Sing As We Go!

I just wonder what the world is coming to. Corruption, corruption, corruption everywhere. I now see that (according to the headlines) 'Sleaze chief David Curry quits over £30,000 love-nest expenses swindle'. It is alleged that this man, a Tory MP, has quit as chairman of the Parliamentary Standards & Privileges Committee over claims that his taxpayer-funded home had been used as a love nest for his mistress. He reportedly claimed almost £30,000 for a second home that his wife had banned him from visiting. It is said he had used the house, in his Yorkshire constituency, to meet a local headmistress who was his lover.

This man was meant to be the guardian of standards; a watchdog to protect us from the abuse of power by those people whom we have elected to govern us. What a bloody cheek these people have. It's nothing short of rampant hypocrisy, that's what it is (well, that's if David Curry's duplicity turns out to be proven). I've not experienced such hypocrisy since I witnessed my Great Aunt Dolores selling the 'Socialist Worker' at the gates of a power station during the 1984-5 miners' strike. I wasn't at all happy about driving her to the picket line in her Bentley. We had to park around the corner while she changed from her mink coat and cashmere dress into a boiler-suit and donkey-jacket (which she'd ordered her maid to deliberately 'distress'). When I complained about this seemingly duplicitous charade, she told me not to be so stupid.

"You're just a lily-livered liberal, boy," she said, "whereas I am a real red-bloodied socialist. Don't forget, I fought with Hemingway in the Spanish Civil War." At this, I reminded her that Hemingway didn't actually fight in the Spanish Civil War, he just reported it. "That's what you think," she retorted. "You weren't there. He was the most courageous of men. We were lovers, you know – until that bitch Martha Gellhorn came along and usurped me. She didn't want him; she was just jealous of me".

My Great Aunt often talked nonsense of this kind. Her memory of events, and her political credentials, were always blushed red with a more than flamboyant imagination. But back to the picket line and the Socialist Worker. I was humiliated with embarrassment when she forced me to dress in what was her idea of the outfit of a fish-wife: A hideously tatty paisley-patterned frock, headscarf, and wrinkled stockings. I don't think anyone was convinced by this, but the guys on the picket line were far too busy shouting 'Scab' to notice.

When Dolores had finally sold all of the copies of the newspaper, she led the boys in a chorus of the 'Red Flag' and passed around a bucket for the donation of coins. "For the little kiddies' Christmas presents," she yelled, flashing her gorgeous white teeth.

Back in the Bentley, she wriggled out of her boiler-suit and donkey jacket and flung them out of the dark-tinted window. I didn't get an opportunity to change out of my outfit because I was driving, so when we pulled up outside 'Euphoria', possibly the smartest restaurant in the area adjacent to the power station, I was still dressed as Gracie Fields – and not in her smarter years, either. By this time, Dolores had finished counting the contents of the bucket.

"Hmm, not bad. A hundred and forty-two pounds and seventy-three pence," she announced, pleased with herself. "Should buy us a decent lunch in here." I was staggered and aghast by this. I pointed out to her that this was money that she had collected from poor starving, striking miners. Half of it was meant to be handed over to the publishers of the 'Socialist Worker', and the rest should have been earmarked for the little kiddies. To squander it on a lunch of lobster Thermidor and rump of Dovedale beef with braised asparagus, was both immoral and illegal.

"Rubbish," she snorted. "It's called re-distribution of wealth, if you didn't know. Now come along – no time for you to change. You'll do, dressed as you are."

Sighing, I followed her into the restaurant. Sing as we go, and let the world go by....