What can you do?
Took a walk around the village today, got some fresh air, it was a gloriously sunny day. Saw Mrs Walker walking her dog. Exchanged pleasantries, but she was in a steaming mood, upset at the news, told me she had heard that they was trying to change our PMQs.
"Who's doing it?" I said.
"Metropolitan elite," she said, and I just nodded. I might have guessed. They never give it a rest.
"Terrible", I said, "but what can you do?"
Went into the corner shop to buy a sandwich, stood in the queue as you do and there was a pensioner in front, white-haired and carrying a stick.
There seemed to be some hold-up and dispute and it started getting heated. She had some alcohol in her shopping cart and the teenager serving refused to serve her until she could prove she was over 18.
Poor woman rifled through her purse and bag looking for the "ID" he demanded, but she didn't have none, didn't need any when she was young. It was embarrassing and we in the queue felt bad and to tell the truth a little sad, someone even said it was mad.
"Probably New Labour," said someone, "that's the type of thing they always do." And everyone nodded, but what can you do?
"Soon kids will need New Labour C&A piometric ID cards just to buy jelly beans," someone said, and we all nodded and sighed and someone said "Sweets has probably got too much sugar, but what can you do?"
In the end, the poor woman was sent packing without her alcohol. Such a shame, she probably just loved a sherry with her dinner, she weren't no criminal or sinner.
Someone said, "It's getting worse every day, now they even want to change our PMQs" and we all nodded and said
"What can you do?"
Went round the corner and there was a group of boys kicking up quite a noise. Young group of buskers playing music in the street, good foot-tapping stuff, with a blues and boogie beat. It was the old school RnB that I loved and the Rolling Stones used to play, those were the days, no one woud have dreamed of messing with our PMQs when Jagger ruled the waves. Some youngsters were dancing and it was a great vibe, really buzzing, made you feel good to be alive. Good to see that youngsters still liked the old stuff - the real stuff I call it, not the new "hop hop" stuff that's all the rage. As I got nearer i could hear the lyrics as the singer blasted them out
"Shame, shame, shame,
They're gonna change our PMQs
Ain't it a shame, shame, shame,
The way they do what they do
Yeah shame, shame, shame,
Oh Lord, shame on you"
Great stuff, but I'd heard enough.
Walked down past the Labour club - totally empty and boarded up, place was bare, had been ever since Blair.
Passed the Conservative club on the right, used to be heaving, now everyone was leaving. Membership had halved, subscriptions were down,
no one could be bothered anymore, no one believed in what they stood for.
Further down the lane, I passed the new UKIP club. Place was packed, yellow and purple flags and banners everywhere, people handing out fruitcakes to passers-by and who should catch my eye but my 90 year old friend Jean, looking sharp and preened as if she weren't a day over 17. She had a megaphone in her hand and she was hollering and shouting and shaking her fist, this was not to be missed.
She was so loud, I put a hand over my ear as I drew near.
"Sign up, sign up, Save our PMQs," she was shouting and the queue to sign stretched out for nearly a mile, I hadn't seen enthusiasm like this in quite some while.
There was young and there was old, there was tall and there was short, there was people of each and every sort. There was kids of 9 and old people of ninety, there was newly-weds, widows and spinsters, but there weren't no luvvies or spinners, but I guess this ain't Westminster.
A young lad no more than six years old held a huge pen and was writing a letter to our Prime Minister.
"Deer Phryme Munster,
Pleese save hour PMQs"
he wrote. His spelling wasn't all that, but mine was worse at that age, and you'd have to have a heart of stone to correct it. It was full of sentiment, you could tell it was meant. And everyone in the queue felt the same, it was all a terrible shame. But I didn't think our Prime Minister would listen, or any one of his advisers, after all they are all just modernisers.
I walked up to Jean and said "Hello, trouble, I might have known you'd be stirring it up. But what are you doing here with UKIP, I thought you was a Tory, and had been for years, true blue to the core. She looked me in the eye with disgust and said "Not anymore. What do you take me for? That useless bunch of tossers, wasters and no-good dossers, they ain't worth voting for." I must admit I couldn't agree with her more, they was all about "save the luvvie", "save the planet" and "save the tree" as far as I could see.
Went into the hairdressers to get my hair done. Had barely sat down when the woman waiting, whom I'd never met before, waved a Daily Mail in my face and said "Have you seen this?"
"What are they going to change now," I said.
"It's that luvvie, Thick Clegg," she said.
"Are you referring to our Deputy Prime Minister," I said, "a Westminster, Cambridge and College of Europe man, an honourable member of our metropolitan elite."
When she heard that, she looked as if she would explode with rage and her face turned an awful red, but I winked and we both exploded with laughter instead.
"He is backing this campaign to change our PMQs," she said.
"Of course he is," I said, "they all are. But what can you do?
She thrust the article in my face and there was a picture of Clegg, the superhuman dynamo, in mid-stride, all wild-eyed, pointing at a poor member of the audience.
She read out some of the quotes from the Daily Mail article
"Mr Clegg backed a Mumsnet petition calling for PMQs to be overhauled and made more accessible.
‘I think it’s brilliant… basically saying, ..."
www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2676270/Put-PMQs-prime-time-TV-help-end-macho-chest-beating-testosterone-driven-shouting-match-says-Nick-Clegg.html#ixzz36OxEbmUH
What does 'basically saying' mean?" she asked.
"It's most probably metropolitan spin," I said.
She continued to quote from the article
"MPs must also speak through the chair, so instead of telling an opponent ‘you are wrong’, they must say ‘he is wrong’."
"Is he for real?" she asked.
"Unfortunately so", I said
And she continued with even more of what the learned leader had to say
‘And so the whole thing is in a language which wasn’t used since 1867 and in a kind of highly aggressive, sort of, macho, chest?beating, testosterone?driven idiom which is deeply off?putting to – to any normal person.’
"What does he know about normal people?"
"Quite!" I said, "but that won't stop him and no one can say he doesn't know his dates."
"With all the problems in our country - the hospitals, the care homes, the queues at foodbanks, what is happening in Iraq, Syria and Ukraine - he wants to do this."
"Well, he probably can't fix any of that, so he has decided to mess up our PMQs instead, but what can you do?" I said
As I walked home, I realised it wasn't right to feel so blue, there was something we could all do, we could start by saving our PMQs.