Sunday, July 29, 2007

Spam, Shag and Turd

'The problem is,' writes Peter Hitchens today, 'that people don't like the Tories any more, just as they have stopped liking Spam, Austin Princess cars and shag tobacco.' I'm not sure how shag tobacco is different from just tobacco and I think Spam is due for a revival. The Austin Princess ('A triumph of British engineering and design.') was known - with good reason - as 'the Flying Turd' by the guys who made it, but I'm sure enough voters to swing a couple of seats remember it with fond memories. But, of course, Hitchens has a point and, as I have said, it is beginning to look as though the Tories are on the way out. Perhaps the Conservative Party is, indeed, a Flying Turd, amusing in theory but not desirable in practice. Its one hope is that, after the next election, Gordon Brown unleashes his inner Leninist, thereby restarting real politics and driving all thinking people back into the embrace of the Turd. The problem with this is that Brown's been a stealthy Leninist for some time and yet still he wins the support of a press that has convinced itself he is actually quite right wing. There's nothing quite so deluded as a deluded newspaper. Iain Dale has suggested there may be a staff revolt against the Mail's pro-Brown posture, but this sounds like wishful thinking. So, yes, we might indeed by witnessing the big political flush.
PS. The Independent is on to the Mail-Brown story, suggesting a rift between Paul Dacre and his proprietor.

4 comments:

  1. Ah, the Austin Princess. I well remember being almost run-down by one travelling at high speed. It seems like yesterday that I stood there shaking my fist and shouting "You flying turd!"

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  2. I've just returned from a visit to Dunham Park House and Gardens. As I entered the car park at Dunham, I came across, a flying turd. Anyway, when he eventually shifted his 4 x 4 (or was it an 8 x 8?), amazingly, there in all its magnificence was an Austin Princess, highly polished, dark grey, with that narcissist's delight: three miles of gleaming chrome. I approached the elderly owner and asked him if he was aware of the name given to his pride and joy by those who built it. The old man eyed me suspiciously, then turned away in utter bemusement, slowly shaking his head at the mentality of the idiot who'd disturbed his one day of true Summer.
    It's all Appleyard's fault ! Prior to clicking on his Blog this morning, the last thing on my mind was a flying turd.

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  3. Hmmn, sounds as if Spiggy Topes could soon become the Tory Party's favourite crooner, then.

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  4. Has Peter Hitchens stopped to think what the eclipse of the Tory party means for him ? The notion that people have rejected Conservative politics is down purely to dislike of the leader ( whether Major, Hague, Duncan - Smith, Howard, or Cameron) does not hold water. It is a rejection of values. When Peter rant's about the state of the country who does he think is listening to him?

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