Tuesday, April 27, 2010

Nothing Yet From Nick Clegg

Being a bit of a geek, last week I was reading the Liberal Democrat manifesto and I noticed that it did not have a Northern Ireland section. The next British PM will govern 1.7 million people in N.I. but unlike Labour and the Conservatives we have no clue what the Liberal Democrats are going to do to us because Nick Clegg wants to keep it a secret. Ironically although I'm a mystery novelist I'm not keen on suspense so I emailed Nick Clegg and the Lib Dems to ask what nefarious scheme they are cooking up for Ulster. I have not yet received a response and meanwhile doubt has grown in me like a phytophthora infestans fungus on a potato; I've begun to think that maybe I'm missing something. You dear reader are more observant than I, see if you can spot the Northern Ireland section in the index to the Lib Dem manifesto below:
N
National Audit Office ...............................17
National Border Force .............................75
National Bursary Scheme ........................39
National Crime Reduction Agency ...........72
National Curriculum ................................36
National Grid ............................... 23, 58-59
National Health Service ......... 33, 40-44, 99
National Insurance ..........................97, 100
National Lottery ......................................46
National museums & galleries .................45
National Parks ........................................82
National Policing Improvement Agency ...72
Neighbourhood Justice Panels................17
Network Rail ...............................54, 78, 88
Night Buses ............................................73
Non-Doms ........................................14, 89
Northern Rock ........................................28
Nuclear Power ........................................59

BTW their plan for night buses is this: (and I'm not kidding, you can look it up) drivers of night buses should be required by law to drop every person on the bus at their door instead of at the stop; so if you're taking the night bus from say Belfast to Carrick, you're going to have wait while every single drunken hood in Rathcoole Estate gets dropped at his house - if he can remember where it is - before you go on to Greenisland Estate and finally Carrick itself: what a bloody nightmare, it wouldn't do to be desperate for the bog or anything, although you could always take those other night buses that drop you at your door, you know, the ones called taxis.