ByRICHARD LITTLEJOHN 'Serpentine': Lord Mandelson 'represents everything rotten about our so-called democracy' The most odious man in politics has been transformed into Westminster's answer to Stephen Fry. The boys in the bubble hang on his every word. His sins are not only overlooked, but celebrated. He revisits the scene of his crimes, accompanied by a slavering posse of press dupes. Screaming Lord Mandelson makes jokes about his mortgage fraud. He flaunts his dubious associations with multi-millionaires, for whom he does favours. After luxuriating on a yacht owned by financier Nat Rothschild, he leaps to the defence of hedge funds. After immersing himself up to his scrawny neck in the hospitality of Tinseltown tycoon David Geffen, he announces a clampdown on internet video piracy. He cosies up to Colonel Gaddafi's son in Corfu and the next thing you know the Lockerbie bomber is about to walk free. While serving as a European trade commissioner, he accepts private flights and freebie holidays from a Russian aluminium baron and, purely coincidentally, lowers import tariffs on Russian aluminium. After being brought back into government by Gordon Brown, he suppresses a report into Brown using taxpayers' money to bail out what we used to call British Leyland, just days before the 2005 General Election, in a cynical attempt to buy votes in key Midlands marginals. He explains away his extravagant property dealings by claiming to have made a vast profit on his modest shareholding in a public relations company. Even though these shares weren't sold until a year after he allegedly paid off his mortgage, his convenient fairy story is swallowed by credulous reporters. They would no doubt have believed him if he'd said he'd received a postal order from a long-lost relative in Australia. When he tells the most outrageous lies about the Tories, the BBC and Westminster's village idiots record it as if handed down on tablets of stone. Yes, Lord Mandelson. Of course, Lord Mandelson. Three bags full, Lord Mandelson. You're such a card, Lord Mandelson. His every movement is captured on camera, like Jim Carrey in The Truman Show. Film crews camp outside his house. He is pursued on trains by panting sycophants, hanging on his every word. His witless asides are greeted like pearls of genius from Dorothy Parker. You couldn't switch on the TV last week without being confronted by his gurning, serpentine visage. Such was his ubiquity, I half expected him to turn up on Sky Sports, being asked his opinion on whether Liverpool should have been awarded a late penalty at The Lane. On his doorstep, reporters shout out: 'Do you want to be Prime Minister, Lord Mandelson?' It's suggested that the law will be changed to allow him to renounce his peerage and slither into a safe seat in the North-East so he can assume his rightful inheritance of the Labour leadership. No one ever seems to question the legitimacy of his even being in the Cabinet, let alone being festooned with titles and allowed to 'run the country'. It is simply accepted as perfectly natural that an unelected recidivist, twice forced to resign from the government in disgrace, should be parachuted into the House of Lords by an unelected, utterly discredited Prime Minister and proclaimed 'the most powerful man in Britain'. The political pack has abandoned any pretence of proper scrutiny, preferring instead the soft option of taking dictation. I realise that even by writing this I could be accused of being complicit in this nauseating flying circus. But someone's got to do it. Screaming Lord Mandelson represents everything rotten about our so-called democracy - arrogance, cynical contempt for the paying public, institutionalised dishonesty, an exaggerated sense of entitlement and the complete absence of shame. National treasure, he ain't. When the Government announced plans to encourage people to abandon their cars and walk to work, I predicted that it would spawn a whole new job creation scheme. Needless to say, within weeks The Guardian was running advertisements for 'community walking co-ordinators'. But it didn't stop there. At a time of mounting unemployment in the private sector, it has been revealed that town halls have spent more than £3 million over the past year on so-called 'lifestyle' advisers. These newly-invented non-jobs include a £41,000-a-year 'promoting healthy weight' adviser in Lewisham and a £19,000-a-year 'temporary mass participation' worker in Bromsgrove. Mid-Suffolk has recruited a development officer to teach juggling to youngsters, to 'improve hand-eye coordination'. Fife has a cheerleader and a 'teen funk' instructor. In Oldham, the council is laying on dance lessons, anticipating the fatuous appointment of Arlene Phillips as Gordon Brown's 'dance tsar'. Dozens of councils have hired staff to guide crocodiles of children and parents to school. All this is as insulting as it is superfluous. But a Local Government Association spokesman said: 'Councils will make no apology for actively working to give people