IS there any more treacherous month in the calendar than November? The whole thing is a cornucopia of casuistry, chicanery and calumny from start to finish.

Even the weather pretends to be one thing then wildly swings to the opposite extreme in the blink of an eye.

Perhaps inspired by nature’s example, we parasitical humans have elected to cram the four weeks full of every contentious and hypocritical event going.

First up we have bonfire night, the annual display of mass arson and amateur explosives that falls each year on the fifth.

There’s even a rhyme: “Remember, remember the fifth of November,” although no-one really does.

Whatever your views on Guy Fawkes and the gunpowder plot — freedom fighters or terrorists — martyrs or deluded extremists — the fact remains they were men of conviction who gave their lives for what they believed was a cause that would make the world a better place.

But we live in a more civilised, enlightened society this days I hear some people cry.

Oh really? Because let’s face it in an age where the twin threats of global environmental destruction and religious extremism are more real than ever nothing says an enlightened society more than sending thousands of tons of carbon into the atmosphere and burning a Catholic in effigy each year.

Well done, Britain!

And speaking of such jingoistic outpourings, November of course also contains, as we witnessed last weekend, Remembrance Sunday.

Where for the space of several weeks the people of Britain commemorate those who died to protect our freedoms (and empire) by vilifying and attacking anyone with the temerity to choose not to wear a poppy as disrespectful and unpatriotic.

Hmmm… I think they may be slightly missing the point.

This column has nothing but respect and sympathy for those young men and women sent to their deaths in the colonial land-grab and industrial-scale slaughter that was WWI, and the very real fight against fascism in WWII.

But it has been a long time since that was what Remembrance Sunday was about.

It has become charity under false pretences enforced with menaces.

If anyone doubts this I would merely point out that last year was marked with a “celebration” of the start of WWI — not the end.

If our politicians and military top brass really cared about remembering the fallen from the two world wars, they wouldn’t be so rabidly gung-ho about jumping feet-first into every conflict going and, if there aren’t any suitable ones in progress, manufacturing one.

“Dulce et decorum est pro patria mori”?

Wilfred Owen nailed that one 100 years ago.

It seems to be taking the pols and bigwigs a trifle longer however.

Maybe if it was them doing the dying not the squaddies in the trenches they might not be so gleeful in their warmongering.

Moving on, yet continuing with the theme of specious charitable events. In recent years we have witnessed the rise of the smug self-satisfaction of Stoptober and the thankfully brief reign of Movember — the one month of the year when hipsters were not the only facetious gits sporting ludicrous facial hair.

Can I take a moment to hopefully resolve this issue once and for all?

Strutting around with a vintage phone sporting a handlebar moustache Salvador Dali would have been embarrassed to be seen with and wearing trousers that end six inches above your ankles IS NOT an ironic comment on ANYTHING.

It merely shows the world that you are indeed the pretentious arsehole everyone else knew you were in the first place.

If these Trustifarian tits truly wished to make an ironic comment they wouldn’t wear tiny trilbies but a bucket of excrement symbolising the fact that their heads are permanently lodged up their own fundaments.

Sadly the welcome demise of Movember has led to the creation of a new sloganised campaign: “Do as I say not as I do-vember.”

This was graphically illustrated this week in two spectacular incidents.

First, you will no doubt be aware that on Sunday so-called Labour MP Simon Danczuk appeared to get more excited about the precise angle of Jeremy Corbyn’s bow at the Cenotaph than Pythagoras ever did about triangles.

Corbyn had shown huge disrespect the right-wing cuckoo claimed, despite the fact that he had shown decorum and respect over and above the call of duty.

It was unfortunate for Danczuk then, that on Wednesday at the 11th hour of the 11th day of the 11th month, when the vast majority fell silent to commemorate the dead, he chose that precise moment to take to Twitter and share the vital news that he’d just been out jogging.

A shocking lack of respect indeed.

Not to be outdone, who should also fall foul of unfortunate correspondence this week but David Cameron, whom it emerged had written to Oxfordshire Council to complain about the effect of the cuts in his Witney constituency.

As farcical mendacity and idiocy goes this takes some beating.

The Prime Minister of the country complaining about the cuts his government has ruthlessly and ideologically imposed because it has finally dawned on him that they’ll affect him and his electorate too.

But it got worse. The leaked letter revealed that he effectively offered to use his position as a local MP to wangle mates-rates for the Tory-led council.

So to recap this is the PRIME MINISTER, who barely lifted a finger to prevent thousands of steel workers in the North losing their jobs and being thrown on the scrap heap, offering his personal services to help out one of the most affluent councils in Britain because it happens to cover his constituency.

They say charity begins at home but this is ridiculous.