I simply could not believe the behaviour of our politicians, knowing they were in the public eye, acting like children in the playground, even worse than usual. There was a ‘Ya! Ya! Mine’s bigger than yours,’ element that I found absolutely absurd, throughout the whole debate during Prime Minister’s Question Time. After the Prime Minister had done his famous U-turn, I would have thought that the point had been made adequately by what he had said, and that a dignified response would be more appropriate and indeed more telling. Who do they think they’re kidding, when they meet one another in the corridors I’m sure they don’t behave in this way, so why on the floor of the house. It is pure theatre, and as they are on TV, they seem to have to behave like students on rag day.
The thing that worries me is that I, not even a journalist, just a man in the street, have been pleading for over a year, about the very things that are now causing the government problems and forcing new Draconian measures. They have university professors, financial analysts, advising them, and yet for some reason they ignored the direction in which the tide was flowing. One could almost feel that they are governing on a hit-and-hope basis, rather than reasoned thought. We were told that the whole purpose of our finances being controlled by the Bank of England, rather than the government, was to bring about a greater stability. In my mind it was to shift the responsibility. We were told that Gordon Brown was a highly intelligent, calm and capable Chancellor, and one of the best we had ever had. I think ‘had’ is the operative word.
What I don’t understand is why, at a time when we have so many crises, that the Prime Minister found it necessary to accompany his Minister to a hospital, and stand there wringing his hands, when the Minister was talking. His body language gives me to feel that he is suffering a high-level of insecurity and is in fact out of his depth, which seems to me to be borne out by recent events, and yet another kite being flown, concerning Corporation Tax..
One of the things that the phantom election threw up, was how many new faces appeared on television, representing their parties at high-level. We were shown from time to time, some of the old guard advising the new, but now so much time has elapsed since the Tory old guard was in control, that there are few of them left to steady the ship. Instead we’re getting sound-bites which the politicians feel is what we want to hear, when, actually, it’s not hearing that we want, but action, and action that makes sense, stopping the rot, stopping the crime and raising standards generally. It was the sort of thing that used to happen in the past, but we haven’t seen much of it in the past five years, rather there has been a steady flow of kite flying, rescinding, legislating from the hip, U-turning, until the electorate hasn’t a clue of where it stands, has no faith nor trust in its leaders, and is drowning in apathy..