The return of the bastards

Surely one couldn’t forget John Major’s “bastards”? —

John Major’s rage and frustration with rightwing Tories boiled over this weekend when, in an outburst, he called three of his own cabinet members “bastards”. The onslaught against the Eurosceptic ministers not named, but almost certainly Michael Howard, Peter Lilley and Michael Portillo came within minutes of the vote of confidence on Friday which kept him in office.

His obvious anger, and contempt for Tory opponents, is certain to keep open the party’s wounds after the Maastricht furore. It will help convince rightwingers that Mr Major is even more embittered against them than he has admitted.

Further to that previous post, there’s a bit more poison, courtesy of  Tim Montgomerie at ConHome (Tha’needs t’ knoo wha t’enemy’s thinkin’ — Malcolm’s cousin Ralph, circa 1964).

Montgomerie is trailing a piece by Rachel Sylvester for tomorrow’s Times:

For the Tory modernisers, the Lib Dems are the ideal weapon to ward off the enemy within. The news that some of the so-called “Tatler Tories” have been dumped from the list of prospective parliamentary candidates is evidence that the leadership does not think that the modernisation of the party is yet complete. The Prime Minister is pleased to have political cover for keeping the 50p top rate of tax, abandoning the “prison works” approach to crime, avoiding a return to grammar schools and retaining the ring-fence on aid — all policies that infuriate the rightwingers. “The traditionalists are just not on planet Earth,” says one Cameroon.

There are many ways of reading that.

Up straight it says no more than the LibDems being the Tory protection squad.

Beyond that, the “Tory modernisers” are under threat, that the Tory rabid Right are on the march, and it’s all to play for.

The rest, you can work out for yourselves.

Since we’ve already got a government that is split from top-to-bottom, further splits in the main ConDem wing are serious stuff. It’s not far off the “unfit for purpose” condition. Why does nobody notice?

We now have a unique tripartite (perhaps even more factions could be counted) government, forming alliances as and when each contentious issue floats to the top of the witches’ cauldron:

• LibDems + Cameroons = NHS non-privatisation;
• Right wing Foxites + Cameroons = defence;
• and so on.

What if … what when .. the whole European issue turns s(c)eptic again?

Which is another scab which Montgomerie and co. constantly scratch.

The good news, for reasonable folk, is that — were the roof to fall in — William Hague (the nearest thing to a sane, intelligent,  if right-of-centre, Tory in sight), is currently not hors-de-combat, having survived that grubby little shared-bedroom thing.

Were this anything other than a Tory government (with natty little LibDem knobs on) the great British press would be screaming about splits, all the way to a demand for an immediate General Election.

One thing is guaranteed: Montgomerie is not going away. Peace is not likely to break out soon.

Death by a thousand c….

Ah, “Big Society” — we knew you well.

After umpteen “re-launches” — most commentators count up to six — we should do.

You were maimed at birth, unable to be called by a real name. “Social contract” was already taken. “Great society” was patented. Both were not the Right side of the fence.

Anyway, the Tory Right saw anything “Big” or to do with “Society” (“there is no such thing as society”) as dangerously middle-of-the-road.

It was allowable as long as it remained one of Dave’s mild flirtations.

Now The Economist’s “Leviathan” — oh, come one, Anne! We know it’s you hiding behind that “A. McE” — puts the delicate court shoe in:

IT WOULD appear that association with the Big Society is something of an albatross. As eagerly as David Cameron has ridden in to re-explain the idea, few in the inner counsels of government now think it will be something to boast about when the time for re-election draws near. Lord Wei, the former management consultant sent to the Lords to be a figurehead for the project, has just announced his resignation to work for a charity. A spokesman told the Guardian that Lord Wei had completed the task of developing the policy—and thus there was no need to replace him. This is akin to saying that Andrew Lansley has completed a task of developing health policy, and so there is no need to replace him either. Not many at Westminster would take bets on that.

So let’s go for it:

‘E’s not pinin’! ‘E’s passed on! This parrot is no more! He has ceased to be! ‘E’s expired and gone to meet ‘is maker! ‘E’s a stiff! Bereft of life, ‘e rests in peace! If you hadn’t nailed ‘im to the perch ‘e’d be pushing up the daisies! ‘Is metabolic processes are now ‘istory! ‘E’s off the twig! ‘E’s kicked the bucket, ‘e’s shuffled off ‘is mortal coil, run down the curtain and joined the bleedin’ choir invisibile!! THIS IS AN EX-PARROT!

Pity:

There was a whiff of social conservatism —

• the kind of thing that made the Women’s Institutes great,
• that inspired the ladies from Great Houses to dispense soup to the deserving poor —

about the “Big Society”. For just a nano-second one could be deceived to believe Dave was a whit more than a PR-guy.

Bardfest? Yikes!

In yesterday’s Observer there was Vanessa Thorpe noting that, predictably, the 2012 London “cultural Olympics” has its regular star:

This country may be the birthplace of Chaucer, Milton, Austen, the Brontë sisters and Dickens, but Britain has only one dominant calling card on the global cultural scene: William Shakespeare. It is now clear that the Bard and his works will loom large in the British arts festival that is planned to run alongside the Olympic Games in London next year.

It is a dozen paragraphs down before we reach the statutory “on the other hand”, and the usual gurus are trotted out to name-check Dickens, Chaucer and Austen.

So here’s a thought:

What about a Lost the Will to Live anti-fest Fest?

• Keep it cheap and cheerful!
• The local library hosts Chaucer’s General Prologue, read with accents and  with back-projection of the characters from the Ellesmere Manuscript and from other sources.
• Rostrum reading (with gestures) of non-Shakespearean texts. One might be the most stageable Marlowe — Doctor Faustus — with a walk-on by a local trollop, suitably unclad, as Helen launching a thousand ships and burning the topless towers of Ilium. Malcolm quite relishes the role of Mephistopheles for himself. With an optional extra: a screening of George Abbott’s update, Damn Yankees!
• Love poems which aren’t Sonnet 18. Bring out your Marvell, Clare, Barret Browning, whoever … Definitely suited to a pub, all comers welcome.
• Mister Men for the under Sevens, with coloured drinks and fairy cakes. Like a children’s party, but everyone gets to help clean up.
• Do it yourself rip-off of Richard Thompson’s 1,000 Years of Popular Music, perhaps in the form of Many Centuries of London Music.
• Cricketing poems? (or any other suitable sport). Railway poems and readings? Beer? An endless number of possible theme nights!

Every library, pub, leisure centre should be in on the act, in a true “Big Society” spirit.

Good grief! If Edinburgh can have an ever-expanding fringe, so can London for its one-of cultural olympiad.

Bring out your dead writers! And a few live ones, too.

unCorinthian

Is there not something inherently wrong with a sport management authority, “for the good of the game“, which needs an “Ethics Committee”?

How unlike the game’s noble origins:

The aims of the Club are to promote fair play and sportsmanship, to play competitive football at the highest level possible whilst remaining strictly amateur and retaining the ideals of the Corinthian and the Casuals Football Clubs.