JERK-OFFS OF THE WEEK

The above phrase is colloquial and popularly known to most British people so requires no explanation. This Post of News Stories is a few I’ve selected about individuals, organizations and practices that to my mind fit comfortably within any such definition.

I want to start with Paul Flowers, the crack-head (that’s Class A drug-taking) now former Methodist Minister hurriedly ditched by the Church who, with no real banking experience, was appointed Chairman of The Co-operative Bank by the Executive Board of the Co-op Movement and forced to resign after pictures of him buying dope became public knowledge! Oh Dear! But then how was it one asks that the Financial Conduct Authority who interviewed him to check his suitability for the job failed to pick up on the fact? You know about the Financial Conduct Authority don’t you? I’ve mentioned them before. They’re the keen on ethical standards boys and girls appointed by the Treasury to replace the Financial Services Authority, themselves previously implicated in turning a blind eye to illegal banking practices such as drugs money laundering and bank rate manipulation and fixing. Yes, the Financial Conduct Authority with the key word being Conduct, certified the Methodist Minister now arrested by the police as fit to be Chairman of a major bank without any proper banking experience.

And of course, once he was fine with the Authority he was fine with the Board of the Co-op, only now we know that one of the Directors of the Authority who vetted him got a job not long after soon as a Director of the Co-op Bank! OH MY! JUST HOW NAUGHTY CAN IT GET?

Okay, using his magic powers Paul got the job, only now he had a few banking problems to deal with. One of these was regaining control of hundreds of banking branches from Lloyds which meant getting hold of considerable capital from lenders. Another was knowing what to do about the discovery of a multi-billion black hole in the bank’s finances after it took over the Britannia Building Society, a semi-junk status outfit with massive debts that continued taking money from customers in mortgages, savings and bonds without a hope in hell of paying them back! Well that was all right. They’d sent a man of god in to sort it all out!

Now remember, the Co-op Movement is supposedly and I stress the word because it’s really important, supposedly owned by its members. Well what does this actually mean? Well what it actually means is that they get a vote once a year about something they don’t have a clue about or they’re not interested in such as who sits on the Movement’s Executive Board and directs its operations. A few thousand might tick a box on a form but that’s about it. They trust that those doing the job will do it on their behalf and behave ethically, but alas they appointed as their chairman someone who just wasn’t up to it let alone anything else. A few days ago the Chairman of the Co-operative Movement Board himself resigned, saying “serious questions,” had been raised by the scandal surrounding the appointment of the Minister. Well he should know! He helped choose him! And now, to make matters worse the Methodist Church has suspended the man of god indefinitely after newspapers began digging into his background and found certain questionable conduct.

How was it then that some holy-Joe jerk off found himself running a bank? After all there are thousands of kids out there with a few GCSE’s who might have done better to say nothing of hundreds of thousands of unemployed people all over the country. So what did the minister have that they didn’t? Well I’m sure you know the answer to that. GOD ALONE KNOWS! While working as Bank Chairman, Paul Flowers earned a very serious salary but having resigned he’s presumably looking for work. Anyone out there willing to give a jerk-off a job?

In all truth it’s not such a joke. Appointed in 2010 the jerk-off has left with two-thirds of the Bank owned not by its members, its millions of savers, small investors, people with mortgages, savings bonds or current accounts, but by American Hedge Fund Companies. In short speculators and private investors. These are the people who now own most of its assets, like the savings and homes of Co-op Bank customers, so how, it’s fair to ask, did the Executive Board of the Cooperative Movement allow this to happen. After all, wasn’t it founded on an ethical determination to help the working people and poor of our country? The answer is simple enough. They lost sight of their responsibility towards their members.

Okay, the next delicious jerk-off story is about Tesco using the same trucks that remove food and packaging waste from its stores for dumping purposes to also deliver supplies of fresh food to their customers! Don’t rub your eyes at the story! Yes, Tesco’s rotting food waste collection trucks, once cleaned out so they say, then deliver fresh tasty goodies. But please, don’t worry! It’s all quite okay! The rotting filth in the trucks is well contained in plastic bags and industrial storage facilities. It may honk to high heaven but that’s alright because after all that seriously nasty rotting food shit is out the back the truck’s all scrubbed up and ready to go to every little old lady who knows how much Tesco cares and how every little helps. 

And that’s important to Tesco. When the story broke into the public domain company management rushed to assure us. They weren’t denying in the least that they were using their trucks for BOTH purposes. On the contrary, using the same vehicles for both functions was helping reduce costs, thereby enabling them to lower their prices! How very thoughtful of them! And using the same trucks was also helping reduce the amount of fuel they used, enabling them to play their part in likewise reducing the nation’s carbon footprint.

REDUCING THE NATION’S CARBON FOOTPRINT… Now isn’t that so terribly important for people to know, and won’t everyone feel so very glad. Forget any issues of safety and hygiene! Your local Tesco is helping reduce our carbon footprint. That’s one of the great justifications for doing it all, senior management announced. Besides, all the trucks are scrubbed out!

In reply I can only ask… have you people taken leave of your senses? What kind of hurriedly made up sorry excuse is that? It could only have been rushed out in a desperate publicity disaster limitation exercise by management idiots with no conception whatsoever of public relations. You don’t rush to justify such practices as these… you acknowledge the truth, state that you’re horrified, apologize profusely and promise that it will be discontinued with immediate effect.

WHAT YOU DON’T TRY AND DO IS EXPLAIN IT AWAY AS A VIRTUE!

There are few things that people are more sensitive about than food hygiene. The absolute of cleanliness of the food that they eat. Few things are more important. For companies that produce and sell food, CLEANLINESS IS THE NUMBER ONE VALUE… What fools at Tesco’s then tried to explain away such a practice when what really counts is what is in the mind of the public… reputation, and above all the absolute and assured certainty of cleanliness?

