THE MODERN WORLD EXPLAINED

AS A POLITICAL COMMENTATOR of some repute, people often come up to me and ask me “David, what on earth is going on in the world?” Sometimes this takes place at dinner parties, on one occasion recently before I had even unwrapped the wine I had brought as a present for the host’s wife. On other occasions I am accosted by students in the corridors of the august institutions in which I teach, begging “Professor, please help us understand modern politics”:

THE “DINNER PARTY PEOPLE” who ask the questions are often those who have not bothered to watch television for the last thirty years and often fall asleep listening to classical music on the radio, and so missed the collapse of the Berlin Wall as well as the death of Irving Berlin; my students are often those who are floating through their student days on a sort of grey, acrid-smelling cloud.

FOR OBVIOUS REASONS I FIND it somewhat difficult to explain the rather confusing elements of the modern world to these sets of people, and so, in yet another of my spontaneous and totally cost-free services provided to the people of the world, whether they be Gin-drinking socialites or blurry-eyed students, here is the “modern world” in a nutshell.

ELECTIONS TOMORROW IN TUNISIA, coupled with tomorrow’s likely decision by the Finance Ministers of the European Union to “end financial sovereignty” by member states, along with Britain’s Conservative and LibDem Government’s refusal to allow a democratic withdrawal from the hated European Empire of Brussels suggest that the balance of power has somewhat changed since the late 80s.

MY MAP SHOWS THE CURRENT STATE OF PLAY. I hope everyone joins me in wishing all these new nations the very best and jolly good luck in getting on with whatever it is that they have been arguing over and/or fighting about getting on with for the last twenty years or so. As an Englishman I can only say, hand on heart, “God speed you, chaps!”

(My map shows Poundland, the Great European Disaster, the three Eurovision Unions (Baltic, Muslim and Balkan), the Arab-Speaking Democrats and the parts unknown.)