I blame the scapegoats (26 page)

The
British reaction to the falling out of Blair and Chirac underlines a deeper
problem with the whole concept of European integration. There is no such thing
as European patriotism. While people can be proud to be Scottish and British,
or proud to be Californian and American, it's hard to imagine us sneering at
the continent of Antarctica for being not as good as Europe. Each member of the
Union is out for what's best for their country, which is why Chirac has put
protecting the CAP above alleviating poverty in Africa.

The way to achieve greater understanding at
the highest level is for our top politicians to do French exchanges. Tony
should have to go and stay with Jacques' family for a couple of weeks and vice
versa. Imagine what it would it do for Anglo-French relations to have the PM
spending a fortnight in a Parisian suburb, taking up smoking and whizzing round
on a little moped without a helmet. Then for the return visit Chirac could meet
all Tony's friends. 'This is Jacques, everyone,' Tony will say and all the
girls in the cabinet will gasp and swoon as the cool French boy raises an
eyebrow and casually lights up a Gitane. Obviously there might be the risk of a
diplomatic incident when on the last day of his trip Jacques is arrested for
shoplifting in Carnaby Street. Stuffed into the pockets of his cagoule, the
police will discover one stolen Big Ben cigarette lighter, a Beatles keyring
and an ashtray from the Hard Rock Cafe. But by now Blair and Chirac will be
lifelong friends. More importantly, Tony can say, 'Right, Jacques, either you
agree to reform the CAP, or we're telling your parents.'

9
November 2002

Let's
just get this straight. Diana's former butler was just about to go into the
dock to answer lots of awkward questions that would deeply embarrass the royal
family when the Queen suddenly had a flash of memory. 'Oh yes, um, one
definitely remembers now, he told me that he'd taken a load of Di's stuff for,
er, safekeeping, read this out, Ma'am, so Paul Burrell gets let off. Whoops, I
don't think one was supposed to say that last bit.' To slightly misquote
Measure
for Measure,
'There's something well bloody dodgy
going on there and no mistake.'

Everyone will be trying this tack now;
teenagers ripping car radios from the dashboard will claim they're just taking
them 'for safekeeping'. Next time Winona Ryder is done for shoplifting she'll
say, 'Look, I told the Queen of England I was taking the stuff for safekeeping
. . .' and they'll call Buck House to check and she'll say, 'Look, one can't
remember, she probably did . . .'

Frankly,
if the Queen is going to interfere in court cases then I'm afraid she's going
to have to take the stand in the witness box like everybody else. 'The Crown
calls that old lady wearing the crown!' And then she'd walk past the jury,
wondering why they weren't waving plastic union flags and handing her bunches
of flowers.

'Would you tell the
courtroom your name, please?'

'The Queen.'

'And your
occupation?'

'The Queen.' That's if she could remember
these pieces of information - her memory seems to have been a little dodgy of
late. Before long Her Majesty would be buckling under the aggressive
cross-examination of the prosecution counsel. 'One can't remember! You're
putting words into one's mouth . . .'

Eventually
her suitability as a witness would come into question. 'Your Honour, I ask the
jury to consider the background of this so-called witness. She's been living
off the state all her life, the police are always round her house and her
family's constantly in the papers.'

The tragedy for the Queen is that, although
they managed to prevent Paul Burrell revealing lots of embarrassing secrets in
court, he then went and revealed them in the
Daily
Mirror
instead. The other tabloids were appalled at
this shameful betrayal that they failed to land for themselves. Of course the
Sun
still ran the whole story with the words 'World
Exclusive' plastered across its front page. It's one thing to copy everything
from the
Mirror,
but
you'd think they'd remember to cross that bit out. Apparently when the Queen
shed a tear at the Cenotaph this week it was because the
Mirror
had got the rights to the expose and not the
Sun.

Among
Burrell's revelations, we learned that when Charles was in hospital and needed
a wee, he got his valet to hold the bottle. I suppose it's better than Charles
holding the bottle and the valet doing the other bit. 'Shall I give it a little
shake now, Your Highness?' We also learned that Diana had a crush on Dr Hasnat
Khan, and turned up at his house wearing a sumptuous fur coat under which she
was completely naked. The great British public were appalled by this. They
don't mind their future queen having it off with all and sundry and
jeopardizing the future of the monarchy - but wearing fur, well, that's just
beyond the pale. Diana also had lovers smuggled into Kensington Palace in the
boot of her car - except on the nights when no one was available, when she went
to bed with a spare wheel and a load of newspapers that they'd been meaning to
take for recycling.

No one seems to escape the wrath of Diana's
former butler. The Spencer family has come in for particularly severe
criticism. Burrell says that he would never have paraded Diana's life in a
museum for £10.50. Certainly not; he wanted £300,000 and not a penny less. He
recounts how the Queen would ask him to keep her company when she was watching
telly and that he had to stand to attention the entire time.

'I know, Burrell,
let's watch the entire
Star Wars
trilogy!'

'Um, yes, Your Majesty, or we could just
watch a couple of
Tom and Jerrys
and
then call it a night.'

