I want Devizine to be primarily about arts and entertainment, but I’m often pathetically persuaded by bickering political factions to pass opinion on local politics for petty point-scoring, despite being more Olly Murs than Andrew Marr; trouble, troublemaker, yeah, that’s my middle name……
Butter me up with an overpriced burger if you will, but my middle name is Lee… as in Bruce, and I cannot promise my barefaced scripted kung-fu chop won’t swing for you too. Because if recently I’ve resisted the urge to add my wonky tuppence to political matters, with unlikely viral internet star Kimberly “sweet” Brown’s catchphrase in mind, “ain’t nobody got time fer dat,” the times are as a changin’ as a Dylanesque Dr Who on steroids and history is repeating. Methinks, surely, it’s overdue to relaunch my agitating causerie, “No Surprises Living in Devizes.” What possible harm/trigger could it do/evoke?
I decided to give it a triumphant monthly relaunch, summarising current and local political piffle in one enjoyable blasé piece this morning, as I felt what roads “could” feel like underneath my tyres for approximately one second in Poulshot. Ah, let’s start with the easy topic; the weeping pledges which trickled off every candidate’s wobbly lip this past (and every other council election) to fix the dilapidated asteroid impact craters we call Wiltshire’s roads.
They really have gone and done it, but never said they’d fix the complete road, no. Observe across the county the patchwork quilt design of perfunctory road resurfacing; just three yards of smoothness here and there, then back onto the bumps like you’re navigating the moon on a penny-farthing, and left to thinking, that bit they patched up was the best bit of the road originally!
They seem to be randomly throwing down grit like a nineteen-forties street urchin playing marbles. Given the circumstances, they’ve been busy playing pass the parcel at Bythesea Road, squabbling over seats with a hung council. I admit, I’m averagely content with the outcome of Wiltshire Council now flying a yellow flag even if the infinitesimal Reform seats might consider this as offensive as a rainbow; just close your eyes when it’s sunny and rainy at the same time, yeah?
Touch and go for a moment though, the possibility of Conservatives getting into bed with their recruitment centre, Reform, and taking control of Wiltshire Council, you know, being they fight like cat and dog. Ten seats, Reform snatched, barely touching the sides, and I armed myself with strawberry milkshakes like it was the second coming of the Battle of Cable Street…. in a Wetherspoons.
Can we just clarify this please? Who the actual fuck voted for a one-policy party in a council election, when said policy is to “git are cunty back,” by the genocide of immigrants arriving on boats, when the flipping county is landlocked?! What, are they sailing down the Kennet & Avon now?!
The only good to have come out of the insignificant success of Reform here, other than dividing the blue voters into inconsiderate yet affluent, and poorer thick slices of gammon, is that it serves to illustrate their triggers, such as this imagined enemy they call “woke,” are nothing more than sensationalised media propaganda, because the influx of immigration in rural Wiltshire is so slight it’s like tickling a blue whale with duck-down.
It’s no simple equation, but if the cost for illegal immigration is guesstimated at 14 billion smackers, that might sound hefty when you’re a low-skilled worker trying to put crispy pancakes on the table but is a drop in the ocean compared with the £131bn the right-wing government spaffed up the wall during its regime. A cost Starmer was expected to regain milliseconds after becoming captain of the Titanic we call the UK, or else face the blame, when really, we all know now he’s nothing but the Hello Kitty version of a Reform double-agent.
The cost of Brexit is calculated at around ten times this, at £140 billion, and we’ve not considered the many thefts like the £1.4 billion wasted on bogus pandemic PPE contracts, down to the £150m for a mud mound near Marble Arch which lasted no longer than you could walk up it, Weston’s oil rig garden, the £125,000 annual pension for a prime minister who survived at number ten for about the same time most job interviews last, and, if we must get local, the £180 million of feasibility studies into pointlessly tunnelling under Stonehenge, trashing the only monument foreign visitors want to pay to see, and creating a concrete monstrosity which the lights of would’ve blocked out the effect of the solstice sunrise, just so Roger and Dianne can get from Shrewton to Andover five minutes sooner.
Why, oh why, does anyone assume voting for a lighter shade of blue will counterattack the sheer corruption and shitshow Conservatives caused, and the billions they pocketed whilst in charge, when the ones who did it jump ship at the slightest fall in popularity ratings and join Reform, when you know, we all know, what smells like fascism is most likely fascism? Wake up and sniff, this eighty percent foreskin Enoch Powel character you’re backing is sponsored by Nazi-saluting Musk who’s one white cat away from being the ultimate James Bond villain.
Keevil evil version Malcom Cupis videoed himself throwing his Reform banners in his wheelie-bin only to rejoin the Tories…. like anyone gave a toss. It’s not advertising material which affected his campaign, rather when he disgraced himself calling to scrap climate change polices and nail anyone foreign to a crucifix at the Devizes husting and rode out of there on his superbike.
