Sunday 6 December 2009

Cuckoo Clocks

"You know what the fellow said – in Italy, for thirty years under the Borgias, they had warfare, terror, murder and bloodshed, but they produced Michelangelo, Leonardo da Vinci and the Renaissance. In Switzerland, they had brotherly love, they had five hundred years of democracy and peace – and what did that produce? The cuckoo clock."

For the whole of the 'thirties and the Second World War, for the Cold War 'aftermath', for the titanic struggle between capitalism and communism, between freedom and authoritarianism, they had warfare, terror, murder and bloodshed but they had King's and Trinity, they had the Apostles and the love that dared not speak its name. They had MI5 bugging and burgling its way across London, they had the entire political Establishment in the wrong beds and cleaving to friends before country when it came to betrayal.

And what has New Labour produced? Lies about climate change from the University of East Anglia and sex workers in Copenhagen.

2 comments:

Bill Quango MP said...

REG: What have NewLabour ever done for us?

XERXES: The speed cameras?

REG: What?

XERXES: The speed cameras.

REG: Oh. Yeah, yeah. They did give us those. Uh, that's true. Yeah.

COMMANDO #3: And media spin.

LORETTA: Oh, yeah, the spin, Reg. Remember what the papers used to be like?

REG: Yeah. All right. I'll grant you the speed cameras and the spin doctors are two things that New Labour have done.

MATTHIAS: And the Immigration explosion.

REG: Well, yeah. Obviously the Immigration. I mean, the Immigrants go without saying, don't they? But apart from the speed cameras, the spin, and the immigrants --

COMMANDO: Illiteracy.

XERXES: MRSA.

COMMANDO #2: European integration.

COMMANDOS: Ohh...yeas, that's right.

REG: Yeah, yeah. All right. Fair enough.

COMMANDO #1: And the debt.

COMMANDOS: Oh, yes. Yeah...

FRANCIS: Yeah. Yeah, that's something they have really brought to us all Reg, The debt..

COMMANDO: Anti terror laws.

LORETTA: And it's not safe to walk in the streets at night now, Reg.

FRANCIS: Yeah, they certainly haven't a clue how to keep order. Let's face it. Knife and gun crime alone has soared to new records.

REG: All right, but apart from the CCTV, the spinning of stories, failures in education, European integration, lack of public order, immigration, MRSA and hospital deaths, 3300 new criminal laws, and sleaze and corruption on a massive scale , what have New Labour ever done for us?

XERXES: Brought peace to Iraq and Afghanistan?

REG: Oh. Peace? Shut up!

Weekend Yachtsman said...

A nice parallel, Hats, and one that had not occured to me.

Thank you.