Richard Phillips's Blog, page 4

41) Facts. Facts. And more facts.And not enough houses.

I am one of the lucky ones, a baby boomer who got in while the going was good. I was a ‘have-not'who became a 'have’. By buying somewhere to live in 1976. And the genius of Mrs.Thatcher’s  right to buy scheme was that it ensured a constant stream of new 'haves’ in the 80s. But now our numbers are declining and I worry. For the interests of the ‘haves’ to matter there has to be enough of us, which means a constant flow of 'have-nots’ crossing the divide to join us. The flow is dwindling and that is dangerous. 

The Conservatives need to get their heads around this and fast. They are the party of the 'haves’ and their base of support is in serious danger of shrinking. If Labour want to win an election - that is to say take Conservative votes in England - this, I believe, is their great opportunity. Luckily for the Conservatives. Jeremy Corbyn is  not a man to worry about the interests of the 'haves’ or anyone who wants to be a 'have’. But sooner or later someone in Labour will wake up. Even lucky-bastard boomers like me might be persuaded to vote against their own short-terms interests if they thought their children - their heirs - might find themselves part of a shrinking and, therefore, very vulnerable, propertied class.

Here are some actual facts that I know to be true:

In 1976, when earning £6000 p.a. I bought my first flat in London for £13,750. Today that same flat would cost £950,000. (Possibly more.) That is a rise of 6,800%.

In 1976 my salary was 43.6% of the purchase price. To buy at the current price in the same proportion of salary to price, I would need a salary of  £414,000. The equivalent salary today for the job I did then - medium weight copywriter in an advertising agency - would be, I am told, about £60, 000.  So salaries have risen 10 times, property prices in Paddington, where my flat was, nearly 70 times.

According to the This Is Money Online Calculator, £6000 in !976 (my salary then) equates to £45,000  today, so, in real terms, if I were earning £60,000, it would be up by 33.33%. But £13,750 then (the price of my flat) is the equivalent of £103,143.73 today. Which means that, even after taking  inflation into account, the price for my flat - £950,000 - has risen by 750%. In other words,  if my case is typical for London - and why wouldn’t it be? -  property prices have risen 22.5 times more than salaries. TWENTY TWO AND A HALF TIMES!!!

How all this come to pass? My guess would be:
1. Increasing population in London.

2. Increasing numbers of foreign buyers buying for investment purposes.

3. Not enough entry level flats and houses being built.

4.The most significant reason:  Incredibly easy credit in the 1990s  and early 2000s when self assessed mortgages of up to 125% were easily available. This was the principal cause of the massive price inflation. (I got one myself in 2003. Not for anything like 125% it is true, but  obtaining it was easier than falling off the proverbial log. I filled in the form, signed it myself, and Bob - in the form of the Wolwich Building Society - was not merely my uncle but my Fairy Godmother. (Or Fairy Godfather if you are so unPC as not to embrace TG.)

How different things are today. In order to clamp down on personal credit - I assume -  the government has introduced stringent new  rules which mean that getting a mortgage is  more difficult than it was even in the 70s, 

How can this absurd and potentially dangerous situation be changed? Some suggestions:

1. We need massive tax incentives to developers to build low cost housing. There must be be ingenious ways of building aestheically pleasing low cost housing.  Architects and inventors, where are the ideas?

2. We need to grasp the nettle of building on the green belt. 

More facts:
Something called the 'UK National Ecosystem Assessment’ says that:
6.8% of the UK’s land area is  classified as urban. This breaks down as 10.6% of England, 1.9% of Scotland, 3.6% of Northern Ireland and 4.1% of Wales.
And those surprisingly low figures may actually be deceptively high. Because ‘urban’ is not the same as “built on”. It includes parks, rivers and canals, golf courses and gardens.
In England 78.6% of urban areas are designated as natural rather than built. So, if you extrapolate this figure from the others, just 2.27% of England is built on. Which means almost 98% of our green and pleasant land remains “natural”.

