The Government is going to have a referendum in London. asking us whether we want a Mayor and an elected assembly.
I was always intending to vote no, not because I want the proposal to lose (I desperatly want it to win, deliberatly flawed as it is, crippled by the paediatricians before birth) but because it is the only change on offer, it is better than nothing, it at least provides a forum for talking about local government for London and every crack in the smug pretended self-sufficiency of the British State is worth sticking a wedge into.
But, expecting the proposal to win easily I was intending to vote against, and ask my friends to vote against, in order to keep the size of the majority as low as possible. There's no point in going into detail about what is wrong with it, this is after all a rant not an attempt at reasoned political discussion and anyone with half an ounce of suss already knows why a directly elected mayor is a sell-out to the Fabian/Tory managerial paradigm and likely to be a disaster for local autonomy never mind subsidiarity (that good theological word that generations of British conservatives have tried to pervert to their own ideological use).
Today, all that changed.
I heard on the radio some people claiming to "launch" a "No Campaign". (In the cliched language of broadcast news political campaigns are always launched). In ten seconds they convinced me to vote yes. These are Bromley Tories; Bromley Tories still stuck in their Thatcherite Fifth Column groove; the same Bromley Tory stooges who sued the GLC over "Fares Fair" all those years ago; the same Daily-Mail-reading Bromley Tory stooges still whining and moaning about ILEA and the GLC and black Jewish lesbian disabled single mothers (there were only ever two black Jewish lesbian single mothers on the GLC and only one of them was disabled and if that's a problem for you you can stuff it up your own jumper because they won't do it for you)
Every penny taken out of the greasy paws of the estate agents, insurance salesmen, Freemasons, cowboy builders, and Saturday-afternoon five-a-side football players of Bromley and given to public transport in London is a penny well-spent three times. Well-spent once because every penny spent on public transport in London is a penny well-spent in its own right; and well-spent again because of the look on their twisted Tory faces as the Biological Warfare Section of the Inland Revenue inject them with snake-venom muscle relaxant to loosen their preternaturally tightened claws in preparation for the surgical removal of their cash; and well-spent a third time because once we have forced it out of them they can't spend it on their bloody cars any more.
That's what I really have against Bromley Tories - their cars, their stinking cars that they drive up our streets and past our houses and our pubs and our shops and our churches and our schools twenty-four hours a day, deafening us, making the air we breathe stink in our nostrils, and forcing us to keep our children locked up indoors for fear that some prat, who thinks a driving licence and a monthly salary mean that he knows how to drive, is going to turn sharp left without looking and wipe them out as they cross the road on their way back home for tea.
Don't get me wrong - cars are great, cars are wonderful, in their place cars are one of the greatest triumphs of human ingenuity over the limitations of our nature. Every woman should be given a free car on her fiftieth birthday or at the birth of her first grandchild whichever comes first. But out of their place cars suck. Cars should be kept away from young men who use them to kill and maim and destroy and generally show-off. Cars should be kept away from middle-aged men who use them to leave their wives and children and run over other people's children while talking on their mobile phones or EVEN READING WANK MAGS I'VE SEEN THEM DOING IT THROUGH THEIR SLIMY STEAMED-UP WINDOWS, DRIVING ALONG WHILE LOOKING AT WANK MAGS OPEN ON THE PASSENGER SEAT - DO I WANT TO SHARE A ROAD WITH SCUM LIKE THAT????? - we'll all be better off when their cellphones have fried their brains.
But especially cars should be kept away from London. They don't belong here. That's what we built the M25 for. And we built it, with our money, just like we built the Thames barrier and we are building the Dome and we built the Channel Tunnel, we the people who live and work in London - and export 200 pounds of tax money every year for every one of the other inhabitants of the UK. That's 200 pounds each - if you live here your taxes are subsidised by four quid a week out of us.
My plan for the final solution of the Bromley problem is to build a thirteen-foot high brick wall across the bottom end of Lewisham High Street, just between the north and south entrances to the hospital so that sick people and ambulances can get in from either direction but no cars from Bromley can get in. Build it suddenly one afternoon so we strand a few thousand of them in town and they have to pay their train fares - what are they complaining about the tube for? Bromley has a perfectly good station. Too good for the likes of them - and our teenagers can practice their traditional sport of trashing posh cars.
Either Bromley is part of London or is isn't. If it isn't, well piss off. If it is, use the bus like the rest of us.