Austerity, economics and a sense of proportion ...

... instead we get lies, damned lies and government spin. A simple placard tells us what the forces of ehvul and their media wing don't want us to know.

David Cameron's message from the cosmos: IDS to use unemployed as sandbags

VIDEO: David Cameron's cabinet contemplating a mighty wind.

David Cameron's karma runs over his dogma in biblical fashion. Rain, floods, blizzards, storms, and a mighty wind have ravaged these isles, and vast swathes of Britain have been under water for weeks. Cutbacks and cessation of dredging under all governments in recent years have only added to the misery.

Imagine being immersed in raw sewage, not being able to use the loo, and not being dry since new year.

All we need is a plague of frogs, water-borne pestilence and war and we'll have a full set.

Aprés Cameron, le deluge.

Now that the Tory heartland has been hit with Thames waters drowning the playing fields of Eton and lapping at Windsor Castle, His Smugness has had to show his thought-free visage on the scene.

Never have we felt so relieved to have been too skint to buy our idealised riverfront home with parking for boat at the end of the lawn. If it weren't for the innocent civilians losing their homes and living (it's not all bourgeoisie doing the suffering), some might class this as divine punishment for cruelty, callousness and greed on the part of those Tory voters in the Stockbroker Belt who thought they were immune from "austerity".

In his Hunter wellies and Barbour jacket, Cameron did his damnedest to ensure that immunity continues and promised his flooded bredren that money will be no object. Yet the widespread horrors of rising poverty and homelessness elicit no such generous response.

In the Tory hierarchy of need, what's highest? Evicted due to slashed benefits or flooded out? Cameron and the devil take the hindmost.

The Tories are under pressure from their even more right-wingnuts to take the money not just from Britons in poverty but to raid the aid budget for the world's poorest to keep his voters happy. Expect an intravenous treasury fix straight into DFS and Heals to replace all those soggy sofas but heaven forfend that food and medicine should be sent abroad.

He's probably hoping we'll all forget, not only the broken promises of a greener nation, but that the Tories and UKIP voted in the European Parliament against measures to protect against flooding.

The Guardian says:

The Royal Institute of British Architects estimates that 1.5% of the UK is at risk from direct flooding from the sea and about 7% of the country is likely to flood at least once a century from rivers. It says about 1.7m homes and 130,000 commercial properties are at risk from river or coastal flooding in England alone, and the effects of flooding and managing flood risk cost the country about £2.2bn a year, compared with the less than £1bn spent on flood protection and management.

These events are also a dire warning against privatisation. Can you imagine G4S handling this emergency? Yes, it could be worse.

Will Cameron succeed in stealing even more from the poor in order to throw money at his flooded voters? Will IDS use the unemployed as sandbags?

Does this spell the end for the greediest, most shortsighted "anything for a fast buck" government we've seen since WWII? And that includes Thatcher. We can only hope so.

A few facts and figures challenging the Tory economic narrative

A few facts and figures to slash a path through the thicket of misinformation perpetrated by greedy swine who'd make the poor pay for their tax cuts.

Gleaned from The Sunday Times Rich List figures, the collective wealth of the UK's 1,000 richest rose 30 per cent in 2009 in wake of economic crisis. The combined wealth of the top 1000 rose by over £77bn to £333.5bn, the biggest annual increase in the 22-year history of The Sunday Times rich list. The cost of benefit fraud is £1bn. Unclaimed benefits amount to £16.5bn. Estimated tax owed to us: £70bn. Sunday Times Rich List published 2010. The Daily Telegraph reports Britain's richest sees wealth rise by one third.

Another nugget I stored away ...

From 1997 to 2007 the average income of the top 1 per cent of UK earners increased from £187,989 to £301,325 – an increase of just over 60 per cent (income of the top 0.1 per cent almost doubled).

The increase in the tax contribution by the top 1 per cent, from 21 per cent in 1997 to 26 per cent now, means that their contribution is around 23 per cent higher (or 28.5 per cent if you go with the 27 per cent current figure), relative to what they were paying in 1997.

Either figure is far less than the increase of at least 60 per cent (and probably considerably more) in their incomes. The wealthiest are now paying substantially less toward our national upkeep than they were 15 years ago, relative to their wealth.

When is the penny going to drop that the bedroom tax is actually draining the public purse?

For the sake of argument, tax expert Richard Murphy takes the Tories' claim that the punitive bedroom tax saves £500mn and points out that this is less than the cost of shoving £200 per year at married couples via the new marriage allowance, estimated at some £600mn.

However, we all know — especially now that SPeye's on the case — that the bedroom tax is an expensive indulgence of Tory sadism and yields no saving. It would be cheaper if we bought them their very own Miss Whiplash sessions.