adding that "the costs will find their way on to household bills". Not he, but "critics" then warn that this could make offshore wind highly unpopular (my italics throughout).

And that is as good as it gets from the BBC. You will get no figures, and nothing but these carefully crafted, anodyne statements, which are hardly calculated to inspire the outrage that £40 millions of annual subsidy –114,000 wide-screen plasma TV equivalents – should provoke.

Enter, therefore, Booker, who fills the gaps left by the feline Shukman, asking: "What is the maddest thing going on in Britain today?" And while I did the comparisons with nuclear, working out that the capital cost of wind is six times that of nuclear plant, Booker does it on gas, working out that the capital cost of offshore wind is 22 times that of a gas-fired power station.

Actually, Booker is "wrong" on this, as he has constrained his calculations to gas and wind equipment lasting the same time - a necessary approximation given the space limitations. It is even more entertaining when we calculated on a gas plant lasting at least twice as long as a wind farm. On that basis, offshore wind costs a staggering forty times more than gas to build.

In fact, even that may be over-generous. As this report indicates, wind turbines are not even lasting the planned twenty years – most requiring expensive gearbox repairs after 5-7 years.

This explains why that, despite a 200 percent subsidy, wind operators are still looking for more subsidy, and it is highly likely that the offshore operators will be hit by massive repair costs to keep the current generation of wind farms running. But then, how mad is it parking highly complex and sensitive machinery in one of the most aggressive and dangerous environments in the world?

Madness, Booker concludes in his piece, "is far too polite a word". We could venture "criminal folly", but even that would be too polite. The more appropriate description, however, would be probably be unprintable – for those who prefer words to action. But it is action that is needed, to bring home the malevolent nature of this criminality. By comparison with the subsidy harvesters, the plasma TV looters are pussycats.

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Manchester looter keeps job

Despite forcing citizens, under threat of violence and imprisonment, to pay for translating a guide to pigeon-feeding into Urdu – just one of the documents which contributed to a bill of thousands for translation services last year – looter Sir Howard Bernstein is to keep his job as chief executive of Greater Manchester Council.

Bernstein, who is ripping off council taxpayers to the tune of £230,00 a year plus perks – 650 wide-screen plasma TV equivalents (PTEs) – is in the top regional league for pocketing taxpayers' dosh.

Amongst his other crimes, he has overseen the payment of £2,000 to sixteen no-hopers, for them to try stand-up comedy, "in order to help them develop their confidence and make friends". He has also pumped £120,000 into B of the Bang, Britain's tallest public sculpture, later nicknamed "Kerplunk" after its giant metal spikes began falling off.

Not content with this, he has also spent £8,000 on a sex guide for the over-50s, featuring advice including watching a "sexy movie", sending out around 5,000 copies of this "extraordinary and misguided pamphlet". And, to add to this round of piss-taking, he allowed his staff to advertise three communications posts on salaries of up to £39,000 in October despite a recruitment freeze.

Yet this stain on the fabric of British society not only gets to keep his job but also presides over "swingeing cuts" in useful public services. He is to close all but one of the council's public toilets, five libraries, three leisure centres and two swimming pools. He will then force motorists to pay parking charges on Sundays and halve rubbish collections. Some 2,000 town hall jobs will go, and he will end funding to all youth centres and Sure Start nurseries.

When it comes to personal looting, however, "givvus-a-job" Bernstein is by no means top of the league. His counterpart Colin Hilton, chief looter of Liverpool, rips off £279,000 a year from unwilling council tax payers (800 wide-screen plasma TVs), the head of Lancashire County Council, Ged Fitzgerald, steals £254,000 (725 TVs) and Cumbria council boss Peter Stybelski walked off with £464,000 last year (1,325 TVs) - three-quarters of that in back-dated pension appropriations.

All of this has been achieved from the comfort of council-furnished offices, with not one of them having to soil their manicured fingers or duff up recalcitrant council tax payers. They have a staff of serfs to do that for them, and keep their cheques flowing. Only honest looters have to smash windows to get their TVs.

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Looking stupid

Ursula Nevin, the mother jailed for handling looted shorts has now been freed on appeal, with lawyers now predicting a flood of successful appeals against "hysterical" sentencing.

Judge Andrew Gilbart, the Recorder of Manchester Crown Court ruled that it was "wrong in principle" to jail Nevin, a mother of two, simply for receiving clothing that had been stolen by a looter. Nevin had been left in a "circle of hell" after being jailed for five months. Gilbart ordered her to be released immediately.

After growing concern at the sentences faced by more than 1,300 people who have appeared in court as a result of the rioting, it is the first signal that harsh punishments are set to be overturned. Convicted rioters are being handed prison sentences that are on average 25 per cent longer than normal.

Thus do we enter the next phase of this ongoing debacle. Having left summary "justice" to the magistrates, senior judges are now having to wade in and undo much of their work, simply because the policy and approach has not been thought through.

One does not have to pass judgement as to whether or not those convicted and sentenced deserve their punishments – simply that the policy, such that it is, has been incoherent. Instead of sending a firm signal to the rioters, the magistracy have thus combined to display their incompetence, making the system look stupid and fragile.

Altogether, the handling of the riots and their aftermath, has been crass. The political classes, the judiciary and the police have been unable to craft a proportionate and tempered response.

On the other hand, we see in The Guardian an analytical piece which seems to embody much of the thinking in my earlier piece. Riots, it says, "generally occur when groups have a sense of illegitimacy about how they are treated by others and where they see collective confrontation as the only means of redressing the situation". Thus ...

If, like Cameron, you see riots as an irrational and pathological phenomenon, then the response is first to repress (why reason with those who have no reason?) and second to look for problems inherent within the communities from which the rioters are drawn.

Thus we see the government pledging a series of new repressive police powers such as curfews (which the police themselves don't want) and looking to uncover the source of moral sickness among disaffected youth.

If, however, you see the actions as a meaningful response to a shared sense of illegitimacy and lack of alternatives then you need to address the way in which this has arisen.

That is, you need to look at the experience of relations between rioting communities and those with power, authority and influence in our society. The danger is that the repression agenda not only ignores this but that it actually creates experiences that both increase the sense of illegitimacy and decrease the sense of alternatives.

So the accusation of mindlessness, the lazy language of the "mob", is not just wrong. It is positively dangerous. It stops us paying attention to what crowd actions tells us about how rioters understand their society. It stops us from addressing how these understandings come about. It dooms us to more disaffection, more division and more violence.

I may or may not have put it better. But that is effectively what I have been saying. Get it wrong, and you make it worse. And that is exactly what our masters are doing. It is almost staggering to observe just how stupid they have become.

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As hypocritical as the Guardian

Breaking new ground, in already swampy territory, is The Guardian newspaper. Having taken the lead in accusing the NOTW over its information-gathering techniques, it is now in the frame itself for its relationship with a 51-year-old Scotland Yard detective.

The officer, a detective constable reportedly working on Operation Weeting, allegedly passed information about the NOTW probe to the newspaper in the latest twist in the phone hacking scandal.

Autonomous Mind, who has been ploughing a solitary furrow on this, has the story, which is also carried by the Daily Mail. And, while The Guardian also reports that "a police detective has been arrested on suspicion of leaking details about Scotland Yard's phone-hacking investigation", it has declined to comment on the reports that the leaks had been to the er … Guardian.

As AM also notes, the Guardian's representative on Earth, the BBC, has also been rather reluctant to finger its role model, despite Sky News and The Times gleefully reporting the details, with The Sun sounding suspiciously like it is crowing.

That the latter three are Murdoch enterprises is, of course, entirely a coincidence, but it does rather go to show that news is a variable quantity, its nature depending on who is reporting it. With that, it would begin to appear that there is nothing quite so hypocritical as The Guardian - unless you are thinking of the BBC. But then we knew that already ... Dellers told us.

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Cameron's father-in-law loots from old ladies

The Green Tosser's wealthy father-in-law, Sir Reginald Sheffield, is said to be ripping off almost £350,000 a year from a subsidised wind farm on his country estate – equivalent in value to about 1,000 wide-screen plasma TVs each and every year.

Sheffield, who is said to be worth £20million, creams off the dosh from the consortium which owns the wind farm – just for having the bird choppers on his land. The 65-year-old looter calls it a "modest" fraction of the estimated £3.5million the eight 400ft-high turbines generate each year.

The loot itself comes from ordinary electricity consumers, including cash-strapped OAPs, who were recently told that they were to lose £100 from their winter fuel allowances.

No wonder thieving scum like Sheffield and his son-in-law are so keen on global warming. And there is little chance that they will consider voluntary abstinence. When they can loot wholesale from the comfort of their own homes, they are saved the inconvenience of having to trash the local Dixons and mix with the serfs.

But if they ever gave it a thought, they might just realise why us serfs have such contempt for them.

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A low-grade civil war?

