And the most shocking thing about the whole thing is I look at this statement and I’m not even sure this is true anymore.
Yes Tony you’ve actually managed to fucking do it. As a former Blairite, multi-Labour voter, I think I would now actually vote for that slimy rightwing tosser if that’s what it took to eject your lying, hair-splitting, posturing hide out of Downing Street. And this is what you have achieved?? In eight fucking years or however long it is now. To take people who were your natural supporters, who thought that you would be a good thing for the country, who saw how you reconstructed and modernised the Labour Party and thought that that was what we needed, and turned them into people who would vote for all that they have ever disagreed with just to get rid of you ?
Fortunately, I live in one of the few Lib/Lab marginals and, though Charlie Kennedy has been slipping in my estimation too (being anti-war until it starts, sacking people for being able to empathise) it at least means I can cast my vote against you without having to punish myself with a week of gravel showers.
I hear you L_C. My problem is that my constituency is such that not voting for Labour is effectively a vote for the SNP, and I could never bring myself to do that. One can only hope that Brown is in charge by the next election.
Ah, Boris Johnson… If anyone would care to explain to me how this upper-class twit is let out on his own without a minder, let alone became an MP and editor of a major national newspaper, I would dearly love to know. Either he’s a genius projecting an amazing facade of fecklessness or he’s Chauncy Gardener hypostasized.
Back on topic, Labour has indeed managed to turn a stunning victory into another major fuck-up through a phenomenal level of pettiness and pique. I could have sworn they used to be good at public relations once upon a time.
I think Boris Johnson is a phenomenally successful double bluff - people look at him and think “no, nobody could really be that stupid, he must be a really clever man pretending.” But, secretly, he really is that stupid.
I’m all for Boris as the natural successor to Michael Howard. I can think of nobody better equipped to lead the Conservative Party into long-overdue and richly-deserved oblivion.
But we have to get rid of that sod Blair first, you know.
Were I in England now he would be my MP (Heseltine was the previous tosser in that office).
To be honest, and I base this largely on his appearance on Room 101, he’s jolly clever and rather witty, and though he wouldn’t get my vote, he’d get a friendly wave from me were he to open my village fête.
I think you do the parliamentary system and the MP’s themselves a great disservice Avenger. Besides the obvious stuff like, for example, rushing back to their constituencies every Thursday evening in order for the Friday surgeries, they also man the endless Committees that oversee every aspect of the Executives work. Indeed, if Blair is to go by the summer, it will be his MP’s who tell him.
You do recall that Blair’s University fees policy survived by 5 votes only this week ?
Anyway, I enjoyed the following for a number of reasons, not least the quality of the assignation job on Ali Campbell, and the reminder of the strange neighbours one finds manning the barricades in defence of the beeb in this dispute; may God help me . . . the Daily Telegraph:
"*In the question-and-answer session that followed the interval, I asked him if, after his alcohol-induced breakdown in the 1980s, he now considered himself a recovering alcoholic and was in the 12-step programme. For a moment this normally eloquent man seemed totally flummoxed. The glib flow of words simply stopped. I honestly don’t think he had ever thought about it before.
In my view, Campbell simply swapped the bottle for the Labour Party. It’s what’s known in Alcoholics Anonymous as being a “dry drunk”, and the symptoms are usually obsessiveness, bullying, and sudden switches in mood. Sound familiar? *"
Excellent line of attack! It occured to me some while ago that his much-publicised marathon running/charity work was related to his obsessive. dysfunctional character but to think such a person - still in recovery - is the co-architect of the entire New Labour project is a delicious way to attack the premise of everything Blair stands for.
Good one, but I was thinking along the lines of Alastair Campbell collecting his UB40. But I’ve remembered they don’t call 'em that anymore. There’s certainly a rat in the kitchen these days though. God I feel old.