Yet another reason Gordon Brown would be a lousy Prime Minister.

[davywavy]

Blofeld: You heard me correctly, Mr. Brown. Unless you pay me one million pounds by midnight, I shall detonate my atom bomb, obliterating London and killing millions. Ha ha ha! Ha ha haaaa ha ha ha ha!
Brown: This would be the atom bomb that ye stole, the noo?
Blofeld: Yes, but I don’t see what that has to do with-
Brown: So the million would be fully subject to capital gains at forty percent, aye?
Blofeld: What?!
Brown: And that base o’ evil I can see behind ye on your viewscreen? Has it been assessed fer business rates?
Blofeld: Ah...um...Enterprise zone?
Brown: Aye, I thought not. That’s another nine percent on top o’that.
Blofeld: You misunderstand me Mr. Brown. The one million is non-negotiab–
Brown: Aye. And that army of jumpsuit clad goons. Have ye been making employers National Insurance contributions on their pay? I doot it! Another eleven percent.
Blofeld: Now just wait a minute!
Brown: And that silo must’ve cost ye a fair few bawbees an’ no mistake – but ye’ve never submitted a tax return! So there’s a mandatory one hundred poond fine plus interest for each return not submitted on time. Not to mention the fine for not submitting a formal planning application.
Blofeld: Now I’m sure we can talk about this like sensible –
Brown: And no VAT returns neither! Another seventeen point five percent! Aye, it's a rod fer yer own back ye've made here, Blofeld.
Blofeld: But –
Brown: So, by my calculation that million poonds comes to two hundred and twenty thousand, nine hundred poonds and fifty pence.
Blofeld: You make me angry Mr. Brown!
Brown: Less corporation tax at nineteen percent.
Blofeld: What the?!
Brown: And then there’s income tax at another forty percent. Och! That’s one hundred and six thousand, nine hundred and twenty poonds left.
Blofeld: Your last chance, Brown! Pay the million or-
Brown: And those rickety gantries behind ye look like a clear breach o' European Health and Safety regulations! There's a statutory fine to pay ye know!
Blofeld: Right! That does it! London burns! [Presses button].
Brown: Och! Setting off a thermonuclear device! Ye’ve just incurred a charge under the climate change levy! Hallo? Hallo?

Comments

[(Anonymous)]

I just spent 20 minutes having my weary beancounter explain the steps I must now take to avoid his latest round of blunt instrument legislation. (Not evade, you will understand) Sooner we're rid if these witless micromanaging warmongering bufoons, the better I'll be pleased.

Personally, I'd sooner spend that time doing some real work, for which I would be paid, and Broon would at least receive a modicum of tax. Instead, I'll be filling in more forms for no-one's benefit at all. Except Wiggins Teape, obviously.

[http://users.livejournal.com/_grimtales_/]

Sometimes you're funny.
Sometimes you just come across like the Half Hour News Hour.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KCl_--E3T2c

[(Anonymous)]

One man's satire is another man's subversion. It's not like the government is going to march us of to Guantanamo bay for holding opinions they don't entirely like...

Ah.

So, it this Half hour news hour funny? or is it Fox?

[hiromasaki.livejournal.com]

I'm trying to figure how he can come across like the Half Hour News Hour when it just started two days ago....

I would think that the Half Hour News Hour comes across like davywavy.

[http://users.livejournal.com/_grimtales_/]

Painfully unfunny by virtue of conservative humour just generally not quite working.

Like, as in similar to.

[(Anonymous)]

Typically, the funniest jokes tend to be made by people out of power (for example, do you remember when Ben elton was funny, before he became part of the establishment?) which means American right wing 'humor' is painfully unfunny. Why British right wing humour has failed to become funny escapes me. Citizen Smith used to be hilarious, but that Tony Blair thing Bob Lindsey did was cringeworthy.

[(Anonymous)]

do you remember when Ben elton was funny

Actually, no. When was this exactly?

H

[(Anonymous)]

Didn't he co-write the original Blackadder scripts?

If he didn't then no, he was never funny. Poor fellow.

