Ozo The Bozo

Blame Democracy

2010-07-16T10:04:00.000-07:00

The march towards a lean, mean state with a lean, mean leader goes on. My latest scheme is to get the public to take the blame for my next round of service cuts and tax hikes. My assistants and I have gathered up all the plans along with a couple of plausible red herrings for a “Public Consultation”. We are going to let them think they chose the package by popular demand. Of course, we shall carefully manage what they demand.

There has been one little problem, however. It turns out that some of the public can actually understand economics all by themselves, without any civil servants to explain it to them. Who would have believed it? As a result, I keep getting sensible-sounding suggestions. I suppose I shall have to dilute my plans with a few token examples. That should make the Consultation look more real and even democratic.

Exciting Times

2010-06-28T09:58:00.000-07:00

Well, well, well. What an exciting few weeks!

I had to exercise all my skills when one of my ministers got himself into trouble. He is a lovely chap, always willing to find his friends a great deal on a used car with incredibly low mileage. He is also one to pull a few strings for his friends. That got him in trouble when some uppity judicial type said he shouldn't have put in a good word for his mate. I had to talk him into quitting to keep a lid on things in the end. I think I have promised him enough to keep his mouth shut. There will be trouble if he doesn't.

I have got rid of the leaker at last. He tried the old stunt of getting re-elected to his own seat. Instead the voters chose a man of the world, who understands how things are done. The new chap talks a bit lefty; progressive taxation and that kind of nonsense. However we can trust him to do the right thing when it comes to the crunch. Progress indeed.

Last week I had a smashing win-win situation. The champagne socialist tried calling a no-confidence vote on Grandpa Munster, my front man. Of course he had a fat chance of winning it. Instead Grandpa Munster got such a huge vote of confidence that he will be able to stay until I am ready to get rid of him. Even if the vote had gone wrong somehow, it would just have given me an opportunity to step into the breach myself. Great stuff.

I have got my tax consultation out now. One way or another I am going to screw the hoi-polloi. Letting them think they can choose how means I can tell them it is all their own fault when they whinge.

Anyway I have to keep up with my in-depth studies of luxury tourism, so I have not got time to be blogging all day. I am off to the Far East for a junket.

Teamwork! That's the thing

2010-05-30T05:36:00.000-07:00

A bit of teamwork and string-pulling can achieve wonderful results. We are going to have a by-election. That gives us a chance to get rid of that pest. The one who has been leaking all sorts of stuff he had a duty to his government to keep quiet about. The fool is fighting for re-election to his own seat. We shall see about that.

There is a very promising candidate, used to dealing with low-lives and sorting their troubles out, but one of us at heart. He can charm the hoi-polloi with his track record. He knows what they are really like, however. So he will not be doing that bleeding-heart stuff. Dealing with immigrants has put him off them a bit, but once we get him in, I know he will come to understand our growth plans for the population and economy.

One of my people wanted to stand too. This is where my shrewd teamwork and string-pulling came into play. By promising him he can be one of my star candidates next time, I have stopped him splitting the vote. He has even been so helpful as to endorse our new man. That should make it plain where they are both coming from.

The lovely thing is that the opposition are in complete disarray. Instead of teamwork, the idiots are fighting among themselves like ferrets in a sack. The leaker has upset all his fellow lefties with his bad manners. Now they are after payback and are all queueing for his seat. Even the champagne socialist who already has a seat wants the leaker's instead, just to spite him. The opposition vote is going to split several ways, just like it always does, and our new man will easily come through the middle. I love it.

One more on my side will help keep the lefties even further down in their place. Politics is such a satisfying career, when you are as good as I am.

I had a busy year

2010-02-04T08:05:00.000-08:00

Oh, dear! I have been so busy lately, I have forgotten to blog. Now the riff-raff are blogging too, I had better start plugging myself again.

Last year was very exciting. It looked as though I could dump Grandpa Munster, my front man, back in the spring. His team had made a multi-million pound blunder on a big project, but he managed to make the hired help carry the can in the end. Anyway, I hold the purse strings, so I have the real power.

I managed to do some more first-hand research on luxury tourism. We are trying to drum up trade in the Far East. The Economic Development Minister is a friend of mine, so I blagged a place on his junket. I have had enough of India now, so when I won another holiday there, I gave it away as a publicity stunt.

I had a bit of a shock at the end of the year. Getting out of my box and doing blue-sky thinking did not really work for me. But I thought I could rely on the old standby of putting up duties on alcohol and tobacco. They voted against it though. Every cloud has a silver lining, however. Now I can make all the cuts I like and blame the others for not letting me have the money.