3. We need to reduce restrictions - planning and others - so that the costs of building on brownfield sites fall.

4. We need to tax  ownership by foreign based non-resident owners so seriously it deters them from buying. If demand for high cost housing is reduced, and the building of low cost housing is incentivised why would developers not change the focus of their efforts?

5. If it is true that, as I have seen reported, developers and supermarket chains and others  are hanging onto large, undeveloped  parcels of land for financial reasons - land which could otherwise be built on - we need  tax penalties/incentives  to be imposed which persuade them to free them up.

6. We need to incentivise other forms of investment for private individuals and disincentivise house improvement. Yet more facts:

At present there is no inflation relief for shares and they carry Capital Gains Tax (CGT) of 28%. According to that same Inflation Calculator, £1000 in 1990 would be worth £2234 today.  But if you had Invested £1000 in shares in 1990 and sold them today for exactly that 2015 value of  £2234, you would not, as you might expect,  be breaking even. You’d make a loss. Because you would pay 28% CGT on the th £1234   profit - about £345. In other words you would be left with £884 plus your original investment of £1000 making £1884 which would be a £345 loss in today’s values. Yes,  I know you can make a bit over £10,000 annually before you pay CGT, but the principle is exactly as it is explained here, and the point is that, at present, you would be a lot better off if you invested  the money on house improvement because there is no CGT on the sale of main residences no matter how much profit you make. This is doubly wrong. The fixation with property as an investment keeps prices high, and long term investment in industry and commerce, which we are told is so important and a major contributor to the success of the German economy, is actively discouraged. Barmy. 

4. We need a relaxation of credit restrictions for first time buyers that recognises the impossibility of the current situation. It’s true that might increase demand and, therefore push flat and house prices even higher,  but this is a demand - unlike that from the buy-to-letters and the overseas investors - which really needs to be satisfied. 

Hopefully, there are financial whizzes out there who can think of other and better ways of confronting this dilemma. And,  as this is not a situation unique to this green, pleasant and not that overpopulated land, we could pick the brains of freethinkers in other places with similar problems - like Australia and Israel to name but two. One way or another  an urgent solution is needed.

If an ever increasing number of have-nots have their noses pressed against the window watching us ‘haves’ enjoying our cosy, comfy, propertied lives, the window will, eventually, break. 

For our own sake - maybe even for our survival - we need to invite them in.

Above: Shucking an oyster in 4 simple steps. Below: tying a...

Above: Shucking an oyster  in 4 simple steps. Below: tying a bowtie in 7.

Shucking - in 4 simple steps

Shucking - in 4 simple steps

40) The joy of being better. (Than you.)

I can shuck an oyster. Can you? I’ll bet you can’t. Admittedly, I make that bet on the basis of nothing better than guesswork. But my completely uninformed guess is that very few people in the modern world know how to shuck an oyster. (I don’t count France in that. France is stuck in a time-warp. They shut the shops and go home for lunch, for goodness sake.) Certainly not more than one in a hundred of normal people would know how to shuck, maybe not more than one in a thousand. And I am extremely, inordinately, some might say obscenely, proud of possessing the ancient skill of the shucker. A skill that I’m betting  you don’t have. Shucking wise, I am superior to you. Does that statement of the obvious upset you?  I don’t see how it can’t. It must be axiomatic that if I am superior to you, you are inferior to me. Never a nice feeling but I can’t get full value for my superiority unless you have it, so I can’t say I’m sorry. Pretty chuffed actually.

I learned how to
shuck last week while on holiday in France. I have always loved the idea of
eating, or rather swallowing, oysters – they always had the whiff of decadence
and I found that very seductive. But profound wimpiness and decadence never
seemed compatible, and fear of the unspeakable consequences that I have always
understood follow from eating a dodgy oyster made my forays into huitreworld
quite rare.  

