Mr Chambio's Take

I am waiting for John Greenshields to call me. I was on my way to Jessops to pick up my new camcorder and he called just as I was thinking to myself, is this really going to happen at 11am? Then he called and said, rather seriously, We Have A Ministerial Visit. We Had A Call Late Last Night. We Will Not Be There At Eleven. We May Be There At Twelve. I Will Call You. In fact, we are 2 hours later than that, and he hasn't called or replied to my text. So I am going to watch the 1pm BBC TV news, and tell you what Mr Chambio told me.

I told Mr C what I was about to do as I picked up my smart trousers, and said to him, actually, I am a little nervous. "Nervous? Nervous? Why you nervous? You don't have to be nervous. Remember: all people have power. She can kiss your funky ass." I smiled at this. He then said, "Remember: they need you, these people." I said, sure, but people are disappointed after the war. He said, "You know why the war happened? It's for economic reasons, the war, nothing to do with Saddam, or even the oil. They can take down anyone they like, the Americans. They don't need Britain, they don't need anyone."

"It's just like jeans," he continued, a smile on his face. "You remember when they came in?" I explained, no for me, they have always been there. "I used to be a tailor. When jeans came, they were big and flared. Then they went narrow. We had to sell the old jeans off cheap, just get rid of them, to put the new jeans on the shelf. It's the same with bombs. They wanted to get rid of old ones. They cannot store them, they have to dump them, or use them. The Americans have big bases in Italy. They drop old bombs into the sea all the time, the fishermen always find them. They just want to empty the depots. They need to make the factories produce new missiles. So they find a place to let them go. Why not Iraq? Why not Serbia? You remember Milosovic? How many of those bombs were smart bombs, modern? Less than 5%. The military just want to upgrade their product. My brother-in-law in America has a factory just making the conical tips of missiles, just the front metal bit. He is now working 24/7, just like he was in 1991, the Gulf War. He couldn't even come to my grandson's birthday party, last month, my wife went there. He is working so hard."

He paused and we both looked out the window at the Holloway Road. "The economy is not good. Soon people here will realise, but I am already seeing it - it's Friday, should be busy. Where are the people?"

He's right, the economy is not as healthy as it has been, even with low inflation, things cost more, we make less, and it is all linked to the war which cost this nation 5 billion Great British Pounds. One of our few remaining car manufacturing companies has gone bust - we haven't seen that kind of news in a while. That's 6,000+ people without jobs. This social and political timebomb the next government will have to deal with, whatever its political complexion.

Mr C wished me well, and I was glad to have remembered to pick up my cleaned and mended trousers, and happy to pay him.