Demonstrations start at 11am under the following guises;
* Moorgate
Red horse against War;
* Liverpool St
Green horse against Climate chaos
* London Bridge
Silver horse against Financial crimes
* Cannon Street
Black horse against land enclosures and borders in honour of the 360th full circle anniversary of the Diggers

My initial reaction was that due to the syncronisation of the ‘parades’ people looking to be involved will have to chose between anti-war, anti-climate, anti-finance or whatever the fuck the last one is supposed to be. Wouldn’t it be embarrassing if, say it was just Black Horseman was left on his Jack because everyone else threw their weight behind the other causes?

For those of a less civilly disobedient bent, there’s a timely exhibition at 187-211 St John Street, called “Affluenza” - which should go someway to highlight some of the causality of our current predicament through the medium of art.

Anyway, back to the good news. The Students Loan Company have decided, so very charitably, that due to the falling interest rates that they should make immediate reductions to the paid interest rates on student loans in the UK. The rate is normally linked for the year to RPI (retail price index) but due to the aggressive (and necessary) monetary policy employed over the last 3 months, they have enacted a clause which stipulates that the rate can be no higher than 1% above base rate. So the rate has come down from 3.8% to 2.5% on student loans with effect from 9th Jan so we should see some benefit sneaking in soon (check the official page here if you’re in doubt). The other good thing is that if inflation continues to slide back from the 5% high and the economy continues to look pretty sick, there’s a good bet that Base Rate will be due another cut or two this year. Using Student Loan Company’s logic that the paid rate can’t be more than 1% above Base Rate, we should see paid interest rates on student loans fall further. Stranger things have happened than Base Rate sliding down to 0.5% by the end of 2009 thus meaning a paid interest rate of 1.5% on student loans, a whopping 2.3% less than the originally set level.

On that note, who’s up for another Jaeger Bomb?

I’m more sanguine about the whole scenario to be honest, I think we’ve been living large for the last 10 odd years and could do with a period of sleeve-rolling in order to put things in perspective (I’m a firm believer in the importance of Schumpter’s theory of Creative Destruction or as Sombart put it “again out of destruction a new spirit of creativity arises” – according to Wikipedia anyhow).

However, what I’m less than happy about is reading that the government are planning to spend £3 million of taxpayer’s money on a funeral for Margaret Thatcher. This has baffled me completely. The Labour government have shown time and time again that they have the foresight of Russell Grant when it comes to policies and particularly the economy, yet now when it comes to burying the plundering former leader of the opposition they are all over it like some avant garde dance troupe. What astounds me is that she’s not even dead yet! Can you imagine how the minutes of a meeting of the cabinet must go:

• Economy: action – deferred until Q4 (we haven’t got a scooby on this one!)
• Knife crime: action – take perpetrators to hospital to see victims (minute updated: actually don’t)
• Eco-Towns: action – employed Wayne Hemmingway (yeah the fashion designer) as a designer (what the fuck!) to add some credibility to the cause.
• Obesity: action – appointed a new Tzar of Chips & Fizzy Drinks, John Prescott.
• Death of Margaret Thatcher: action – eagerly anticipated, so much so let’s plan a £3m party/funeral!

The government has clearly run out of ideas and conviction, it’s a sad State of affairs, quite literally.

Have a look at this clip from the satirical genius of Spitting Image…spot the difference between then (the early 90s) and now.

Click moar for the lyrics

Dad believed what Maggie (Tony/Gordon) said
Get a mortgage buy a home
So dad took out a great big loan
For a while there we were chuffed
Now the market has collapsed
And we’re absolutely stuffed

Our house, in the middle of a slump
Our house, no one wants to buy this dump

Dad is desperate to sell
But now our homes worth even less
Than a pension from Maxwell (share in Northern Rock)
Our living room’s a mess
Full of magistrates and bailiffs
Trying to repossess

Our house, in the middle of the boom
Our house, it was worth a small fortune
Our house, left us in a dreadful state
Our house, why the hell’d we decorate

We really caught a cold
Nowhere we can go to now
All the council houses have been sold
Our dads taken some stick
He’s still voting Tory (Labour) though
By God he must be thick

Our house, didn’t work out like we planned
Our house, prices dropped by fifty grand
Our house, threw us out and changed the locks
Our house, it is now a cardboard box

In the interim, you should check out Donovan Leitch, he is awesome. I’ll leave you with his track called the “Writer in the Sun” (he also did Mellow Yellow – FTW!). When I first heard it, I thought the lyric was “the retard writer in the sun and I’m blue” which I could empathsise with almost perfectly!

I think this was testement to the simmering sentiments that linger around the East like nerve gas post-BJ day (the day Boris Johnson was elected as London Mayor). If you get a chance on this fine, fine Sunday afternoon, pick up a copy of the Independent for the article on Bozza’s move to surround himself with his family in top positions. If there’s anything worse than having one bumbling toff Johnson loitering around, then it’s having a whole cadre of the floppy-haired morons.

Anyway, I saw the results shown on a map and the penny finally dropped as to why I never leave East London…surely the strongest evidence yet of an autonomous political regime in East London…

I think we cut the rest of London loose, what is the West actually good for apart from being the way to get to the West Country?

I can’t begin to tell you, dear reader, how dissapointing I find this. The man’s is an epic buffoon, and simply not fit to run London. Not fit, indeed, to iron my shirts, so I will be retiring that meme after today, in favour of something rather more strongly worded.

I will be taking the opportunity to burn Boris in effigy this week. I strongly advise you to do the same.

]]> http://worshipstirregulars.com/2008/05/our-new-mayor-let-me-show-you-him/feed/ 0 http://worshipstirregulars.com/2008/04/obligatory-boris-bash/ http://worshipstirregulars.com/2008/04/obligatory-boris-bash/#comments Sun, 20 Apr 2008 12:22:44 +0000 kingmug http://worshipstirregulars.com/?p=290