But now, for
whatever reason, possibly because it is just dawning on me that, as
a Freedom Pass holder, opportunities for decadence are rapidly
diminishing  - as opposed to opportunities for decay which are sharply rising - I have found the courage to take the oyster firmly by the shell.
At last my adoration of the oyster is being properly consummated and now I
can’t get enough of them; the sea-water taste, the extraordinary,
prehistoric, sculptural  display  on a plate - oyster shells really
are a thing of pearly wonder. And I love the ritual of  adding the lemon
juice or the Tabasco or that oniony vinagrettey stuff and the accompanying
brown and bread and butter.

Am I waxing a bit
too lyrical here for your plebby taste? Sounding like a bit of  a
poncey snob? What was that, you said? Not so much a poncey snob as an utter
knob? Oh, well, that’s even better than I‘d hoped for. Because just as I get a
glorious sense of superiority from being a shucker, so my love of the oyster
experience is inextricably bound up with the fact that I can have it and most
other people can’t.

Hard to credit
today, but in Victorian times, so they say,   oysters were the staple
diet of the London poor.  The Big Macs of their day.  Would I be
loving this oyster thing so much if that were still the case? I think not.

Exclusivity is a
great pleasure in itself. Much under-rated in my opinion. Or, to be more
accurate, the pleasure is much under admitted to. My being allowed to join would mean nothing
if you weren’t out there with your nose pressed forlornly against the window.
As I stroll smugly into Whites or the Reform Club or Grouchos or Soho House or
the British Legion, West Kilburn branch, isn’t  half the joy that I’m
wanted and you’re not? (Or rather would be,  in the unlikely event of any
of them accepting me as a member.)

It’s wonderful to
be a ‘have’ for all the material comforts it brings. But there is also the
great psychological comfort of knowing you’re not a have-not. In other words,
of feeling superior.  It’s not something we shuckers and swallowers experience
consciously on a moment by moment basis. But it’s there alright, underneath,
propping up our precarious sense of self worth.

I didn’t mention
the drinking fetish that goes along with the oysters. That could be a glass or
four of champagne or Chablis or whatever wine buffs insist is the right thing
to have with oysters. I know absolutely zip about the subtleties of the
fermented grape, so here I have to combine my oyster snobbery with the inverted snobbery
of knowing bugger-all about wine – and being feckin’ prahd of my ignorance.
Wine-lovers? Pah. Swirl, sniff, sip and all that bollocks. What a bunch of
effete, public school, up your own arse nonces they are. (Probably up someone
else’s arse too, ha, ha,ha, - wankerrr! ) This might seem a bit of a
contradiction, being both a snob and inverted snob at the same time, but
why not? Both positions involve feeling  superior to the other lot so it
all works for me.

It was my friend
John B. who taught me how to shuck - I was staying at his house near Perpignan.
(Not, you note, in common as muck Provence, mais beaucoup plus coupant bord.)

Frankly, I didn’t
much fancy the idea at first, since shucking involves forcing a knife into the
shell with one hand whilst holding it with the other. It wouldn’t take
much  of a miscue to skewer your holding hand and the consequences could
easily land you in A & E facing a Triage nurse trying to suppress a
snigger.  Inferiors, quite naturally, tend to take  pleasure in the
misfortunes of superiors particularly when they are self-inflicted in the act
of doing the very thing that makes them superior. It would be like getting
Repetitive Strain Injury from repeatedly ringing the bell to summon your
servants.

But I am very
glad I conquered my fears and, both metaphorically and literally, stepped up to
the plate. My life was transformed. From inferior non-shucker to superior
shucker in a few moments, gratifyingly proving that even in fairly extreme
post-youth one can learn new tricks. Possibly not as useful   as
learning how to administer CPR, a skill which offers the possibility of hero
status if only you can find someone whose life needs saving in a crowded public
space. But still I am thrilled with my new, improved levels of
self-satisfaction.

