Hope from the Frontier!

Since American politics went all Monty Python last week, I hear that the Labour Party have been busily trying to copy John McCain's masterstroke in bringing in Sarah Palin to liven up his campaign. Harriet Harman has, apparently, booked snowmobile lessons, Hazel Blears has been seen toting a massive sub machine gun around the Department for Communities, whatever that is, and I hear that Dawn Primarolo has renamed her children Avenue, Handbag and Cat-flap, all in imitation of the Alaskan Wonder. They've also sent a delegation to the Shetland Islands after hearing about a fundamentalist gun-nut who came second in the Miss Lerwick contest in 1978 and who only wears clothes that she has trapped herself, hoping to offer her the Deputy Prime Minister's position. She turned out to be a Scottish Nationalist and told them to get stuffed.

I was reading today about the disgrace that has fallen upon my Alma Mater, Harrow school, who have had to expel their head boy for drug taking. This would certainly never have happened in my day. No! One might Tolley up before Trials, spend extra time in the Ducker trying to get into Torpids or wear one's Bluers, Greyers and Dossers but one would never want to make the school look foolish in this way! Besides, how would you know what the hell everyone was talking about if you were off your face?

I was discussing this the other day with an old school chum called Oliver who went into Advertising, although he is now celebrating the tenth anniversary of his lucrative early retirement. I asked him what he though of the state of his old industry; not much, as it turned out. As evidence of its decline, he offered the following example. Pizza express had a recent campaign which claimed that, “nothing says I love you like a pizza” - Oliver says he once meet a man who claimed that he had taught his dog to say “I love you” and frankly that had impressed him rather more. I disagreed with him. My PA Jemima says that she had a delightful evening last Valentines day when her boyfriend, having seen this advert, took her to Pizza Express and offered her a meat feast!

The Labour View

Hello loyal readers! Let me introduce myself – Harry Collar, great-nephew of the great Sir Bingham. When I decided to follow the family profession and go into politics in the nineties, Bing (or uncle Sir Bingham KBE, as I know him) wisely advised me to join the Labour party, having seen which way the wind was blowing ie. Ineffectually, from the mouth of Norman Lamont. As a result of following this wise advice, I have enjoyed a long career at the heart of power as a Special Adviser (spin doctor to you) to various Labour ministers. I could have been a minister myself but decided that I wanted to be able to wield some actual power.

Anyhow, Sir Bingham, in the interests of fairness (something we take very seriously here in the UK), has asked me to offer a few thoughts about the current political landsacpe. Well, it has been a very difficult few months for those of us who work for the Labour Party – although obviously none of it is our fault. The irresponsible news media we now have has been blaming us for things over which we have no control. Take Ed Balls' problems over the SATS tests which has been entirely blamed on Ed just because he is the minister responsible for schools.

This really is most unfair - Ed has had to take the blame for something which is clearly the fault of ETS - the private company contracted to do the marking. The whole point of such outsourcing responsibility to whatever bunch of gangsters produces the glossiest brochure is so that ministers don't have to take the blame! But do the press understand that? No. They want to blame the government just because we were elected to run the country and it was our idea to sell the contract in the first place. And, as a result, Ed will not be in a good position to succeed to the leadership should Gordon have to stand down – robbing the country of one of the finest political leaders of his generation. However, I believe the British people won't be fooled and will continue to support Gordon. I have already suggested the slogan for our next general election campaign - “Labour got us into this mess, Labour will get us out of it!”

It is true that, thanks to the childishness of the press, the leadership has become an issue. There is no denying it. Sir Bingham has asked me to run the rule over the contenders now that Balls is out of the running; Miliband, Harman, Straw and Johnson. Once I had looked them up in 'Who's Who' I came to the conclusion that any of them would make an equally fine leader and I have been diligent in contacting each of them to let them know, as well as e-mailing the PM's office to reassure them that this in no way contradicts my belief that Gordon is one of the finest leaders this country has had since Tony Blair; one who could continue in high office for many years yet. That said, I have been particularly impressed by Miliband's performance on the world stage as he has visited numerous countrys on Britain's behalf to meet foreign dignitaries and tell them who he is. Once I had looked him up, I also remembered that I once had the pleasure of accompanying Alan Johnson on a visit to my local hospital where he met some nurses and told them who he was. Harriet Harman, meanwhile, seems just lovely and Jack Straw wears glasses, which always makes someone look impressively intelligent, I think. Any one of them could be a terrific Prime Minister – as good as Gordon Brown, in fact. Yes, the future looks bright! Things can only get better!