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Well Readers,
After seeing "darling" used twice on
forums this week with a new derogatory meaning, I am still avoiding
my traditional opening in case anyone should take it as an
unsuitable salutatory address. I do hope this new usage is only
temporary, a short-term fad, and the word not in danger of
suffering any permanent added or change of definition as that would
be sad. However such has happened before to words, "gay" is an
example, where they have changed almost overnight. In this
instance, just imagine what such a change might do to all those
treasured romantic love-letters of yesteryear. "My Dearest Darling"
becomes a bit of a travesty when interpreted along the lines of:
"My Dearest Well-Shafted Glove-Puppet", doesn't it? One has to
admit there is a certain loss of endearment, but that's life, and
I suppose we must carry on.
Has anybody been watching The Blair Years
on television? No? Well, I am suffering it. Tony Blair's
television "confession" this week that, despite Alastair Campbell
telling journalists "we don't do God", behind the closed doors of
Downing Street it was much to the contrary, cannot really be news
to anybody, can it? I find it strange such "a revelation" has been
made of this, when it is very old news. Tony tells us he was
reluctant to discuss his faith publicly whilst premier for fear of
being seen as "a nutter". Really? He thought it would take God to
do that? I am surprised!
So what has changed? Has he now accepted
he is a nutter? I mean, in this mini-series he appears to me to be
rewriting history everywhere he can - he DID discuss his faith with
us at that time. Who could ever forget the way in which, after that
incredible Sunday morning television interview, the tabloids
condemned him for telling us God guided his decisions on Iraq?
Hallelujah! Glory be! It was a miracle! We had a chosen one to lead
us who God alone spoke to and revealed the truth. The weapons of
mass destruction did exist, it was a just war, and he was being
given the strength to wage it. Yeah, right! I guess that strength
was the sickly Cheshire Cat grin, those haughty eyes, and that
egoistical waggling head with which to convince (does it need
Vince?) the rest of us. No doubt it was God who arranged for that
infamous dossier to be sexed-up too! The Big Guy was certainly kept
busy, wasn't He?
One has to wonder: why are we being
subjected to all this claptrap now? Some may say these programmes
have been sanitised - I prefer: blatantly fictionalised! - but
whatever, they are about a bad time in Britain's history, one that
internationally many families won't want to remember, and which
are probably best left behind us. I find it all somewhat in bad
taste, and I am having difficulty in imagining why it has been
dished up now, so soon after we were pleased to be rid of the man.
Did perhaps Tony manage to convince somebody because he was missing
the limelight? Prima donnas do, don't they?
If anyone ever needed a reason why
religion and politics should never be mixed, this war that Tony
Blair dragged us into must be the perfect example. It is bad enough
that, directly as a result of this war which with a little more
patience may have been avoided, thousands of people died or were
mutilated, and that is still going on today. We really should not
be making matters worse by claiming God had any part to play in it.
He didn't. We know there were no weapons of mass destruction so,
if there is a God and He by His very definition would not lie to
us, we must make no mistake about it: anyone believing they were
receiving Divine guidance based on those weapons existing would
likely have been suffering some kind of a psychosis - in the
vernacular: they are "nutters".
Having a religion does not to most people
automatically make anyone "a nutter", not even in this country.
Strangely it often commands some respect, so perhaps Tony Blair has
been a little paranoid (a condition?) in thinking it would ridicule
him. Would anybody say Cliff Richard has suffered for his beliefs?
Of course not, if anything I think he has benefited. There is
nothing at all wrong with being a deeply religious person, it is
only what some people do with their religion that can make them
unacceptable.
When someone reveals they see signs, hear
voices, or find feelings and strengths are being gleaned from their
religion which guide them to do what others may consider to be
either stupid or bad, then that is when they become the "nutters"
to everybody else. It is not unknown for murderers to claim they
heard voices directing them, is it? Delusions are quite common, and
people who suffer from them may deserve our understanding, help or
pity, however I believe they should never, never, never, not under
any circumstances, be encouraged. When later, as they invariably
do, these people try to justify themselves to their critics they
will often appear even more weird and unacceptable. Whatever is
rightful and truthful rarely needs justification.
For any religious readers - and if you are
not one please don't bale out now, this will be short and
painless, I promise you! - I would like you to consider this
scripture that many might say could have been written for a certain
person:
Proverbs 6:16-19
16. There are six things that the Lord
hates, seven that are an abomination to Him:
17. haughty eyes, a lying tongue, and
hands that shed innocent blood,
18. a heart that devises wicked plans,
feet that make haste to run to evil,
19. a false witness who breathes out lies,
and one who sows discord among brothers.
Considering where in the world that
scrawny finger is wagging today, and the delicate nature of that
area, just in case this man's convictions should again prove
deceptive, would somebody please take the limelight off him? If not
for our sake, do it for God's sake!
