Simon's Blog

Oh what fun we have all had over the past two weeks. We have been able to be really shocked at the antics of News International whilst at the same time refusing to admit it has been our own shameless need for worthless title tattle that has got us here in the first place. We have seen has been politicians trying to rewrite history with, possibly, one of the most shameless speeches by an ex prime minister which just about sums up his inadequacies for the job. No I don’t think that his son’s medical condition should have been published but, come on, he was the prime minister, not some helpless member of the public, who had the power of the state machine behind him. If he had wanted to he could have made things very difficult for News International but didn’t. I was going to say gutless but then along comes his speech and it turns out it was everybody else’s fault so, perhaps, he was clueless. I really don’t know and thankfully I will never have the pleasure of high office, I would crack at the first problem, so I am really in no position to criticise. I have deliberately not mentioned John Prescott in all this as I might get really angry.

Beyond the immediate fall out a new interesting relationship appears to be forming in the coalition. Back in May Cameron happily dumped on Nick Clegg and the Tories were talking about dumping the Lib Dems. They had just swatted their attempts at electoral reform and were feeling really smug. Now we have the prime minister in the shit over his relationship with News International and it is the turn of the Lib Dems to look on with smugness. We have not seen end of the Cameron/Coulson affair which got worse with the resignation of the Met Commissioner for hiring an ex News of the World hack who, at the time, had not been implicated in the phone hacking affair. Coulson, on the other hand, had resigned over the affair before being hired by Cameron. So it would seem ok for one senior official to resign over the affair but not the Prime Minister.

Now I don’t think that Cameron will resign but suddenly Nick Clegg has a lot more power. He is no longer the fag to Cameron’s Eton toff but rather he could be his saviour of sorts. After all, of all the political leaders, he is the one with no real News International baggage or dirty washing. Whilst this is all fun and dandy the reality is that in the wider world it doesn’t add up to a hill of beans. It is a story about how power talks unto power, an establishment spat, which will probably fizzle out over the next few months until the cost of the public enquiry becomes known and suddenly we are looking at the business end of ??100million – just look at the costs of the Bloody Sunday enquiry and double it. And still millions of people are dying the horns of Africa and by the start of the next month America may have gone bust and suddenly this whole thing will be seen for what it is, illegal, shameful and distasteful but something that may well be a foot note of history….or is this me missing the point?

Oh the joys of blogging … You can be grumpy in the knowledge it has no real effect – no power and no responsibility – actually that sounds like my life so far!

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