But easily triggered Malcom is not the be-all-and-end-all, the embers smouldering in the inferno of Hades which persists Wiltshire must remain right-wing against the obvious and democratic process proving it wrong, oh no. Some Tory candidates were successful in retaining their seats, for varying reasons. I tip my hat to Laura Mayes, who though we hardly agree on near every topic, remains loyal and reliable, while the other candidates in her constituency didn’t come out to play. Yet the Munster of Lavington was awarded a cushion by being the loudest bully on the block and mouthing off at anyone who dare oppose him, like Gripper Stebson with a buzzcut. Green Party? I’ll give you Green!
Not green as in weed though, or PCC Wilko will launch a full-scale aerial bombardment on Littleton Panell and we’ll never get the traffic lights at the Blackdog which campaigners have fought decades for, until the Munster strode into the village like Clint Eastwood and claimed the credit for signing off, just so he could lambast those leftie loonies.
Grrr for pockets of conservative resistance. You’re not going to catch drug-pushers when you’re spending your budget on unnecessary and brainless pen-pushers. In the most bizarre, misinformed Newsquest arse-licking this week, Wiltshire PCC Wilko (named after the failed budget shop) called for cannabis to be reclassified from a class B drug to a class A, in the same category as heroin and cocaine, calling it a “gateway drug.” It’s only a “gateway” drug because of its illegal status, you absolute spanner with no jurisdiction to change the law anyway.
Anyone with an inkling on drug culture will tell you the profit margin on cannabis is far less than hard drugs, so if the penalties for dealing it is equal to hard drugs, dealers may as well risk selling them as well, making reclassing counterproductive to tackling his imaginary and unwinnable war on drugs. Education is what is needed, which could be paid for taxing relatively harmless cannabis once legalised, you have control of it and won. Meanwhile the necessary educating should start with that idiot, Wilko.
But in stark contrast, Wiltshire Council, now lessened with Tories, supported thinking freely when it comes to another illegal activity, graffiti. What a blessing after hearing our police force going backwards into a tyrannical era, especially on the 40th anniversary of the ethnic cleansing event in Wiltshire, the Battle of the Beanfields, to see the official graffiti walls in the Sham have been successful, and the Council wants to roll this out across other towns. This gains my full support; your turn to skin-up, Wilko, and let artistic youth express themselves, decorating our towns with spray paint. You’ve only got to look at how Swindon Paint Fest has enhanced the town to note, you can polish a turd!
We shouldn’t (but are tempted to) laugh uncontrollably at those Conservatives candidates who failed the test. Especially those like election fraudster Sarah Batchelor of Devizes, who thought she’d run, despite only passing through the county for a supply of lardy cake to hike up the price of to her customer at the Crown in Bishop’s Cannings, and cause chaos for local larceny of diplomacy, Cllr Iain Wallis, who, (apparently) failed to notice the fallacy in her application when signing it off; maybe because he was too busy on his bias Facebook group slandering Guardians for similar mistakes and roggering senseless anyone who dare say it wasn’t so with a lifetime ban, just, y’know, maybe, or maybe it’s because the Conservatives were so absolutely desperate for candidates they hoped no one would notice them flouting electoral law.
Like Demi Moore in Striptease, thankfully only metaphorically, Wallyish exposed his puppetry like Jim Henson, and meaning to continue his reign despite being a poor loser. Grasping desperately onto political sway in the area by not only retaining his seat at Devizes Town Council but using his newly elected girlfriend Maria as a voice. Akin to the mutant Kuato, living in the stomach of his brother in Total Recall, he flummoxed when spouting off in response to a dissident on Facebook, with such fury he failed to notice he was signed in as her profile.
But hey, I foresee a silver-lining on the clouds, like April showers came late this year, and there’s many a trooper who needs a medal. Nice chap Lib Dem Devizes East Councillor Taylor Wright, for example, whom I met recently and congratulated accordingly. By comparison to your average councillor he’s still an embryo, and that’s what we need now, young blood with fresh ideas and a drive to make the necessary changes. Rather than blown-out whingers who couldn’t take a loss lying down, and felt the need to cry, weeping on Facebook like Kate Winslet on a slither of banister as Leonardo’s lifeless body slips into the depths of the freezing Atlantic, quite an apt analogy too!
Chris Greenwood’s whimper of his lost inflatable seat was perhaps the climax to my amusement, upon me responding to it with a meme of some fragile tape, to which he called me, and I quote, “a tosser;” his dedication to his long-lost constituents knows no bounds, obviously. But if you’re not offending a fox hunting sympathiser who wears Crocs to a council meeting, thinks a police officer engaging in illegal activities isn’t slightly conflicting, and thinks anyone who says it’s so should receive a lifetime ban from his petty Facebook group, you’re not doing it properly! Oh for the days he fibbed about bird flu on the Crammer so his bum-chum could assassinate all the pigeons, where was No Suprises Living in Devizes then, huh?!
Awl, we’re back to put the county to rights, have no worries. And we’ve plenty more ammo to load up with, this was just an intro! I’m sorry if you’re a local politician desperately in need to be condemned in this column and your name didn’t crop up; try being more of a bastard next time and rub me up the wrong way like I’m Christina A-Gorilla’s genie in a bottle, despite I’ve not quite got the belly button for it.
Please Share: awl, thank ewe!
devizine.com 