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as polling day in the general election gets closer the unnattractive notion of a so-called ‘hung parliament’ looms ever bigger in the rear-view mirror.

of course, most users of the interweb will be blissfully-unfamiliar with the concept. (in the uk we have not endured anything of this kind since the depressing, so-called ‘lib-lab pact’ of the late 70′s).

for the benefit of those lucky enough not to have been around to witness it, this tragic passage of politics amounted to little more than a fractious and unholy alliance with the clapped-out, unreconstructed socialist donkeys of james callaghan’s labour party clinging desperately to power at the hands of the long-marginalised liberals, under david steel.

so what kind of parliament or indeed government would likely emerge if no party wins an overall majority next week?

well, much against their hopes and preferences, no matter who wins most seats, no liberal democrat will be occupying number 10 downing street.

and yet, the other senior departments of state having been progessively stripped of importance over recent years, it seems the only cabinet position worth fighting over would be that of chancellor, in this situation surely the prime target of the admittedly over-rated vince cable.

but could or would his party-leader countenance such an appointment while he himself was consigned to some bit-part? hardly.

so some hard-bargaining is on the cards before long: and no doubt some hard words.

if only i could be a fly on the wall; or some sap would forget to take his microphone off. sadly, he won’t be there to assist.

what a sad debacle brown’s campaign visit to rochdale turned into. better still it was all his own work.

boy but he’s a dismal, preaching, boring, self-satisfied arse! on top of that he’s got a face like a robber’s dog.

(oops, sorry if i said anything like that, i forgot i was typing. find me somebody to blame. oh and make a note so i don’t forget to rip her head off later. oops am i still typing? shit! again.)

i can barely wait for tomorrow. why? because if the charmer’s decades-long record for re-announcing stuff if any guide he’ll give us this screw-up over again until his already lousy poll rating goes negative.

go on, pretty boy. give us a smile.

i note with suitable disgust that gorgeous, pouting elliot morley, quondam mp for scunthorpe, and his vile co-religionists have been granted legal aid to defend themselves against the indefensible.

if a picture of morley (to the best of my knowledge the only mp whose constituency name includes a description of themself) is not enough to make the hard-pressed taxpayer puke, this surely will.

we can only look forward to the day they are sent down for the stretches they so richly deserve, and, i trust, are obliged to disgorge these (further ill-gotten) public funds.

(if guilty, obviously. none intended, obviously)

giv’em the rope

on a lighter note, i see that one of the few discerning members of the italian general public has seen fit to gob his fearless and irreproachable duce in the mouth with a die cast model of milan cathedral.

despite reports that the attacker is a nutter i cannot but heartily congratulate him on his choice of both target and missile.

Barack Hussain Obama — Nobel peace prize laureate? What’s that about then?

whilst i trust and believe that Obama is a different, and altogether more palatable kettle-of-fish than his deranged predecessor, this award, apparently the result of a nomination submitted to the committee only nine days into the recipient’s presidency seems, shall we say if not over-generous, then at least somewhat premature.

perhaps with no other worthy candidate to hand they simply lobbed it his way to avoid the inconvenience of having to record excess inventory in the peace gong department for this year. who can tell?

to his credit, i note that he has already pledged the prize-money to charity and hope that despite its unfortunate timing the award will in due course prove to have been well-merited.

mine’s a pint of creme de menthe Barack.

well we all like a laugh, but the report on the demise of mg rover takes the cake on so many levels i barely know where to start.

first: this toothless piece of tat has cost the hard-pressed taxpayer £16 million and yet has failed to finger a single wrongdoer.

second: the most strident critic of the report, and its subjects is lord mandelson, a guiding light in moral probity and my very favourite arbiter of truth and goodness. and the best he can do is tell them he thinks they should apologise.

third: this third-rate bunch of spivs, under the gaze, nay with the assistance of the government achieved a feat usually reserved for the more-gifted though similarly morally-bankrupt operators known as asset strippers.

to strip assets on this scale from a company long-recognised by it’s german owners to be a vast liability is a feat which almost by definition suggests impropriety. (how much is a car company which you can buy for £10 and get a vast interest free loan to run it worth? come on; the clue’s in the question.)

so how do these maggots justify taking over £40 million out of it while it’s dying on it’s arse?

hilariously, throughout the day, national news channels have referred to mg rover as the uk’s last remaining volume car manufacturer, whilst assorted industry pundits have sought to justify this plundering by suggesting that these “rewards” were consistent with the industry norms.

in reality, by contrast with the world’s genuine volume car makers, decades of woeful mismanagement had left the group looking like something under a railway arch. depressing to say the least.

how fortunate then that we now have such genius at our disposal in the financial services sector that we need no longer concern ourselves with such grubby enterprises as making things that others want to buy.

“where you been boy? oh, down the job centre?” ‘yeah. all centre, no job! but they’ve got new chairs; and a yucca plant. oh, and uniforms. musta cost a fortune!’

“come across john towers or any of his lousy cronies down there? no, thought not.”

in a world of filthy greed, vaulting ambition and human frailty it’s never a surprise when the biter gets bit.

and so it is that after weeks (or was it months) of revelations of the disgraceful house of commons ‘expenses’ culture by the telegraph, the spotlight now turns on the lousy world of journalism over claims of wholesale illegal phone tapping by news international ‘reporters’.

as they used to say in old money: ‘people in glass houses should get out of the kitchen’.

paradoxically, almost before this story is out-of-the-blocks it backlashes into politics due to cameron’s ill-advised choice of press guru, andy coulson, the man who knew nothing about these offences but purely out of a sense of honour, resigned anyway, before he could be questioned on the matter.

sweet dreams, david. (i know: you’re relaxed already).

bring out the tumbrills, again. (if wet, in the church hall)

the recurring theme among g8 publicity clips is of the great one (primus inter pares – of course) patting the backs of his co-religionists like some benign uncle. what’s that about then?

well, he’s on the opening leg and hoping that progress will be eased if he ingratiates himself with each of these transient irritants he has decided to do just that, by convincing them on-by-one that they’re his special friend. heart-warming and inconspicuous all at the same time.

who was it who said that “the secret of politics is sincerity. if you can fake that you’ve cracked it!”?

i don’t remember, but whoever it was, i’m with them.

cheeribye poppets.

so obama delivers his motherhood-and-apple-pie speech to russia’s future movers and shakers and receives a warmly appreciative response.

which it must be said is more than he got from it’s current leaders. though to be fair, at least medvedev made an effort at looking friendly.

putin by contrast wore the just-seen-my-arse-again-and-didn’t-like-the-look-of-it expression so beloved by soviet gerontocrats of old.

perhaps he was just confused by referrals to medvedev as mr. president.

do svidaniya baboushka!

yes, always good value for money, peter, ‘scuse i, lord mandelson has done it again with the long-promised part-privatation of the royal mail.

in the teeth of bitter opposition from the rump of labour mps who still remember what socialism means our hero has assured us for months that the sell-off was a dead-cert.

well swipe me. out of the blue, the slippery little spinner now advises us that the essential sale is now off as he has found it impossible to negotiate a satisfactory price.

so, nothing to do with trying to appease the parliamentary labour party and keep the great leader in number 10 a bit longer then.

well obviously not!

bye for now pundits.