A valediction

Just a couple of odes tonight.

The first, dedicated to Blair's Babes, some of whom have betrayed every good woman (and man) who voted for them, because in the end they behaved like the sort of men they always claimed to be superior to:

She smashed her way through the glass ceiling,

and she jumped some impossible fences,

but Babe though she was,

She tripped up, becos

of the lure of enormous expenses.

And the second, to the holder of the most dignified and respected seat in the House of Commons, the Speaker - impartial; wise; - and, oh bugger it, he is the worst Speaker for 400 years and a disgrace to all good and thinking Glaswegians and people of humble origins in general, and how he survived this long is anybody's guess. It was he, you will recall, who wanted to bring the police in - not to identify those MPs who have been lining their pockets (though within the rules, I have to say, ho-ho-ho) at the expense of us pensioners and other trusting but dumb voters, but to find the whistleblower who had dared to reveal all the the Daily Telegraph.  The moral vacuum occupied by him and MPs in general - any one of whom could have exposed this crooked little expenses racket, because they all knew it was going on, even if they weren't part of it, but didn't - is what the Archbishop of Canterbury could have addressed - but didn't.

The truly appalling thing is that they genuinely don't understand why their behaviour has aroused such anger and resentment.  They are insulated from the real world of minimal pensions, inadequate health care, bad neighbours, muggings, no-go areas and dog-shit. They thought they weren't being paid enough, so they invented an expenses system that would give them what they wanted but would be out of the sight of the people who voted them into office.  

But our anger about the Westminster expenses fiddle isn't only about money, but about trust - not in our elected representatives as people, but in the system that we used to call democracy. Now, it seems, public service, to the Sunday-shopping, Sunday football generation of MPs and MEPs, is not what they can give, but what they can grab. It is our trust in the system of electoral representation that has been shattered, and for them to hope that they can get the bobbies in to pull up the portcullis before anyone notices is a hope too far. The emperor has been revealed, and he is all pink and pathetic in his birthday suit.

So an ode for him who presided over this mess and was complicit in it:

"It's a tairrrible thing", said the Speaker,

"And I still blame it all on that leaker -

Ma hoose ran, by Jiminy, 

on sleaze, graft and simony -

but ma future noo could'nae be bleaker."