Sunday, November 19, 2006
Cancel the Olympics 2
In my previous post on the London Olympics, I suggested they ought to be cancelled because of their environmental impact. Now that the likely cost has risen from £2.4 billion to perhaps £8 billion, the argument for cancellation would appear to be overwhelming. But, meanwhile, Mayor Ken Livingstone, with his usual genius for glib irresponsibility, has, in fact, sealed the fate of the games. Asked how much London taxpayers would now have to pay, he replied, 'I may not be here in 18 months. Any guarantee I give about what happens in 2012 is not worth the paper it is written on.' After some moments of reflection, I have concluded that this is the most vile, stupid, insane, arrogant, contemptible, disdainful, pissy, vain, cheap, disgusting, cynical, evasive, reptilian, low, creepy and - in the case of the last bit about not believing anything he says - true statement I have ever heard from a British public figure. Londoners with their sentimental love of all cheeky chappies will, of course, continue to vote for this ghastly, jumped-up little oik.
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A blog about, among other things, imaginary ideas - What ifs? and Imagine thats. What if photographs looked nothing like what we see with our eyes? Imagine that the Berlin Wall had never come down. What if we were the punchline of an interminable joke? All contributions welcome.
Bryan, you assert that our politicians are probably the least corrupt of any in the countries you mention, but then you go on a couple of postings later to rail (quite rightly) against Livingstone, using a list of words which could, I would respectfully suggest, be abbreviated to 'corrupt'. Corruption is insidious and takes many more forms than financial irregularity.
ReplyDeleteI sometimes wonder if a bit of corruption could be a virtue when compared with the simple everyday stupidity that many of our politicians seem to display. At least it approximates to something like business sense. And on a totally unrelated note: I see in the paper this morning that ex-Mayoral candidate Jeffrey Archer has just signed a 12 million pound book contract...
ReplyDeletePhilip,
ReplyDeleteOne other thing I find annoying about Livingstone is that he is not financially corrupt. There is, in fact, something rather pure about the man. It is probably why he gets away with what he does.
Bryan,
ReplyDeleteCorruption comes in many forms but they all flow from the same source. And at different times in history different manifestations are more castigated than at others. Having your snout in the trough will do for you today, but using the power given to you by the people to force the people to behave according to your world view will be classed as saving the planet. And using that same power to entrench your rule (by creating huge numbers of client jobs) whilst pretending to improve the NHS, for example, is seen as 'strengthening the public sector'. There is a host of other examples - you just have to look at nearly everything that Blair 'n' Brown have done if you want inspiration.
Livingstone may not be financially corrupt as you say, BUT, there is something morally corrupt about sucking up to the absurd Latino posturer Chavez (with the promise of cheap heating oil for the Dickensian mites of London), not to speak of his cynical abandonment of several segments of his multi-culti coalition (Blacks, Jews, gays) so as to suck up to the more numerous and organised Muslims......taking a few envelopes of cash seems minor by comparison.....
ReplyDelete