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Scritti Politti

I read somewhere that politics is always a good career choice for men and women of a certain class who probably would not achieve much in the real world. Looking across the main UK parties there is a lot of evidence for this and from time to time it can yield strange results. Cameron and Clegg both look and sound like a couple of used Bentley salesmen hovering and hoping to make a deal, plus a Foreign Secretary, wounded by his own behaviours who cant get stranded Brits out of North Africa. (Clegg has stayed in touch with the rest of the world whilst running the UK from the safety of a Swiss ski holiday chalet. As Libya collapses, he has his Blackberry with him and it’s fully charged up by all accounts). The Chancellor meanwhile seems to have little or no grasp of primary school arithmetic or Standard Grade Economics. He will be, in his own words be, “judged by the figures”. This current parade of arrogance, ignorance and indifference is nothing new, Labour’s crop of full time, battery bred, party members were/are no better. It’s just that the Tory-Boy coalition who grin from the front benches are even more divorced from reality and frankly much easier to dislike. Maybe it will be better once they learn to synch their diaries.

One of the big problems you have to face up to as you get older is the constant stream of younger people (mainly in the media and politics) expressing opinions and wielding power without the benefit of age or experience or, worst of all, a balanced view of the world. When you’ve been on one revolution of the roundabout you’ve seen the scenery once, when you’ve been round it a dozen times you pretty much know where everything is and what it looks like, you might even know what’s coming up next. The trouble is by that time you’ve stopped bothering about the actual ride, you’re a bit dizzy, you’re looking at the other riders thinking how peculiar they look and you realise how uncomfortable the seating is - those pesky upstarts on their first go have no idea that this is going to happen to them. They’re still thinking about the bonus they’ll get when they sell their next Bentley. Thankfully most people younger than me (?) but outside of politics and the media seem pretty sensible, what is it about these areas?

I wonder what the Bentley Boys will do with Colonel Gaddafi’s numerous UK assets, houses, business interests and network of royal and political toady’s? (The FT, Penguin Books, properties in Central London and numerous off-shore accounts administered with UK expertise). They could of course be confiscated, sold and the dictator’s family wealth redistributed back to the poor people of Libya and whatever (hopefully stable) government eventually rises there. That probably wont happen though as a small secret army of lawyers, accountants and international bankers will already be in full contingency mode siphoning and making safe the Libyan funds and maybe one day, as part of the pay-off/squirreling exercise and wider settlements some more Bentleys will be sold on. Money doesn’t talk, it swears.

This weeks winning Lottery numbers are…oops, missed them again. Just to clarify my own position here I do not own a Bentley and I never even been inside one, however I have been on numerous roundabouts, merry go rounds and fairground rides.