THE ART OF POLITICAL EXPEDIENCY

Ol'a,

I have this morning taken up the paintbrush and canvas after years of separation between my mind and artistic soul. The peace and tranquility of my surroundings and the need to do nothing other than relax and reflect, led me to want to record the colours and sounds and images that pass peacefully across my vision. can  you paint a sound? I will try..........

But the peace and painting are rudely interrupted by way of the international press bringing me depressive missives from Blighty and beyond. The stories are somewhat predictable but the repetitious nature repetitiously disturbing.

First off, the Spanish version of the Times reminds us that all politicians are liars. Yes, even here in Spain David Laws and his ridiculous excuses for his own excesses - it was about my privacy and my sexuality not my greed he bleats, yeah right David and being a millionaire a few times over meant you had to claim the £40,000 right? His time at the Treasury must be amongst the shortest on record!  To think this bloke was going to be the one to tell local government and other Public Service workers on the 22nd June in the emergency budget that their jobs would have to go in order to balance the public finances, whilst at the same trousering wads full of cash for himself, knowingly against the Parliamentary rules. What a hypocrite of the first order, and what an exposure if ever one was needed of the Liberal Democrats false "Holier than though" attitude to the expenses scandal; remember Nick Cleggs comments during the televised TV debates?

"There are MPs who flipped one property to the next, buying property, paid by you, the taxpayer, and then they would do the properties up, paid for by you, and pocket the difference in personal profit. They got away scot-free. There are MPs who avoided paying Capital Gains Tax. Of course, you remember, what was it, the duck houses and all the rest of it. But actually, it's the people, the MPs who made these big abuses, some of them profiting hundreds of thousands of pounds. I have to stress, not a single Liberal Democrat MP did either of those things, but they still haven't been dealt with. We can only turn round the corner on this until we're honest about what went wrong in the first place"

Now not only has David Laws fell foul of his leaders false claims but his replacement Danny Alexander it has been revealed didn't pay Capital Gains Tax on the sale of his second home! Whose next in the Telegraphs sights I wonder?

Furthermore, why did they wait to expose this hypocrisy until after the election? OK, I guess they wanted a ministerial scalp or two rather than a story about a then backbench Liberal MP, but what a difference it might have made to the "Clegg bounce" if only we knew the truth earlier?

The second even more depressing international news was Israels illegal murder of  between 9 to 19 aid workers at sea  in "international waters" off the coast of Gaza in a bungled raid on aid ships which has left 42 Britons in detention.. The UN called an emergency session. Turkey was understandably outraged and Tony Blair got to remind us all that he is the Middle East Quartets representitive (well a lot of good that has done us) TB told the press

"We need a different and better way of helping the people of Gaza and avoiding the hardship and tragedy that is inherent in the present situation"

Well, No sh*t Sherlock! but what about a word or two of condemnation against an ever more uncontrolable Israeli state? Palestine was one of many stories not covered during the general election campaign, surprising really given its impact on the Muslim Worlds anger with the West. The paid silence of world wide  politics at its very worst But you don't have to look far for a local angle. I get on well with Brian Binley as an individual, but you would expect us to differ politicaly and his membership of the Conservative Friends of Israel, and his earlier trip to Israel to be brain washed by the regime and Northampton South Constituency having according to their minutes benefited greatly from Brian's "helpful" friendship with Stafford Fertleman (long time funder of Israeli projects) all means we are most unlikely to get any words of condemnation of this attrocious act from our local MP.

So nothing changes, politicians lie, Israel butchers innocents and the world looks the other way and in the UK people forget that they had a general election a few weeks ago when real change could have been attained if we only stopped to question more deeply if any of the three party's had really changed their spots?

I think I am better off concentrating on the paintbrush and pallette for a few days!