The Fourth Most Controversial Thing I've Ever Written

This quite startling outburst was written one morning early in 2013, as an impulsive response to an MP defending cuts to disability benefits on BBC Breakfast, in a manner that both should be beneath an elected representative of the public and appeared to suggest that he actually took some pleasure in the misery that they were liable to cause. I fully expected it to rub some people up the wrong way, but I didn't expect quite such a snotty and disdainful response, mostly from people who were essentially telling me that I wasn't to do anything like this in future and was to go back to writing about Chorlton & The Wheelies for free and for their personal benefit with immediate effect. It was also slated as "reading like teenage whining", which I have to say is one of the few occasions I've actually felt hurt, rather than annoyed or just puzzled, by a reaction to something I've written. Anyway, one particular tosser under a pseudonym decided to go on a rampage through all of the earlier posts making similarly smug snippy observations to the one that they'd put under this, upon which it was quietly pulled and the Comments box was disabled. And, hilariously, this was exactly the opposite reaction to the one that the thing about Spangles generated. Sometimes you just can't win. Unless you're a fucking MP...

People keep telling me I'm a good writer. As most of the people who tell me this will tell you, modesty usually prevents me from agreeing, and I tend to point towards others who I think are much better writers than I'll ever be. But it's certainly true to say it's something I've done a fair amount of over the years, and have had some entertaining - and occasionally unnerving - escapades along the way.

At various points I've found something to say, often with tremendous effort, about pitiful radio panel shows cancelled after one episode, TV programmes that were wiped over forty years ago, films that for a variety of reasons nobody in their right mind should be defending, and even an album I hate by a band I'm obsessed with. Today, though, I find myself without anything witty, perceptive, subversive or surreally satirical to say about the heartless and vindictive cuts imposed by a government made up of smug overprivileged seven-year-olds who have never done a decent day's work in their lives, and a spineless turncoat who won't stand up to them. On this occasion, the sense of exasperation and disbelief is so overpowering that I literally cannot find the words.

But I will. If it takes me eighteen million words, I will find something to say that will at the very very least give Grant Bastard Shapps a sleepless night. And - and this is the crucial bit - so should ALL of you.

So, this can be the day when it all changed forever. Or it can be the day when we all - ALL - started fighting back. It doesn't matter whether you're a politician in a position to actually do something, a celebrity who if they wanted could go on primetime television and denounce the cuts they claim to be opposed to instead of wasting their time crowing about being an atheist, or just some idiot making pointless blog-based jokes about George Osborne lying about ever having heard a Happy Mondays record. Speak out - and in your own chosen way of speaking out, don't let anyone tell you how you should or shouldn't be doing it or 'helpfully' point out how you're wasting your efforts - and speak out as often as you can. Weight of force is one of the most important weapons we as a society have. Be that thorn in the flesh of everyone who needs one.

You never know who you might get through to, and what effect it might have on them. True, you might end up just annoying a failed eighties indie wannabe by being rude about Nathan Barley. On the other hand, you might just be the straw that broke the camel's back for whoever looks after George Osborne's Twitter account.

Yes, alright, so the next time you look in on here, I'll probably be going on about Morons From Outer Space or something equally important. But if I'm not speaking out on that occasion, maybe it's your turn to do so...