Western Daily Press (Saturday)
Rees-Mogg proved such a poor loser
WHEN Mr Rees-Mogg was interviewed on the TV following the declaration of the confidence vote my immediate reaction was, ‘what a poor loser’.
He is chairman of the
Conservative Brexit Group in the House of Commons and I wondered if the rest of them are as vindictive.
Some of them have obviously decided to continue their campaign to depose Mrs May by any means and it appears there is now to be a campaign of character assassination in an attempt to force her to a point where she is unable to take any more and will stand down. Just how horrid can you get. lowest point of the two-and-a-halfhour show had to be the appearance of Ed Gamble (stand-up comic? Not in my book!) whose entire routine consisted of an excruciatingly unfunny monologue about breaking wind while being massaged.
Harry and Meghan could have been forgiven had they got up and walked out! Whoever put together this year’s show should have been sent to the Tower! seriously ill child it can be a very tough time. As they juggle hospital stays and doctor appointments, Christmas is forced to take a back seat.
Rainbow Trust Children’s Charity supports families with a lifethreatened or terminally ill child. At this time of year, our family support workers do all they can to practically and emotionally help families put some colour back into Christmas at an otherwise grey time.
To highlight the difference Rainbow Trust makes, may I urge readers to take a two-minute pause from Christmas preparations and watch a beautiful animation. Called Bring Back the Colour, it tells the true story of three young sisters supported by the charity: www. rainbowtrust.org.uk/colour-atchristmas
Thank you for your support and a very happy Christmas.
IRONIC that in a week when all have been fixated with the concept of getting out of Europe we should have adopted so readily such a very continental idea. But wherever I look, there are folk milling about wearing yellow vests.
Has discontent with our politicians sunk to such a level that we need to copy the Gilets Jaunes movement of France and kick off a bit off festive rioting in the streets? Is social despair so deep and cruel that torching things and looting shops is the only answer?
No, of course not. The bright outfits are there to prevent mayhem, not to cause it. I’m talking here about the thousands of civic ceremonies that have been taking place in every town and village across the land to switch on the Christmas lights – events that have without fail involved men in hi-vis jackets ensuring that health and safety rules are strictly followed.
Anger can be involved, mind you. These men – almost invariably called Trevor or Malcolm – often get very hot under their luminous collars when they see something that could endanger members of the public.
“You won’t believe this, my love, but there was a man there taking photographs of the school choir singing carols despite clear and obvious child protection rules,” they yell at their wives after a hard night’s duty. “I could see, too, the chairman of the parish council – a man who should know better – placing some tinsel on the Christmas tree while not wearing a hard hat.
“And then, to cap it all, I stopped off to buy some fuel on the way home and saw a man there filling up his car having failed to previously switch off his mobile phone! There are times when I really do think the world is going mad!”
The pettifogging crops up again and again and again – although, I suppose, we should generally be very grateful. If we were back in Victorian times, say, it’s easy to imagine those lighting-up occasions resulting in fire, death and disaster on an epic scale with widows and orphans condemned to pick oakum for the rest of their short, miserable lives.
By and large, health and safety, plus the million other laws that currently rule us, are good. It’s nice to think, for example, that we can switch on a washing machine or vacuum cleaner without being on the receiving end of 10,000 painful volts or munch away on a shop-bought mince pie without the prospect of spending the next six months in intensive care.
Yes, appreciation all round. Yet isn’t it odd that when you mention such matters to friends or folk down the pub, all you hear are tales of “’elf and safety gone mad”?
Never much need to look far for such stories. How many are true, exaggerations of slim facts or pure fiction it’s hard to say, but newspapers love them. Just a few moments’ delving into the archives resulted in dozens of the things.
There was the council that banned hanging baskets outside shops in case blind people walked into them, the seaside town that banned kite flying or the office manager who ordered that sticking plasters should be removed from all the works’ first aid kits in case of allergic reactions.
Schools are an especially fertile ground. There are the perennial stories about conker bans, of course, and a real beaut about a lad kept in isolation for a day after arriving wearing a tie with a knot in it rather than a clip-on. And who can forget news of the chap refused Christmas crackers as they contained high explosives and he had no proof of his age? He was 57. Silly to you and me, but all very sensible to the hi-vis brigade.
Still, better off with them that their counterparts across the Channel. All that anger, tear gas and fire. “There is something symbolic about ripping up flagstones and building barricades,” one protester said. “It’s in our DNA.”
Funnily enough, when I first heard of the Gilet Jaunes, I mistook it for Jules et Jim, that rather raunchy French film from the 1960s. What I got instead were shots of burning cars and yelling garlic-munchers. C’est la vie.
Who can forget news
of the chap refused Christmas crackers as they contained high
explosives and he had no proof of his
age? He was 57