Sorry I’m a bit late today, but it’s not my fault. I have
a medical condition that makes it literally impossible for me to meet
deadlines. Yes it was diagnosed by a doctor. At least I assume it was a doctor;
I was twenty minutes late for the appointment. What’s the condition called, you
ask? Hang on while I find the paperwork… Yes, here it is, it’s just called ‘Chronic
Lateness’. I know, you couldn’t make it up… although my ‘doctor’ appears to
have done just that
Reported in the Daily Mail today is the strange case of
Jim Dunbar, who has been late for everything in his life; work, holidays, first-dates,
funerals – you name it, he’s been late for it. His chronic tardiness has been diagnosed
as a medical condition, related to that other well-known imaginary ailment,
ADHD, which is, of course, brilliant news. At last I know that my poor result
in that crucial exam was simply because I was late to finish the paper; it wasn't
my fault I ran out of time. It was medical, see? Not my fault at all.
In this world where we routinely refuse to condemn and
correct what was formerly seen as aberrant behaviour this should come as no
surprise at all. Thus a steady decline in rigorous educational outcomes can be
dismissed by a whole series of lengthy, acronymic disorders and treated with
suitable drugs, relegating teachers to junior nurses in the national lunatic
asylums we used to refer to as ‘schools’.
Thus parental failings, antisocial behaviour, repeated
offending, drug addiction, welfare dependency, wrath, greed, sloth, pride, lust, envy and gluttony can all be chalked up not to individual or collective
failings, but regarded as the inevitable outcome of some sort of syndrome. And the list of
such crippling diseases is ever added-to by an army of selfless practitioners,
ready to diagnose yet another acronym on, if necessary, an individual basis.
Thus my chronic idleness is different from your chronic
idleness because it has different letters in it and pity the poor worker with
no label because he or she will have no excuse come the day they dare to throw
a sickie because of some piffling excuse, such as a broken leg. Who wouldn't
want to have a prescription that says they stay at home watching Jeremy Kyle and
drinking White Ace cider not because they are worthless but because they are a
bit poorly?
This explains so much. It explains New Labour’s inability
to recognise the unaffordability of the welfare state and its failure to
prevent major failings in some NHS Trusts. It explains why it took so long for
Ed Miliband to grudgingly confess that its open door immigration policy had
been incompletely thought through. Maybe the labels, inter alia of racist, sexist, Europhobe,
homophobe, bigot and misogynist are actually not meant to be pejorative at all, but are simply
the collective medical terms for an inability to recognise when a politician is
right and you, little person, are wrong?
Tony Blair displays his horrific injuries
So relax, fellow sufferers, it really is not your fault.
It’s a disease, plain and simple and such diseases affect not just the masses,
but the great and the good. When Tony Blair says, from a billionaire’s yacht,
that we should intervene in Syria, he is not being a war monger. Neither is he
protecting his own not inconsiderable financial interest out of any form of
greed. No, not at all. You see, dear Tony suffers from a terrible affliction
which makes it impossible for him not to recommend the annihilation of thousands
of foreigners on a regular and predictable basis. His syndrome is called Middle
East Peace Envoy.
