LAST MONTH I suggested the dire need for a saviour to rescue us from the mess we now find ourselves in and that this unique person might emerge from out of nowhere and surprise us all. Little did I expect this to happen so quickly and that it would be in the delectable, strident persona of Joanna Lumley. She had the Immigration Minister and the Prime Minister dissolve into quivering jellies when she confronted them in her support for the Gurkhas. She certainly gets my vote to replace all those discredited self-serving bunch of losers who currently govern us.
WESTMINSTER is rightly targeted under the glare of the public spotlight, exposing many of its incumbents as self-serving charlatans. Many of these members have a local authority background and have grown up in a culture of using public money as if it was their own. When the spotlight eventually moves on to target Town Halls, as it surely will, I imagine there are those who will be taking a closer look at their own claims for expenses. The council tax payers will catch up with these local parasites in the fullness of time.
JUST ONE QUESTION? Whilst our politicians are kept busy attempting new and devious ways of maximising their expenses by creative and imaginative accounting, cleverly filling-in the claim forms to sneak past the Fees Office, riding their sit-on lawn mowers, watching adult videos, changing 25 free light bulbs, cleaning out moats and travelling between their many residences – who do you think is actually running the country? It’s no good them complaining when the BNP have replaced them at the next general election.
THERE IS PRESSURE from some quarters for MP’s expenses to be replaced with a much higher salary to compensate them. Count me out of this argument. In the absence of a requirement for receipts, what incentive would there be for them to dip into their pay for constituency costs and not retain most of it in their piggy banks? It would rest entirely on a question of trust, which at the moment is clearly absent.
ANTI-ROYALISTS must surely be having second thoughts now that our democratic representatives have been revealed for what they are. For all its faults, the Monarchy remains the one constant in this ever-changing world and importantly, it doesn’t have the authority to take us into futile wars or rule on its own pay and expenses. This is something that sympathetic Republicans should consider before calling for a revolution and abolishing the House of Windsor.
CORPORAL JONES of Dad’s Army fame would have been in his element, excitedly proclaiming “Don’t Panic, Don’t Panic” to the threat of a Swine Flu pandemic. I certainly wouldn’t want to underestimate the seriousness of this potentially dangerous virus spreading from Mexico, but I am getting rather cynical at the doom-mongers who see threats to civilisation around every corner.
Remember the Millennium Bug that was destined to shut down every computer in the world at midnight on December 31st 1999 and plunge civilisation back into the Dark Ages? It never happened. More recently, the Weapons of Mass Destruction scare, promoted by the now discredited Tony Blair, in an attempt to persuade the British public to back his attack on Iraq and since proven to be a pack of lies. Salmonella poisoning, Bird Flu, Aids, BSE, CJD, SARS, Global Warming – the list is endless and continues to grow. And the common factor behind all this scare-mongering is that the warnings usually come from so-called ‘experts’. The sad fact is that many people are genuinely terrified of what the future may hold for them, yet when the statistics are closely analysed, things are not nearly as bad as the headlines suggest.
The human race is strong on optimism and resilient in adversity. Whatever is thrown at us, we soon recover and carry on undaunted. Remember Corporal Jones’s advice: “Don’t Panic, - Don’t Panic”.
IF YOU THOUGHT the cost of staging the Olympic Games and bailing-out the banks was bad enough, then just wait and see what the legislation to combat the Global Warming myth is going to cost us. At the moment it is estimated that every family in the land will be paying £20,000. Britain is committed to a bill of £205 billion to cut greenhouse gases by 2050.
The Climate Change Act came into force last November and appears to have been introduced with hardly any of us realising. For the past few years I have listened carefully to the arguments for and against and have concluded that this is yet another case for government taxation. My own detailed analysis is much too long to print here, but suffice to say, there are just as many respected scientists who disagree that we are heading for disaster, as ministers who insist the opposite. And on current form, it’s not unreasonable to disbelieve what politicians tell us. When you consider that one of the most vociferous lobbyists for a Climate Change tax on the poor, is that rich, hypocritical, self-promoting pop star Bono, then I refuse to take it seriously. And you realise the government is in serious trouble when that political pygmy John Prescott emerges from under a stone, in support of a carbon tax, to drum up votes for the local and European elections. With allies like this, Gordon Brown stands no chance and neither do we.
AT THIS TIME OF YEAR I search for a home for my modest savings, giving me the best return of interest, which is a bit of a lost cause at the moment. But I am incensed by the application forms issued by some financial institutions, which ask “how have you obtained this money?” Well I consider this a damned impertinence and a gross intrusion of my privacy – and am tempted to tell them “mind your own business”. Considering how the banks have ripped off shareholders, savers and now the taxpayer, there really is only one reply to this question: “I robbed a bank!”
WIMBLEDON will never be the same again. The retractable roof on Centre Court has finally been fitted and will protect this hallowed territory from the vagaries of the English weather during the month of June. Whilst this is good news for fans and players, I can’t help feeling a tinge of disappointment. Somehow, the on-off disruptions caused by a sudden downpour created its own excitement, with the well-rehearsed ground team hastily pulling on the canvas cover, advancing on the umpire’s chair before it could be moved to safety, whilst the umpire remained perched precariously on top.
