…it is with great sadness that I post a general Obituary for the Presence of Eloquent Rhetoricians in the Houses of Parliament… the art of the sparkling soupçon, the elegance of counterpose debate, the majesty of vocabuleric nimbleness, alas, have all joined the Dodo, the Woolly Mammoth and the Sabre Tooth Cat on the roster of extinct creatures… 
I’d posit that the genus ‘Statesman/Stateswoman’ has lapsed into ever-receding mem’ry… my not so ‘umble view is that Master Mikhail Gorbachev is/was the last of that illustrious line… I watch the SkyNews channel for no other reason than that it’s so bad, it’s often quite funny, and today it carried the usual weekly slanging match in the British Houses of Parliament, guising under the term, Prime Minister’s QuestionTime... these days, this constitutes half an hour of assorted insults in the form of Questions to Her Majesty’s premier parliamentarian from the Leader of the Opposition, none of which the P.M. actually answers, but rather uses it an excuse to sling back his own package of desultory comments on the Opposition… an added ‘treat’ this Wednesday was the presentation of the Chancellor of the Exchequer’s 2015 Budget… cue for further raised voices, haranguing at large, and the demeaning sight of grown men, supposedly well-educated, trying to outdo each other with abuse, accusation and scurrility… oh, Mabel, would that for once we could echo the delivery of a Benjamin Disraeli and his wonderful commentary on Sir William Gladstone, ‘A sophistical rhetorician, inebriated with the exuberance of his own verbosity, and gifted with an egotistical imagination that can at all times command an interminable and inconsistent series of arguments to malign an opponent and to glorify himself.’… better by far than screaming, ‘the man’s a liar’ … or any of the great Sir Winston Churchill’s Commons speeches in his hey-day…
even the Australian parliament, not known for its silver wit, produced this gem, where one member, speaking of another, said, ‘I suppose we must excuse the (opposing) member for being absent from the chamber today…I believe he’s attending the wedding of his mother!’… the stuff I listened to on television today, brought to mind the phrase, ‘Silence is Golden’… see yeez later… LUV YEEZ!…
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Sounds like they should abide by the old saying “It’s better to keep your mouth shut and be thought a fool, than to open it and remove all doubt.”… I miss the good speakers…. Sure you don’t want to run for parliament, Sir?
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…agreed , m’Lady… as far as going into parliament is concerned , I ‘m with Billy Connolly on this, ‘The desire to be a politician should bar you from ever being one1”… mwaaah cheers 🙂
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I love it when it gets noisy and there’s a call for “Order, order.” I haven’t watched for a while, but guess they still do that. 🙂
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…yes , that’s theatre 🙂 …
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Sounds similar to our Congress and Senate. Ugh!
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…politicians are politicians are politicians are …. m’Lady, Barbara 🙂
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Things are no better on this side of the pond. If it wasn’t so depressing it would be hysterically funny. Ugh.
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…charlatans, most of them, m’Lady, Diana 🙂
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I … uh … fink it’s maybe becoz … um … oh, wait. Somebody wants to pay me to do some lobbying for them, then I got me Parliamentary expenses to do … see ya … back in, um, four years. The Right Dishonourable Member for Gravytrain East, John ‘Grabbit and Runne’ Dolan
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..usual brown unmarked envelope in the usual drop box, that man 🙂
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Yes … I guess it’s worldwide. Politicians are enamored with their status of modern royalty, per se! They get social status and tons of cash & perks, and retire on our sweaty money. You expect them to work? Qu’ils mangent de la brioche. (Pardon my rusty French!)
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Reblogged this on theowlladyblog.
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