A wonderful letter in today’s Independent:
Sir: After a decade in which the electorate have been treated like idiots; when alternative political visions became a thing of the past and voting became a choice between different sets of accountants or fund managers; when a prime minister takes us into a catastrophic war based on lies, and is not held accountable, when the terrible results of the most obscene and idiotic schemes of greedy financiers are called a "credit squeeze", the people of London elect a celebrated fool.
This is either a fascinating piece of knowing irony or it is the completion of something far more disturbing.
Hear, hear, Mr Curtis of Nottingham, though, despite irony permeating every bloody area of life and sapping its blood, I increasingly fear it is the latter that is true.
I recall something from a review of a work by Kundera:
"In a world where everyone, in order to attract attention, turns somersaults, the man who stands on his own feet will be taken for an acrobat."
We need these tricksters, with their feet firmly on the ground.