Who says we can learn nothing from History?

Those who think there is nothing we can learn from history have a lot to think about. We have recently passed from the reign of King Canute who believed he could hold back the tides to the reign of Ethlread the Unready. Canute believed that no matter what nature ruled he could overrule it. so he sat on the beach and ordered the waves to recede. if only he had picked a moment when the tide was actually ebbing. Sound a bit like Phony Tony who thought he was always right even when most of us knew he was wrong? Always happy to take a decision even if he was wrong more often than he was right. Now we get Ethelread the Unready who might call an election, but might not call an election. Apparently not because he thought he might lose, but because he wants to show us how he might govern before we vote on him. Seems a bit of spin to me. If he thought he would win he would have the election to give himself the 5 years to put his vision to us. If he thinks he might not win then he thinks we might reject his vision. So no matter how he spins it, he backed off because he was unready.

Hard to tell which of the two is more preferable. The one who thinks he is always right or the one who thinks we think he is always wrong. Clearly Brown has some more tax ideas he would like to try to squeeze yet more of our hard earned cash from us and he is scared we might be wising up to his grab for our money. Canute thought he was right about everything and Ethelread thinks he knows best how to spend our money. Doesn't know much about anything else mind you. I wonder who will be next to remind us of our historic past?