We're all in this together.

And, of course, we are, deep in it! Facing the near-global crisis is something we might best tackle together. After all we did together dip our snouts deeply into the trough of plenty, during all of those ‘boom’ years, didn’t we?



Me, me, me... Thanks to Rose Davies' photostream

Then again- and I’m prepared to accept that this might be an ageing memory thing- did we? Did we really face those times in quite such a spirit of togetherness? Were we all mutual beneficiaries of the ‘good times’?

The nurses at the Norfolk and Norwich Hospital, to whom I owe much, the hard-working teachers and assistants at my grandson’s school, the millions of every-day workers whose wages have hovered on or about the minimum wage, the hundreds of thousands to whom purchasing a house was little more than an expensive pipe-dream, the unfortunate thousands who were mortgaged up to the hilt and beyond, who now expect to have their cherished homes repossessed, indeed the vast majority of the country’s population, did they all really share equally in the ‘boom’ years?



Boom times from peasap's photostream

What about those who have been relying entirely upon the state pension, having devoted perhaps more than fifty years to ‘the company’, or those who were never paid well enough to accrue a private pension, or those who did and were left with nothing, after the then Chancellor’s slight of hand? Did all of these people also bathe so lavishly in the ‘good times’?

'Kindly' Uncle George is eager to open up some ‘clear blue water’ between the parties. If he manages somehow to achieve this, I would urge you to be most suspicious of his choice of hue. Enchantment, I would imagine, illusions, smoke and mirrors, oh, and a tabloid press that have long since sold their black and corrupted souls. Uncle George, don't you forget, has quite an arsenal of the conjuror’s tools hidden away, up his expensively tailored sleeves.

You’ll, no doubt, recall the total absence of this ‘clear blue water’ during The ‘Blessed’ Tony’s 'Glorious' Reign. Couldn’t slot a proverbial cigarette paper between the two parties, could we? Oracle Rupert had decreed that it should be so, and thus it was. Not really democracy as such, is it? Saint Tony might (very, very rarely) have ‘heard’ what we were saying but, well, we all know, he wasn’t about to start listening to the silly old electorate, was he?

Yes, I know that the old adversaries continued to act out the same tired, overused scenario, time after time, in the old boys’ club but were we honestly taken in by all of that? There’s a reason, you know, why you can’t watch ‘Today in Parliament’ in high definition; it’s because, if your screen is huge enough, and you concentrate upon the eyes of the individuals present you might just be able to notice that the sparkle, that point of crystal reflected light, is not really a point at all; it’s actually a very tiny yet perfectly delineated dollar sign. If the Faeries are going to lavish their riches upon the ‘faithful’ they will still insist upon leaving that tiny mark of ownership upon the 'victim'. Not even a British pound sign, what does this tell us?



Thank you to PhotoGraham's photostream

I could use the expenses debacle to illustrate my point regarding which side of the dividing line the MPs have chosen to reside, but you’ve heard it all before, ‘I was acting entirely within the rules!’ 'Rules' I'm sure we’d all love to have a stab at!