Clarksons Follies
If a week is a long time in politics it is an eternity in the world of political commentators ,whose hysteria over some crisis or other is within a day passed over and forgotten as the world moves on.
But even foreign readers may have had percolating down to them the latest from the Blair regimen which has produced something like genuine outrage among the British public
There have in fact been three incidents this week that have given Blair a nasty turn and although two might seem to be easily dismissed there may be something behind even those that reflect a deep unease
First,the Minister for Health,a woman,attended a nurses conference to present yet more wonderful money laden plans for the NHS.These ladies ,who labour so dutifully with only NHS hospital humour to keep them going-Good heavens!- You're over sixtyfive !-what are you doing here ?-you should be in the undertakers down the road!--Hoar! Hoar!Dont worry though-a few days in this ward and we'll soon get you there!-were not in good humour that morning and so badly heckled the Minister-one of Blairs most advanced pieces of female electoral ordnance, that she had to retire wounded
The second problem concerned John Prescott the Deputy Prime Minister who was caught in a typically British sex scandal when the tabloids revealed he had been(apparently) having an affair with his secretary.
Prescott, totally unknown to the world generally, is the large,heavy bodied, John Bull figure who is always sitting or slumping just behind Blair when the PM speaks in the Commons .
Eyelids propped open by invisible high tec devices,'Anti-Snore' activated ,he would appear to be-just- alive ,though only in an axolotle kind of way.Apparently however, even axolotles like sex and he has been apparently having lots of it with his secretary- tabloid photos proving it.
Only in Britain could the extra-marital couplings of a sixty seven year old barrel of lard and a fortythree year old woman possibly arouse any interest,though to the British tabloids, in sex scandals, any female under fifty is always classed as juvenile jail-bait (any over fifty are of course glamorous grandmothers)
Despite his title no one actually knows what Prescott really does.In fact in the commons his slumped lifeless posture resembles those giant rag dolls that eight year olds like to cuddle when upset and its possible that the presence ofPrescott somehow gives Blair the same sense of comforting security, particularly as he is known,as other embarrassing well photographed incidents have shown, to still possess a hefty right punch ,which could come in useful if the Conservative opposition eventually sensibly decide that the only way they are going to ever get power again in Britain is by crossing the floor en masse and literally seizing it by force...
Prescott is of course famously recognised as representing 'old labour' having been a seaman who climbed out of the bowels of Britains merchant service -and believe me,in those days they were some bowels-and with the gift of the gab and a handy fist made it up the union ladder to nearly the top of the greasy pole
His mien is really however more old conservative than new labour: having made himself 'comfortable' with his country estate and two Jaguar cars,his good hearted socialist ideology probably boils down to telling the butler to throw a few buckets of pennies over the railings when the unemployed are getting too restless.
I did in fact once meet Prescott, who I have always liked ,as he lurched wildly about, coat flapping, around the restaurant at the top of the Tate Modern.I asked him if he had been there before and he replied he hadnt with a suggestion that it wasnt his cup of tea with which I would have concurred.We chatted for a while and after much fumbling, he produced from a cluttered disorganised wallet full of dubious bits of Prescottiana a card showing he was indeed The Second Most Powerful Man In The Kingdom..
He did ,I must say look terrible: the bags under his eyes bright scarlet.....he must surely use make up on all his public appearances ....Politics can be a wearying, unhealthy game. I do hope whoever has any kind of influence over him has been able to get him into better physical shape Yes ,I like old Prescott.Take no notice of em John!Keep punching!
A rather unlikely physical appearance haunts the other spectre at this feast,the Home Secretary Clarke-or Minister of the Interior as they are known elsewhere-I will not describe it ,it would be rude, but his visage has certainly been a gift to the cartoonists.
Now however he is right in the soup and may not even last -despite a show of bravado-until the cheese and biscuits.
Apparently a large proportion of Britains large prison population consist of 'foreigners' who when they finish their sentences are 'available '( having in many cases been given orders)to be deported to their countries.It is typical in modern Britain however that I have deliberately used the vague word available because in a legally complex world
there is no certainty that they will be sent back,these matters having to be 'decided'by the Home Offfice which in turn may run up against claims for asylum ,and other things etc
Obviously bored with hanging on to these prisoners when they have finished their sentences and not knowing what to do with them while these decisions are pending ,several thousand have simply been released onto the streets to presumably rob rape and murder once again No record seems to have been kept of them and no controls put in in place.....
