He is not alone in the weird parallel universe that is politics

Did you read El Gordo Grande's reaction after being told by his colleagues and the country to fuck off, take his richly unmerited pension** and leave us all alone?

"But you have to stick with policies and make sure they come through. We keep on with the task in hand and we are not diverted from it."

He then "pledged to set out policies on health, education and policing in the coming weeks."

Have you noticed how in the strange tongue called journalese, politicians don't speak. They "pledge."

You might think a pledge in this context is just a lie. Don't be such a cynic. The word has two meanings:

1) Say something meaningless or irrelevant
2) Promise something that either cannot or will not be fulfilled and wouldn't make any difference if it were.

Thus, Gordon, it is both irrelevant and meaningless to produce any policies in those areas.

You and the Bliar between you have had 12 years to do something about these areas of catastrophe, shovelled billions into them, and either made little difference, no difference at all or worsened things considerably. (See: knife crime, drunkenness, teenage pregnancy, falsifying exam results, elderly dying in hospital corridors, troops sent to die because of inadequate equipment etc., etc.)

The only thing you have shown any skill at all in is "massaging the figures" or, as we simple folk call it, lying.

Furthermore there is no ground for believing anything you "pledge" will achieve anything as you are lodged so irretrievably and so far up your own rectal passage to consider that you may have made a few ghastly mistakes and should correct them.

One big problem is that word "policies."

All politicians confuse announcing a policy with something happening.

It is not.

In my speeches and seminars I often quote the Duke of Wellington. He was asked towards the end of his life to what he owed his victories. He replied, "Attention to detail."

Politicians prefer pledges to attention to detail. This calls for worthy citizens to ask questions like, "how exactly are you going to do that?" And if the answer is, "new initiatives" or (even worse) "innovative new initiatives" kick the guilty party sharply in the wanking zone.

Incidentally, I see that the favourite in the race to succeed The Mighty Bloat is Mr. Alan Johnson.

You can just picture the job interview, can't you?

"So, you're going to run the country, Alan - sort things out, right?

You have lovely grey hair and a fine set of teeth. Now tell me about your background and qualifications."

Mumbled response.

"You left school at 15, worked at Tesco stacking shelves, then became a postman?

"Then you were a communist trades union official before getting into politics

"You've had seven government jobs since 1997. Seven?

"You voted for the Iraq War and opposed investigation into the lies that led to it. But you are a man of principle - you criticised a breast cancer patient for trying to buy a cancer drug the NHS had denied her.

"Charming

"Can you point a single thing you have done that achieved anything worthwhile?

"Thought not

Next, please"

Queue of shifty applicants, most under investigation for fraud, shuffles forward.

** Please don't think I have a down on Brown. Like everyone else over 60 I shall always remember how "prudently" he stole half my pension and destroyed the value of what was left. Watching him squirm is one of my greatest pleasures. He should be on the Embankment in a cardboard box.