All Yesterdays' Parties

Sitting in my little bunker in Hong Kong, it was obvious - four years ago – that Nick Clegg had signed the death warrant of the Liberal Democrats. He’d betrayed the people who voted for his party – many of them as virulently anti-Tory as any Labour activist – in exchange for a mess of pottage and a “Deputy Prime Minister” business card.

It will be a long time before a vote for the Lib Dems can be construed as anything but a back door endorsement for a possible Conservative government. If it was so obvious to me – and, I’m sure, to thousands of others – you have to wonder why this particular reality eluded the powers-that-be in the party’s Great George St headquarters.

Maybe the hope was that the perceived influence of the Lib Dems as a coalition partner would be enough to salvage their credentials. With the Bedroom Tax, higher student fees, the growing wealth gap in the UK and the Royal Mail sell-off fiasco as but exhibits A-D in a list that could lap the alphabet several dozen times over, it is obvious that, as hopes go, that’s in the file marked “Clearly Forlorn”.

Clegg’s only possible lasting contribution – uniting the votes on the left for the first time since 1981 – also now seems somewhat unlikely. Ed Miliband’s charisma bypass and the timidity of the Labour Party maybe largely to blame here, while the conveniently-scheduled “feel-good” factor is also playing a role (expect the ideologically-driven austerity card to be back in play within weeks of Cameron’s return to Number 10 next year).

Add to this, you have UKIP. Is it right, as the papes are so keen to promulgate, that Farage and co (“Farrago”) are taking votes off Labour as much as off the Tories? I find that a little hard to believe. UKIP has a kind of unveneered Toryism (as much as it has a veneered National Frontism), making disillusioned Conservatives its natural parish.

I suspect that that enthusiasm of the right-wing press for spotting decamped Labour votes amid the UKIP faithful is partly wishful thinking and partly a bid to legitimise the few lefty waverers who may be tempted. It would also be refreshing to see a few more left-of-centre politicians veer off the hate-the-sin, love-the-sinner policy that has clearly been imposed from above when it comes to UKIP.

Is UKIP a racist party? Yes it clearly is. Enough skirting around “legitimate concerns”, “failure of conventional party politics” to engage etc. At the fundamental level, UKIP plays on the same concerns as the Nazis, putting an “acceptable” gloss on racism by exploiting the fears of local communities – those from “outside” taking something off you and your family. Sadly conventional politicians abnegate their responsibilities to tackle this head on and instead make craven overtures to UKIP voters, hoping to scrape a few racist crumbs towards their own re-election.

I do have to wonder, what is the point of a democracy when there are no men of vision to inspire the electorate, merely a sad collection of opinion poll jockeys willing to cater to the lowest common denominator in order to win office? Perhaps the one good thing we can take from the demise and demise of Nick Clegg, however, is that even the public will only tolerate tawdry opportunism for so long.

Result-ski

For those in want of a conspiracy theory…

While internet chatter in China is blaming the Malaysians or (predictably) the Americans, think who really has most to gain from Flight MH370 going AWOL. Step forward those master chess players on the international scene – the Russians.

Occupation of Crimea ousted from front pages around the world, hardly a mention of dodgy sanitation in the Sochi Bobsleigh dorm and not a dead Ivan to be had...

Result-ski(as they probably don’t say down Moscow way...)

#temporaryrelieffromrectalirritation

Despairing of raddled acquaintances adding their off-putting au naturel look to your timeline in the name of tumour treatment? Disgruntled at posturing males posting redacted penii pix in your personal space?

Worry not. For 2015, I am launching Hags-in-Bags, allowing your none-too-comely female chums to responsibly hide their blemishes, and Cocks-in-a-Box, premature burials for those men who like to pretend they care about cancer, but really just want to post pictures of their privates without fear of prosecution.

Selfie-Abuse

I hate this fucking no make-up selfie shit and now its socks-on-cocks bastard off-spring. Enough of this look-at-me-shite masquerading as charity. Donate your money and shut the fuck up.

Dharma, Dharma, Dharma Comedian

KETV in the States I salute you. You've gone where we were all thinking - menaced by a polar bear to a Mama Cass soundtrack, rather than dead in the Indian Ocean...

Five Star*ucks

There truly isn't a swear word vile enough to describe smug American teachers who bring a 20-strong class of 11-year-olds into a Wan Chai Starbucks on a Friday lunchtime. So I've invented one. Ladies and gentlemen，I give you "cuntoflangepustules". Use it wisely and with care.

