This week’s News in Briefs is reporting on a very eventful week of news as the Government’s annual budget was released and something just seemed to be happening on all fronts. But does this necessarily mean that it was interesting news? Well that’s completely up to you to judge.
Political Oops of the Week
George Osborne must have thought that he had pulled a fast one when he announced his budget as most things were relatively positive with the increase of the personal allowance and the announcement that the country’s borrowing had been cut drastically, but then he announced his attack on the pensioners.
Within 24 hours his face was pasted on the front page of every major newspaper in the country with various combinations of the words “Granny Tax”, “Muggers”, and “You Bastard” (Ok, I may have made that last one up, but the sentiments remain the same). But why did Mr. Osborne make such a catastrophic political error?
If history has taught us anything there are two things you don’t touch in British politics. One of these is the NHS and the other is the pensioners. This is for two reasons: firstly, pensioners are old and have no shame so they will attack you mercilessly, and secondly, we all have a special place in our hearts for the pensioners who are now trying to enjoy a quiet retirement.
You can touch the single mothers, you can kick the poor, you can even kiss the behinds of the richest people in the country, but you never touch the pensioners. In my personal opinion, the chancellor presented a fairly good budget this year, but his mistake was amateurish and it practically wiped out all of his good work. So whatever possessed him to do this only he can know for sure.
The Painful…
Although I didn’t really delve into this subject last week, Fabrice Muamba has to appear on this list due to the sheer manner in which the incident occurred.
For those of you who don’t know, Fabrice Muamba collapsed in the middle of the game against Tottenham Hotspur last weekend and was practically dead for 80 minutes as he was unresponsive to CPR and the use of electric shocks. The good news is that he’s recovering well and will surely survive now, but the bad news is the impact it would have had on people around the country.
What we have to remember is that children will have been watching at that time and the cameras did capture Muamba having a cardiac arrest as he went into a type of fit. Judging from the reaction of the crowd and the deathly silence in the stadium, I believe that many people must have thought that they had just witnessed a 23-year-old man die in front of their eyes.
It was certainly quite painful to watch, but at least he’s recovering well. Get well soon, Fabrice.
…And the Pointless
As we can all imagine, Team GB have been training hard and working with more fire in their bellies than ever before for the summer Olympics in London. Wait, what? They haven’t? Well what have they been doing then? Oh, yes, I remember now, they’ve been spending their time modelling one of the worst outfits ever created by the hands of humanity.
Team GB really managed to embarrass themselves this week as they unveiled an ugly smudge of blue, indigo, sapphire, and whatever else was in there with a splodge of white stuck in the middle of it. Apparently the white is supposed to symbolise the flag of Great Britain in some parallel universe, but I’ll be damned if I can see it.
My question is what was wrong with the other outfits? And shouldn’t Team GB be getting someone else to mess around for the media when they are this close to the Olympics? I’m not going to argue over why they shouldn’t be wasting time on this, but I’ll leave the criticism to the entire nation who will no doubt be baying for blood when they fail to win a medal.
The So Outrageous that it’s Borderline Hilarious
This golden nugget of news appeared in the dying embers of this week as the shooting championships in Kuwait ended and the winners were honoured with their medals and national anthems, at least that’s how it should have happened.
All the athletes were honoured, and now it was time for the winner from Kazakhstan to be honoured with her national anthem. But Maria Dmitrienko stood dumbfounded as the anthem of her native country was actually that which the film Borat used during their mockumentary produced a few years ago.
But give the girl some credit because the Borat anthem didn’t stop Maria Dmitrienko from standing there with her hand on her heart without moving a muscle. The athlete didn’t seem to mind the Borat anthem too much, but her team were furious as they demanded an apology. Luckily, all was well as the medal ceremony was rerun and the organisers apologised.
However, from a personal point of view, I think they should have played the Borat anthem again for a second time just because it would have been utterly hilarious. What are they going to do shoot….ah never mind, they did the right thing. Rule #1 of real life trolling, never troll the winner of the international shooting championships more than once.
A Positive Outlook for the Week
This week’s positive outlook for the week is a little sparse because I’m not feeling all that positive at the moment. However, I will provide a couple of predictions for next week. The Labour Party will attack every single thing the Coalition has done in the last few weeks than more venom than ever before. And I’m going to be bold and say that Ed Miliband may come out of his shell and elevate himself in the eyes of many with his upcoming performance this week.
One area of world affairs I’m enjoying at the moment is North Korea and there rocket-powered satellite they intend on firing in honour of their Eternal President. As the launch date grows closer tensions are rising and it makes for very interesting reading as the most powerful nations in the world are essentially fighting with nothing more than an overweight child.
So maybe next week won’t be as bleak and irritating after all…
