We're trapped in a never-ending repeat of Yes, Minister — without the laughs

WHILE our deluded Government Ministers squabble over whether to lop €8 or €10 off Child Benefit and how much to take away from those reckless spenders on social welfare, they still found time in their frantic schedules to grant themselves the privilege of driving in bus corridors - as if they needed yet another lane to show how out of touch they are with reality.[private] Yes, in this country we're trapped in a never-ending repeat of Yes, Minister, with the mandarins running the country and the Ministers being told to go play in the bus lanes or close military barracks, anything to distract them from the realisation that they don't run the show â€â€ the bureaucrats, the permanent government, do. This Government reminds me of a story about the last day of the Ceausescu regime in Romania. The crowd that overthrew Ceausescu wanted to distance themselves from their old boss's modus operandi. No up against the wall at midnight for them. Ceausescu and his wife would be treated fairly. They gathered together a judge, defence and prosecution lawyers, maybe even a jury - the works. To ensure the trial process ran smoothly, they arranged for one of those Soviet-style giant helicopters to whisk everybody off to a safe location outside the capital. The judicial helicopter was closely followed by a second one, which carried the firing squad. The whole thing was done and dusted before the day was out. There's nothing like a new broom. A clean start. I'm sure Mr and Mrs Ceausescu appreciated the difference. So the last Government, the one overthrown by the men in the blue shirts and the red ties, was our Ceausescu regime and this Government is the new broom. We're still going to suffer but the new crowd are going to go about it in a much more civilised way. As I've not yet experienced being put in front of a firing squad (give it time), I can't claim to appreciate the difference in style, but I'm sure it feels much nicer to be shot after a show trial than just shoved up against a wall and summarily dispatched. As we approach the Budget it feels much better to be screwed by those who feel our pain. Not share, mind you, but at least feel it just a bit. I'm sure, if allowed, they might even share a little, within reason, but that wouldn't suit the Praetorian Guard who run this country, because this might impact on their pockets. The first Roman emperor, Caesar Augustus, established a Praetorian Guard, which owed its allegiance only to him. They were usually mercenaries and as long as they were well paid, Caesar was safe. Just like the palace eunuchs of the Chinese imperial court and the Mamelukes in Egypt, their power became enormous and pretty soon even emperors couldn't touch them. They ran the show. Sounds familiar? When Caligula died, the Praetorian Guard dispensed with formalities and installed their own successor, Claudius. Then when Claudius tragically died under mysterious circumstances, they stuck in Nero. Get the pattern? When in 69 AD the Emperor Galba foolishly tried to introduce some economic reforms â€â€ this is getting way too close to the bone â€â€ the Praetorians marched into the senate and lynched him on the spot. Sensibly, no one said a word; they just hailed the Guard's next appointee, Otho. Little wonder little Brendan Howlin toadies up to our lot. So we can howl in disgust and frustration at our mandarins walking away with obscene amounts, lining their pockets with our money and fixing themselves up with cushy sinecures, but we'll wait in vain for our elected leaders to tackle them for they are the mere playthings of the real power brokers in the land. While the mandarins get the cream, they are clever enough to ensure they keep the legions of the rear guard onside. This is why a bankrupt State continues to borrow money to fund the total absurdity that is the Croke Park deal. Fianna Fáil invented the game. Keep the troops happy and they'll put down any peasant uprising the rest of us living in the real world might consider. Hyperbole? Remember the secret benchmarking process? No one was ever told how those involved reached the conclusion that most people paid from the public purse weren't getting half enough â€â€ we were just told to accept it. Remarkably, the civil servant mandarins who did the research somehow came to the unanimous conclusion that they all should get huge pay hikes. Even more remarkable, the politicians who commissioned them to carry out this impartial and objective investigation also ended up getting massive pay hikes because, as it turned out, they were benchmarked against the civil servants who gave themselves more money. To ensure the whole process was above reproach and couldn't be picked apart by the un-benchmarked media, it was ordered from on high that all the documentation involved in the process be destroyed, which it duly was. This is not some Orwellian fantasy I'm dreaming up, but a fair synopsis of what actually occurred. And so today we float around in La La Land, where we're told the young, the sick and the elderly have to make sacrifices so our own Praetorian Guard can remain cushioned from economic reality. From my reading of history, I don't expect the next great upheaval in this society to be a confrontation between left and right, or a revolt against the financial powerhouses, or even against the EU itself. I think it will come when those in the silent but seething majority revolt against the excesses of a bloated, self-serving and increasingly parasitical mandarin sector, which is crushing the life out of this state. They have the guns but we have the numbers. I expect blood. To school through the tanks â€â€ my education ON a lighter note, I was saddened to hear of the closure of Castlebar Army Barracks and the end of the town's military tradition because, believe it or not, that grey barrack square played a formative role in making me the man I am today. No, I've never borne arms or served my country. I wasn't even in the FCA â€â€ yes, the money was good and those Donegal girls you might come across while on camp sounded great, but I just couldn't bring myself to sacrifice my precious flowing locks in return for a free uniform. But, like those cadet schools in America, I was educated, for a time, in Castlebar barracks. While all you Galway wimps were toddling off to your infant classes in your centrally heated classrooms, I was marched up to the forbidding gates of Castlebar Army Barracks to begin learning the ways of the world in true Mayo/Sparta style. Well, to be honest, my own Mammy delivered me to Mammy Hanley, but it was nevertheless in the army barracks. The town's national school burned down some time before I began my formal education so the school was housed in the barracks while a new one was being built. This barracks was constructed to ensure a permanent garrison after the 1798 uprising and the embarrassment suffered by the British military in the rout known as The Races of Castlebar. My early school memories centre on squeezing under a wire mesh fence into the armoured car and artillery compound to retrieve stray playground balls. What bliss it was to be young and alive and to get to wave to your pals from an armoured turret. I went up to the old gatehouse recently and the place looks just the same. I remember heading out through that very gate one afternoon when I heard a plaintive call from the guardhouse. An incarcerated soldier begged me to get him a cigarette because he would die otherwise. Torn as I was about helping an obviously bad man who was probably going to be hanged or shot in the morning, I still didn't want his premature death on my conscience. Down near the Mall I met some council workers looking into a hole in the road and explained my predicament to them. Decent men that they were, they took pity on the condemned man and collected a few cigarettes and matches and told me to deliver them to Castlebar's answer to the Count of Monte Cristo. So back I went and after a few attempts, managed to throw the package in between the bars above the cell door. Well, if I'd dynamited the door and sprung him free, he couldn't have been more grateful. He wished me luck and a long life and promised if I ever needed a friend, he would be there. Unfortunately, I never knew what he looked like, so couldn't call in the debt. I wonder if the cigarettes eventually took him or if he went on to have a distinguished career in the army. Perhaps he's top brass by now and occasionally reminisces about the boy in short pants who came to his aid all those years ago. When the guns are lined up on the protestors outside the Dáil in our own version of Tiananmen Square, maybe he'll be the one to lay down his gun and cross to our side. Quote of the Week 'I'd like to leave you with something positive, but I can't think of anything. Would you take two negatives?' â€â€ Woody Allen[/private]