Government Fun Day

When I write my next words, a deadly streak of lightening will tear apart the sky. My mother's dead but immortal rolling pin will bear down between the rips asunder, and give me a damn good thrashing.

Because what I am about to say, Mother Ghost, is that this government-controlled fun atmosphere is the logical end for your Labour Party.


The Labour Party was Mother Ghost's unerring party of choice, thanks to the behaviour of the Tories in the 1920s depression. (I told you our family don't bear grudges.)

It was also the party I also stupidly voted for, like a turkey for Christmas in 1997, and never will again. (The Greens and their fairies worth fighting for attract my natural hippie vote, but even they can be a bit dodgy.)

Anyway, while I now dive under the blows of the Sturdy Pastry Help, I will make the next point, and it is this.

What is important, is that in England, if you do not like the Labour Party (as people so clearly showed) then there is some freedom of choice and a system of voting. (Even if, to do it, you must show your unforgivable disloyalty to your trade-unioned, Labour-hugging family.)

But how glad I am that voting exists. At least it creates some sort of means by which you can chuck the buggers out.

Unlike Hong Kong. Hong Kong is ultimately a colony of Beijing, China, and no-one messes with them.

Now, if you want to imagine the style of local government this system produces down here, in this particular SAR, then conjure up the controlling social mentality of the Labour Party together with the property-developing, stitch-up merchants of the Tories.

And that's how it stays: whatever superficial gloss is given, the government still owns all the land, continues to side with property interests, manages the economy for an engineered result of society, never allows Beijing to be upset, creates the terms of your engagement, controls the parameters of protest, and organises what you do in the high street, and this includes the FUN.

Fun round here has a social, useful, organised point. Take this example, from a poster pinned up on the ferry pier announcing tonight's government-sponsored party. Seriously, I cannot tell the difference between this poster and a school lesson plan for PSE, as to be monitored by Ofsted and reported on as part of your end-of-term teaching appraisal. It is the sort of atmos, isn't it, that the Labour Party so loved to bring to us all:

Event: Mid Autumn Festival Community Party

Purpose: To spread entertainment activities and increase traditional festival atmosphere.

Content: Singing, guessing lantern riddles, booth games, lucky draw.

We only lack the information to tell us how the teacher will lead the activities, and give a time allocation for each one.


Well of course we have to go along to this community fixture, if only to join in the happy fun in the usual Chinese manner.


Even if we weren't really invited. Well, we English people were not signalled as part of the community. Despite the posters in English, the event was entirely Cantonese-speaking. Clearly, we either had to be married into the family or needed to show willing in a lot more phrases than thank you, sorry, and toilet.

So the point of this post is - apart from the fact that now I have a dented head, thanks to the betrayal of my mother's loyalty and thus no longer deserve the place of daughter - be glad you have a system of voting.

You should use it, always, because imagine what life would be like for you now, if the Labour Party was still in power, and in control of all the fun in England.