The UK: My thoughts are with David Laws

One revelation and a story

I have just read with sadness the resignation of David Laws the coalition Secretary to the Treasury on the matter of claiming expenses for accommodation on the premises of his partner.

The unfortunate consequence is that Mr. Laws has inadvertently been outed as gay in a long-term relationship with the man purported to have been his landlord.

There are many angles of looking at this story but the one that most draws my sympathy is that Mr. Laws who is just a month older than I am had settled into the convenience of being in the closet as a single man in public office without any of his close relations knowing of this secret affair – however, it is all now exposed and ones thoughts are prayers are with all concerned.

An ambiguous rule of life

Obviously the commons rules about claiming accommodation expenses require that claimants do not do so when with partners, relations or business associates.

Technically, if Mr. Laws had not declared his residence in plush Kensington to the West of London people might have said there are a quid pro quo scenario developing leaving a Member of Parliament open to influence, his claiming expenses however has lead to this rather human tragedy of sorts from which I do hope he does recover well.

The nation has lost a smart and possibly very able minister to scandals and the plural is deliberate – the scandal that prevents people from being confident of acceptance as gay if they should so choose to declare that fact, the scandal of claiming expenses whilst living with one’s partner even though there is no legal or common law basic for same-sex relationships in the UK except where a civil partnership has been entered into and the scandal of newspapers that have no compunction in exposing anything that would help sell their copy.

The Daily Telegraph has averred that it had no intention of outing Mr. Laws but there is no way that story would have made any news without that consequence as part of its sensational import and interest.

Politicians are not saints

I do not believe that our politicians should be subject to the kinds of moral standards we should expect of the clergy, they are not saints, they are people like you and I who have offered to serve our country in whatever capacity they have been elected and selected to serve.

This would obviously not encourage capable and competent but seemingly flawed people to enter politics for the fear of being mauled by the rabid dogs of the press pretending to be cuddly kittens.

It reminds me of the resignation of Lord John Browne from the chairmanship of BP when in trying to conceal the matter of his sexuality he perjured himself and was vilified for perjury despite the more personal issue at stake.

Acceptance is not a given, even in the West

There is no doubt that even though the middle-classes in the general sense might have the liberality of accepting and tolerating homosexuality, those with influence and in authority, politics or even international sports are not that at ease with revealing who they truly are – it leaves them prone to blackmail and possibly ignominy – the saddest case of those consequences of declaring ones sexuality can only have one looking at how that revelation lead to Justin Fashanu’s suicide in an abandoned garage in East London.

The fear of rejection looms large, more so the threat of homophobia which has not been eradicated even from Western societies and the misfortune that might accompany being disowned by loved and trusted ones – it is not an easy life and our humanity is the poorer for how difference stops people from being the best they could ever be by first being truly themselves.

Sources

BBC News - Treasury Minister David Laws resigns over expenses

Other references

Lies - Between human frailty and the law [akin.blog-city.com]

Obituary: Justin Fashanu - Obituaries, News - The Independent

The Yesterday Telegraph for breakfast

Late again

No great lament shall come of my disappointment when my next visit to Gran Canaria would have me reading yesterday’s The Daily Telegraph for breakfast because it does not arrive on the island till well in the afternoon.

I had written to The Daily Telegraph to complain that an Englishman has the misfortune of not being able to read his daily at breakfast – breakfast on holiday usually starts around 10:00hrs for me.

I can only imagine we are back to some old telegraphy technology, for the speed at which I got a response to what was initially an electronic mail, sent about 2 weeks ago - I did get an apology, so nice of her.

The Reply

The reply came this evening with the following words.

Thank you for your recent email regarding the Telegraph. Please accept my sincere apologies for the delay in responding to you.

I understand from your correspondence that you frequently visit Gran Canaria and have noted that The Telegraph is available to purchase around 1pm whereas the tabloids are available to buy much earlier.

The reason for this is that the tabloid newspapers are printed in the Canary Islands and distributed along with the Spanish press; however the Telegraph is printed further away, in Madrid.

Whilst I appreciate that this causes a delay in purchasing the paper and I am sorry if this causes any inconvenience, I regret there are no plans to change our printing site at this time.

May I take this opportunity to thank you for taking the time to contact us and I sincerely hope that you will continue to enjoy reading the Telegraph.

