College wonga scandal, Bevin pops at Yarmuth

Worried about getting nicked, are you?

For what? You can’t get arrested for being brilliant and beautiful, even in this country.

I always assumed you got into Bellarmine through some dodgy scheme to cover up your dunce’s cap. How else would a north London mockney from a state school get into an allegedly prestigious private college in Kentucky? I mean without cheating some hard-working local out of the place they undoubtedly deserved far more.

Unlike you, I’m not a child of fortune. As you well know, I managed to win a scholarship — albeit one based far more on luck than competence or brains. Besides, since my folks were legit — therefore skint — Trotskyite agitators we weren’t exactly overflowing with bribes for bent admissions staff. Still, we can all enjoy a giggle at the expense of the people today going down for paying bribes and risking bird to make up for their even-more-stupid progeny. Imagine paying half-a-bar to get your kid into a school where the full ticket cost is one-tenth of that.

Perhaps the expectation is that it’ll take them 10 times as long to graduate? I can’t imagine wasting good money educating a kid without enough brain cells to fill in the application form.

If you want to know how humiliating it is to flush good money down the toilet on an idiot child’s education, I’m sure your old man will enlighten you.

The money spent on getting me ready for a life of privileged indolence wasn’t a complete waste. I learnt the value of a solid, forward-defensive stroke, and no English gentleman can get very far in life without knowing the intricacies of willow-‘pon-leather. If only private schools here played cricket, they’d be infinitely more civilised… and I’d be all in favour of tax credits.

I’ve got to say I love this tax proposal, the one that’s going to put all of that wonga back into private banks and out of the public coffers, destroying huge chunks of public services predicated on a combination of cult-like ideological purity and casual cruelty. Bevin will sign that fucker, twice.

I’m not sure I catch your drift. I thought you were a supporter of public services?

I am. But ignorant people voted for this, by large margins, because they thought they wouldn’t be the ones to suffer. And, as we’ve said many times, only by getting what they voted for will they ever realise how they got screwed. Like the suckers who voted for Brexit. In the end it’s going to do to Bevin what it did to Sam Brownback in Kansas. End his career as a public official, in shame, infamy and ignominy.

And it’ll cause huge amounts of agony in the process. And don’t forget that Brownback won a second term, which he took as further proof that taking a wrecking ball to public finances is popular and good policy.

No matter how unpopular he is personally, and no matter how many times his oafish arrogance trips him up in court, Bevin is and always has been a strong favourite to win another term. He knows that. Anywhere that worships at the Trump altar is unlikely to elect a Democrat statewide, not until Bevin has really fucked the place up properly. Like Kansas.

Bad people are running the world at the moment. We’re sleepwalking into a future that would make Orwell shit his pants. The sooner people realise that, the better. Matt Bevin is a bad person. Mitch McConnell is a bad person. The president is a bad person. It shouldn’t be bad form to say that.

Who’d have thought Germany would end up the goodies? But you’re right. These people aren’t ambivalent about human life or the planet we live on. They are actively pursuing policies that will destroy both, purely to enrich themselves. Can’t even say it’s for their offspring, since none of McConnell’s talks to him. You can’t remove access to affordable healthcare without killing people. You can’t actively encourage the destruction of the planet without acknowledging that it’ll likely kill millions. That has to be said out loud. Democrats pussyfoot about because they don’t want to be called “uncivil.” Bugger civility. It’s getting us nowhere.

Absolutely. In fairness, at least Brownback probably knows what an op-ed is, unlike our esteemed governor. What a twat, putting out a press release and calling it an op-ed. It’s as plain as the nose on my handsome boat-race that he thinks op is short for opinion.

Do you think he realises that as governor he’s free to voice his opinion without publishing phony op-eds? Or do you think that no publication in the state was willing to take his away-with-the-fairies frothing-at-the-mouth rant?

It’s possible. LEO would have taken it. For shits and giggles. I mean, LEO publishes the codswallop we write, right?

Under duress. But while we’re on the subject of LEO, what a bellend Bevin must be to have a pop at Yarmuth for supporting impeachment. First, Bevin probably thought Clinton getting impeached over a blow job was righteous and good. And second, Trump’s crimes are infinitely worse.

Clinton didn’t get impeached over a blow job. He got impeached for lying to Congress over an allegedly consensual yet also indisputably disturbing and highly manipulative relationship with an intern young enough to be his daughter. Let’s not gloss over what Clinton did. It’s a drop in the ocean compared to the current president’s gangsta life, I’ll admit, but also far from innocent.

Yeah, yeah. The point is that Yarmuth doesn’t represent all Kentuckians, and you’d have thought Bevin might be able to grasp that. So what if some toothless, trailer park denizen in Pike County doesn’t support impeachment? Yarmuth doesn’t rep those people. But among the people he does rep, I’d guess impeachment is a very popular notion — hence his thrashing the shite out of Bevin’s underling Glisson last November.

Mate, I don’t think we can say that. Conflict of interest and all, this being LEO.

Oh, shut it — of course we can say that. Without getting pinched. At least for now.

This article appears in March 20, 2019.