Thought for the Day, from Justin Webly, more or less Arch of Cant

Hullo,

Justin here, and my lady wife has just taken me to task for my continuing use of “Hullo” instead of the more commonly employed “Hello”, which she maintains is a more approachable, friendlier greeting. She might be right. The young man with a wire in his ear seems not to have an opinion, but he does tend to say “Yo, Archie” anyway.

But the hullo/hello debate did set me thinking. I can’t help saying and typing “Hullo”, despite it being, according to my lady wife, a bit upper class. Let’s face it, my life to this point has been definitely a bit upper class. Does that make me less approachable for the – dare I say it – lower classes? I do hope not. I try jolly hard to be approachable.

One of the biggest problems facing our present government is that of approachability. From Mr Cameron downwards, they are predominantly upper class, with a few oiks like the dreadful Pickles person thrown in to leaven the mix. This is a very good example of Mr Cameron trying ever so hard to make his administration approachable. After all, he, the Chancellor and the vast majority of ministers ARE upper class, so this must be seen as an insightful move, especially as a significant number of Mr Cameron’s government are not only upper class, but complete twerps to boot, q.v. Mr Gove aka Mr Bean.

      

That said, I find some of the decisions taken by this government do tend to fly in the face of approachability, fiscal wisdom, and plain common sense. I refer, of course to Mr Cameron’s stubborn refusal to abandon the utterly useless and cripplingly expensive High Speed Train project. The recent reshuffle in the HST camp includes drafting in a minister called “Goodwill” and a certain Baroness Kramer who, before elevation was a LibDem MP very keen on the evils of the plastic bag. This, I suggest, will not bring about a sudden surge of support for the pointy, shiny, sexy trains which so engage Dave and his chums. I have met Ordinary People who will lose SO much when work starts on the new line. Why, Mrs Marjorie Blebb [71] of Pewsey Major will say goodbye to most of her lupins, whilst Major[retd] R. G.H.L. Fairweather-Bangs’ family home for 37 generations, Gropey Hall, Nether Gropey, will fall to the wrecker’s ball.

I very strongly suspect that Mr Cameron would dearly like to cancel the project forthwith. Its doing his approachability rating no good at all. But he simply cannot bale out now, bearing in mind all the nod, nod, wink,wink assurances doubtless made to the owners of wrecking balls, the keepers of bulldozers and the carters of concrete in this Blessed Isle.

He means well, Mr Cameron, but in HST he’s got himself, as my dear mother used to say “a right old prune”. So what can he do? Well, he could stop the Baroness and the Goodwill chap saying ANYTHING, anything at all about HST, publish plans to invade the Channel Islands, and people will forget HST pdq.

And, my dear flock, I can hear you asking, “What would Jesus do?” Well, you know the answer. Jesus would stand tall in the light of justice and honesty, condemn his own fiscal stupidity, admit his mistakes, and propel HST into the long grass with a mighty kick from his Holy Foot. And lose the next election.