Royally cushioned car crash

Blue Monday? I suppose it’s a change from Black Friday. Or Brexit Everyday. Why make things like this up? Hasn’t every Monday been a blue one at some point? Even when it starts in the wee small hours with a blood-red moon?

Black Friday, of course, is a commercial construct designed to make people feel they’re getting a bargain even when they’re being encouraged to buy things they don’t need with money they don’t have.

And to make the general public, rather than those in the well-padded seats of power, feel both responsible for the parlous position in which we find ourselves and guilty for failing to spend our way out of trouble.

While simultaneously, of course, keeping ourselves carefully out of debt, so that we don’t unreasonably expect the increasingly hard-to-access assistance of the state.

I read this week in an Oxfam report that 26 people – 26 individuals – now possess as much wealth as the poorest 50% of the world’s population.

Yet guess which sector is seen as preying on the rest of society and trying to get what they don’t “deserve” or haven’t “earned”? Never mind Blue Monday. You don’t have to be a red leftie to spot a bit of an imbalance going on there.

Of course, one law for the rich and another for the rest of us could hardly have been better illustrated in a minor sort of way – also this week – by the treatment of the Duke of Edinburgh following his car crash close to the Sandringham estate. This kind of accident could, of course, happen to anyone and as for complaints that HRH hasn’t yet apologised, isn’t it still the general advice to anyone involved in an accident not to do so in case it is later taken as some kind of admission of guilt? Maybe not. And come on, It’s Prince Philip we’re talking about. Picture the scene…

Then we hear that the cheerily nicknamed Duke of Hazard has been “given advice”, “spoken to by the police” and could “be sent on a driving awareness course”. Would you care to take a bet on that? Mind you, you’d sell tickets for it, wouldn’t you?

One does not, generally, tend to have to look far to see books being thrown at drivers for all kinds of misdemeanours. I am not saying for one moment that this is wrong when you see the havoc and heartache rash or careless or even just downright unlucky actions can cause.

But in this case, the book seems to have been presented on a ceremonial tasselled cushion.

Prince Philip can have – and indeed has had – a new car delivered to the door the next day, upping the ante somewhat when, on said next day, he is spotted in said new vehicle, without benefit of seatbelt.

He can also well afford to employ a legion of drivers to ferry him around in safety.

Of course, he is notoriously independent, so they say, but by those lights, he hasn’t done much for other, rather less well-cushioned members of the hitherto happily mobile older generation. His little prang has resulted in calls for statutory checks, compulsory tests and bans on driving for all kinds of reasons for those over a certain age.

Again, I’m not saying this is an entirely bad thing, though if figures are to be believed more car accidents are caused by those pesky kids than those with a few more miles on the clock.

But I can find it in my heart to feel rather sorry for the legions of other state pensioners strapped into their low-emission Cinquecentos whose freedom and independence are now probably going to be compromised and curtailed big time as driving while old is cracked down upon by the eagle-eyed constabulary.

I reckon that what this actually is is the perfect analogy for Brexit. We’re all being driven blindly into a ditch and overturned by a group of privileged people with a grossly inflated sense of entitlement and a complete inability to recognise that rules are there for a reason and apply to all of us, not just those who don’t have enough money or influence to flout or ignore them.

Oscars

Thrilled to see this week that Rami Malek has received an Oscar nomination for his amazing performance as legendary Queen frontman Freddie Mercury in the film Bohemian Rhapsody.

I had my doubts, I will admit, that this unashamedly popular and thoroughly moving piece of entertainment would slip through the awards net, but with Mr Malek already in receipt of a Golden Globe for Best Actor and with the venerable Academy now giving him the nod, I hope against hope that he will carry off the top gong.

And if he and the wonderful Olivia Colman, nominated in the Best Actress category for her star turn as Queen Anne in The Favourite, make it a prizewinning double dunter for tragi-comic monarchy, it may be the only time, as things currently stand, that you’ll find me rooting for royalty.

His little prang has resulted in calls for statutory checks, tests and bans on driving for those over a certain age

Pictures: PA, Alex Bailey, and Atsushi Nishijima. The Queen chats to Prince Philip behind the wheel; Rami Malek in a scene from Bohemian Rhapsody; and Olivia Colman as Queen Anne in The Favourite.