God I hate the Daily Mirror. Remember that post that I wrote a few weeks ago about falling out of love with politics? Well THIS story from the Daily Mirror is a perfect example of why no one in their right mind would want to be a politician. They are having a go at George Osborne because someone has sent them a picture of Osborne’s car parked in a disabled space. Perfect. Evil chancellor not only fleeces the disabled, but he steals their parking spaces too. Except…
- It is a police car.
- Osborne isn’t driving it
- A police security officer is driving it
- He parked it there after dropping Osborne off to buy a McDonald’s.
Now I wonder how many people who sit in a passenger seat get out of a car when it is parked and think to themselves: “Hang on, I must just check if the driver of the car has parked in a disabled space.” Exactly. No one.
Here is what the Mirror’s Political Editor Jason Beattie wrote…
He’s snatched millions of pounds in benefits from those in most need – and it seems that George Osborne could not care less about anyone else. He was branded selfish and arrogant last night after allowing his chauffeur to park his £50,000 Land Rover in a space reserved for the disabled. There were plenty of other places available just a few yards away as the Tory Chancellor was dropped off for a burger at an M4 service station. But Mr Osborne was obviously far too important to waste valuable seconds – and the bright-yellow markings on the restricted bay were brazenly ignored. Last night Richard Hawkes, chief executive of the disability charity Scope claimed the incident “shows how wildly out of touch the Chancellor is with disabled people in the UK”. He said: “They will see this as rubbing salt in their wounds. “Many are already struggling to make ends meet, yet the Chancellor’s response has been to cut vital financial support and squeeze local care budgets.”
Well Richard Hawkes should be ashamed of himself for those comments and if Jason Beattie is proud of this piece of so-called political journalism, I would be very surprised. Indeed I am surprised that he has put his name to such a pile of horseshit.
Ed Balls has been fulminating, conveniently forgetting that during the last election he was photographed on a mobile phone while driving. The normally sensible Owen Smith MP ranted: “Osborne’s arrogant use of a disabled bay was in Magor. Did he think he had feudal rights to them in Wales? See my thoughts in tomo’s Mirror.” Owen is someone I have a lot of time for. He’s better than that.
The Mail’s James Chapman tweets to the morally outraged David Blanchflower and Channel 4 News reader Krishnan Guru-Murty “presumably then you think police driver who reversed into space while Osborne buying McDonalds should be sacked?”
And David Allen Green puts it in perspective: “There really are people on my timeline more angry at Osborne for parking in disabled space than at Philpott for killing 6 children. Bizarre.”
One day a politician will just think, “Sod this for a game of soldiers, they can go **** themselves. I’m quitting.” And I seriously think if I had gone into politics, that politician would probably have been me.