And in case
you are the one in a hundred or  thousand who does know how to shuck and
are consequently thinking that your level of iority is no infer than mine, I am
afraid I have some distressing news for you. Not only can I shuck an oyster but
I am also able to perform an even more arcane and possibly even more up-market
task. Yes, believe it or not, I can tie a bow tie. Properly.  And make a
damned good fist of it. Admit it – you are seriously impressed.

I  learned
how to do this a long time ago from  someone whose identity  has now
disappeared between the ever widening gaps in the floorboards of my memory.
Happily however, the art – and it is no less – of tying the bow has not left
me.

I reckon the odds
of the average living human  being able
to tie a bow tie are vanishingly small. One in two thousand perhaps, and
probably not even that. So do the maths.
Even taking the low end of my estimates of 100/1 for shucking and 2000/1 for
bow tying, when you combine them you get 200,000 to 1! Or, inverting those odds, that means that it is
200,000 to 1 on – ON! – that I am superior to you.

Oh I know what
you’re thinking - that the kind of people who can shuck an oyster are very
likely to come from the same social group  as the kind of people who can tie a bowtie
(sometimes referred to by demographics analysts as the Pretentious Twat Cohort),
so those odds must be lower than that.
But even reducing them by ten times, that’s still twenty thousand to
one. Odds of 20,000/1 on, that I am superior to you? That’s
good enough for me.

Now you might be
thinking that I’m just a smug tosser and you might  very well be right.
But consider: in the very act of so thinking, you are conceding that I have something to
be smug about. You have acknowledged my superiority.

Please do not feel too badly about
your inferiority. Yours is an honourable place in the scheme of things. As I
used to tell my daughter when, year after year, I trailed in last in the
father’s race on Sports Day: hold your head high. (As I would have mine
if  I only I could have stopped vomiting.) Without losers there can be no
winners.

It is not
given to all of us to be able to both shuck an oyster and tie a bow tie. And it
is only the fact that you can’t  that
makes me exceptional.  I am humbled by
the sacrifice you are making on my behalf.

That’s
me:  superior yet humble. What’s not to
like?

40) I can shuck an oyster. Can you?

I’ll bet you can’t. Admittedly, I make that bet on the basis on the basis of nothing better than guesswork. But my completely uninformed guess is that very few people in the modern world know how to shuck an oyster. (I don’t count France in that. France is stuck in a time-warp. They shut the shops and go home for lunch, for goodness sake.) Certainly not more than one in a hundred of normal people would know how to shuck, maybe not more than one in a thousand. And I am extremely, inordinately, some might say obscenely, proud of possessing the ancient skill of the shucker. A skill that I’m betting  you don’t have. Shucking wise, I am superior to you. Does that statement of the obvious upset you?  I don’t see how it can’t. It must be axiomatic that if I am superior to you, you are inferior to me. Never a nice feeling but I can’t get full value for my superiority unless you have it, so I can’t say I’m sorry.

I learned how to
shuck last week while on holiday in France. I have always loved the idea of
eating, or rather swallowing, oysters – they always had the whiff of decadence
and I found that very seductive. But profound hypochondria and decadence never
seemed compatible, and fear of the unspeakable consequences that I have always
understood follow from eating a dodgy oyster made my forays into huitreworld
quite rare.  

But now, for
whatever reason, possibly because it is just dawning on me that, as
a Freedom Pass holder, opportunities for decadence are rapidly
diminishing  - as opposed to opportunities for decay which are sharply rising - I have found the courage to take the oyster firmly by the shell.
At last my adoration of the oyster is being properly consummated and now I
can’t get enough of them; the sea-water taste, the extraordinary,
prehistoric, sculptural  display  on a plate - oyster shells really
are a thing of pearly wonder. And I love the ritual of  adding the lemon
juice or the Tabasco or that oniony vinagrettey stuff and the accompanying
brown and bread and butter.