Then there was the locker room tension created by the delays, which often changed the whole balance of a match with the favourite becoming unsettled. And the buzz of anticipation among the spectators that Sir Cliff may appear to give a spontaneous rendition of Summer Holiday whilst dressed in his bright striped blazer and sporting his eternally boyish grin. Time to get out the cucumber sandwiches, overpriced strawberries and picnic beneath the dripping wet plastic paka-macks. This is Wimbledon as we have known and loved it over the years, but has now succumbed to modern technology.
One person I suspect will be grateful. Sue Barker has done a magnificent and heroic job of filling-in for the BBC during these unplanned extensive breaks in play and her nostalgic chats with past champions have often been as welcome as the matches themselves. I wonder what she will do to occupy her time now? Perhaps Sudoku puzzles, or knitting socks for retired champions? There is just one glimmer of hope though, the 3,000 tonne £20 million sliding roof will take about ten minutes to fully close and by that time quite an amount of rain will have fallen onto the court. So don’t hang up your striped blazer just yet Sir Cliff.
WITH MANY PEOPLE wearing a face mask in response to Swine Flu, how will fans recognise Michael Jackson when he turns up for his show at the O2 Arena?
DID YOU SEE our beleaguered Prime Minister Twittering on YouTube in defence of his instant solution to the problem of MP’s expenses? He appeared to be stark raving mad and you wondered how long it would be until the men in white coats arrived to put him (and us) out of his misery. He has lately put on a similar performance during Prime Minister’s Questions in the House of Commons on Wednesday’s, when he sits huddled in his seat chuckling to himself as the Leader of the Opposition gives him yet another lambasting. It’s all very worrying. Although I’m not an admirer, I happen to believe he is a decent man (in real life), who has been driven to this unstable state by his devious, lying, posturing predecessor, having abandoned him to pick up the many broken pieces from the time he was in office.
Tony Blair now struts the world stage making oodles of money and pretending to be a good Christian. To my mind, he is good enough reason for churches to remain empty. If he really was a true man of God, he would volunteer to appear before a public inquiry and to pay back his ill-gotten gains into the disabled soldiers welfare fund. He might also spare a thought for the Brown family at Number Ten and in the name of humanity pay for them to take an extensive vacation, far away, which would benefit all of us.
TIME TO ADMIT my big mistake! Not normally a gambler, in a weaker moment I accepted an invitation to purchase shares with the European Lottery Guild, covering competitions in Europe, Ireland, Canada and Australia. All went well until I received a call notifying me that my credit card had not been accepted. As this card is in regular use, I suspected they had inputted the wrong number at their end.
However, this escalated into a spate of telephone calls – always around dinner time: “Hello John and how are you today?” enquired Adam, the over-polite agent with a mid-Atlantic accent. The calls always began this way and I became increasingly angry at their regularity and familiarity. Angry that a total stranger should be so presumptuous as to address me in such a familiar manner by my Christian name. I’m of the old school and find such false chumminess irritating, but continued to humour him initially. That is, for the first six calls.
On the seventh, I politely explained in clear unambiguous language that I no longer wished to proceed with our arrangement and asked him not to call me again. Unfortunately, he didn’t appear to get the message and the evening calls continued: “Hello John and how are you today”? By now he had penetrated my good nature and I told him in no uncertain terms to “GO AWAY”. The only problem now of course, is that I shall never know if I might have been the lucky winner of the European Lottery Millions!
THE BOOKMAKERS are predicting that Health Secretary and former postman Alan Johnson will be in Number Ten by next July. As well as Gordon Brown, I also find this very worrying, because I haven’t yet recovered from the despicable escapade of another politically ambitious postman. Remember how the last Leader of Bexley Council suddenly jumped ship to take a lucrative job with the London Mayor, after wasting lots of our council tax and costing us a very expensive By-election?
FINALLY it’s all over for Richard and Judy. They have called time on their once popular chat show, which for the past six months has been languishing in a digital backwater that few of us have been able to find. I regret their disappearance from our living rooms, as it was always exciting to watch them in domestic combat – often continuing on from an argument whilst driving in to the studio. She will be remembered for getting names and facts wrong and he, for the way he arrogantly slapped her down in front of the camera, unwittingly drawing the viewers and studio guests into their arguments. Not since Fanny and Johnny Craddock have we seen such verbal jousting on television. Alas, this is to be no more.
I have always been a fan of this type of magazine programme, from back in the days of the monochrome Picture Page, with Joan Gilbert and Leslie Mitchell. This was followed by Tonight, originally hosted by Cliff Michelmore, in the days of live transmission. On one occasion, I recall Leslie Mitchell interviewing a line of studio guests when one of them, overcome by the hot studio lights, suddenly keeled over face down on the floor. Ever the consummate professional, Mitchell carefully stepped over him and continued as if nothing had happened. The thing about these programmes was that they were entirely unpredictable and last-minute changes to the schedule kept them fresh and exciting. Let’s hope we have not seen the last of them now that Richard and Judy have left the stage.