12th December 2021

 Watching the current government wrangles over an alleged Xmas party which happened 12 months ago, I couldn’t believe it. When we lived in France, there were many differences between life there and in the UK. On the political front, even though I read the French papers and watched French TV news, I was struck by one major difference:  we never heard any blow-by-blow accounts of what happens in the Elysee Palace. There was no equivalent to the English weekly live TV comedy hour, called Prime Minister’s Question Time, nor any insider ‘leaks’ of juicy Government gossip to the tabloids.  Whenever President Macron appeared on TV, his speeches were always well-prepared, his suits and hair immaculate.  In my view, we in this country must stop this constant need to  ‘show our sore toe’ on prime-time live TV, in full colour, to the rest of the world. I don’t see that happening anywhere else. It’s time we as a country grew up, discussed government legislation in private, and presented a more balanced and coherent UK stance to the media and the world at large. Our image on the world stage is vital. Time we recognised that and stopped ‘washing us dirty linen in public’ as they say in Yorkshire. It’s long overdue.