I blame the scapegoats (7 page)

'Well there's no point in talking to him -
he's a small tin of Pokemon pasta shapes.'

Those in favour of ID cards talk in glowing
terms about the wonders of modern technology. Identity cards would do more than
just prove who you are. All the information that can possibly be needed about
you could be stored on one handy smart card replacing all the others in your
wallet. A quick swipe will establish that you are prepared to donate your
kidneys in the event of an accident, that you are due a free cappuccino at
Caffe Nero and that eleven months ago you paid a lot of money to join the local
gym but have only been there twice.

Then
police officers will be able to swipe the cards through their machines and say,
'Look, Sarge, we've got him now. It says here that
Barney's
Big Adventure
was due back at Blockbuster Video
yesterday before eleven p.m.'

'Oh yeah - and look
at this - two thousand Sainsbury's reward points accumulated. Been doing a lot
of shopping recently, haven't we, sonny?'

Because there is, of course, a civil
liberties issue. As a middle-class white male I don't suffer much aggravation
from the police. Whenever my car is pulled over, I utter a few words and they
are suddenly very polite.

'Is this your own accent, sir?' 'Yes it is.'

'That's fine, sir, thank you. We're just
doing a random check of accents in the area. Sorry to have troubled you.'

But
for young black men, failure to produce an identity card on demand could be
used as a reason for further harassment. Asylum seekers, stigmatized enough
already, will be made to feel even more like non-persons without an official ID
card.

The
opposition should not be so obvious as to come out against ID cards altogether.
Instead they should insist that the processing is done by DVLA Swansea. That
should hold things up for the next couple of decades. And then just when
they're getting on top of it all, the shadow cabinet could send in their own
forms. That'll really put a spanner in the works.

'Oh no, the Conservative front bench have
just blown the whole ID cards scheme out of the water.'

'How come?'

'We should have thought of this. They've got
no identities to put on the cards.'

13
October 2001

Occasionally
one reads about the tragic plight of a desperate group of people in our society
and one is moved to tears by the terrible injustice they've had to endure. Such
a group is Railtrack shareholders. After years of receiving healthy dividends
on their investment, they are suddenly to be denied any more free money from
the taxpayer. Where is Michael Buerk's moving report about the anguish of these
poor victims? Where are the old ladies rattling tins in the High Street? Where
is the Band Aid-type charity record featuring Bob Geldof and Ginger Spice
singing All Aboard the Love Train - Oh no, it's just been de-railed outside
Ealing Broadway'

When
I was eight my brother and I had a small train set but we could never get it to
work properly. The little bits of track wouldn't fit together and whatever you
did the trains kept stopping and starting and then they'd simply refuse to
budge altogether. I now realize that this is the most futuristic train set ever
developed - it was just preparing us for the real thing later on. Railtrack has
been an unmitigated disaster, and anyone who was stupid enough not to have sold
their shares ages ago has no right to complain now the company's been taken
into administration. You've heard of 'the wrong sort of snow'; well they bought
'the wrong sort of shares'. I don't remember a disclaimer on the advert saying
'Remember - the value of shares will only go up and up'

In the years since it was created, money has
poured out of Railtrack into the pockets of shareholders almost as fast as the
taxpayer has been paying it in. The week after the Hatfield rail crash they all
got massively increased dividends as a reward for opting to invest in such an
efficient and well-run company. But now that the government is no longer
prepared to keep throwing bad money after bad, the shareholders' indignation
is beyond belief. Crispin Oddey, founder of Oddey Asset Management, said,
'There is very little difference between what Robert Mugabe has just done to
white farmers in Zimbabwe and what Byers has done to Railtrack's shareholders.'
Yeah, fair comment I suppose: Robert Mugabe and Stephen Byers, I'm always
getting those two mixed up. So look out for thousands of Stephen Byers
supporters storming into the Railtrack offices wielding machetes and torching
the stables.

Now Railtrack shareholders will have to try
to make a quick buck somewhere else. I can't wait to see them approaching the
pay-out desk at Ladbroke's after their horse has come in last.

'Hello - yes, I popped in yesterday and put
fifty pounds on Lively Lad, running in the three o'clock at Kempton.'

'Yeah, well, he lost,
mate.'

'Now look here, I invested a lot of money on
that bet, and through no fault of mine the horse fell at the third fence, so I
must insist that you give me my winnings.'

'Listen, pal, there's
no winnings if your horse doesn't win.'

'What? But that's ridiculous. Surely the
government steps in and pays up for me?'

It is a measure of how appalling Railtrack
has been that it's actually made us nostalgic for British Rail. Yes, who can
forget those happy days of BR when charming guards would help you aboard before
dashing to the buffet to make a few more rounds of delicious cheese sandwiches.
In reality the railways have always been a disaster area. If the classic film
The
Railway Children
had been a bit more accurate, Bernard
Cribbins would have been a grumpy old stationmaster who's only line would have
been to tell the kids to piss off, before Jenny Agutter and her siblings
disappeared to amuse themselves by chucking stones at passing trains and
leaving dead birds on the line to watch them get squashed. In fact, at the very
first passenger railway trip in 1830 the train ran over and killed the former
cabinet minister William Huskisson. The inquiry into this event is due to
report next month. (The incident prompted the first ever railway apology: 'We
would like to apologize for the delayed arrival of the 11.04 from Liverpool.
This is due to a former colonial secretary on the line.') Okay, so the British
government has waited a very long time to get revenge on the railways, but
Railtrack shareholders have no case for complaint. They got the shares for a
fraction of their real value, and we have been subsidizing them ever since. For
years they have been riding in the first-class carriage without a ticket, but
the gravy train stops here.