The British public is genuinely shocked at this incompetence and irresponsibility. Nervous at Britains violent teenage'yob'culture and concerned at increasing flows of immigrants -this time from Eastern Europe they are in no mood for more evidence of Britains sloppy tolerance of every kind of 'foreigner' or indeed criminality .
I summed up my concerns about this in a letter published on Lord Rees-Moggs Times web page in which I said:
This appalling example of criminal sloppiness and irresponsibiliy arises from the main and unique problem with Britain in that despite being prosperous and well run technically,at no levels is there the pride and patriotism that drives people at all levels to act in responsible ways that benefit the nation
Unlike France,the US and other advanced countries,Britain is a defeatist -not my business-nation.Only if people are proud of their nation will they always be on guard to protect its integrity
Britains foreign owned and operated media can be well pleased at their success in creating this tragic situation
I enjoy hitting the British media on the nose whenever possible but there are several other factors involved...Britains love affair with the free market for example....
The free market does seem to be roaring ahead in Britain in ways certainly unknown elsewhere.In the last few months America has blocked takeovers by the Chinese,the Dubai Arabs and even refused BA systems access to some of its military knowhow ,all on grounds of national security.The French and Spanish have prevented similar mergers.
Only the British have allowed some of their most famous companies to fall into foreign hands- Pilkington ,Pand O, even BAsytems has sold its prestigious twenty percent of Airbus to the Germans and French and soon no doubt the Americans will takeover the London Stock exchange.
These events produce a devastatingly pervasive sense that Britain does not really exist any more as any kind of proud national entity ,that everything is up for grabs and that 'nothing matters'
It is this kind of attitude that permeats Britain and allows civil servants at all levels to shrug their shoulders and let things slide. It is not helped by Britains obssessively politically correct attitude to racism that for example makes it apparently difficult for the Home office to ensure that immigrants to be automatically screened for TB even though there is clear evidence that they are a source of this disease
If foreigners can come in and roam about Britain buying it up,who cares if a few foreign murderers roam about as well....
The 'British' media continue their ceaseless search for ways to trash Britains image and demoralise the nation, using the usual derogatory terms -chaos and fiasco being always the most popular.These are presently being applied to the failure to complete the new Wembley football stadium on time-even though this is a privately funded project with loses only of real concern to the shareholders-and with the public knowing it will get ,in a year or so ,the finest stadium in the world, the whole project appears to have turned into ,well,a fiasco and collapsed into,well,chaos, all of which is cleverly presented as somehow something only the British seem able to produce
All this produces a sense of lack of firm control at the top,a sense of a complete lack of national pride and a sense of drift.
Prosperous as the country is and at the top of the tree as far as high tec adoption and innovation are, there is an unhealthy atmosphere in Britain today that many people feel emanates from Blair himself....Although this essentially reflects the malaise hanging over Europe and indeed America. It will be interesting to see what the next few years bring........
But wait...Why am I writing this febrile rubbish? I must have caught the defeatist bug myself...
The facts are (as Tony well knows) that in only a year or so the new Wembley WILL be built and blazing away,its gigantic searchlights visible from Berlin, the whole world under thirty, dreaming ,aching to stroll its vine hung marble terraces,a hundred thousand bare arms nightly raised and flashed round the globe swaying in that curious pop festival gesture,partly ectomorphic-whatever that means- and partly 'Please Sir I want to go to the toilet.....'-(no blacks one always notices)
And the huge Eurostar complex at Kings Cross WILL at last be finished and the new high speed rail link WILLl whisk new floods of tourists to Paris in only just over two hours with this previously run down area buzzing with life and vitality....
And if the Americans DO take over the London Stock Exchange it will be as everyone knows ,a poisoned chalice that will suck on what vital juices still remain in New York....
And if every other person in London does seem to be Asian Arab or East European ,well, the world is getting smaller all the time and it only shows that London is the centre of it...
And the new Iraq government will allow British and and American forces to be wound down...
And Tony WILL go out in a blaze of glory to take his place among the great Catholic saints( oh yes -hes got it all planned...)
No, you cant beat the pesky British who one way or another always manage to stay on top ...
