Simply Smith

WE all make choices. Some of them crucial, some of them not so.

Take Tony Blair's recent decision to stay on holiday rather than have his children back in this country ready for the new school term. This, merely hours after the Secretary of State for Education and Employment, David Blunkett, emphasised that it is irresponsible of parents to allow their children to take unauthorised absences from school.

I'm suggesting that the Prime Minister's action is certainly irresponsible, not necessarily because of the damage that it will do to his children's education, but simply because it sends to other parents the wrong message.

It perhaps tells parents that if the Prime Minister can keep his children off school (even if it is only for one day) why should not they? The Government is giving the country's parents confusing and contradictory signals.

In another development it has been reported that Kent County Council has chosen to evict fifty elderly residents from an old folk's home because it could not find the half a million pounds needed to upgrade the buildings.

The upheaval has, not surprisingly, upset those people forced to move out.

Now, to the disgust of both the former residents and staff who worked there, the place is home to fifty Romanian asylum seekers.

Like the Prime Minister, Kent County Council is in a lose-lose situation of its own making. If those in authority like to tell us what is good for us, perhaps their own example should reflect this advice.

When Labour leader John Smith died a few years back, Gordon Brown chose not to stand for the leadership.

By all accounts he has since bitterly regretted this decision.

But, I have to say to Mr Brown, that by all the criteria that the electorate employs I feel that New Labour would have done less well at the last General Election had he been its leader.

Be satisfied with your lot Mr Brown, we cannot all be leader and, who knows, your time might well come.

Whatever choices each of us makes determine the composition of our particular beds - we must learn to lie on them rather than wish for the moon.

In my opinion Mr Blair's attitude towards his children's education is less than ideal, but then, none of us is perfect.

Kent County council would appear to have more concern for foreigners than its own elderly, but maybe we don't know the full circumstances. And the Chancellor of the Exchequer has perhaps a higher opinion of himself than he should have, but then, which of us regards ourselves through rose tinted spectacles?

To be fair, most of us make appalling choices most of the time, otherwise we all would be living in Paradise.

As my old Mum used to say: the bloke that never made a mistake never made anything. What is important is that we accept our mistakes as part of the human condition and learn from them.

Is this why wise men are frequently aged? My old Mum also used to say ... youth is wasted on the young.

Converted for the new archive on 30 June 2000. Some images and formatting may have been lost in the conversion.