A spate of car burning in Berlin – now the fourth consecutive night – has left the authorities puzzled and alarmed, with the familiar rhetoric appearing.

As the number reached 47 after the third night, with another twelve overnight, German politicians are urging "tough action". In the absence of any obvious political motivation, the police are dismissing this as simple "criminality" – thus putting them on a par with the British plods, who were quick to categorise the English rioting and looting in similar terms.

In a seemingly unrelated phenomenon, Michelle Malkin in the United Sates is reporting on the appearance of "flash mobs" – mainly black youths, who gather quickly in an area to loot shops and cause mayhem, then dispersing before the police can respond.

In common with the Berlin "carbecues" – and the English riots – this too seems to be apolitical violence, although the authorities seem to be rather too quick to attribute this to straightforward criminality. There is a pattern here.

What may well be happening is precisely the phenomenon which we noted in our earlier piece. Far from being "mindless" or random violence, the driving force seems to be entirely rational. Simply put, it pisses off The Man.

In the context of almost complete breakdown of public morality, with our ruling classes across the continents devoting themselves to personal enrichment, looting the public purses, the feeling of disempowerment and frustration has reach almost fever levels. Such apparently random acts of violence, therefore, seem entirely logical if viewed as the "underclass" giving vent to that frustration.

This, in fact, was how I always imagined we would see the end – not in some great apocalypse, or war between nations, but as random violence, spreading in intensity into widespread anarchy akin to a low-grade civil war, with whole areas where the writ of the central authorities no longer run.

The tactics in each case seem to follow the basics of guerrilla warfare, adopting the "hit and run" tactics, rather than overt confrontation – leaving the traditional, slow moving riot-control forces floundering.

As long as the authorities insist on seeing that as "criminality", though, and rely on talking tough, with "crack downs" and exemplary sentences, they are losing the plot. The whole idea of this violence is to provoke a reaction and, preferably, an over-reaction. The authorities thrashing around, flinging out increasingly draconian sentences on an industrial scale, is not thus seen as a sign of strength, but of weakness. They are seen as running scared.

Further, the diffuse nature of this violence is not something which can be dealt with by conventional policing. The inability of the authorities to understand what is going on, and their failure to deal with it, will thus lead to increasing frustration on their part, and greater chances of over-reaction - with machine-gun toting police on our streets an increasingly common sight.

Yet the two things that could make the difference – clamping down on "ruling class looting" and empowering ordinary people, to take a greater part in their own policing – are something the authorities cannot or will not do. Not only is corruption endemic within the system, the ruling classes no long trust the people – if they ever did.

Misreading the situation, therefore, they are set to make the situation worse – as they are doing in Britain, provoking the very violence they are seeking to avoid. Add an economic collapse to this heady mix, plus widespread power outages, and the low-grade civil war will become a reality.

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The looting continues

Famously, the Cabinet Office boasted that the Government had embarked on a "bonfire of the quangos", which would see almost 200 organisations disappear, saving the taxpayer a fortune.

Ten months on, however, these claims have proved grossly overblown, says the Daily Mail. All we've had is a few flickering flames, rather than a mighty conflagration. Of the 192 bodies that the Coalition promised to abolish, 151 still exist, continuing to loot the taxpayer.

Furthermore, where some have been abolished or merged, the quangocrats simply move into another lucrative, public-funded job, where their looting also continues.

And the reason we should not rise up and slaughter them is?

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Strength through Joy

For its latest instalment, the producers of the Kraft durch Freude programme, Celebrity brain-rot, have recruited the Speaker's wife, Sally Bercow (pictured left).

In normal times no man can be held responsible for the conduct of his wife, but in this case we are happy to make an exception. With John Bercow, this pair between them have made a major contribution to the destruction of the majesty and gravitas of parliament, helping to make it the tawdry joke that it has become.

This article says she aims to "stick it to the establishment" during the programme, heedless of the fact that she is part of the establishment, living in a grace and favour apartment which has cost us better than £20,000 for refurbishments, plus another £1390.64, including VAT, for a satellite TV system, to save the pair the trouble of looting the local branch of Dixons.

One has to admit that this pair have got it made – having been able to delegate the parliamentary authorities to do their looting for them – and they certainly deserve each other. The question is whether we deserve such low grade personalities, a question which scarcely needs an answer.

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The looting of the Hill

We met this little baggage quite recently but up she pops again, as we learn that Andrea Hill, recently deposed chief executive of Suffolk county council, won a payoff of £218,592 - a year's salary.

