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I like pigs. The other day, I went pig-rustling. A porker had fled his sty and was marching down the lane through the village. A passing farmer and I managed to entice him home with the aid of a skilfully flicked trail of dog biscuits flung in front of his snout by yours truly.

As we all trotted up the road, I felt very content. Nothing nicer than a spot of pig-rustling on a summer’s evening. Pink, snuffling incomprehensibly, smelling of the farmyard and wobbling his great fat arse, the farmer thought so too.

I especially like pigs like Brother Bertie’s, or our Saint-like Sister’s: they live lives of happy contemplation rootling in the Cornish soil, backs scratched on a regular basis, bellies never empty. Bertie’s even get the contents of the pub slops tray, which they consume with relish before collapsing comically, face-down, into their troughs.

And then. And then they make the supreme sacrifice. And they end up deliciously on the end of Brother Bertie’s tongs on a summer Saturday night, sizzling to the sound of Brother Fiddle’s guitar.

It’s hard to be a meat-eater and an animal-lover, but all I can say is this: knowing an animal has led a happy well-cared-for life is the only way you can be a meat-eater and an animal-lover.

Brother Fiddle gave us a few songs round the campfire at Brother Bertie’s, and also quite rightly picked me up on my grammar last week. Which all reminds me to direct you to a wonderful YouTube clip of one of his songs, the beautiful Go North. It’s as performed by Richard Barnes on, I think, a Simon Dee show in 1970 and absolutely everything, very probably including, off shot, several kitchen sinks, is thrown at it in a fantastic big-budget arrangement. Strings! Brass! A choir! A grand piano! Pearls! You are hereby ordered to watch it and play Spot The Fiddle: see if you can see the Hazzard. I think I’ve spotted him… but I may well be wrong. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iptsMKaEW_4

Lessons learned?

We’ve talked many times about the subject of education, touching with anger upon the national village idiot-cum-laughing stock that was Michael Gove, before even Cameron got sick of the sight and sound of him.

We have also discussed the joyless Ofsted, the organisation that supposedly holds schools to account yet has done more to harm education in this country than a monstrous regiment of Goves. And we have mentioned the Government’s enthusiastic development of Labour’s lunatic academy programme, in which schools opt out of local accountability and control, taking money out of the state sector and away from children in the majority of schools in the process.

Well, fortunately, the whole sick process of putting political dogma above children’s education seems to be unravelling.

Last week, The Guardian revealed that academies in Norfolk headed by Gove acolyte and Tory favourite Rachel De Souza had been given highly illegal advance notice of Ofsted inspections, enabling schools to draft in special Ofsted-favourite teaches to make them look good and create more publicity for the useless academisation programme.

Less fortunate, less academy-friendly, less Tory-friendly schools, are given the statutory half-day’s notice and then failed by the cowardly bullies in suits so they can be forced to… wait for it… become academies.

And then the world acts surprised when all sorts of strange things happen in schools that are not able to be held publicly accountable, nor have any sort of local control. Couldn’t make it up, could you?

Meanwhile, there is widespread revulsion at the appointment of David Hoare, a businessman with no expertise in education whatsoever, as the new chair of Ofsted, not least because he is a trustee of Britain’s largest chain of academies.

Given that we toil under a Conservative Government so vapid that it makes us yearn for the towering intellect and moral compass of John Major and Edwina Currie, I don’t think education policy will veer from its purpose of putting political prejudice above children’s needs any time soon, but on the other hand…

There seems to be growing outcry about the way education is being misgoverned, even among Government ranks, even in this Government’s ranks. Maybe that great day of spontaneous joy and celebration which will forever be marked as The Day Michael Gove Was Sacked may one day be seen as the start of a better, braver era.

Sick notes

Of course, so many people sneer at the likes of me when we warn of the ongoing privatisation of the NHS, as if it’s typical of the sort of nonsense lefties imagine is happening when, in fact, no harm’s being done and everything’s lovely.

Well, we must thank this place’s good Doctor for guiding us to The Independent’s report on the sell-off of NHS pharmacies. The NHS cannot reclaim the 20% VAT it pays the profit-gorged greed-mongers of the pharmaceutical industry for products, but the private sector can.

Therefore, Lloyds, Boots and their ilk are snapping up NHS dispensaries as cash-strapped trusts flog them off to the highest bidder in a doomed attempt to balance their books. Disgusting, eh?

Still, bit more income for the taxman, yes? Well probably no. For example, for tax purposes Boots is based in Switzerland.

Fortunately, a good group of people are marching from Jarrow to London to protest against the privatisation of the NHS. You won’t notice – it won’t be reported on the TV or in the national press, rather like the People’s Assembly’s march against austerity in which thousands protested in London, or the protests against the atrocities being committed by Israel’s war criminals in Gaza. But still they march. And you can support them at www.keepournhspublic.com Go on. Do it.

Thought through

Or perhaps you’re very obedient and very easily led and believe what you’re told: privatisation is good, isn’t it? More choice, better service, better value for us taxpayers, eh?

Hmmm. I don’t think you’ve thought this through. Back in November, The Independent reported:

“Private contractors carrying out billions of pounds worth of Government work face a ‘crisis of confidence’ from the public, the National Audit Office (NAO) said… The public spending watchdog highlighted a number of investigations it has carried out into alleged abuses by contractors such as Atos, G4S, Serco and Capita, and said much more openness was needed if the taxpayer was to be convinced that they are getting a good deal.

“Two reports published by the NAO found that, between them, these four biggest suppliers hold contracts with the Government that are worth around £4.5 billion. The total value of all the work they carried out last year for the public sector was estimated to cost £6.6 billion.

“Despite this, the report revealed that Atos and G4S paid no corporation tax at all in the UK in 2012, according to the Daily Telegraph.

“Capita only paid £50-£56 million, while Serco paid £25 million in tax.”

But it’s not just about the tax they pay, is it? It’s about the quality of service they provide to us…

Ah.

Atos, aided and abetted by the disgusting smirking lying liar Iain Duncan Smith, has sentenced many disabled victims of its fit-to-work assessments to misery and even death through suicide. G4S is a byword for incompetence. Capita is fondly known as Crapita. Serco is a private sector giant more monolithic and less accountable than any of its public sector predecessors.

So, all going well then. Privatisation. What a triumph.