Am I waxing a bit
too lyrical here for your plebby taste? Sounding like a bit of  a
poncey snob? What was that, you said? Not so much a poncey snob as an utter
knob? Oh, well, that’s even better than I‘d hoped for. Because just as I get a
glorious sense of superiority from being a shucker, so my love of the oyster
experience is inextricably bound up with the fact that I can have it and most
other people can’t.

Hard to credit
today, but in Victorian times, so they say,   oysters were the staple
diet of the London poor.  The Big Macs of their day.  Would I be
loving this oyster thing so much if that were still the case? I think not.

Exclusivity is a
great pleasure in itself. Much under-rated in my opinion. Or, to be more
accurate, much under admitted to. My being allowed to join would mean nothing
if you weren’t out there with your nose pressed forlornly against the window.
As I stroll smugly into Whites or the Reform Club or Grouchos or Soho House or
the British Legion, West Kilburn branch, isn’t  half the joy that I’m
wanted and you’re not? (Or rather would be,  in the unlikely event of any
of them accepting me as a member.)

It’s wonderful to
be a ‘have’ for all the material comforts it brings. But there is also the
great psychological comfort of knowing you’re not a have-not. In other words,
of feeling superior.  It’s not something we shuckers experience
consciously on a moment by moment basis. But it’s there alright, underneath,
propping up our precarious sense of self worth.

I didn’t mention
the drinking fetish that goes along with the oysters. That could be glass or
four of champagne or Chablis or whatever wine buffs insist is the right thing
to have with oysters. I know absolutely zip about the subtleties of the
fermented grape, so here I have to combine my oyster snobbery with the inverted snobbery
of knowing bugger-all about wine – and being feckin’ prahd of my ignorance.
Wine-lovers? Pah. Swirl, sniff, sip and all that bollocks. What a bunch of
effete, public school, up your own arse nonces they are. (Probably up someone
else’s arse too, ha, ha,ha, - wankerrr! ) This might seem a bit of a
contradiction, being both a snob and inverted snob at the same time, but
why not? Both positions involve feeling  superior to the other lot so it
all works for me.

It was my friend
John B. who taught me how to shuck - I was staying at his house near Perpignan.
(Not, you note, in common as muck Provence, mais beaucoup plus coupant bord.)

Frankly, I didn’t
much fancy the idea at first, since shucking involves forcing a knife into the
shell with one hand whilst holding it with the other. It wouldn’t take
much  of a miscue to skewer your holding hand and the consequences could
easily land you in A & E facing a Triage nurse trying to suppress a
snigger.  Inferiors, quite naturally, tend to take  pleasure in the
misfortunes of superiors particularly when they are self-inflicted in the act
of doing the very thing that makes them superior. It would be like getting
Repetitive Strain Injury from repeatedly ringing the bell to summon your
servants.

But I am very
glad I conquered my fears and, both metaphorically and literally, stepped up to
the plate. My life was transformed. From inferior non-shucker to superior
shucker in a few moments, gratifyingly proving that even in fairly extreme
post-youth one can learn new tricks. Possibly not as useful   as
learning how administer to CPR, a skill which offers the possibility of hero
status if only you can find someone whose life needs saving in a crowded public
space. But still I am thrilled with my new, improved levels of
self-satisfaction.

And in case
you are the one in a hundred or  thousand who does know how to shuck and
are consequently thinking that your level of iority is no infer than mine, I am
afraid I have some distressing news for you. Not only can I shuck an oyster but
I am also able to perform an even more arcane and possibly even more up-market
task. Yes, believe it or not, I can tie a bow tie. Properly.  And make a
damned good fist of it. Admit it – you are seriously impressed.

I  learned
how to do this a long time ago from  someone whose identity  has now
disappeared between the ever widening gaps in the floorboards of my memory.
Happily however, the art – and it is no less – of tying the bow has not left
me.

