Mark Steel: Well, if the Romans built on flood plains…
It’s doubtful whether Live Aid would have taken off quite as much as it did, if the song had been: “The river banks burst / So the carpets went first / And one woman’s fridge / Is now under the bridge. / It’s a tale of endurance / But they should get most of it back / On the insurance.”
Posted on July 25th, 2007 at 1:06 pm
When a vacuous tart like Yvette Cooper(aka Mrs Balls) starts citing the Romans to scaffold her dubious entirely profit-driven housing policies beware the Ides of March!
She sounds like Frankie Howard in Up Pompeii-don’t titter!Her boyish looks surely entitle her to principal boy role this coming panto season.
Still,we in this country have got the leaders we deserve-fourth raters to a man(and woman).What with Jacqui (we’re still waiting for an announcement on the latest terrorist attacks)Smith and Cooper at the helm-if we’re hit by terrorists who hit the Thames barrier and our coastal sea defences simultaneously we’re buggered!
And still,as Steele seems to have noticed,nobody seems to want to ask why we totter like BSE-infected cattle from one foot-in-mouth disaster to the next.
Our worship of profit is certainly an overriding factor but I think it’s our tendency to outrageously overrate ourselves especially our capacity for organisation.
Every time an international event is staged by any other nation…say Italy or Greece,you’ll hear British commentators carping from the sidelines about how they’ll never get anything built in time,and all the money will end up in Mafia coffers and the whole thing will be a disaster!
In the event,the World Cup or the Olympics-whatever it is,all goes stunningly and memorably well and the Brits finally choke on their pork scratchings and cease carping.
Now the 2012 Olympics which we famously won the bid for,courtesy we’re told of the sterling efforts of Lord Coe and Blair will soon be upon us.Given the way disaster haunts us at every turn nowadays the latest ravages of Foot and Mouth and flooding do not augur well at all.
When it all goes horribly wrong and these things are wont to happen in poorly-led countries where corruption and venality are rife we can at least await an announcement from Jacqui(I tried it but didn’t swallow or inhale)Smith or Yvette(I’ve Got Balls) Cooper of an independent inquiry.
Now the inquiry…We’ll surely prove to the world we can get it right when we hold the Inquiry!