It’s the end of the world as we know it

Oct 3 2008 By Andrew Cowen

It’s hard to describe the annoyance I’m feeling towards Dave Cameron at the moment.

Yes, it’s good he brought his band of blue brothers to Birmingham for a bit.

Yes, it’s impressive that they managed to drink a pub dry.

Yet, I get the impression from watching his address to the faithful yesterday that he’s just piddling in the wind.

I blame Blair for the cult of the sound-bite but, really Dave, “the man with the plan”? Who dreamt that one up?

I’ve heard some feeble guff in my time, but that really does take the Hob Nob.

I’m a journalist. I’m paid to read between the lines. When I hear someone say: “I have a plan”, it generally means: “I have no idea how to deal with this, so go away.”

It’s a common phrase in relationships.

She: “Darling, why are all these carpet tiles still blocking the cellar stairs?”

He: “It’s OK dear, I have a plan.”

Cameron’s not even the original man with the plan. The first politician to use the phrase was Enrique Peñalosa, former mayor of Bogota.

Holding sway over a city reduced to tears by poverty, gangsters, drugs and corruption, his plan was simple.

He decided to make all the sidewalks lovely.

“In developing-world cities, the majority of people don’t have cars, so I will say, when you construct a good sidewalk, you are constructing democracy. A sidewalk is a symbol of equality,” he said.And you know what? He’s probably right.

Mayor Peñalosa banned all cars from parking along his lovely pavements and built cycle lanes. Now most of the people in his part of Columbia go to work by bike.

It’s a brilliant example of lateral thinking in politics which invests in people. Most people in Bogota can’t afford a car so why spend millions on something that’s for the benefit of the minority?

The one thing that the current financial meltdown has made clear is that institutions have been favoured over individuals.

Yet, as far as I can gather, Cameron’s plan is to spank us hard on the botty because we’ve been really naughty boys and girls. He’ll do the spanking stuff himself because he went to public school and he’s not afraid of taking unpopular decisions.

And that’s it, as far as I can tell. The Tories won’t tinker with Labour’s spending plans and, because we’re in a bit of a financial kerfuffle, he won’t say anything too nasty about Gordo.

Big mistake Dave.

A few weeks ago, Cameron had Brown on the ropes. It was like watching a boxing match between Hugh Fearnley Whittingstall and Patrick Troughton.

Political commentators were predicting the departure of Brown within a week, helped along by the twerps on his own back benches who feared a derailment of their gravy train.

Now, it seems to me, that Gordo is back in the driving seat of that train. He’s the guy in the cab of a big ole steam engine, face smeared with coal dust, skin dessicated by the hot winds of locomotion.

He’s got both eyes on the horizon and one hand on the dead man’s handle. Quite an abiding image don’t you think?

For all his fuddy duddiness, it’s not too hard to respect Brown as we plunge into the nightmare scenario of possible pan-handling former estate agents and solicitors offering their services in exchange for a bowl of mulligatawny soup.

What is becoming increasingly clear is that this is just the start of the bad times. The grumbling tum before the full gastroenteritis hits the fan.

Politicians are waking up to the fact that this is a global problem and that suddenly, the mighty West no longer holds all the cards. That’s why America keeps passing the buck. The USA is looking after China’s money and China wants it back. Even the mighty Rothschilds, the archetypal masters of war, can’t afford that.

Yet Dave clearly thinks he’s come up with a vote-winning slogan with “broken Britain” but it’s not just dear old Blighty that’s bust. Take a good look around Mr Cameron. From Wall Street to the West Bank; from the ice floes to the hills of Afghanistan.

Nothing is working as it should be. It’s all out of whack. It needs vision and a long-term global fix, not posturing and misplaced gravitas from a teak lectern to make everything tickety-boo.

Is it any wonder that China is now heading off to space?

The petty poutings of Cameron only show him up to be a man of no big ideas in a village pond. A minnow swimming against a global tide of damnation.

Sorry if I sound like the harbinger of doom, the fifth horseman of the gymkana.

Conquest, war, famine and death are all saddled up and ready to gallop.

I feel an ill wind blowing across the face of the planet and there’s little we can do.

If there is a man with a plan, I believe it’s a chap with greater powers than dinky Dave and his stupid Webcameron.