It was unforgettable television. I haven't seen such baying for blood since Russell Crowe faced jeering Romans in Gladiators. This normally well-mannered audience was shouting, heckling, clearly incandescent. The tide has turned, and they have had enough. My experience of appearing on the BBC's Question Time has been one of struggling to get a word in edgeways between MPs reciting from pre-memorised notes. After last week's edition, things will never be the same. Quite simply, the public fought back. The victims (sorry, panellists) consisted of the chap who runs McDonald's in the UK (representing the voice of reason), Teresa May, Margaret Beckett, Ming Campbell (representing the misunderstood victims) and a surprisingly un-bumptious Ben Brogan from The Daily Telegraph (representing the enemy).
The high point was when Margaret Beckett seemed to imply that ordinary men and women wouldn't be able to understand why MPs needed to claim all these allowances, wittering about having to pay rent for her grace-and-favour home (why live in it, then?) and the problems of running three residences simultaneously. That was a complete non-starter with the good folk of Grimsby – one man looked as if he'd explode with rage, and a kind lady offered to scrutinise MPs' expenses herself, convinced she'd make a better job of it than the clerks in Westminster.
It means something when a bloke who runs a fast-food empire is the only one talking sense, but that's what happened. Trouble is, everyone has got themselves worked up into such a frenzy about MPs' shortcomings that we're in danger of missing the opportunity to make long-overdue changes to our political system. A survey last week found that we are far and away the angriest people in Europe, and this Question Time was ample proof that MPs have now joined call-centres, traffic jams, rude shop assistants, sloppy service and bad drivers as a subject that makes us explode. More seriously, the Mental Health Foundation has found that one in four of us grapples with anger "issues", which can, in the end, seriously affect our health.
Our justifiable fury has been stoked even more by Norman Tebbit (who should know better) telling anyone who would listen that it's better not to vote at all in the local and European elections. The signs are ominous. Some MPs have had their constituency office windows smashed. A pensioner in Elliot Morley's Scunthorpe constituency said to a journalist: "I would have ripped my arm off than vote other than Labour, but I think I'll vote for a dog on the street corner.... We would get thrown into prison if we did what he did."
When pensioners are baying for blood, things are truly grim. Statements saying sorry and cheques written won't make any difference either – voters are incredulous that (during a recession) MPs have enough money in the bank to write out cheques for thousands of pounds at the drop of a hat and then expect us to calm down.
We might be hopping mad, as today's IoS poll suggests, but we must vote – that's the only way to change the system. We need younger, more ethnically diverse, more working-class men and women to believe that being an MP is a decent job, and not the preserve of self-important freeloaders.
Let's channel our fury into getting the dodgy ones deselected and start again. Not every MP is rotten – we need decent MPs to do the job we pay them for running the country and getting us out of the recession. Sadly, it seems as if many of them have the same tenuous ability to live within their means and manage a budget as the Prime Minister and our Chancellor. The Treasury Select Committee of MPs has just published a report castigating the banking industry for its bonus culture, saying that many bankers still don't see the need to change their ways. They want the cosy club of people who sit on the boards of banks to be investigated and regulated. Trouble is, most MPs are exactly the same – a bunch of people who could also be accused of having a "cosy culture" with sloppy accounting, so who in the City will take this report seriously?
Bridget's back: Kick, two, three, four... Swing those knicks
Musicals still dominate the West End box office, and, like reality television, there's no end of new shows in sight. Next spring will see the launch of Andrew Lloyd Webber's eagerly awaited follow-up to Phantom of the Opera – I've heard the first act and it's tremendous – and now Bridget Jones author Helen Fielding is busy transferring her heroine to an all-singing, all-dancing stage show which will open early in 2011. It makes perfect sense – the audience that's made Mamma Mia! a worldwide smash hit is mostly female, and those hen parties will adore Bridget Jones the Musical. I can hardly wait for the line-up of curvy girls in big knickers, although I doubt Hugh Grant will be reprising his role. Whatever next? There was talk of Jade, the musical, but I sincerely hope not.
More social work, less socialising
At the Police Federation annual conference, one speaker suggested raising the cash to pay for 20,000 recruits by banning expensive equipment like Oakley sunglasses and using cheaper pens. Another wanted to axe the blanket security for minor Royals – as Princess Eugenie trolls around luxury resorts on her gap year, it's costing an extra £110,000 on top of the normal £280,000. The country is desperate for more social workers, but there's a huge backlog in the Criminal Records Bureau checks, which must be carried out by the police. At Islington in London a policewoman admitted they had almost 1,000 to process, and the work had been farmed out to temps. The CRB system is online, but if the police can't process the paperwork, it counts for nothing. A good reason to cut back on looking after spoilt Royals.
Eat a swede and save the world
Belgian food is rich and delicious – mussels and chips, potatoes baked in cream, wonderful cakes. But visit Ghent this autumn and you'll be offered only vegetarian fare one day a week. We talk about saving the planet, but the people of Ghent are taking radical action. From September, on the weekly meat-free day, all restaurants will offer a veggie option, and many banishing meat, fish and shellfish from their menus entirely. The project was a reaction to UN statistics which reckon that meat production and consumption accounts for 18 per cent of greenhouse gases. The city says it has many more vegetarian restaurants per capita than London, Paris or Berlin, and to prove that giving up meat needn't be dreary, they held a gourmet meat-free festival. Could the idea be copied here? How about a voucher system? Each day you use your car means no meat for two days a week?
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