Politics

An open letter to Iain McNicol, General Secretary Designate of Chauncey Gardiner’s Labour Party

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Dear Mr. McNicol,

Congratulations on your election as the Labour Party’s General Secretary Designate. I learned of your election from your email to me earlier today, entitled “Let’s Work Together”.

Perhaps one of your first jobs when you take over from Ray Collins could be to cleanse your mailing lists and remove people who, like me, have written to Mr. Collins to resign from the Labour Party in protest at Chauncey Gardiner’s breathtaking ineptitude and ask to be removed from your mailing lists?

That way, you’ll stop people like me from reporting your party to the Information Commissioner’s Office and will prevent your party from wasting more of the money it doesn’t have fighting legal cases it can’t afford.

That sort of thing.

Pip, pip.

Yours sincerely,

The Minister

How to call out Gideon without using the word ‘cunt’

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I love this woman:

I’m no economist but a blind man can see that we’re in the shit. Everything – and I mean everything – Gideon has done, from more tax on North Sea oil to cancelling defence contracts which provide the only jobs available in some parts of the country, has been a disaster. He won’t cut VAT, which would get spending up, and the only job he’s created was for Coulson – a decision which has so far cost 500 jobs, closed a £160m newspaper and may even bring down the Government.

I had expected so much more of a 2:1 history graduate and career politician with the face of an 18th Century French aristocrat whose defining achievement in life, at the age of 40, is that he changed his name because it didn’t sound Prime Ministerial enough.

I had expected he’d screw things up over several years, rather than just the one. Now, can anyone explain why he’s still in a job?

…even if she is a journalist.

We’re all in this together

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To the Commons, where David Lammy asks PBD if the informality of his relationship with Rebekah Wade-Mitchell-Brooks was appropriate.

“I’ve never held a slumber party or seen her in her pyjamas,” wisecracks PBD in response. (Because cheap gags is precisely what’s needed at the moment.)

Wonder if everyone else in the Commons today can say the same, though…?

>> Big Questions <<

What people want to know this week

Which politico might be feeling a bit nervy this week as old rumours which linked him VERY closely to the News International CEO are circulating around disgruntled hacks in Wapping?

Ministerial apology

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For some time now, I have been pouring scorn on Edward Samuel Miliband, Leader of Her Majesty’s Opposition and Leader of the Labour Party.

In the course of the last six weeks I have described him as “floppy”, “awkward”, “clueless”, a “wanker of the first water”, “inept”, “pathetic”, “dreadful”, “abysmal”, “pitiful”, “awful”, “limp”, “anaemic”, “nonsensical”, “embarrassing” and “Chauncey Gardiner”.

With the benefit of two weeks’ hindsight, I now accept I was clearly, completely, unequivocally, dunderheadedly and half-wittedly wrong on all counts.

Ed Miliband’s superlative performances during the News International affair have demonstrated to all that he is a political giant, the likes of which we have not seen in this country since William I.

In just two short weeks, Ed Miliband has redefined the age in which we live. He bestrides the world stage like a Colossus.

Ed Miliband’s presentational skills put Apple to shame.

Ed Miliband’s leadership makes Genghis Khan look like a pussy.

Ed Miliband’s outstanding oratory literally scorches his audience, all of whom have to receive medical attention after his speeches.

In the space of a fortnight Ed Miliband has brought about an end to war, famine, pestilence and poverty.

In just 14 days Ed Miliband has cured both cancer and AIDS.

He has colonised Mars.

He has recorded and released a series of albums that completely shit down The Beatles’ throats.

The breathtaking achievements of Edward Samuel Miliband over the past two weeks cannot be overstated: Ed Miliband should not only win all this year’s Nobel Prizes, he should win them all EVERY YEAR FROM NOW ON.

Until 14 short days ago the Labour Party was hurtling towards obliteration. Now it’s heading for inevitable world domination, adenoids or no adenoids.

Ed, I was wrong and I am sorry. Your penis is enormous. Your balls are massive. Your taint is beautiful, no matter what they say.

