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During times of crisis in Britain the Prime Minister and senior officials – police, military, and senior civil servants – meet in what is known as COBR, the cabinet office briefing room; popularly known as Cobra (as in the snake). Why they require such a silly acronym rather than simply saying “cabinet office briefing room” has never been explained. Perhaps some chinless wonder felt it made him “hip” to invent a dangerous-sounding word?
Once a meeting is convened, if recent history is anything to go by, everybody proceeds to go mad; a feeling of “I’ve made it!” overtakes them; after years of climbing the ladder of their respective careers now they have proof of having arrived at the top. It is invariably the rights and liberties of the UK population that suffers as those taking part in COBR meetings feel “what was the point of spending thirty years rising to the top if we can’t exercise absolute power to prove how successful we are?”.
This weekend I have been reading ‘For The Record’, the autobiography of former Tory UK Prime Minister David Cameron and rather enjoying it. A bit more self-serving than Gordon Brown’s book but not as delusional (fictional?) as Blair; still a good read. One particular passage had me roaring with laughter; like something Jim Hacker would say in “Yes Minister”. Cameron was recounting the COBR meeting during the 2011 riots and asking the senior Police officers if/when they’d be able to gain control of the situation. He was met with a lot of hesitation, uncertainty, and use of buzz words and jargon by various Police Commissioners and Chief Constables. Cameron apparently lost his temper saying words to the effect of “we have riots in the street and instead of dealing with the problem you’re using a lot of management speak jargon and acronyms…..here at a meeting of COBR” (geddit?).
If David Cameron’s lack of self-awareness isn’t hilarious enough, our old adversaries at the NZ Herald are marching forcefully through the paddy fields trying to top him. Yesterday they commenced a series titled “How Can New Zealand Find Social Unity Again?” It sounds all very noble as many of us have been uneasy at the divisions which have sprung up in our nation in recent years. One of the marvellous things about the Clark and Key era was the unified nation we had become; as if on New Year’s Day 2000 someone flicked a switch and ended fifteen years of economic and social chaos and division which characterised the Lange/Bolger period.
Anyhoo, the Herald then immediately jumps into unintentionally amusing territory discussing such twaddle as the “Disinformation Project”, demonising a sizeable chunk of the population in various ways, and ending with the claim that the fake Matt O’Reeky con game – forcing Maori stuff down the throats of lots of decent, respectable folks, and in doing so turning off large dollops of them – is something that apparently unites us!
I have been laughing so much it has taken me nearly two hours to write this; my chest hurts. What these two examples do is further demonstrate how lacking in self-awareness various elitist people truly are. Their view of the world is simply to extrapolate their own opinions across the entire population, without the intelligence to enquire as to what said population actually thinks. The notion they could be wrong never crosses their mind which is why they regularly come a cropper and provide great entertainment for those of us with a sardonic sense of humour.
