Robert plays wee gordon

Two guys are both invited to the same party.

One is an octogenarian and a survivor deluxe. He has faced down almost every leader on the planet over his lifetime. Presumably he is polite to the Chinese who keep him alive, he is barely civil to anyone else: he is Robert [Bob the Roz ] Mugabe of the ill fated ship R%umbabwe.


The other is shaggy whatsisname: that Brown fellow from outer Pomerania: Yes you know the chap, Gordon Brown, the canny wee Scotsman who has snuck in and hijacked Britain, hee, hee: except that he seems a tad knuckle fingered and lacking in style; and since he really got going he has slipped amazingly in the Pomish polls. Robert hasn’t. He has long since perfected the mad hatter’s knack of making polls believe whatever he wants them to believe.

They’ve both been invited to party in Portugal. It’s an Afro-European get together of the kind that knits the fabric of our duplicitous relationships and which is presumably jolly good fun for all the attendees. The Afro bloc has demanded that el Roberto should attend: he who is despised and reviled by the nice chaps, while curried with by those who seek advancement. They want to thumb their noses at the colonialists and make them writhe in guilty pain even though most members of the Euro bloc have recently been colonised themselves. They also want to make sure everyone knows how much they love Bob the Roz.

And big lumbering Gordon, who of humble passage hath regaled us with tales of ‘hardship and personal suffering’ growing up in a Scottish parsonage, has denounced Robert as an aging baddie: one who has strayed from the path. He has said he wont go. He has some support from the Dutch who have their own skeletons to deny in southern Africa.He says he wont go as though his views are important.

The Portuguese are the meat in this uncool sandwich: Gordon’s oldest allies on this planet. Excellent chaps the Portuguese; when they strike an agreement they stick with it… the alliance is some 600 years old. Surely Gordon is not going to be so crass as to spoil a party organised by his country’s oldest allies. Anyway this week his old Queenie [she who rules]has been tottering about in the company of another arch feudalist from Saudi Arabia… so why is meeting another human rights abuser going to cause Gordon any grief.

As for us out here in the bus. I certainly agree with the majority that a showdown is necessary and that Gordon should go and speak to Robert. I also agree that Robert should go to the circus.

Like any curious observer I have to ask how clean the empire’s hands really are, when it comes to the matters discussed at Lancaster House when expediency then, became something quite unintended now.

Maybe the real reason Gordon doesn’t want to go is the embarrassment he will feel when the rights abuser and erstwhile liberation hero Mugabe gets a standing ovation while he is merely applauded. How does a man who has nailed his plank to the wall of African development going to face down such a dis’. One also suspects that many will question Gordon's own democratic credentials. For those who missed it some wee scandal burst onto the scene this week allegedly involving some member of the feudal aristocracy in Pomerania and some extortion activity on the part of two men who appeared in court.

The reason you don't know this is because the "palace" issued a gagging order [in spin language the government lackeys of the palace issued a gagging order] sweeping away the right of the citizen to information affecting those who have such power. Ah silly... the Brits are not citizens they are subjects.

Basically Gordon and his leftward friends are faced with a heads you lose, tails I win circumstance where the dice are stacked against reason and reason is also down there somewhere flushed offstage for awhile. They have already lost anyway; how can someone who consorts with King Abdullah, and collaborates in violations of the open communication so essential to a modern state, in the interests of protecting some privileges his party came into existence to destroy, actually pretend to have any principles to be offended.

Gordon being essentially a hack politician will do what her majesty requires, even if that means taking orders from Mr Mugabe. He may not feel too enamoured though of those who orchestrate his discomfort, and maybe that will cause an unintended outcome for the Afro lobby who seem hell bent on their own path to hubris currently. He looks like a man who would hold a grudge for a long time... a regular stamp collector.

In today's paper the Portuguese say they are "soon" to send the invitations. Will they wont they... and if they do... then...

The big game for the next little while will be: Guess who’s gonna blink first.