THE total attendance at the Cheltenham National Hunt Festival last
week was up on the previous year. This was despite a rise of a tenner in
the cost of purchasing a club badge which set one back #50 a day; on
Thursday the enclosure was so packed you could not have bent down to
pick up a dropped betting slip.
As we watched the Gold Cup an Englishman next to me confided he had
placed #2000 on the favourite, The Fellow. I had a modest score on the
same nag and, as you are probably aware, neither of us will ever see
that cash again.
After the wretched horse had trailed in fourth the big gambler
shrugged: ''That's a pity,'' he said, without irony, and I was too
ashamed to moan about my losses.
His pal was more animated. ''Norman Lamont performed better than
that.'' Whether this was meant as a compliment to the Chancellor is open
to question, but our Norm has made a few new friends on the racing
circuit.
They say if you count the number of helicopters in the centre of the
course and the Rollers in the Cheltenham car park you will have a fair
idea of the economic state of the country. If that is so, and it is as
good a barometer as any, then the sun is peeping, ever so coyly, from
the clouds.
I took time off from the important business to hand to watch the
Budget debate and, for most of the time, I wished I had not. Among Mr
Lamont's many sterling qualities are a strongly developed instinct for
survival, yet his voice sounds like a hair drier and he delivers a
speech as though he is reading aloud from the telephone directory.
On one matter Mr John Smith, the punters' pal, and myself are in
complete agreement. The Budget Purdah, in which the Chancellor dare not
give a hint of what he might be contemplating, should be ended. Wee
Norrie has nothing to lose by such a step.
Mr Smith has much to gain. If he knows in advance what the
Chancellor's speech contains his own response will be that much better.
On Tuesday he was rambling and repetitive, unlike the master of doom,
Gordon Brown, who had a whole day to set his features into a funereal
mould.
Sometimes you think the political world has turned upside down. I have
no deep-rooted objection to paying a bit more in indirect taxation and
national insurance to help the Third World, or even those at home who
need a shilling for the gas meter, though I did not hear a lot of that
from my party's candidates at the election.
Labour and the Lib-Dems were the ones who put these sort of ideas
forward. So, now that the Tories have followed their advice, why is
there such an outcry? Because there has to be, stupid, that is the way
we play the game.
Let us imagine Mr Lamont had announced the creation of a million new
jobs, a huge rise in benefits, and a wealth tax on the filthy rich -- I
do not rule any of these out in future -- would Mr Brown have been
caught singing You Are My Sunshine? Graham Gooch will be Shaver of the
Year first.
The row about the forthcoming VAT on power is typical. When a
politician says he has no plans to introduce an increase it is a bit
like being told he has no plans to die -- true, but not to be depended
upon.
Watch my lips, every policy can be changed. Is there, by the way, any
good reason why the British should not pay this tax on domestic fuel
like almost everyone else in Europe? Don't tell me about shivering
pensioners: that is an argument for exemptions, not one that should be
used against the general principle.
I often wonder if the yah-hoo school of politics -- and there is no
better example than the current state of hostilities between Labour and
the SNP -- actually serves us well. No, I do not yearn for the grand
coalition, but I do think the adversarial style, the extravagance of the
language, the pretence that one side is the font of all wisdom, the
theatricality of it all, is absurd. When people say, and they do, ''you
politicians are all the same'', they have a point.
As I was driving up the motorway (being overtaken by caravans and
mini-vans doing 90mph; I thought speeding was being taken more
seriously, it certainly kills enough people) I listened to a French
journalist talking about their election.
The citizenry, she said, were sick of the Socialist government but
they were far from ecstatic about their right-wing opponents. There is
apparently a kind of Spitting Image show on French television which
lampoons all politicians as dishonest idiots and the public thinks the
portrayal is just about accurate.
''In fact, there is little difference between them on how to deal with
the economic ills of the country,'' she concluded. Truth to tell, the
same applies here.
There was something said by Mr Lamont, before the Budget speech, with
which I definitely agreed. He talked about ours being an ''alibi
society''; everything which happens has to be somebody's fault and we
bay for heads to roll for it is such fun to see the mighty humbled.
Would the BBC really have been a better organisation minus John Birt?
Is this a more upright and trustworthy Government since David Mellor
left?
I do not pretend to be the world's greatest economist, but surely we
can see that the problems of homelessness and unemployment and economic
misery know no national boundaries. I happen to believe that for years
we in the West paid ourselves more than we actually were worth, and that
we grossly underestimated the effect which new technology would have on
the job market. If there has to be blame, we all share it.
Mr William Waldegrave, with whom I had the pleasure of dining
recently, told me that Mr Michael Heseltine had accurately predicted the
Government's eventual majority before the election. Next time, says
Hezza, it will be about 60. Don't say I did not tell you.
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereComments are closed on this article