A coalition course to disaster

LIFE, AND OTHER BITS:

WELL the New Politics looks a lot like the old politics only it has a lot more money, better suits and a decidedly boring taste in ties.

It’s not unusual to find homosexuals in Government (some would say it is a must-have on the job description list) any more than it is to find them loitering around park benches at night and David Laws would have kept his seat (oops!) if he had not been accused of fiddling his expenses.

It is rumoured that there are those in this office who fiddle expenses but none of them, not even Martyn Torr or the sports writers, are millionaires just yet, unlike Mr Laws-unto-himself.

It’s not so much the dishonesty and the fiddling that bothers me (even by millionaires, human nature being what it is) but the rank foolishness of a doubtlessly intelligent man in thinking that the moment he put his head above the parapet by taking a senior Government post, all the secrets in his personal closet would come tumbling out for public scrutiny.

It’s what newspapers are for now that Europe has banned the parcelling of fish and chips in them.

The David and Nick political love-in is beginning to look more like a collision than a coalition and even though it is early days yet, what are the odds on a general election before Christmas, never mind all this lovey-dovey talk of a five year marriage and no divorce.

There will be tears before bedtime — no matter who the MPs are sharing their duvet with.




YOU have to hand it to the health lot when it comes to niggling persistence, a bit like shingles and boils in unpleasant places where the light does not shine.



Their latest salvo against alcohol is to instruct all GPs to give us the third degree on our drinking habits (though who’s going to grill the GPs, I wonder?)

Among the questions to be asked is how many units of alcohol we drink in a week and when was the last time that we lost a day or a week come to that, after drinking too much?

So don’t be surprised if the next time you go to see your GP there is a lie detector in the corner of the surgery and nurse Nightmare standing by to buckle you into it.

The last time I was quizzed about my drinking habits (apart from by herself, of course) I told the nurse that I didn’t drink through the week but liked a glass or three of Burgundy at the weekend.

“That makes you a binge drinker,” she said... and struck me off.


FINAL WORD: According to the latest figures, the last Labour lot let in tens of thousands of additional immigrants as well as overseeing a 30 per cent increase in foreign students. If only our Phil had adopted the catchphrase of the great Larry Grayson and said “shut that door” often and more loudly.