Low Life | 21 February 2009

The other night, Jim, a pub landlord, was complaining angrily to me about the government. I listened but said nothing. Then he produced a newspaper clipping. It was an article about the British army’s latest sniper rifle. It had a range of, I forget what — two miles? In the wrong hands, said Jim, it would be possible for someone to lean out of an upstairs window in Lambeth and pot a New Labour politician fumbling for his car keys in the members’ car park of the House of Commons. In fact, I was looking at the wrong hands right now, he said, spreading them on the bar. Would I like to sponsor him on an assassination spree?

Actually, I detest this political class so much I think it’s making me mentally ill. From first thing in the morning, when I switch on my radio, until last thing at night, I’m in a permanent state of anger at this relentless assault on rationality, on decency, on the nation’s fund of good will.