Eamonn McCann: Theresa May's Dancing Days Are Nearly Behind Her

Theresa May took a hammering in the media for shimmying on stage at the Tory Party conference to the sound of Abba belting out ‘Dancing Queen’. A ridiculous spectacle, groaned all of the media and most of the British population. Presenting herself as a disco diva!

“The only person who enjoyed that was Boris Johnston,” growled somebody on Channel 4.

But maybe Mrs. May was making an entirely different point, a confession, even.

I am not the first person to notice that ‘Dancing Queen’ is a hymn of ineffable sadness, a song of regret for a brightness now fading, a mournful rumination on a life unfilled.

The protagonist of the song is not the dancing queen.

“You are the Dancing Queen, young and sweet, only seventeen/ Dancing Queen, feel the beat from the tambourine/ You can dance, you can jive, having the time of your life/ See that girl, watch that scene, digging the Dancing Queen.”

The protagonist is somebody recalling her youth, as she watches from the sideline as a young one wafts and whirls across the floor, and aches at recall of her own days as a disco dervish, when she was free as a bird and full of life.

And now she’s standing alone, looking on as braggarts take over what was once her gilded space. Mrs. May was dancing around the fact that her day is done.

_____________ ‘Dancing Queen’ is not the best song ever about watching the jive and the jitterbug. That would be the nonpareil T-Bone Burnett’s ‘I Wish You Coulda Seen Her Dance’.

“She asked me ‘Do you wanna know what I do for work?’/ I said, ‘Sure’/ She said ‘I’m a maid, and also a dancer/ I dance with two rock bands/ And one of the bands even wrote a song about me’/ I wish you coulda seen her dance/ The way she soared across the floor/ She had long blonde hair / I wish you coulda seen her dance.”

That might be my all-time favourite lyric.
_________________ Some readers may have missed reports last month of the first ever use in combat of the F-35B vertical-take-off fighter-bomber. Launched from a carrier in the Indian Ocean, the plane took out a Taliban target in southern Afghanistan.

This was a significant moment in the history of warfare. The F-35B is the most expensive piece of military hardware ever manufactured – $115 million a pop. This was its premiere operation.

A spokesperson for the US Naval Forces Central Command described the attack as “very efficient, very successful.”

The F-35B is designed to fly at around 1,500 miles an hour. It is coated with some wizard concoction that makes it invisible to enemy radar. This wasn’t a crucial factor in the Afghan operation, the Taliban not possessing radar. Or, indeed, airplanes. I am told that the top speed of a Taliban over the rocky terrain of the Afghan badlands is around six mph.

The Taliban may be the most technologically primitive force the US military has faced since the Battle of Little Bighorn. It might be recalled that that one didn’t work out well for the whizz-kids with the self-loading rifles.

So why did the top brass send in its most incredibly costly new gizmo against a band of guerrillas? Mazooma, as it happens.

We are sometimes tempted to believe that the US has unlimited stores of dosh to spend on its armed forces. And, indeed, the Pentagon budget involves sums well beyond the range of most people’s understanding. (What is a trillion anyway?)

But there are limits, and the limits may have been reached by the F-35B. The Pentagon is currently preparing its spending plans for 2019-2020. Congress will determine whether the F-35B can deliver a big enough bang to justify trillions of bucks for a weapon never tested in battle conditions.

But the Afghan raid allowed the Pentagon immediately to distribute to every Congress person and media outlet exciting video of the budget-busting behemoth zapping raggedy Muslims. The accompanying press release boasted that “The US Marine Corps F-35B joint strike fighter has successfully completed its first combat mission over Afghanistan.”

Cue a slew of patriotic features next day hailing this marvellous addition to the defence capability of the beleaguered US.

On the same day, September 28, the gloss was somewhat abraded from the Afghan success when a F-35B on a training flight above South Carolina crashed for reasons which are still under investigation. The pilot safely ejected.

In its first two days of service two days, one combat mission against a dozen mountainy men, one $115 million craft strewn across the countryside, burnt out and in bits.

No comment at the time of writing from President Trump. But he has explained that his government has had to cut back on food-stamps in an effort to balance the budget.