Pasties v policies as politics hits new low

I DON’T know about this great country of ours sliding into recession but I do know that it has jumped or been kicked into a parallel universe where instead of arguing about policies our lunatic leaders are squabbling over who has eaten the most pasties and where.

Watch out this weekend for your MP turning up in Greggs in Oldham or Buckley’s in Uppermill, having his/her picture taken eating a hot cross bun and declaring it the best hot cross bun in Christendom.

Will we now have those who don’t accept the concept of Christendom burning the buns in protest?

But it doesn’t end there for we have ministers handing out advice that gets old ladies almost burning themselves to death, not while overheating pasties but by following the instruction of Francis Maude (an all-in-it-together Tory — the madhouse is surely what they are all in) to pour petrol into a bucket in the kitchen to see what happens.

Neither does it end there. The paranoid government (just because they are paranoid, doesn’t mean we are not out to get them) are to eavesdrop on every text and e-mail that we send and every website that we visit (those who like looking at ladies with no clothes on had better switch their attention to great British trains, postage stamps or pasties).

The Government wants to know who we are contacting and why: in my case it’s usually the captain to ask what time her train’s due in or to tell her the supper’s in the oven (and no, it’s not a pasty). Most of you will no doubt admit to contacts that are similarly inoffensive, and more prosaic than pro-terrorism or extremism but will the spy-masters and those terrorism hunters who shot the wrong man in a London tube train accept them at face value or think there is a code to be cracked in our innocent messages?

Nor does it end there. The PM stands accused of holding secret meetings with big donors (now this lot are all in it together, and up to their brass necks) including one who pushed a £1million tip across the Tory table (that must have been some pasty eh?).

But it does end here, at least for the time being. The people of Bradford, solid northern folk we have always thought and would like to believe, have elected George Galloway to be their MP by a stonking majority. That the electorate of Bradford should turn their backs on the main political parties and offer their votes to such a chancer with a such a dubious background, including support for Saddam Hussein, perhaps illustrates the degree of contempt which increasing numbers of people have for British politics and politicians.

Would that it was an April fool’s joke, but it isn’t.
A full version of this story appears in the printed and eChron editions.