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Treadwater Time. We wait for Gordo. Gordo waits for Tone. Tone keeps waiting for some coup that won`t come. Like Dame Nellie Melba he invents new objectives – peace in the Middle East – save the World from Global warming – Beat the Yobs – Build the Legacy – Stop Gordon – as reasons for staying on. Forever. The people wait for change.
After a time – ten years perhaps –electors get fed up of a government. Grumbles and problems accumulate. They`re tired of it and trust it less. They`re ready for change. So if something goes wrong – economic difficulties – unemployment – debt burdens – war – it will trigger change and we`re out. Which is why Gordon needs to capture “Time for a Change” for him and for Labour. Just like John Major in 1992.
Then people were fed up of Mrs. T. and the Tories as they`re fed up of Tone and New Labour now. They don`t believe us. They`re fed up of corruption and constant new initiatives which lead nowhere. They feel we tricked them into war, just as Mrs. T. did into mass unemployment and economic destruction, all, like Iraq, to no purpose.
The result was leader change not party change. The Tory Party pushed Mrs. T. out. Tony went on a D.I.Y. basis as a voluntary act of Suttee. Then it’s time for the New Man, New Niceness, New Policies (remember the cones hotline?) and Bingo! Time for a Change works for the incumbent, particularly when the opposition was – and is – obviously unready. Then electors will opt for the devil they know. Nice John Major. Serious Gordon.
So Gordon’s best prospect is newness: new ideas, new man, new government and an early election. No need to nail himself to every cross of Tony’s, nor endorse every lunacy, from tougher on terrorism, to new nuclear missiles and more public service reform of the type which has reduced all our spending on the NHS to a litany of cuts, chaos, redundancies and closures.
If Gordon promises and delivers more of the same he’s locked into a declining curve and shoulders all the grievances and grumbles Tony has accumulated. We march downhill to a hung Parliament in 2009. Not the happiest of prospects for a young go-getter like me.
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The Grimsby Telegraph tells Grimbarians, and the world, what an awful place Grimsby is and what a collection of rapists, druggies, thugs, brutes, wife-beaters and criminals its readers are. None of this is true. But they think it sells papers.
They also provide full democratic opportunities for them to say, anonymously, what a large, useless, overpaid, geriatric idiot its MP is for allowing this social collapse.
When I was a young journalist I had enormous fun in 1974 when councillors` expenses were first published. So I can’t grumble at being abused for mine except that it’s all based on a mistake.
MPs expenses are high. But they don’t come to me. Should I refuse to go to Parliament or come to Grimsby and save on travel? Should I refuse to write to constituents or have no office for them to bring their problems to? Should I fire my staff – or pay them peanuts so there’s no-one to help with problems? Should I do no research on the issues of the day – the war – the CSA – the benefits system?
The raving lunatics who think MPs are there to be abused wouldn’t vote Labour if I were the Archangel Gabriel. So, at my own expense, I’ll write this letter to the Telegraph’s Editor:
Dear Michelle, Ma Belle,
I love Grimsby. I live here. I think its people are the salt of the earth and even its journalists have their good points. Me and Grimsby is the longest, happiest affair I’ve ever had. How about serialising this epic of unrequited love?
Love Austin. |