It’s irrelevant that company guarantees of safety may be accurate. That’s not the point. In any case such guarantees can never be absolute. There is no 100% guarantee that airborne bacterial contaminant will never be breached with potential pathogens find their way into fresh or processed food products. That is simply impossible. Never mind the cleaning processes or treatment of vans, there can never be a 100% guarantee of safety from contamination unless each truck is separately irradiated! Simple washing and cleansing processes don’t go anywhere near providing an absolute guarantee of health and safety. It is all very simple. A company like Tesco is quite frankly not short of a shilling so guaranteeing safety as its top priority is an absolute requirement with no expense spared. Putting company reputation at risk just to save a few million is ludicrous. What jerk-offs then made the decision to save money in this way with such practices that have the potentiality to cause such damage?

My next example of jerk-offs of the week are the Liberal Democrats, in Coalition Government with the Tories who have repeatedly stressed that they’re in it to control Tory excesses. Sounds good, until you look at their record! Does anyone remember the Great Horsemeat Scandal earlier this year? Something seriously nasty you may recall. Okay then, a question for you. Has anyone in the food chain of meat suppliers from abattoirs, renderers, processors or supermarkets  been prosecuted by Government Food Safety Standards agencies for supplying and selling it to the public as beef? Answer, no-one! The whole scandal’s been ‘disappeared’ and our Liberal Democrat friends of the people have stayed silent. Not a word or a peep.

Okay, here’s something else. How about their promise to control banking practices and executive bonuses. Maintain their promise to separate investment activity from customer services. Have watertight procedures overseeing managerial appointees at the top? All these things spouted with such fervor after the General Election by Vince Cable now quietly forgotten and taken in hand by the Treasury. And then, how much did he or Danny Alexander know about the great Paul Flowers Scandal, with no real checks made on the man’s competency to run a big bank? Is there anything that these people have actually done or are they both plain straightforward jerk-offs, chewing the fat on Cabinet post salaries? That’s a fair question. These days not a word from the nation’s once favourite scarecrow.

Never mind! How about the increasingly oily, increasingly guilty looking Ed Davey, favorite office boy of the Energy Cartel? Given his increasingly embarrassing attempts to deflect attention away from swinging electricity and gas price rises with green, more green and increasingly green friendly promises that in total amount to nothing but verbal bollocks, I hereby announce your award as Political Jerk-Off of the month and forthcoming presentation to you of the yellow Jerk-Off Rosette for Bullshit.

Running you close second in the award stakes for this honor is dour Yorkshire Tory jerk-off William Hague the British Foreign Secretary who thinks that the best way of bringing the Islamic thugs of the Iranian Government back into the world community of nations and control their secret refinement of Uranium for manufacturing nuclear weapons is to ask them to make promises to behave! The man and his Government know that these religious lunatics are only months if not weeks away from having operational weapons of mass destruction which they’ll certainly use to bomb Israel. This is not the first time however that British and American Government has been involved in a decision making process about the fate of the Jewish people. As early as 1943 both knew what the Nazis were doing at the Auschwitz Extermination Camp in Poland and had the ability using long range bombers to destroy it. The issue was considered by both but rejected on the ground that it would cause unjustifiable harm to civilians when such action might have saved the lives of half a million Jewish children. Today, dealing seriously with Iran might do the same thing only this time in Israel. Yet William Hague thinks that establishing good diplomatic relations with equally evil Jew hating monsters might do the trick and make these modern Nazis see reason. For such diplomatic wisdom you and John Kerry, American Secretary of State, receive Joint Second Place in the Political Jerk-Off of the Month Awards, each receiving yellow Jerk-Off  rosettes for Appeasement.

My final Jerk-Off Award of the Month goes to England Team Football Manager and Zany Optimist Roy Hodgson. This is mainly for his brilliant idea that the best way to build a successful world football cup squad is to change your team players on a regular basis so no-one has any long term experience of playing with anyone else. WHAT A VERY CLEVER IDEA. So very zany! So very British! None of that European or South American shit about having people playing together many months on end and getting to know what each can do i.e. getting used to each other. Oh no, none of that! You see the idea is that when our guys pass the ball to each other no-one is there to receive it! And when they get near the other team’s goal they adopt the brilliant idea of passing their opponents the ball! That you see, tricks and confuses them because they’ve somehow got the wrong idea that we want to score. Can’t have none of that. Just think of how well Roy did against Chile and Germany. All those dedicated English fans who came from all over the country to pay good money and watch! I mean wasn’t it such a brilliant exercise in strategic thinking. Confusing everybody that we wanted to win when it was all about changing everyone around all over again and doing our best to be friendly. You see, if just about everyone gets the chance to pay for England then we’ve got hundreds and hundreds of new caps and loads of guys to choose from before we go to Brazil!

Now you’ve really got to be clever to think it all up, which is why Roy was given the chance. True, we beat lots of teams before Chile. I’m trying to recall but they were all serious stuff. Tough opponents like San Marino, Poland, Montenegro… and wasn’t one of them Outer Mongolia? Yeah, really hot stuff! Thank god we weren’t up against Iceland. An interesting thing about the Germany game was that Wembley was full of empty seats with large numbers of people outside the ground who wanted to get in but never had tickets!

So Roy, given all the time you’ve had to work with large numbers of players from the Premier League and mold them into serious squad, is the pathetic, hopelessly unskilled, grossly overpaid bunch of useless jerk-offs the best you could come up with to represent England? WHAT… IT IS? Losing to a third rate German team! Well for that you win an honorific Third Prize Jerk-Off Award for Gross Incompetence. And may the Lord have mercy on your soul when you and your fellow jerk-offs pitch up in Brazil.