If Gordon was a dog he'd be put down!
By Richard Littlejohn
Last updated at 11:34 AM on 01st May 2009The last time I saw anything like it was when I worked at the London
radio station LBC in the early Nineties.
Legendary DJ Pete Murray had forgotten that his morning show had been
extended by one hour.
As the newsreader was coming to the end of the midday bulletin, he
looked up from his script and peered out of the window, only to see
Pete’s car pulling out of the parking lot — the Great Man oblivious to
the fact that the programme wasn’t scheduled to finish until 1pm.
With the help of the radio vet, who was waiting to take calls from
listeners, the newsreader managed to hold the fort for the last hour.
I couldn’t help thinking of Pete’s senior moment as I watched Gordon
Brown start to wander out of the Commons chamber at the end of Prime
Minister’s Questions on Wednesday, after failing to remember that he was
supposed to be delivering a statement on his trip to Afghanistan and
Pakistan.
There being no Parliamentary equivalent of the radio vet to hand, Gordon
had to be hauled back to the dispatch box as the House dissolved in
gales of laughter.
When I took over Michael Parkinson’s daily LBC show, Parky warned me
that the pressure of five-days-a-
permanent jet lag. Dear old Pete Murray had obviously succumbed, and
after a few months in front of the mike I, too, would wake every morning
feeling as if I’d just got off the red-eye from Hong Kong.
So, although this column is not noted for its sympathy towards the Prime
Minister, I can understand how Gordon lost the plot so spectacularly
this week.
He wasn’t suffering from synthetic jet lag, he was suffering from real
jet lag. In the course of the previous 48 hours, he’d managed to fit in
Afghanistan, Pakistan and Poland on the way home.
That’s where the sympathy stops, mind you, because this was all entirely
self-inflicted. The trip was utterly pointless.
What was the Auschwitz business about? I’m all in favour of Holocaust
remembrance, but why Gordon and why now?
Like his wholly unnecessary jaunt to Brazil a few weeks ago, it’s as
though he is trying to rack up the Air Miles before the men in white
coats come banging on the door of Number 10.
He seems to be frantically filling the scrapbook while he still can, if
only to prove that he really, really was Prime Minister.
You can imagine him in a few years’ time, sitting in front of the fire
in some Scottish council care home for the terminally bewildered,
brandishing the book at his nurse and shouting: ‘See, there’s me and
Barack Obama. And look, there’s me and Nelson Mandela. I really did save
the world.’
Yes, of course you did, dear. Now take your sedative, there’s a good
boy, or I’ll have to send for Matron.
Ever since he was about eight years old, becoming Prime Minister has
been Gordon’s Holy Grail.
Eventually, he bludgeoned his way into Number 10, without a proper
mandate from either his party or the country.
Gordon didn’t care about the democratic niceties. The job’s mine, I tell
you. All mine!
Now, as he surveys the wreckage of his administration, he has to come to
terms with the fact he is not just an abject failure, but has become a
laughing stock. It wasn’t supposed to end like this. To paraphrase what
Norman Lamont said of John Major, Brown’s in office but not in power.
With no coherent answers to the nation’s economic and social woes, he
buries himself in a demented programme of displacement activity.
The backbenches have given up on him, and his Cabinet underlings are
jockeying for position until he is led away, dribbling and howling at
the moon.
While the country goes to Hell in a handcart, Gordon sits in his bunker
issuing insane five-year plans. He is determined to do as much damage as
he possibly can before the time comes to swallow the suicide pill.
The implosion of this Government resembles the Nazi retreat to Berlin at
the end of World War II. The bridges have been blown, the art treasures
looted, the cities reduced to rubble.
Gordon is huddled underground with his generals pushing models of non-
existent tanks and regiments around a giant operations board, seemingly
unaware that the army has deserted and the forces of liberation are at
the gate.
As I wrote on Tuesday, I’ve run out of invective. To be honest, there’s
something quite unpleasant about watching the lingering political death
of Gordon Brown.
I feel like a rubber-necker slowing down to gawp at a motorway pile-up.
The trouble is that while the Prime Minister lives out his excruciating
personal tragedy, we’re going to have to suffer this zombie horror show
for another year and endure the consequences for generations.
If Gordon was a dog, he’d be put down. Where’s the radio vet when you
need him?
number of work permits issued to immigrants.
Ministers say this will reduce the number of non-EU migrants coming to
Britain by 270,000 over the next year. Believe it when it happens.
There’s always a loophole.
Although we don’t need any more quantity surveyors or construction
workers, apparently there is still a shortage of orchestral musicians
and contemporary dancers.
Stand by for an influx of asylum-seekers arriving at Victoria coach
station clutching violins, clinging to the roof of Eurostar with one
hand while playing a clarinet with the other and tap-dancing their way
through immigration.
Who ya gonna call: Flu-busters?
The health-scare ‘experts’ are having a field day with their Doomsday
predictions.
One virologist, on the basis of precisely nothing, said swine flu could
become crossed with bird flu and mutate into an ‘ Armageddon’ strain.
I suppose we’d have to call that ‘flying pig flu’.
Meanwhile, every family in Britain is being sent a leaflet on how to
cope with swine flu.
Why? What a complete waste of time and money. We’re capable of reading
the papers.
Is there anyone in the country who isn’t aware of this alleged pandemic?
This patronising pamphlet tells us to remember to wash our hands, and to
ring our doctor if we experience ’flu-like symptoms.
Who else do they think we’re going to call? The AA? Ghostbusters?
Anyway, this mailshot won’t start landing on doormats until the middle
of next week — by which time anyone with swine flu will either have died
or, much more likely, got better.
It’s right that the Government stockpiles anti-flu drugs. But spare us
the wasteful, infantile ‘advice’.
Here’s another tip. If you do contract swine flu, you can always use
this ludicrous leaflet as a hankie.
* The Government’s defeat over the Gurkhas is a triumph for
democracy and the British sense of fair play.
I have always maintained that Labour has treated these brave men so
shabbily because they remind them of a Britain they’d rather forget —
one of Empire, duty and honour.
child-molesters than acknowledge our debt to those prepared to lay their
lives on the line for this country.
Well done Joanna Lumley, Nick Clegg and all those MPs who voted to do
the decent thing. And shame on those 246 Labour crawlers who voted
disgracefully to keep the Gurkhas out.
Yet again, I’m gobsmacked
On Tuesday, after hearing that sherbet fountains had fallen foul of the
hygiene police, I wondered how long it would take them to get round to
banning gobstoppers.
I ought to know better by now. Reader Clive Whichelow writes to tell me
that he has discovered a marvellous vintage sweet shop in Broadway, in
the Cotswolds.
It is well-stocked with pineapple chunks, aniseed balls and flying
saucers.
But when he asked about gobstoppers, he was told they weren’t allowed to
sell them.
You guessed — elf’n’safety.
Another reader, Mike Whitehorn, emails to remind me that gobstoppers
were multi-layered.
Once you sucked the first layer off, you passed it on to someone else.
And so on, until it was gone.
Goodness knows what elf ’n’safety would have made of that.
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