Aristocracy

Butler-Sloss has stood down from the Abuse Inquiry and quite right too.

And her successor? Trouble is the establishment can't imagine employing anyone in a role like this who wasn't at school with them- or their sisters- or who doesn't attend their parties. This isn't a dig at the establishment we have at the moment- ghastly though it is- because all establishments are much the same- inward looking, defensive, nepotistic- held together by patronage, intermarriage and money. There are, no doubt, wonderfully capable public servants in places like Rotherham and Carlisle who could do the Sloss job admirably but they don't enter into the reckoning because May and Cameron and their Whitehall mandarins won't ever have heard of them.

We have a political system whereby high office runs in families and clans. Sloss, for example, is the daughter of a High Court Judge and the sister of a former Lord Chancellor. The name for this way of managing things- though we're shy of applying it to ourselves-  is aristocracy.

It Hurts...

This morning she forgot to make herself her early morning cup of tea.

At one o'clock she shuffled off to the toilet as I was serving the meal and didn't come out for twenty minutes- by which time Ailz and I had finished eating.

This evening I left her studying the TV guide while I went up to get the bedroom ready. "You have one of those upstairs," I said- as I always do- referring to the TV guide. Usually she follows me. This time she didn't.  When I came back down to see what she was up to she was still in her chair- and reaching for her glasses and the TV guide...