My wings are like a ring of steel

Commuting across Manchester has been a nightmare this past week and is set to be worse this coming. And for why? The politicians have come to town. In this case it's what's left of the Labour Party but it could just be New Dave or The Dwellers In Foggy Bottom. It doesn't matter, all that matters is that the gentry of the Westminster Village be protected from the realities of their playthings. Cocooned from the real world they make decisions based on ignorance and imagine that we don't notice the cosy sinecures and media deals they're brokering for their retirement years. For instance, we're seeing post offices closing left, right and centre for 'commercial purposes' (since when was the infrastructure of the nation a profitable venture? Oh yes, that's right, and that's been such a successful model of sustainability). There are more post offices in the Palace of Westminster than there is in Manchester City Centre.

Which brings us back to the point. Since last Saturday, a week before the conference, the centre of Manchester has been a gated community with armed police and concrete road blocks. Monday morning I noticed a gaggle of neatly-clad youths in blazers. Closer inspection showed them actually to be middle-aged Gurkhas, each with the trademark self-effacing 'don't mess with me matey' body language of the breed. (Note to overseas readers: by all accounts, including my grandfathers' after two years with them in Burma, the Gurkhas are very nice, very polite people who you treat with respect if you have even half the sense that you're born with). Since then they've only been in evidence as solitary sentinals in odd doorways and potential flashpoints.

Traffic flow in the city centre is pretty dire at the best of times, in these circumstances it's catastrophic. On Thursday night it took forty minutes for my bus to travel all of two blocks down Portland Street. Unfortunately, it's not been possible to schedule a few days' working from home this week so I've more of the same to look forward to. Bastards.

I think one of the problems with our cloistered politicians these days, and a large contributing factor to their being almost universally despised by the public these days, is that they've never actually done anything. In the old days they'd have had years down t'pit, or run a factory, or made a million selling collar studs before entering parliament and they could bring that experience to the job. These days, they go to university and do student politics; then they get a job as a party gofer or a 'political researcher' or a lobbyist; then they go into parliament and pontificate about 'The Real World' to those of who have to endure it. I doubt that many of these First Class Brains would get junior positions under MacMillan or Attlee. I'm not sure they'd even have got to be junior whips under Lord North.

One slight consolation of the world's financial woes is that it might curtail a few of the cosy retirement packages for these bastard.

Ack! Fuck the lot of 'em.