To serve us all our days
From Mr N.D. Worswick Sir: In view of the Prime Minister's last two public utterances, is it not time that the gov- ernment should be reminded that govern- ments are elected to office not, in theory, to `power'? Governments are there to serve and to administer the country wisely, in our interests and, above all, with our consent. It is the duty of government to heed the legiti- mate protests of the people. Nothing so ill becomes the current Prime Minister as preaching like a sanctimonious Victorian headmaster swathed in pious wisdom to the rest of us, as if we lived in benighted outer darkness. Instead of appearing as the 'wise leader', in his posturing arrogance Mr Blair only comes across as an ill-informed and petulant jackanapes. Successive govern- ments since 1945 have treated the electorate with overweening disdain, but none more than the current oligarchy, whose self-regard is as staggering as its mendacious hypocrisy. N.D. Worswick
Lincoln College, Oxford
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