[davywavy.livejournal.com]

The first series of Blackadder was written by Rwan Atkinson and Richard Curtis, which explains why it was the funniest. Subsequent series were written by Curtis and Ben Elton with Elton taking over more and more as they went on - hence the series' rapid decline.

[(Anonymous)]

I sit corrected. Ben Elton was apparently never funny.
Can you enlighten me as to whether Jo Brand was ever funny?

[davywavy.livejournal.com]

Never intentionally, although she was a source of considerable ribald amusement to myself and Matt Foster when she was on Saturday Night Live back in the 1980's

[(Anonymous)]

Aha, but you forget, neither of these "entertainers" was a proper socialist comedian, so they haven't had a proper chance to be funny.

If the world ever produced a genuine socialist state, employing its own state comedians, they would undoubtedly keep their audiences in a utopian state of perpetual mirth.

H

[http://users.livejournal.com/_grimtales_/]

Hmm, generally I find 2 and 3 to be the best Blackadder series. Apart from The Witchsmeller and the presence of Brian Blessed the first series just doesn't have that much going for it and Fourth was a little too sombre (believe it or not) to quite work.

Some of Elton's stand-up was alright, but mostly the more observational bits.

He co-wrote The Young Ones, which was funny, and Filthy Rich and Catflap which was inconsistent, but underrated.

The Thin Blue Line was a pile of shite though, as have many of his books been, though some have a whiff of the old funny about them. Stark had its moments anyway.

If he deserves to be damned for anything it is liking Benny Hill.

[raggedhalo.livejournal.com]

...but the British left aren't in power. We've just got a different flavour of rightwingers.

[davywavy.livejournal.com]

Alas, you are - denying the inevitable consequences of instituting a centally planned and controlled economic model really undermines you, you know.

[raggedhalo.livejournal.com]

It's that whole authoritarian "lack of civil liberties" thing. Certainly not my left.

[davywavy.livejournal.com]

Bismark once observed that 'Give me control of a Nation's economy, and I care not who makes it laws'; it is this that makes the left uniquely susceptible to the rise of authoritarian demogogues - with the insistence of centrally controlled economic forms and the rise of bureaucracy, laws and individual rights matter less and less.

[raggedhalo.livejournal.com]

I don't think the right is any less susceptible to authoritarianism than the left. It's just that the left has further to go to get there, so it's more noticeable.

[davywavy.livejournal.com]

You words are English, but they are so far divorced from reality as to be meaningless?

[(Anonymous)]

Quite so. Marx observes that after the revolution, the size of the state will diminish, however, most post revolutionary states have larger & more intrusive governments than they did before. Except, clearly, the USA, banner of Marxism that it is.

[(Anonymous)]

How much do they pay their sketchwriters?

H

[davywavy.livejournal.com]

Odd. Normally it's other people coming across like me.
I was delighted to see that Private Eye lifted one of my jokes this week.

[(Anonymous)]

Again?

Or the same one.

It was rather keen satire mind.

[davywavy.livejournal.com]

Nah, the one I mentioned to you.
It's why I don't post my best stuff to the internet so much any more - I reckon the BBC pays better than my friends list.

[zenicurean.livejournal.com]

Brilliant.

That is all.

[inskauldrak.livejournal.com]

But as I see it - Brown taxes a rich capitalist from abroad (a capital inflow to the UK) and solves London's congestion problems without resorting to greater congestion charging. Genius! : )

[elbly.livejournal.com]

Sounds to me like you're one of "them"

[inskauldrak.livejournal.com]

Card Carrying ; )

[silver-blue.livejournal.com]

Ken then introduces greater congestion charging anyway, because y'know, he can. Although probably he'd wait until a month or so after having won a mayoral election in which he'd promised not to (not that I'm bitter about a similar promise on bus fares).

[applez.livejournal.com]

Cute. ;-)

Though technically, an atom bomb detonation in a major urban location should count as a climate credit...both from the cooling fallout, as well as the offset greenhouse gas production from destroyed industry and consumer base. ;-)