Why Can't Our Masters Take a Joke?
Our political masters and mistresses in Labour Lambeth are nothing if not thin skinned. Even a mild jibe in this blog to the effect that some of them are 'unemployed or unemployable' provokes a torrid attack from the only one of the 39 Labour councillors who failed to vote in the May elections. Perhaps the real message here is that in the world of New Labour if voting changed anything they'd abolish it, or alternatively order a 'burglary' at the home of one of their political opponents.
For sheer brass neck, however, there's none better than our Member of Parliament here in the south-east of the borough who apparently sends text messages to her lunch guests at the Savoy quoting that old fraud Aneurin Bevan's saying that 'nothing is too good for the working class' before tucking into omelette Arnold Bennet followed by sea bream. No doubt the single mums of Gipsy Hill Ward will identify with their rather more well-heeled (Jimmy Choo) fellow single mum who has suddenly discovered where Vale Street is in the A to Z. The Culture Secertary has also been known to fail to show up at her surgeries from time to time while entrusting them to a former Labour councillor whose standard advice with difficult problems was to say - 'go and see the Conservative councillors tomorrow morning because they will have the answer.'
The most remarkable thing about the Culture Secretary, apart from her insider knowledge of the Italian penal system and the Camden property market, is that in all her years as an MP she has never once called any meeting with the 12 Conservative councillors in her constituency. Here in the south east of the borough, we know of many MPs of all parties who maintain good two-way communication with all their councillors most notably from the right the late Eric Forth MP, that centre right stalwart of the Kennington Tandoori the Rt Hon Kenneth Clarke QC MP, and even the left leaning Mr Simon Hughes. Our MP, who comes curiously from a Methodist tradition like our former Chief Executive, also asserts that Britain has one of the lowest rates of problem gambling in the world while going on to advocate having a super casino. Methodist churches by the way marry divorced people, because I remember being a page boy at a Methodist wedding in Hull when I was six years old. Not being a betting man, however, I'm unlikely to patronise a cheek by Jowell super casino although like many people of my age I know of marriages and families that have been broken up by gambling and not just in the fictional world of The Archers.
Unlike our MP I have also visited the State of Qatar and I'm unaware, thank God, of any terrorist attack that has happened in that country's capital city as she asserts in her interview with The New Statesman but then geography is not a strong subject for Labour Cabinet ministers. I do recall many years ago working as a journalist in the Gulf when the then Labour Foreign Secretary Jim Callaghan visited Doha in 1976 and read out a speech by accident that he actually meant to deliver later in the day in Abu Dhabi. I wasn't there but the British ambassador Dan Mcarthy gave me the lowdown - the last I heard he had been exiled to Fiji to conduct a survey into the price of cabbages.
For sheer brass neck, however, there's none better than our Member of Parliament here in the south-east of the borough who apparently sends text messages to her lunch guests at the Savoy quoting that old fraud Aneurin Bevan's saying that 'nothing is too good for the working class' before tucking into omelette Arnold Bennet followed by sea bream. No doubt the single mums of Gipsy Hill Ward will identify with their rather more well-heeled (Jimmy Choo) fellow single mum who has suddenly discovered where Vale Street is in the A to Z. The Culture Secertary has also been known to fail to show up at her surgeries from time to time while entrusting them to a former Labour councillor whose standard advice with difficult problems was to say - 'go and see the Conservative councillors tomorrow morning because they will have the answer.'
The most remarkable thing about the Culture Secretary, apart from her insider knowledge of the Italian penal system and the Camden property market, is that in all her years as an MP she has never once called any meeting with the 12 Conservative councillors in her constituency. Here in the south east of the borough, we know of many MPs of all parties who maintain good two-way communication with all their councillors most notably from the right the late Eric Forth MP, that centre right stalwart of the Kennington Tandoori the Rt Hon Kenneth Clarke QC MP, and even the left leaning Mr Simon Hughes. Our MP, who comes curiously from a Methodist tradition like our former Chief Executive, also asserts that Britain has one of the lowest rates of problem gambling in the world while going on to advocate having a super casino. Methodist churches by the way marry divorced people, because I remember being a page boy at a Methodist wedding in Hull when I was six years old. Not being a betting man, however, I'm unlikely to patronise a cheek by Jowell super casino although like many people of my age I know of marriages and families that have been broken up by gambling and not just in the fictional world of The Archers.
Unlike our MP I have also visited the State of Qatar and I'm unaware, thank God, of any terrorist attack that has happened in that country's capital city as she asserts in her interview with The New Statesman but then geography is not a strong subject for Labour Cabinet ministers. I do recall many years ago working as a journalist in the Gulf when the then Labour Foreign Secretary Jim Callaghan visited Doha in 1976 and read out a speech by accident that he actually meant to deliver later in the day in Abu Dhabi. I wasn't there but the British ambassador Dan Mcarthy gave me the lowdown - the last I heard he had been exiled to Fiji to conduct a survey into the price of cabbages.
posted by Cllr John Whelan on Saturday, September 23, 2006
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