Don't Blame Me...

...I voted Conservative. Actually, I didn't (and never have - in fact I can't think of any circumstances under which I would). However, today I found myself stuck behind a car with a sticker in the back window proudly proclaiming "Don't blame me -I voted Conservative". Well, I do - I hold you entirely responsible for the mismanagement of the economy, the destruction of our social services and just about anything else I can think of that's shit right now. I mean, really, what kind of idiot goes around with something like that displayed in their car? You are just asking for it to be fire bombed. To make things worse, the idiot turned out to be a truly crap driver - after fifteen minutes of crawling along a winding country road behind them, I was regretting being polite and not cutting them up when I had the chance.

But this whole 'Don't blame me' attitude has become endemic in this country. It seems to be the main line of defence adopted by every government minister: 'Don't blame me for these massive spending cuts - it was all the fault of the last labour government's economic mismanagement'. (Nothing to do with the global banking crisis caused by the greed of your financier pals, then?) It's also been the defence of choice of just about every News Corp executive with regard to the phone hacking scandal: 'Don't blame me, I wasn't there at the time' or, 'Don't blame me, I can't be expected to know what everyone of my employees is up to at any one time. Oh, and they lied to me.' Possibly the best variation is 'Don't blame me - I was only the editor, how the hell was I to know what my journalists were doing, or how they got their stories?' Whatever happened to the good old days of the buck stopping here, eh?