Another little surprise

Posted by Tania Kindersley.

Just mooching about my favourite political blogs, when I came upon this, from the always wonderful John Rentoul:

(Photograph by Tim Montgomerie.)

The man these people appear so happy to see is The Prime Minister. It is surprising on several different levels. In various elements of the press, various levels of consensus cohere into a narrative which goes: all trust in politicians is gone, the Coalition is a cynical power-grab which will not last, All Tories Are Evil and Hate Poor People, Mr Cameron is a smooth PR operative without any ideological underpinning, all Britons are in despair because at any moment we shall turn into Greece, the entire country has gone to the dogs anyway, and the sun never shines on the May Bank Holiday weekend. This picture seems to contradict several of those assumptions in one shot.

I can't put it any better than the excellent Mr Rentoul, who writes:

'Love the colours and the happy faces (do these people not realise they live in Britain, where everyone wears black and navy and looks sour?).'

Who knows? I have secret hopes for the new government. It could all go horribly wrong at any moment, but perhaps we are not quite as buggered as some people like to think.

And, as an extra bonus, if you would like one more thing to make you smile, go and read this. It is a touching story about autism and horses. In an ironic twist, I had gone to The Daily Mail to make sure that no one was writing nasty things about David Laws being forced out of the closet. (I like David Laws, think he is proving a very good chief secretary, and hope he will survive this storm.) I was all ready to get up on my own high pony about homophobic slurs and other animals, and instead I found an enchanting story which warmed every last cockle of my old bleeding heart. Which just goes to show. Not quite sure what, but something, for sure.