Hal and the Little Sods

Westminster politics is in danger of becoming amusing. Since Hal's crash and only partially successful reboot - he kept saying 'vision' over and over again at the press conference, it's plainly a hardware problem - the members of the junta have been madly stabbing each other in the back. They are fighting, Rachel Sylvester informs us, 'like ferrets in sack' and people are talking about the'cack-handedness of these arrogant little sods'. On the other hand, Polly Toynbee thinks Hal 'faced down the braying press for an hour without flinching and with good humour'. Sylvester thinks these are the beginnings of a leadership battle. This might, with a little luck, recreate the good old days of the Blair-Hal feud. Tee-hee. Toynbee, however, thinks that Hal's best bet is to go for incompetence, though her reasoning is a little odd - 'The accident of flood, bombs, bank run and animal pestilence may have established his competence - but, in truth, what does a Prime Minister do about any of those except hope they go away? Competence is absolutely necessary, but not sufficient.' But I thought you just said he didn't need competence for those things..... He needs, apparently, to be courageous and competence can be forgotten. I think she underestimates what a novelty competence would be in Hal's career. But, anyway, there's blood on the ferret sack, the little sods are trying to kill each other, it's the seventies and Hal's hardware is still playing up. Oh and City are still winning. It's going to be a fun winter.