CAP IN HAND....
Oh, dear. I don`t know about you but I`m getting more frustrated living in a country caught in the dying embers of a once great empire. I accept, of course, that history is simply repeating itself and that it is the fate of `empires` to wither on the vine but I can`t see that it`s necessary for us to be losing our dignity and self respect in the process.
A couple of examples. One is our Prime Minister`s `negotiations` in his quest to secure reform of Britain`s relationship with the European Union. I thought it was very telling that he felt it necessary to go on a whistle stop tour of EU nations, chatting up those countries` leaders as he went and especially galling to see him going off cap in hand to Brussels, Paris and, most embarrassing of all, Berlin on what already seems a doomed mission. Why can`t we just do our own thing and get on with it?
Last week the Commons began considering whether the time has come to start joining in the air strikes in Syria, partly I suspect as a reaction to the appalling events in Tunisia but also perhaps to overturn the `embarrassment` that Cameron suffered a year or two ago when the Commons narrowly defeated a move to authorise UK air strikes back then. It was instructive to discover that, following that Commons defeat, Cameron had to go cap in hand to explain it all to President Obama. It might be Independence Day in the Good Ol` US of A but we over here truly seem to have lost our own independence.
One day last week I had occasion to visit a nearby town, more out of necessity than choice, and that too was depressing, not only because I failed to get what I went for but also because the `town centre experience` was yet another example of how very different this country has become. I suspect it could have been any High Street in any town in England so I am not singling out the one I visited for any special criticism. But there was indeed much to criticise, not perhaps so much the town itself but the `demeanour` of what seemed a majority of people on that hot summer day.
Obesity was much in evidence; so too tattoos; unemployment or more likely unemployability; and conversations seemed to be conducted largely in foreign languages whilst those carried out in what passed for English seemed to consist largely of indecipherable grunts or shouts, with a hefty dose of obscenity thrown in for good measure. Perhaps it was best summed up by the spectacle of a man sitting on the pavement with an empty violin case and what looked like a ferret on a string. It all made me wonder whether, if these street scenes are being replicated across the land, a clear contradiction emerges - and it`s this.
As our leaders go cap in hand around the world in missions of increasing impossibility it seems that the issues that concern them - and perhaps little middle Englanders like me - are a world away from those that enter the heads of Mr.and Mrs. Obese-Tattoos, whose principle concerns seemed to be to find their way to the benefits office and get home to watch the next instalment of pulp fiction television whilst munching their way unthinkingly towards the local A and E Department. So I beat a hasty retreat with my heartfelt wish for a national rediscovery of dignity and self-respect very definitely confirmed..... as yet another pig flew over my roof .
A couple of examples. One is our Prime Minister`s `negotiations` in his quest to secure reform of Britain`s relationship with the European Union. I thought it was very telling that he felt it necessary to go on a whistle stop tour of EU nations, chatting up those countries` leaders as he went and especially galling to see him going off cap in hand to Brussels, Paris and, most embarrassing of all, Berlin on what already seems a doomed mission. Why can`t we just do our own thing and get on with it?
Last week the Commons began considering whether the time has come to start joining in the air strikes in Syria, partly I suspect as a reaction to the appalling events in Tunisia but also perhaps to overturn the `embarrassment` that Cameron suffered a year or two ago when the Commons narrowly defeated a move to authorise UK air strikes back then. It was instructive to discover that, following that Commons defeat, Cameron had to go cap in hand to explain it all to President Obama. It might be Independence Day in the Good Ol` US of A but we over here truly seem to have lost our own independence.
One day last week I had occasion to visit a nearby town, more out of necessity than choice, and that too was depressing, not only because I failed to get what I went for but also because the `town centre experience` was yet another example of how very different this country has become. I suspect it could have been any High Street in any town in England so I am not singling out the one I visited for any special criticism. But there was indeed much to criticise, not perhaps so much the town itself but the `demeanour` of what seemed a majority of people on that hot summer day.
Obesity was much in evidence; so too tattoos; unemployment or more likely unemployability; and conversations seemed to be conducted largely in foreign languages whilst those carried out in what passed for English seemed to consist largely of indecipherable grunts or shouts, with a hefty dose of obscenity thrown in for good measure. Perhaps it was best summed up by the spectacle of a man sitting on the pavement with an empty violin case and what looked like a ferret on a string. It all made me wonder whether, if these street scenes are being replicated across the land, a clear contradiction emerges - and it`s this.
As our leaders go cap in hand around the world in missions of increasing impossibility it seems that the issues that concern them - and perhaps little middle Englanders like me - are a world away from those that enter the heads of Mr.and Mrs. Obese-Tattoos, whose principle concerns seemed to be to find their way to the benefits office and get home to watch the next instalment of pulp fiction television whilst munching their way unthinkingly towards the local A and E Department. So I beat a hasty retreat with my heartfelt wish for a national rediscovery of dignity and self-respect very definitely confirmed..... as yet another pig flew over my roof .
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