Monday Moan 35

 

OK, so we backed him when he was a winner, but now ……

Ed Miliband made his way up through the ranks of Labour Party as a close advisor, both economic and political, to Gordon Brown. He was a special advisor to Brown from 1997-2002 and after a period in the USA, was appointed by Brown as Chairman of the Treasury’s Council of Economic Advisors.  After getting elected to a safe Labour seat in 2005, Miliband found himself appointed to the Cabinet by Brown in 2007.

Ed Balls was another economic advisor, political advisor and, alongside Miliband, cheerleader for Gordon Brown in the latter’s long-running battle to oust and then replace Tony Blair in the Prime Minister’s office. Balls had been Chairman of the Treasury’s Council of Economic Advisors prior to Ed Miliband being appointed to that role.  Like Miliband, Balls was rewarded with a Cabinet position once Brown became Prime Minister.

 

That was then, but life moves on and the political world allows anybody to denounce their previous friends and their previous positions if it appears opportune to do so. Thus, Miliband and Balls have now been able to promise to reintroduce the 10p tax band, originally introduced and then scrapped in the Budget of 2007 by Gordon Brown.  In making their policy announcement, Miliband and Balls did not hold back in their criticism of Brown and his decision to scrap the rate – conveniently forgetting their own positions at the time as Labour Ministers.

 
With friends like this ……….

 

Breaking news ……… 85 year-old man decides to retire

I tread carefully here, of course, but isn’t there something odd about expecting a man to take on a position which really is a ‘job for life’ – for that is what being the Pope has meant.  Get elected and then stay in the job until you are carted off this earth and can be replaced by someone else who has a plenty of miles on the clock.

Pope Benedict XVI’s decision to resign, at the age of 85 for goodness sake, is a break with tradition.  Apparently he’s not the first Pope to resign rather than serve his full term, although the last resignation, almost 600 years ago, seems to have been made under pressure. The last ‘voluntary’ resignation was another 200 years earlier. Curiously, that Pope also appears to have been 85 years old.   

It is fair to say, therefore, that such resignations are rare.   No doubt that’s why the BBC decided to despatch a crack squad to stand outside the Vatican to bring us live coverage of events.  Stand by for wall-to-wall coverage of the election of a replacement Pope, from an electorate of (at the moment) the 118 Cardinals eligible to vote.  Apparently, Cardinals find themselves disenfranchised beyond the age of 80.  Wonder how that age limit came into being and why it was not extended to other things?

 

And the Oscar goes to …….

The annual extravanagza that is the ceremony Academy Awards – or the Oscars – takes place this coming weekend.  The first such ceremony was held in 1929 and this year's promises to be a long evening, with 24 categories of winners to be negotiated before everyone can go home. I think I am looking forward most to discovering who the Academy decides to honour in the Makeup and Hairstyling category.

But, of course, the real Oscar story this week is much more interesting, sad and hard to fathom – the arrest of Oscar Pistorius for the alleged murder of his girlfriend Reeva Steenkamp.

 

It’s hard to see what kind of defence Pistorius can have, but I’ll not comment on any of that until I hear what is said in court.  Millions of people around the world will be hoping there is some kind of explanation which can leave them still in awe of the man who has come to be such a symbol of hope to disabled people, and who has brought such pleasure to people through his achievements.  I count myself lucky to have seen him in the flesh in this year’s Paralympics, running a semi-final in world record time, holding 80,000 people in his grip just by being there. 

How many of us stopped to think that beneath the glitz and glamour this superstar, like any other, was also just a human being. All humans have complicated lives and are subject to different pressures, temptations and worries every single day.  I don’t know whether those things are easier or harder for superstars to handle, nor whether they are more intense because of being in the public’s eye. All I know is that everyone snaps from time to time – it’s part of the human condition. It’s a reality check for us all when that person is also a wealthy and apparently enviable superstar. If they are actually just like the rest of us, are we wasting our time dreaming of wealth and happiness?

  

That’s not what I meant

I have a new phone.  Like all new gadgets it is taking me a while to get used to how it works, and its various idiosyncracies.  OK, that reference to idiosyncracies is just my excuse for when it doesn’t do as I expect.  Last week, for example, I sent a text message as I do on countless occasions every day.  I don’t have a ‘signature’ saved for use each time, so I duly just added my name at the end of the message.  Only my phone decided to auto-correct whatever it was that I had typed and so my text was sent under the signature of “Probing”.

Actually, I quite like that and might use it in future.  But I will also pledge to take learning how my phone works a little more seriously now.

 

Latest from Sainsbury’s following last week’s piece on waste

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