Phew! That all got a bit deep for a while,
didn't it? Still with me? Good! It is time to move on: I know, let
us jump aboard Gordon Brown's elevator again, but I must warn you:
some of the buttons don't appear to be working. It has become a
seemingly one-way vehicle - down!
If you remember, last week we stopped off
at that titanic floor marked: "Insecurity and Incompetence", so
this week, passing the one for: "Military Funding Shortages and
Lack of Appreciation" without stopping off - it was packed out, and
promising all the excitement of a grenade found with its pin
missing following the devastating attack launched by five former
army chiefs who claim the armed forces are ignored by the
government, unappreciated, and left to run on empty - we have today
descended further to arrive at the floor which with all its
flashing signs and howling sirens can only be: "Sleaze".
Could this floor be larger than the
previous one we visited? It certainly appears much hotter. Oh,
look! There's Gordon Brown, but who is that stood behind him with
the dagger? Is it not that north-east property developer and
financial supporter of the Labour Party, David Abrahams? You can
see from his face he doesn't want to do it, but that arm seems to
have a mind of it own and he's having an awful hard time
preventing it plunging the knife between Gordon's shoulder blades.
It must be something to do with that £600,000 of donations
which are going to be returned to him - he'll have to pay taxes on
that money now, and you don't get much back for your taxes these
days, do you?
Gordon Brown's government, which I
suspect suffers some disability that prevents it learning by its
mistakes, ran true to form by repeating the mistake it made on
being confronted with the data-loss crisis - which incidentally has
worsened as discs are now being missed by other departments too! It
hoped to pass off the whole scandalous affair of these
origin-hidden donations as being the fault of one person, this time
not some insignificant junior but Labour's General Secretary,
Peter Watt, who doing the honourable thing immediately resigned.
However, like with the data-loss, the buck has refused to stop at
just one person. Many others are in danger of being implicated
including high-ranking names like: Jon Mendelsohn, the chief
fundraiser, and: Harriet Harman, the deputy leader and party
chairwoman - whose husband, Jack Dromey, embarrassingly is the
party's honorary treasurer. Some of them are undoubtedly far too
close to the prime minister for his comfort, and people are already
wondering how he could not have been aware of the illegalities - we
are, after all, talking about some of their largest donations.
Perhaps at this time the only one we can
be confident about not knowing of the irregularities is fast
becoming: Sybil, the Downing Street cat. With the purrfect alibi -
she doesn't do anything for money - this feline must think she is
living in moggie heaven what with all the "fishy" goings on!
At Prime Minister's Questions on
Wednesday, Gordon Brown arguably suffered one of the most
humiliating and ferocious attacks known to a British premier. David
Cameron went for the jugular, suggesting he was a control freak
with no control, a man whose integrity was now under serious
question and whose arrogance prevented him from taking the latest
crisis seriously enough. With a noticeable venom he added that,
frankly, the prime minister was simply not cut out for the job he
had wanted for over a decade. And just when Gordon must have been
thinking: it cannot possibly get any worse - it did.
Vince Cable, the acting leader of the
Liberal Democrats, came out with a joke that may yet go down in the
annals of parliamentary history as one of the most apt of the
moment. To an eruption of riotous laughter from ALL sides, he
nonchalantly noted Mr Brown's "remarkable transformation in the
last few weeks from Stalin to Mr Bean, creating chaos out of order
rather than order out of chaos". Even members of the prime
minister's "inner circle" were openly seen to be enjoying the joke
- and THAT, not religion, should Mr Blair still be interested, is
true ridicule! Gordon Brown, a shadow of himself, left the chamber
an insignificant fading grey man that day, with backbenchers
commenting he may have a major illness - and we all remember how it
ended for John Major, don't we?
Two internal inquiries have been set up
within the Labour party into Mr Abraham's dubious donations, the
Electoral Commission will also be investigating, and it now looks
inevitable the police will too - and that only months after they
concluded investigating the "honours for cash" scandal where,
surprisingly - including to those who carried out the actual
investigation - the Criminal Prosecution Service (CPS) failed to
charge anybody.
There are weeping wounds here that will
not heal for a very long time, and the chances of them proving
fatal cannot entirely be ruled out at this stage. The government's
whole future could be resting on what the police and the internal
inquiries find out, what remains (successfully?) concealed and,
should there be a case for the CPS to prosecute, who exactly is
involved.
It's a Hell of a ride, isn't it? I
wonder: has anyone yet worked out how many more floors there are to
go before we reach the "Great Inferno" in the basement? Of course,
if or when we do finally arrive there, nobody should act surprised
to find the guy stoking the furnace is sporting a humungous
Cheshire Cat grin!
"The Bitch!" 29/11/07.
About the Author
"The Bitch!", a weekly UK News Review
column, is hosted by the author and columnist Michael Knell. These
articles appear on the Blackpool Gay Directory website, but are not
usually specifically gay in content. More information on the
author: http://www.michaelknell.com and on the directory:
http://www.astabgay.com.
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