Cannes is for movie people, not celebrity spawn like Peaches

Banging on about celebrities being famous for nothing is so old-fashioned in the hall 
of mirrors where we gaze at such distorted, airbrushed creatures.

Still, I am nostalgic for the days of the actress-model-whatevers, who then evolved into WAGs. They have now been superseded by mere celebrity spawn such as Peaches Geldof and Paris Hilton. 

I sound like one of those eccentric ‘Who are The Beatles?’ judges now, but what does Peaches do? She goes to parties and gets photographed and I guess it works. 

 

Another Party: Peaches Geldof (right) and Paris Hilton in Cannes

Every day last week she was pictured at Cannes. Is she in a film? Writing about films? Anything to do with films? 

Of course not. How could I ask such a silly question?

Vote for me! Well, at least I’m vaguely human

I've got issues. Loads of them. Ask anyone who’s met me. This makes me ideal, surely, to be an MP. We shouldn’t just be voting for single-issue independents in this maelstrom of anti-political feeling. The likes of Esther Rantzen are fine, but isn’t she already part of the Establishment? 

The past week has been like the trial in Alice In Wonderland, with all toppling down as we wake from our slumber, bewildered as well as angry. We are not burning down the House but mooting a written constitution or moaning in the pub.

Has knowing that MPs are so dodgy made us feel more empowered? Possibly, as right now all kinds of people are thinking they couldn’t be worse than this lot. Like me. I fit the bill, I’ve got the ?500 but I need an agent, some leaflets and then we can have a party.

Here’s my manifesto: 

1 No to ID cards, the database State and Trident. Already we’ve released billions into our budget.

2 Troops out of Afghanistan. Again, millions will be saved by abandoning this unwinnable and hopeless conflict.

3 Decriminalise drugs. Yes, all drugs. Give addicts the prescriptions they need. The duties raised on the sale of  formerly illegal drugs will go towards targeting help to those in jail and psychiatric units. Crime will fall.

 

Esther Rantzen said she may stand as an independent MP at the next election

4 Decriminalise young people. That’s right. Teenagers hanging around are not illegal. They are not all murderous gangstas. Let’s make public space public, open up parks, ban CCTV and look out for one another instead. 

5 MPs will have six weeks’ holiday like everyone else. They will be paid decently and be expected to turn up at work, give or take a few duvet days. They must not promise more than they can deliver and must admit they are often wrong and unlikely to achieve most of their goals. A cull will occur as we don’t need so many of them.

  

6 The House of Lords and the Monarchy won’t simply be abolished but their members redeployed in a sort of care- in-the-community way. They will clearly need some kind of rehabilitation showing them how to live in the real world, but this will not be funded by taxpayers. 

The Queen, of course, will be allowed to call herself the Queen – alongside Helen Mirren and Joanna Lumley – and she can carry on much as she always has. Her assorted offspring will have to go to the Jobcentre.

7 The ducks issue. Ducks are fine. In a pancake. But no more muddy water gate. No one needs a moat, so MPs will not be able to claim expenses, full stop.

8 Education will be totally reformed. The budget will be channelled into pre-school and primary education to maximise life chances. At secondary level kids will be allowed to leave school at 14, with the proviso that they can go back and get a few more years’ education at a time of their choosing. The idea of imprisoning people full of raging hormones is daft. Most school is crowd control with two hours a week of actual learning. Face it.

9 Women and children first. Yes, that’s how it will be. Half of all MPs, managers, directors, etc will be female. Yes, there will be positive discrimination and yes, half those women will be just as venal and useless as the men, but as half the country is female, half of the population must be represented in all areas of public life. 
It may not change the world overnight. But as we have had the other system of mainly men for thousands of years and it has proved to be, frankly, useless, why not give it a whirl? 

10 Anyone living in this country can work in this country.

11 Foreign policy. A good idea. But it will not be American and it will not be European. It will be realistic as our place in the world economy drops. We need to keep our trade open and free but we don’t need to intervene in wars that are not ours.

12 Decentralisation and delegation. These words shall mean something instead of just being mouthed. When I am in power, I will get others to help and work with me. Experts all of them.

And, finally, no one should be allowed to become an MP without having inhaled, or without having a past that someone, somewhere disapproves of, or without having done all kinds of jobs.

We must elect the vaguely human.

As Dylan sang, we all have to ‘serve somebody’. I will serve you. What are you waiting for? Just give me the money. And your vote.

A TV shrink? Jeremy needs a padded cell

The most disturbing headline of the week was: ‘I was so messed up I had to see my own show’s shrink.’

This is Jeremy Kyle talking. I mean, how bad was he? I am also perturbed by the information that he feels compelled to lick his phone clean when it rings and also feels cursed if he doesn’t lick his golf balls clean before he takes a shot.

His ‘fumble’ with a 16-year-old girl pales in comparison with this kind of bizarreness.

This is the man who takes it on himself to scream at witless poor people that they are immoral scum. He is also going to advise us on how to clean up broken Britain.

But surely it would make us all a lot happier if he were simply locked in a padded cell with some particularly filthy golf balls.