If symptoms

persist.. .

I HAVE known a couple of presidents in my time, and a number of government ministers, one or two of whom I have even treated for minor ailments, but I make no claim to special understanding of the secret political workings of the world. For that, I rely upon my unem- ployed patients, who have the leisure to work out the complex conspiracies which, they say, govern our lives whether we know it or not.

A hundred years ago, such autodidacts would have spent their time and energy proving that the Mayas were the Lost Tribe of Israel, or that the Phoenicians discovered America. Nowadays, they are politicised: that is to say, embittered and angry.

One of these patients came to me last week. He sat opposite me in my room and launched into a political dis- quisition.

I'm thinking of writing a book, doc- tor,' he said. 'Only my friends say I shouldn't because it'll make me a target.'

`For what?' I asked.

`The Government,' he replied. 'The book'll expose the hypocrisy of the West and how it deliberately destroyed the Soviet Union and caused all the ethnic cleansing. I hold Mrs Thatcher responsi- ble, as well as Bush and Reagan. And I'll write how she destroyed workers' rights in this country and ended exchange con- trol so that all the jobs could go to for- eign countries for profits for the capitalists. And how she and America armed Iraq and then attacked it when Saddam Hussein walked into Kuwait. And how she sold all the industries so that they could sack the workers.'

`By the way,' I asked, 'when did you last work?'

`I can't, doctor, I'm on the sick. Believe me, I've tried, I've gone back to work, but I can't take the stress. I do the odd job now and again, not to fiddle the sys- tem but just to keep my mind occupied.'

`Surely the book does that?'

`I haven't writ it yet. But I can tell you, if John Major or any other politician walked in here now, I could beat him in an argument. That bomb in London, it was all his fault. I've got a friend in Sinn Fein who told me it was bound to hap- pen, it couldn't be stopped, the Govern- ment wouldn't negotiate, so me, I blame Major. My book'll have all that in it, but the Government'll try to ban it because it doesn't want the public to know these things. It might even try to kill me by arranging an accident. My book'll have things in it which'll rock the Govern- ment and might even bring it down.'

`Nevertheless,' I said, 'I think you should give up drinking.'

`But that's not the problem, doctor. I only drink because I'm lonely. I've been married three times to wonderful women, but they've always left me for someone else. I have to drink to forget it.'

Did any of them ever object to your drinking?'

`Oh yes, they all said something about it. But they drank themselves, doctor. They all liked going to clubs and pubs, and you've got to drink in them places.'

`And what are you like when you've been drinking?'

`I'm all right unless anyone says some- thing to me. Then I admit I can turn a bit nasty.'

Theodore Dalrymple