Parliament and all that......

I have been out of touch with all of you since last September, when our own, and dearly beloved, newspaper found that they could no longer afford to cough up for my words of wisdom. I am going to try and write occasional articles on this Blog, and it will be fascinating to find that someone actually reads what I write and replies. As you remember, I like a bit of controversy - but, if you argue well, I am always prepared to see your point of view - so get weaving!

I know that we are all full of righteous indignation about the calumnies of the people whom we have chosen to represent us in Parliament - but, just hang on a moment and put yourselves in the same position. Just supposing that I had stood for election and all of you had decided that I was the right person to become your MP. There I am, a new face without an idea of the protocol and within a matter of weeks I have been told that everyone 'but everyone, my dear' claims their allowance - and more.

I am not a prig, and like everyone of you (unless you are holier than thou) we all like a bit of extra dosh. So, I would fall in with the majority and learn how to claim for the special food that I had had to buy to feed the dog, who had become traumatised by having to move around from Bath to London. And then I would graduate onto bigger and better wheezes.

Unfortunately, you have not elected me and I have not had the opportunity to line my pocket and I could never have claimed for cleaning out my moat nor for giving the chandeliers their annual wash and brush-up.

Do you think that Tony Blair had some extra-sensory idea of the imminence of a recession? His timing was really amazing. During his tenure in office he was the white hope for many of us, until that unfortunate idea of invading Iraq. Would he have stuck out against dear old Bush if there had not been all those definite statements about Weapons of Mass Destruction - rather him than me, having to make such a decision: go to war and risk losing popularity and being very nasty to the Iraquians, or do nothing and get a large weapon rained down upon his electorate And then, clever chap, when his popularity was definitely on the blink and nobody seemed particularly keen on the idea of having George Brown as our leader, he hung on until the last possible moment and then - while everyone was still in spend/spend/spend mode - he upped and left us. What brilliance!