SUCH ARE PROMISES..

Today, mercifully, we had the last Prime Minister`s Questions in Parliament before the General Election in just 43 days time.  Suddenly, however, 43 days seems an awfully long time because, as one chapter drew to a close today, the next one in the pre-election cacophony arrives.    PMQs today showed up this weekly joust for what it really is - a set piece of yah-boo politics, claim and counter claim, questions asked but seldom answered and all conducted in an atmosphere that would see schoolchildren in class kept behind for detention (do they still do that these days, I wonder?)  if they behaved like we saw today from the Honourable and Right Honourable Members.  

We`ve already had the start of it - people we have never seen before banging on the door, asking if there`s anything they can do for us, leaflets being handed out or stuffed through the letter box.  And it`s going to get an awful lot worse, of course, what with TV coverage, `debates` - nothing too serious, mind you, just yet more points scoring and personal attacks - more leaflets, more unwelcome visits from party activists armed with little more than a handful of promises.  They could do worse than remember the lyrics of Paul Simon`s Boxer, then perhaps they might escape the illusion that what they have to say is in any way relevant to the man on the Clapham Omnibus:-

I have squandered my resistance

For a pocketful of mumbles

Such are promises.

All lies and jest

Still, a man hears what he wants to hear

And disregards the rest.

We may now have escaped the onslaught of PMQs, replete with stifling heat but woefully lacking in any chink of light, only to find we are locked in a 43 day assault on our patience, our senses and our intelligence.  Happy days!