Tuesday, June 02, 2009

Lay on, Macduff

Being innocent - like, probably, Alistair Darling - is no protection in these evil times. True to his thuggish, tribal ways, Brown looks likely to use the non-expenses story to sack his Chancellor and install the thuggish, tribal Balls. Or Darling is guilty. I don't know. My instinct is that he's been Brown's fall guy from day one of his chancellorship. Meanwhile, check out the face of Peter Mandelson. Wrecked, I'd say. The irony is that this 'mastermind' of political virtuality is now about the only member of the Cabinet who is actually dealing with something real in the shape of the car industry - he has sound instincts on this matter and precisely zero power to do anything about it. I'd guess he told Brown not to appear in public and the Deluded One decided that must mean he should appear at every opportunity, flaunting his Prestbyterian conscience and worrying about Susan Boyle - some cognitive dissonance there I would have thought. It's like the last days of the Hapsburgs or Hitler or Saddam Hussein or somebody. I am no historian. Macbeth, perhaps, with Blair as Banquo or Duncan. This makes the times, though evil, interesting. What matters now is the condition of Alan 'Macduff' Johnson's soul - iron or rubber? It's the one big chance he will have in his political career. Grab it, Al, get the thugs out of our lives. 'Tomorrow, and tomorrow, and tomorrow...'

5 comments:

  1. Or teflon. I don't know about Postman Al as leader - scout leader perhaps - he's the sort of PM we'd get in a Richard Curtis movie when Hugh Grant wasn't available. A shoe in for Bill Nighy.

    Balls a thug? I'll have to think about that one. He looks like a clown without his make-up - not one out of costume but one who's absent-mindedly bypassed the dressing room... But what do I know! We'll see.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Yes, Johnson, and 'twere well it were done quickly (or at least 'by June').

    ReplyDelete
  3. It will be done on Friday. Fingers crossed now!

    ReplyDelete
  4. Yes, we are about to watch yet another episode of "Britain's Got Torment". With luck the off his head of state recovery suite is being prepared right now, its walls a pleasing shade of dark dull grey lined with shelves of exceptionally dense and turgid economic textbooks. It seems like the last days of an obscure Paraguayan presidential dynasty. The real action in the world is just about anywhere else.

    But Alan Johnson could go from Macduff to Macfluff in a single headline. He must be staring hard at a big scary emptiness right now. I hope he comes through. He sounds a good bloke.

    ReplyDelete
  5. Best comment seen by a parliamentary sketchwriter this year was Simon Carr on 28th April: "Balls was talking eponymously ..."

    ReplyDelete