Saturday 4th April
A quirk of our electoral calendar is that election campaigns frequently
coincide with Easter, which in this instance leads to sedateness, blind dates,
and the French.
05.00am
“Excusez-moi, Monsieur
Consul-General.”
“What time is this, Albert?”
replied the Consul General, stirring from his slumber and instinctively lighting
a Gauloises.
It was five in the morning, and
in the master bedroom of the French Consulate in Edinburgh, all was not well.
The Consul-General never likes to be disturbed early after his Friday night function,
but something must be up.
“What has ‘appened?”
“The phone is ringing off the ‘ook.”
“Parce que?”
“Is it possible that you or one
of your ambassadors had a conversation with Nicola Sturgeon?”
“We’re French! We talk with loads
of women!”
“I mean, in a professional
capacity.”
“Ah. Well, that is less likely,
but c’est possible.”
“Well, did she ever mention that
she would prefer Monsieur Cameron as Le Premier Ministre, and that Monsieur… I
forget his name. The other one? The sort of dark-haired Tintin?”
“Ah. Glenn Miller Band.”
“Vraiment. Well, did she also say
that he was not up to the job?”
“I can’t remember. If she was
talking about British politics, I was probably too bored to listen.”
Albert informs the Consul-General
that The Daily Telegraph has
a report on an official memo detailing this alleged conversation. The
Consul-General is adamant that no such conversation happened, and therefore has
to spring to action. He takes his morning Cointreau and hurries downstairs.
“Vite, Albert, vite! We must head
to Madame Sturgeon to apologise in the classic French style. You bring the
scooter round. I’ll get the croissants.”
9.30am
There is, in some quarters, a
light-hearted atmosphere on this Easter Saturday morning, not least in this
morning’s Guardian, where they have
done a political blind date between leader of the Greens, Natalie Bennett, and
MP for the 19th century and opposer of the 1832 Great Reform Act,
Jacob Rees-Mogg.
Even here, though, there is a bit
of tension. Though the two profess to having got on quite well, Rees-Mogg gave
his date 10/10, whilst Bennett gave him 5/10. Well, we’ve all been there,
Jacob.
The romance would have be
star-crossed at best. Natalie Bennett is a radically left-wing, modern woman,
whereas Rees-Mogg is a man who has to be restrained from making his campaign
slogan “Vox populi, vox dei”. In The
Guardian write-up of their date, he was asked “What do you think she made
of you?” He replied: “No idea. To see oneself as others see one is a great
gift, but not one I necessarily have.”
No Jacob. I think that "one" does
not necessarily have that gift.
1.29pm
You don’t have to feel sorry for
Nick Clegg, but it’s getting harder not to. Here’s a picture of the campaign
office in his newly marginal constituency of Sheffield Hallam.
By comparison, here is a picture
of David Cameron’s in Witney:
3.08pm
Star of the debates and new
Batman nemesis, The Heckler, has been explaining her motivations. In a Guardian article. Her first line is surprising:
“When I spoke up and heckled David Cameron during last night’s party leaders’
debate, I didn’t expect my face to be all over the internet within 24 hours.”
Really? Really? You interrupted
the Prime Minister live on national television, and whilst wearing that gilet. You must at least have expected
BuzzFeed to pick up on it.
3.16pm
And now the main event of the
day. Labour’s star-studded rally in glitzy Warrington. This afternoon we have Eddie
Izzard (who has been a frequent campaigner for Labour since the last election),
Ben Elton (who is presumably writing a terrible musical about the campaign),
and Bilbo Baggins, who is attending via Palantir.
Meanwhile, in the audience it’s
everyone’s favourite electoral innocent, Joey Essex. Joey said something really
sweet the other night on Andrew Neil’s political discussion and low-budget
cabaret show This Week. He said “I
think these people are just trying to do the right thing.”
Aww, bless.
5.00pm
To be frank, dear reader, it has
been a drab day, which is fair enough for a Saturday but nevertheless frustrating. As a writer, you are
often waiting for inspiration: for someone or something to emerge that
genuinely fires the neurons and gets the passion flowing.
Enter George Galloway, who is
running for his Respect party in Bradford West, and was today the subject of a
small joke from the Bradford Brewery. “Are you still a thing @georgegalloway?”they tweeted.
In his lair, Galloway saw this and thought to himself “How
could I overreact to this best?”
He lurched to the keyboard and fired back: “What does that mean? And should
you as a licensed premises in my constituency really be writing that?”
“That’ll have them quaking in
their barrels,” he thought to himself, but much to his chagrin they did not
have the good-manners to bow down to his inflamed threats.
“You're the only candidate not to
come and say hi. Was just wondering,” they reasoned, before following up with “You're
a candidate. It's not your constituency.”
Enraged by their reasoned and
constitutionally-informed impudence, Galloway decided to give them the full “Kim
Jong-Il” (I’m thinking less of the historical figure here, and more of the Team America: World Police puppet).
“Well then, I shall return to
this matter after the election. You have been most unwise.” He reiterated this
threat again a little later, before moving from twitter to You Tube to
watch the old video of him impersonating a cat whilst on Celebrity Big Brother, to remind himself of a time when he was
universally respected.
He sits dreaming of May 8th
and how he is going to shut the insolent pub down, and then everyone will know
that he is, indeed, still a thing. He attempts to twirl his moustache and practices
his evil laugh.
1 Events depicted may differ from actual events. In fact, this is a work of fiction, with some facts. But mostly, it's nonsense.
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