FORUM: Illtyd Harrington - ‘As I Please’

Published: 17 February, 2011
by ILLTYD HARRINGTON

Forward to a spring and summer of discontent 

 

I AM persuaded, as St Paul said, in those interminable letters to the bored citizens of Corinth and Ephesus. I am inclined to use the same phrase and the conclusions that I have reached about the cabinet of David Cameron.

In suffering from a severe and varied form of psychotic disorder, Cameron is “drowning not swimming” trying to play True Grit with two eye patches. A split personality, I think Dr Freud would conclude.

Clegg the Unspeakable wearing the mantle of a celibate who took the job of Eunuch at Number 10 apparently without reading the job description carefully enough. He now seems to be suffering from fulfilling the essential requirements of that position.

George Osborne’s face worries me. It seems to be in a state of disintegration, characteristic of Dracula in Hammer films when he is a forced into the sunlight away from the dark comfort of the coffin.

There must be somewhere that Eric Pickles the Secretary for the Destruction of the Environment can be restrained at the weekends. Preferably not a china shop. 

His mission statement is to complete the effectiveness of local government by ending it.

Sadly I notice too many Labour local leaders are complying too easily, sacrificing their virtue like old maids who live in mountains.

The essential services and community-driven projects are forced to slam their doors shut. This is the doublespeak which Orwell and others predicted. 

The government is preparing a spring and summer of discontent.

Then Ken Clarke on his way to a football match blows their cover. Mittel England has to brace itself for a storm. No Doctor Feelgood there then? Back they trip from the exclusive ski resorts handing out hair shirts. In my unpleasant schooldays I learnt one law of physics. Action causes a reaction – and now there is a rising wind from the other side, blowing from the people.

The letter columns of the New Journal provide unassailable grassroots knowledge and anger about what is being executed.

It’s affecting the most unlikely people. Chris Tarrant the Who Wants to be a Millionaire host flew into a rage about the ending of support for a club he patronises. I am not on given to too much exaggeration, but the Nazis made a bonfire of books. Our rulers go one further and shut libraries.

But the word SAVE is sprouting up like crocuses on thousands of protest banners. I even marched part of the way on one such occasion in, of all places, sleepy Winchester. Yet Labour doesn’t seem anxious to join the parade of the people. Surely it is despicable to accept the high fees policy of Oxford and Cambridge.

The student rebellion was the best example of political reality.

And here I wish to make a suggestion. Call it gesture politics. I noticed most council Labour leaders have knighthoods as they drily announce thousands of job cuts and probably facilities.

Can I suggest to the former leader of Camden Council Dame Jane Roberts: Send you sword back? The Beatles did it with their MBEs and it stunned the establishment. 

Remember the Chinese proverb. You win the battle in the mind of your opponent.

May I end with the sad tale of one David Laws. This is a parable which the good lord may have used. Laws made his millions in the City and his deep, unnatural, longing was to be a Lib Dem MP and he became one.

Gay, rich, with all the burdens and traumas of a Catholic public school but afraid to tell his mother about his sexuality.

As the coalition was formed he paced his room in a state of hypertension. All his life he prayed to become the Financial Secretary of the Treasury. Suddenly the job was his – a gift from the Gods.

As Eugene O’Neill would have said: “The Iceman cometh.” But this one had an axe.

His zeal was breathtaking. He ordered as large pair of civil service scissors and cut everything around him like Jack the Ripper tearing everything out.

He also insisted on continuing this wild course throughout the weekend. The welfare state was his object of hate.

Sadly he forgot in the midst of preparing others’ miseries one that was on its way to him. He had forgotten to be as prudent as he expected the rest of mankind to be. 

His mother was told the dreadful truth. The Prime Minister sent a letter of condolence rather than appreciation. 

The scissors were snatched from his hand and he retired to consider his future in his verdant French retreats.

I would have told him that the guillotine was invented in France. And perhaps he might recall it was used to decimate the enemies of the people. But that would be unkind.

A soothsayer may well walk near the centre of government crying out not beware  the Ides of March but remember the poll tax. 

It sent Thatcher into a paroxysm of anger as she walked toward the exit door.

There is one secret in the Cabinet Office. There is a doctor on call to prescribe soporifics as our rulers fret over our affairs. 

Perhaps the essential cyanide tablets can be used on the rats that can be seen scurrying around Number 10. 

You must employ your own soothsayer to contemplate the implications of those rodents leaving such a comfortable home.