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Dick Puddlecote’s Fantasy Front Bench That dependable wag and foe of darkness Dick Puddlecote (who is still blogging in spite of dying in 1305, which is pretty damn hardcore if you ask me) has come up with his Fantasy Front Bench for freedom lovers!
What do you make of Ol’ Dick’s choices?
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Like the way he has got Tim Aker and Jackie Doyle Price despite the fact they are vying for the same seat.
Kagemusha “I hate Kojima” Kozuki, the amusing old nutter in charge of Konami, is the man for the top job.
I’d much prefer Kozuki’s brand of honest stupidity, pettiness, and spite to anything our politicians dish out.
It’s a bit naughty giving Nigel one of the ministries he wants to do away with. Still, if Dick keeps moving him along as he keeps scrapping ministries, it should all work out nicely.
Still a pretty lame bunch for the most part.
On the assumption that he gets in, I’d put Peter Whittle (UKIP, Eltham) at Culcha, Meeja and Sport and move Nigel to Foreign Secretary, with Nuttall at Overseas Aid.
Well a good start would be to get rid of all but:
Defence, Home Office, Treasury, Welfare and Waste (renamed from Work and Pensions), and Premature State-sponsored Death (renamed from Health).
The FCO can be replaced by a fax machine and the BOTs report directly to HM the Queen. The Lord Chancellor can have a Woolsack in Whitehall somewhere, perhaps in Admiralty Arch?
Well Steve Baker as Chancellor would be enough to persuade me to support almost anyone else doing anything else. But here goes:
In my fantasy Cabinet I’d roll DEFRA, DCLG, and possibly BIS, all together as the Department for Political Correctness (Abolition Of). Transfer in some of the Cabinet Office’s responsibilities for quangos too. My programme – a Gabbite attack on the statist establishment- would probably require both the communications skills of Nigel Farage and the backbone of Eric Pickles. I doubt either could work for the other though.
DCMS could go to Lord Staines, who could be part of the same programme.
Chris Grayling is no libertarian, more an old hard-Right type in the Michael Howard mould. Certainly someone you can rely on to stand up to Islamist terrorists, but not someone you’d be comfortable with if Total Internet Surveillance worries you at all.
My fantasy Home Secretary would be someone who could demonstrate that they knew the difference between odious behaviour that should called out for public opprobium and unacceptable behaviour that should be criminalised. Stella Creasey springs to mind.
Jacob Rees Mogg is an old school constitutionalist. He should undoubtedly go to Justice, where he could restore some integrity to our courts system, and stamp out bent elections and stolen postal ballot papers.
Gove was probably the best Education Secretary in living memory. He should come back and finish the job.
John Redwood would make an excellent Chief Secretary to the Treasury.
I can’t think of anyone at all I’d want to let near the NHS.
Lutfur Rahman to Health. That would reduce its budget substantially.
I know almost nothing about these individuals or the agencies. But I would be tickled pink to see an agency called “Welfare and Waste”, anywhere in the world!
I can see no justification for a lot of these departments – even in a transitional stage towards a freer society.
For example what is the point of a Department of Culture, Media and Sport?
A pathetic moderate like me worries about what happens if the “magic button” was pressed and the Welfare State vanished – what happens to the old , sick and poor (as the institutions of civil society have so declined since the state took over) is it reasonable to expect cultural institutions that took centuries to create to just spring back into existence over night?
However, I have no such fears over the Department of Culture, Media and Sport (and so on).
Abolish them at once today.
Puddlecote would dump David C. and E. Davey, while bringing in P. Davies and David Davis.
All these Daves confuse me.
To make the UK that little bit more like East Germany, of course.
There is plenty of ‘Ostalgia’, even if it is fading in Germany.
http://www.spiegel.de/international/goodbye-ostalgia-a-new-willingness-to-criticize-east-germany-a-403978.html
And what a name for a German politics professor.