White Van Manifesto – The Reality

The Murdoch Sun is hidden away behind a paywall, but several people have screen shotted enough of today’s paper (see how that works, Rupe?) for us to be able to assess the “Danifesto” proposed by Dan Ware, the 37 year old self-employed car dealer and cage fighter. And the conclusion is, whisper it quietly, that any politician advocating Ware’s measures would be torn apart by the press.

Dan starts with benefits: “Work for four years after you leave school before you can claim benefits”. While this sounds laudable, the thought enters that this requires jobs to be available, or, if you’re prepared to go self-employed, there to be work for you to do. And what happens to those who want to better themselves by attending University or by doing other full-time training?

But then we come to the main event, Immigration: “Copy the Aussies. If people show up uninvited, send them back”. And, as Jon Stewart might have said, two things here. Showing up uninvited was exactly what Ware did at Emily Thornberry’s house yesterday. And “sending them back” could come straight from a 1960s National Front manifesto – or a more modern BNP one.

Still, onwards and, er, onwards, eh? Next up is Transport. “Public transport costs are too high. More investment in roads too”. Fine. Then someone has to pay for it – and that means paying more in tax. Same goes for Justice, where Dan tells “Tougher sentences for murderers. And jail those who burn the poppy”. So he wants to send more people to jail, and for longer. Do go on.

Education does not escape his gaze: “Better discipline. Kids are too mouthy now, not like when we had the cane”. So he’s not fussed about teaching standards, he just wants children to do as they’re sodding well told, on pain of having the crap beaten out of them. And all that discipline will mean more money being spent on schools – assuming there is to be some teaching as well.

So then we come to Taxes: “A killer for self-employed people like me. Start-ups need more breaks”. Hello Dan from another self-employed person – where do you think the cheaper public transport, roads investment, more prison places, and more money for all that school discipline, will come from? A magic money tree?

One more thought enters: that the unsuspecting Dan Ware has been had for a mug by Rupe’s downmarket troops at the Sun. If the Murdoch poodles are happy to back someone who said “I will continue to fly the flags – I don’t care who it pisses off. I know there is a lot of ethnic minorities that don’t like it”, and “send them back”, then they should stop hiding behind him and say so openly.

Dan Ware has been used as a performing freak show by the Sun. When he finds out, as the saying goes, he’ll be mad as hell. But it will be too late by then.