The Pantomime season is upon us, and New Labour have already started rehearsing their parts, as was witnessed by Jack Straws' perfomance last week!
Here's our take on the Pantomine farce that Labour expect everyone to sit back, enjoy, and clap loudly with appreciation!
Starring :-
- Gordon Brown as the Great and Powerful Oz
- Jack Straw as (you’ve guessed it!) The Scarecrow with no brain
- Alan Johnson as the Cowardly Lion with no courage
- Peter Mandelson as the Tim Man with no heart
- Harriet Harman as Dippy Dorothy
- John Prescott as Toto The lapdog
Dorothy: “Please, sir. We've done what you told us. We've brought you the broomstick of the Wicked Witch of Britain. It took us twelve years, but we’ve done it, we’ve melted her. We’ve ruined her economy, we’ve flooded her country with immigrants, we’ve strangled her health and justice system with mountains of paperwork, and we’ve done such a good job on her police force, confidence is at an all time low. They really tried to beat the system you told us to put in place to do the job properly, but we beat them! - So we'd like you to keep your promise to us, if you please, sir. We want to be re elected so we can keep playing this great expenses game.”
OZ booms out : “Not so fast! Not so fast! I'll have to give the matter a little thought. Go away and come back tomorrow!”
Dorothy: “Tomorrow? Oh, but I want to be re-elected now.
TIN MAN: “You've had plenty of time already! Twelve years in fact”
LION: “Yeah!
OZ: “Do not arouse the wrath of the Great and Powerful Oz! I said come back tomorrow!”
At which point, Toto scampers over to a curtain in the left of the great hall, and starts to pull at it.
DOROTHY: “If you were really great and powerful, you'd keep your promises!”
OZ: “Do you presume to criticize the Great Oz? You ungrateful creatures! – you don’t know much about this political wizardry stuff do you? We never actually keep our promises. The trick is to make everyone think we have! If we can’t do that, then we wait till its time to re elect the Wizard and we blame everyone else, like the police, just ask the Straw-Man – he’s the expert! – Good job this week with the coppers Scarecrow – that will really fool the voters!”
Toto pulls back the curtain to reveal the Wizard behind the curtain, at the controls of the throne apparatus . . . . . They all see him for what he really is, a pathetic excuse for a wizard after all.
OZ: “Think yourselves lucky that I'm giving you audience over the next few months, instead of twenty years from now. Oh -- oh oh! The Great Oz has spoken!
Seeing the curtain has been pulled back and his pretence at Wizardry revealed, the Wizard peers out from behind the curtain -
DOROTHY: “Who are you?”
OZ: “Well, I -- I -- I am the Great and Powerful Wizard of Oz”
DOROTHY: “I don't believe you!”
WIZARD: “No, I'm afraid it's true. There's no other Wizard except me”.
SCARECROW: “You humbug! I could do the job better than you”
LION: “Yeah!”
WIZARD: “Yes-s-s -- that...that's exactly so. I'm a humbug!”
DOROTHY: “...you're a very bad man!”
WIZARD: “Oh, no, my dear -- I'm -- I'm a very good man. I'm just a very bad Prime Minister, I mean Wizard. Uh - now, please don't be angry with me. I'll - I'll do anything you say, only... only if you don't shout at me. It makes me nervous!”
SCARECROW: “It makes you nervous?”
WIZARD: “Yes. I get scared you want my throne”
SCARECROW: “What about us? What about the heart that you promised Tin Man-delson?” And the courage that you promised Cowardly A-Lion? (Alan – geddit?)
TIN MAN & LION: “And Scarecrow's brain?”
WIZARD: “Well, I-- but you've got them. You've had them all the time! Boys, you're aiming low. You not only surprise, but you grieve me. Except you Tin Man, no one would believe you had a heart even if I could give you one".
steps closer to the Scarecrow --
WIZARD: “Why, anybody can have a brain. That's a very mediocre commodity. every pusillanimous creature that crawls on the earth – or slinks through slimy stuff like you do, has a brain! Back where I come from we have universities, seats of great learning, where men go to become great thinkers. And when they come out, they think deep thoughts -- and with no more brains than you have.... But! They have one thing you haven't got! A diploma in deception!”
The Wizard reaches back and obtains several diplomas – selecting one and presents it to the Scarecrow as Dorothy, Tin Man and the Lion look on –
WIZARD: “Therefore, by virtue of the authority vested in me by the Universitatus Committeeatum e plurbis unum, I hereby confer upon you the honorary degree of D.D”.
SCARECROW: “D.D.? - hope it's more authentic than the honorary degrees they threw at me”
WIZARD: “Yeah -- that...that's Dr. of Deception! – Look at how well you’re deceiving the Wicked Witches people into believing their policemen like staying in the station more than catching crooks – better still, you’re getting them to believe that none of the problems are our fault – your already brilliant Straw-Man!”