I reckon the odds
of the average living human  being able
to tie a bow tie are vanishingly small. One in two thousand perhaps, and
probably not even that. So do the maths.
Even taking the low end of my estimates of 100/1 for shucking and 2000/1 for
bow tying, when you combine them you get 200,000 to 1! Or, inverting those odds, that means that it is
200,000 to 1 on – ON! – that I am superior to you.

Oh I know what
you’re thinking - that the kind of people who can shuck an oyster are very
likely to come from the same social group  as the kind of people who can tie a bowtie
(sometimes referred to by demographics analysts as the Pretentious Twat Cohort),
so those odds must be lower than that.
But even reducing them by ten times, that’s still twenty thousand to
one. Odds of 20,000/1 on, that I am superior to you? That’s
good enough for me.

Now you might be
thinking that I’m just a smug tosser and you might  very well be right.
But consider: in the very act of so thinking, you are conceding that I have something to
be smug about. You have acknowledged my superiority.

Please do not feel too badly about
your inferiority. Yours is an honourable place in the scheme of things. As I
used to tell my daughter when, year after year, I trailed in last in the
father’s race on Sports Day: hold your head high. (As I would have mine
if  I only I could have stopped vomiting.) Without losers there can be no
winners.

It is not
given to all of us to be able to both shuck an oyster and tie a bow tie. And it
is only the fact that you can’t  that
makes me exceptional.  I am humbled by
the sacrifice you are making on my behalf.

That’s
me:  superior yet humble. What’s not to
like?

Baffled Labour Party supporter

Baffled Labour Party supporter

39) My formula for happiness.

Like all proper formulae it is expressed as an equation: R - E = H. That’s Realisation minus Expectation equals Happiness. As long as things turn out better than you thought they would you are relatively happy. If they exceed your wildest hopes you are ecstatic. If it’s no more than marginal, well, maybe that’s nothing to get too excited about, but it’s not too bad.

Of course, R - E can also equal U. If  you expected more than you get you are quite naturally  going to be Unhappy. And your degree of U can range anywhere from being slightly disappointed to absolutely devastated.

Funny thing is, exactly the same R can leave you leave you either ecstatic OR devastated. All depends on your E. If you never expected to be left a single farthing by Great Aunt Flo, then news that ten grand is on its way to you will be ample cause for breaking out the bubbly.  But if you’d convinced yourself you were getting the yacht, the chateau and the entire contents of her Bahamian bank account and all you get is ten measly thousand you will be drowning your sorrows straight out of a gin bottle in a brown paper bag.

I think this is what explains Corbynmania. Thanks to opinion polls before May 7th which  suggested that Labour might end up in government, and to newspapers columnists  and telly pundits who kept banging that message home, Labour supporters found on Election night that the R was way, way below their E, and,  as a consequence their U is deeper and more bitter  than they had ever imagined it could be.

What a contrast to the Tory ecstasy. They hardly dared dream of winning outright so even a paltry majority of 12 had them dancing in  the aisles. But  had a Tory government been  predicted all along, they’d have been sharpening the knives before you could say Dave’s a one nation wuss.

So it is Labour in mourning. Almost literally I think. So  profound has  been  their  upset that their  U isn’t so much U as full blown G. G as in Grief. And what are the five stages of Grief? Shock,Denial,Anger, Sadness, Acceptance. (Or something like that.)

I would say that Labour diehards are coming through the shock stage and are well into Denial and  full blown Anger. How dare this happen to them? How could the voters spurn them? How could the country have got it so bloody WRONG?

And so they fulminate.  No cool, careful, calm analysis. Not even a recognition of the bleeding obvious when it is staring them in the face. Their tears of frustration and rage  blind them to that. No, the people just didn’t know what was good for them. And so the answer is obvious - the  people must must be made to take the course again. And they must be taught  more - much  more - rigorously. Having rejected Red Ed’s lurch  to the Left they must learn that what they really need is Jeremy’s neo-Marxism - no, make that Jeremy’s Neanderthal Marxism.

