The Sunday Ishmael: 22/01/2023

There's this crazy Liverpudlian,  Michael Cullen, 58 years old, who has been keeping himself busy walking the length of Britain in a state of undress, to raise money for Charidee. His latest achievement was a five hour climb to the top of Ben Nevis, in minus 18 degrees of C. temperatures, through the snow, wearing swimming trunks and carrying an odd assortment of bits and pieces, including a scottish flag and what looks like a blue kite. He got to the top on Monday.

He's on the shores of Loch Lomond at present, heading South. His lifetime achievement of money-raising is estimated at one million pounds. He says he's doing it to "give back" to society for all the help he received following a collapse into alcoholism and mental illhealth.

Shifty Zahawi, au contraire, never had any intention of "giving back". He was determined to hang onto as much as he possibly could, despite the laws of this country, a country his wealthy banking family adopted having migrated here from Iraq, when he was 11, to remove themselves from Sadam Hussein's early years of power and any possible objections to the accumulation of massive personal wealth, his grandad having been the Governor of the Central Bank of Iraq and his dad a business man and investment banker. Just speculating, here. Like Shifty. 

Anyway, he can't call in aid him being a Swarthy Levantine, a stranger here and not to the manor born, on account of he received a typical British privileged education at King's College School and University College London, where he took his degree in Chemical Engineering. (As a side bar with myself, them chem. eng. blokes are worse than med. students - I've seen them in full carouse down the main bar in the Students' Union. Kind, gentle and caring, they are not. Braying, misogynist drunks, they are). Oh, yes, and he was Chancellor of the Exchequer at the time. I know, only for five minutes, 5th July to the 6th September 2022, having been thrown out by Tank Girl Truss for his Boris affiliations, despite being him being very keen on low taxes. In order to "steady the ship and stabilise the economy". But, still, Boris clearly thought the man knew enough about taxation to head up HMRC along with his other onerous duties and responsibilities. After all, he had stoutly denied knowing that he was under investigation by the Serious Fraud Squad, the National Crime Agency and HMRC. He said that he was being smeared.  

Smeared or not smeared, he's been fined for an error in his tax affairs that was "careless and not deliberate". "Careless" has a specific meaning to HMRC - you are not supposed to be careless. It is not as bad as tax evasion, which will put you in prison, but it is there on the naughty step. Shifty needs to sack all those highly expensive accountants and tax lawyers who have been careless with his tax return. And how much has this cost him? The surmise is that he has 

 agreed to pay several million pounds to HMRC in a penalty for his carelessness in his use of an offshore company (the Gibraltar-based family trust Balshore Investments) to hold shares in YouGov. 

Several million. Didn't make much of a saving there, then, with all that tax dodginess. 

Several million? Kind of makes poor mad Michael Cullen's naked mountain-climbing lifelong Charidee fund-raising efforts of a mere £one million look like a whole big waste of time. 

Then there was the story this week that, allegedly,  Richard Sharp helped Boris to secure a loan of £800,000 from Canadian millionaire, Sam Blyth. The three of them allegedly had dinner together at Chequers to sort out the details, with Richard Sharp allegedly acting as  "go-between". It’s no secret that, despite his very healthy wage supplied by the taxpayer, Boris Johnson ran into some financial difficulties whilst in office as Prime Minister. Funnily enough, a few weeks later, Richard Sharp was appointed Chair of the BBC, a position earning £180,000 per annum.

Are we paying our politicians enough, if they have to resort to fiddling their taxes and rewarding helpful chums with prime jobs? I suspect that the answer is that there is not enough money on God's good earth to satisfy the avariciousness of those who rule o'er us. The Labour Party, who've been kicking up the usual fuss about greed and corruption, were well into the trough during their days of office, and following - look at poor little billionaire Tony Blair. Have I ever told you that I was once in politics myself? Okay, Trade Union politics, but we've got Trade Union politics to thank for Pieman Prescott and the Ginger Growler (sounds like the title of a Victorian penny dreadful). I was paid for 17.5 hours a week plus expenses and nobody ever offered me a bribe, advantageous loan or suggested a nifty tax carelessness. I worked many more hours than the 17.5, and was motivated by a sense of indignation about injustice, though the wearing of nice clothes, status, power and rubbing shoulders with senior management and the fixers are rewarding in themselves. I can easily see how the life of a politician becomes self-perpetuating entitlement, even when the motivation for entering politics is to make a positive difference to people's lives, as opposed to getting a well-paid job with connections. Maybe there's an argument for Parliamentary representation by lottery, remunerated at the average national wage and for a fixed term of three years, subject to a two year extension if you behave yourself. When your number comes up and it's your turn to sit on the green benches, your friends and family will commiserate with you, and say, never mind, soon be over, you're doing your bit for the country.

Westminster avariciousness and pre-criminality feed straight into Gnasher Sturgeon's narrative of bad, sick England exploiting pure, simple, hard working Scotland.

