Socially Useless!

That was a term used by Lord Turner, chairman of the UK Financial Services Authority describing Britain’s bankers back in 2009. It is a sadly under-used phrase and one that certainly warrants closer scrutiny as a yardstick of human endeavour in these straitened times.

The Taoiseach discovers he can't carry off a trilby 

In Ireland, we have been held hostage by a group of (largely) men who, if all gathered together probably wouldn’t even fill an easily torched village hall between them. A small group of men,  who are almost completely responsible for the present state of the nation.

And still, a nation of millions is suffering them to go unpunished and the system that weaned them to continue business as usual. Bottom feeders the lot of them....

‘Socially useless’: it’s an incendiary term, but what does it actually mean? Who decides what exactly is a socially useful activity? I’m pretty sure I’d prefer to live in a world where a lowly street-sweeper was accorded a higher social status than a stockbroker. At least he keeps the streets clean...(Sadly, I’m guessing however that it’ll be a while before we see any bin-men on the board at the K Club.)

There’s a hoary old political aphorism that each country gets the government it deserves; I kind of hoped we were better than this....