But this was not the full cost of her leaving the post. The council, it seems, was also lumbered with a bill of £115,670 to investigate allegations of bullying and her "domineering management style" after David White, the council's interim head of legal services, was found hanged near his home in April.

In addition, the council had to cover legal fees of £13,506 on Hill's case, bringing the total cost of getting rid of her to £347,768. And this is on top of the £405,000 she has cost the council in agreeing settlements for the departure of other members of staff.

Unsurprisingly, Craig Dearden-Phillips, a Lib-Dim councillor, remarks that: "She had to go - her management style was pretty inappropriate". He adds: "It's an expensive settlement but if you counted all the hours spent dealing with this it would have cost far more than £350,000".

Amazingly though, a spokesman for Suffolk council actually says: "The county council would like to thank Mrs Hill for all she has done over the past three years and wish her well for her future". Not a few people, though, would like to make sure that the woman had no future ... of any kind.

Certainly, her kind of wholesale looting puts the efforts of last week's amateurs in the shade, proving that by far the best way of ripping people off and getting away with it is to join a public institution.

Her efforts, however, have not gone unnoticed, and anyone who thinks the moral indignation over the riots is going to cut any ice, as long as excrement like this is stuffing wads of dosh into her knickers, really does not belong on this planet.

If the ruling classes insist on helping themselves to our money, they really should not be surprised when their loose morality is reflected in the lower orders – and many others besides.

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Sceptic tank leads to jail?

South Norfolk District Council are paving the way to bang up 72-year-old June Farrow for the most serious crime on the statute book – refusal to pay the council tax needed to keep greedy officials and councillors in their accustomed luxury.

Farrow, a retired nurse from Bawburgh near Norwich, has only been paying £25 a month in council tax for the last three months, instead of the £99 per month demanded. And she has been using her savings to pay the tax ever since her husband, Albert, died six years ago.

This, she now says, cannot continue. She and her husband had built their own house and it is now 50 years old. "It is at an age", she says, "where it needs a lot of money spent on it and I need my savings to pay for things like a new sceptic tank".

We would suggest that every house needs a "sceptic tank" (sic) – and that it would be better to spend the money on that, than the depredations of thieving officialdom. But the fact that Farrow is at risk of jail underlines that central – if uncomfortable – fact, that we are not free men and women in this country.

Given that we can be banged up at a moment's notice, without anything even approaching a trial, we are merely out on license. The bizarre thing about this country is that we, as citizens, face far longer jail sentences for not paying our "freedom license" than the excrement get when they steal considerably more.

But then, as mere serfs, we should know our place.

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Camden looter escapes jail

Former Liberal Democrat councillor Christopher John Basson walked free from Westminster Magistrates' Court, despite stealing £12,000 from the State in fraudulently obtained incapacity benefits, while receiving nearly £26,000 in member's allowances from Camden Council.

The 54 year-old, who resigned from the council in 2009 due to ill health, illegally claimed benefits for "depression and anxiety", telling officials from the Department of Work and Pensions that he was not "working" during his three years as an elected member for the north London borough.

Despite recent looters being handed down sentences of up to two years, district judge Nicholas Evans gave Basson a mere 28 days, suspended for a year, and ordered him to wear an electronic tag for three months, plus a curfew from 7pm to 7am. Basson will also be forced to pay back the benefits.

The former councillor, who now earns £37,000 a year as a computer consultant, is currently seeking treatment for heroin addiction. He admitted to being £55,000 in debt, but denied that his debts, which he is currently repaying at a rate of about £600 a month, were a result of his heroin addiction.

Outside the court, Basson admitted he was "sorry" for his actions but declined to answer further questions from reporters.

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Picking up the wreckage

For all the bellicose talk of dealing with the rioters and looters, here is an example of the "justice" system at work. Alcoholic Thomas Downey, 48, who was caught helping himself to doughnuts from a Krispy Kreme shop, was jailed for 16 months today. Hapless Downey, of no fixed address, had only been released from Strangeways prison at 7.30pm on Tuesday when he found himself in the midst of the rioting.

After attending a meeting of Alcoholics Anonymous, the serial offender proceeded to down a bottle of sherry and stumbled into the Krispy Kreme, in Piccadilly Gardens, Manchester, which was unsecured after being attacked earlier. He was almost immediately caught red-handed with a box of doughnuts, worth £17, when 20 riot police arrived. He was returned to custody.

