The brains behind the baby machines

I MAY have inadvertently given the impression in the past that I think the nation’s Underclass is thick. This is clearly not the case.

It takes a certain rat-like cunning to survive on the mean streets of Mr Blah’s NuBritain. There are forms to fill out, benefits to claim and gullible (or lazy) civil servants to take advantage of. There are GPs to con (or intimidate), JobCentre staff to dodge, and a whole black economy to exploit, cash in hand, no questions asked. And then there’s the daily grind of shoplifting, debt-dodging and drug-taking. So it’s no easy ride.

Which probably explains the latest brainwave to be doing the rounds amongst the belly-pierced, muffin-topped, leggings-wearing baby machines who aim to pop out a nipper every 12 months in pursuit of a council flat and £20,000 a year. The word on the street is that pregnant teenagers are taking up smoking in the hope of having smaller babies so that childbirth is less painful. No, really.

I tell you what - you’ve got to admire their lateral thinking.

NOW HOW many times do you hear this? “He was a quiet man who liked to keep himself to himself”.

I’ll tell you – every single time there’s a horrific murder, the latest of which was the tragic slaughter of five girls in an Amish school in Pennsylvania. The killer is always, always described by a family friend or a neighbour as “a quiet man who liked to keep himself to himself”.

Can I make a suggestion? Why don’t we just lock up anyone who could possibly be described as “a quiet man who liked to keep himself to himself”? It could be done through some kind of doorstep survey: “Now, Mrs Jones. The chap at number 33 – how would you describe him? Oh, he’s a quiet man who likes to keep himself to himself, is he? Thank you very much …”

Yes, there might be a few innocent casualties along the way, but surely it would make our streets safer in the long run.

AM I wrong to enjoy it when tree-huggers mess up? They’re already responsible for the deforestation of huge swathes of the Amazon jungle (the trees are ripped up to plant soya, which then goes into Linda McCartney sausages and fake burgers); they’re already responsible for wiping out most of Norway’s eagle population (a giant wind farm off the coast has minced them all); now, with delicious irony, they’ve managed to bump off an Asian immigrant by hounding him to death mob-handed.

The incomer in question was a rare Mongolian starling, never before seen in this country, that had the misfortune to get blown off course and end up in Norfolk. Once there it got on quite happily with the six-fingered natives until someone blabbed and told the newspapers. Suddenly hundreds of bird-watchers turned up with binoculars, telephoto lenses and flasks of sweet tea and started chasing it from hedge to hedge.

Exhausted by this all this kerfuffle, the Mongolian starling promptly popped its clogs, so denying train loads of twitchers the spot of their lives. Or a cat got it; one or the other. So well done, all you animal lovers. With form like that you may as well join the local shoot.

SOMETIMES I wonder why I’m so nasty about Mr Blah’s government. Let’s face it, the Tories never went to the trouble of setting up special units of council workers and public servants whose mission in life was solely to provide material for satirical columnists, did they?

I shall call them The Jokeforce, and this week they were out and about in Littlehampton, West Sussex, where a WPC swooped on four children aged between seven and 11 who were collecting conkers, confiscated their haul and issued them with stop and search forms. The children’s mother was later told that the tree had a preservation order on it and was on private property. Both these claims were utter lies.

So thank you Sussex Police, for your sterling work on behalf of columnists across the country. At this point, we will all be adding something along the lines of “they’d have got off with less for dealing smack” before pouring another glass of Chardonnay and putting our feet up for half an hour.

I AM obliged to the electricity board for sending me a cheque this week just because they happen to have one of their poles in a far corner of my estate. (I think it’s electricity, but it could be gas for all I know. That’s what they’re trying to sell me at the moment, anyway. It’ll be porridge next week, followed by a special offer on Burmese pythons.)

The cheque is for the magnificent sum of £1.20. It comes as part of a perforated letter on nice paper, in an equally nice envelope, and has been delivered by the Royal Mail. By the time we add in admin costs, I very much doubt if it cost less than £1.20 to produce it and send it out.

And £1.20, my friends, is enough to feed a freezing pensioner for a week, especially if there’s a two-for-one offer on cat food. So is such municipal munificence altogether wise?

WAHEY! The Jokeforce have turned up with a late Brucie Bonus. This time they’re in Worcester, busy tying security tape and plastic barriers around two pear trees in a city centre park just in case pears fall from the trees and kill a passing Worcesterite.

The trees have been there for 50 years. Surprisingly, in all that time, no-one has yet been killed, or even slightly maimed, by a falling pear, but you can’t be too careful. I just hope that they wore their high visibility jackets while cordoning off the killer trees. Because you can’t be too careful.

O The views of Mr Beelzebub are purely personal and do not necessarily reflect the opinions of the Editor or staff of this website, of anyone who isn't getting a bit worried about headlines like "Muslim cab drivers ban guide dogs", of anyone who isn't getting a bit worried about headlines like "Hero soldier's home wrecked by Muslims", or of anyone who isn't getting a bit worried about Jack Straw deciding to wind up half his constituency on the eve of the rioting season.