Barney Quinn - An Appreciation

Barney Quinn died last week (March 10). He was 97. He was a remarkable man. I knew him for a long time – first as rather severe senior teacher at St Augustine’s (my school from 11-16), later as my head of year and Oxbridge tutor at Loreto. Like many that Barney – I could never call him that to his face no matter how long I knew him – tutored on an one-to-one basis (and there were many, all unpaid), I stayed in touch with him and Lou, his wife. We became friends and stayed in touch long after he retired (1981, I think).

He had many stories about St Augustine’s – it was never his favourite school, I think that was clearly St Ambrose. His stories about Spike (the headmaster – Monsignor McGuiness) falling off the wagon on the train back from rehab on a regular basis stand out. He always reckoned losing the school and it going comprehensive were the things that killed the Monsignor. Aye, that and the Gordon’s didn’t help much.

Barney was incredibly courageous. I remember him wading into a gang of youths in Moss Side during the riots. They were harassing a group of Loreto students at the bus stop and he just charged to their rescue. He must have been 62 then. One jumped on his back, but the others backed down. We brave Oxbridge types hid in the form room until the coast was clear.

He was a great man, perhaps the greatest it’s been my privilege to know. Kind, wise, selfless, never sanctimonious and with an amazing love of learning – ten years ago (in his 80’s) he was racing to learn both the piano and German before his eyesight finally gave out. That was probably the bitterest blow to him – for a man with his love of reading, it was tragic that his eyesight deteriorated to the point where he was pretty much functionally blind.

I last saw him about two years ago, he had shrunk with age and he was concerned about the health of Lou, but his mind was as sharp and inquisitive as ever.

I owe this man a lot as do many others. God bless you, Mr Quinn. He’s still not Barney to me even now.

It Shouldn't Be You...

Fair play to Neil Trotter, winner of £108 million in the Euro Lottery. His decision to quit panel-bashing for a life of indulgent debauchery is bang on. It’s a refreshing change from those West Midlands care assistants (etc) who announce that winning seven million quid won’t mean they’ve hosed down their last wrinkley’s arse on a 9-to-5 PAYE basis.

If lottery winners* haven’t been caught snorting coke off the tits of twin Cuban air hostesses within a week they should be obliged to give the money back. It should be the law and an inspectorate should be formed forthwith.

*Winners of smaller sums could either club together or scale down. Perhaps sipping Special Brew from the bum crack of a Lidl shelf-stacker in the North Norwood area. But ostentatiously and with vigour.

There (But Not Back Again)

Blimey. They must be fairly sure they’ve found MH370 – New Zealand’s sent its plane. Good news for the families of the missing; bit rough on those who booked early for “An Aerial View of Hobbiton”.

Swings and roundabouts, swings and bleeding roundabouts.

Members Only

BLIMEY: Tactless post 50-spam now focuses on arthritis treatment rather than cock enlargement. I am assuming the Internet somehow knows that moving into my second half-century has merely coincided with a more-than-satisfactory increase in my personal groinal girth. Result.

Dogtor Who

Inspired by this US Whovian’s rendering of every Time-Lord-to-Date-in-Canine-Form, I am currently working on an All-Terrapin-Blake’s-7.

Following that, my biggest challenge to date – Florida-based-Doctor-Who-Fans-as-Folks-You’d-Happily-Share-a- Lift-With.

They say it can’t be done. They may be right.

DID BOLSHEVIK BOB STEAL BEIJING-BOUND BLACK BOX?

Family and friends of Kremlin-loving Bob Crowe, 52, last night refused to confirm or deny that the late Trotskyite trade union firebrand had the missing flight recorder from doomed Malay MH370 in his North London shed.

According to police insiders, international crash investigators have switched their attention to Red Bob’s Woodford Green outhouse after extensive searches of the South China Sea failed to find any traces of the vanished plane’s 239 passengers and crew.

One senior officer at the scene said: “We have suspected for a long time that hard-left activists in the provisional wing of the RMT were planning an outrage.

“Our intelligence initially suggested plans to picket the former Aldwych station every other Wednesday, weather permitting, but that could easily have been a smoke-screen for their far more sinister Kuala Lumpur operation.”

Outside Crowe’s luxury eight-bedroom dacha-styled home, angry protestors were already beginning to gather late last night. Clearly still stunned by developments, one grieving mother-of-two said: “Comrade Crowe clearly masterminded this whole thing before topping himself to avoid international justice. His pal Putin must be delighted that no-one has written a word about the Ukraine since the tube worker’s chief took down flight MH370 and then took the coward’s way out.”

On other page’s: Commie Crowe’s Taxpayer Funded-Funeral More “Downton Abbey” Than “Down and Out in Paris in London” says Shamed Eastender

  Marx & 'spensive: All mod commies at Red Bob's 5-Czar Residence