After No Gold Rush

Following the dismal turnout for yesterday’s “Rally Against Debt”, it has been time for those involved – or in at least one case, not involved – to make their excuses as to why, even taking the most optimistic estimate of the turnout, the event garnered less than one tenth of one percent of the numbers attending the March 26 “March For The Alternative”.

The one who was not involved – this after saying on his Maily Telegraph blog that “All those who care about Britain’s future should attend the Rally Against Debt” – was the loathsome Toby Young, who was taking his children to a Pirates exhibition at the Museum Of London Docklands. Yes, that’s a public sector resource with free entry for all – at the moment.

Of those who did turn up, the so-called Taxpayers’ Alliance (TPA) optimistically tell of “Hundreds (not sure about the plural there) young and old” attending, and list three speakers I missed yesterday: Martin Durkin (who he?), Mark Littlewood of the IEA, and self-promoting Tory MP Priti Patel, whose presence in London will have come as a relief to her constituents in Essex.

Moreover, the TPA’s senior non-job holder Matthew Sinclair said, apparently without a hint of irony, that “It can’t only be special interests who exercise their right to protest” and he is right: on March 26, half a million folks not being bunged substantial sums of money to shill for the overmonied, greedy and cowardly exercised their rights too.

And also making it up as he seeks out new watering holes (Surely “parliamentary scandals and other wrongdoing"? – Ed) has been the perpetually thirsty Paul Staines, who occasionally blogs under the alias of Guido Fawkes, except for all the times he gets his tame gofer Henry Cole to do the job for him. Staines, like the TPA, tries to make the numbers look credible.

Indeed, he tells that “a petition passed round gathered 400 signatures so the actual number is likely near 500”. Yeah, right. Now take out all the hacks, snappers, duplicates and any instance of “M Mouse”, “J-P Sartre”, “O B Laden” or “O W Kenobi”, and do a recount.

But he does make one compelling assertion regarding the day’s events. “The after party at the Westminster Arms went on till late” tells Staines, reminding us that, despite the laughable failure of the “Rally Against Debt”, he and his pals are still adept at working themselves into an advanced state of alcoholic derangement.

Fortunately, someone else is running the country. Might be best keeping it that way.