No. Not the times he’s been verbally slimy, politically
bland and morally anaemic. Not when he turned out to be the dessert you were
served when you thought you were going to get rice pudding (David). Not the useless,
disappointing, inexplicably repulsive slop everyone wants to scrape into the
bin but can’t because people are looking.
Oh actually YES. That last one.
In the face of every opportunity to masquerade as vanilla
sponge or lemon meringue or chocolate torte with mascarpone, he just oozes
congealed mediocrity.
Even when Syrian citizens were being melted, his notable response
to the vote in Parliament was not a statesman-like speech (on whatever side)
but a snotty schoolboy ‘nah nah nah nah – David lost the vooooote’.
And what are the Labour power brokers thinking? Don’t they
understand that this won’t wash in a country obsessed with soap operas? Most
folk who don’t give a fig about HS2 or North Korean militarism could
nevertheless tell you the family history of most characters in Coronation
Street. Do they seriously think Brits are going to forgive Ed for nicking
David’s toy? Will they pardon him for his woops-I’m-the-leader-now wedding?
Will they overlook the kid-in-the-playground-you-didn’t-want-to-invite-home-for-tea
aura of him? The lack of self awareness? These things shouldn’t matter but then
it shouldn’t have mattered that Ming was too old. It shouldn’t have mattered
(ref Churchill) that Charlie had a drink problem. But it did. I know, Farage
drinks and smokes, is morally repugnant and creepy to look at but there’s
always an anomaly.
Dave may not have a chin but he has a compliant wife and he
looks like a Tory. Nick – well you can’t help but keep glancing over at him
with his dead-man-walking vibe. But Ed?
I’ll eat my Tapioca if the Labour Party are not currently
engaged in the all-time damage limitation exercise cos Ed forgot that the
Labour Party has its roots in the union movement. He was so busy trying to look
scrumptious to non-Labour people that he forgot he was a bowl of semolina.
Hell’s teeth. Do you see the Tories going round saying they are going to cut
their ties with the landed gentry, the rich and disgustingly rich because some
of them aren’t very nice? No. But Ed decided the best way to make-believe being
treacle sponge with extra custard was to punch his mates in the guts forgetting
that his mates are bigger than him and they wouldn’t like it.
You can’t help feeling (WARNING – analogy overload) that the
unions are like a sullen unhappy partner in a long increasingly fractious marriage kind of hoping
the spouse might have an affair so they have an excuse to extricate themselves.
And there’s Ed, gurning, naked and in-flagrante. (I apologise if that image put
you off your tea).
If I were a powerful union leader right now I’d be thinking
– you know what – I might just invite some of the other union leaders round for
dinner – even the ones I don’t usually talk to. On the menu would be, ousting
New Labour and all the cold lumpy sticky slimy stuff that is stuck to it (Blair
Inc). For the main course there would be thick red meat and for pudding – let
them eat cake!