I love Ed Miliband.

Vaz deference

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I’ve just heard The Disgraced Former Europe Minister Keith Vaz on the radio talking about honour, integrity and people correctly resigning to take responsibility for their actions.

Once more, for clarity: that’s THE DISGRACED FORMER EUROPE MINISTER KEITH VAZ opining on honour, integrity, and taking responsibility.

HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!!!!

Oh, fuck me.

(With thanks to Pickled Politics for the title.)

“I like to watch”

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I don’t think I’ve ever posted the same thing two days in a row, but seriously – watch this…

…and then tell me I was wrong to vote for Ed Balls.

The man’s either (a) clueless beyond words, (b) seriously unwell, or (c) Chauncey Gardiner.

Flaccidity

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I thought Iain Duncan-Smith would be the worst Leader of the Opposition I ever experienced.  Wholly lacking in personality, gravitas, communication skills or the indefinable leadership ‘X factor’, his only redeeming feature was that he was a fully paid up member of the Toryscum and his maladroit tenure was therefore amusing to me.

Edward Samuel Miliband has, however, romped clear in the race to be the least competent and most clueless holder of the office.  The distance Miliband – a man so inept I can’t even be bothered to think of a soubriquet for him – has put between himself and the likes of Duncan-Smith, Howard and Foot resembles nothing so much as the way Shergar drew clear of the field in the 1981 Derby.

Miliband’s campaign for the leadership was pathetic insofar as he sought to claim that the calamaties of the Bliar and Arrivederci Years were nothing to do with him.  That untrue, self-serving claim ensured he did not get my vote.

Interestingly, of course, he didn’t win the vote of MPs and MEPs.

He didn’t win the vote of party members, either.

While I am in favour of both trades unions and proportional representation, you do have to wonder whether everything is entirely rosy in the garden when a candidate who lost two of the three electoral colleges on offer still wins the election.

I’ve given him as much time and cut him as much slack as I could.  But while I largely decry the knee-jerk reactionism so beloved of rolling news channels, there is also a point at which you have to accept that things are not working out and that persevering with the status quo will do more damage in the longer-term than the short-term damage of changing leaders for a second time in twelve months.

The way politicians sound and look matters.  It shouldn’t matter – and certainly not as much as what they say and do – but it does.  And Miliband sounds and looks dreadful.  For wont of a better description, he looks and sounds floppy.  While having the charisma of a breeze block didn’t stop John Major, at least he was not handicapped by also being ill-at-ease with himself and others.

So, awkward and floppy.  It’s not much of a selling point, is it?

And the electorate can’t help but draw an unfavourable conclusion in comparison with the presidential swagger and unrelenting smoooooothness offered by PBD. (LL Cool D, anyone?)

That Bloody Woman and Bliar were lucky Prime Ministers in that they faced (largely) awful Leaders of the Opposition at most of the elections they fought.  If we hope to have a welfare state, a state education system and an NHS to leave to our children, we can’t repeat that mistake.  We have to put up a vertebrate against them.

The final straw for me came with Miliband’s abysmal decision to call for Kenneth Clarke’s resignation last month.  Clarke fucked up during one radio call-in, fair enough, but anybody who has actually paid any attention to British politics over the past 30 years knows that Clarke is one of the last Toryscum standing on whom social democrats should not automatically urinate.

Miliband’s judgement was abysmal on the day of Clarke’s problems, but I might have been able to overlook it had he not compounded the problem 48 hours later by publishing a pitiful attempt at self-justification in The Independent (effectively the only ‘quality’ newspaper left to the Minister until Harry Potter is finally sacked for bankrupting The Guardian).

He could have just moved on and hoped that everyone would forget.  But he didn’t.  In a lovely little microcosm encapsulating his entire time in office, his judgement was awful and his performance worse.  He stood limply at the despatch box savaging Clarke like a dead squirrel and then awkwardly spewed anaemic, nonsensical drivel in the direction of news microphones and newspaper column typesetters.  It was only marginally less infuriating than it was embarrassing.

