As of today the UK is now over £1 trillion pounds in debt. Wahey right? Woo look at us finally hitting the big 18 zeros mark! Yeah take that America. Always gotta be the champ haven't you with your supersized everything? Well we don't have £15 trillion in debt yet but we're catching up real fast so you'd best beware. Its all very exciting. I don't even know what a trillion is, besides a great character in a Douglas Adams book*, and if we're now at the point where our debt is so much we owe fictional women, then that's great going. Oh? It's a bad thing? Oh I didn't realise.
It's just that, it can't be a bad thing, otherwise they'd be trying to prevent it. Wouldn't they? I mean its so bloody obvious that if its a bad thing then the government would be proposing a way to stop the hundreds of companies tax dodging the UK, and gain us back some of that £120 billion that would just pip us under the mega debt fictional lady number. That's totally what they'd do. So it must be a good thing. That'd explain why they are completely ignoring that, and instead spending this week hurling from their defeat in the Lords about benefit caps, demanding that there will be a reverse on the decision. Those aren't hats that give you special deals. That'd be nice though. Little blue hats that mean you get 15% off at WH Smith. Though I think the Lords might go for that. Nor are they a class based contraceptive, though I wouldn't put that past the government at some point in a forced breeding bill. Instead its another way to jump onto the government's overall parliamentary plan to seem more and more like a Bond villain with aims next to put forward motions to block out the sun then give George Osborne razor sharp metal teeth. Look at his face. Imagine it fatter, with metal teeth. Frightening huh? I know.
But I hear you cry - please don't cry, its only a blog - surely this is a good place to recuperate funds? I mean look at all those scroungers gaining £35k and more despite not even working while the rest of us spend hours in a boring office talking to people we hate and contemplating just how long we'd have to leave our heads in the photocopier to gain cancer? Well - please stop crying - most of that dosh doesn't go to the claimants. It goes to the landlords that are demanding extortionate rates for often dilapidated properties. I used to work in a housing association which happily mopped up government pay to let our tenants live in places Gollum would complain about. I had the horrible job of dealing with repairs and spent many a day on the phone to very angry people questioning why the boiler had blown up again only 24 hours after we'd had it fixed. The answer was because it had been fixed by a low cost, half arsed plumber who was cheaper to employ than buy them a new boiler. I couldn't say that though, so instead I apologised, asked them politely to stop telling me about how they were having to shit in plastic bags as the toilet was broken and would then bang my head on the desk until I could go home.
So these people don't have money really, and had the benefits cap gone through they'd have less money. While the government would claim a whole £290 million back. Which is loads compared to that £120 billion they could get back from big companies right? Well I mean, there's less zeros but all these 'illions' are confusing right? That's what I'm telling myself. I mean no one in their right mind would continue to make the lives of the most poverty stricken members of society harder while happily skirting round actually curbing executive pay in the same week? Sorry. I threw that in there knowing full well that Cable and Cameron have both stated they will increase 'transparency' in the business sector meaning that executive's will have to publish just what their salaries are. Which will help everyone right? That way we can know who's really raking in the cash while we're not? Whenever one of those families reeling from increases in VAT on everyday things or struggling to afford care for their disabled children who now no longer come under DLA thinks 'Do you know what? I might be just about ok money wise this week', they can look at some big execs pay online and now, ultimately, there's really very little point in bothering.
So they must love the trillion. Public borrowing has gone down so to combat that, government spending has risen to keep it there. The less we spend on our credit cards and mortgages the harder they'll need party with their cash to keep this trillion up. If it continues like this its only time before Gove announces buying a moon for the Queen, Cable announces that executives not only have to publish their pay but exactly how much of it they spend on cocaine, and the NHS is replaced with a gold smashing factory. Soon we'll be perfect trillion buddies with the USA, and I for one, am proud. I mean, we won't beat them at anything in the Olympics so we've gotta win somewhere right?
As a small end note, I'm off to Denmark tomorrow and have been desperately trying to learn Danish politics to be able to shout them into funnies at the public whilst I'm there. The one hilarious thing I did learn is that the only Danish politician that supports or approves of Cameron in anyway is Pia Kjærsgaard. She's the leader of the Danish People's Party who lost popularity when her racist views meant she put forth benefit cuts specifically to affect immigrants that ended up hugely hurting the lower classes as well. So, out of the entire Danish parliamentary system, only the racist, elitist one, the Danish equivalent of Nick Griffin, thinks he's any good. I'm not drawing any conclusions here in particular. I'm just saying. Yep. Just saying.
* I know its spelt Trillian pedants