ME and Ophelia

MAD OFFICIALDOM
A new weblog where you can have your say and discuss

'BRITAIN: GOOD NEWS AND BAD NEWS' is the title of an essay written by a gentleman affectionately dubbed 'An Elderly Realist', or ER for short. The brilliant essay, commenced in November 1996, concludes with ER's postscript written in October 2003, and forms the basis of a new Mad Officialdom weblog and discussion facility created specifically for anyone wishing to comment on officialdom gone mad.

Here are the first and last paragraphs of the Mad Officialdom weblog:

This is going to be an attempt to sort out and interpret, almost entirely for my private satisfaction, my subjective opinions about the ways in which Britain exists and operates - or is operated. That includes summarising the gist of many books and articles I have read about politics in relation to the British society of ordinary persons, since returning permanently to England. The intended final objectivity of my views, which will arise from that reading and from living here, must be modified, first of all, by the combined effects of the following personal factors, describing (for better or for worse) a package of experiences rather far removed from those of the great majority of inhabitants...

It’s 7 years since I composed the preceding remarks. I have only just found this essay again and I do not feel inclined to revise or update it: it seems to read well enough in the context of its year of origin. Indeed, intervening experiences have shown us even more clearly the extraordinary extent to which a docile electorate tolerates the excesses and the errors of judgement of its masters. Bureaucratic security of tenure, enriched with indexed pensions, appears to be even more worthy of self-interested defence than it was in 1996. The Spectator now carries a series of reproductions of bizarre and greatly overpaid jobs advertised for budding bureaucrats. Hard to find much good news in October of 2003. Perhaps readers would care to offer some current examples of Mad Officialdom?