The Lunatic Fringe

One of the things I am really looking forward to in September is not my birthday.  I gave up celebrating them long ago.  No, what I am really looking forward to is the absence of David Bullingdon-Boy Cameron from the dispatch box at Prime Minister's Questions.  I'm hoping he will resign his seat and sink back into overpaid obscurity as director of countless off-shore companies and after-dinner speaker.  It was nice when Blair went away too though sadly (for us) he is back, but more of that anon.

Maybe Cameron could set up a foundation along the lines of the Tony Blair Faith Foundation. The David Cameron Home for Distressed Pigs has a nice ring to it.  It would be relatively cheap which would suit a man wedded to austerity.  And he could become a Peace Envoy too. The job of Special Peace Envoy to the Middle East became vacant just over a year ago when Tony Blair stepped down following several years of spectacular success.  Sadly that job was taken by some Dutchman, (bloody EU nationals, taking our jobs) but maybe they could create a new one just for him.  He seems to think job creation is the way forward.  How about Special Peace Envoy to the Islamic Caliphate?

The reason I started with this today was that I had the misfortune to catch some of the pig-botherer's performance at PMQs.  It had been a trying day as the Chilcot report was finally published this morning and most people in Westminster were trying to get their heads round what it contained.  In spite of this PMQs went ahead as normal.  I don't know who's bright idea it was to publish the report on a Wednesday but somebody obviously thought it was ok. 

During Prime Minister's Questions, Jeremy Corbyn asked some pertinent (or impertinent I suppose if you are a Tory) questions about the level of funding for deprived parts of the UK. I quote him here:

At Prime Minister’s Questions today, I asked David Cameron about his broken promises. He promised to rebalance the economy and create a Northern Powerhouse - yet, just half a percent of infrastructure investment is going to the North East, London is getting 44 times more, which has meant some communities are being left behind. 

He also asked: "Will he now confirm that the chancellor's fiscal rule is dead?"

Cameron chose to answer this and a question about job creation with a quip: “The only area where the Honourable Gentleman has made a massive contribution to job creation, is in recent weeks he seems to have come up with a massive job creation scheme of his own. Almost everybody on the benches behind him has had an opportunity to serve on the front bench. But rather like those old job creation schemes, it’s been a bit of a revolving door. They get a job, sometimes only for a few hours before they go back to the back benches, but it’s a job creation scheme none the less and we should thank him for that.”

Somebody in the past has obviously told Cameron that he is funny.  Laugh? I nearly shat. 

He also made witty remarks about the on/off Labour leadership elections, boasting that at least they, the Tories, were having an election and asking the opposition benches to put their hands up if they wanted an election too.  There was much sycophantic laughter from his own benches. No mention that the only reason they are having an election, and are preparing to inflict Mother Theresa on the unsuspecting public, is because he made a cock-up so enormous that it cost him and possibly millions of working people their jobs.  The Nick Leeson of British politics.  I wonder if Ewan McGregor will play him when they make a film of his life.  I do hope so.

He's so good he should try his luck at the Edinburgh Fringe this year.  Then he'll find out just how funny he really is and how good he is at dealing with real hecklers who have paid to see him.  Put it this way I don't envisage him winning a Perrier Award. And as I said I won't miss him.  I am a great fan of humour but occasionally it falls to all of us to behave like grown-ups. PMQs is one of these times but has become a waste of time. Cameron routinely ignores the questions and chooses instead to score points by making weak jokes in his horrible braying Etonian drawl. It's like a posh version of bullying in the school playground.  Still we only have three more and then he's gone for good.  I can only hope that Mother Theresa, or whoever, will approach the whole business in a more adult manner.  Cameron and Osborne seem to look on the whole thing as a game, a giant city-building simulation.  Well it's not, nor is it The Matrix.  The people are real.  Grow up.

Criticism has been levelled at Jeremy Corbyn for not asking questions about Chilcot at PMQs.  As it turns out it was the right thing to do because he had an opportunity to address the house on the matter a little later. Why would he waste one of his questions when he knew he would not get a straight answer anyway?  

The second unedifying experience today was watching a cadaverous Tony Blair spend an interminable amount of time justifying his actions over Iraq.  He pretty much refused to take any responsibility, but then he has converted to Catholicism so maybe he has made his confession and feels his conscience is clear. What a man.  We shall never see his like again (I hope).

I am delighted that Jeremy Corbyn apologised on behalf of the Labour Party for the 'disastrous decision to go to war in Iraq in March 2003'.  He stated: That apology is owed to the people of Iraq, the families of those soldiers who died in Iraq or who have returned home injured or incapacitated, and to the millions of British citizens who feel our democracy was traduced and undermined when the decision to go to war was made.
He was one of those who opposed it vehemently at the time, and I salute him for having the good grace to apologise for those who don't seem to want to do it for themselves

I'm sure there will be lots more to talk about soon but I'll leave it at that for now.

Love Tim xx