She's reckoning on that the Westminster Government, in particular, Alister Jack, Secretary of State for Scotland, has declared War on Scotland by making an order under Section 35 of the Scotland Act 1998, preventing the Scottish Parliament's Gender Recognition Reform Bill from proceeding to Royal Assent. She says it's a cultural war. Possibly because the English want to be nasty to men wanting to pass as women, whereas your whoreson Scot, being deeply misogynistic, wants to mock women by donning false boobies and wigs and gain access to women-only spaces and sporting competitions. No, she's really cross because Westminster has flexed its muscles and put Holyrood firmly into its place. 

So, its War, d'ye ken, we'll no tolerate English interference in Scottish affairs any longer, we'll tak' some o' they Leopard tanks the Germans won't give to Ukraine and roll on down to London.

Here's mr ishmael, with an imagined political interview:

 

Gnasher Over London 12th February 2015

First Minister Gnasher, you lost the referendum, didn't you?

Well, Andrew, I think we won but that's a debate to be had. But not here.

Why not here?

Well, Andrew, as I said, and as the Scottish people so clearly said,  in the referendum, that's a debate to be had but not here.

But they didn't....

They didn't what, Andrew....

They didn't say anything about a debate to be had, not now, not anytime. You lost the referendum...

Well, Andrew, that's a debate to be had. Un-preeec-edented numbers of people voted for Independence, un-preeeec-edented numbers...

Yes, but more voted against Independence. Doesn't that mean anything to you, the fact that you lost?

 Well, Andrew, lose, win, that's a debate to be had but not now.

Woddawoodsay, though, Andrew, is that, setting the result aside, the numbers of votes,   we clearly won the referendum, un-preeec-edented numbers of people voted for Independence and it's only people like you English who refuse to acknowledge that fact.

But I'm not English....

Well, Andrew, let me put it like this.  Did or didnae ye vote for Independence?

I didn't have a vote. Either way. The SNP didn't allow me to vote. Nor millions like me.

 

There ye are, Andrew, that makes ye English by my reckoning. In fact, woddawoodsay, Andrew,  is that anyone who isnae in the SNP is English and therefore not entitled tae vote in the next referendum.

(breathes heavy sigh) I'm too old for this nutter shit. Alright, then, you're not gonna answer my question. What about the oil price, you all staked your political souls on the fact that it could only go up.  It has gone down, massively, the economy of Aberdeenshire and indeed of the whole of Scotland is tanking. Do you wanna take this opportunity to apologise?

Well, Andrew, that's a debate to be had but, quite frankly, now is not the time to have it........

Are you, First Minister Gnasher, are you unable to apologise? 

 Well, Andrew, not only can I but I can't, gggrrrrrrrrrr,  not only should I but I shouldn't as well,  it is a debate to be had but not here,  oil is just.....ggggrrrrrrrrrrrr, gnasshhhhh gnassshhhhh, ggrrrrrrrrrrrrrm, grrrrrrrr.... nhs scotland in meltdoon,   ggrrrrrr, gggrrrrrrr, ggrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr, SNP ruling for some  but not the majority,  grrrrrrr-gggrrrrrrrrrrrrr,  Trident, over my deid, nasty, wee body  gggrrrrrrrrrr-grrrrgrrrrr, coalition wi' Miliband  ggrrrrrrrrrrrr not only will I but I won't, yadadadadada,  I demand a half a per cent per whatever increase in whatever to bring aboot nae austerity, ken, aye and balance they books  ggrrrrrrrrrrr-grrgrrrgrrrrrr aye, an' Scottish votes on English matters gnashhhhh-gnassshhhh-gnasshhhh, the Scottish people voted in un-preeec-edented numbers for Independence and it is only the frankly discredited Westminster politicians, Andrew and lickspittle journalists like yourselves who are denying us our historic ggrrrrrrrrrr......ggrrrrrrrrr

 

 

thanks to editor mr. verge, there are now three anthologies of the collected works of ishmael smith:

Honest Not Invent, Vent Stack  and Ishmael’s Blues are all available from Lulu and Amazon. If you buy from Amazon, it would be nice if you could give a review on their website.
Ishmaelites wishing to buy a copy from lulu should follow these steps :

Thanks to editor mr. verge, there are now three anthologies of the collected works of ishmael smith:
Honest Not Invent, Vent Stack  and Ishmael’s Blues are all available from Lulu and Amazon. If you buy from Amazon, it would be nice if you could give a review on their website.
Ishmaelites wishing to buy a copy from lulu should follow these steps :
please register an account first, at lulu.com. This is advisable because otherwise paypal seems to think it's ok to charge in dollars, and they then apply their own conversion rate, which might put the price up slightly for a UK buyer. Once the new account is set up, follow one of the links below (to either paperback or hardback) or type "Ishmael’s Blues" into the Lulu Bookstore search box.  Click on the “show explicit content” tab, give the age verification box a date of birth such as 1 January 1960, and proceed.
Link for Hardcover :  https://tinyurl.com/je7nddfr
Link for Paperback : https://tinyurl.com/3jurrzux
At checkout, try WELCOME15 in the coupon box, which (for the moment) takes 15% off the price before postage.  If this code has expired by the time you reach this point, try a google search for "Lulu.com voucher code" and see what comes up.  
With the 15% voucher, PB (including delivery to a UK address) should be £16.84; HB £27.04.