Downey admitted burglary and breach of an Asbo by entering part of Manchester City Centre from which he is prohibited. The judge told him: "You are an alcoholic. That is established by your record which shows a chronic condition. You drink too much, too regularly and when in drink become threatening and abusive".

"Indeed on the evening before your arrest you had been released from prison and seem to have got no further than Piccadilly", said the judge. "The shop keeper described your condition in blunt terms, 'he was pissed'".

Downey's offending history - printed over 33 pages - included more than 100 convictions for 233 offences. In mitigation, Zoe Nield told the court Downey left prison with just £4 in his pocket.

Although he wasn't involved in the rioting, he saw the Krispy Kreme store unsecured and helped himself because he was hungry, having spent all his money on tobacco. She said: "He can't recall the events because he was drunk but he has expressed remorse."

One does not have to be a bleeding heart liberal here to see that jail is not the answer to the Downey problem – not least because it is an expensive and ineffective measure in this case. Likely, the best option would have been a secure rehabilitation centre, except that there are rarely enough places, and that part of the system is under-funded.

In any society, though, there are always inadequates. That is a fact of life, and a humane – to say nothing of sensible – society deals with it. Using the prison system as a human garbage dump, on the other hand, is not really an answer. It perpetuates the problem and costs us more in the long run.

Strangely, there is a system where inadequates like Downey could be pulled in to supervised employment, enabling them to make something of their lives. It is called Remploy. Yet its workshops are being closed down and the system is being dismantled, something initiated by Labour and not reversed by the caring, sharing Boy.

What is happening though, is that the plods, storming into the riot areas, have been missing the "first wave" of rioters and looters, and picking up the inadequates like Downey, with the "justice" system then putting them in jail - exactly the opposite of what we need to be doing.

But then, as one learns, it is much easier to bray about "being tough", and to call for more prisons to be built – and filled. Why bother trying to solve a problem when, with a little bit of effort, you can make it considerably worse?

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Not the end, but a rehearsal

While the media is being saturated with tales of the "exemplary" sentences handed down to last week's rioters (were the disturbances really only last week?), very little is being heard about the serial looters in Cleveland, the most salient fact to emerge being that the investigation there is costing £100,000 a month.

We write here, of course, about the scandal of chief constable Sean Price and his deputy, Derek Bonnard, who were arrested this month on suspicion of misconduct in a public office, fraud by abuse of position and corrupt practice. The force's former head of legal services, Caroline Llewellyn, is also implicated.

No doubt the powers that be are extremely relieved that the more overt spate of public looting has driven this episode from the front pages – and the London-centric media was never going to give it much space anyway.

Nevertheless, it is beginning to emerge that Price and his fellow conspirators have been engaged in long-term theft and corruption on a scale that is quite staggering – with a very significant number of people involved.

As to the amateur looters currently going through the courts, considerable concern continues to be expressed about the level of sentencing, leading to a closing of the ranks of the brain dead, with the Big Brave Cameron "talking tough" from behind concrete barricades and the protection of his armed guards.

What is particularly disturbing though is not only the level of sentencing, which is clearly disproportionate in some cases, but what is also the makings of racial bias.

Thus, while white man Nicolas Robinson is jailed by district judge Alan Baldwin for six months for the "opportunist theft" of a £3.50 bottle of water, Ghanaian Ohene Bamfo, charged with robbery, theft and violent disorder, is freed by district judge Tanweer Ikram on the basis that he has already been detained for two days in custody.

Of course, two swallows do not a summer make, but it has to be said that, on occasions like these, the magistrates court system almost invariably gets it wrong – witness the tiny example of Leigton-Morris, which is far more typical than one might imagine.

The issue cries out for inspired political leadership, instead of which we get Cameron. A sensible leader might have recognised that last week's rioting was the "madness of the moment", with underlying tensions and causes, from which responsibility the political classes cannot entirely divorce themselves. A clever response might have been a conditional amnesty – conditional on the loot being returned in a reasonable period – while the great and the good properly investigated the causes.

Lacking such a deft touch, the political classes are going out of their way to leave a legacy of bitterness and a residual feeling of unfairness, while the message sent is one of fear. The knee-jerk reaction speaks of little else.

But the most powerful message of all is that, if you wish to indulge in large-scale looting, wear a uniform with silver braid on your hat. Then, even if you are caught, you will be suspended on full pay while every process of the law is exploited. Not for you will be throw-away summary "justice" and nor, one suspects, will any sentence approach that of the Facebook duo.

And by such means – as we observed earlier – instead of putting the lid on events, the political classes seem intent on turning last week's riots into a rehearsal.

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