And if after that the people are just too stupid to know what’s good for them, well then fuck the people. We will stand up for what we believe in and shout it from the rooftops even if nobody is listening. Who needs to win a General Election anyway? We can take to the streets and wear those nifty  Guy Fawkes masks like the Occupy people. We can march with our died in the wool, dirt beneath the fingernails,  working class comrades like Charlotte Church and Russell Brand. Yes, we may be destined for certain failure and electoral oblivion but our ideological purity will be unstained. Mine eyes shall see the glory!

Can the sainted Jeremy actually win this election to become Labour leader? Given the crazed-with-grief mood of ‘the Party’  it seems all too possible.

And then in a year or three, after an election rout or two, will come the sadness stage and the acceptance,  and the realisation that Labour - if it still exists - made a monumental fuck-up.

Their repentance will be great but then there’ll be plenty of leisure, endless years of it,  in which to say their  Hail Jez’s.

If only those sodding opinion polls had got it right. If only a dismal Labour defeat had been expected. Think how much less of a shock the result would have been. How much less disconcerted  the party would have been. How much less discontented. How much less discombobulated. How much clearer might be its thinking.

It  might even be in a state of mind to elect someone  who could actually lead it  to power.

Coming soon to a theatre near you - Jeremy Corbyn, the Alf...

Coming soon  to a theatre near you - Jeremy Corbyn, the Alf Doolittle of his day.

38) Jeremy Corbyn - the musical.

Following
the runaway success of my novel ‘A Polaroid of Peggy’, I am working on another
smash hit. This time, I am turning my attentions to the theatre, with a new musical, ‘Jeremy Corbyn Superstar’. (Any
similarity to a Lloyd-Weber/Rice musical of a similar name is purely
coincidental.)

I think it
has every chance. The last few weeks have shown that the media like nothing
better than a Jeremy Corbyn story, so we are guaranteed loads of press, and
that is half the battle.  I am
currently working on the opening song, ‘The Wish is Father to the Thought.’ Most people will be familiar with the
old saying which I am using as the song title, and if  even if some are not it’s
reasonably self explanatory. You want to believe something is true so much,
that you come to believe it actually is. 

A good
example of this thought process is my opening line here: Following the runaway success of my novel… I would really love that
to be the case, so I have decided that it is. Some might argue that reaching the
giddy heights of no.63 on the Amazon Best Seller List, Romantic Comedy section,
is a bit less than runaway success, but I say that for a self-published book
that doesn’t have the benefit of the national publicity and nationwide
distribution that a big conventional publisher would bring, no 63 is pretty
damn good.  Just think how high in the
charts  it would be if a big
publisher really was behind it. Clearly the potential is limitless. And if we are
already at no 63 and have limitless potential, who can stop us now? QED, ‘ A
Polaroid of Peggy’ is a runaway success. 

That’s how
classic ‘Wish is Father to the Thought’ logic works. You take a small fact that
is sort of in your favour, mix it up with a half-baked idea or two, and from
that extrapolate the self-delusional answer you always wanted. 

Sometimes
you don’t even seem to need the small fact. For instance, 
I can’t think of a single one that supports the idea Jeremy Corbyn could ever be elected Prime Minister. In his case, the little nugget around which the
delusion is snowballing seems not to be a fact, but the notion
that he is a man who sticks to his principles come hell or water. The
fact that the same could easily be said of Hitler or Pol Pot or Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi seems not to matter. 

Here is the opening scene of ‘Jeremy Corbyn  Superstar’:

A committee of Labour National Executive members has
been assembled to interview potential candidates for Leader and are seated behind a long table. In walks Jeremy
Corbyn. (Stage Left of course.)

1st
committee member: Can we start with the
basics Mr.Corbyn? How old are you?