We are going to get rid of £50 million worth to begin with. Of course, by the time I have bought everyone off with special funding for their pet projects and causes it will be more like £ 15 million. But it is a start. And then the lean, mean state will need a lean, mean leader. Who else but myself of course.

Restoring Democracy

2009-02-14T13:16:00.000-08:00

When the Ancient Greeks invented democracy they meant government by the important people for the important people. Something has been lost in the translation down the years and now every Tom, Dick and Harry thinks that he has the right to interfere in politics.

At present, we are paying political newcomers a lot more than they are worth to us. This makes it a realistic career option for professional and managerial types who know far too much and will not fall into line when we tell them. However, being a man of wisdom and vision, I have come up with an answer.

I propose that we cut the salary right down for the new boys to fund much deserved increases for us ministers. After all, we are the ones who have to struggle through gruelling fact-finding visits and banquets for visiting dignitaries, as well as signing off our civil servants' reports and cultivating essential business relationships in restaurants and golf clubs.

Not only would it mean more for us though. The really clever bit is that it would price out all the family men and career women. We would move back to the golden age when apart from the odd token housewife or pensioner, only businessmen who had made their pile and scions of wealthy families like myself could afford to become politicians.

Just think how much better we could run things then. The Athenian ideal would return for us.

We don't take bribes!

2009-01-28T06:24:00.000-08:00

I am absolutely shocked that members of the House of Lords of all places have been taking bribes to fix things for businesses. Where I come from, one never hears of politicians taking backhanders. There is no need whatsoever for this sort of thing.

Obviously a man of the world like myself would not cling to any romantic nonsense about virtue being its own reward. It is just that a reputation for integrity can be made to pay in the long run. By not getting caught taking bungs, our politicians can get top dollar for nice little sinecures as non-executive directors and quango chairmen. It is mainly because they look good on the letterheads. Our politicians are notorious for not having much practical sense about money.

Even so, if they keep their noses clean, and are careful about properly balancing the needs of big business against their duties to their electors rich pickings await. For instance I am years away from retirement from politics, but I am already making sure that our workers cannot kick a failed employer when he is down, the way that they do everywhere else. Redundancy pay indeed – if they had worked harder for their bosses they would still have jobs. I am certainly aiming to have some good jobs to go to when I leave office.

Vacuum Economics

2009-01-24T08:20:00.000-08:00

In the Twentieth Century they had a theory about Hydraulic Modelling of economics. Academic economists believed that money flowed through an economy like water through plumbing, So they could represent trade with physical pipework.

In the new Millennium we experts in economics have moved forward. At least we have where I live. The pipework model only theoretically represented the economy. We then realised that we could cut the physical model out altogether, and model from pure theory. This brilliant insight set us free to plan our economy according to axioms grounded in pure faith.

We are now managing our economy by our original and unique Vacuum Theory of economics. Everybody knows that nature abhors a vacuum. So it is obvious and does not need proving, that if you drain money out of an economy more must be automatically sucked in to replace it. Our other axiom is that growth is sustainable and Malthus's two hundred year old twaddle about exhausting resources is thinking that has long passed its use-by date. So it is perfectly possible to suck in more than you are draining out.

We have been busily implementing this by creating as many drains on the local economy as we possibly can. We have not only encouraged overseas businesses to take over our commerce, but also abolished all tax on the profits they repatriate, so maximising the loss to our local economy. Our piece de resistance will be the new world class incinerator. We are lavishing perhaps four or five times the cost of modern alternatives on the plant itself. We will also be bringing in civil engineers for massive surrounding works to make the location suitable, costing at least as much again. All told we can hope to dump almost 300 million pounds from the economy. By our theory, the inrush of replacement money and the inevitable growth will give us back half a billion.

Unfortunately, my advisers have not yet explained to me exactly how the money will suck back into our economy. However, as an act of faith, already we have been busily implementing our vacuum economics, and I am sure that it will soon become clear just how well they work in practice.

Clamp down time

2009-01-17T05:36:00.000-08:00

We have had worrying news. There is allegedly going to be a flood of cheap cocaine in our capital, This is of course absolutely appalling. Cocaine is supposed to be an exclusive pleasure for the elite and we do not want to see every Tom, Dick and Harry indulging. The supply of cut-price drugs is a menace to our social order. It must be firmly dealt with.

Naturally, we shall clamp down with the utmost discretion. The new police chief fully understands how upholding the law must be balanced against protecting people in important and influential positions. I shall pull every string in my hands to ensure that there are no inappropriate investigations. Fortunately, our local press understand that noses are for sniffing with, not poking into affairs that don't concern them. So long as we find a few specimens of the hoi polloi to make examples of, all will be well in the end.

