Thanks for the circus, shame about the bread

Published: 5 May, 2011

• JUVENAL coined the phrase “bread and circuses” in 100AD. 

The ancient Romans used to appease the working people by giving them cheap bread and spectacular circuses to distract them from the driving issues of the day.

Well last Friday we certainly had the circus!  Twenty four million people who watched it on television 

co-operated with the system. It is just a shame we do not have the cheap bread as well.

My only hope for the sanity of people in Britain is the thought that 36 million did not watch the joining together of two millionaire families surrounded by their millionaire friends.  

This week, in our street, neighbour number one had his disabled person bus pass cancelled (thanks Camden Council, approximately £500 cut in one year to his family), neighbour number two with a new born baby did not receive her maternity grant (£500 cut) and neighbours number 3 are having sleepless nights worrying how to pay for childcare for twins when the mother returns to work in July (£1,600 a month is the latest estimate). 

Please forgive me for feeling bitter, twisted and republican.

Let William Windsor try to support his unemployed wife on a salary of £35k. Oh sorry, I forgot, he will have no problem at all, he is a millionaire… merely by an accident of birth.  

How do these people sleep at night?  

And why do silly people who are suffering from vast and unnecessary cuts run around in the streets cheering their wedding?   

Please don’t say it brings tourists to this country. The French have a much bigger tourist trade than we do, and you know what they did to their aristocracy 220 years ago.

EMMA SULLIVAN
Address supplied, NW5