Lisbon, slithy toves and an elephant

Millennium elephant explains our difficulties over the Lisbon Treaty

http://millenniumelephant.blogspot.com/2009/11/day-3229-dave-cave-mr-balloon-versus.html

Half a million doctors can't be right

The conservatives will remove half a million people from incapacity benefit. They can work, you see, whatever their doctors say. We know this. We know exactly which half a million people have been misdiagnosed as incapable of working, and are in fact idle layabouts with made up illnesses and disabilities. After all disability is merely a social construct, or something.

How do we know this? How can we identify exactly which half a million people deserve to have their crutches kicked away by their betters? Well it comes from the same place as our deep conviction that we are worthy and destined to be your rulers. I may no longer be his heir, but one ex-prime minister knew just how much better a deep sense of conviction was, than evidence, when justifying what might seem reckless, but with hindsight, erm...

Andy Coulson has my confidence

It is a sign of how modern and progressive the Conservatives are, that I have a bugger in my inner sanctum.

There's a lot of pious posturing over Andy's criminality, but who among you would not do the same as he? And who among you would not do the same as I and stand by him, if he had some of the material on you that he has on me.

Bercow: not one of us

There are some mutterings among my colleagues as to whether John Bercow was a proper Conservative or not. The case against him is quite compelling: supporting disabled children, gay rights, democracy in Burma - these are far from normal Conservative interests. But this is not the whole story. In his defence, he is prone to correcting people's grammar under his breath as they speak.

Of course it would have been preferable to have a Tory establishment speaker like George Young, but this is not the time to undermine the new speaker. No that time is a year or so away.

Many colleagues did not vote for Bercow for no other reason than that he did not have support on both sides of the house. Or is it that he did not have support on both sides of the house because many of my colleagues didn't vote for him. I'm getting a little confused here.

Nevertheless, we have a "clean break" reforming speaker in place, and that is something we are all going to have to keep an eye and a lid on.

I love it - not so much.

Best ever value for money

We all know that shadow chancellor and first-rate mini me, George Osborne cares about getting value for public money. He cares so much about value for public money that he makes speeches on the subject. He cares so much about value for public money that he gets DVDs made of himself talking about value for public money.

Now how to pay for those DVDs.... You have one guess.

Yes, public money.

Who wouldn't want this sort of genuis in charge of the nation's finances?

Wherever I lay my hat, that's my home

One thing I have in common with the common people such as vagrants, is not knowing from day to day where my homes are.

So when asked if I had a fourth home, my best answer was “I don’t think so – not that I can think of.”

Don't make me sound like a prat for not knowing how many houses I've got. That's my job.

ht

In the duck house

I won't be throwing any breadcrumbs of comfort to Tory MP Peter Viggers, who claimed for a £1,645 duck house. No. His goose is cooked.

I'm not going to get down off my high horse on this one. (You don't get down off a horse, you get down off a duck.) We can't keep swanning around charging this sort of thing to the taxpayer.

How can I spin up the canard that this is all about Gordon Brown, that we are not as guilty as Labour, if this sort of thing keeps happening?

It's driving me absolutely quackers.


moar funny pictures

Tough on little ticket items

The people of Britain are rightly furious at the way we have been milking our expenses. So I am laying down the law to my party in an act of leadership. Conservative MPs will no longer be allowed to claim for:

-swimming pools
-tennis courts
-chandeliers
-servants (unless absolutely necessary)

There. That should settle it. Anything but touch the subsidised mortgages which are the real money spinner. After all, it is hardly worth being an MP if you can't make a mint in the property market.

Our answer to the recession: stop spending

In order to stimulate the economy during a recession, it is always best to encourage people to stop spending money and save it instead. [Are you sure about this George?] And so we propose tax cuts for savers. Hooray.

Now the naysayers among you might think that it would be a better stimulus if people went out and spent their money, that saving for a rainy day means spending those savings when you need them. And that tax cuts on income or sales might be more effective.

But let me ask you this. Do you really think we could get it that badly wrong? People of the depth and calibre of George Osborne and myself? Do I really need to say any more?