And in other news this week…
Not to be distracted by issues of global importance, or frozen out of the limelight by things that matter…politicians and bureaucrats from as far afield as Beijing and London have been jostling for opportunities to be affronted this week.
On Thursday we had news that a team of Beijing Bigheads were upset with Buckingham Palace. Apparently the Queen over-stepped her mark by sympathising with a policeman who’d found their blend of whinging and posturing to be rather ‘rude’. Of course, her Majesty was merely trying to be kind to the poor man, who was clearly mistaken about the ‘rudeness’. As the Queen is well aware, the bureaucrats were not being ‘rude’ at all…like state funded pedants from across the globe they were merely practicing the essential governmental habit of ‘self importance' - it’s their job to be aggrieved. The good news is that the Queen inadvertently gave them an extra little something to be aggrieved about – let no-one say that the British monarchy provides anything less than good value for money.
Not to be outdone by this bout of irrelevance from the red team, the blue team got in on the act on Friday, when our favourite ‘Aunty’, the BBC, was attacked by a group of Westminster Wallies. These were mainly from the blue team, since our own red team are too busy being aggrieved with each other. It seems they still can’t forgive one another for landing up with a leader they’d only put on the ballot to make themselves look democratic. This is causing many to question the whole purpose of democracy, which surely has outlived it’s usefulness when it stops providing the ‘right’ result for those destined to lead, or at least those preferred by Tony ‘Bless you my son’ Blair.
But I digress…apparently the blue team’s fearless leader David ‘Eton Rifles’ Cameron has used up all his ammunition in the referendum debate this week. Alas for Dave, by Friday it was apparent that he was left with only blank cartridges when it came to firing the BBC. Rumour has it that he was forced to back down by his mum and the Women’s Institute.
Here’s the FT from Friday:
“The prime minister’s non-confrontational stance has long baffled those Conservative hardliners who hate the BBC, and who urge him to dismantle it. The corporation is, they say, obviously a ludicrous state-owned relic”
The blue team has surely been lingering too long with the port. If the BBC were 'a ludicrous state owned relic’ any number of frothing politicians from both sides of the track would have already closed it down. Any organisation that can continually upset imperial wannabes like Margaret Thatcher and Tony Blair is clearly not 'owned' by the state - it is 'owned' by the public...as indeed is parliament, though the government would dispute that. Alas for Dave and his ragtag bag of boobies, many of us would trust the BBC, warts and all, before we would trust anyone from the Palace of Westminster. David Attenborough or David Cameron…not really a hard choice is it? But the good news is that Dave put his own health before the obsessions of his colleagues. The lad may not believe in anything but he knows enough to realise that if he tries to close down or muzzle the BBC, he’ll have more than his mum to worry about.
And that was the other news…Saturday 14th May 2016...a good weekend to all…MarkGB