Tuesday: Went to Greggs for a pasty ...

SO, AS Winston Churchill was fond of asking: Who’s in charge of the clattering train?

(He didn’t write it. The phrase comes from an anonymous poem published in Punch magazine commemorating a railway accident.)

And a railway accident is what we appear to have suffered as the government’s recent scaremongering over road-charging and the impact of short-haul flights on the environment smacks straight into the buffers of ridiculous rail fare increases imposed, in part, to reduce demand.

So who is in charge? Who’s preaching joined-up government and making sure that we have a cohesive transport policy? Not John Prescott. He’s too busy planning how to spend the alleged £1million that he’ll pocket for his memoirs. (Tuesday: Went to Greggs for a pasty. Wednesday: Went to Greggs for a pasty. Thursday: Played hide the sausage over the office desk with some floozie and then went to Greggs for a pasty. And a doughnut. And another pasty.)

And not Tony Blah. He’s jetting back from another freeloading junket in the luxury mansion of a star-struck idiot he doesn’t even know. We are told that he’s made a contribution to charity to cover the cost of this holiday. Whether that means ten grand to Cancer Research or a penny in the plastic Labrador outside the Co-op, we’re not allowed to know.

So perhaps Gordon Brown is astride the footplate kitted out as the Fat Controller? ‘Fraid not. He’s far too busy taking elocution lessons and pretending not to be a Porridge Wog in case the Great Unwashed Electorate decide that they’ve had enough of unaccountable Jocks coming down here and telling us what to do.

So there we have it. We are told not to drive or we’ll be taxed. We are told not to fly or we’ll be taxed. But if we take the train, we’ll have to pay through the nose … because the trains are too busy. You really could not make it up.

AND WHERE is all the revenue from these extra “environmental” taxes going? Well not into stopping global warming, that’s for sure. It would be like King Canute trying to hold back the tide. What do you do? Offer the Sun a backhander to clear off for a few decades?

And there are only so many forests you can plant and so many igloos you can build for homeless polar bears. So hey, why not spend it on the Turkey Army instead? At least that way NuLabour can prolong the hope that they might get re-elected by the jobsworths whose mortgage depends on their patronage.

“People like who?”, I hear you ask. Well, people like the Arts Council’s Cardboard Citizens Managing Director (£45,000), the Civil Resilience Manager at Stockport Council (£39,132), the Detached Mobile Youth Provision and Rapid Response Manager in Islington (£40,578) and the Sustrans (aka cycle fascists) Bike It Officer (£23,000).

These are some of the more modest positions advertised in the pages of the State-subsidised Guardian in 2006. And now, thanks to a body called the TaxPayers’ Alliance (undoubtedly about to be denounced by NuLabour as a rabid collection of fox-hunting racists), I can inform you that the average starting salary for a Turkey Army worker is £36,893 a year, an astonishing £11,405 higher than the average private sector wage.

Add to that the gilt-edged pensions, the shorter working hours, the double-the-average sick days, the free travel to work, the generous relocation packages, the subsidised gym memberships and the “golden hellos” of up to £5,000 a time and you’ll understand why the bill for this political largesse now approaches £1.6billion a year, with 20 per cent of the nation’s workforce in NuLabour’s employ.

One can only hope that the other 80 per cent decide that enough is enough and bring a halt to the madness next time they get the chance. I can just imagine the scene down at the JobCentre. “And your previous experience is what? A Detached Mobile Youth Provision and Rapid Response Manager? Right, can you flip burgers?”

IT WOULD be unfair of me to suggest that our current generation of politicians is altogether less corrupt than their predecessors. Take this intro on a story from the Daily Mail last week:

“Lord Lambton, who resigned as a Tory defence minister after being photographed in bed with two prostitutes as he smoked a cannabis cigarette, has died aged 84.”

Well, I don’t know about you but I’d settle for that. It’s not a bad innings, is it? And it sure beats getting splashed all over the tabloids for ditching a weather girl in favour of a Cheeky Girl.

CHRISTMAS TELLY used to be safe and comfortable. Morecambe and Wise, The Sound of Music, The Snowman. So what did the festive boob tube give us in 2006? Swing with Saddam, live via some nutcases’ mobile phone.

At least we’ve got our fashion tip for 2007 – a dark overcoat with a black silk scarf. And how come they’ve arrested two people for shouting at him as he made his way to the gallows? Can no-one have any fun these days?

So coming soon to a screen near you: Castro Croaks It and Nuke North Korea, as Paris Hilton and Britney Spears play a form of Twister wherein whoever lands on the capital, Pyongyang, gets to push the red button. Commentary by Stuart Hall and Eddie Waring. Happy New Year.

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 understands how we can spend £2.3 billion on the marbled halls of Ministry of Defence offices while expecting the families of serving soldiers to live in hovels, of anyone who understands how a police force can warn the public about two escaped murderers but then refuse to release their pictures "in case it infringes their human rights", or of anyone who doesn't understand why I'd like to hit Jade Goody's obnoxious mother very hard in the face. With a shovel.