Curiosidade do dia

Conhecem o Count Binface?

O Count Binface é uma personagem satírica da política britânica, criada e interpretada pelo argumentista e comediante Jon Harvey.

Os seus manifestos misturam propostas deliberadamente absurdas, como limites de preço para produtos específicos, recuperação de tecnologias obsoletas ou nacionalização de celebridades, com críticas reconhecíveis à política real. A piada está em levar os métodos usados pelos partidos ao extremo: prometer benefícios populares, inventar soluções simples e evitar falar claramente sobre os custos.

Esta manhã, o The Sunday Telegraph publicou um artigo de opinião intitulado "Count Binface is no laughing matter. He embodies the sad state of our country":

"There is a line in Count Binface's manifesto that encapsulates why Britain is in such a mess. "I'll cut your taxes," pledges the Clacton by-election candidate, "and raise everyone else's." So says every party, if not quite so baldly. Politicians baulk at hiking the taxes that people feel directly. Instead, they raise the taxes at one remove - the taxes that voters imagine fall on others.

...

He promises to cap the price of kebabs,

...

Capping the price of a kebab is not a brave take on a glaring policy failure. It is what every half-wit who refuses to understand economics would do. If we did somehow fix the price of kebabs, the result would be a massive kebab shortage, because it would no longer be worth producers' effort to bring them to market. But unscrupulous politicians pretend that price rises are caused by "corporate greed" rather than by excessive regulation, taxation and money-printing.

In the same way, raising taxes that people imagine are paid by someone else is wildly popular.

...

Why have we, as a country, drifted so far from reality? Partly because we prefer sweet falsehoods to bitter truths, and partly because the lockdown convinced us that there really was a magic money tree. But partly, too, because our politicians are like weak parents bullied by demanding teenagers. They shy away from telling us what needs to happen."

Recordo Joaquim Aguiar... não basta censurar os políticos por prometerem; é necessário compreender a sociedade que exige essas promessas e castiga quem apresenta a factura. 

Esta semana, enquanto decorria o injusto clamor dos munícipes de Almada (gente que tem pão e circo queixa-se de quê?), li que o PSD perdeu a câmara de Coimbra por aumentar o preço da água para fazer investimentos na rede, li que o PSD, a liderar a câmara do Porto, tornou os transportes públicos no Porto gratuitos para os habitantes do Porto.