(I’m not going to waste everyone’s time by repeating again the various arguments about why Clarke should have rightly been called for his poor use of language in espousing a perfectly sensible penal policy proposal and then left to get on with it.  I will, however, observe that Miliband’s limp posturing almost certainly resulted in that policy being spiked.  So well done, Ed.  Fucking brilliant work.)

For the record, I voted for Ed Balls in the Labour leadership ballot.  I don’t care whether or not he’s a nice guy: he is undoubtedly the best performing senior Labour politician against the Eton Trifles.  He gets under their skin; he gets at them; he gets to the point; he gets that point across.  The contrast with Edward Samuel Miliband could scarcely be starker.

Anyway, enough whining about nonentities.  Typography For Lawyers has just landed on my desk.  And I may have just wet myself a little bit.

30 Things The Minister Did On His Sabbatical

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  1. Learned more than he ever wanted to know about multiple myeloma, bone marrow transplants, quadruple heart bypass surgery and the work of cardiac intensive care nursing staff.
  2. Spent a lot of time driving up and down the M1.
  3. Lost 70lbs.
  4. Put 28lbs back on.
  5. Lost another 21lbs.
  6. Put another 18lbs back on.
  7. Lost another 14lbs.
  8. Joined the Labour Party in the hope that the new leader wouldn’t be a breathtakingly clueless wanker of the first water.
  9. Resigned from the Labour Party due to the breathtaking cluelessness of its new leader, Edward Samuel Miliband, Wanker of the First Water.
  10. Helped fund four albums (by Sophie Madeleine, Emmy The Great, Terra Naomi and a work-still-in-progress by Kat Edmondson).  Girls with guitars, eh?
  11. Been very impressed indeed by and become very well acquainted with the music of John Grant, The Wellspring, Sun Kil Moon, School Of Seven Bells, Alicia Witt, The National, Pete Yorn, Hannah Peel and A Fine Frenzy.
  12. Bought Tom McRae‘s back catalogue. Some fucker’s got to feed his pigs.
  13. Watched a lot of House, Wallander and Community, while wishing I lived in the States so I could watch more of Craig Ferguson.
  14. Got an iPad.
  15. Bought my godson his first iPod.
  16. Waved a fond farewell to Chesterfield FC’s “atmospheric” old stadium on Saltergate.
  17. Watched in open-mouthed amazement as Chesterfield FC won the Fourth Division title in their first season in their really rather fabulous new stadium.
  18. Bought a couple of domain names I like a lot.
  19. Almost completely deGoogleified my life.  Fuck, that felt good.
  20. Discovered and greatly approved of Mighty Leaf Teas.
  21. Got even more anal about fonts and typefaces.
  22. Fell in love some fabulous Mac software – Alfred, Flow, Hype, iA Writer, Sparrow.
  23. Installed a PowerLine network at the Ministerial Residence.  (I’m sure the Minister’s Wife would have preferred me to redecorate the staircase and landing, but you have to pace yourself at my age.)
  24. Discovered that Nerina Pallot is a seriously top lass.  (Her new album’s out next week.)
  25. Fell for Pop Culture Happy Hour.  Glen Weldon is now my personal hero.  (Mistyped that last sentence.  It originally said “Glen Weldon is now my personal herp”.  I think Glen Weldon would approve.)
  26. Had a Twitter exchange with Nicky Fucking Campbell in which I was so civil I did not once call him “Nicky Fucking Campbell”.
  27. Saw several David Ford gigs (travelling 150 miles through a snowstorm to attend one) and read David Ford’s book, I Choose This.  Was not disappointed once.
  28. Had brief work-related journeys to Miami, Puerto Rico, San Francisco, Paris, Munich, Madrid and Stockholm.  Didn’t really enjoy them but Stockholm is lovely (as are its inhabitants).
  29. Came up with an idea for Coalition Cabinet Toilet Paper, because wiping my arse is the only thing that shower of unmitigated cock cheese is fit for.
  30. Generally despaired rather a lot.
So we’re back.  Buckle up: it’s going to be a bumpy ride.

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