OK, we’ve found Wally (a.k.a. Waldo). We’ve found Stig. Yet, it was a bit of a surprise to find Wee Willy Hague as Nick Clegg’s missing back-bone.
There he was, grim as Yorkshire gritstone, the bastard child of Winston Churchill and Nora Batty, on the Front Bench for PMQs.
As the half-hour wound on, he and his mates became obviously, increasingly despondent at the car-crash they were witnessing. If Speaker Bercow allowed a minute or so for injury-time, it merely exacerbated the injuries done.
James Kirkup for the Telegraph has it to rights:
The faces on the Government benches spoke volumes today: Lib Dems looked grim, grim, grim. And several Tories were trying to suppress smiles at Mr Clegg’s discomfort in defending their policy.
The start of that piece [Nick Clegg has just been beaten up by a girl] may be a half-reminder of one of The West Wing‘s greatest hits: episode 4, series 2, the first encounter between Ainsley Hayes and Sam Seaborn — Ginger, get the pop-corn! It certainly got the flavour: Hatty is no push-over on these occasions; and her put-down had “no more than thirty” Clegg in quivers:
We all know what it’s like, you’re at Freshers Week, you meet up with a dodgy bloke and do things you regret. Isn’t it true he’s been led astray by the Tories?
But why?
- Why was Hague not in Beijing and on the way to Seoul?
- Is it because his travel-buddy, “Lord” Ashcroft of Sleaze is no longer available?
- Is it because the beguiling Ms Mellon got his seat?
It certainly begs the question:
- what is Britain’s foreign policy, if China and Korea do not feature strongly?
Sadly it was all about something entirely different:
