Wednesday, 12 May 2010

Twattle and Twottle

For some of us there's something deeply irritating about the self-assured strut of the public schoolboy. They ooze a confidence that seems to be beyond their exposure to and understanding of Real Life. And now we have two Chums standing in the garden of 10 Downing Street full of smug self-confidence in their newly created jolly what-ho vision of the future. Deeply irritating. And yet for me, unwelcomely welcome. And I almost allow myself to hope.

The trouble is - I cannot imagine that they'll be able to survive when they find themselves wiping the brown stuff from their faces when it hits the fan. They are ideologists, and their ideology and vision will serve them well in the face of adversity. But somehow I doubt their life-experiences will have them anything like prepared for the battering they'll inevitably encounter. Even so - I wish them well - I'd far rather have naive idealism than cynical manipulation.

My impression so far is that Cameron towers Clegg in intellectual ability. On the Downing Street lawn Clegg was want to wave his arms about in over-excited wetting-himselfness whereas Cameron actually looked like there was something going on behind that silver-spooned tongue. Clegg couldn't believe he was there whilst Cameron clearly knew it was absolutely right that he was there - The Prime Minister, the realisation of his Etonian dreams.

Apart from the testing times they have ahead, at some point they are going to have to face up to the fact that they don't have anything like the power they imagine they do. Do they really think that in this day and age any Government has the power, or wherewithal of any sort to deliver the sort of changes in society they glibly pronounce they intend to deliver? Pah! Ideologists! And even worse - Public School Boy Ideologists!

Still - as a self-confessed ideologist myself - I can't resist a sneaking respect for Cameron and I'm considerably more content with the prospect of him as a prime minister than I ever thought I would be. But will those utopian goggles survive the big brown fan? I doubt it.

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