The Scarecrow recites the Pythagoras Theorem -- reacting with joy –
SCARECROW: “The sum of the square roots of any two sides of an isosceles triangle is equal to the square root of the remaining side. Oooh, I feel lots more deceptive stuff coming on . . . Do you know I went to a Grammar School and then got my buddies to oppose selective education? I got a full grant at University – then my pals brought in student loans. Here’s a good one… I refused to join the Cadet Corps at school on conscientious grounds – then we sent thousands of soldiers to war. I ordered a review into police use of cautions in Nov 2009 – then my son escaped a criminal record by being cautioned for drugs offences in 1997. I spent £170,000 of taxpayers' money on fancy artwork to decorate my offices, £130 million
refurbishing headquarters, and £2,745,000 on new furniture and fittings - £915 per square foot, 18 times the cost of standard refurbishment in the private sector. What a wheeze this is! This is just the tip of the iceberg too – I used my MP’s expenses to claim full council tax despite only paying a 50% rate – and I’m the Justice Secretary! Oh joy, rapture! I've got a brain after all - ! – What’s that other thing I’m missing? – Integrity and honesty? – Pah! Who needs them when I can fool the voters I’m an alright sort of bloke! ”
SCARECROW: “How can I ever thank you enough?”
WIZARD: “Well, you can't. Well actually, there is one thing. Keep doing what you’re doing - making the voters believe it’s all somebody else’s fault. You never know, we, might get enough of the daft beggars to vote for us again and we can keep this gravy train rolling!”
EPILOGUE
Last week, Jack Straw's remarks about lazy coppers are politically driven and imply he knows little about the nature of grassroots policing.
Last week, Jack Straw's remarks about lazy coppers are politically driven and imply he knows little about the nature of grassroots policing.
Labour has an election ahead, and if, as seems likely, they don’t win, Jack Straw will be a candidate to lead the party. Little wonder the “Straw-man” has jumped on the police-bashing bandwagon. He knows the majority of people only encounter the police when being stopped for a minor motoring offence, or when the police are failing to clear up a deeply distressing crime. In the words of one senior officer who disliked Mr Straw's remarks, this was a cheap shot.
In fact, his comments amount to treacherous hypocrisy. Straw's four years as home secretary from 1997 to 2001 gave birth to the bureaucracy and crippling procedures and statistical fiddling that have prevented our police officers from doing their job the way they and we would want – and these deceptions were born and led from the Home Office. The police ceased to be crime-fighters and became an instrument for the imposition of political correctness. New Labour came in to power with a perverted set of beliefs about minorities, and made the police the enforcers of their doctrines. Criminal Justice spiraled downhill from that point.
Mr Straws priorities were to appease minorities first, fight crime second. Essentially bureaucratic, it was assisted by the 3000+ laws and regulations inflicted on the police by the Government of which Mr Straw has always been a very senior member. Sadly, some greedy and ambitious chief constables implemented a doctrine of political correctness that brought their officers into contempt and boosted the crime figures.
The police have been put in fear of their livelihoods from nonsense accusations of racism or homophobia from the public. It has stopped capable officers doing what they expected to do when they joined the force – fight crime and protect the public. It has left them with some leaders who are completely out of touch with the public and what proper policing should look like. The saddest consequence is that it has given birth to sections of society where delinquency and criminality are second nature. It will take a courageous Government to sort the mess that has become the legacy of New labour.
Don’t expect the "Straw-man" to admit his part in all this. But make no mistake, he has played a very significant role throughout the twelve years of Labour mis-management. Those senior police officers who have perpetuated the deceit of successful policing to further their ambition are unlikely to admit to their part in the deception either. The result is that society has become more dangerous and a large section of it has lost its moral compass.
Serving, retired and former police officers take great exception to the remarks made by Jack Straw about lazy coppers who would rather stay in a warm police station than patrol their beats.
As a former home secretary with responsibility for policing, Jack Straw has in the past shown great support for the police. It can be no coincidence that he has waited twelve years, until a few months prior to the election to make his comments. The “Man of Straw” surely cannot believe that any intelligent voter will fail to see through his latest deception. As Home Secretary, then Justice Secretary, let us remind you Jack…. You are responsible for the Criminal Justice system we now have to fix. You broke it with your idiotic and subversive policies. And now you expect us to be taken in by your efforts to shift the blame onto the front liners who have been forced to implement your failed strategies.
There are too many forms and strangling levels of bureaucracy and Straw should shoulder most of the responsibility.
Straw is now working to his own political agenda, so don’t be surprised to hear lots more of this nonsense and fingerpointing. Just remember this Jack. “When you point your index finger at the frontline police, look at the direction your middle, ring and pinky finger are pointing…. Three fingers pointing straight back at YOU!”
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1 comments:
We had a few `Olympic Torches` during my service. Every walk of life has them. But the difference between them and the likes of Strawdog was that we knew their game and had peer pressure and a few good sergeants to kick their arses. I just hope the silent majority see Strawdog for what he is and do the same to him and his kind.
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