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The right sort of listening
"TONY listens and learns. Here is Tony listening
and learning. Now look. Gordon
listens and learns. Here is Gordon listening
and learning."
Listening and Learning, this new Ladybird
book explains, is what Prime Ministers do. "Tony
was our Prime Minister. Now Gordon is our Prime
Minister.''
Alas, a sentence stating when prime ministers
listen and learn was deemed unsuitable for Ladybird
readers. It is not kind to breed cynicism in
the young, which might have been the effect of
telling them: "Prime ministers listen and learn
only at general elections, when they face the
public.''
But it's true, of course. Which is not to say that
prime ministers and governments don't do a good
deal of listening and learning in between their (at
best) triennial listening and learning bouts with
the public. They listen keenly, if usually secretly,
to powerful pressure groups.
Tony Blair's government, for instance, listened
intently to the gaming industry. That's why, out
of the blue, without any public clamour for it,
there emerged a plan for a nationwide chain of
super casinos.
Gordon Brown's Government has recently listened
to the so-called Non Doms, wealthy individuals
who earn their money in Britain, live here
much of the time but, because they are officially
resident overseas, escape tax. Caving in to threats
that they might take their business away, the Government
is wavering over a proposed token tax
payment of £32,000.
At moments like the present, when the natives
are restless, the big self-interest groups hold back.
They recognise that, tireseome though it is, the
Government must deal with the public. But these
real movers and shakers will return, always exerting
more influence than you or I.
Meanwhile, will Gordon Brown act on what he
"learns" from the public? Not significantly. He
will not, for instance, restore the state pension to
a decent level. He will not grant a referendum on
Europe. Instead, he will continue treating us like
cretins by insisting that the new Treaty of Europe
is not the Constitution of a putative superstate.
Of course, there will be one or two goodies.
"Gordon has listened and learned. See, Gordon is
handing out lollipops. But we mustn't takes
sweets from strangers.''
AS Bill Bryson, the American-born president of
the Council to Protect Rural England has pointed
out, a littered environment is now Britain's
"default position". So hats off to Cleveland's
Chief Constable, Sean Price, who personally collared
a driver he spotted dropping litter through
his car window.
The litter was three wraps of heroin. But, because
he had no previous convictions and the
wraps were small and only for his own use, the
offender was merely cautioned.
Is this the way to end the blight of litter? No.
And not helpful either is the apparently sympathetic
comment by the chairman of the Cleveland
Police Authority, Councillor Dave McLuckie, who
remarked: "He has to be one of the unluckiest
criminals in the country.'' Unlucky might have
been to have had a hand amputated, though all
who value the environment would say it was
thoroughly deserved. Whatever happened to zero
tolerance?
AWEEK'S walking in the Lake District, entirely
in valleys, brought just one hearing of
the cuckoo, near Winster, between Kendal and
Windermere. A herald of summer, disappearing
fast.
1:31pm Wednesday 7th May 2008
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