Tuesday, September 16, 2008

New Labour rondo

We are no longer in touch with the government. They are no longer governing; they are plotting, fighting the plotters or watching the plot.
The DfT, for instance, the department we are most concerned with, is now completely out of sorts, the officials waiting to see which way the wind will be blowing before taking even the smallest decision.
It’s the same all over again. The rebellious overture, the chorus of discontent, the war cries in the media, the panic, the bluster, the acrimonious retorts, the suspense, the empty declarations of loyalty or the opportunistic ambivalence, John Hutton’s eyes icily fixing us from the television screens, the foreboding lull and then… the return to the beginning.
We have seen them at it so often now that we can recognise their motives, the tactics and the idiosyncrasies of each of them, just as girls in a massage parlour can, after a while, recognise their clients by their individual penchants and dislikes.
After so many months, however, the monotony of this repetition is starting to irritate, wearing down our patience and turning it slowly into disgust. And the danger is that, if the plotters have their way, our disgust could turn into anger.

No comments: