Pligget

R.I.P.

Had a vaguely interesting moment a few days ago. Overheard my mother and her sister talking about how useless Iain Duncan Smith is – as you do.
Remarkably though, rather than it being a source of mirth, as it is amongst everyone else I know, they were deeply depressed. Little gems like Linda Smith’s comment in a recent News Quiz on R4 (“he’s a sort of Unsuccessful William Hague”) leave them exasperated – because they know it’s true.

However much the Tories might want to dismiss the recent kafuffle over The Quiet Man’s latest bid for inaudibility, and blame it on the cynicism and smugness of “The Media Class”, they must realise this: If respectable Daily-Mail-reading seventysomething ladies in the home counties are slagging him off, it must be time to read the large-print-edition writing on the wall.

In the 6 years since they were in power, the Tories haven’t come up with a single idea or a single voice that has done anything to interrupt their decline – they should be grateful to “the media class” for at least keeping them in the public eye, and providing a modicum of opposition to Blair’s dictatorial power.

I know this is hardly topical (OK, so I didn't have a blog back then), but I especially liked it when they tried to explain their disastrous showing at the last election: "We didn't explain our policies clearly enough - we need to work on making our message clearer, so that people can see better what we're offering them". How patronising can you get? The reason people didn't vote for them is precisely because they DID understand what was on offer - and they rejected it.

Poor loves. Makes you want to pop in and visit them every now and then – cook them a nice bit of brisket, make sure they’ve got enough kindling for the fireplace and a fresh set of batteries for the TV remote.

With the Tories heading into the wild Blue yonder, and Tony Blair providing the Red stripes in the star-spangled banner, we can be left with only one conclusion:

The future’s bright, the future’s Orange.