“Never mind yon bus timetables you wrote about last week, Banksy,” thundered the good Farmer Morebottle. “There are issues of state still requiring answers.”
Well, you know me: ever prepared to selflessly give of my time and great wisdom I hunkered down with a pint and a bowl of peanuts and took questions from the floor at Young Farmers’ Night. This is how it went:
Old Bob: “Who’s representing ME in the Coalition Cabinet? Two thirds of them went to Oxford or Cambridge, only four are women and none of them is working to a manifesto any of us voted for.”
Me: “Well said, Bob; the Cabinet is indeed unrepresentative educationally and by gender. At the same time, half the population must be, by definition, of below average intelligence; let’s just hope the Cabinet is non-representative in THAT aspect, too.”
It is, in fact, extremely unlikely that Bob, my domino partner, would have been persuaded to cease exercising his drinking arm for long enough to exercise his civic duty. But I digress . . .
The Byreman (who has been gloating ever since the Fat Cats’ and Foxhunters’ Alliance won office): “Boris Johnson says the Coalition is like a cross between a bulldog and a Chihuahua. Do you agree?”
Me: “No. I see it more as a marriage of pit bull and muzzle.”
At this The Byreman exploded and headed off to fetch a four wood from golf bag to “teach me a lesson”.
“Don’t worry,” cooed Billy the Kid, soothingly. “I play golf with him every Friday and I’ve yet to see that four wood connect with anything.”
Nevertheless, the kerfuffle brought our General Election inquest to a premature end with important questions left unanswered. Such as: How will the Liberal Democrats of Thirsk and Malton vote next Thursday in an election that was delayed by the death of the UKIP candidate?
It’s a safe Tory seat where a Labour man ran second in 2005. A fortnight ago tactical voting brought about a national coalition government, but two weeks is a long time in politics and protest votes are all the rage.
Supporters of both ruling parties who disapprove of the unholy alliance – and there are many – might well vote Labour ‘just to show ’em’.
Then true blue Conservatives and diehard Lib Dems could really stand united . . . behind the red rosette!
THE High Court decision to grant BA an injunction to stop the latest air crews’ strike on a technicality offers just the precedent we need for a re-run of the General Election: not every voter was correctly registered, some people had more than one vote and hundreds – maybe thousands – were prevented from voting.
Or do General Elections not have to be held to the same high standards as union strike ballots?
I STOPPED a man on a train from bellowing into his mobile phone the other day by pretending I thought he was talking to me.
“Absolutely!” I muttered, when I could take no more of it. “I couldn’t agree more.”
His eyes narrowed. He glared at me and lowered his voice. But only a little.
“You’re SO right!” I cried, nodding vigorously in his direction and giving him the thumbs-up.” It did the trick: he scowled, mumbled a little Anglo-Saxon into his mobile phone and hung up.
The fightback against noisy mobile users gathered pace this week when the new Prime Minister announced that mobiles and Blackberrys must be switched off in Cabinet.
Why stop there? We’re quite used to wifi hotspots as the only places where wireless broadband works . . . why not jam mobile phone signals in restaurants and public buildings and instead construct pavement buildings, painted red with windows for safety and providing perfect mobile telephone reception for all networks?
Then we could call them . . . phone boxes!
First published in The Journal, Newcastle upon Tyne, May 21 2010
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