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Neil Hudson: You've been Cromwelled
In the modern tradition of turning nouns into verbs, you can now 'Cromwell' your MP, which is marvellous timing, what with a general election upcoming.
It basically involves logging on to a website (like everything else these days), www.youve-been-cromwelled.org, and clicking on a button next to your MP's name.
Simples.
It's all part of the ongoing – and long may it go on – backlash against MPs' expenses.
Cromwell, of course, is the man credited (rightly or wrongly) with single-handedly dismantling the British establishment in the mid-17th century.
All I know is, when I was a kid, my dad used to tell me it was Cromwell who blew up Howley Hall – and thank goodness he did, I used to spend hours crawling in and out of those ruins.
Back in 1653, the king was dead and Oliver Cromwell was Lord Protector. He made a speech to Parliament. It's worth repeating here.
It went like this: "...It is high time for me to put an end to your sitting in this place, which you have dishonoured by your contempt of all virtue, and defiled by your practice of every vice..."
No, he's not talking about footballers.
He went on: "Ye are a factious crew, and enemies to all good government; ye are a pack of mercenary wretches and would sell your country for a mess of pottage (a small bowl of porridge] and like Judas betray your God for a few pieces of money."
Familiar
Sound familiar?
He wasn't done there: "Is there a single virtue now remaining amongst you? Is there one vice you do not possess? Ye have no more religion than my horse; gold is your God. Ye sordid prostitutes, have you not defil'd this sacred place and turn'd the Lord's temple into a den of thieves by your immoral principles and wicked practices?
"Ye are grown intolerably odious to the whole nation; you were deputed here by the people to get grievances redress'd; your country therefore calls upon me to cleanse the Augean Stable (a mythical stable which had not been cleaned in more than 30 years] by putting a final period to your iniquitous proceedings and which by God's help and the strength He has given me, I now come to do."
He concluded and this is the best bit and it's right up there with Samuel Jackson's "I will strike down upon thee with great vengeance and furious anger" (Pulp Fiction, 1994):
"I command ye, therefore, upon the peril of your lives, to depart immediately out of this place! Take away that shining bauble there and lock up the doors. You have sat here too long for the good you do. In the name of God, go!"
How do you follow that?
He certainly knew how to deliver an insult did our Oliver.
As the election approaches, politicians on all sides are forewarning us of the dangers of a hung parliament, as if it might mean the very end of civilisation as we know it.
Well, how so, I ask?
Leeds City Council seems to be doing just fine with the old musical chairs approach to power sharing. All sorts of things are getting done. Bin strikes aside, we've had a new viaduct, the green light on a stadium, the Trinity complex given the go-ahead and lots of shrubbery in the city centre.
Squabbling
There appears to be more harmony than discord when the political set-up is hung if you ask me, because instead of squabbling and being hateful, former enemies are forced into consensus.
Politicians today are like the gentry of old – so far removed from the general populous they have virtually no idea at all how the real world works, how much a tin of beans or a tank of petrol costs, why lifts in council house flats stink of wee, how people manage to live on benefits and still maintain a healthy 40-a-day smoking habit, as the recent Channel 4 programme, Tower Block of Commons so aptly proved.
It took four MPs and asked them to slum it for eight days and nights.
The results were a mixture of farce, tragedy (Grimsby MP Austin Mitchell having to drag his wife along to cook his meals and iron his shirts and perhaps wipe his brow every so often) and cringe-inducing embarrassment as our MPs struggled to get to grips with the most basic of everyday tasks.
Ant, Dec and some wicked entertainment
This week I spotted an advert calling on people to stand as independent MPs for something called JuryTeam, where one of the things they propose is 'Army-style' punishment for violent offenders.
I'd go a step further: televise it, bring Ant and Dec in to present it, set up some kind of dodgy phone voting scam and bada-bing, bada-boom, you've not only solved a social malaise, you've single-handedly given 'reality TV' the shot in the arm it's been craving for.
Possible titles for such a show could include Crim Cram, I'm A Criminal Rehabilitate Me, Jail Fever, Bird Watching (Although Not With Bill Oddie), Prime Time Crime Time, Cell Block X Factor Extreme and Lockdown (the US version, obviously). Heck, we could even go to an 'on ice' version later on.
I can almost hear the voiceover now: 'Violent crim Eddie was locked up for mashing a 92-year-old pensioner's head and then running off with 4... today he'll have to complete 4,000 one-handed push-ups and paint a ton of coal white. Will he do it? Vote now! And remember folks, the crim you like least will get to spend the night in solitary with Sgt Dogbite.'
You read it here first.
Still, I like the original thought, as proposed by the JuryTeam. So, more of that. And less of our MPs' extravagant way of living.
Cromwell the lot of them, I say.
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Weather for Leeds
Saturday 11 February 2012
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