better health.' Where did councils get the idea that 'actively working to give people better health' is any of their damn business, especially when they can't do the jobs they are paid for, such as keeping the streets clean and emptying the dustbins. Perhaps while they're at it, they will apologise for closing swimming pools; banning ball games in the street; for neglecting parks and playgrounds, turning them into no-go areas; and for selling off school playing fields to property developers. It was reported over the weekend that graduates of Labour's pretend universities are more successful at finding work when they leave than those who have attended traditional universities. What it didn't say was what kind of gainful employment they've found. Now we know. The Government has simply invented work for them. Most of them haven't got proper jobs at all. They're 'lifestyle' advisers and 'walking co-ordinators'. My piece on airport security on Friday touched a raw nerve. I've heard from many of you about your own experiences. Security staff tell me they are only following official guidelines. But is that really any excuse for confiscating egg whisks and subjecting middle-aged, middle-class white pensioners to full body searches, while a woman in a burqa strolls through without challenge? My favourite example came from a reader with a relative who is a pilot for an American airline and is fed up with the attitude of security at UK airports. Whenever they search him, he tries to explain that as captain he has access to a firearm and an axe on board. And he reminds them that in his secure cabin, he could also fly his plane into any building he wanted. A shopkeeper who shot four armed robbers in Harlem, New York, has been hailed as a hero. The police said he had no case to answer since he was in fear of his life. Over here, he would have been arrested and put on trial for murder and probably smeared as a racist into the bargain. A housing association in Richmond, Surrey, has told its tenants to get rid of hanging baskets and window boxes on the grounds of elf 'n'safety. They were said to be a hazard in the event of a fire breaking out in the block, as they could impede evacuation. I suppose, too, that if the building did catch fire, there is also the possibility of a resident rushing back into the flames to rescue a cherished cactus or precious pot plant. But what makes this decision even more bizarre is that the association is this year's sponsor of the annual Richmond In Bloom competition. You couldn't make it up. Plenty of response to my column about the National Transgendered Police Association, mainly from serving and retired cops. One email came from a gay policeman in Northern Ireland who wrote blaming the obsession of careerist senior officers with appeasing their political masters. 'I am more than capable of fighting any discrimination on my own, thank you very much. I want to be treated the same as any other officer, not differently. Thank you for outing all these ridiculous groups as being unnecessary, expensive and a complete waste of time.' Another, from John Small, a former shift sergeant who served 30 years in the force, said: 'Please give us a couple of weeks off. Not all police officers are useless, lazy or overly concerned with sexuality, gender or race. 'Most of them actually want to be doing the job which you so rightly define as preventing crime, maintaining public order and catching villains. 'The reason for my plea? I'm cheesed off having to defend decent individuals against people who regurgitate your column on a daily basis. 'OK your stuff is funny, hilarious at times and normally directed at the correct level, but please can I have a couple of weeks in the pub without some Mail reader doing an impersonation of you!' Sorry, John, but you'd better stop reading now. I also heard from a serving cop in Cornwall, where the police have just sent out a questionnaire asking prisoners to rate the quality of their cells and food. He tells me of a colleague who was reprimanded for exclaiming 'Bugger it!' after screwing up a report he was writing. His remark was overheard by a gay colleague who considered it to be especially offensive to homosexuals. And in Hampshire, PC Angela Smith has been appointed as liaison officer to Fabuliss, an organisation catering for transvestites. She also attends meetings of the splinter group, Fabwags, set up for the wives and girlfriends of cross-dressers. If John really has stopped reading, I'm sure someone in the pub will tell him.Screaming Lord Mandy's nauseating flying circus
Last updated at 10:19 PM on 18th August 2009
Walk this way into a non-job
Airport rules that are just plane loopy
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So much for flower power
The real cops neutered by transgender lobby
Read more:http://www.dailymail.co.uk/debate/article-1207265/RICHARD-LITTLEJOHN-Screaming-Lord-Mandys-nauseating-flying-circus.html#ixzz0Ohx89VCJ
Thursday, 20 August 2009
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