And there you were, thinking that you were rid of me, this Saturday, because today is polling day and our law assumes that you’re so susceptible to my blandishments that if I were to tell you to vote for Bloggs, Joe of the Raving Loony Party, you’d rush out and do just that.
I know you’re not but the law is hard and remains the law, so I will not write about any of the issues about which there is a poll today, lest either I or my esteemed editor, or both of us, get our collars felt and suffer the full weight of the law coming down on us like a ton of feathers.
There’s plenty to write about and to have fun with, however, even in the political arena, because a goodly number of miles to the north, north by west of us, there’s an election on the horizon that is worth following.
It is of the contest in the United Kingdom of Her Majesty, Queen Elizabeth II, that I muse, where the old phrase ‘too close to call’ is being bandied about with gay abandon. In fact, as of today, being Wednesday when I write this, there’s no real indication of where the great unwashed’s vote will go, though it seems to be pretty much a racing certainty that deals in smoke-filled (or maybe not smoke-filled, the way the nanny State has been acting) are going to have to be made.
Last time around, those of us who have an interest in politics found some amusement in the way the leaders of the big two were scurrying around trying to get into bed with the simpering virgins of the centre way. In less glitzy terms, it was the Liberal Democrats who were being wooed by the Tories and by Labour, given that the old Whigs had them by the short and curlies.
In the UK, the old phrase ‘too close to call’ is being bandied about with gay abandon
As things turned out, Nick Clegg and David Cameron became Siamese twins and the cartoonists had a field day with images of snooty public school Cameron treating the son of a lesser god, Clegg, as his fag. For those of you whose childhood did not include massive doses of Billy Bunter and Other Tales of English Public School Life, the word ‘fag’ does not have the implications it does today - rather on the same lines that ‘gay’ in the phrase ‘gay abandon’ has a somewhat different feel to it.
This time around, it might be the case that we’ve got a second candidate to be romanced by the big beasts, if not a third in the form of the Scottish Nationalists. The latter, after their leaderene had been exposed (but not accurately) as having flown a kite with the French Ambassador that she was not averse to sticking it to Labour in Scotland, are now saying that if it gets Cameron out of No. 10 they’re going to make music with Labour, which would be interesting, as they are mortal enemies north of Hadrian’s Wall.
The wild card in all this are Nigel Farage’s United Kingdom Independence Party, UKIP for short, who seem to have struck a few chords with the electorate, at least with the less discerning, anti-European, anti-anyone not WASP, in fact, segment of it.
Precisely how anyone can find anything worth voting for in Farage’s bunch of misfits, frankly, I can’t fathom. Most of them seem to be outright racists whose control over their tongues is about as effective as chocolate handcuffs in a Tangiers brothel in the middle of August with the air-conditioning on the fritz.
Verbal incontinence seems to be a prerequisite to being accepted as a candidate on UKIP’s ticket, as evidenced by the assorted twits who have had to be dumped on an ongoing basis by Farage’s leadership team. It’s pretty amazing that their advisers on public relations haven’t committed mass Seppuku, given that every time one of them opens his or her mouth, racist twaddle vomits out, as could be witnessed during a documentary aired by the BBC a few weeks ago.
But you can’t really blame the poor dears, because their glorious leader, in between sneaking a quick fag (again, not in the sexual sense) behind the bike shed and sinking a swift pint or two down the pub, seems to delight in blaming every single one of Britain’s ills on immigration.
And Farage’s solution to it all, at least on the evidence of his inept blundering about during the leaders’ debate a week or so ago, is simple: let’s have a referendum with a view to deciding whether we want to get out of the EU, which is simply Farage-speak for ‘let’s get out of the EU’, of course.
In this he is not a million miles from Cameron’s Tories, who have to walk the delicate tight-rope of appeasing the Shires with their inherent ‘bloody foreign muck’ attitude towards anything that isn’t more English than Her Majesty’s Corgis (which are probably German anyway) and the cogent demands of the Tories’ paymasters.
The Men of the City are fully aware of the stark reality that if Britannia were to seek to rule the waves all on her tod, she’d end up being something akin to a tin-pot little African country, if you’ll allow a mildly racist reference to the best TV show ever (after Fawlty Towers) Yes Minister and its worthy sequel, Yes Prime Minister.
What of the other contenders, youmay ask?
The Liberal Democrats, one gets the impression, are starting to feel the beady eyes of the hovering vultures, poised to swoop on poor Clegg’s rotting corpse when the party’s faithful get their revenge on him for becoming Cameron’s accomplice in various nefarious schemes.
The fact that the UK was dragged, kicking and screaming, out of recession into something vaguely approaching recovery will probably escape the suppers of Real Ale standing at the bar in their sandals. Now is the time for the poor guy to get his just desserts and it’s being rumoured that he won’t even hold his seat.
Ed Miliband’s Labour are starting to feel the wind of change blowing through their trouser legs, though if they are ready to take charge remains something of a mystery. Young Ed, branded as the Wrong Miliband so often, seems to have taken on board the manner of campaigning that if it strikes a popular note, beat that gong like it’s going out of fashion.
His latest foray into this fertile field was his promise that if Labour are elected, the tax loopholes so dear to the hearts of the plutocrats will be sewn up tighter than a nun’s pursed lips on spotting a rude joke, forgetting, of course, that tax law is such a Byzantine maze that he’ll probably end up having an even bigger loophole created for him on the other side of the Bill that Her Majesty would have just signed.
Oh well, he’ll have the support of the Scottish Nationalists, as mentioned earlier, who want to redeem themselves and who have threatened to ask for another “we want out” referendum if the Tories get in.
It’s going to be an interesting night, come May 7, and the results start flowing in to bamboozle the pundits.
imbocca@gmail.com
www.timesofmalta.com/blogs