Okay, so this song was originally written as a protest against the state of the Republic of Ireland back in 1980 but it's been popping into my head a lot this morning as our sixth Prime Minister in ten years stepped down. Here's what Google defines a 'banana republic' as 'A country labelled a banana republic has many distinguishing features. It has weak structures of governance, which often results in widespread corruption among government officials. Poverty is common, and the government, or a very small upper class, controls all resources. Measures of social and economic inequality are therefore typically high.'
We might not quite be there just yet but give it time. The problem with changing leaders and parties every few years (or weeks in some cases) is that no one's around long enough to actually do anything. I have a pretty radical view of what's needed...a benign dictatorship. A leader who'll make the difficult and sometimes unpopular choices (but choices that generally have the support of the majority of the population) that are needed to sort out the mess that this country's in and who'll be in power for as long as it takes. It won't happen of course, and dictators, benign or otherwise, have a habit of getting a bit carried away but surely we can't carry on like this for much longer?
