To Instow beach yesterday afternoon with the dog and while I accept it was a pleasant enough day it was hardly scorchio. So imagine my surprise - as they say in certain publications' readers' letters pages - when I spotted people just lying on the beach. Admittedly they were fully clothed, but it was obviously premeditated because they were on blankets. I have to say I do respect the British holidaymakers' boundless hope that things won't be too bad. No doubt they are all saying to each other "mustn't grumble".
Our would-be leaders are another bunch showing apparently inexhaustible optimism. They continue to prance around the country convinced of their right to our vote. Of course this approach went seriously wrong for Gordon Brown when he managed to suggest that a random old lady was a bigot. Fleet Street's finest are now in meltdown about a "turning point" in the election which has doomed Labour's chances of gaining power. They may be right about Labour's chances, but I'm not so sure an unwise comment is necessarily what will do it. However, much of journalism turns on being able to create the general from the specific. One incident becomes an example for everything.
In any case, I'd be surprised if politicians didn't spend a lot of time slagging us off behind our backs. Let's face it, the electorate must be an awful nuisance for most politicians. I'm sure we, the voters, just simply don't understand the pressures and difficulties of being a talking arse. Having to go out and secure people's votes must be an awful chore, so much so that Peter Mandelson manages to occupy one of the most powerful roles in British politics and yet he's unelected. And the piles of festering ordure standing in my constituency seem to be adopting a policy of keeping a very low profile presumably in the hope that we'll inadvertently vote for them without first discovering that it would be more pleasant to get the clap than spend an hour in their company. Anyway, mustn't grumble.
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