A billet doux-aigre for Gordon

An open letter to the Chancellor:

Dear Gordon

I always thought that you were one of the good guys. OK, you were a politician and therefore had to make accommodations - but essentially you were on the side of the angels.

I could tolerate the fact that you played footsie with the Private Finance Initiative. You know as well as I do that it was a rip-off of the taxpayer; but it kept the investments in schools and hospitals off the public sector borrowing requirement. And if that meant that you could plough resources into social programmes like Surestart, then so be it.

I could forgive the balls-up with the tax credits, even though it happened twice. It was a good idea in principle. The scheme probably fell over in its adminstration. Hell, everyone knows that the Inland Revenue couldn't run the proverbial booze-up in a brewery.

Although you said it, I never believed that you would support England in the World Cup, nor that you listened to the Arctic Monkeys on your iPod. These are things that politicians have to say, even if it makes them look stupid.

But, Gordon, a replacement for Trident? I accept that I am an ageing hippy who believes that nuclear weapons are evil. Even then, I could have understood if you wanted to buy some nuclear warheads to stick on cruise missiles - I would not have approved but I could have understood. But, no, you want those dirty great submarines with multiple warheads that creep around the oceans like leprous leviathans of the deep. For what? Against whom are you aiming those multiply-warheaded missiles? It's not even as if they are properly independent - you can only use them if the Americans agree.

Do you remember when we were at the University of Edinburgh? Days of aspiration and idealism - we wanted to make a better world. I admired you from afar. You should have been the greatest Labour Prime Minister of all time. But you have let us down, shamefully and irrevocably. And for that, you do not deserve to be forgiven.

Yours fraternally

HW