Monday Moan 34



Strip away the veneer and they are all the same

There are those who fondly imagine that there are different types of politicians; those we know all too well from the experience of many years, who are on the make, who get seduced by the status of their office or the power of responsibility, and those who are not like them, who have some scruples, who are not out for themselves and who genuinely want to do the right thing.

 

The dawn of the Coalition government promised a new beginning, with the coming to power of a party and a group of politicians who had not been corrupted by office and who had the opportunity to put into practice the line they had put forward in opposition – open government, honesty, acting for the common good.

 

How sad. How naïve.
 

Chris Huhne now faces jail for lying and thereby perverting the course of justice. Sympathy for him will be in short supply because he’s a politician, he comes across as arrogant, he has been exposed as a liar, and not just a small time liar, but one who has brazenly and repeatedly fronted up before the cameras to repeat his lies.

 

Yet, curiously, the other main protagonist in this sad affair does not engender any public sympathy either. We are not granted the usual luxury of siding with the ‘victim’. Vicky Pryce’s attempts to portray herself as the vulnerable woman, unable to withstand the demands of her overbearing husband, do not sit well with everything else we know about this hugely successful woman.  She is a highly respected economist with a great CV, working for top-rated private sector companies before landing very senior positions in the Government. In her personal life she seems to have a thing for men of some standing. 

What we learn from this is simply that, as we ought to have known all along, people in such positions are actually just like the rest of us. They have private lives that are as complicated as ours, they lie when they feel the need, they are vindictive against people who they think have wronged them.

How dispiriting.

 

Unloved politicians

Talking of unloved politicians, it was good to see Michael Gove so apologetic and humble over his U-turn on his plans to reform the examination system through the introduction of the English Baccalaureate and scrapping of GCSEs.  Obviously I am being economical with the truth about the apologetic and humble bit.

The man has form as far as the Moan is concerned (see Moan 3) but the thing that has really surprised me is that he, and it seems others, think he has been doing a splendid job in Government and that he is a serious contender to lead his party one day.  If it was April I would assume this was a joke but, sadly, it might actually be true.

Cue more sadness.

 

What an unjustified waste

Walking around our local Sainsbury’s yesterday afternoon about an hour and a quarter before closing, we thought we’d see what they still had for sale in their bakery area.  From a distance it did not look very hopeful as the shelves seemed to be almost empty, but we carried on anyway.  When we got nearer we saw that the shelves were, indeed, empty.  But it was also clear that they were only empty because the staff were in the process of removing everything that was there and throwing it into a waste bag, very clearly marked as ‘not for consumption’.

The staff were as bemused as the customers who were asking why they were doing this.  ‘Orders’ seemed to be the best way of describing their response to questions.  Yet the shop was open for another 75 minutes, and they were throwing away perfectly good food rather than reducing it in price in order to encourage sales, or making it available to a charity that might offer it to the homeless or needy.

What kind of crazy logic is at work here?  I have no idea, but I have written to the store manager and will let you know his response.  Maybe I'll be referred to their company values and environmental credentials - maybe they need to be updated or followed?

 

And another beef

Talking of food, I have difficulty with so many aspects of the horsemeat ‘scandal’.  

As a confirmed member of the ‘never touch beef’ club I realise I am on potentially shaky ground, but here goes ………

At the outset of the revelations I imagine many people were not only surprised to discover that cheap beefburgers contained horsemeat, but were equally surprised, and probably pleasantly so, to discover that they contained any form of meat at all. 

Since then the scale of the scandal (deception?) has grown to the point where even the French have started to withdraw products from their shelves.  Yes France, the home of horse steaks for the unwary British traveller, has taken the opportunity to remove some British products from its shelves.  Nothing new in that, really.

I am told that horse meat is safe, that it is quite tasty, but that it is virtually unobtainable in the UK (at least, under its proper description), mainly because we are a sentimental lot when it comes to animals and which of them we want to see served on our dinner plates. Horse meat is one of the few 'horrible foreign foods' left, allowing us to feel superior and civilised in comparison with those places that eat such things. France, for example.  Music to the ears of UKIP and the Tory right I expect.