Friday, December 01, 2006
For Fraser Brown 2
In my previous post on the disability of Gordon Brown's son I was queasy about any attempt to lock the child's condition into a political calculus. Of course, Guido Fawkes has now done this - 'Call Guido cynical if you will...' Brown may be in trouble because of press interest in the affairs of the Smith Institute. He could have announced his son's condition at any time or, indeed, never said anything about it. So, Guido implies, this was a diversionary tactic, an involvement of Fraser in the calculus. I don't know and, in some sense, I don't care. Fraser's condition remains grievous. But the question does occur to me: how would we think differently about Brown if he had done this? One answer, I suspect, is that we would feel free to say anything we liked about the man and his family. Another is that we would shrug our shoulders - that's politicians for you. But, if he did do it, whose fault would it be? Ours, I suspect, for being the kind of electorate that is vulnerable to such easy manipulations.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
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.
It's a cliche, I know, but we do tend to get the government we deserve. While canvassing during the last few general and local elections in Ireland, I have formed the view that the majority of the electorate are morans. I know this is not a nice thing to say about such a large number of people, but most of the voters I encountered were ignorant beyond belief about who was running their country. But perhaps more worrying most hadn't a clue about what it means to live in a democracy. However, what they did understand only too well was how much money they had in their pockets (the Irish economy has been doing incredibly well for a few years now). As for our Third World health service, to mention just one disaster, it seems their attitude was one of, well, I'm not sick, so why should I care if other people are lying on trollies for weeks on end in overcrowded wards. Consequently, we have a cretan for a Prime Minister, who presides over one of the most corrupt administrations in Europe. And that is all we deserve. You have Tony Blair and Gordon Brown, who are hardly cretans. On the contrary. So what does that imply about the electorate in Britain?
ReplyDeleteMy apologies, Bryan, for the hysterical rant, dodgy grammar and poor spelling. I don't know what set me off. Perhaps it was the suggestion that Gordon Brown might conceivably have used his son's disability for political gain and also perhaps the news that the government here has increased in popularity by one percent. Cynicism and anger are a deadly. mix.
ReplyDeleteNo apologies necessary, Neil, I'm going through a rage phase myself at the moment.
ReplyDelete