The
trouble with our royal family is that this sort of deference and respect is
hard to maintain when you start to find out a bit more about them. No wonder
they desperately want total secrecy when each tiny revelation confirms how
ludicrous they really are. Before she got him off all charges, the Queen told
Paul Burrell, 'There are powerful forces in this country about whom we know
very little.' That'll be your memory playing up again, Ma'am. They're called
the royal family.

16
November 2002

It
has been twenty-five years since the last firefighters' strike, but those
trusty old headlines and cumbersome puns that haven't seen active service since
1977 were dusted down and wheeled out once again. 'Blazing Row!' 'Burning
Question!' 'Fanning the Flames' -they were all trundled out despite fears that
they were no longer up to the job. Television news crews were eager to get some
dramatic pictures of the first day of the strike, and they weren't disappointed
when a spectacular blaze broke out at a fireworks factory in Manchester. One
eager young TV crew seemed to be on the scene particularly quickly, getting all
the best footage of rockets shooting out of the windows, pausing only to cover
up the petrol can sticking out of their bag. The blaze spread rapidly; burning
timbers crashed all around while the intense heat sparked hundreds of
explosions as the inferno tore through the massive stockpile of fireworks. But
still the bloody Roman Candle wouldn't light.

Military
fire crews rushed to the scene, armed with mulled wine and parkin cake, and
then stood back going 'Oooooh! Aaaaah!' as the multicoloured rockets lit up the
sky. They did their best to stop the fire spreading to the jacket potato
warehouse next door and one or two soldiers attempted to get closer to the
blaze, if only to try to give a nudge to that Catherine wheel that wasn't
spinning around properly. But it was striking firefighters that came off the
picket line to rescue a man trapped inside who had made the mistake of
returning to a fireworks factory once it was alight.

This
is a peculiar strike in that the firemen are withholding their labour except
when it is most needed. Despite a generally hostile press, the firefighters
have managed to keep the moral high ground. They are not dealing with the
smaller, less dangerous incidents; indeed in most news footage of picket lines,
there have been small fires in oil drums right under their noses that no one has
made the slightest effort to put out.

At
this time we should, of course, all be taking extra care and I for one almost
unplugged my television before going to bed. Nobody wants a house fire, but if
it means having to re-set the clock on the video because you pulled out the
wrong plug by mistake, then it's a risk most of us are going to take. Somebody
ought to be using this opportunity to persuade more people to get smoke alarms
fitted, because after all there is no surer way of finding out when somebody is
making toast in the kitchen. (If these 'toast alarms' do go off accidentally,
then it's a very simple operation to turn them off. You stand on a chair in the
kitchen and yank out the battery, leaving a useless bit of plastic hanging
from the ceiling until it is finally destroyed in the fire that burns down the
entire house because you were too cheapskate to buy a decent one.) Other extra
safety precautions taken this week brought severe disruption on the London
Underground, which so delayed exasperated commuters that they almost made eye
contact with one another and tutted. Meanwhile, Al-Qaida terrorists have been
asked not to detonate any nuclear bombs in Britain until the strike is over.

But despite all the worry and inconvenience,
public support for the firefighters remains high. Nobody believes that people
who save lives for a living would suddenly become greedy or go on strike just
for the sake of it. Forty per cent of a healthy wage would be asking too much,
but that's not what firefighters have been paid in recent years. All they are
asking for is £8.50 an hour, and if we think that's too expensive, then we
deserve to see what life without them is like for forty-eight hours.

It's at times like
this that Labour Party supporters would be so much more comfortable if the
Tories were in power. The left can't really cope with being cast as management;
we'd much rather be oppressed and victimized by a ruthless Tory government than
find ourselves trying to be responsible and even-handed. The only way forward
is to appoint an independent pay review body consisting of Norman Tebbit, Jim
Davidson, Peter Hitchens and a Dalek. Then when the firefighters' wage demands
are turned down, we can boo these tight-fisted Tories for their typically
miserly response and reassure ourselves that things would be very different if
it was Labour making the decisions.

The alternative is having to face up to the
unsettling reality that Labour is not doing enough to reward public-sector
workers once it's in government. And I thought the 'Flaming Idiots!' headlines
were a cliche! John Prescott should remember his roots and announce a decent
pay rise for Pugh, Pugh, Barney McGrew, Cuthbert, Dibble and Grubb. And while
we are being nostalgic, he might want to ask Jim Callaghan about the last time
Labour took on the public-sector unions. Because if we thought having no
firefighters was scary, you should see what follows next. . .

23
November 2002

This week a studio audience and various TV
cameras looked on as the body of an old man was dissected and organs were
removed and passed around. That'll teach that old bloke to stand up when the
host asked for a volunteer from the audience. It was the first public autopsy
in 170 years and apparently the viewing figures are way up on last time. The
identity of the body in question has not been revealed, although there are so
many desperate former celebrities who'd do anything to return to mainstream
television that dying and being cut up would probably be considered a small
price to pay to kick-start their comebacks.

Demand for this particular TV recording was
high, and many disappointed members of the public were turned away and had to
make do with watching a recording of
Kilroy
in
the studio next door. Some were physically sick and had to be helped out, but
that's Kilroy for you. The lucky few who got in to the autopsy prepared to
witness the most blood and bone seen in a television programme since Roy
Keane's last tackle to feature on
The Premiership.