How Not to Run a Country

However ill the Recovery industry is, I don’t think for a second that it has shot itself in the foot the way many other bureaucracy-driven establishments have succeeding in doing. Look no further than the present Coalition Government. I have never seen so much dithering and U-turning. It’s a good job Mrs. Thatcher, bless her, has a dementia-type of illness, otherwise I suspect she would like to put herself in a wheelchair, pushed by Jeremy Clarkson, and trundle down to Westminster and shoot the lot.

Take the case of this idiot called Abu Quatada, a terrorist several times over. They daren’t deport him, so they either let him out for fresh air or put him in a five-star prison. Apparently it is unlawful under European Law to deport him. While our idiotic British Government take notice of this ruling, the French, bless them, faced with the same situation over the last few years have merely deported the people, bundled them on to a plane, back to where they came from, which of course resulted in a European Court appearance for breach of Human Rights, resulting in a fine of between 12,000 and 18,000 Euros for each transgression.

There is one other alternative, instead of prison we could put him up in an old peoples home where he would have very little good food, probably be frozen half the time in the winter but unlikely to have his bed sheets changed regularly as he had soiled them with the shock of being in close confinement. After sitting nodding backwards and forwards in a chair in a bay window for a few weeks, he would be begging to be sent back to Jordan.

We have now had a budget and while it has been laudable to take from the rich and give to the poor, it is not good news to take from the middle class and then hand the money to idle scroungers.

Then there is this MP telling us to store petrol in Jerry cans. But then again perhaps his only crime was not realising how stupid everybody under the age of 45 is. After all, motor sport people and people with chain saws and lawn mowers have been storing petrol for years without any incident worth reporting. Then of course we get the terrible news that a woman has virtually blown herself up decanting petrol from a Jerry can into a milk jug in her kitchen beside a lit gas cooker. How stupid and how little commonsense. As it turned out it was not a Jerry can, it was a 5-litre can that was stored for the lawn mower. There must be a million people with a can of petrol in the garage, bearing in mind that every petrol lawn mower has to be accompanied by a supply. But I ask whether the story would ever have made even a local newspaper if it hadn’t been for the Jerry can saga.

I was lucky enough at the age of 10 to be taught by my grandfather how to use and respect petrol, something of course still lacking in today’s era. If I choose to store 10 or 20 gallons of petrol in Jerry cans, which I probably won’t, I know for sure that I will be able to do it safely without harming myself or my family. Perhaps we need a minor adjustment to the age of consent: 16 years of age for sexual activity, 18 for touching your first alcohol, and 45 years of age before you are allowed to handle a full Jerry can.

But it is a sad state of affairs when an M.P. made a well-meaning and not un-sensible statement and then he is savaged because the country is made up of 50% of people with no commonsense who stand a damned good chance of damaging themselves in some other way unless somebody holds their hands.

Fred Henderson,
Breakdown Doctor.