Something right - a column
I once wrote a song. Well, actually, I've written quite a few, but that's another story. This particular song I wrote has never been recorded, or even performed, and I'm the only person who's ever sung it. In fact, I don't think I ever even wrote the words down.
And this is the strange thing; there are songs I wrote, performed and recorded that I wouldn't recognise now if someone quoted them back to me, yet this particular song I can dash off - verse, chorus, tune, the lot. I wonder why. Here goes:
An elephant's memory's like Cleopatra's needle,
It's a fallacy.
It's just a sign of a changing time
That governments don't see.
False leadership never won fame.
False notoriety's just a game.
The tea they drink,
The gin they sip,
The game they play is leadership.
Of course, now that I come to quote it, I can't remember it beyond that rousing opening. But it could well be that there never was any more than that. If I'd written that now, I'd probably have to lie down for a week to get over the exertion and clever wordplay. I must have been very clever back then; what happened?
The reason I'm saying all this is because of recent world events and my country's response to them. We've finally looked around and seen sense, good sense. Usually, in situations like this, we tag along on the coat-tails of that big, seemingly powerful land way across the western sea. We don't look at our neighbours and companions, instead choosing to eye up the, if you’ll allow me to use the euphemism, school bully and fall into line behind them. I've never understood why that is, or even what's in it for us. After all, a bully is always a bully, even if he's on your side. Sooner or later the mask will drop, truth will out and you'll get a kicking too.
The other thing I've never understood is why we spend billions on buying weapons from the bully, only to set off those weapons on the bully's behalf. Then we go back and feel we have to buy more. As far as I can see, only one nation wins from that arrangement, and it isn't little old us.
Anyway, recently, our toffy-nosed Prime Minister called parliament together for a special chat, even though it was in the middle of their long summer holidays - which I'm sure they weren't too happy about. His idea was to get backing for his desire to help the bully bomb the people of Syria. I assume he (and his Slytherin cabinet colleagues) has shares in lots of weapons manufacturing companies, thus getting a tidy income from all the extra work he was planning to give them.
But this time it didn't quite work out the way he'd planned. After the lengthy debate, a vote was taken and parliament decided narrowly to reject the plan to blow loads more people to bits. Good for parliament. In fairness to the toff, he accepted the decision (though he had little choice) and has gone even further by saying that he won't keep coming back for more votes until he gets the answer he wants.
For once, that all makes me proud to be British, proud of our limited democracy and unusually proud of the people who claim to represent us all. I'm sure this government will find a way of getting its hands dirty, something clandestine and behind-the-scenes grubby, but at least on the face of it, we're staying well out of this one. We're not poking our collective noses in where they don't belong. We're finally not giving apparently laudable reasons for doing something, when the actual motive is a completely different, hidden one. For once, go us!
And if our political masters don't like it or are embarrassed in any way, so much the better.