Merry Xmas

2008-12-21T04:35:00.001-08:00

Now all the elections are over, I am quite satisfied with the results. Unfortunately, one or two of my followers did not get the support they should have from the idiot public. But even so, enough of my people got in to ensure further progress in my career. Now I can control all the other Ministers' funding, I really have the power to be the new Peter Mandelson.

Even better, I have impressed upon my new frontman that I am an expert linguist, who should take care of all the foreign relations. This will enable me to continue my in-depth first hand studies of the high-end business travel industry. We used to have a tourism industry here, until my colleagues and I wisely refocused the economy on financial services, so I like to see what it could have happened if we had let things go on as they were.

It is the festive season, and there will be much hard partying to get out of the way before I have to worry about work. So I shall sign off and wish you all a Merry Christmas and taxably Prosperous New Year.

Another one for the suckers

2008-11-24T09:25:00.000-08:00

Naturally, we in the government have complete faith in our policies. Sometimes we do wonder, however, if the hoi polloi get suspicious about our image. Ex-broadcasters always do well in elections here. Because we do not have much of a party system, voters just vote for names that they recognise. We already have one washed-up ex-newsreader who has been a loyal mainstay of our government. people grumble about him being a drunken buffoon, but he got elected and he is one of ours. We are now going to build on his success by parachuting in a bimbo from a breakfast radio show. She has not got a clue about anything political. That makes her a lovely blank slate to impose our views on. She has the right background to be one of us, and her bubbly broadcast persona will fool the idiot voters brilliantly. I cannot wait to see her elected by her fans, especially as she is a big fan of mine in turn.

We have Got Him

2008-11-15T08:47:00.000-08:00

I am very proud of my fellow ministers this week: Our Chief of Police is an import from the mainland. He could never get his head around the way we do things where I live. This week, however, we found a way to get rid of him and his disrespect for our friends.

A few months ago, somebody found some kids' bones and teeth under an old orphanage. The orphanage used to lose some of their brats from time to time, but nobody cared. They did not have families and nobody else minded. The smart-alecs from our local police, however, saw the bones and thought they would check out a crackpot theory that the bones are what happened to the lost brats. I suppose it could have been true, but they were just poor orphans, so what would it matter if they did end up in the cellar anyway? The police then go and have a big, expensive investigation with loads of bad publicity. Even worse, they asked nosy questions about who let the orphanage get on with its business in the traditional way, as if something had been hushed up. All this was making the government look bad. The Chief of Police had to go.

Well this week, we pulled a brilliant one. The new detective on the case said there hadn't been any murders after all. This meant we could claim the Chief was incompetent for saying there might have been and checking to make sure there wasn't. After all, he should have just taken our word for it that the government knew how to run things properly, even back then before my generation took power. So we have kicked him out and blamed him for losing loads of money that could have been spent on important stuff like consultants and civil servants.

He, of course, is whining that checking out human remains in funny places is what police do. Our resident awkward backbencher is leaking what we are up to left, right and centre, too. Fortunately he is a bit flaky and totally charmless, so we are going to put it about that he is just a conspiracy theorist and paranoid about everything. As long as we can keep the media away from these two, and the chief's ex-sidekick I reckon we should get away with it all. By the time I am up for re-election we will have made sure it has all been forgotten.

They have got the spin wrong

2008-10-27T16:21:00.000-07:00

I shall have to get Glenn to sort out the local newspaper for me: Usually they can be trusted to get the spin right on reporting the Government's achievements, but today they have really let me down.

As I have said before, I need to get the best professional help that I can find. In my work as an international statesman, that means sparing the taxpayer no expense, in obtaining the services of those consultants, who can be presumed, by the level of their fees, to be the very best in their fields. Moreover, as it is a core policy of our government to outsource as much of our local economy as we can to national and international `corporations, it is essential that I find consultants who know the national and international situations, and do not distract themselves by taking local circumstances and interests into account. Therefore I have to look elsewhere to find my experts. We would never succeed in building our capital into a booming modern city of 125,000 or 150,000 people, if we were to listen to those who still see it as a sleepy little port and resort, with no building higher than a church steeple.