Should you wish to contact us please email telegraphenquiries@telegraph.co.uk or telephone us on 0800 31 66 977. We are available to take your call Monday to Friday 9am-5pm and saturday 9am-1pm.

With kind regards

Definitely not with the times

Boo hoo hoo! I took the time to contact you because I could not get my paper on time, surely, arrangements can be made to ensure that the paper is electronically sent to the Canary Islands and then printed out here to sensibly call it a daily rather than an evening paper - The Evening Standard in London is already out at 11:30AM.

I guess The Daily Telegraph has not recognised that its name does not have to reflect its inability to leverage modern technologies to achieve the possible.

In the end, if I can only get my daily in the afternoon, I surely must not be charged the full whack to read stale news, maybe I should seek solace in the bosom of the Page Three Girl.

I need a early-bird paperboy

Need a quick paperboy

One has been reduced to reading the Daily Wail at breakfast; it is not the most comfortable feeling at all.

An Englishman must have his daily at breakfast but somehow the higher brow dailies seem to have relapsed into a sedentary holiday atmosphere with the Daily Telegraph getting to my island at well after 1:30PM.

Shurely shome mishtake – we cannot retime breakfast for lunch; that would just not do.

The Germans have it

As I visited the newsagents this morning, one could be forgiven for thinking I had just walked into a shop on Kurfurstendamm – every paper and magazine had an umlaut.

This island might be Spanish but there are more German signs here, the thought crossed my mind that we might have a Kosovo situation brewing with the Germans clamouring for unity with the mother country.

The dearth of cultured queens

I finally had a night out yesterday which started just after 1:00AM and as I got into town, someone took interest in my using a cane by being a silly busybody.

So, I said, “Are you trying to make polite conversation or are you being a typical uncultured British oaf”. He whooped with despicable effete and ran off with his gaggle (of geese) before my cane brought order to his disorderliness.

Whatever happened to the classy and debonair queens of old who carried themselves with such grace and well-mannered comportment – from Oscar Wilde, Noel Coward – I am reading his letters, Sir John Gielgud and now Sir Ian McKellen.

What we have now are loud and brash chavs with no airs, courtesy or manners – the dregs that make you tilt your head backwards with backhand to the brow in an almost fainting spell of despair.

O! Back to the place where everybody knows my name as they punctuate each sentence with Sir. I am being served - Thank you very much.

A class struggle disguised as news

The facts lost to the story

Having advised the newsagents on my way to work to have a copy of the Daily Telegraph available, I am still surprised that the tillers, two ladies and a gentleman still do not know the cover price of the paper which is 3 Euros and conveniently down from 3.60 Euros when I was a more regular reader of the paper, years ago.

I do like the way the paper is edited and the writing style, and though it is a paper that leans quite to the right; if not the organ of the Conservative Party in some ways.

Sometimes, it does take on a rather sensationalist tone as it delves into the kind of muck that tabloids wallow in, and when it appears to take up a cause, be assured that it is probably for the privileged or some interesting publicity seeking people pretending to be up with the Jones'.

One typical example comes to mind, years ago when a developer in London's Mayfair - a rather exclusive real estate location - wanted to redevelop some old property. They had persuaded, enticed or threatened all the occupying tenants off the property but one who stubbornly refused to play ball.

The Telegraph launched into a sob story of a old-aged pensioner being turfed out of her residence having stayed there for almost 25 years, she was 71.

Reading further, we find that she was once a stock broker, she drove a red Ferrari and had been offered quite generous alternatives which she stubbornly refused.

Old-aged she was, pensioner quite probably, but not your common pensioner once you peer into the detail.

Big, bluff and full of fun

So, today, a news story appears with a young happy family - husband, wife, 14-year daughter and toddler - typical happy family in the English countryside. Ah! There is a land dispute; in fact, a boundary dispute covering the whole expanse of 6 feet by 2 feet - 12 square feet - that equates to a humongous 1.11483 square metres.

There are greater disputes in the world, but this little piece of England has had the police interviewing the father-in-law of the Leader of the Opposition - David Cameron - for attempted assault as he tried to get the neighbour off his property.