But even foreign readers may have had percolating down to them the latest from the Blair regimen which has produced something like genuine outrage among the British public
There have in fact been three incidents this week that have given Blair a nasty turn and although two might seem to be easily dismissed there may be something behind even those that reflect a deep unease
First,the Minister for Health,a woman,attended a nurses conference to present yet more wonderful money laden plans for the NHS.These ladies ,who labour so dutifully with only NHS hospital humour to keep them going-Good heavens!- You're over sixtyfive !-what are you doing here ?-you should be in the undertakers down the road!--Hoar! Hoar!Dont worry though-a few days in this ward and we'll soon get you there!-were not in good humour that morning and so badly heckled the Minister-one of Blairs most advanced pieces of female electoral ordnance, that she had to retire wounded
The second problem concerned John Prescott the Deputy Prime Minister who was caught in a typically British sex scandal when the tabloids revealed he had been(apparently) having an affair with his secretary.
Prescott, totally unknown to the world generally, is the large,heavy bodied, John Bull figure who is always sitting or slumping just behind Blair when the PM speaks in the Commons .
Eyelids propped open by invisible high tec devices,'Anti-Snore' activated ,he would appear to be-just- alive ,though only in an axolotle kind of way.Apparently however, even axolotles like sex and he has been apparently having lots of it with his secretary- tabloid photos proving it.
Only in Britain could the extra-marital couplings of a sixty seven year old barrel of lard and a fortythree year old woman possibly arouse any interest,though to the British tabloids, in sex scandals, any female under fifty is always classed as juvenile jail-bait (any over fifty are of course glamorous grandmothers)
Despite his title no one actually knows what Prescott really does.In fact in the commons his slumped lifeless posture resembles those giant rag dolls that eight year olds like to cuddle when upset and its possible that the presence ofPrescott somehow gives Blair the same sense of comforting security, particularly as he is known,as other embarrassing well photographed incidents have shown, to still possess a hefty right punch ,which could come in useful if the Conservative opposition eventually sensibly decide that the only way they are going to ever get power again in Britain is by crossing the floor en masse and literally seizing it by force...
Prescott is of course famously recognised as representing 'old labour' having been a seaman who climbed out of the bowels of Britains merchant service -and believe me,in those days they were some bowels-and with the gift of the gab and a handy fist made it up the union ladder to nearly the top of the greasy pole
His mien is really however more old conservative than new labour: having made himself 'comfortable' with his country estate and two Jaguar cars,his good hearted socialist ideology probably boils down to telling the butler to throw a few buckets of pennies over the railings when the unemployed are getting too restless.
I did in fact once meet Prescott, who I have always liked ,as he lurched wildly about, coat flapping, around the restaurant at the top of the Tate Modern.I asked him if he had been there before and he replied he hadnt with a suggestion that it wasnt his cup of tea with which I would have concurred.We chatted for a while and after much fumbling, he produced from a cluttered disorganised wallet full of dubious bits of Prescottiana a card showing he was indeed The Second Most Powerful Man In The Kingdom..
He did ,I must say look terrible: the bags under his eyes bright scarlet.....he must surely use make up on all his public appearances ....Politics can be a wearying, unhealthy game. I do hope whoever has any kind of influence over him has been able to get him into better physical shape Yes ,I like old Prescott.Take no notice of em John!Keep punching!
A rather unlikely physical appearance haunts the other spectre at this feast,the Home Secretary Clarke-or Minister of the Interior as they are known elsewhere-I will not describe it ,it would be rude, but his visage has certainly been a gift to the cartoonists.
Now however he is right in the soup and may not even last -despite a show of bravado-until the cheese and biscuits.
Apparently a large proportion of Britains large prison population consist of 'foreigners' who when they finish their sentences are 'available '( having in many cases been given orders)to be deported to their countries.It is typical in modern Britain however that I have deliberately used the vague word available because in a legally complex world
there is no certainty that they will be sent back,these matters having to be 'decided'by the Home Offfice which in turn may run up against claims for asylum ,and other things etc
Obviously bored with hanging on to these prisoners when they have finished their sentences and not knowing what to do with them while these decisions are pending ,several thousand have simply been released onto the streets to presumably rob rape and murder once again No record seems to have been kept of them and no controls put in in place.....
The British public is genuinely shocked at this incompetence and irresponsibility. Nervous at Britains violent teenage'yob'culture and concerned at increasing flows of immigrants -this time from Eastern Europe they are in no mood for more evidence of Britains sloppy tolerance of every kind of 'foreigner' or indeed criminality .
