A weekly column reproduced from the Bristol Evening Post

---

Aye Carumba! I disappear to my villa in Spain for ten days and the whole country grinds to a halt. Anyone would have thought that we’d finally declared war on the Welsh.

Quite how Mr Blah managed to cock this one up so spectacularly is beyond me. Didn’t he realise that ordinary people have to buy petrol for their cars? Didn’t he realise that the lorries bringing food, milk and pot noodles use diesel fuel?

What did he think was going to happen when the oil companies, a few over-subsidised farmers and some lard-arsed lorry drivers conspired to shut the refineries? The man’s a joke.

Even his belated response to the fact that Islington nannies were running out of fuel was misguided and embarrassing. Instead of doing something about the extortionate level of fuel tax we are forced to pay, he simply resorted to a mixture of emotional blackmail and blatant lies.

“Hospitals and schools will lose funding if we reduce the tax.” Liar, liar, pants on fire. The unexpected increase in oil prices means that Gordon Brown is already sitting on £4 billion of extra revenue.

“Tanker drivers are being threatened with violence.” Liar, liar, pants on fire. Tanker drivers had their feet up eating Yorkie bars because their bosses didn’t want to ask them to drive past the protesters.

“People’s lives are at risk as hospitals and ambulances are crippled.” Liar, liar, pants on fire. The much-hyped NHS Red Alert was a silly ploy that even health service bosses sneered at.

Mr Blah and his NuLabour cronies still haven’t realised that this protest wasn’t just about petrol prices, but was about the Government’s utter arrogance and deceitfulness.

Not that I was particularly bothered about the boycott, anyway. A quick trip to the secret fuel tanks underneath the Evening Post headquarters and I was back in the fast lane. (There’s also a nuclear bunker and a fully-stocked armoury under the Brown Lubianka, but don’t tell anyone.)

And wasn’t it a joy to find the roads clear of those poor people who drive K-reg Sierras with Baby on Board stickers in the back window? I’ve often argued that there should be priority lanes for drivers of cars less than two-years-old and with engines of at least two litres who promise not to do less than 80mph. Here it was, a dream come true!

So, Tony, the clock is now running and you’ve got around 50 days before the pickets return. What are you going to do?

Oh, I see. Force tanker drivers to roll past the tractors and ban protesters from laying siege to refineries. What a stroke of genius. The Labour Party bans picketing.

It’s a good job that the Tolpuddle Martyrs weren’t tanker drivers. Still, never mind, at least it kept The Dome off the front pages.

---

You may not have noticed, but the Greenham Common peace camp has finally been wound up.

Remember it? Established in 1981 to protest at the decision to store American nuclear cruise missiles on British soil? Loads of barmy women, mostly boiler suit-wearing carpet munchers, railing against the Yankee warmongers and anyone else with a willy?

With that perverse logic only women can apply, particularly when you’re trying to argue with them, they still stayed on even when the Yanks packed up and went home. Now the protest was about the environment, or male oppression, or the price of beans, or anything else that took their fancy.

Well they’ve finally given up and gone back to cook their hubby’s tea. Women and politics, like women and football, just don’t mix. Look at NuLabour MP Ruth Kelly.

She’s been representing Bolton West since Blah’s Babes swept to power in May, 1997. During that time she’s had three children and spent more than half of her Commons career pregnant.

What kind of service have her constituents been getting from their Member? She’s been half-mad with hormones and she’s voting on whether or not to bomb Iraq? The mind boggles.

---

Police investigating the tragic death of Paula Yates have revealed that Ecstasy, Amphetamine and Angel Dust were found in her house. But there was no sign of the fourth child.

– Barry Beelzebub

* The views of Mr Beelzebub are purely personal and do not necessarily reflect the opinions of the Editor or staff of this newspaper, of the wholefood shop which is selling vegetarian condoms, of Joe Ashton’s Thai massage girl, or of the late, lamented Jez Quigley. The only decent villain Coronation Street’s had for ages and they go and kill him off.

Back to the Barry Beelzebub Index