J.C (demonstrating
populist touch): Clickety-click
comrade.  66. Born May 26th
1949. I was a child of the glorious Atlee years.

2nd
committee member: Indeed. So that means,
let me see now, that 19 days after the next General Election on May 7th
2020, you will be 71 years old.

J.C – indignantly: That question,
comrade,  smacks of  ageism – I demand you withdraw it.

3rd committee member
(Unite union placeman): I agree. Withdraw the
question.  

4th
committee member – persisting:  But wouldn’t that mean
that, if Labour won, you would be the oldest person in history to be
elected British Prime Minister for the first time?

J.C (confidently) What about Churchill?  

1st committee member: What about Churchill? He was 65 when he
became PM for the first time.  

JC (slightly less
confidently) Gladstone?  

2nd committee
member:  He was 59.  

5th
committee member (Unite union  place-woman) Ageist and rrelevant. The
question must be withdrawn. 

4th committee member: Well, alright then,
let’s move on to your qualifications for the job. What senior cabinet  posts have you held? Chancellor of the
Exchequer, Foreign Secretary, that kind of thing?

JC: Um, none.

1st committee member: Any cabinet posts at
all.

JC: Er ….  

2nd committee member: Any senior ministerial
posts below cabinet level.  

JC:   Er…    

4th  committee member: Any junior  ministerial posts ?  

JC : Er…    

1stcommittee member: No ministerial posts at all?  

JC: Er…

2nd committee member: Any shadow cabinet posts?

JC: Er…

4th  committee member: Any non-cabinet shadow posts ?

JC: Er…well, no, I’ve been an MP for 32 years though.    

2nd   committee member,  incredulously: And in all that time you’ve never even had one executive post?  

JC: Of course. Lots.  

4th  committee member: Like what?

JC: Well, to begin with, I’m Chair of the All Party
Parliamentary Group on the Chagos Islands .

1st,2nd
and 4th committee members together: The
where? -

But they are cut short as 3rd
committee member and 5th committee member (Unite placeman and
placewoman) suddenly  leap to their feet
and start singing:

Placeman:

If
you’re worried,

He’s
old as Old Nick

Placewoman:

Well
sir, you are

Missing
a trick                          

Placeman:

And
if he ain’t

Qualified,
so what?  

Placewoman:

Relevant  exper ience

Matters not,                         

Together:

Maybe
logic says he ain’t got what he ought,

But
the Wish Is Father is to the Thought,

Yes,
The Wish is Father to the Thought.  

JC:

Maybe logic says I ain’t got what I ought

Entire
cast.

But
the Wish Is Father to the Thought

Oh-yes ,

the
Wish Is Father to the Thought  

(Verse 2 )

Placeman:

Yeh,
we’ve tried and

Failed
this way before  

Placewoman:

But
socialist  pur ity

Matters more  

Placeman:

General elections

May leave us bereft

Placewoman:

Who
cares so long

As
we’re hard left.

Together:

Maybe
logic says he ain’t got what he ought,

But
the Wish Is Father is to the Thought,

Yes,
The Wish is Father to the Thought.  

Entire
cast:

But
the Wish Is Father to the Thought

Oh-yes,

The Wish Is Father to the Thought    

Placeman
and Placewoman again:  

Jez
IS the Prime Ministerial sort

When
The Wish is Father to the Thought  

JC: Yes,
I AM the Prime Ministerial sort,

When
the Wish Is the Father to the Thought.  

Entire
cast.

When
the Wish Is Father to the Thought

Oh-yes,

When The Wish Is Father to the Thought  

WHEN
THE WISH…

WHEN
THE WISH…

WHEN
THE WISH…

IS FA-THER TO THE THOUGHT!!!!!      

After the final note has been sounded a trap-door opens and the entire Labour Party falls through it.

This, is me - I think - in a school photo, circa 1962.

This, is me - I think -  in a school photo, circa 1962.