Friday 6 January 2006

Unfit to govern.

I must admit to being rather surprised to discover that Charles Kennedy's drinking had the potential to become a scandal. I thought it had been common knowledge for at least a decade, but, our media earnestly tell us, it has been a Dreadful Secret. Judging from the shock of the presenters and reporters on the news last night, you'd think that all our news journalists were tee-total paragons of health and virtue, rather than the chain-smoking coke-snorting adulterous piss-heads they are renowned as. Anyway, I shouldn't think it'll take more than four words to settle the question of whether his drinking makes Charles Kennedy an unfit leader.

Churchill: drunk; Hitler: tee-total.

There.

Meanwhile, George Galloway has entered Celebrity Big Brother, probably the worst TV show since non-celebrity Big Brother, thus revealing once and for all that he is unfit to be an MP. Not because I dislike the show and not because he's an obnoxious lover of tyrants. As I understand the rules of Big Brother, the contestants are allowed no contact with the outside world for the duration of their stay. That includes constituents needing to get in touch with their MP. He is being paid a huge salary out of the public purse, right now, to do a job that he has voluntarily made himself incapable of doing. He can't attend Parliament, he can't listen to his constituents, he can't even read the news. We all realise that he doesn't give a damn about the people of Bethnal Green and Bow, but what about the area of the world he really cares about? If the US pull out of Iraq, he won't know. If the US invade Syria, he won't know. If the Israelis finally do what everyone says they've been doing for years and kill a million or so Arabs, he won't know. If Hamas finally succeed in their avowed aim of killing every Jew in Israel, he won't know. Whether you agree with the tiresome little git or not, it's difficult to think of any justification for not chucking him out of Parliament this time.

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