The principal in this matter is Sir Reginald, 8th Baronet Sheffield (61) who sports a bow-tie with a most eccentric appearance - one record says he is big, bluff and full of fun - the archetypical English country baronet [I think that says just about enough in a very nuanced way] - he has had his press, no doubt.

The neighbour however is Mr. Kilmartin a 45-year old man with who has a pacemaker and serious blood pressure problems. He had his blood pressure taken the day after the event and it was through the roof - he should know to take things a bit easy and not get too worked up.

Too inferior, so inferior

Sir Reginald in his first encounter with the Mr. Kilmartin had advised him to speak to the Estate Manager and walked away, then later returned probably a bit annoyed that he was still chatting to the secretary, grabbed Mr. Kilmartin by the shoulder demanded that he get off the property.

Mr. Kilmartin recalls that he was in a state of shock, that is understandable if you also have a ticker, and then one thing Sir Reginald would not get away with was the fact that he made Mr. Kilmartin feel like an inferior citizen - in his words - "He was so degrading, that's what hurts the most".

It would appear Mr. Kilmartin was not aware of the baronet's eccentricity or how to approach an old school baronet - part of the intemperate exchange involved a retort by Mr. Kilmartin - "What's your problem?" - Hardly toff talk.

Now tell me class is not ingrained in the English society, not to talk of the fact that the baronetcy was created for the illegitimate son of the John Sheffield, 1st Duke of Buckingham and Normanby in 1755 - such is the colourful, vibrant and interesting history of aristocracy - adultery, infidelity, illegitimate children and sometimes in-breeding - Shocking!

Even though Lady Diana Spencer was born into an aristocratic family, as HRH Princess of Wales she never really got into appreciating the aristocratic encumbrance of sharing your husband with courtesans - in this case, it was Camilla Parker-Bowles, then married and with children too, something Camilla's husband - Brigadier Andrew Parker-Bolwes handled with integrity (as an officer) and dignity (as a loyal subject) to the common saying - The man who gave life and wife to king and country.

Utter waste of resources and time

But how did the police get involved so much so that the Crown Prosecution Service had to expend taxpayers' money to come to the conclusion that no further action is required? Mr. Kilmartin must have felt all the more degraded that he had to make a public show of this; so a bit of an embarrassment is necessary to teach Sir Reginald a lesson - he is the father-in-law of the Leader of the Opposition who is busy having to wade through the storm of ditching the building of new grammar schools for the a more contemporary infrastructure spearheaded by Tony Blair's Labour Party.

Sneaky, surreptitious and unsportly

In fact, the Daily Telegraph has been giving so much oxygen to opponents of this new Conservative policy that this event in the English Countryside just presented another rotten opportunity to paint David Cameron and now his extended family in very bad light.

They might think it is newsworthy - come on - grown up men cannot resolve a dispute on a matter that is hardly half the size of my bed and this takes up over a quarter of a broadsheet newspaper page?

So, the Kilmartin family presents themselves for a photo opportunity to accompany a finely placed pique of a story that the Telegraph has surreptitiously exploited for ulterior purposes, even I cannot imagine rags like the Sun or the News of the World playing this kind of game. Suffice it to say; even the sophisticated can descend to the basest instincts.

One is definitely not impressed, no, not at all. Though this is not enough to ditch the Daily Telegraph, at least for now.

Newspapers - Is it still my country?

Internet Renewal Pains

I was having a chat to one of my colleagues after having renewed my subscription to The Economist over the phone. I could have easily done this over the Internet but it appears this service had been out-sourced as capitalists do to some outfit that made the job of renewal quite fraught, all sorts of errors that would make Einstein rethink the Theory of Relativity.

I then wrote to the Economist's Subscription office complaining about the problem and rather than resolve it and consequently invite me to use the service again, they automatically extended my subscription for a year without checking if that was what I wanted to do.

In fact, I was fed up of the yearly routine that I had decided to go for the 2-year deal; a second email upbraided them first and then requested an amendment to the subscription details, this elicited an apology, but I still had to arrange to pay for the deal.

Movable times

When I called at 09:10 yesterday morning, the call centre should have been running for at least 10 minutes in the UK, but I got the overnight message still running on the outgoing message system, I also realised that international calls were still barred on my home phone as a result of Bacchus's visit in March.

