The events within the 24 hour period of 7-8 May would have been dismissed as wholly unbelievable if introduced in the last pages of a novel penned by the former Conservative MP. Kane and Abel was given its very own Trotskyite production five years ago as Familias Miliband indulged in fratricide and the cynics amongst us might say that in writing his manifesto, Miliband E. penned the longest suicide note in history. But who would have given credence to the final act of the party leaders standing before the Cenotaph-only one of whom was still in a job-whilst the others had committed hara kiri shortly before the service to mark the 70th anniversary of VE Day? Old Faithful, The Sun, summed it up yesterday with its headline, “Awkward”. Not half. One could say that the former Labour Prime Minister, Harold Wilson in the phrase invariably attributed to him of, “A week is a long time in politics”, got his calculations wrong by about 6 days, 22 hours and 27 minutes; if, as is alleged, certain former party leaders were-at 0930hrs-writing their victory speech and planning the new carpets at No’s 10 and 11. When at 10pm the preceding evening, Mr, “that is a fascinating insight” Dimbleby said with a certain incredulity that the exit polls showed that Cameron was going to win, it was revealing to see the reaction of many of the experts. Not least Paddy, ‘I am now in hospital having my hat removed from my upper colon’ Ashdown or my fellow country man and serial loser Neil ‘The British people are being conned’ Kinnock. As regards the “Welsh Windbag” I noted that his daughter-in-law, Helle Thorning-Schmidt, the Danish Prime Minister was wearing a very smart green dress adorned with a large red rosette as she supported her husband, Stephen in his successful bid to become MP for Aberavon. It brought to mind the colloquial sartorial phrase, “Red and green should never be seen, without a colour in between”. As many of Kinnock Junior’s party colleagues discovered as the night wore on, that colour was blue. Oh well.
Enough political comment. Hang on one moment, did I mention that the other Ed had gone as well? Shame. What has been interesting, if not surprising is the clamour from various members of the party (un)faithful who have desperately tried to absolve themselves of any culpability for it all going horribly wrong. To give Miliband E. credit, he was gracious and unswerving in accepting responsibility for the cataclysm. In every walk of life one meets any number of people who say one thing with total conviction and then do the complete opposite. I often ask a potential vendor what it is that they want or expect from an estate agent. Much well considered, sensible, erudite nonsense comes out. What they really want is someone who will do it for £500 or less. Why not say that at the start and save everyone time? The other classic, is “I won’t take less than £150k, I know what it’s worth…” only to see it on with another agent some months later with an asking price of £120k. What has happened to the notion of straight talking or at least something approaching the truth? As has been opined before in this blog, any agent can tell a vendor that their property is worth vastly more than it is in reality-just to get the instruction. Invariably the home owner believes the agent’s every word, because obviously their home IS worth £30k more than any other property in the street… because the agent said it was. We are all human, and our condition means that we will always be unwavering in our belief that when we are told something that we want to hear it is obviously the truth. Something with which I am sure Miliband E, would concur as he reads the papers today and puts down his coffee mug on his brand new, avant-garde coffee table from the ‘Tombstone’ range.