Such is their fury that they have announced
they are taking the government to court. I can't wait. And when they lose and
are ordered to pay the government's costs, no doubt they will look confused and
say, 'Yes, I understand that we lost the case. But, erm, we still get a huge
pay-out, don't we?'

20
October 2001

Last
week I was in a pub with some friends and after two pints realized I ought to
be heading home. But then I thought about how tourism has been damaged by the
current crisis, how the recession is starting to affect the leisure and
catering sectors, and I thought, 'No - by not spending any more money in this
pub I'd be doing exactly what those extremists wanted.' So I resolved to defy
terrorism and have another pint. In fact I defied terrorism several more times
after that, and then we all defied terrorism some more by going for a curry and
eventually sharing a mini-cab home. It was expensive and time-consuming, but
these are the sorts of sacrifices we should all be prepared to make in times of
national crisis.

In the United States, Weight Watchers have
reported significant weight gains among its members as patriotic US citizens do
their utmost to help the economy by trying every single pudding on the dessert
trolley. Some analysts have attributed the increase to a renewed sense of
perspective and a grim fatalism that makes counting calories seem irrelevant.
But the reality is that people are always looking for an excuse to have
whatever they want and if September 11th is the nearest justification to hand,
then that'll do fine. In the Second World War people could not help but lose
weight, but as we slide into the sequel, Mayor Giuliani is calling for more
people to go to restaurants.

It's
time to loosen our belts. With a recession looming it has become our patriotic
duty to spend as much we can on consumer goods and Tony Blair has been leading
the way as he flies around the Middle East.

'President Musharraf, the British Prime
Minister just called. He's coming to see you again and asked if you wanted him
to pick up any more duty free at the airport.'

'Oh yes, two hundred
Marlboro Lights please.'

'Oh, but no more ciggies - he's used up his
allocation getting a load of B&H for Sheik Said of Oman. How about a big
Toblerone?'

In
fact, it's only Tony Blair's shuttle diplomacy that's keeping the airline
companies afloat at the moment. Too many people remain anxious about flying,
which is quite ridiculous. Statistics show that you are still far more likely
to die at home following a terrorist chemical weapon attack. You've got less
chance of being killed in an aeroplane than you have of being wiped out by the
anthrax virus, so there's really nothing to worry about.

Osama
Bin Laden wanted this recession, so now we must all contribute to the war
against terrorism by buying loads of stuff we don't need. 'Once more unto the
Arndale Centre, dear friends, once more!' Carpet manufacturers would like us to
do our bit by buying more carpets. Or maybe you could stand shoulder to
shoulder with the Americans by having a conservatory built onto the back of the
house. If there is any capital outlay which you've been putting off, now's the
time for getting yourself into debt and splashing out. 'That's one in the eye
for the Al-Qaida network,' you can say to yourself as you unpack your new DVD
player from Dixons.

But
although we must spend more, it is also our duty to expect less in our wage
packet. One business group last month called for a cut in the minimum wage in
order to stave off recession. And can you believe it, the unions were against
this idea! How can these lefties be so insensitive at this hour as to break
the prevailing sense of peace and unity by opposing this patriotic suggestion
from our company directors? You'd think low-paid workers would be delighted to
do their bit by slipping back below the poverty line, but no, even after all
the suffering that we have seen, they are selfishly clinging on to their £4.10
an hour. Okay, so the recession started before September 11th, but anyone who claims
it's the fault of anyone except Bin Laden must be on his side.

The
businessmen who try to use the current crisis to increase their profits are the
corporate equivalent of those bereaved relatives who rush back from granny's
funeral to be first to grab all the silver. 'It's what she would have wanted,'
they say, as they flog off her best stuff at the car boot sale. In America,
this syndrome has been dubbed 'hitch-hiking'; major corporations have been
using the September 11th tragedy as an argument for lifting restrictions that
were placed upon them by previous Democrat administrations. 'I think as a mark
of respect we should be allowed to drill for oil in the National Park' or 'In
order to send out a clear message about freedom we are asking for federal health
and safety regulations to be abolished'. 'Business as usual' was the slogan
that appeared outside bombed corner shops in the last war. 'Big business even
more appalling than usual' is the axiom of this one.

27
October 2001

On
September 11th, soon after two jets were crashed into the World Trade Center
causing the twin towers to collapse to the ground, an internet poll was set up
by one of America's leading search engines. It said, 'This time have the
terrorists gone too far?' Hmmm - a tricky one to call, but apparently most
people voted 'yes'. Perhaps this was an elaborate surveillance scam by the CIA.
They were waiting for someone to click on the little 'no' button, and then the
marines could dash round in the hope that they'd finally located Osama Bin
Laden.