Anyway, I have already been spending almost a million pounds of the public's money each year, on obtaining the most expensive possible advice. For that money, I not only get ideas that nobody who actually lived here would dream of putting forward, but I am also protecting the public's confidence in their Government. You may not believe that, but this is how it works:

By implementing the boldest dreams of our consultants, we create a reassuring impression of a Government that is open to new ideas and dynamic in its pursuit of progress. But, the blade cuts on the back stroke, too: When the bold initiatives fail, as cutting-edge schemes so often do, we can offload all responsibility for them onto the consultants, and assure our subjects that we did not personally make the failed plans. Then we can hire more consultants and repeat the cycle until it does come right.

So you see, it all makes perfect sense. So why did they not headline the story with something appropriate, like “Investing heavily in our future” instead of something that could be misinterpreted as disapproving, like “Big spenders”? The editor will have to answer for his misjudgement.

Revenge!

2008-10-20T05:14:00.000-07:00

The trouble with the web is that, at present, there is no vetting of who is a fit and proper person to be allowed an internet connection. This means that instead of just finding people like me and my friends on it, there are postings from all sorts of horrible oiks who do not respect their betters as they should.

There is a rumour that some people have even been lampooning me! Apart from my distinguished career as a statesman, I also went to a very posh school and came from a long line of local landowners. I do not think that somebody as important as me should have to put up with it.

Fortunately, I can get my revenge. One of my old schoolmates has, surprisingly, turned out to be a very important and influential person on the internet, or so he says. He is even the Gay Rights Expert on a website called Why G*******. He is using the information that he has picked up from the websites he has helped with, to go after the people who have sent me up. I suppose it is against the Data Protection Law, but he went to a very posh school, too, so the Police will not be allowed to charge him. Anyway, if they do not shut up, he will persecute them and get them. And if he screws up and picks on someone too clever or tough for him I can deny it all. I Just Asked for Some One Nice to defend me but I do not officially know if any Maverick supporters of mine are going too far.

Sound thinking about economics

2008-10-20T05:13:00.000-07:00

The lower-class leftie idiots who don't agree with my policies accuse me of neglecting economic diversity.

Of course, this is a terrible slur. Under my inspiring leadership, our mighty financial services industry is always coming up with new, ever-more-cunning “solutions” and “products” to increase the diversity of the economic help that we can offer to the world's rich.

Admittedly, I don't bother much with old-fashioned industries like farming and tourism, that attract uncouth foreigners to work in them anyway. Besides, these sunset industries are just wealth generation. The real easy money is in wealth capture, like international financial services. Who wants to be a mere fisherman, when they can be a pirate?

Another sound piece of economic thinking that the oiks do not appreciate is my support for outside business over locally owned business. We have had a terrible situation, where tradesmen can carry on as if they were the equals of the landed gentry, through succeeding at mere commerce. However, by pursuing my enlightened strategy of replacing local firms with outside ones, wherever possible, these jumped-up nobodies will be brought back down where they belong, and we can get back to ruling without hindrance.

The great thing about financial services is that they produce an endless supply of virtual money, so that it no longer matters if all the real money is being siphoned off by outsiders.

So Proud

2008-10-20T05:12:00.000-07:00

I am so proud: I used to be in charge of Planning. While I was, I approved a world class hotel at the entrance of our capital's harbour. Unfortunately, the witty allusions to inter-war industrial architecture in its design went right over the heads of the local plebs, and many of them have been very rude about it.

Now, however, I have been vindicated. Our splendid hotel has just won a national architectural award, against stiff competition from all over the British Isles.

So, see how soundly we Ministers join up our thinking: Our next big project at the harbour will be a world class incinerator, way beyond the size of anything ever seen in such a small place before. We shall put this on the opposite side of the harbour to mirror the visual impact of the award-winning hotel. To any visitors that still might come to do business here, it will seem like sailing between Scylla and Charybdis. What an exciting prospect: Surely yet another award will be coming our way.

Hello

2008-10-20T05:11:00.000-07:00

Hello everybody. I am Phlo Ozo, the famous international statesman. Even David Cameron has a website these days, so I thought I would have one too. Actually, Cameron's is a bit embarrassing sometimes, so I shall get my friend Glenn to give me some professional help. (People are always saying I should get some professional help!)

I have just been re-elected with over eight thousand votes by my adoring public. There are some negative cynics out there, who try to make a big deal out of two-thirds of the voters wanting somebody else. However, really this just shows how well our electoral system works. You see, we have managed to almost abolish party politics, where I come from. So, all the oiks and plebs scatter their votes around the greens and lefties and other riff-raff, while the natural ruling class unite behind their leaders and we just rise above them. Perfect democracy in action, with none of this nonsense about having to worry about the little folk, that so much of the Western world has trouble with.

Anyway, now I have a blog of my own, I can tell all the world about my proven track record, and show off the soundness of my thinking about how to carry on as before.