With TV programmers looking to fill the entertainment slot left by Britain’s Got Talent, Prime Minister's Question Time from the Commons may provide the solution. As choreography goes it was a fine display yesterday with ministers manoeuvring around Gordon Brown. A variation of Strictly Come Dancing with partners voting themselves off the dance floor.
If only they moved as quickly to solve the crises they have created. To paraphrase Oscar Wilde, “To lose one cabinet minister is unfortunate; to lose two.....”
As the anger of the electorate surfaces, the linkages between bankers’ bonuses, recession and politicians’ greed set the context for a prime-ministerial annus horribilis. What we have here is a government which was slow to react to the financial crisis and then segued into the expenses shambles with a less than effective response. There is a consistent failure to demonstrate even a basic understanding of crisis management and a continuing inability to analyse potentially dangerous situations. To return to the dancing metaphor, the response is slow, slow ... and there is no quick, quick. Plainly, there is little or no radar scanning of how emergent issues will arise.
Which brings us to flipping. No, not the exuberant steps of the Paso Doble but rather a more mundane expenses fiddle based on housing allowances. Awful in itself but symptomatic surely of much deeper weaknesses which will surface to impact on our previously treasured parliamentary democracy.
So how would our politicians fair in a Parliament’s Got Talent series? Would any survive the audience’s vote?
Our offer of free crisis training for the parties still stands. So far no takers.
For more information, visit the MediaLINK website or call Mike Hogan on 07771 962911/ 01332 222299.
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