More tea, General?

The excitement of the Labour Party Conference (yawn) might have deflected your attention from the international news. There has been the odd rumbling here and there. Demonstrations in Hungary. And the most frightfully polite coup d’etat in Thailand. Now I have experienced the odd coup in Africa, when you are confined to quarters for days until you’ve found out who’s in charge. Sometimes they were so frequent I hadn’t even found out the name of the new supremo before he was deposed by someone else. But in Thailand they’re so terribly nice, it could have been planned in a tea room in Surrey. The Generals appeared on television and said they were most frightfully sorry, they really didn’t want to cause any alarm, but things had got a little … well, distasteful, with the corruption and so on, and it was sincerely hoped this slight interruption of democratic rule, although necessary, would not last long, measures were already being taken to re-establish the electoral process as soon as humanly possible, so please bear with us ladies and gentlemen, normal service will be resumed as soon as possible. Not a drop of blood was spilt. So they say, anyway. The outgoing Prime Minister was kindly invited to accompany the officers to army headquarters. Such lovely manners. Sandhurst trained, doncha know. The soldiers had obviously had been drilled in calm and effective crowd management by the Edinburgh Polis, and you would have thought they were simply managing a Monday morning diversion at Hanger Lane giratory system. The top echelons togged up in their best dress whites with all their gongs nice and shiny, and paid allegiance to the King, who was obviously in on it from the beginning.

I do hope our Top Brass were watching. If there are not some changes by next year we might need to resort to something similar in England. With our usual sang-froid and good manners, we will probably call it something else (much as we don’t have anything as sordid as “corruption”, we have “irregularities” instead). And it would be done on a bank holiday, so as to cause the minimum possible disruption. It would probably merit a couple of inches on page 2 of The Times. The Sun’s front page would trumpet “OWZAT !!” or something equally irreverent. Today's news indicated that our boys in the sandpit are getting a little impatient and would like to come home. It wouldn't take more than a couple of quick e-mail exchanges with Her Majesty, and Bob's your uncle. Regime change starts at home.


BBC’s new series Robin Hood is quite addictive from five minutes into the first episode, even though we all know the story, there is always a new spin to be added. Did I detect the occasional topical reference, such as “standing shoulder to shoulder with Rome” ? Are we to read into this an incitement to rise up against Bad King Tony? Tune in next Saturday, UK viewers, and in the meantime keep an eye out for tanks rumbling down your street. Our boys would appreciate a nice cup of tea while they're doing the Junta.