Fairness, justice and wishful thinking

Core values

As August departs in a blaze of sunshine, with a resigned sigh we contemplate an autumn of discontent and a winter of absolute, all consuming misery. As seasons go; silly is too narrow a definition to contain the output of our noble, balanced and independent media. Based on current output, perhaps we should introduce a seasonal banding system for when politicians take August as a holiday to elevate silliness beyond the merely plain daft. In front of every silver lining is a bloody great big black cloud.

Super silly season would cover or, indeed, uncover any of the nonsense coming out of France at the moment. Mega silly season could define the USA in an election year and silly beyond the point of reasonable belief would characterise the actions of Labour Party members during another leadership election and the media`s utterly bizarre reporting of a political party running out of feet to shoot. We can, however, take comfort in traditional silly season hokum.

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Stars

With a paucity of remotely sensible political analysis being made available to a bewildered yet cynical public, it is tempting to simply join in with the blizzard of outrageous allegations and smears against friend and foe alike safe in the knowledge that any factual evidence will never be checked. Even if some naïve soul investigates the veracity of various claims and counterclaims, we have rapidly realised that proof is irrelevant and irrefutable evidence is best ignored. With politics descending further into playground name-calling followed by little boys starting a fight and then running away, the most efficient way to stick the boot in is with the tried and tested personal anecdote.

So, my wife once met a man on a train who said he knew a woman who had a sister who knew a man that told this absolutely true story.

Medalling with worlds

For a global sporting event to be considered successful, it must be preceded by dire predictions of unfinished facilities, dangerous infrastructure, drug scandals, blatant corruption and civil unrest. The Games of the XXXI Olympiad delivered on all those requirements and surpassed previous Olympiads by throwing in the threat of a particularly nasty tropical disease. The first half of Rio 2016 will be remembered as the games that had everything.

Wanted: distinguished chairperson

With a new Prime Minister, a new Home Secretary and a new if familiar front bench, it is reassuring to know that transparency, truth and justice remain at the heart of the British government. The inexplicable loss of three distinguished chairpersons resigning from the Independent Inquiry into Child Sexual Abuse appears to be a devastating if coincidental run of bad luck for a government committed to protecting children from perverts. However, to lose two distinguished chairpersons may be regarded as a misfortune; to lose three looks like carelessness.

Honours among thieves

It is probably just a simple oversight or a minor administrative error or an honest to goodness human mistake but after days and days of waiting for the postman to arrive with confirmation, it seems than my name does not appear on David Cameron`s resignation honours list conveniently leaked to a Murdoch newspaper.

The fact that I am eminently qualified to be ennobled and thus elevated above the hoi polloi makes the omission even more inexplicable. I tirelessly supported the “Remain” campaign by bunging a load of cash at it. I instructed my newspaper editors to inform the public that my opinion is the only infallible truth and I defended democracy by bunging a load of cash to the political party that best serves my interests. I opened a Free School and used the funding to pay off the mortgages on my property portfolio and placed impoverish children in solitary confinement until their scrounging parents paid the lunch bill. I opened a chain of Academies and removed impoverished children and disruptive pupils displaying so-called special needs determined to spoil my reputation as an evangelical philanthropist.