The world according to Snafu - It wsn't me!

It wasn’t me, I wasn’t there, it was someone else.  I never did!

You would expect a child to respond this way and most of us when we grow up realise how silly we seem if we try to do this as an adult.  Sadly there are some adults who still cling to this patently transparent form of defence.  These people are either guilty felons or politicians, although from time to time they are one and the same thing.

This childish response is learned early, blame someone else or just cause enough doubt to cloud the issue.  In school being within a large group of other children, many children soon worked out that denial and confusion works well in deflecting the blame. 

Whenever a politician is caught red handed with something, they behave just like naughty children and a tired and much too familiar dialogue ensues often spread over several weeks and contains sentences like these.

‘I would never have said/done/suggested that.’

‘Well, taken out of context…’

‘Let’s look at this in context…’

‘It is not a part of my vocabulary/lifestyle.’

‘It was not in my interest.’

‘I did not know it was against the law/rules/charter.’

‘He/she is a personal friend.’

‘It was never discussed/mentioned.’

 ‘There was no email/letter/confidential report.’

‘I did not send that email/letter/confidential report.’

 ‘Well OK I did send it but you are taking it out of context’

And so on.

 Also the last ditch defence is to resign.  No doubt they don’t see this as running away.

During the recent scandals about WMDs and MP’s expenses in the UK, similar conversations were played out in many variations on the theme, as each new case arrived before the public gaze.  Recently the phone hacking scandal has produced the same response amongst similarly high up people.  Before that it was ‘cash for questions’ and before that it was ‘sleaze’ accepting gifts and trips to vastly expensive hotels around the jet-set world with ‘friends’.  It has recurred again and again right back to the Profumo Affair in 1963 and no doubt many more hidden in the mists of time and yet we vote for these arrogant people and then are dismayed because they do not behave as we naively expect. Why do the public support these people by voting for them? Even when disgraced, sometimes even jailed, they still pop up later in another role within the establishment. One of America’s most disgraced Presidents reappeared later as a foreign diplomat! And in the UK the same thing has occurred with less high profile people but it happens here and all over.  Discrepancies in their accounting, love life and dealings with other people that would cause instant dismissal in any normal job go un punished, so this denial response seems to work, but whatever happened to honour and integrity in our prominent people.

Anyway, if you are reading this I never wrote it, I am illiterate and I have never been able to use a computer, I was not even in the country at the time and I do not accept gifts.