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Our lovely Party looks more and more like the USS Caine. Captain Queeg on the bridge clicking balls, looking more and more tense, becoming more assertive and messianic.
Crew divided and worried. Majority anxious to maintain Naval regulations and support the captain.
But less and less certain about why. Mutineers uncertain about what to do next. Junior ranks whipped into a frenzy and so anxious that the ship is heading for the rocks and that they’ll lose their jobs, that they denounce the mutineers. They compound the problem and heighten the bitterness by demanding that mutineers be forced to walk the plank. "Hanging’s too good for these bastards". Particularly Able Seaman Marshall Andrews.
Monday’s PLP was fascinating. It began with a viperous attack on Marshall Andrews by Barry Sheerman. Then a plea from some new woman (who hadn’t been elected to "consort with Tory Whips") that people who did so should be disciplined for talking to the enemy - though they might have been saying how fanciable she was.
All a put-up job. The few Lefties who still go to PLP wisely said nothing. What’s the point? The denunciations allowed Hilary to rise graciously and show statesmanship by ignoring the calls for a witch hunt. In fact it’s already on. The minor 49ers all get letters asking them to justify their votes and the new MP for Burnley, Kitty Usher, has warned the 49 varieties that they will have "blood on their hands". Vicious stuff.
The Whips could best employ themselves by putting Tony under some kind of restraint. It’s not his opponents causing the trouble: it’s him. Restlessly pursuing policies that go against Labour instincts doesn’t build unity. Charles Clarke has done a good job of trying to restrain him and promoting a case he, Charles, doesn’t really believe in. I doubt if Ruth Kelly has the strength to do the same and Patricia Hewitt doesn’t look as though she really wants to.
Meanwhile the First Mate glowers on looking more and more worried by the rocks ahead as the clicks and the ranting grow louder. Will Prezza emerge as Maryk, the Caine mutineer, who assumes command to save the ship from disaster? Will Keefer remain locked in his cabin? Wait for the next instalment.
No one can say that Queeg hasn’t got balls. We never heard them when we had a majority of 166 and could do anything we wanted, but now that there’s less room to do either what we want or he wants. Queeg gets assertive. Click, click, click. Beginning to sound like tick, tick, tick.
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The Grimsby Telegraph quotes me as saying that I vote against the government when I disagree with what it’s doing and abstain on everything else. So obviously insane that even I couldn’t have said it. Now it’s reproduced in the Times.
Incompetent journalism but followed up by an outpouring of anonymous abuse from readers about feathering my nest, being bone idle, never voting and accomplishing nothing after thirty years as a useless MP. Shona reports all this to me with great glee. Wonderful to have friends.
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Great news. Marshall Andrews is considering giving me back my Melrose role as the hind legs of the stalking donkey. Walking back to happiness. Oh yeah. Oh Yeeaah. But what about the smell? |
