Our cancerous Finance Minister
We have been told, though not officially, that our dear Minister for Finance has cancer, yet the government responds in a manner more fitting to the old Soviet Empire, with silence and bad-tempered and bad-mannered diffidence. Does Brian Lenihan and those who govern us believe that they live so above the common heard that their health can be of no interest to the hoi poloi? Admittedly, it shouldn’t matter too much if those who govern us suffer from Piles, (as I am sure some do), or that some are seriously obese – we’d have to be blind not to notice. Then there are the ministers (no names mentioned) who have had a brush with venereal disease, not to mention – God forbid that we might – the minister who liked sniffing talcum power – mar dhea!
But Lenihan in his arrogance chooses to overlook an inconvenient reality. We, the people of the country, are his employers and an employer has the right and the duty to know whether his or her employees are able to the job they have been given. Now admittedly employers should not seek information about possible treatments, unless they reasonably believe this might interfere with the employee’s ability to do their work, or have similarly reasonable fears that such illness and treatment might be dangerous to other employees, or might have implications concerning insurance etc.
Now something like cancer is a serious ailment, and while we don’t need to know the intricate details we have a duty to know if our ministers are not enjoying rude health, and if the decisions they make may have been influenced by their indisposition. Could it be that the details of this dastardly budget were cobbled together by a man, who, instead of being on top of his game was on a cocktail of drugs?
But then, maybe, those who govern us through a mixture of lies and slight-of-hand, believe that the benighted populace must believe that those at the top are perfect in every sense, possessing immense intellectual, physical and maybe sexual prowess.
It’s a bit like going back to the old Celtic notion of kingship where the ruler was perfect and he was always a he – who entered into a form of congress with his territory – always personified as a female – who demonstrated her satisfaction with her consort through bounteous crops and all-round prosperity. And if the people were to learn by whispers and idle gossip that the ruler’s beauteous countenance was disfigured by anything as insignificant as a facial wart they might rebel, seeking to replace him with a better-looking exemplar of potency,
Given the fact that we live in a free country, where anybody who dares deny this faces a custodial sentence, I can see that talk of Brian Lenihan’s cancer may become a “no-no”, not to be mentioned by anyone under pain of immortal obloquy, though it may continue to circulate on poor-quality paper in samizdat, until one night Brian Dobson appears on the evening news dressed in black, a trusted precursor to the news that a prominent member of the politburo has shaken off his miserable mortal coil, as our radio waves echo to the strains of Chopin and Tchaikovsky.
The herd will lament my lack of Christian charity. Ah come on now Ciaran, he’s sick I will be told, Play the ball not the man etc. Hold on there. Brian Lenihan has steered through a budget which has heaped hardship on thousands of people. Rather than being in the least remorseful for this he has come away smiling, seemingly luxuriating in the harm he has done.
And let’s face it, cancer’s no big deal any more. The party loyalists can always organise a whip-round to send him off to the Mayo clinic, though taking care that the current party leader doesn’t dip into the funds, and once he has been cured he can take up residence in Buswell’s hotel beside a potted plant.
It just goes to show that our rulers are a crowd of lying, insecure nobodies.
