Old School Ties

With unseemly haste little snot Gove has been handed the keys to the school gates by the Lib Dims. The Bliar virus to which this coalition seems to have no immunity is at the heart of the Public Schools By Any Other Name measures read out by Liz 2 at yesterday's parliamentary panto. And why not? Fettes alumna Bliar will see his damaging Academy policy coming safely to full implementation by the Eton and Westminster boys at the heart of the 'new' government. Goodbye Universal State Education, hello Selection, Triple Tiering and Class. And shame on you 'Labour' opposition if you don't shout it down at every turn. The signs, including Balls on yesterday's Newsnight, are not encouraging.

Faceless

Who would have thought that having friends could be so dangerous?

Noel at work

This is Noel - in my experience most workplaces have one .

Maygay

Now we've all heard of the Damascus and Deathbed versions but this week saw the introduction of something entirely new - the Question Time Conversion. With Dimbleby Uno, Ming the Elder and Saint Shami of Liberty in attendance, the unlovely Theresa of Maidenhead came up against a gloriously awkward question: "How can this country move forward when the new Minister for Equality is against gays adopting and transsexuals changing their gender." After an initial attempt to suggest that her opposition was a thing of the distant past, this particular Tory lady proved that, post-coalition, she's well and truly up for turning and dumped a dozen years of official support for anti-gay legislation and a lifetime of anti-gay sentiment with almost unseemly haste. She did, of course, couch her new homophilic tendencies in terms of stable relationships and the primacy of family (i.e. no sex please unless you're Straight) but it was an outstanding moment. However - and I don't know about you - it did all appear to be a teensy weensy bit sudden. A bit awkward. Dare one suggest, a little bit convenient in the Age of Coalition and Hiding Your True Light under a pink or purple tie. Or, as Shami and Caroline Flint suggested, should we all shout "Yay!" at the repentance of a long time sinner?

Coalition Blues

A friend recently accused me of ranting too much on my blog. OUT BLOODY RAGEOUS!!! accusation if you ask me - but still..in the interests of civilised debate I'm going to tone things down a bit. So I'm not going to say anything about the sight of Little Nick sitting meekly by the Bully's side awaiting orders during today's parliamentary love-in. One should admire his rectitude and politesse, his willingness to put National before Party Political interest. His silence...Well done tiny Clegg...

Enter The Milibands

The process of detoxification begins. Will it be Dave or Ed or Ed or Ed to lead (no longer) New Labour into a bright new shiny future? Or will it be somebody else? Who else is there? Yvette and Harriet have said no which apparently means there are no viable female candidates. What about a non-white candidate - Chuka Umunna or Dianne Abbott (divisive but a multiple box ticker)? What about an old person - Lord Kinnock or a post-coalition Vince may be a good outside bet. Or what about an alien (or two). What about the Brothers From Another Planet in the picture above? Do share your thoughts with me...

Coalition Tea Party

So there we have it - Osbourne gets Chancellor, Hague gets Europe (sorry - Foreign Secretary) and fuck-me shoes Theresa gets the Home Office and Women. And that other lot - you know, the Dims - they get Deputy PM (non-job), Business something or other (not the Chancellor), Climate Change Secretary (how appropriate) and Scotland (ultimate poison chalice - Scots hate the Tories and the Dims). I suppose the only consolation for the ninny Clegg is that he gets to go back to work as a Conservative which is how his career began. The Tories must be laughing in their troughs at just how simple it was to persuade these little lambs to agree to their own slaughter.

The Long Goodbye

So - a final kicker from Gordy and whatever the outcome who could fail to enjoy the sight and sound of Tory negotiators promising everything from electoral reform to the sale of their own children into the slave trade in exchange for the blessing of the now utterly hated St Nick of Lib. That other Nick - Robinson of Beeb - is apoplectic with undisguised Labour hatred. Throughout History's Day 4 accusations of impropriety and illegitimacy flew from his tight Tory lips rendering as entirely unnecessary the need for a Conservative politician to balance the BBC discussions on College Green. And where the bollocks is Big Society Dave in all this? Lib-Lab, Lib-Con, Tweedledee or Tweedledum(b), it's the Bully Boy who's emerging as the 'Great Ignored' of this post-election bun fight.

The Future Redefined

Apparently 'We' got it right. Dave 1 and 2 are locked in anonymous cells under heavily unarmed guards while the guardians of our future are locked in Eeny, meeny, miny, moe style 'constructive talks' designed to stitch up (oops - sorry, enable) the Lib Dem Con coalition-type thing that 'We' all apparently voted for. And who are the Men of Destiny (and they are all men, of course) entrusted with a Nation Hungry For Change's future? Step forward William Hague and John Major for the Tories and Paddy Pantsdown for the Libs. Spike Milligan once sang that he was "walking backwards for Christmas" - this lot will have us walking back to the future with no festivities at the end of the road. And while we're on the subject of CHANGE - can anybody, including those who voted for his party, really stomach the idea of Cameron as the next PM? To paraphrase Lloyd Bentsen's chilling putdown of the hapless Dan Quayle - "Toryboy, you're no Barak Obama".

Hung

And what a hangover! Forget the Key Players (whoever they are) and glory in the plotters and spinners lying nakedly on College Green. Pitched perfectly between those twin glories of British Theatre - Shakespearian Comedy and Whitehall Farce- what's not to love about this continuing drama? Oh joy it is to be alive at such times...

Trussssst In Me

The Morning After and we're all suffering from a giant hungover. The Toffs have gone all hurt and constitutional, the discredited Heirs of Kier are rolling seven-sided dice and Clegg is playing Kingmaker in Chief from his Bandwagon without wheels. All 'Big Society' Dave has got to do is prove that he can govern "in the public interest" as opposed to the public school educated interests of his narrow coterie of close supporters and it's Bullingdon's all round and pass the ammunition.

Git

Nothing to add - could be a very long night...

The Road

And so the end is near and as we reach the polling booth curtain who's going to win our X factor? My frolicksome facebook friends are voting for Man Of Last Fortnight's Moment, Nick. So's The Guardian, like they always used to. A Labour candidate just called Brown the worst Prime Minister - ever (even worse, presumably, than Sir Alec Douglas-Hume, Cameron's priviledged predecessor) and the Balls who would be Brown has advised a tactical solution to our potential Tory woes. Whatever the choice of tactics one thing's for certain - this ain't no beauty contest between the Three Graces but a down and dirty fight to prevent the Toffs from ushering in Thatcherism Deux under the guise of Caring Conservatism - Dubya's discredited pre-Election promise. Repel the Born-Again Fundamentalists, the Europhobes and the social dinosaurs patrolling the borders of Dave's Big Society from the Inside and stick a big red cross next to the Party that's Bigger Than Brown, warts 'n' all. Otherwise it's the Road to Somewhere You Won't In Reality Like At All come Friday morning....

I Confess

Every once in a while a cultural artefact comes along that is so close to perfection it tends to obliterate everything around it. In recent times PJ Harvey's White Chalk is an obvious example, this wet Bank Holiday weekend brought me another - the extraordinary Lourdes from director Jessica Hausner. Pilgrim Catholics on dusty coach tours shuffled and mumbled as slick willy priests promised miracles to the incurably sick and terminally ill. Or rather they re-defined miracles as things mostly to do with the soul when faced with the fact that the healing waters of Mary's tears (no I did not make this up) just don't work on the desperate bodies seeking a way out of their God-given burden. As per a previous post, Lourdes was ranked alongside Rome and Ireland in the Holy Trinity of Places For Catholics To Visit when I was a kid. Thank the Lordy Lordy we could never afford it.