Not For Turning

In a moment of desperation Dave and I found ourselves watching the Conservative Party Conference. The Minister for Science and Universities was hailing 'the broccoli of the future'. Was this a metaphor? For young people? Perhaps not, because he went on to say it was available in Marks and Spencers.

Considering that they were preaching to the converted, the various ministers seemed rather unconvinced themselves. The exception was Michael Gove (a veteran of The Late Review or whatever the hell it's called now) who said that he 'would not rest' until all schools in the UK were 'as good as the best', and said it in a voice so authoritative (and so strangely similiar to that of Victoria Coren) that you could almost believe that he really believed what he was saying, even though such a situation, were it ever to come about, would only result in remarkably well-informed rioters.

Where are we to turn as the economic system collapses? Jeremy Vine didn't have any answers, and soon turned from the topic to the human interest story of an elderly woman from Romford who was arrested for dangerous driving. Apparently she went round a roundabout the wrong way, wandered from one lane to another, and drove really slowly on a motorway. So slowly that the resulting 'police chase' consisted of a policeman running alongside the car and tapping on the window.

JV interviewed her, and she turned out to be very posh and also very furious - all the time, by the sound of it. She was particularly outraged that she had been put in a police cell 'against my will' - as though people would normally be consulted about this. Adamant that she had done nothing wrong, she seemed to embody the spirit of the British Empire in her remarkable attempt to 'colonise' the motorway. They should make her Prime Minister. She's bound to know just what to do about the economy. And she can probably fuck it up a whole lot quicker than this lot will.