Anyway, my colleague was of the opinion that the Economist was quite left-leaning, though I can understand that they have attacked a few right-leaning people not so much for being right-wing but for their actions which could be inimical to progress and justice in their countries - Berlusconi and the twin brothers of Polish politics come to mind.

It was however interesting to note that I read the weekly Economist which my colleague considered left-leaning and read The Daily Telegraph which is quite conservative in its copy and opinion.

What do you read?

It reminded me of an analysis of readers of British newspapers in the 1980s as opined in the political satire drama of that time called Yes, Prime Minister.

In the A Conflict of Interest episode, the Prime Minister had this to say of the papers. "Don't tell me about the press. I know exactly who reads the papers: The Times is read by the people who run the country. The Daily Mirror is read by the people who think they run the country.

The Guardian is read by the people who think they ought to run the country. The Morning Star is read by the people who think the country ought to be run by another country. The Independent is read by people who don't know who runs the country but are sure they're doing it wrong.

The Daily Mail is read by the wives of the people who run the country. The Financial Times is read by the people who own the country. The Daily Express is read by the people who think the country ought to be run as it used to be run. The Daily Telegraph is read by the people who still think it is their country". And The Sun's readers don't care who runs the country providing she has big tits.

Hmmm, I do wonder if this still fetches true 20 years on, mind you, we did not have the Internet then.

Does your inside leg have class?

Between I and me

Nothing excites the English more than to realise that the dormant class war has been jolted into an active volcano with pyroclastic flows of hints for the middle classes to burnish their airs of snobbery in ways that would make Hyacinth Bucket look common.

This was brought about by the break-up of Prince William and Kate Middleton whose greatest sin was to have a mother who responded with a "Pleased to meet you" than the proper, "How do you do?" and asked for the toilet when one does ask for the lavatory.

One remembers remodelling one's manner of speech to say "pardon" rather than bark out "What" considering that too rude for everyday conversation for which one could be accused of dumbing down.

The class frenzy in the papers

So, the Daily Telegraph which one finally persuaded the local newsagents to obtain for one's reading each morning went into overdrive on snippets of being proper enough to have truck loads of toffee on one's nose though not guaranteeing the dosh for readers to travel posh.

Things like laying down your cutlery whilst chewing; having guests wear morning dress to weddings and so on would have those striving to keep up with the Joneses in a tizzy.

However, the greatest putdown in the class war in contemporary times was delivered by Alan Clark when he said of Lord Heseltine who then was a mere Micheal Heseltine - a successful politician and multi-millionaire - a man who bought his own furniture.

The irony is not lost on anyone that many of those in aristocratic circles once had ancestors who bought their own furniture as would eventually never be said of Lord Heseltine's descendants.

The class of your suit

So imagine how I chuckled when I found an advertisement in the Telegraph about a tailor from Hong Kong elbowing his way into the turf of the Savile Row purveyors of formal menswear peddling the best of British cloth and cuts of class under-cutting Savile Row prices tremendously.

He is making the rounds of well-appointed hotels around England measuring up gentlemen for bespoke tailoring all the way from Hong Kong, it reads like a symphonic orchestra calling at theatres all around the country as opposed to pop concerts calling at rowdy stadiums.

Obviously, it is not proper to ask the price of anything indicating you cannot afford it, nor is it of the best manners to blatantly seek out bargains, seeing that is an affectation of the middle classes - this is suffocating as I swoon with a backhand to my tilted forehead - do these people live in this world?

One is not being served

The clincher in the advertisement can only be delivered verbatim - under the title - Even the price suits you, Sir (how common) one paragraph reads -

"In other words, customers can now buy two bespoke, custom and hand-stitched suits, made from fine, British or Italian cloth and measured by a master tailor for the price of one off-the-peg, chain store suit cut by a computer out of cheap fabric and sold to you by a gentleman with spiky gelled hair and who wouldn't know a side vent or a notch lapel from a PlayStation." Ouch! Ouch! Meow!

Now, if he were not making more affordable (read cheap-er) suits, he might have been a prospect for a Royal Warrant - But who says the middle classes are not smarter on the money?

If you must, Raja Fashions can have a tape measure on your inside leg sooner than you had time to smirk at the offer as you ask for gold buttons on ermine.