I summed up my concerns about this in a letter published on Lord Rees-Moggs Times web page in which I said:
This appalling example of criminal sloppiness and irresponsibiliy arises from the main and unique problem with Britain in that despite being prosperous and well run technically,at no levels is there the pride and patriotism that drives people at all levels to act in responsible ways that benefit the nation
Unlike France,the US and other advanced countries,Britain is a defeatist -not my business-nation.Only if people are proud of their nation will they always be on guard to protect its integrity
Britains foreign owned and operated media can be well pleased at their success in creating this tragic situation
I enjoy hitting the British media on the nose whenever possible but there are several other factors involved...Britains love affair with the free market for example....
The free market does seem to be roaring ahead in Britain in ways certainly unknown elsewhere.In the last few months America has blocked takeovers by the Chinese,the Dubai Arabs and even refused BA systems access to some of its military knowhow ,all on grounds of national security.The French and Spanish have prevented similar mergers.
Only the British have allowed some of their most famous companies to fall into foreign hands- Pilkington ,Pand O, even BAsytems has sold its prestigious twenty percent of Airbus to the Germans and French and soon no doubt the Americans will takeover the London Stock exchange.
These events produce a devastatingly pervasive sense that Britain does not really exist any more as any kind of proud national entity ,that everything is up for grabs and that 'nothing matters'
It is this kind of attitude that permeats Britain and allows civil servants at all levels to shrug their shoulders and let things slide. It is not helped by Britains obssessively politically correct attitude to racism that for example makes it apparently difficult for the Home office to ensure that immigrants to be automatically screened for TB even though there is clear evidence that they are a source of this disease
If foreigners can come in and roam about Britain buying it up,who cares if a few foreign murderers roam about as well....
The 'British' media continue their ceaseless search for ways to trash Britains image and demoralise the nation, using the usual derogatory terms -chaos and fiasco being always the most popular.These are presently being applied to the failure to complete the new Wembley football stadium on time-even though this is a privately funded project with loses only of real concern to the shareholders-and with the public knowing it will get ,in a year or so ,the finest stadium in the world, the whole project appears to have turned into ,well,a fiasco and collapsed into,well,chaos, all of which is cleverly presented as somehow something only the British seem able to produce
All this produces a sense of lack of firm control at the top,a sense of a complete lack of national pride and a sense of drift.
Prosperous as the country is and at the top of the tree as far as high tec adoption and innovation are, there is an unhealthy atmosphere in Britain today that many people feel emanates from Blair himself....Although this essentially reflects the malaise hanging over Europe and indeed America. It will be interesting to see what the next few years bring........
But wait...Why am I writing this febrile rubbish? I must have caught the defeatist bug myself...
The facts are (as Tony well knows) that in only a year or so the new Wembley WILL be built and blazing away,its gigantic searchlights visible from Berlin, the whole world under thirty, dreaming ,aching to stroll its vine hung marble terraces,a hundred thousand bare arms nightly raised and flashed round the globe swaying in that curious pop festival gesture,partly ectomorphic-whatever that means- and partly 'Please Sir I want to go to the toilet.....'-(no blacks one always notices)
And the huge Eurostar complex at Kings Cross WILL at last be finished and the new high speed rail link WILLl whisk new floods of tourists to Paris in only just over two hours with this previously run down area buzzing with life and vitality....
And if the Americans DO take over the London Stock Exchange it will be as everyone knows ,a poisoned chalice that will suck on what vital juices still remain in New York....
And if every other person in London does seem to be Asian Arab or East European ,well, the world is getting smaller all the time and it only shows that London is the centre of it...
And the new Iraq government will allow British and and American forces to be wound down...
And Tony WILL go out in a blaze of glory to take his place among the great Catholic saints( oh yes -hes got it all planned...)
No, you cant beat the pesky British who one way or another always manage to stay on top ...
posted by Lord Truth at 10:21 pm
1 Comments:
You seem to have caught the "defeatist bug", here are a few points to help you out. The 'British' media is encouraged by the British public to trash Britains image. The lack of firm control at the top in Britain is killing the rest of the world since it was Britain that shrunk the world. Global has became next door and the LSC already belong to the Americans. The next few years had better produce people with a good sense of right and wrong else we are all doomed, that includes you, the British.
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