And I came back with a whole new Prime Minister.
Now, I did spend a few possibly delusional months, some time ago, announcing that I thought Gordon Brown could well be a good PM. I am no longer nearly so sanguine, partly because Brown tried to tax my underpaid little arse off – see the bit about scrapping the 10p rate? – and partly because I’m not entirely sure our marvellous fiery economy is layable at Mr Brown’s feet (I’m thinking, economies bounce up and down in cycles, don’t they? Well, make sure you’re chancellor on the up-bounce (and run away to Number 10 before it goes splat, the which splat you can then blame on the current Chancellor/ global warming/ the Tories)), and in any case, I feel a little jaded about an economy that prevents me from ever buying a house anywhere at all in the British Isles. And as you can see, discussing the Economy, stupidly, turns me into Bernard Levin. I promise to lock all the parentheses away in their drawer for the rest of the post.
Anyway, there was some cause for schadenfreude. I can’t be the only one who danced up and down in the street on hearing that Patricia Hewitt has resigned. I can only assume she resigned now because she knew Brown is not so much of a flaming eejit as to keep her on, and she may as well jump with some fluttering rag of attempted dignity clutched about her rather than be picked up by the foot and wrist and flung into the middle-distance. If only the silly bitch had had somewhat more dignity and buggered off in April. What am I talking about? I’ll allow Aphra to explain.
And I see that the departing Mr Blair is being wrapped in olive-branches, loaded into a giant catapult and fired at the Middle East. I was about to get good and cynical about that. But in Sierra Leone they see him as a hero. Northern Ireland also seems to have gone rather well. Nevertheless, Iraq is an unspeakable hell-hole somewhat of his own creating, which makes the whole thing soap-opera interesting, don’t you think?
Not too shabby a burst of developments for a quick sandwich-related absence, eh? Tuna, thanks for asking.
