Professor Verity Bastion seeks to steady the ship in these turbulent times with some common sense.
There is something about Theresa May that reminds me of the Maid of Lorraine. Perhaps it’s the pageboy haircut. Or maybe it’s because her jewellery looks like chain mail. And there is the occasional religious reference. No. I know, it’s those voices in her head.
There must be voices. Where else would she get her strange ideas? I wasn’t so worried about her plans to try and fund social care. That had to be tackled but her proposal to cap energy prices is clearly economically illiterate. It will just undermine the whole purpose of having competition. Worse still, her idea to require union representation on company boards was totally mad. Maybe some of her voices hark back to the 70s – “you know it makes sense” – they’re probably whispering.
If May wants to help people with their energy bills, all she needs is a good public information campaign on using less and investing in a good cardigan. And if it’s the 70s she’s looking to relive, let’s bring back SOS: Switch Off Something. That got us through the ’73 miners’ overtime ban. That and a three-day week, but now Jeremy has been put back in this box, I don’t suppose we’ll be needing to go there again.
Thankfully now, along with everyone else, her voices seemed to have deserted her. She probably sacked them along with her loyal advisers. At least her Queen’s speech was thankfully shorn of most of their madness.
“Hammond has at last discovered his balls. Sadly they were not in his trousers.”
Jeremy of course doesn’t need anyone else’s voice to be able to channel pure 70s nostalgia. He is the true voice of the 70s. It was extraordinary that people seemed to think the same old tax-and-spend approach was fresh and new. Theresa’s “magic money tree” jibe did seem quite apposite. She must have had at least one sane voice in her head.
And what is it with ancient beardy men and the young? I am sure it won’t last; I blame JK Rowling.
We could actually be seeing some return to sense. I understand from my mates that Dave’s people are back in the ascendency in the Tories. Hammond has at last discovered his balls. Sadly they were not in his trousers. I think we will hear more talk of the real wizardry of markets.
We might even see some sense over Brexit but that maybe is a dream too far. That would require extraordinary magic. Those ghastly European bureaucrats seem to have us over a barrel. They will just love getting their revenge for Crecy, Agincourt, Blenheim, Waterloo and all the other battles that we true Brits won on the continent. Macron is maybe sensible about markets but he is still French at the end of the day.
At least Trump seems to have seen a bit more sense. I am so glad he has some good advisers from Wall Street so stock prices are doing remarkably well. Ultimately of course, he may have to be retired to the tower of twitter.
On the subject of retirement, things are not quite so tranquil close to home. Thomas has become obsessed with his beloved residents committee and his belief that the management are “out to get us”. His voices seem to be the gossips who run the committee.
I had encouraged him to go to the coffee mornings to keep him busy, but hadn’t bargained on him becoming so involved. I hardly see him nowadays.
Extraordinarily the residents have become so power obsessed that they sacked the management company. At this point the management company discovered the residents’ committee had made a mistake in procedure, so democracy was duly dispensed with. Thomas has since been taking his frustrations out by dead-heading roses in the cemetery next door. But let’s be honest: residents clearly should have had no say in management. What were they thinking? Perhaps Theresa’s voices were whispering to them. “Power to the people…”
Anyway – must go. Time for the coffee morning. I don’t want to miss seeing the octogenarian Wolfies and Swampies enjoying themselves being righteously incensed. The revolution won’t last. I am looking forward to the black forest gateau – hmmm! The 70s weren’t all bad, were they?
