Dear Chief Secretary to the Treasury,
I'm afraid to tell you there's no money left.
Signed, Liam Byrne

(Outgoing Labour Chief Secretary to the Treasury. May 2010)
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Friday 19 February 2010

Thinking of chocolate biscuits?

It seems that our Prime Minister, whose studied for degrees in History, managed to confuse two Royal Houses, replacing the Hapsburgs with the Bourbons.

The Hapsburgs are, in the Rigby household at least, remembered for their prominent lower jaw and the "Hapsburg Lip", whilst the Bourbons managed to get a chocolate biscuit named after them.

Freudian slip anyone? - Perhaps Mr Brown was recalling his Mumsnet interview, or maybe replacing Kit Kats with bananas doesn't quite hit the right spot?

And the quotes?
Mr Brown told a conference in London: “It was said of the Hapsburgs that they would never learn by their mistakes.
When he should have known that ...
Most historians attribute the remark about learning nothing to Tallyrand, the French diplomat who served as Napoleon’s foreign minister.
According to several biographers, Tallyrand made the comment in criticism of the Bourbons some time after their restoration to the French throne following Napoleon’s defeat at Waterloo in 1815.
“They have forgotten nothing and they have learned nothing,” he is recorded as saying of the Bourbons.
....

4 comments:

Unknown said...

Tell Gordy, "vous êtes de la merde dans un bas de soie": it might jog his memory and make him remember to get his Huntley & Palmers right. Good to have you back Mrs R after your Progress through the shires.

Wrinkled Weasel said...

Don't get me on Garibaldis.

Mrs Rigby said...

Garibaldis - ah yes, the ones we call squashed flies.

Mrs Rigby said...

Apologies @ 418, it seems by earlier pithy reply didn't get properly uploaded, and now I've forgotten what it was.

I did have to look up the quote though, and discovered that Boney obviously didn't think much of Talleyrand!