Lords don’t help us. It’s time for reforms
LOOKING round at our country it seems that for those four awful years, January 2016 to now, we have been in a sort of governmental limbo with everything frozen while we sorted out the single obsession of Brexit. Things that seemed urgent were simply consigned to the back-burner while the only concern was debated to distraction. Now at last we can consider some of the reforms that have been delayed and delayed.
Whatever happened to Lords reform? That bloated body of (in far too many cases) nonentities, time-servers, gravy-train feeders, retired apparatchiks, elevated sycophants and political failures has sat, ermine-swathed on the red leather benches of the Upper House contributing almost nothing to our common weal.
There are about 700 “created” peers. If the 200 cream of them could be permitted to remain and the other 500 put out to use their titles to secure the best restaurant seats, the country would be better served.
The NHS needs root-and-branch reform, sacrosanct though we are all told it is. An easy starter would be to lighten the burden of the harassed-to-exhaustion staff of Accident and Emergency.
One could exclude the cut finger, the bruise, the hangover and the self-inflicted obesity – all jobs for the local pharmacy. NHS founder Nye Bevan made very plain he regarded his creation as a safety net for those unable to afford insurance cover.
Its vast over-bureaucratisation could and should be cut to the necessary bone, along with the consequent shocking wastage. The well-to-do, wealthy and rich should not be able to batten on this national nanny. A bottle of plonk a day affords ample private cover. And the vainglory of those still supporting the bottomless pit of HS2 should be overruled at last and the white elephant simply shelved. There are a score of better uses for the out-of-control expenditure of £108billion.
In politics the temptation is always to “refer back” (delay again) but Boris J has a not-formany-years opportunity to get stuck in and mastermind a reform programme that would improve our homeland no end.
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THE NORTHERN “white” rhino is technically extinct – not that this affects the breakfast of most of us.
But still. And yet perhaps it will live again. Scientists have isolated the sperm of the last male – it died in Kenya four years ago. They have also created three embryos from the last remaining two females.
They hope to implant in a southern white rhino to achieve one or two calves born alive – so the northern variety might after all live again.
But it would then take years of farming them to re-create a viable number to prolong the breed once more.
Incidentally, the “white” rhino is not white at all. The word is a mishearing of the Afrikaans word “weidt” meaning wide, and refers to the broad blunt muzzle as opposed to the narrower face of the black. More useless information – sorry!
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IF I AM ever reincarnated, I have no doubt as to my choice. I would want to be a Jack Russell puppy in the household of my own dear wife, the CO. Talk about spoiled rotten. She has three, from grandma to daughter to granddaughter. Her entire household revolves around her “babies” and their slightest whim. What with the finest foods and vet medications, over the years I could have bought a quite decent sports car for that sort of money.
Sofas and armchairs have to be vacated so they can devastate the cushions. The Government could fall but must not interfere with “walkies”. Vans arrive with the finest sweetmeats to be spooned into their three bowls, duvets smoothed for their nightly rest. There is a supremely arrogant Tonkinese cat as well.
Amid all this I occasionally manage to sneak a small place for myself on the bed. Clearly I missed my calling.